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diff --git a/5693-h/5693-h.htm b/5693-h/5693-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a88f999 --- /dev/null +++ b/5693-h/5693-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4789 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>INNOCENTS ABROAD BY TWAIN, Part 6, CH 50-Conclusion</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + --> +</style> + + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, Part 6</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Innocents Abroad, Part 6 of 6 +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Innocents Abroad, Part 6 of 6 + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: June 16, 2004 [EBook #5693] +[Last updated: July 16, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, PART 6 OF 6 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<br> +<hr> +<br><br><br><br> + + + + +<center><h1>THE INNOCENTS ABROAD</h1> +<h3>Part 6, Chapters 50 to 61</h3> + +<br><br><br> +<h2>by Mark Twain</h2></center> +<br><br><br> + +<center><a name="cover"></a><img alt="cover.jpg (186K)" src="images/cover.jpg" height="700" width="600"> +<br>[Cover and Spine from the 1884 Edition]</center> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + +<center><a name="frontpiece1"></a><img alt="frontpiece1.jpg (77K)" src="images/frontpiece1.jpg" height="335" width="630"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + +<center><a name="frontpiece2"></a><img alt="frontpiece2.jpg (82K)" src="images/frontpiece2.jpg" height="911" width="537"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + +<center><h1>INNOCENTS ABROAD</h1> + +<br><br><br> +<h2>by Mark Twain</h2> + +<br><br><br> +<h3>[From an 1869—1st Edition]</h3></center> + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + +<center><a name="titlepage"></a><img alt="titlepage.jpg (44K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" height="1021" width="629"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + +<center><a name="dedication"></a><img alt="dedication.jpg (11K)" src="images/dedication.jpg" height="329" width="513"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + <center><h2>CONTENTS</h2></center> + +<br><br> + +<h3><a href="#ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</a></h3> +<br> + + +<h3> <a href="#ch50">CHAPTER L.</a> +</h3>Toward Nazareth—Bitten By a Camel—Grotto of the Annunciation, +Nazareth—Noted Grottoes in General—Joseph's Workshop—A Sacred +Bowlder—The Fountain of the Virgin—Questionable Female +Beauty—Literary Curiosities + +<h3> <a href="#ch51">CHAPTER LI.</a> +</h3>Boyhood of the Saviour—Unseemly Antics of Sober Pilgrims—Home of the +Witch of Endor—Nain—Profanation—A Popular Oriental Picture—Biblical +Metaphors Becoming steadily More Intelligible—The Shuuem +Miracle—The "Free Son of The Desert"—Ancient Jezrael—Jehu's +Achievements—Samaria and its Famous Siege + +<h3> <a href="#ch52">CHAPTER LII.</a> +</h3>Curious Remnant of the Past—Shechem—The Oldest "First Family" on +Earth—The Oldest Manuscript Extant—The Genuine Tomb of Joseph—Jacob's +Well—Shiloh—Camping with the Arabs—Jacob's Ladder—More +Desolation—Ramah, Beroth, the Tomb of Samuel, The Fountain of +Beira—Impatience—Approaching Jerusalem—The Holy City in Sight—Noting Its Prominent +Features—Domiciled Within the Sacred Walls + +<h3> <a href="#ch53">CHAPTER LIII.</a> +</h3>"The Joy of the Whole Earth"—Description of Jerusalem—Church of the +Holy Sepulchre—The Stone of Unction—The Grave of Jesus—Graves of +Nicodemus and Joseph of Armattea—Places of the Apparition—The Finding +of the There Crosses——The Legend—Monkish Impostures—The Pillar of +Flagellation—The Place of a Relic—Godfrey's Sword—"The Bonds of +Christ"—"The Center of the Earth"—Place whence the Dust was taken of +which Adam was Made—Grave of Adam—The Martyred Soldier—The Copper +Plate that was on the Cross—The Good St. Helena—Place of the Division +of the Garments—St. Dimas, the Penitent Thief—The Late Emperor +Maximilian's Contribution—Grotto wherein the Crosses were Found, and the +Nails, and the Crown of Thorns—Chapel of the Mocking—Tomb of +Melchizedek—Graves of Two Renowned Crusaders—The Place of the +Crucifixion + +<h3> <a href="#ch54">CHAPTER LIV.</a> +</h3>The "Sorrowful Way"—The Legend of St. Veronica's +Handkerchief—An Illustrious Stone—House of the Wandering Jew—The Tradition of the +Wanderer—Solomon's Temple—Mosque of Omar—Moslem Traditions—"Women not +Admitted"—The Fate of a Gossip—Turkish Sacred Relics—Judgment Seat of +David and Saul—Genuine Precious Remains of Solomon's Temple—Surfeited +with Sights—The Pool of Siloam—The Garden of Gethsemane and Other +Sacred Localities + +<h3> <a href="#ch55">CHAPTER LV.</a> +</h3>Rebellion in the Camp—Charms of Nomadic Life—Dismal Rumors—En Route +for Jericho and The Dead Sea—Pilgrim Strategy—Bethany and the Dwelling +of Lazarus—"Bedouins!"—Ancient Jericho—Misery—The Night +March—The Dead Sea—An Idea of What a "Wilderness" in Palestine is—The Holy +hermits of Mars Saba—Good St. Saba—Women not Admitted—Buried from the +World for all Time—Unselfish Catholic Benevolence—Gazelles—The Plain +of the Shepherds—Birthplace of the Saviour, Bethlehem—Church of the +Nativity—Its Hundred Holy Places—The Famous "Milk" +Grotto—Tradition—Return to Jerusalem—Exhausted + +<h3> <a href="#ch56">CHAPTER LVI.</a> +</h3>Departure from Jerusalem—Samson—The Plain of Sharon—Arrival at +Joppa—Horse of Simon the Tanner—The Long Pilgrimage Ended—Character of +Palestine Scenery—The Curse + +<h3> <a href="#ch57">CHAPTER LVII.</a> +</h3>The Happiness of being at Sea once more—"Home" as it is in a Pleasure +Ship—"Shaking Hands" with the Vessel—Jack in Costume—His Father's +Parting Advice—Approaching Egypt—Ashore in Alexandria—A Deserved +Compliment for the Donkeys—Invasion of the Lost Tribes of America—End +of the Celebrated "Jaffa Colony"—Scenes in Grand Cairo—Shepheard's +Hotel Contrasted with a Certain American Hotel—Preparing for the +Pyramids + +<h3> <a href="#ch58">CHAPTER LVIII.</a> +</h3>"Recherche" Donkeys—A Wild Ride—Specimens of Egyptian Modesty—Moses in +the Bulrushes—Place where the Holy Family Sojourned—Distant view of the +Pyramids—A Nearer View—The Ascent—Superb View from the top of the +Pyramid—"Backsheesh! Backsheesh!"—An Arab Exploit—In the Bowels of the +Pyramid—Strategy—Reminiscence of "Holiday's Hill"—Boyish Exploit—The +Majestic Sphynx—Things the Author will not Tell—Grand Old Egypt + +<h3> <a href="#ch59">CHAPTER LIX.</a> +</h3>Going Home—A Demoralized Note-Book—A Boy's Diary—Mere Mention of Old +Spain—Departure from Cadiz—A Deserved Rebuke—The Beautiful +Madeiras—Tabooed—In the Delightful Bermudas—An English Welcome—Good-by to +"Our Friends the Bermudians"—Packing Trunks for Home—Our First +Accident—The Long Cruise Drawing to a Close—At Home—Amen + +<h3> <a href="#ch60">CHAPTER LX.</a> +</h3>Thankless Devotion—A Newspaper Valedictory—Conclusion + +<h3> <a href="#ch61">CHAPTER LXI.</a> +</h3> + +<h3> <a href="#CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION.</a> +</h3> + + + + +<br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS +</h2> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + +<br> +<br> +<a href="#frontpiece1">1 THE QUAKER CITY IN A STORM—FRONTPIECE</a><br> +<a href="#frontpiece2">2 ILLUMINATED TITLE-PAGE-THE PILGRIM'S VISION</a><br> +<a href="#p530">192 FOUNTAIN OF THE VIRGIN</a><br> +<a href="#p531">193 "MADONNA-LIKE BEAUTY"</a><br> +<a href="#p533">194 PUTNAM OUTDONE</a><br> +<a href="#p535">195 THE BASTINADO</a><br> +<a href="#p536">196 "I WEPT"</a><br> +<a href="#p539">197 WANT OF DIGNITY</a><br> +<a href="#p544">198 AN ORIENTAL WELL</a><br> +<a href="#p545">199 ARABS SALUTING </a><br> +<a href="#p546">200 FREE SONS OF THE DESERT</a><br> +<a href="#p552">201 SHECHEM</a><br> +<a href="#p556">202 GATE OF JERUSALEM</a><br> +<a href="#p559">203 BEGGARS IN JERUSALEM</a><br> +<a href="#p564">204 CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHER</a><br> +<a href="#p566">205 GRAVE OF ADAM</a><br> +<a href="#p574">206 VIEW OF JERUSALEM</a><br> +<a href="#p577">207 THE WANDERING JEW</a><br> +<a href="#p581">208 MOSQUE OF OMAR</a><br> +<a href="#p589">209 AN EPIDEMIC</a><br> +<a href="#p590">210 CHARGE OF BEDOUINS</a><br> +<a href="#p594">211 DEAD SEA</a><br> +<a href="#p600">212 GROTTO OF THE NATIVITY</a><br> +<a href="#p606">213 JAFFA</a><br> +<a href="#p610">214 REAR ELEVATION OF JACK</a><br> +<a href="#p611">215 STREET IN ALEXANDRIA</a><br> +<a href="#p612">216 VICEROY OF EGYPT</a><br> +<a href="#p614">217 EASTERN MONARCH</a><br> +<a href="#p615">218 MOSES S. BEACH</a><br> +<a href="#p617">219 ROOM No. 15</a><br> +<a href="#p620">220 THE NILOMETER</a><br> +<a href="#p622">221 ASCENT OF THE PYRAMIDS</a><br> +<a href="#p625">222 HIGH HOPES FRUSTRATED</a><br> +<a href="#p626">223 KINGS CHAMBER IN THE PYRAMID</a><br> +<a href="#p627">224 A POWERFUL ARGUMENT</a><br> +<a href="#p629">225 PYRAMIDS AND SPHINX</a><br> +<a href="#p630">226 THE RELIC HUNTER</a><br> +<a href="#p631">227 THE MAMELUKE'S LEAP</a><br> +<a href="#p633">228 WOULD NOT BE COMFORTED</a><br> +<a href="#p634">229 THE TRAVELER</a><br> +<a href="#p635">230 HOMEWARD BOUND</a><br> +<a href="#p639">231 BAD COFFEE </a><br> +<a href="#p640">232 OUR FRIENDS THE BERMUDIANS</a><br> +<a href="#p641">233 CAPTAIN DUNCAN</a><br> +<a href="#p651">234 FINIS</a><br> +<br> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch50"></a>CHAPTER L. +</h2> +<p>We descended from Mount Tabor, crossed a deep ravine, followed a hilly, +rocky road to Nazareth—distant two hours. All distances in the East are +measured by hours, not miles. A good horse will walk three miles an hour +over nearly any kind of a road; therefore, an hour, here, always stands +for three miles. This method of computation is bothersome and annoying; +and until one gets thoroughly accustomed to it, it carries no +intelligence to his mind until he has stopped and translated the pagan +hours into Christian miles, just as people do with the spoken words of a +foreign language they are acquainted with, but not familiarly enough to +catch the meaning in a moment. Distances traveled by human feet are also +estimated by hours and minutes, though I do not know what the base of the +calculation is. In Constantinople you ask, "How far is it to the +Consulate?" and they answer, "About ten minutes." "How far is it to the +Lloyds' Agency?" "Quarter of an hour." "How far is it to the lower +bridge?" "Four minutes." I can not be positive about it, but I think +that there, when a man orders a pair of pantaloons, he says he wants them +a quarter of a minute in the legs and nine seconds around the waist. + +<p>Two hours from Tabor to Nazareth—and as it was an uncommonly narrow, +crooked trail, we necessarily met all the camel trains and jackass +caravans between Jericho and Jacksonville in that particular place and +nowhere else. The donkeys do not matter so much, because they are so +small that you can jump your horse over them if he is an animal of +spirit, but a camel is not jumpable. A camel is as tall as any ordinary +dwelling-house in Syria—which is to say a camel is from one to two, and +sometimes nearly three feet taller than a good-sized man. In this part +of the country his load is oftenest in the shape of colossal sacks—one +on each side. He and his cargo take up as much room as a carriage. +Think of meeting this style of obstruction in a narrow trail. The camel +would not turn out for a king. He stalks serenely along, bringing his +cushioned stilts forward with the long, regular swing of a pendulum, and +whatever is in the way must get out of the way peaceably, or be wiped out +forcibly by the bulky sacks. It was a tiresome ride to us, and perfectly +exhausting to the horses. We were compelled to jump over upwards of +eighteen hundred donkeys, and only one person in the party was unseated +less than sixty times by the camels. This seems like a powerful +statement, but the poet has said, "Things are not what they seem." I can +not think of any thing, now, more certain to make one shudder, than to +have a soft-footed camel sneak up behind him and touch him on the ear +with its cold, flabby under-lip. A camel did this for one of the boys, +who was drooping over his saddle in a brown study. He glanced up and saw +the majestic apparition hovering above him, and made frantic efforts to +get out of the way, but the camel reached out and bit him on the shoulder +before he accomplished it. This was the only pleasant incident of the +journey. + +<p>At Nazareth we camped in an olive grove near the Virgin Mary's fountain, +and that wonderful Arab "guard" came to collect some bucksheesh for his +"services" in following us from Tiberias and warding off invisible +dangers with the terrors of his armament. The dragoman had paid his +master, but that counted as nothing—if you hire a man to sneeze for you, +here, and another man chooses to help him, you have got to pay both. +They do nothing whatever without pay. How it must have surprised these +people to hear the way of salvation offered to them "without money and +without price." If the manners, the people or the customs of this +country have changed since the Saviour's time, the figures and metaphors +of the Bible are not the evidences to prove it by. + +<p>We entered the great Latin Convent which is built over the traditional +dwelling-place of the Holy Family. We went down a flight of fifteen +steps below the ground level, and stood in a small chapel tricked out +with tapestry hangings, silver lamps, and oil paintings. A spot marked +by a cross, in the marble floor, under the altar, was exhibited as the +place made forever holy by the feet of the Virgin when she stood up to +receive the message of the angel. So simple, so unpretending a locality, +to be the scene of so mighty an event! The very scene of the +Annunciation—an event which has been commemorated by splendid shrines +and august temples all over the civilized world, and one which the +princes of art have made it their loftiest ambition to picture worthily +on their canvas; a spot whose history is familiar to the very children of +every house, and city, and obscure hamlet of the furthest lands of +Christendom; a spot which myriads of men would toil across the breadth of +a world to see, would consider it a priceless privilege to look upon. +It was easy to think these thoughts. But it was not easy to bring myself +up to the magnitude of the situation. I could sit off several thousand +miles and imagine the angel appearing, with shadowy wings and lustrous +countenance, and note the glory that streamed downward upon the Virgin's +head while the message from the Throne of God fell upon her ears—any one +can do that, beyond the ocean, but few can do it here. I saw the little +recess from which the angel stepped, but could not fill its void. The +angels that I know are creatures of unstable fancy—they will not fit in +niches of substantial stone. Imagination labors best in distant fields. +I doubt if any man can stand in the Grotto of the Annunciation and people +with the phantom images of his mind its too tangible walls of stone. + +<p>They showed us a broken granite pillar, depending from the roof, which +they said was hacked in two by the Moslem conquerors of Nazareth, in the +vain hope of pulling down the sanctuary. But the pillar remained +miraculously suspended in the air, and, unsupported itself, supported +then and still supports the roof. By dividing this statement up among +eight, it was found not difficult to believe it. + +<p>These gifted Latin monks never do any thing by halves. If they were to +show you the Brazen Serpent that was elevated in the wilderness, you +could depend upon it that they had on hand the pole it was elevated on +also, and even the hole it stood in. They have got the "Grotto" of the +Annunciation here; and just as convenient to it as one's throat is to his +mouth, they have also the Virgin's Kitchen, and even her sitting-room, +where she and Joseph watched the infant Saviour play with Hebrew toys +eighteen hundred years ago. All under one roof, and all clean, spacious, +comfortable "grottoes." It seems curious that personages intimately +connected with the Holy Family always lived in grottoes—in Nazareth, in +Bethlehem, in imperial Ephesus—and yet nobody else in their day and +generation thought of doing any thing of the kind. If they ever did, +their grottoes are all gone, and I suppose we ought to wonder at the +peculiar marvel of the preservation of these I speak of. When the Virgin +fled from Herod's wrath, she hid in a grotto in Bethlehem, and the same +is there to this day. The slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem was +done in a grotto; the Saviour was born in a grotto—both are shown to +pilgrims yet. It is exceedingly strange that these tremendous events all +happened in grottoes—and exceedingly fortunate, likewise, because the +strongest houses must crumble to ruin in time, but a grotto in the living +rock will last forever. It is an imposture—this grotto stuff—but it is +one that all men ought to thank the Catholics for. Wherever they ferret +out a lost locality made holy by some Scriptural event, they straightway +build a massive—almost imperishable—church there, and preserve the +memory of that locality for the gratification of future generations. If +it had been left to Protestants to do this most worthy work, we would not +even know where Jerusalem is to-day, and the man who could go and put his +finger on Nazareth would be too wise for this world. The world owes the +Catholics its good will even for the happy rascality of hewing out these +bogus grottoes in the rock; for it is infinitely more satisfactory to +look at a grotto, where people have faithfully believed for centuries +that the Virgin once lived, than to have to imagine a dwelling-place for +her somewhere, any where, nowhere, loose and at large all over this town +of Nazareth. There is too large a scope of country. The imagination can +not work. There is no one particular spot to chain your eye, rivet your +interest, and make you think. The memory of the Pilgrims can not perish +while Plymouth Rock remains to us. The old monks are wise. They know +how to drive a stake through a pleasant tradition that will hold it to +its place forever. + +<p>We visited the places where Jesus worked for fifteen years as a +carpenter, and where he attempted to teach in the synagogue and was +driven out by a mob. Catholic chapels stand upon these sites and protect +the little fragments of the ancient walls which remain. Our pilgrims +broke off specimens. We visited, also, a new chapel, in the midst of the +town, which is built around a boulder some twelve feet long by four feet +thick; the priests discovered, a few years ago, that the disciples had +sat upon this rock to rest, once, when they had walked up from Capernaum. +They hastened to preserve the relic. Relics are very good property. +Travelers are expected to pay for seeing them, and they do it cheerfully. +We like the idea. One's conscience can never be the worse for the +knowledge that he has paid his way like a man. Our pilgrims would have +liked very well to get out their lampblack and stencil-plates and paint +their names on that rock, together with the names of the villages they +hail from in America, but the priests permit nothing of that kind. +To speak the strict truth, however, our party seldom offend in that way, +though we have men in the ship who never lose an opportunity to do it. +Our pilgrims' chief sin is their lust for "specimens." I suppose that by +this time they know the dimensions of that rock to an inch, and its +weight to a ton; and I do not hesitate to charge that they will go back +there to-night and try to carry it off. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p530"></a><img alt="p530.jpg (52K)" src="images/p530.jpg" height="439" width="565"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>This "Fountain of the Virgin" is the one which tradition says Mary used +to get water from, twenty times a day, when she was a girl, and bear it +away in a jar upon her head. The water streams through faucets in the +face of a wall of ancient masonry which stands removed from the houses of +the village. The young girls of Nazareth still collect about it by the +dozen and keep up a riotous laughter and sky-larking. The Nazarene girls +are homely. Some of them have large, lustrous eyes, but none of them +have pretty faces. These girls wear a single garment, usually, and it is +loose, shapeless, of undecided color; it is generally out of repair, too. +They wear, from crown to jaw, curious strings of old coins, after the +manner of the belles of Tiberias, and brass jewelry upon their wrists and +in their ears. They wear no shoes and stockings. They are the most +human girls we have found in the country yet, and the best natured. +But there is no question that these picturesque maidens sadly lack +comeliness. + +<p>A pilgrim—the "Enthusiast"—said: "See that tall, graceful girl! look at +the Madonna-like beauty of her countenance!" + +<p>Another pilgrim came along presently and said: "Observe that tall, +graceful girl; what queenly Madonna-like gracefulness of beauty is in her +countenance." + +<p>I said: "She is not tall, she is short; she is not beautiful, she is +homely; she is graceful enough, I grant, but she is rather boisterous." + +<p>The third and last pilgrim moved by, before long, and he said: "Ah, what +a tall, graceful girl! what Madonna-like gracefulness of queenly beauty!" + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p531"></a><img alt="p531.jpg (40K)" src="images/p531.jpg" height="621" width="403"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>The verdicts were all in. It was time, now, to look up the authorities +for all these opinions. I found this paragraph, which follows. Written +by whom? Wm. C. Grimes: + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "After we were in the saddle, we rode down to the spring to have a + last look at the women of Nazareth, who were, as a class, much the + prettiest that we had seen in the East. As we approached the crowd + a tall girl of nineteen advanced toward Miriam and offered her a cup + of water. Her movement was graceful and queenly. We exclaimed on + the spot at the Madonna-like beauty of her countenance. Whitely was + suddenly thirsty, and begged for water, and drank it slowly, with + his eyes over the top of the cup, fixed on her large black eyes, + which gazed on him quite as curiously as he on her. Then Moreright + wanted water. She gave it to him and he managed to spill it so as + to ask for another cup, and by the time she came to me she saw + through the operation; her eyes were full of fun as she looked at + me. I laughed outright, and she joined me in as gay a shout as ever + country maiden in old Orange county. I wished for a picture of her. + A Madonna, whose face was a portrait of that beautiful Nazareth + girl, would be a 'thing of beauty' and 'a joy forever.'" +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>That is the kind of gruel which has been served out from Palestine for +ages. Commend me to Fenimore Cooper to find beauty in the Indians, and +to Grimes to find it in the Arabs. Arab men are often fine looking, but +Arab women are not. We can all believe that the Virgin Mary was +beautiful; it is not natural to think otherwise; but does it follow that +it is our duty to find beauty in these present women of Nazareth? + +<p>I love to quote from Grimes, because he is so dramatic. And because he +is so romantic. And because he seems to care but little whether he tells +the truth or not, so he scares the reader or excites his envy or his +admiration. + +<p>He went through this peaceful land with one hand forever on his revolver, +and the other on his pocket-handkerchief. Always, when he was not on the +point of crying over a holy place, he was on the point of killing an +Arab. More surprising things happened to him in Palestine than ever +happened to any traveler here or elsewhere since Munchausen died. + +<p>At Beit Jin, where nobody had interfered with him, he crept out of his +tent at dead of night and shot at what he took to be an Arab lying on a +rock, some distance away, planning evil. The ball killed a wolf. Just +before he fired, he makes a dramatic picture of himself—as usual, to +scare the reader: + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "Was it imagination, or did I see a moving object on the surface of + the rock? If it were a man, why did he not now drop me? He had a + beautiful shot as I stood out in my black boornoose against the + white tent. I had the sensation of an entering bullet in my throat, + breast, brain." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Reckless creature! + +<p>Riding toward Genessaret, they saw two Bedouins, and "we looked to our +pistols and loosened them quietly in our shawls," etc. Always cool. + +<p>In Samaria, he charged up a hill, in the face of a volley of stones; he +fired into the crowd of men who threw them. He says: + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "I never lost an opportunity of impressing the Arabs with the + perfection of American and English weapons, and the danger of + attacking any one of the armed Franks. I think the lesson of that + ball not lost." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p>At Beit Jin he gave his whole band of Arab muleteers a piece of his mind, +and then— + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "I contented myself with a solemn assurance that if there occurred + another instance of disobedience to orders I would thrash the + responsible party as he never dreamed of being thrashed, and if I + could not find who was responsible, I would whip them all, from + first to last, whether there was a governor at hand to do it or I + had to do it myself" +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p>Perfectly fearless, this man. + +<p>He rode down the perpendicular path in the rocks, from the Castle of +Banias to the oak grove, at a flying gallop, his horse striding "thirty +feet" at every bound. I stand prepared to bring thirty reliable +witnesses to prove that Putnam's famous feat at Horseneck was +insignificant compared to this. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p533"></a><img alt="p533.jpg (38K)" src="images/p533.jpg" height="573" width="391"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Behold him—always theatrical—looking at Jerusalem—this time, by an +oversight, with his hand off his pistol for once. +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "I stood in the road, my hand on my horse's neck, and with my dim + eyes sought to trace the outlines of the holy places which I had + long before fixed in my mind, but the fast-flowing tears forbade my + succeeding. There were our Mohammedan servants, a Latin monk, two + Armenians and a Jew in our cortege, and all alike gazed with + overflowing eyes." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p>If Latin monks and Arabs cried, I know to a moral certainty that the +horses cried also, and so the picture is complete. + +<p>But when necessity demanded, he could be firm as adamant. In the Lebanon +Valley an Arab youth—a Christian; he is particular to explain that +Mohammedans do not steal—robbed him of a paltry ten dollars' worth of +powder and shot. He convicted him before a sheik and looked on while he +was punished by the terrible bastinado. Hear him: +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "He (Mousa) was on his back in a twinkling, howling, shouting, + screaming, but he was carried out to the piazza before the door, + where we could see the operation, and laid face down. One man sat + on his back and one on his legs, the latter holding up his feet, + while a third laid on the bare soles a rhinoceros-hide koorbash + —["A Koorbash is Arabic for cowhide, the cow being a rhinoceros. + It is the most cruel whip known to fame. Heavy as lead, and + flexible as India-rubber, usually about forty inches long and + tapering gradually from an inch in diameter to a point, it + administers a blow which leaves its mark for time."—Scow Life in + Egypt, by the same author.]—that whizzed through the air at every + stroke. Poor Moreright was in agony, and Nama and Nama the Second + (mother and sister of Mousa,) were on their faces begging and + wailing, now embracing my knees and now Whitely's, while the + brother, outside, made the air ring with cries louder than Mousa's. + Even Yusef came and asked me on his knees to relent, and last of + all, Betuni—the rascal had lost a feed-bag in their house and had + been loudest in his denunciations that morning—besought the Howajji + to have mercy on the fellow." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p535"></a><img alt="p535.jpg (48K)" src="images/p535.jpg" height="539" width="537"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>But not he! The punishment was "suspended," at the fifteenth blow to +hear the confession. Then Grimes and his party rode away, and left the +entire Christian family to be fined and as severely punished as the +Mohammedan sheik should deem proper. + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "As I mounted, Yusef once more begged me to interfere and have mercy + on them, but I looked around at the dark faces of the crowd, and I + couldn't find one drop of pity in my heart for them." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p>He closes his picture with a rollicking burst of humor which contrasts +finely with the grief of the mother and her children. + +<p>One more paragraph: +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "Then once more I bowed my head. It is no shame to have wept in + Palestine. I wept, when I saw Jerusalem, I wept when I lay in the + starlight at Bethlehem. I wept on the blessed shores of Galilee. + My hand was no less firm on the rein, my anger did not tremble on + the trigger of my pistol when I rode with it in my right hand along + the shore of the blue sea" (weeping.) "My eye was not dimmed by + those tears nor my heart in aught weakened. Let him who would sneer + at my emotion close this volume here, for he will find little to his + taste in my journeyings through Holy Land." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p536"></a><img alt="p536.jpg (46K)" src="images/p536.jpg" height="593" width="519"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>He never bored but he struck water. + +<p>I am aware that this is a pretty voluminous notice of Mr. Grimes' book. +However, it is proper and legitimate to speak of it, for "Nomadic Life in +Palestine" is a representative book—the representative of a class of +Palestine books—and a criticism upon it will serve for a criticism upon +them all. And since I am treating it in the comprehensive capacity of a +representative book, I have taken the liberty of giving to both book and +author fictitious names. Perhaps it is in better taste, any how, to do +this. + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch51"></a>CHAPTER LI. +</h2> +<p>Nazareth is wonderfully interesting because the town has an air about it +of being precisely as Jesus left it, and one finds himself saying, all +the time, "The boy Jesus has stood in this doorway—has played in that +street—has touched these stones with his hands—has rambled over these +chalky hills." Whoever shall write the boyhood of Jesus ingeniously will +make a book which will possess a vivid interest for young and old alike. +I judge so from the greater interest we found in Nazareth than any of our +speculations upon Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee gave rise to. It was +not possible, standing by the Sea of Galilee, to frame more than a vague, +far-away idea of the majestic Personage who walked upon the crested waves +as if they had been solid earth, and who touched the dead and they rose +up and spoke. I read among my notes, now, with a new interest, some +sentences from an edition of 1621 of the Apocryphal New Testament. + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p>[Extract.] + "Christ, kissed by a bride made dumb by sorcerers, cures her. A + leprous girl cured by the water in which the infant Christ was + washed, and becomes the servant of Joseph and Mary. The leprous son + of a Prince cured in like manner. + + <p>"A young man who had been bewitched and turned into a mule, + miraculously cured by the infant Savior being put on his back, and + is married to the girl who had been cured of leprosy. Whereupon the + bystanders praise God. + + <p>"Chapter 16. Christ miraculously widens or contracts gates, + milk-pails, sieves or boxes, not properly made by Joseph, he not being + skillful at his carpenter's trade. The King of Jerusalem gives + Joseph an order for a throne. Joseph works on it for two years and + makes it two spans too short. The King being angry with him, Jesus + comforts him—commands him to pull one side of the throne while he + pulls the other, and brings it to its proper dimensions. + + <p>"Chapter 19. Jesus, charged with throwing a boy from the roof of a + house, miraculously causes the dead boy to speak and acquit him; + fetches water for his mother, breaks the pitcher and miraculously + gathers the water in his mantle and brings it home. + + <p>"Sent to a schoolmaster, refuses to tell his letters, and the + schoolmaster going to whip him, his hand withers." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Further on in this quaint volume of rejected gospels is an epistle of St. +Clement to the Corinthians, which was used in the churches and considered +genuine fourteen or fifteen hundred years ago. In it this account of the +fabled phoenix occurs: +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "1. Let us consider that wonderful type of the resurrection, which + is seen in the Eastern countries, that is to say, in Arabia. + + <p>"2. There is a certain bird called a phoenix. Of this there is + never but one at a time, and that lives five hundred years. And + when the time of its dissolution draws near, that it must die, it + makes itself a nest of frankincense, and myrrh, and other spices, + into which, when its time is fulfilled, it enters and dies. + + <p>"3. But its flesh, putrefying, breeds a certain worm, which, being + nourished by the juice of the dead bird, brings forth feathers; and + when it is grown to a perfect state, it takes up the nest in which + the bones of its parent lie, and carries it from Arabia into Egypt, + to a city called Heliopolis: + + <p>"4. And flying in open day in the sight of all men, lays it upon + the altar of the sun, and so returns from whence it came. + + <p>"5. The priests then search into the records of the time, and find + that it returned precisely at the end of five hundred years." + </blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Business is business, and there is nothing like punctuality, especially +in a phoenix. + +<p>The few chapters relating to the infancy of the Saviour contain many +things which seem frivolous and not worth preserving. A large part of +the remaining portions of the book read like good Scripture, however. +There is one verse that ought not to have been rejected, because it so +evidently prophetically refers to the general run of Congresses of the +United States: +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "199. They carry themselves high, and as prudent men; and though + they are fools, yet would seem to be teachers." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>I have set these extracts down, as I found them. Everywhere among the +cathedrals of France and Italy, one finds traditions of personages that +do not figure in the Bible, and of miracles that are not mentioned in its +pages. But they are all in this Apocryphal New Testament, and though +they have been ruled out of our modern Bible, it is claimed that they +were accepted gospel twelve or fifteen centuries ago, and ranked as high +in credit as any. One needs to read this book before he visits those +venerable cathedrals, with their treasures of tabooed and forgotten +tradition. + +<p>They imposed another pirate upon us at Nazareth—another invincible Arab +guard. We took our last look at the city, clinging like a whitewashed +wasp's nest to the hill-side, and at eight o'clock in the morning +departed. We dismounted and drove the horses down a bridle-path which I +think was fully as crooked as a corkscrew, which I know to be as steep as +the downward sweep of a rainbow, and which I believe to be the worst +piece of road in the geography, except one in the Sandwich Islands, which +I remember painfully, and possibly one or two mountain trails in the +Sierra Nevadas. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p539"></a><img alt="p539.jpg (49K)" src="images/p539.jpg" height="639" width="469"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Often, in this narrow path the horse had to poise +himself nicely on a rude stone step and then drop his fore-feet over the +edge and down something more than half his own height. This brought his +nose near the ground, while his tail pointed up toward the sky somewhere, +and gave him the appearance of preparing to stand on his head. A horse +cannot look dignified in this position. We accomplished the long descent +at last, and trotted across the great Plain of Esdraelon. + +<p>Some of us will be shot before we finish this pilgrimage. The pilgrims +read "Nomadic Life" and keep themselves in a constant state of Quixotic +heroism. They have their hands on their pistols all the time, and every +now and then, when you least expect it, they snatch them out and take aim +at Bedouins who are not visible, and draw their knives and make savage +passes at other Bedouins who do not exist. I am in deadly peril always, +for these spasms are sudden and irregular, and of course I cannot tell +when to be getting out of the way. If I am accidentally murdered, some +time, during one of these romantic frenzies of the pilgrims, Mr. Grimes +must be rigidly held to answer as an accessory before the fact. If the +pilgrims would take deliberate aim and shoot at a man, it would be all +right and proper—because that man would not be in any danger; but these +random assaults are what I object to. I do not wish to see any more +places like Esdraelon, where the ground is level and people can gallop. +It puts melodramatic nonsense into the pilgrims' heads. All at once, +when one is jogging along stupidly in the sun, and thinking about +something ever so far away, here they come, at a stormy gallop, spurring +and whooping at those ridgy old sore-backed plugs till their heels fly +higher than their heads, and as they whiz by, out comes a little +potato-gun of a revolver, there is a startling little pop, and a small pellet +goes singing through the air. Now that I have begun this pilgrimage, I +intend to go through with it, though sooth to say, nothing but the most +desperate valor has kept me to my purpose up to the present time. I do +not mind Bedouins,—I am not afraid of them; because neither Bedouins nor +ordinary Arabs have shown any disposition to harm us, but I do feel +afraid of my own comrades. + +<p>Arriving at the furthest verge of the Plain, we rode a little way up a +hill and found ourselves at Endor, famous for its witch. Her descendants +are there yet. They were the wildest horde of half-naked savages we have +found thus far. They swarmed out of mud bee-hives; out of hovels of the +dry-goods box pattern; out of gaping caves under shelving rocks; out of +crevices in the earth. In five minutes the dead solitude and silence of +the place were no more, and a begging, screeching, shouting mob were +struggling about the horses' feet and blocking the way. "Bucksheesh! +bucksheesh! bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh!" It was Magdala over +again, only here the glare from the infidel eyes was fierce and full of +hate. The population numbers two hundred and fifty, and more than half +the citizens live in caves in the rock. Dirt, degradation and savagery +are Endor's specialty. We say no more about Magdala and Deburieh now. +Endor heads the list. It is worse than any Indian 'campoodie'. The hill +is barren, rocky, and forbidding. No sprig of grass is visible, and only +one tree. This is a fig-tree, which maintains a precarious footing among +the rocks at the mouth of the dismal cavern once occupied by the +veritable Witch of Endor. In this cavern, tradition says, Saul, the +king, sat at midnight, and stared and trembled, while the earth shook, +the thunders crashed among the hills, and out of the midst of fire and +smoke the spirit of the dead prophet rose up and confronted him. Saul +had crept to this place in the darkness, while his army slept, to learn +what fate awaited him in the morrow's battle. He went away a sad man, to +meet disgrace and death. + +<p>A spring trickles out of the rock in the gloomy recesses of the cavern, +and we were thirsty. The citizens of Endor objected to our going in +there. They do not mind dirt; they do not mind rags; they do not mind +vermin; they do not mind barbarous ignorance and savagery; they do not +mind a reasonable degree of starvation, but they do like to be pure and +holy before their god, whoever he may be, and therefore they shudder and +grow almost pale at the idea of Christian lips polluting a spring whose +waters must descend into their sanctified gullets. We had no wanton +desire to wound even their feelings or trample upon their prejudices, but +we were out of water, thus early in the day, and were burning up with +thirst. It was at this time, and under these circumstances, that I +framed an aphorism which has already become celebrated. I said: +"Necessity knows no law." We went in and drank. + +<p>We got away from the noisy wretches, finally, dropping them in squads and +couples as we filed over the hills—the aged first, the infants next, the +young girls further on; the strong men ran beside us a mile, and only +left when they had secured the last possible piastre in the way of +bucksheesh. + +<p>In an hour, we reached Nain, where Christ raised the widow's son to life. +Nain is Magdala on a small scale. It has no population of any +consequence. Within a hundred yards of it is the original graveyard, for +aught I know; the tombstones lie flat on the ground, which is Jewish +fashion in Syria. I believe the Moslems do not allow them to have +upright tombstones. A Moslem grave is usually roughly plastered over and +whitewashed, and has at one end an upright projection which is shaped +into exceedingly rude attempts at ornamentation. In the cities, there is +often no appearance of a grave at all; a tall, slender marble tombstone, +elaborately lettered, gilded and painted, marks the burial place, and this +is surmounted by a turban, so carved and shaped as to signify the dead +man's rank in life. + +<p>They showed a fragment of ancient wall which they said was one side of +the gate out of which the widow's dead son was being brought so many +centuries ago when Jesus met the procession: + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold there was a + dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a + widow: and much people of the city was with her. + + <p> "And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said, Weep + not. + + <p>"And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood + still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, arise. + + <p> "And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered + him to his mother. + + <p>"And there came a fear on all. And they glorified God, saying, That + a great prophet is risen up among us; and That God hath visited his + people." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>A little mosque stands upon the spot which tradition says was occupied by +the widow's dwelling. Two or three aged Arabs sat about its door. We +entered, and the pilgrims broke specimens from the foundation walls, +though they had to touch, and even step, upon the "praying carpets" to do +it. It was almost the same as breaking pieces from the hearts of those +old Arabs. To step rudely upon the sacred praying mats, with booted +feet—a thing not done by any Arab—was to inflict pain upon men who had +not offended us in any way. Suppose a party of armed foreigners were to +enter a village church in America and break ornaments from the altar +railings for curiosities, and climb up and walk upon the Bible and the +pulpit cushions? However, the cases are different. One is the +profanation of a temple of our faith—the other only the profanation of a +pagan one. + +<p>We descended to the Plain again, and halted a moment at a well—of +Abraham's time, no doubt. It was in a desert place. It was walled three +feet above ground with squared and heavy blocks of stone, after the +manner of Bible pictures. Around it some camels stood, and others knelt. +There was a group of sober little donkeys with naked, dusky children +clambering about them, or sitting astride their rumps, or pulling their +tails. Tawny, black-eyed, barefooted maids, arrayed in rags and adorned +with brazen armlets and pinchbeck ear-rings, were poising water-jars upon +their heads, or drawing water from the well. A flock of sheep stood by, +waiting for the shepherds to fill the hollowed stones with water, so that +they might drink—stones which, like those that walled the well, were +worn smooth and deeply creased by the chafing chins of a hundred +generations of thirsty animals. Picturesque Arabs sat upon the ground, +in groups, and solemnly smoked their long-stemmed chibouks. Other Arabs +were filling black hog-skins with water—skins which, well filled, and +distended with water till the short legs projected painfully out of the +proper line, looked like the corpses of hogs bloated by drowning. Here +was a grand Oriental picture which I had worshiped a thousand times in +soft, rich steel engravings! But in the engraving there was no +desolation; no dirt; no rags; no fleas; no ugly features; no sore eyes; +no feasting flies; no besotted ignorance in the countenances; no raw +places on the donkeys' backs; no disagreeable jabbering in unknown +tongues; no stench of camels; no suggestion that a couple of tons of +powder placed under the party and touched off would heighten the effect +and give to the scene a genuine interest and a charm which it would +always be pleasant to recall, even though a man lived a thousand years. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p544"></a><img alt="p544.jpg (68K)" src="images/p544.jpg" height="583" width="605"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Oriental scenes look best in steel engravings. I cannot be imposed upon +any more by that picture of the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon. I shall +say to myself, You look fine, Madam but your feet are not clean and you +smell like a camel. + +<p>Presently a wild Arab in charge of a camel train recognized an old friend +in Ferguson, and they ran and fell upon each other's necks and kissed +each other's grimy, bearded faces upon both cheeks. It explained +instantly a something which had always seemed to me only a farfetched +Oriental figure of speech. I refer to the circumstance of Christ's +rebuking a Pharisee, or some such character, and reminding him that from +him he had received no "kiss of welcome." + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p545"></a><img alt="p545.jpg (13K)" src="images/p545.jpg" height="287" width="319"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>It did not seem reasonable to +me that men should kiss each other, but I am aware, now, that they did. +There was reason in it, too. The custom was natural and proper; because +people must kiss, and a man would not be likely to kiss one of the women +of this country of his own free will and accord. One must travel, to +learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any +significance for me before, take to themselves a meaning. + +<p>We journeyed around the base of the mountain—"Little Hermon,"—past the +old Crusaders' castle of El Fuleh, and arrived at Shunem. This was +another Magdala, to a fraction, frescoes and all. Here, tradition says, +the prophet Samuel was born, and here the Shunamite woman built a little +house upon the city wall for the accommodation of the prophet Elisha. +Elisha asked her what she expected in return. It was a perfectly natural +question, for these people are and were in the habit of proffering favors +and services and then expecting and begging for pay. Elisha knew them +well. He could not comprehend that any body should build for him that +humble little chamber for the mere sake of old friendship, and with no +selfish motive whatever. It used to seem a very impolite, not to say a +rude, question, for Elisha to ask the woman, but it does not seem so to +me now. The woman said she expected nothing. Then for her goodness and +her unselfishness, he rejoiced her heart with the news that she should +bear a son. It was a high reward—but she would not have thanked him for +a daughter—daughters have always been unpopular here. The son was born, +grew, waxed strong, died. Elisha restored him to life in Shunem. + +<p>We found here a grove of lemon trees—cool, shady, hung with fruit. One +is apt to overestimate beauty when it is rare, but to me this grove +seemed very beautiful. It was beautiful. I do not overestimate it. I +must always remember Shunem gratefully, as a place which gave to us this +leafy shelter after our long, hot ride. We lunched, rested, chatted, +smoked our pipes an hour, and then mounted and moved on. + +<p>As we trotted across the Plain of Jezreel, we met half a dozen Digger +Indians (Bedouins) with very long spears in their hands, cavorting around +on old crowbait horses, and spearing imaginary enemies; whooping, and +fluttering their rags in the wind, and carrying on in every respect like +a pack of hopeless lunatics. At last, here were the "wild, free sons of +the desert, speeding over the plain like the wind, on their beautiful +Arabian mares" we had read so much about and longed so much to see! Here +were the "picturesque costumes!" This was the "gallant spectacle!" +Tatterdemalion vagrants—cheap braggadocio—"Arabian mares" spined and +necked like the ichthyosaurus in the museum, and humped and cornered like +a dromedary! To glance at the genuine son of the desert is to take the +romance out of him forever—to behold his steed is to long in charity to +strip his harness off and let him fall to pieces. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p546"></a><img alt="p546.jpg (34K)" src="images/p546.jpg" height="445" width="547"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Presently we came to a ruinous old town on a hill, the same being the +ancient Jezreel. + +<p>Ahab, King of Samaria, (this was a very vast kingdom, for those days, and +was very nearly half as large as Rhode Island) dwelt in the city of +Jezreel, which was his capital. Near him lived a man by the name of +Naboth, who had a vineyard. The King asked him for it, and when he would +not give it, offered to buy it. But Naboth refused to sell it. In those +days it was considered a sort of crime to part with one's inheritance at +any price—and even if a man did part with it, it reverted to himself or +his heirs again at the next jubilee year. So this spoiled child of a +King went and lay down on the bed with his face to the wall, and grieved +sorely. The Queen, a notorious character in those days, and whose name +is a by-word and a reproach even in these, came in and asked him +wherefore he sorrowed, and he told her. Jezebel said she could secure +the vineyard; and she went forth and forged letters to the nobles and +wise men, in the King's name, and ordered them to proclaim a fast and set +Naboth on high before the people, and suborn two witnesses to swear that +he had blasphemed. They did it, and the people stoned the accused by the +city wall, and he died. Then Jezebel came and told the King, and said, +Behold, Naboth is no more—rise up and seize the vineyard. So Ahab +seized the vineyard, and went into it to possess it. But the Prophet +Elijah came to him there and read his fate to him, and the fate of +Jezebel; and said that in the place where dogs licked the blood of +Naboth, dogs should also lick his blood—and he said, likewise, the dogs +should eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. In the course of time, the +King was killed in battle, and when his chariot wheels were washed in the +pool of Samaria, the dogs licked the blood. In after years, Jehu, who +was King of Israel, marched down against Jezreel, by order of one of the +Prophets, and administered one of those convincing rebukes so common +among the people of those days: he killed many kings and their subjects, +and as he came along he saw Jezebel, painted and finely dressed, looking +out of a window, and ordered that she be thrown down to him. A servant +did it, and Jehu's horse trampled her under foot. Then Jehu went in and +sat down to dinner; and presently he said, Go and bury this cursed woman, +for she is a King's daughter. The spirit of charity came upon him too +late, however, for the prophecy had already been fulfilled—the dogs had +eaten her, and they "found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, +and the palms of her hands." + +<p>Ahab, the late King, had left a helpless family behind him, and Jehu +killed seventy of the orphan sons. Then he killed all the relatives, and +teachers, and servants and friends of the family, and rested from his +labors, until he was come near to Samaria, where he met forty-two persons +and asked them who they were; they said they were brothers of the King of +Judah. He killed them. When he got to Samaria, he said he would show +his zeal for the Lord; so he gathered all the priests and people together +that worshiped Baal, pretending that he was going to adopt that worship +and offer up a great sacrifice; and when they were all shut up where they +could not defend themselves, he caused every person of them to be killed. +Then Jehu, the good missionary, rested from his labors once more. + +<p>We went back to the valley, and rode to the Fountain of Ain Jelud. They +call it the Fountain of Jezreel, usually. It is a pond about one hundred +feet square and four feet deep, with a stream of water trickling into it +from under an overhanging ledge of rocks. It is in the midst of a great +solitude. Here Gideon pitched his camp in the old times; behind Shunem +lay the "Midianites, the Amalekites, and the Children of the East," who +were "as grasshoppers for multitude; both they and their camels were +without number, as the sand by the sea-side for multitude." Which means +that there were one hundred and thirty-five thousand men, and that they +had transportation service accordingly. + +<p>Gideon, with only three hundred men, surprised them in the night, and +stood by and looked on while they butchered each other until a hundred +and twenty thousand lay dead on the field. + +<p>We camped at Jenin before night, and got up and started again at one +o'clock in the morning. Somewhere towards daylight we passed the +locality where the best authenticated tradition locates the pit into +which Joseph's brethren threw him, and about noon, after passing over a +succession of mountain tops, clad with groves of fig and olive trees, +with the Mediterranean in sight some forty miles away, and going by many +ancient Biblical cities whose inhabitants glowered savagely upon our +Christian procession, and were seemingly inclined to practice on it with +stones, we came to the singularly terraced and unlovely hills that +betrayed that we were out of Galilee and into Samaria at last. + +<p>We climbed a high hill to visit the city of Samaria, where the woman may +have hailed from who conversed with Christ at Jacob's Well, and from +whence, no doubt, came also the celebrated Good Samaritan. Herod the +Great is said to have made a magnificent city of this place, and a great +number of coarse limestone columns, twenty feet high and two feet +through, that are almost guiltless of architectural grace of shape and +ornament, are pointed out by many authors as evidence of the fact. They +would not have been considered handsome in ancient Greece, however. + +<p>The inhabitants of this camp are particularly vicious, and stoned two +parties of our pilgrims a day or two ago who brought about the difficulty +by showing their revolvers when they did not intend to use them—a thing +which is deemed bad judgment in the Far West, and ought certainly to be +so considered any where. In the new Territories, when a man puts his +hand on a weapon, he knows that he must use it; he must use it instantly +or expect to be shot down where he stands. Those pilgrims had been +reading Grimes. + +<p>There was nothing for us to do in Samaria but buy handfuls of old Roman +coins at a franc a dozen, and look at a dilapidated church of the +Crusaders and a vault in it which once contained the body of John the +Baptist. This relic was long ago carried away to Genoa. + +<p>Samaria stood a disastrous siege, once, in the days of Elisha, at the +hands of the King of Syria. Provisions reached such a figure that "an +ass' head was sold for eighty pieces of silver and the fourth part of a +cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver." + +<p>An incident recorded of that heavy time will give one a very good idea of +the distress that prevailed within these crumbling walls. As the King +was walking upon the battlements one day, "a woman cried out, saying, +Help, my lord, O King! And the King said, What aileth thee? and she +answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him +to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat +him; and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son that we may eat +him; and she hath hid her son." + +<p>The prophet Elisha declared that within four and twenty hours the prices +of food should go down to nothing, almost, and it was so. The Syrian +army broke camp and fled, for some cause or other, the famine was +relieved from without, and many a shoddy speculator in dove's dung and +ass's meat was ruined. + +<p>We were glad to leave this hot and dusty old village and hurry on. At +two o'clock we stopped to lunch and rest at ancient Shechem, between the +historic Mounts of Gerizim and Ebal, where in the old times the books of +the law, the curses and the blessings, were read from the heights to the +Jewish multitudes below. + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch52"></a>CHAPTER LII. +</h2> +<p>The narrow canon in which Nablous, or Shechem, is situated, is under high +cultivation, and the soil is exceedingly black and fertile. It is well +watered, and its affluent vegetation gains effect by contrast with the +barren hills that tower on either side. One of these hills is the +ancient Mount of Blessings and the other the Mount of Curses and wise men +who seek for fulfillments of prophecy think they find here a wonder of +this kind—to wit, that the Mount of Blessings is strangely fertile and +its mate as strangely unproductive. We could not see that there was +really much difference between them in this respect, however. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p552"></a><img alt="p552.jpg (24K)" src="images/p552.jpg" height="343" width="447"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Shechem is distinguished as one of the residences of the patriarch Jacob, +and as the seat of those tribes that cut themselves loose from their +brethren of Israel and propagated doctrines not in conformity with those +of the original Jewish creed. For thousands of years this clan have +dwelt in Shechem under strict tabu, and having little commerce or +fellowship with their fellow men of any religion or nationality. For +generations they have not numbered more than one or two hundred, but they +still adhere to their ancient faith and maintain their ancient rites and +ceremonies. Talk of family and old descent! Princes and nobles pride +themselves upon lineages they can trace back some hundreds of years. +What is this trifle to this handful of old first families of Shechem who +can name their fathers straight back without a flaw for +thousands—straight back to a period so remote that men reared in a country where +the days of two hundred years ago are called "ancient" times grow dazed +and bewildered when they try to comprehend it! Here is respectability +for you—here is "family"—here is high descent worth talking about. +This sad, proud remnant of a once mighty community still hold themselves +aloof from all the world; they still live as their fathers lived, labor +as their fathers labored, think as they did, feel as they did, worship in +the same place, in sight of the same landmarks, and in the same quaint, +patriarchal way their ancestors did more than thirty centuries ago. I +found myself gazing at any straggling scion of this strange race with a +riveted fascination, just as one would stare at a living mastodon, or a +megatherium that had moved in the grey dawn of creation and seen the +wonders of that mysterious world that was before the flood. + +<p>Carefully preserved among the sacred archives of this curious community +is a MSS. copy of the ancient Jewish law, which is said to be the oldest +document on earth. It is written on vellum, and is some four or five +thousand years old. Nothing but bucksheesh can purchase a sight. Its +fame is somewhat dimmed in these latter days, because of the doubts so +many authors of Palestine travels have felt themselves privileged to cast +upon it. Speaking of this MSS. reminds me that I procured from the +high-priest of this ancient Samaritan community, at great expense, a secret +document of still higher antiquity and far more extraordinary interest, +which I propose to publish as soon as I have finished translating it. + +<p>Joshua gave his dying injunction to the children of Israel at Shechem, +and buried a valuable treasure secretly under an oak tree there about the +same time. The superstitious Samaritans have always been afraid to hunt +for it. They believe it is guarded by fierce spirits invisible to men. + +<p>About a mile and a half from Shechem we halted at the base of Mount Ebal +before a little square area, inclosed by a high stone wall, neatly +whitewashed. Across one end of this inclosure is a tomb built after the +manner of the Moslems. It is the tomb of Joseph. No truth is better +authenticated than this. + +<p>When Joseph was dying he prophesied that exodus of the Israelites from +Egypt which occurred four hundred years afterwards. At the same time he +exacted of his people an oath that when they journeyed to the land of +Canaan they would bear his bones with them and bury them in the ancient +inheritance of his fathers. The oath was kept. + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up + out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which + Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred + pieces of silver." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Few tombs on earth command the veneration of so many races and men of +divers creeds as this of Joseph. "Samaritan and Jew, Moslem and +Christian alike, revere it, and honor it with their visits. The tomb of +Joseph, the dutiful son, the affectionate, forgiving brother, the +virtuous man, the wise Prince and ruler. Egypt felt his influence—the +world knows his history." + +<p>In this same "parcel of ground" which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor +for a hundred pieces of silver, is Jacob's celebrated well. It is cut in +the solid rock, and is nine feet square and ninety feet deep. The name +of this unpretending hole in the ground, which one might pass by and take +no notice of, is as familiar as household words to even the children and +the peasants of many a far-off country. It is more famous than the +Parthenon; it is older than the Pyramids. + +<p>It was by this well that Jesus sat and talked with a woman of that +strange, antiquated Samaritan community I have been speaking of, and told +her of the mysterious water of life. As descendants of old English +nobles still cherish in the traditions of their houses how that this king +or that king tarried a day with some favored ancestor three hundred years +ago, no doubt the descendants of the woman of Samaria, living there in +Shechem, still refer with pardonable vanity to this conversation of their +ancestor, held some little time gone by, with the Messiah of the +Christians. It is not likely that they undervalue a distinction such as +this. Samaritan nature is human nature, and human nature remembers +contact with the illustrious, always. + +<p>For an offense done to the family honor, the sons of Jacob exterminated +all Shechem once. + +<p>We left Jacob's Well and traveled till eight in the evening, but rather +slowly, for we had been in the saddle nineteen hours, and the horses were +cruelly tired. We got so far ahead of the tents that we had to camp in +an Arab village, and sleep on the ground. We could have slept in the +largest of the houses; but there were some little drawbacks: it was +populous with vermin, it had a dirt floor, it was in no respect cleanly, +and there was a family of goats in the only bedroom, and two donkeys in +the parlor. Outside there were no inconveniences, except that the dusky, +ragged, earnest-eyed villagers of both sexes and all ages grouped +themselves on their haunches all around us, and discussed us and +criticised us with noisy tongues till midnight. We did not mind the +noise, being tired, but, doubtless, the reader is aware that it is almost +an impossible thing to go to sleep when you know that people are looking +at you. We went to bed at ten, and got up again at two and started once +more. Thus are people persecuted by dragomen, whose sole ambition in +life is to get ahead of each other. + +<p>About daylight we passed Shiloh, where the Ark of the Covenant rested +three hundred years, and at whose gates good old Eli fell down and "brake +his neck" when the messenger, riding hard from the battle, told him of +the defeat of his people, the death of his sons, and, more than all, the +capture of Israel's pride, her hope, her refuge, the ancient Ark her +forefathers brought with them out of Egypt. It is little wonder that +under circumstances like these he fell down and brake his neck. But +Shiloh had no charms for us. We were so cold that there was no comfort +but in motion, and so drowsy we could hardly sit upon the horses. + +<p>After a while we came to a shapeless mass of ruins, which still bears the +name of Bethel. It was here that Jacob lay down and had that superb +vision of angels flitting up and down a ladder that reached from the +clouds to earth, and caught glimpses of their blessed home through the +open gates of Heaven. + +<p>The pilgrims took what was left of the hallowed ruin, and we pressed on +toward the goal of our crusade, renowned Jerusalem. + +<p>The further we went the hotter the sun got, and the more rocky and bare, +repulsive and dreary the landscape became. There could not have been +more fragments of stone strewn broadcast over this part of the world, if +every ten square feet of the land had been occupied by a separate and +distinct stonecutter's establishment for an age. There was hardly a tree +or a shrub any where. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends +of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. No landscape +exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bounds the +approaches to Jerusalem. The only difference between the roads and the +surrounding country, perhaps, is that there are rather more rocks in the +roads than in the surrounding country. + +<p>We passed Ramah, and Beroth, and on the right saw the tomb of the prophet +Samuel, perched high upon a commanding eminence. Still no Jerusalem came +in sight. We hurried on impatiently. We halted a moment at the ancient +Fountain of Beira, but its stones, worn deeply by the chins of thirsty +animals that are dead and gone centuries ago, had no interest for us—we +longed to see Jerusalem. We spurred up hill after hill, and usually +began to stretch our necks minutes before we got to the top—but +disappointment always followed:—more stupid hills beyond—more unsightly +landscape—no Holy City. + +<p>At last, away in the middle of the day, ancient bite of wall and +crumbling arches began to line the way—we toiled up one more hill, and +every pilgrim and every sinner swung his hat on high! Jerusalem! + +<p>Perched on its eternal hills, white and domed and solid, massed together +and hooped with high gray walls, the venerable city gleamed in the sun. +So small! Why, it was no larger than an American village of four +thousand inhabitants, and no larger than an ordinary Syrian city of +thirty thousand. Jerusalem numbers only fourteen thousand people. + +<p>We dismounted and looked, without speaking a dozen sentences, across the +wide intervening valley for an hour or more; and noted those prominent +features of the city that pictures make familiar to all men from their +school days till their death. We could recognize the Tower of Hippicus, +the Mosque of Omar, the Damascus Gate, the Mount of Olives, the Valley of +Jehoshaphat, the Tower of David, and the Garden of Gethsemane—and dating +from these landmarks could tell very nearly the localities of many others +we were not able to distinguish. + +<p>I record it here as a notable but not discreditable fact that not even +our pilgrims wept. I think there was no individual in the party whose +brain was not teeming with thoughts and images and memories invoked by +the grand history of the venerable city that lay before us, but still +among them all was no "voice of them that wept." + +<p>There was no call for tears. Tears would have been out of place. The +thoughts Jerusalem suggests are full of poetry, sublimity, and more than +all, dignity. Such thoughts do not find their appropriate expression in +the emotions of the nursery. + +<p>Just after noon we entered these narrow, crooked streets, by the ancient +and the famed Damascus Gate, and now for several hours I have been trying +to comprehend that I am actually in the illustrious old city where +Solomon dwelt, where Abraham held converse with the Deity, and where +walls still stand that witnessed the spectacle of the Crucifixion. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p556"></a><img alt="p556.jpg (30K)" src="images/p556.jpg" height="441" width="443"> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch53"></a>CHAPTER LIII. +</h2> +<p>A fast walker could go outside the walls of Jerusalem and walk entirely +around the city in an hour. I do not know how else to make one +understand how small it is. The appearance of the city is peculiar. It +is as knobby with countless little domes as a prison door is with +bolt-heads. Every house has from one to half a dozen of these white plastered +domes of stone, broad and low, sitting in the centre of, or in a cluster +upon, the flat roof. Wherefore, when one looks down from an eminence, +upon the compact mass of houses (so closely crowded together, in fact, +that there is no appearance of streets at all, and so the city looks +solid,) he sees the knobbiest town in the world, except Constantinople. +It looks as if it might be roofed, from centre to circumference, with +inverted saucers. The monotony of the view is interrupted only by the +great Mosque of Omar, the Tower of Hippicus, and one or two other +buildings that rise into commanding prominence. + +<p>The houses are generally two stories high, built strongly of masonry, +whitewashed or plastered outside, and have a cage of wooden lattice-work +projecting in front of every window. To reproduce a Jerusalem street, it +would only be necessary to up-end a chicken-coop and hang it before each +window in an alley of American houses. + +<p>The streets are roughly and badly paved with stone, and are tolerably +crooked—enough so to make each street appear to close together +constantly and come to an end about a hundred yards ahead of a pilgrim as +long as he chooses to walk in it. Projecting from the top of the lower +story of many of the houses is a very narrow porch-roof or shed, without +supports from below; and I have several times seen cats jump across the +street from one shed to the other when they were out calling. The cats +could have jumped double the distance without extraordinary exertion. I +mention these things to give an idea of how narrow the streets are. +Since a cat can jump across them without the least inconvenience, it is +hardly necessary to state that such streets are too narrow for carriages. +These vehicles cannot navigate the Holy City. + +<p>The population of Jerusalem is composed of Moslems, Jews, Greeks, Latins, +Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek Catholics, and a handful of +Protestants. One hundred of the latter sect are all that dwell now in +this birthplace of Christianity. The nice shades of nationality +comprised in the above list, and the languages spoken by them, are +altogether too numerous to mention. It seems to me that all the races +and colors and tongues of the earth must be represented among the +fourteen thousand souls that dwell in Jerusalem. Rags, wretchedness, +poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of +Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound. Lepers, +cripples, the blind, and the idiotic, assail you on every hand, and they +know but one word of but one language apparently—the eternal +"bucksheesh." To see the numbers of maimed, malformed and diseased +humanity that throng the holy places and obstruct the gates, one might +suppose that the ancient days had come again, and that the angel of the +Lord was expected to descend at any moment to stir the waters of +Bethesda. Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary, and lifeless. I would not +desire to live here. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p559"></a><img alt="p559.jpg (30K)" src="images/p559.jpg" height="369" width="449"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>One naturally goes first to the Holy Sepulchre. It is right in the city, +near the western gate; it and the place of the Crucifixion, and, in fact, +every other place intimately connected with that tremendous event, are +ingeniously massed together and covered by one roof—the dome of the +Church of the Holy Sepulchre. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p564"></a><img alt="p564.jpg (63K)" src="images/p564.jpg" height="767" width="469"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Entering the building, through the midst of the usual assemblage of +beggars, one sees on his left a few Turkish guards—for Christians of +different sects will not only quarrel, but fight, also, in this sacred +place, if allowed to do it. Before you is a marble slab, which covers +the Stone of Unction, whereon the Saviour's body was laid to prepare it +for burial. It was found necessary to conceal the real stone in this way +in order to save it from destruction. Pilgrims were too much given to +chipping off pieces of it to carry home. Near by is a circular railing +which marks the spot where the Virgin stood when the Lord's body was +anointed. + +<p>Entering the great Rotunda, we stand before the most sacred locality in +Christendom—the grave of Jesus. It is in the centre of the church, and +immediately under the great dome. It is inclosed in a sort of little +temple of yellow and white stone, of fanciful design. Within the little +temple is a portion of the very stone which was rolled away from the door +of the Sepulchre, and on which the angel was sitting when Mary came +thither "at early dawn." Stooping low, we enter the vault—the Sepulchre +itself. It is only about six feet by seven, and the stone couch on which +the dead Saviour lay extends from end to end of the apartment and +occupies half its width. It is covered with a marble slab which has been +much worn by the lips of pilgrims. This slab serves as an altar, now. +Over it hang some fifty gold and silver lamps, which are kept always +burning, and the place is otherwise scandalized by trumpery, gewgaws, and +tawdry ornamentation. + +<p>All sects of Christians (except Protestants,) have chapels under the roof +of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and each must keep to itself and not +venture upon another's ground. It has been proven conclusively that they +can not worship together around the grave of the Saviour of the World in +peace. The chapel of the Syrians is not handsome; that of the Copts is +the humblest of them all. It is nothing but a dismal cavern, roughly +hewn in the living rock of the Hill of Calvary. In one side of it two +ancient tombs are hewn, which are claimed to be those in which Nicodemus +and Joseph of Aramathea were buried. + +<p>As we moved among the great piers and pillars of another part of the +church, we came upon a party of black-robed, animal-looking Italian +monks, with candles in their hands, who were chanting something in Latin, +and going through some kind of religious performance around a disk of +white marble let into the floor. It was there that the risen Saviour +appeared to Mary Magdalen in the likeness of a gardener. Near by was a +similar stone, shaped like a star—here the Magdalen herself stood, at +the same time. Monks were performing in this place also. They perform +everywhere—all over the vast building, and at all hours. Their candles +are always flitting about in the gloom, and making the dim old church +more dismal than there is any necessity that it should be, even though it +is a tomb. + +<p>We were shown the place where our Lord appeared to His mother after the +Resurrection. Here, also, a marble slab marks the place where St. +Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, found the crosses about +three hundred years after the Crucifixion. According to the legend, this +great discovery elicited extravagant demonstrations of joy. But they +were of short duration. The question intruded itself: "Which bore the +blessed Saviour, and which the thieves?" To be in doubt, in so mighty a +matter as this—to be uncertain which one to adore—was a grievous +misfortune. It turned the public joy to sorrow. But when lived there a +holy priest who could not set so simple a trouble as this at rest? One +of these soon hit upon a plan that would be a certain test. A noble lady +lay very ill in Jerusalem. The wise priests ordered that the three +crosses be taken to her bedside one at a time. It was done. When her +eyes fell upon the first one, she uttered a scream that was heard beyond +the Damascus Gate, and even upon the Mount of Olives, it was said, and +then fell back in a deadly swoon. They recovered her and brought the +second cross. Instantly she went into fearful convulsions, and it was +with the greatest difficulty that six strong men could hold her. They +were afraid, now, to bring in the third cross. They began to fear that +possibly they had fallen upon the wrong crosses, and that the true cross +was not with this number at all. However, as the woman seemed likely to +die with the convulsions that were tearing her, they concluded that the +third could do no more than put her out of her misery with a happy +dispatch. So they brought it, and behold, a miracle! The woman sprang +from her bed, smiling and joyful, and perfectly restored to health. When +we listen to evidence like this, we cannot but believe. We would be +ashamed to doubt, and properly, too. Even the very part of Jerusalem +where this all occurred is there yet. So there is really no room for +doubt. + +<p>The priests tried to show us, through a small screen, a fragment of the +genuine Pillar of Flagellation, to which Christ was bound when they +scourged him. But we could not see it, because it was dark inside the +screen. However, a baton is kept here, which the pilgrim thrusts through +a hole in the screen, and then he no longer doubts that the true Pillar +of Flagellation is in there. He can not have any excuse to doubt it, for +he can feel it with the stick. He can feel it as distinctly as he could +feel any thing. + +<p>Not far from here was a niche where they used to preserve a piece of the +True Cross, but it is gone, now. This piece of the cross was discovered +in the sixteenth century. The Latin priests say it was stolen away, long +ago, by priests of another sect. That seems like a hard statement to +make, but we know very well that it was stolen, because we have seen it +ourselves in several of the cathedrals of Italy and France. + +<p>But the relic that touched us most was the plain old sword of that stout +Crusader, Godfrey of Bulloigne—King Godfrey of Jerusalem. No blade in +Christendom wields such enchantment as this—no blade of all that rust in +the ancestral halls of Europe is able to invoke such visions of romance +in the brain of him who looks upon it—none that can prate of such +chivalric deeds or tell such brave tales of the warrior days of old. It +stirs within a man every memory of the Holy Wars that has been sleeping +in his brain for years, and peoples his thoughts with mail-clad images, +with marching armies, with battles and with sieges. It speaks to him of +Baldwin, and Tancred, the princely Saladin, and great Richard of the Lion +Heart. It was with just such blades as these that these splendid heroes +of romance used to segregate a man, so to speak, and leave the half of +him to fall one way and the other half the other. This very sword has +cloven hundreds of Saracen Knights from crown to chin in those old times +when Godfrey wielded it. It was enchanted, then, by a genius that was +under the command of King Solomon. When danger approached its master's +tent it always struck the shield and clanged out a fierce alarm upon the +startled ear of night. In times of doubt, or in fog or darkness, if it +were drawn from its sheath it would point instantly toward the foe, and +thus reveal the way—and it would also attempt to start after them of its +own accord. A Christian could not be so disguised that it would not know +him and refuse to hurt him—nor a Moslem so disguised that it would not +leap from its scabbard and take his life. These statements are all well +authenticated in many legends that are among the most trustworthy legends +the good old Catholic monks preserve. I can never forget old Godfrey's +sword, now. I tried it on a Moslem, and clove him in twain like a +doughnut. The spirit of Grimes was upon me, and if I had had a graveyard +I would have destroyed all the infidels in Jerusalem. I wiped the blood +off the old sword and handed it back to the priest—I did not want the +fresh gore to obliterate those sacred spots that crimsoned its brightness +one day six hundred years ago and thus gave Godfrey warning that before +the sun went down his journey of life would end. + +<p>Still moving through the gloom of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre we +came to a small chapel, hewn out of the rock—a place which has been +known as "The Prison of Our Lord" for many centuries. Tradition says +that here the Saviour was confined just previously to the crucifixion. +Under an altar by the door was a pair of stone stocks for human legs. +These things are called the "Bonds of Christ," and the use they were once +put to has given them the name they now bear. + +<p>The Greek Chapel is the most roomy, the richest and the showiest chapel +in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Its altar, like that of all the +Greek churches, is a lofty screen that extends clear across the chapel, +and is gorgeous with gilding and pictures. The numerous lamps that hang +before it are of gold and silver, and cost great sums. + +<p>But the feature of the place is a short column that rises from the middle +of the marble pavement of the chapel, and marks the exact centre of the +earth. The most reliable traditions tell us that this was known to be +the earth's centre, ages ago, and that when Christ was upon earth he set +all doubts upon the subject at rest forever, by stating with his own lips +that the tradition was correct. Remember, He said that that particular +column stood upon the centre of the world. If the centre of the world +changes, the column changes its position accordingly. This column has +moved three different times of its own accord. This is because, in great +convulsions of nature, at three different times, masses of the +earth—whole ranges of mountains, probably—have flown off into space, thus +lessening the diameter of the earth, and changing the exact locality of +its centre by a point or two. This is a very curious and interesting +circumstance, and is a withering rebuke to those philosophers who would +make us believe that it is not possible for any portion of the earth to +fly off into space. + +<p>To satisfy himself that this spot was really the centre of the earth, a +sceptic once paid well for the privilege of ascending to the dome of the +church to see if the sun gave him a shadow at noon. He came down +perfectly convinced. The day was very cloudy and the sun threw no +shadows at all; but the man was satisfied that if the sun had come out +and made shadows it could not have made any for him. Proofs like these +are not to be set aside by the idle tongues of cavilers. To such as are +not bigoted, and are willing to be convinced, they carry a conviction +that nothing can ever shake. + +<p>If even greater proofs than those I have mentioned are wanted, to satisfy +the headstrong and the foolish that this is the genuine centre of the +earth, they are here. The greatest of them lies in the fact that from +under this very column was taken the dust from which Adam was made. This +can surely be regarded in the light of a settler. It is not likely that +the original first man would have been made from an inferior quality of +earth when it was entirely convenient to get first quality from the +world's centre. This will strike any reflecting mind forcibly. That +Adam was formed of dirt procured in this very spot is amply proven by the +fact that in six thousand years no man has ever been able to prove that +the dirt was not procured here whereof he was made. + +<p>It is a singular circumstance that right under the roof of this same +great church, and not far away from that illustrious column, Adam +himself, the father of the human race, lies buried. There is no question +that he is actually buried in the grave which is pointed out as +his—there can be none—because it has never yet been proven that that grave +is not the grave in which he is buried. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p566"></a><img alt="p566.jpg (45K)" src="images/p566.jpg" height="615" width="441"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>The tomb of Adam! How touching it was, here in a land of strangers, far +away from home, and friends, and all who cared for me, thus to discover +the grave of a blood relation. True, a distant one, but still a +relation. The unerring instinct of nature thrilled its recognition. The +fountain of my filial affection was stirred to its profoundest depths, +and I gave way to tumultuous emotion. I leaned upon a pillar and burst +into tears. I deem it no shame to have wept over the grave of my poor +dead relative. Let him who would sneer at my emotion close this volume +here, for he will find little to his taste in my journeyings through Holy +Land. Noble old man—he did not live to see me—he did not live to see +his child. And I—I—alas, I did not live to see him. Weighed down by +sorrow and disappointment, he died before I was born—six thousand brief +summers before I was born. But let us try to bear it with fortitude. +Let us trust that he is better off where he is. Let us take comfort in +the thought that his loss is our eternal gain. + +<p>The next place the guide took us to in the holy church was an altar +dedicated to the Roman soldier who was of the military guard that +attended at the Crucifixion to keep order, and who—when the vail of the +Temple was rent in the awful darkness that followed; when the rock of +Golgotha was split asunder by an earthquake; when the artillery of heaven +thundered, and in the baleful glare of the lightnings the shrouded dead +flitted about the streets of Jerusalem—shook with fear and said, "Surely +this was the Son of God!" Where this altar stands now, that Roman +soldier stood then, in full view of the crucified Saviour—in full sight +and hearing of all the marvels that were transpiring far and wide about +the circumference of the Hill of Calvary. And in this self-same spot the +priests of the Temple beheaded him for those blasphemous words he had +spoken. + +<p>In this altar they used to keep one of the most curious relics that human +eyes ever looked upon—a thing that had power to fascinate the beholder +in some mysterious way and keep him gazing for hours together. It was +nothing less than the copper plate Pilate put upon the Saviour's cross, +and upon which he wrote, "THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS." I think St. +Helena, the mother of Constantine, found this wonderful memento when she +was here in the third century. She traveled all over Palestine, and was +always fortunate. Whenever the good old enthusiast found a thing +mentioned in her Bible, Old or New, she would go and search for that +thing, and never stop until she found it. If it was Adam, she would find +Adam; if it was the Ark, she would find the Ark; if it was Goliath, or +Joshua, she would find them. She found the inscription here that I was +speaking of, I think. She found it in this very spot, close to where the +martyred Roman soldier stood. That copper plate is in one of the +churches in Rome, now. Any one can see it there. The inscription is +very distinct. + +<p>We passed along a few steps and saw the altar built over the very spot +where the good Catholic priests say the soldiers divided the raiment of +the Saviour. + +<p>Then we went down into a cavern which cavilers say was once a cistern. +It is a chapel, now, however—the Chapel of St. Helena. It is fifty-one +feet long by forty-three wide. In it is a marble chair which Helena used +to sit in while she superintended her workmen when they were digging and +delving for the True Cross. In this place is an altar dedicated to St. +Dimas, the penitent thief. A new bronze statue is here—a statue of St. +Helena. It reminded us of poor Maximilian, so lately shot. He presented +it to this chapel when he was about to leave for his throne in Mexico. + +<p>From the cistern we descended twelve steps into a large roughly-shaped +grotto, carved wholly out of the living rock. Helena blasted it out when +she was searching for the true Cross. She had a laborious piece of work, +here, but it was richly rewarded. Out of this place she got the crown of +thorns, the nails of the cross, the true Cross itself, and the cross of +the penitent thief. When she thought she had found every thing and was +about to stop, she was told in a dream to continue a day longer. It was +very fortunate. She did so, and found the cross of the other thief. + +<p>The walls and roof of this grotto still weep bitter tears in memory of +the event that transpired on Calvary, and devout pilgrims groan and sob +when these sad tears fall upon them from the dripping rock. The monks +call this apartment the "Chapel of the Invention of the Cross"—a name +which is unfortunate, because it leads the ignorant to imagine that a +tacit acknowledgment is thus made that the tradition that Helena found +the true Cross here is a fiction—an invention. It is a happiness to +know, however, that intelligent people do not doubt the story in any of +its particulars. + +<p>Priests of any of the chapels and denominations in the Church of the Holy +Sepulchre can visit this sacred grotto to weep and pray and worship the +gentle Redeemer. Two different congregations are not allowed to enter at +the same time, however, because they always fight. + +<p>Still marching through the venerable Church of the Holy Sepulchre, among +chanting priests in coarse long robes and sandals; pilgrims of all colors +and many nationalities, in all sorts of strange costumes; under dusky +arches and by dingy piers and columns; through a sombre cathedral gloom +freighted with smoke and incense, and faintly starred with scores of +candles that appeared suddenly and as suddenly disappeared, or drifted +mysteriously hither and thither about the distant aisles like ghostly +jack-o'-lanterns—we came at last to a small chapel which is called the +"Chapel of the Mocking." Under the altar was a fragment of a marble +column; this was the seat Christ sat on when he was reviled, and +mockingly made King, crowned with a crown of thorns and sceptred with a +reed. It was here that they blindfolded him and struck him, and said in +derision, "Prophesy who it is that smote thee." The tradition that this +is the identical spot of the mocking is a very ancient one. The guide +said that Saewulf was the first to mention it. I do not know Saewulf, +but still, I cannot well refuse to receive his evidence—none of us can. + +<p>They showed us where the great Godfrey and his brother Baldwin, the first +Christian Kings of Jerusalem, once lay buried by that sacred sepulchre +they had fought so long and so valiantly to wrest from the hands of the +infidel. But the niches that had contained the ashes of these renowned +crusaders were empty. Even the coverings of their tombs were +gone—destroyed by devout members of the Greek Church, because Godfrey and +Baldwin were Latin princes, and had been reared in a Christian faith +whose creed differed in some unimportant respects from theirs. + +<p>We passed on, and halted before the tomb of Melchisedek! You will +remember Melchisedek, no doubt; he was the King who came out and levied a +tribute on Abraham the time that he pursued Lot's captors to Dan, and +took all their property from them. That was about four thousand years +ago, and Melchisedek died shortly afterward. However, his tomb is in a +good state of preservation. + +<p>When one enters the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Sepulchre itself is +the first thing he desires to see, and really is almost the first thing +he does see. The next thing he has a strong yearning to see is the spot +where the Saviour was crucified. But this they exhibit last. It is the +crowning glory of the place. One is grave and thoughtful when he stands +in the little Tomb of the Saviour—he could not well be otherwise in such +a place—but he has not the slightest possible belief that ever the Lord +lay there, and so the interest he feels in the spot is very, very greatly +marred by that reflection. He looks at the place where Mary stood, in +another part of the church, and where John stood, and Mary Magdalen; +where the mob derided the Lord; where the angel sat; where the crown of +thorns was found, and the true Cross; where the risen Saviour +appeared—he looks at all these places with interest, but with the same conviction +he felt in the case of the Sepulchre, that there is nothing genuine about +them, and that they are imaginary holy places created by the monks. But +the place of the Crucifixion affects him differently. He fully believes +that he is looking upon the very spot where the Savior gave up his +life. He remembers that Christ was very celebrated, long before he came +to Jerusalem; he knows that his fame was so great that crowds followed +him all the time; he is aware that his entry into the city produced a +stirring sensation, and that his reception was a kind of ovation; he can +not overlook the fact that when he was crucified there were very many in +Jerusalem who believed that he was the true Son of God. To publicly +execute such a personage was sufficient in itself to make the locality of +the execution a memorable place for ages; added to this, the storm, the +darkness, the earthquake, the rending of the vail of the Temple, and the +untimely waking of the dead, were events calculated to fix the execution +and the scene of it in the memory of even the most thoughtless witness. +Fathers would tell their sons about the strange affair, and point out the +spot; the sons would transmit the story to their children, and thus a +period of three hundred years would easily be spanned— +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> +[The thought is Mr. Prime's, not mine, and is full of good sense. +I borrowed it from his "Tent Life."—M. T.] +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>—at which time Helena came and built a church upon +Calvary to commemorate the death and burial of the Lord and preserve the +sacred place in the memories of men; since that time there has always +been a church there. It is not possible that there can be any mistake +about the locality of the Crucifixion. Not half a dozen persons knew +where they buried the Saviour, perhaps, and a burial is not a startling +event, any how; therefore, we can be pardoned for unbelief in the +Sepulchre, but not in the place of the Crucifixion. Five hundred years +hence there will be no vestige of Bunker Hill Monument left, but America +will still know where the battle was fought and where Warren fell. The +crucifixion of Christ was too notable an event in Jerusalem, and the Hill +of Calvary made too celebrated by it, to be forgotten in the short space +of three hundred years. I climbed the stairway in the church which +brings one to the top of the small inclosed pinnacle of rock, and looked +upon the place where the true cross once stood, with a far more absorbing +interest than I had ever felt in any thing earthly before. I could not +believe that the three holes in the top of the rock were the actual ones +the crosses stood in, but I felt satisfied that those crosses had stood +so near the place now occupied by them, that the few feet of possible +difference were a matter of no consequence. + +<p>When one stands where the Saviour was crucified, he finds it all he can +do to keep it strictly before his mind that Christ was not crucified in a +Catholic Church. He must remind himself every now and then that the +great event transpired in the open air, and not in a gloomy, +candle-lighted cell in a little corner of a vast church, up-stairs—a small cell +all bejeweled and bespangled with flashy ornamentation, in execrable +taste. + +<p>Under a marble altar like a table, is a circular hole in the marble +floor, corresponding with the one just under it in which the true Cross +stood. The first thing every one does is to kneel down and take a candle +and examine this hole. He does this strange prospecting with an amount +of gravity that can never be estimated or appreciated by a man who has +not seen the operation. Then he holds his candle before a richly +engraved picture of the Saviour, done on a messy slab of gold, and +wonderfully rayed and starred with diamonds, which hangs above the hole +within the altar, and his solemnity changes to lively admiration. He +rises and faces the finely wrought figures of the Saviour and the +malefactors uplifted upon their crosses behind the altar, and bright with +a metallic lustre of many colors. He turns next to the figures close to +them of the Virgin and Mary Magdalen; next to the rift in the living rock +made by the earthquake at the time of the Crucifixion, and an extension +of which he had seen before in the wall of one of the grottoes below; he +looks next at the show-case with a figure of the Virgin in it, and is +amazed at the princely fortune in precious gems and jewelry that hangs so +thickly about the form as to hide it like a garment almost. All about +the apartment the gaudy trappings of the Greek Church offend the eye and +keep the mind on the rack to remember that this is the Place of the +Crucifixion—Golgotha—the Mount of Calvary. And the last thing he looks +at is that which was also the first—the place where the true Cross +stood. That will chain him to the spot and compel him to look once more, +and once again, after he has satisfied all curiosity and lost all +interest concerning the other matters pertaining to the locality. + +<p>And so I close my chapter on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—the most +sacred locality on earth to millions and millions of men, and women, and +children, the noble and the humble, bond and free. In its history from +the first, and in its tremendous associations, it is the most illustrious +edifice in Christendom. With all its clap-trap side-shows and unseemly +impostures of every kind, it is still grand, reverend, venerable—for a +god died there; for fifteen hundred years its shrines have been wet with +the tears of pilgrims from the earth's remotest confines; for more than +two hundred, the most gallant knights that ever wielded sword wasted +their lives away in a struggle to seize it and hold it sacred from +infidel pollution. Even in our own day a war, that cost millions of +treasure and rivers of blood, was fought because two rival nations +claimed the sole right to put a new dome upon it. History is full of +this old Church of the Holy Sepulchre—full of blood that was shed +because of the respect and the veneration in which men held the last +resting-place of the meek and lowly, the mild and gentle, Prince of +Peace! + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch54"></a>CHAPTER LIV. +</h2> + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p574"></a><img alt="p574.jpg (52K)" src="images/p574.jpg" height="520" width="630"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>We were standing in a narrow street, by the Tower of Antonio. "On these +stones that are crumbling away," the guide said, "the Saviour sat and +rested before taking up the cross. This is the beginning of the +Sorrowful Way, or the Way of Grief." The party took note of the sacred +spot, and moved on. We passed under the "Ecce Homo Arch," and saw the +very window from which Pilate's wife warned her husband to have nothing +to do with the persecution of the Just Man. This window is in an +excellent state of preservation, considering its great age. They showed +us where Jesus rested the second time, and where the mob refused to give +him up, and said, "Let his blood be upon our heads, and upon our +children's children forever." The French Catholics are building a church +on this spot, and with their usual veneration for historical relics, are +incorporating into the new such scraps of ancient walls as they have +found there. Further on, we saw the spot where the fainting Saviour fell +under the weight of his cross. A great granite column of some ancient +temple lay there at the time, and the heavy cross struck it such a blow +that it broke in two in the middle. Such was the guide's story when he +halted us before the broken column. + +<p>We crossed a street, and came presently to the former residence of St. +Veronica. When the Saviour passed there, she came out, full of womanly +compassion, and spoke pitying words to him, undaunted by the hootings and +the threatenings of the mob, and wiped the perspiration from his face +with her handkerchief. We had heard so much of St. Veronica, and seen +her picture by so many masters, that it was like meeting an old friend +unexpectedly to come upon her ancient home in Jerusalem. The strangest +thing about the incident that has made her name so famous, is, that when +she wiped the perspiration away, the print of the Saviour's face remained +upon the handkerchief, a perfect portrait, and so remains unto this day. +We knew this, because we saw this handkerchief in a cathedral in Paris, +in another in Spain, and in two others in Italy. In the Milan cathedral +it costs five francs to see it, and at St. Peter's, at Rome, it is almost +impossible to see it at any price. No tradition is so amply verified as +this of St. Veronica and her handkerchief. + +<p>At the next corner we saw a deep indention in the hard stone masonry of +the corner of a house, but might have gone heedlessly by it but that the +guide said it was made by the elbow of the Saviour, who stumbled here and +fell. Presently we came to just such another indention in a stone wall. +The guide said the Saviour fell here, also, and made this depression with +his elbow. + +<p>There were other places where the Lord fell, and others where he rested; +but one of the most curious landmarks of ancient history we found on this +morning walk through the crooked lanes that lead toward Calvary, was a +certain stone built into a house—a stone that was so seamed and scarred +that it bore a sort of grotesque resemblance to the human face. The +projections that answered for cheeks were worn smooth by the passionate +kisses of generations of pilgrims from distant lands. We asked "Why?" +The guide said it was because this was one of "the very stones of +Jerusalem" that Christ mentioned when he was reproved for permitting the +people to cry "Hosannah!" when he made his memorable entry into the +city upon an ass. One of the pilgrims said, "But there is no evidence +that the stones did cry out—Christ said that if the people stopped from +shouting Hosannah, the very stones would do it." The guide was perfectly +serene. He said, calmly, "This is one of the stones that would have +cried out. "It was of little use to try to shake this fellow's simple +faith—it was easy to see that. + +<p>And so we came at last to another wonder, of deep and abiding +interest—the veritable house where the unhappy wretch once lived who has been +celebrated in song and story for more than eighteen hundred years as the +Wandering Jew. On the memorable day of the Crucifixion he stood in this +old doorway with his arms akimbo, looking out upon the struggling mob +that was approaching, and when the weary Saviour would have sat down and +rested him a moment, pushed him rudely away and said, "Move on!" The +Lord said, "Move on, thou, likewise," and the command has never been +revoked from that day to this. All men know how that the miscreant upon +whose head that just curse fell has roamed up and down the wide world, +for ages and ages, seeking rest and never finding it—courting death but +always in vain—longing to stop, in city, in wilderness, in desert +solitudes, yet hearing always that relentless warning to march—march on! +They say—do these hoary traditions—that when Titus sacked Jerusalem and +slaughtered eleven hundred thousand Jews in her streets and by-ways, the +Wandering Jew was seen always in the thickest of the fight, and that when +battle-axes gleamed in the air, he bowed his head beneath them; when +swords flashed their deadly lightnings, he sprang in their way; he bared +his breast to whizzing javelins, to hissing arrows, to any and to every +weapon that promised death and forgetfulness, and rest. But it was +useless—he walked forth out of the carnage without a wound. And it is +said that five hundred years afterward he followed Mahomet when he +carried destruction to the cities of Arabia, and then turned against him, +hoping in this way to win the death of a traitor. His calculations were +wrong again. No quarter was given to any living creature but one, and +that was the only one of all the host that did not want it. He sought +death five hundred years later, in the wars of the Crusades, and offered +himself to famine and pestilence at Ascalon. He escaped again—he could +not die. These repeated annoyances could have at last but one +effect—they shook his confidence. Since then the Wandering Jew has carried on a +kind of desultory toying with the most promising of the aids and +implements of destruction, but with small hope, as a general thing. He +has speculated some in cholera and railroads, and has taken almost a +lively interest in infernal machines and patent medicines. He is old, +now, and grave, as becomes an age like his; he indulges in no light +amusements save that he goes sometimes to executions, and is fond of +funerals. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p577"></a><img alt="p577.jpg (41K)" src="images/p577.jpg" height="495" width="545"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>There is one thing he can not avoid; go where he will about the world, he +must never fail to report in Jerusalem every fiftieth year. Only a year +or two ago he was here for the thirty-seventh time since Jesus was +crucified on Calvary. They say that many old people, who are here now, +saw him then, and had seen him before. He looks always the same—old, +and withered, and hollow-eyed, and listless, save that there is about him +something which seems to suggest that he is looking for some one, +expecting some one—the friends of his youth, perhaps. But the most of +them are dead, now. He always pokes about the old streets looking +lonesome, making his mark on a wall here and there, and eyeing the oldest +buildings with a sort of friendly half interest; and he sheds a few tears +at the threshold of his ancient dwelling, and bitter, bitter tears they +are. Then he collects his rent and leaves again. He has been seen +standing near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on many a starlight night, +for he has cherished an idea for many centuries that if he could only +enter there, he could rest. But when he approaches, the doors slam to +with a crash, the earth trembles, and all the lights in Jerusalem burn a +ghastly blue! He does this every fifty years, just the same. It is +hopeless, but then it is hard to break habits one has been eighteen +hundred years accustomed to. The old tourist is far away on his +wanderings, now. How he must smile to see a pack of blockheads like us, +galloping about the world, and looking wise, and imagining we are finding +out a good deal about it! He must have a consuming contempt for the +ignorant, complacent asses that go skurrying about the world in these +railroading days and call it traveling. + +<p>When the guide pointed out where the Wandering Jew had left his familiar +mark upon a wall, I was filled with astonishment. It read: + +<p> "S. T.—1860—X." + +<p>All I have revealed about the Wandering Jew can be amply proven by +reference to our guide. + +<p>The mighty Mosque of Omar, and the paved court around it, occupy a fourth +part of Jerusalem. They are upon Mount Moriah, where King Solomon's +Temple stood. This Mosque is the holiest place the Mohammedan knows, +outside of Mecca. Up to within a year or two past, no Christian could +gain admission to it or its court for love or money. But the prohibition +has been removed, and we entered freely for bucksheesh. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p581"></a><img alt="p581.jpg (25K)" src="images/p581.jpg" height="351" width="489"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>I need not speak of the wonderful beauty and the exquisite grace and +symmetry that have made this Mosque so celebrated—because I did not see +them. One can not see such things at an instant glance—one frequently +only finds out how really beautiful a really beautiful woman is after +considerable acquaintance with her; and the rule applies to Niagara +Falls, to majestic mountains and to mosques—especially to mosques. + +<p>The great feature of the Mosque of Omar is the prodigious rock in the +centre of its rotunda. It was upon this rock that Abraham came so near +offering up his son Isaac—this, at least, is authentic—it is very much +more to be relied on than most of the traditions, at any rate. On this +rock, also, the angel stood and threatened Jerusalem, and David persuaded +him to spare the city. Mahomet was well acquainted with this stone. +From it he ascended to heaven. The stone tried to follow him, and if the +angel Gabriel had not happened by the merest good luck to be there to +seize it, it would have done it. Very few people have a grip like +Gabriel—the prints of his monstrous fingers, two inches deep, are to be +seen in that rock to-day. + +<p>This rock, large as it is, is suspended in the air. It does not touch +any thing at all. The guide said so. This is very wonderful. In the +place on it where Mahomet stood, he left his foot-prints in the solid +stone. I should judge that he wore about eighteens. But what I was +going to say, when I spoke of the rock being suspended, was, that in the +floor of the cavern under it they showed us a slab which they said +covered a hole which was a thing of extraordinary interest to all +Mohammedans, because that hole leads down to perdition, and every soul +that is transferred from thence to Heaven must pass up through this +orifice. Mahomet stands there and lifts them out by the hair. All +Mohammedans shave their heads, but they are careful to leave a lock of +hair for the Prophet to take hold of. Our guide observed that a good +Mohammedan would consider himself doomed to stay with the damned forever +if he were to lose his scalp-lock and die before it grew again. The most +of them that I have seen ought to stay with the damned, any how, without +reference to how they were barbered. + +<p>For several ages no woman has been allowed to enter the cavern where that +important hole is. The reason is that one of the sex was once caught +there blabbing every thing she knew about what was going on above ground, +to the rapscallions in the infernal regions down below. She carried her +gossiping to such an extreme that nothing could be kept private—nothing +could be done or said on earth but every body in perdition knew all about +it before the sun went down. It was about time to suppress this woman's +telegraph, and it was promptly done. Her breath subsided about the same +time. + +<p>The inside of the great mosque is very showy with variegated marble walls +and with windows and inscriptions of elaborate mosaic. The Turks have +their sacred relics, like the Catholics. The guide showed us the +veritable armor worn by the great son-in-law and successor of Mahomet, +and also the buckler of Mahomet's uncle. The great iron railing which +surrounds the rock was ornamented in one place with a thousand rags tied +to its open work. These are to remind Mahomet not to forget the +worshipers who placed them there. It is considered the next best thing +to tying threads around his finger by way of reminders. + +<p>Just outside the mosque is a miniature temple, which marks the spot where +David and Goliah used to sit and judge the people.—[A pilgrim informs +me that it was not David and Goliah, but David and Saul. I stick to my +own statement—the guide told me, and he ought to know.] + +<p>Every where about the Mosque of Omar are portions of pillars, curiously +wrought altars, and fragments of elegantly carved marble—precious +remains of Solomon's Temple. These have been dug from all depths in the +soil and rubbish of Mount Moriah, and the Moslems have always shown a +disposition to preserve them with the utmost care. At that portion of +the ancient wall of Solomon's Temple which is called the Jew's Place of +Wailing, and where the Hebrews assemble every Friday to kiss the +venerated stones and weep over the fallen greatness of Zion, any one can +see a part of the unquestioned and undisputed Temple of Solomon, the same +consisting of three or four stones lying one upon the other, each of +which is about twice as long as a seven-octave piano, and about as thick +as such a piano is high. But, as I have remarked before, it is only a +year or two ago that the ancient edict prohibiting Christian rubbish like +ourselves to enter the Mosque of Omar and see the costly marbles that +once adorned the inner Temple was annulled. The designs wrought upon +these fragments are all quaint and peculiar, and so the charm of novelty +is added to the deep interest they naturally inspire. One meets with +these venerable scraps at every turn, especially in the neighboring +Mosque el Aksa, into whose inner walls a very large number of them are +carefully built for preservation. These pieces of stone, stained and +dusty with age, dimly hint at a grandeur we have all been taught to +regard as the princeliest ever seen on earth; and they call up pictures +of a pageant that is familiar to all imaginations—camels laden with +spices and treasure—beautiful slaves, presents for Solomon's harem—a +long cavalcade of richly caparisoned beasts and warriors—and Sheba's +Queen in the van of this vision of "Oriental magnificence." These +elegant fragments bear a richer interest than the solemn vastness of the +stones the Jews kiss in the Place of Wailing can ever have for the +heedless sinner. + +<p>Down in the hollow ground, underneath the olives and the orange-trees +that flourish in the court of the great Mosque, is a wilderness of +pillars—remains of the ancient Temple; they supported it. There are +ponderous archways down there, also, over which the destroying "plough" +of prophecy passed harmless. It is pleasant to know we are disappointed, +in that we never dreamed we might see portions of the actual Temple of +Solomon, and yet experience no shadow of suspicion that they were a +monkish humbug and a fraud. + +<p>We are surfeited with sights. Nothing has any fascination for us, now, +but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We have been there every day, and +have not grown tired of it; but we are weary of every thing else. The +sights are too many. They swarm about you at every step; no single foot +of ground in all Jerusalem or within its neighborhood seems to be without +a stirring and important history of its own. It is a very relief to +steal a walk of a hundred yards without a guide along to talk unceasingly +about every stone you step upon and drag you back ages and ages to the +day when it achieved celebrity. + +<p>It seems hardly real when I find myself leaning for a moment on a ruined +wall and looking listlessly down into the historic pool of Bethesda. I +did not think such things could be so crowded together as to diminish +their interest. But in serious truth, we have been drifting about, for +several days, using our eyes and our ears more from a sense of duty than +any higher and worthier reason. And too often we have been glad when it +was time to go home and be distressed no more about illustrious +localities. + +<p>Our pilgrims compress too much into one day. One can gorge sights to +repletion as well as sweetmeats. Since we breakfasted, this morning, we +have seen enough to have furnished us food for a year's reflection if we +could have seen the various objects in comfort and looked upon them +deliberately. We visited the pool of Hezekiah, where David saw Uriah's +wife coming from the bath and fell in love with her. + +<p>We went out of the city by the Jaffa gate, and of course were told many +things about its Tower of Hippicus. + +<p>We rode across the Valley of Hinnom, between two of the Pools of Gihon, +and by an aqueduct built by Solomon, which still conveys water to the +city. We ascended the Hill of Evil Counsel, where Judas received his +thirty pieces of silver, and we also lingered a moment under the tree a +venerable tradition says he hanged himself on. + +<p>We descended to the canon again, and then the guide began to give name +and history to every bank and boulder we came to: "This was the Field of +Blood; these cuttings in the rocks were shrines and temples of Moloch; +here they sacrificed children; yonder is the Zion Gate; the Tyropean +Valley, the Hill of Ophel; here is the junction of the Valley of +Jehoshaphat—on your right is the Well of Job." We turned up +Jehoshaphat. The recital went on. "This is the Mount of Olives; this is +the Hill of Offense; the nest of huts is the Village of Siloam; here, +yonder, every where, is the King's Garden; under this great tree +Zacharias, the high priest, was murdered; yonder is Mount Moriah and the +Temple wall; the tomb of Absalom; the tomb of St. James; the tomb of +Zacharias; beyond, are the Garden of Gethsemane and the tomb of the +Virgin Mary; here is the Pool of Siloam, and——" + +<p>We said we would dismount, and quench our thirst, and rest. We were +burning up with the heat. We were failing under the accumulated fatigue +of days and days of ceaseless marching. All were willing. + +<p>The Pool is a deep, walled ditch, through which a clear stream of water +runs, that comes from under Jerusalem somewhere, and passing through the +Fountain of the Virgin, or being supplied from it, reaches this place by +way of a tunnel of heavy masonry. The famous pool looked exactly as it +looked in Solomon's time, no doubt, and the same dusky, Oriental women, +came down in their old Oriental way, and carried off jars of the water on +their heads, just as they did three thousand years ago, and just as they +will do fifty thousand years hence if any of them are still left on +earth. + +<p>We went away from there and stopped at the Fountain of the Virgin. But +the water was not good, and there was no comfort or peace any where, on +account of the regiment of boys and girls and beggars that persecuted us +all the time for bucksheesh. The guide wanted us to give them some +money, and we did it; but when he went on to say that they were starving +to death we could not but feel that we had done a great sin in throwing +obstacles in the way of such a desirable consummation, and so we tried to +collect it back, but it could not be done. + +<p>We entered the Garden of Gethsemane, and we visited the Tomb of the +Virgin, both of which we had seen before. It is not meet that I should +speak of them now. A more fitting time will come. + +<p>I can not speak now of the Mount of Olives or its view of Jerusalem, the +Dead Sea and the mountains of Moab; nor of the Damascus Gate or the tree +that was planted by King Godfrey of Jerusalem. One ought to feel +pleasantly when he talks of these things. I can not say any thing about +the stone column that projects over Jehoshaphat from the Temple wall like +a cannon, except that the Moslems believe Mahomet will sit astride of it +when he comes to judge the world. It is a pity he could not judge it +from some roost of his own in Mecca, without trespassing on our holy +ground. Close by is the Golden Gate, in the Temple wall—a gate that was +an elegant piece of sculpture in the time of the Temple, and is even so +yet. From it, in ancient times, the Jewish High Priest turned loose the +scapegoat and let him flee to the wilderness and bear away his +twelve-month load of the sins of the people. If they were to turn one loose +now, he would not get as far as the Garden of Gethsemane, till these +miserable vagabonds here would gobble him up,—[Favorite pilgrim +expression.]—sins and all. They wouldn't care. Mutton-chops and sin is +good enough living for them. The Moslems watch the Golden Gate with a +jealous eye, and an anxious one, for they have an honored tradition that +when it falls, Islamism will fall and with it the Ottoman Empire. It did +not grieve me any to notice that the old gate was getting a little shaky. + +<p>We are at home again. We are exhausted. The sun has roasted us, almost. +We have full comfort in one reflection, however. Our experiences in +Europe have taught us that in time this fatigue will be forgotten; the +heat will be forgotten; the thirst, the tiresome volubility of the guide, +the persecutions of the beggars—and then, all that will be left will be +pleasant memories of Jerusalem, memories we shall call up with always +increasing interest as the years go by, memories which some day will +become all beautiful when the last annoyance that incumbers them shall +have faded out of our minds never again to return. School-boy days are +no happier than the days of after life, but we look back upon them +regretfully because we have forgotten our punishments at school, and how +we grieved when our marbles were lost and our kites destroyed—because we +have forgotten all the sorrows and privations of that canonized epoch and +remember only its orchard robberies, its wooden sword pageants and its +fishing holydays. We are satisfied. We can wait. Our reward will come. +To us, Jerusalem and to-day's experiences will be an enchanted memory a +year hence—memory which money could not buy from us. + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch55"></a>CHAPTER LV. +</h2> +<p>We cast up the account. It footed up pretty fairly. There was nothing +more at Jerusalem to be seen, except the traditional houses of Dives and +Lazarus of the parable, the Tombs of the Kings, and those of the Judges; +the spot where they stoned one of the disciples to death, and beheaded +another; the room and the table made celebrated by the Last Supper; the +fig-tree that Jesus withered; a number of historical places about +Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives, and fifteen or twenty others in +different portions of the city itself. + +<p>We were approaching the end. Human nature asserted itself, now. +Overwork and consequent exhaustion began to have their natural effect. +They began to master the energies and dull the ardor of the party. +Perfectly secure now, against failing to accomplish any detail of the +pilgrimage, they felt like drawing in advance upon the holiday soon to be +placed to their credit. They grew a little lazy. They were late to +breakfast and sat long at dinner. Thirty or forty pilgrims had arrived +from the ship, by the short routes, and much swapping of gossip had to be +indulged in. And in hot afternoons, they showed a strong disposition to +lie on the cool divans in the hotel and smoke and talk about pleasant +experiences of a month or so gone by—for even thus early do episodes of +travel which were sometimes annoying, sometimes exasperating and full as +often of no consequence at all when they transpired, begin to rise above +the dead level of monotonous reminiscences and become shapely landmarks +in one's memory. The fog-whistle, smothered among a million of trifling +sounds, is not noticed a block away, in the city, but the sailor hears it +far at sea, whither none of those thousands of trifling sounds can reach. +When one is in Rome, all the domes are alike; but when he has gone away +twelve miles, the city fades utterly from sight and leaves St. Peter's +swelling above the level plain like an anchored balloon. When one is +traveling in Europe, the daily incidents seem all alike; but when he has +placed them all two months and two thousand miles behind him, those that +were worthy of being remembered are prominent, and those that were really +insignificant have vanished. This disposition to smoke, and idle and +talk, was not well. It was plain that it must not be allowed to gain +ground. A diversion must be tried, or demoralization would ensue. The +Jordan, Jericho and the Dead Sea were suggested. The remainder of +Jerusalem must be left unvisited, for a little while. The journey was +approved at once. New life stirred in every pulse. In the +saddle—abroad on the plains—sleeping in beds bounded only by the horizon: fancy +was at work with these things in a moment.—It was painful to note how +readily these town-bred men had taken to the free life of the camp and +the desert The nomadic instinct is a human instinct; it was born with +Adam and transmitted through the patriarchs, and after thirty centuries +of steady effort, civilization has not educated it entirely out of us +yet. It has a charm which, once tasted, a man will yearn to taste again. +The nomadic instinct can not be educated out of an Indian at all. + +<p>The Jordan journey being approved, our dragoman was notified. + +<p>At nine in the morning the caravan was before the hotel door and we were +at breakfast. There was a commotion about the place. Rumors of war and +bloodshed were flying every where. The lawless Bedouins in the Valley of +the Jordan and the deserts down by the Dead Sea were up in arms, and were +going to destroy all comers. They had had a battle with a troop of +Turkish cavalry and defeated them; several men killed. They had shut up +the inhabitants of a village and a Turkish garrison in an old fort near +Jericho, and were besieging them. They had marched upon a camp of our +excursionists by the Jordan, and the pilgrims only saved their lives by +stealing away and flying to Jerusalem under whip and spur in the darkness +of the night. Another of our parties had been fired on from an ambush +and then attacked in the open day. Shots were fired on both sides. +Fortunately there was no bloodshed. We spoke with the very pilgrim who +had fired one of the shots, and learned from his own lips how, in this +imminent deadly peril, only the cool courage of the pilgrims, their +strength of numbers and imposing display of war material, had saved them +from utter destruction. It was reported that the Consul had requested +that no more of our pilgrims should go to the Jordan while this state of +things lasted; and further, that he was unwilling that any more should +go, at least without an unusually strong military guard. Here was +trouble. But with the horses at the door and every body aware of what +they were there for, what would you have done? Acknowledged that you +were afraid, and backed shamefully out? Hardly. It would not be human +nature, where there were so many women. You would have done as we did: +said you were not afraid of a million Bedouins—and made your will and +proposed quietly to yourself to take up an unostentatious position in the +rear of the procession. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p589"></a><img alt="p589.jpg (39K)" src="images/p589.jpg" height="409" width="537"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>I think we must all have determined upon the same line of tactics, for it +did seem as if we never would get to Jericho. I had a notoriously slow +horse, but somehow I could not keep him in the rear, to save my neck. +He was forever turning up in the lead. In such cases I trembled a +little, and got down to fix my saddle. But it was not of any use. The +others all got down to fix their saddles, too. I never saw such a time +with saddles. It was the first time any of them had got out of order in +three weeks, and now they had all broken down at once. I tried walking, +for exercise—I had not had enough in Jerusalem searching for holy +places. But it was a failure. The whole mob were suffering for +exercise, and it was not fifteen minutes till they were all on foot and I +had the lead again. It was very discouraging. + +<p>This was all after we got beyond Bethany. We stopped at the village of +Bethany, an hour out from Jerusalem. They showed us the tomb of Lazarus. +I had rather live in it than in any house in the town. And they showed +us also a large "Fountain of Lazarus," and in the centre of the village +the ancient dwelling of Lazarus. Lazarus appears to have been a man of +property. The legends of the Sunday Schools do him great injustice; they +give one the impression that he was poor. It is because they get him +confused with that Lazarus who had no merit but his virtue, and virtue +never has been as respectable as money. The house of Lazarus is a +three-story edifice, of stone masonry, but the accumulated rubbish of ages has +buried all of it but the upper story. We took candles and descended to +the dismal cell-like chambers where Jesus sat at meat with Martha and +Mary, and conversed with them about their brother. We could not but look +upon these old dingy apartments with a more than common interest. + +<p>We had had a glimpse, from a mountain top, of the Dead Sea, lying like a +blue shield in the plain of the Jordan, and now we were marching down a +close, flaming, rugged, desolate defile, where no living creature could +enjoy life, except, perhaps, a salamander. It was such a dreary, +repulsive, horrible solitude! It was the "wilderness" where John +preached, with camel's hair about his loins—raiment enough—but he never +could have got his locusts and wild honey here. We were moping along +down through this dreadful place, every man in the rear. Our guards—two +gorgeous young Arab sheiks, with cargoes of swords, guns, pistols and +daggers on board—were loafing ahead. + +<p>"Bedouins!" + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p590"></a><img alt="p590.jpg (28K)" src="images/p590.jpg" height="507" width="391"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Every man shrunk up and disappeared in his clothes like a mud-turtle. +My first impulse was to dash forward and destroy the Bedouins. My second +was to dash to the rear to see if there were any coming in that +direction. I acted on the latter impulse. So did all the others. If +any Bedouins had approached us, then, from that point of the compass, +they would have paid dearly for their rashness. We all remarked that, +afterwards. There would have been scenes of riot and bloodshed there +that no pen could describe. I know that, because each man told what he +would have done, individually; and such a medley of strange and +unheard-of inventions of cruelty you could not conceive of. One man said he had +calmly made up his mind to perish where he stood, if need be, but never +yield an inch; he was going to wait, with deadly patience, till he could +count the stripes upon the first Bedouin's jacket, and then count them +and let him have it. Another was going to sit still till the first lance +reached within an inch of his breast, and then dodge it and seize it. I +forbear to tell what he was going to do to that Bedouin that owned it. +It makes my blood run cold to think of it. Another was going to scalp +such Bedouins as fell to his share, and take his bald-headed sons of the +desert home with him alive for trophies. But the wild-eyed pilgrim +rhapsodist was silent. His orbs gleamed with a deadly light, but his +lips moved not. Anxiety grew, and he was questioned. If he had got a +Bedouin, what would he have done with him—shot him? He smiled a smile +of grim contempt and shook his head. Would he have stabbed him? Another +shake. Would he have quartered him—flayed him? More shakes. Oh! +horror what would he have done? + +<p>"Eat him!" + +<p>Such was the awful sentence that thundered from his lips. What was +grammar to a desperado like that? I was glad in my heart that I had been +spared these scenes of malignant carnage. No Bedouins attacked our +terrible rear. And none attacked the front. The new-comers were only a +reinforcement of cadaverous Arabs, in shirts and bare legs, sent far +ahead of us to brandish rusty guns, and shout and brag, and carry on like +lunatics, and thus scare away all bands of marauding Bedouins that might +lurk about our path. What a shame it is that armed white Christians must +travel under guard of vermin like this as a protection against the +prowling vagabonds of the desert—those sanguinary outlaws who are always +going to do something desperate, but never do it. I may as well mention +here that on our whole trip we saw no Bedouins, and had no more use for +an Arab guard than we could have had for patent leather boots and white +kid gloves. The Bedouins that attacked the other parties of pilgrims so +fiercely were provided for the occasion by the Arab guards of those +parties, and shipped from Jerusalem for temporary service as Bedouins. +They met together in full view of the pilgrims, after the battle, and +took lunch, divided the bucksheesh extorted in the season of danger, and +then accompanied the cavalcade home to the city! The nuisance of an Arab +guard is one which is created by the Sheiks and the Bedouins together, +for mutual profit, it is said, and no doubt there is a good deal of truth +in it. + +<p>We visited the fountain the prophet Elisha sweetened (it is sweet yet,) +where he remained some time and was fed by the ravens. + +<p>Ancient Jericho is not very picturesque as a ruin. When Joshua marched +around it seven times, some three thousand years ago, and blew it down +with his trumpet, he did the work so well and so completely that he +hardly left enough of the city to cast a shadow. The curse pronounced +against the rebuilding of it, has never been removed. One King, holding +the curse in light estimation, made the attempt, but was stricken sorely +for his presumption. Its site will always remain unoccupied; and yet it +is one of the very best locations for a town we have seen in all +Palestine. + +<p>At two in the morning they routed us out of bed—another piece of +unwarranted cruelty—another stupid effort of our dragoman to get ahead +of a rival. It was not two hours to the Jordan. However, we were +dressed and under way before any one thought of looking to see what time +it was, and so we drowsed on through the chill night air and dreamed of +camp fires, warm beds, and other comfortable things. + +<p>There was no conversation. People do not talk when they are cold, and +wretched, and sleepy. We nodded in the saddle, at times, and woke up +with a start to find that the procession had disappeared in the gloom. +Then there was energy and attention to business until its dusky outlines +came in sight again. Occasionally the order was passed in a low voice +down the line: "Close up—close up! Bedouins lurk here, every where!" +What an exquisite shudder it sent shivering along one's spine! + +<p>We reached the famous river before four o'clock, and the night was so +black that we could have ridden into it without seeing it. Some of us +were in an unhappy frame of mind. We waited and waited for daylight, but +it did not come. Finally we went away in the dark and slept an hour on +the ground, in the bushes, and caught cold. It was a costly nap, on that +account, but otherwise it was a paying investment because it brought +unconsciousness of the dreary minutes and put us in a somewhat fitter +mood for a first glimpse of the sacred river. + +<p>With the first suspicion of dawn, every pilgrim took off his clothes and +waded into the dark torrent, singing: + +<br> +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, +<p> And cast a wistful eye +<p> To Canaan's fair and happy land, +<p> Where my possessions lie." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<br> + +<p>But they did not sing long. The water was so fearfully cold that they +were obliged to stop singing and scamper out again. Then they stood on +the bank shivering, and so chagrined and so grieved, that they merited +holiest compassion. Because another dream, another cherished hope, had +failed. They had promised themselves all along that they would cross the +Jordan where the Israelites crossed it when they entered Canaan from +their long pilgrimage in the desert. They would cross where the twelve +stones were placed in memory of that great event. While they did it they +would picture to themselves that vast army of pilgrims marching through +the cloven waters, bearing the hallowed ark of the covenant and shouting +hosannahs, and singing songs of thanksgiving and praise. Each had +promised himself that he would be the first to cross. They were at the +goal of their hopes at last, but the current was too swift, the water was +too cold! + +<p>It was then that Jack did them a service. With that engaging +recklessness of consequences which is natural to youth, and so proper and +so seemly, as well, he went and led the way across the Jordan, and all +was happiness again. Every individual waded over, then, and stood upon +the further bank. The water was not quite breast deep, any where. If it +had been more, we could hardly have accomplished the feat, for the strong +current would have swept us down the stream, and we would have been +exhausted and drowned before reaching a place where we could make a +landing. The main object compassed, the drooping, miserable party sat +down to wait for the sun again, for all wanted to see the water as well +as feel it. But it was too cold a pastime. Some cans were filled from +the holy river, some canes cut from its banks, and then we mounted and +rode reluctantly away to keep from freezing to death. So we saw the +Jordan very dimly. The thickets of bushes that bordered its banks threw +their shadows across its shallow, turbulent waters ("stormy," the hymn +makes them, which is rather a complimentary stretch of fancy,) and we +could not judge of the width of the stream by the eye. We knew by our +wading experience, however, that many streets in America are double as +wide as the Jordan. + +<p>Daylight came, soon after we got under way, and in the course of an hour +or two we reached the Dead Sea. Nothing grows in the flat, burning +desert around it but weeds and the Dead Sea apple the poets say is +beautiful to the eye, but crumbles to ashes and dust when you break it. +Such as we found were not handsome, but they were bitter to the taste. +They yielded no dust. It was because they were not ripe, perhaps. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p594"></a><img alt="p594.jpg (15K)" src="images/p594.jpg" height="295" width="373"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>The desert and the barren hills gleam painfully in the sun, around the +Dead Sea, and there is no pleasant thing or living creature upon it or +about its borders to cheer the eye. It is a scorching, arid, repulsive +solitude. A silence broods over the scene that is depressing to the +spirits. It makes one think of funerals and death. + +<p>The Dead Sea is small. Its waters are very clear, and it has a pebbly +bottom and is shallow for some distance out from the shores. It yields +quantities of asphaltum; fragments of it lie all about its banks; this +stuff gives the place something of an unpleasant smell. + +<p>All our reading had taught us to expect that the first plunge into the +Dead Sea would be attended with distressing results—our bodies would +feel as if they were suddenly pierced by millions of red-hot needles; the +dreadful smarting would continue for hours; we might even look to be +blistered from head to foot, and suffer miserably for many days. We were +disappointed. Our eight sprang in at the same time that another party of +pilgrims did, and nobody screamed once. None of them ever did complain +of any thing more than a slight pricking sensation in places where their +skin was abraded, and then only for a short time. My face smarted for a +couple of hours, but it was partly because I got it badly sun-burned +while I was bathing, and staid in so long that it became plastered over +with salt. + +<p>No, the water did not blister us; it did not cover us with a slimy ooze +and confer upon us an atrocious fragrance; it was not very slimy; and I +could not discover that we smelt really any worse than we have always +smelt since we have been in Palestine. It was only a different kind of +smell, but not conspicuous on that account, because we have a great deal +of variety in that respect. We didn't smell, there on the Jordan, the +same as we do in Jerusalem; and we don't smell in Jerusalem just as we +did in Nazareth, or Tiberias, or Cesarea Philippi, or any of those other +ruinous ancient towns in Galilee. No, we change all the time, and +generally for the worse. We do our own washing. + +<p>It was a funny bath. We could not sink. One could stretch himself at +full length on his back, with his arms on his breast, and all of his body +above a line drawn from the corner of his jaw past the middle of his +side, the middle of his leg and through his ancle bone, would remain out +of water. He could lift his head clear out, if he chose. No position +can be retained long; you lose your balance and whirl over, first on your +back and then on your face, and so on. You can lie comfortably, on your +back, with your head out, and your legs out from your knees down, by +steadying yourself with your hands. You can sit, with your knees drawn +up to your chin and your arms clasped around them, but you are bound to +turn over presently, because you are top-heavy in that position. You can +stand up straight in water that is over your head, and from the middle of +your breast upward you will not be wet. But you can not remain so. The +water will soon float your feet to the surface. You can not swim on your +back and make any progress of any consequence, because your feet stick +away above the surface, and there is nothing to propel yourself with but +your heels. If you swim on your face, you kick up the water like a +stern-wheel boat. You make no headway. A horse is so top-heavy that he +can neither swim nor stand up in the Dead Sea. He turns over on his side +at once. Some of us bathed for more than an hour, and then came out +coated with salt till we shone like icicles. We scrubbed it off with a +coarse towel and rode off with a splendid brand-new smell, though it was +one which was not any more disagreeable than those we have been for +several weeks enjoying. It was the variegated villainy and novelty of it +that charmed us. Salt crystals glitter in the sun about the shores of +the lake. In places they coat the ground like a brilliant crust of ice. + +<p>When I was a boy I somehow got the impression that the river Jordan was +four thousand miles long and thirty-five miles wide. It is only ninety +miles long, and so crooked that a man does not know which side of it he +is on half the time. In going ninety miles it does not get over more +than fifty miles of ground. It is not any wider than Broadway in New +York. + +<p>There is the Sea of Galilee and this Dead Sea—neither of them twenty +miles long or thirteen wide. And yet when I was in Sunday School I +thought they were sixty thousand miles in diameter. + +<p>Travel and experience mar the grandest pictures and rob us of the most +cherished traditions of our boyhood. Well, let them go. I have already +seen the Empire of King Solomon diminish to the size of the State of +Pennsylvania; I suppose I can bear the reduction of the seas and the +river. + +<p>We looked every where, as we passed along, but never saw grain or crystal +of Lot's wife. It was a great disappointment. For many and many a year +we had known her sad story, and taken that interest in her which +misfortune always inspires. But she was gone. Her picturesque form no +longer looms above the desert of the Dead Sea to remind the tourist of +the doom that fell upon the lost cities. + +<p>I can not describe the hideous afternoon's ride from the Dead Sea to Mars +Saba. It oppresses me yet, to think of it. The sun so pelted us that +the tears ran down our cheeks once or twice. The ghastly, treeless, +grassless, breathless canons smothered us as if we had been in an oven. +The sun had positive weight to it, I think. Not a man could sit erect +under it. All drooped low in the saddles. John preached in this +"Wilderness!" It must have been exhausting work. What a very heaven the +messy towers and ramparts of vast Mars Saba looked to us when we caught a +first glimpse of them! + +<p>We staid at this great convent all night, guests of the hospitable +priests. Mars Saba, perched upon a crag, a human nest stock high up +against a perpendicular mountain wall, is a world of grand masonry that +rises, terrace upon terrace away above your head, like the terraced and +retreating colonnades one sees in fanciful pictures of Belshazzar's Feast +and the palaces of the ancient Pharaohs. No other human dwelling is +near. It was founded many ages ago by a holy recluse who lived at first +in a cave in the rock—a cave which is inclosed in the convent walls, +now, and was reverently shown to us by the priests. This recluse, by his +rigorous torturing of his flesh, his diet of bread and water, his utter +withdrawal from all society and from the vanities of the world, and his +constant prayer and saintly contemplation of a skull, inspired an +emulation that brought about him many disciples. The precipice on the +opposite side of the canyon is well perforated with the small holes they +dug in the rock to live in. The present occupants of Mars Saba, about +seventy in number, are all hermits. They wear a coarse robe, an ugly, +brimless stove-pipe of a hat, and go without shoes. They eat nothing +whatever but bread and salt; they drink nothing but water. As long as +they live they can never go outside the walls, or look upon a woman—for +no woman is permitted to enter Mars Saba, upon any pretext whatsoever. + +<p>Some of those men have been shut up there for thirty years. In all that +dreary time they have not heard the laughter of a child or the blessed +voice of a woman; they have seen no human tears, no human smiles; they +have known no human joys, no wholesome human sorrows. In their hearts +are no memories of the past, in their brains no dreams of the future. +All that is lovable, beautiful, worthy, they have put far away from them; +against all things that are pleasant to look upon, and all sounds that +are music to the ear, they have barred their massive doors and reared +their relentless walls of stone forever. They have banished the tender +grace of life and left only the sapped and skinny mockery. Their lips +are lips that never kiss and never sing; their hearts are hearts that +never hate and never love; their breasts are breasts that never swell +with the sentiment, "I have a country and a flag." They are dead men who +walk. + +<p>I set down these first thoughts because they are natural—not because +they are just or because it is right to set them down. It is easy for +book-makers to say "I thought so and so as I looked upon such and such a +scene"—when the truth is, they thought all those fine things afterwards. +One's first thought is not likely to be strictly accurate, yet it is no +crime to think it and none to write it down, subject to modification by +later experience. These hermits are dead men, in several respects, but +not in all; and it is not proper, that, thinking ill of them at first, I +should go on doing so, or, speaking ill of them I should reiterate the +words and stick to them. No, they treated us too kindly for that. There +is something human about them somewhere. They knew we were foreigners +and Protestants, and not likely to feel admiration or much friendliness +toward them. But their large charity was above considering such things. +They simply saw in us men who were hungry, and thirsty, and tired, and +that was sufficient. They opened their doors and gave us welcome. They +asked no questions, and they made no self-righteous display of their +hospitality. They fished for no compliments. They moved quietly about, +setting the table for us, making the beds, and bringing water to wash in, +and paid no heed when we said it was wrong for them to do that when we +had men whose business it was to perform such offices. We fared most +comfortably, and sat late at dinner. We walked all over the building +with the hermits afterward, and then sat on the lofty battlements and +smoked while we enjoyed the cool air, the wild scenery and the sunset. +One or two chose cosy bed-rooms to sleep in, but the nomadic instinct +prompted the rest to sleep on the broad divan that extended around the +great hall, because it seemed like sleeping out of doors, and so was more +cheery and inviting. It was a royal rest we had. + +<p>When we got up to breakfast in the morning, we were new men. For all +this hospitality no strict charge was made. We could give something if +we chose; we need give nothing, if we were poor or if we were stingy. +The pauper and the miser are as free as any in the Catholic Convents of +Palestine. I have been educated to enmity toward every thing that is +Catholic, and sometimes, in consequence of this, I find it much easier to +discover Catholic faults than Catholic merits. But there is one thing I +feel no disposition to overlook, and no disposition to forget: and that +is, the honest gratitude I and all pilgrims owe, to the Convent Fathers +in Palestine. Their doors are always open, and there is always a welcome +for any worthy man who comes, whether he comes in rags or clad in purple. +The Catholic Convents are a priceless blessing to the poor. A pilgrim +without money, whether he be a Protestant or a Catholic, can travel the +length and breadth of Palestine, and in the midst of her desert wastes +find wholesome food and a clean bed every night, in these buildings. +Pilgrims in better circumstances are often stricken down by the sun and +the fevers of the country, and then their saving refuge is the Convent. +Without these hospitable retreats, travel in Palestine would be a +pleasure which none but the strongest men could dare to undertake. Our +party, pilgrims and all, will always be ready and always willing, to +touch glasses and drink health, prosperity and long life to the Convent +Fathers of Palestine. + +<p>So, rested and refreshed, we fell into line and filed away over the +barren mountains of Judea, and along rocky ridges and through sterile +gorges, where eternal silence and solitude reigned. Even the scattering +groups of armed shepherds we met the afternoon before, tending their +flocks of long-haired goats, were wanting here. We saw but two living +creatures. They were gazelles, of "soft-eyed" notoriety. They looked +like very young kids, but they annihilated distance like an express +train. I have not seen animals that moved faster, unless I might say it +of the antelopes of our own great plains. + +<p>At nine or ten in the morning we reached the Plain of the Shepherds, and +stood in a walled garden of olives where the shepherds were watching +their flocks by night, eighteen centuries ago, when the multitude of +angels brought them the tidings that the Saviour was born. A quarter of +a mile away was Bethlehem of Judea, and the pilgrims took some of the +stone wall and hurried on. + +<p>The Plain of the Shepherds is a desert, paved with loose stones, void of +vegetation, glaring in the fierce sun. Only the music of the angels it +knew once could charm its shrubs and flowers to life again and restore +its vanished beauty. No less potent enchantment could avail to work this +miracle. + +<p>In the huge Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem, built fifteen hundred +years ago by the inveterate St. Helena, they took us below ground, and +into a grotto cut in the living rock. This was the "manger" where Christ +was born. A silver star set in the floor bears a Latin inscription to +that effect. It is polished with the kisses of many generations of +worshiping pilgrims. The grotto was tricked out in the usual tasteless +style observable in all the holy places of Palestine. As in the Church +of the Holy Sepulchre, envy and uncharitableness were apparent here. The +priests and the members of the Greek and Latin churches can not come by +the same corridor to kneel in the sacred birthplace of the Redeemer, but +are compelled to approach and retire by different avenues, lest they +quarrel and fight on this holiest ground on earth. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p600"></a><img alt="p600.jpg (79K)" src="images/p600.jpg" height="408" width="658"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>I have no "meditations," suggested by this spot where the very first +"Merry Christmas!" was uttered in all the world, and from whence the +friend of my childhood, Santa Claus, departed on his first journey, to +gladden and continue to gladden roaring firesides on wintry mornings in +many a distant land forever and forever. I touch, with reverent finger, +the actual spot where the infant Jesus lay, but I think—nothing. + +<p>You can not think in this place any more than you can in any other in +Palestine that would be likely to inspire reflection. Beggars, cripples +and monks compass you about, and make you think only of bucksheesh when +you would rather think of something more in keeping with the character of +the spot. + +<p>I was glad to get away, and glad when we had walked through the grottoes +where Eusebius wrote, and Jerome fasted, and Joseph prepared for the +flight into Egypt, and the dozen other distinguished grottoes, and knew +we were done. The Church of the Nativity is almost as well packed with +exceeding holy places as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself. They +even have in it a grotto wherein twenty thousand children were +slaughtered by Herod when he was seeking the life of the infant Saviour. + +<p>We went to the Milk Grotto, of course—a cavern where Mary hid herself +for a while before the flight into Egypt. Its walls were black before +she entered, but in suckling the Child, a drop of her milk fell upon the +floor and instantly changed the darkness of the walls to its own snowy +hue. We took many little fragments of stone from here, because it is +well known in all the East that a barren woman hath need only to touch +her lips to one of these and her failing will depart from her. We took +many specimens, to the end that we might confer happiness upon certain +households that we wot of. + +<p>We got away from Bethlehem and its troops of beggars and relic-peddlers +in the afternoon, and after spending some little time at Rachel's tomb, +hurried to Jerusalem as fast as possible. I never was so glad to get +home again before. I never have enjoyed rest as I have enjoyed it during +these last few hours. The journey to the Dead Sea, the Jordan and +Bethlehem was short, but it was an exhausting one. Such roasting heat, +such oppressive solitude, and such dismal desolation can not surely exist +elsewhere on earth. And such fatigue! + +<p>The commonest sagacity warns me that I ought to tell the customary +pleasant lie, and say I tore myself reluctantly away from every noted +place in Palestine. Every body tells that, but with as little +ostentation as I may, I doubt the word of every he who tells it. I could +take a dreadful oath that I have never heard any one of our forty +pilgrims say any thing of the sort, and they are as worthy and as +sincerely devout as any that come here. They will say it when they get +home, fast enough, but why should they not? They do not wish to array +themselves against all the Lamartines and Grimeses in the world. It does +not stand to reason that men are reluctant to leave places where the very +life is almost badgered out of them by importunate swarms of beggars and +peddlers who hang in strings to one's sleeves and coat-tails and shriek +and shout in his ears and horrify his vision with the ghastly sores and +malformations they exhibit. One is glad to get away. I have heard +shameless people say they were glad to get away from Ladies' Festivals +where they were importuned to buy by bevies of lovely young ladies. +Transform those houris into dusky hags and ragged savages, and replace +their rounded forms with shrunken and knotted distortions, their soft +hands with scarred and hideous deformities, and the persuasive music of +their voices with the discordant din of a hated language, and then see +how much lingering reluctance to leave could be mustered. No, it is the +neat thing to say you were reluctant, and then append the profound +thoughts that "struggled for utterance," in your brain; but it is the +true thing to say you were not reluctant, and found it impossible to +think at all—though in good sooth it is not respectable to say it, and +not poetical, either. + +<p>We do not think, in the holy places; we think in bed, afterwards, when +the glare, and the noise, and the confusion are gone, and in fancy we +revisit alone, the solemn monuments of the past, and summon the phantom +pageants of an age that has passed away. + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch56"></a>CHAPTER LVI. +</h2> +<p>We visited all the holy places about Jerusalem which we had left +unvisited when we journeyed to the Jordan and then, about three o'clock +one afternoon, we fell into procession and marched out at the stately +Damascus gate, and the walls of Jerusalem shut us out forever. We paused +on the summit of a distant hill and took a final look and made a final +farewell to the venerable city which had been such a good home to us. + +<p>For about four hours we traveled down hill constantly. We followed a +narrow bridle-path which traversed the beds of the mountain gorges, and +when we could we got out of the way of the long trains of laden camels +and asses, and when we could not we suffered the misery of being mashed +up against perpendicular walls of rock and having our legs bruised by the +passing freight. Jack was caught two or three times, and Dan and Moult +as often. One horse had a heavy fall on the slippery rocks, and the +others had narrow escapes. However, this was as good a road as we had +found in Palestine, and possibly even the best, and so there was not much +grumbling. + +<p>Sometimes, in the glens, we came upon luxuriant orchards of figs, +apricots, pomegranates, and such things, but oftener the scenery was +rugged, mountainous, verdureless and forbidding. Here and there, towers +were perched high up on acclivities which seemed almost inaccessible. +This fashion is as old as Palestine itself and was adopted in ancient +times for security against enemies. + +<p>We crossed the brook which furnished David the stone that killed Goliah, +and no doubt we looked upon the very ground whereon that noted battle was +fought. We passed by a picturesque old gothic ruin whose stone pavements +had rung to the armed heels of many a valorous Crusader, and we rode +through a piece of country which we were told once knew Samson as a +citizen. + +<p>We staid all night with the good monks at the convent of Ramleh, and in +the morning got up and galloped the horses a good part of the distance +from there to Jaffa, or Joppa, for the plain was as level as a floor and +free from stones, and besides this was our last march in Holy Land. +These two or three hours finished, we and the tired horses could have +rest and sleep as long as we wanted it. This was the plain of which +Joshua spoke when he said, "Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou +moon in the valley of Ajalon." As we drew near to Jaffa, the boys +spurred up the horses and indulged in the excitement of an actual +race—an experience we had hardly had since we raced on donkeys in the Azores +islands. + +<p>We came finally to the noble grove of orange-trees in which the Oriental +city of Jaffa lies buried; we passed through the walls, and rode again +down narrow streets and among swarms of animated rags, and saw other +sights and had other experiences we had long been familiar with. We +dismounted, for the last time, and out in the offing, riding at anchor, +we saw the ship! I put an exclamation point there because we felt one +when we saw the vessel. The long pilgrimage was ended, and somehow we +seemed to feel glad of it. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p606"></a><img alt="p606.jpg (75K)" src="images/p606.jpg" height="408" width="648"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>[For description of Jaffa, see Universal Gazetteer.] Simon the Tanner +formerly lived here. We went to his house. All the pilgrims visit Simon +the Tanner's house. Peter saw the vision of the beasts let down in a +sheet when he lay upon the roof of Simon the Tanner's house. It was from +Jaffa that Jonah sailed when he was told to go and prophesy against +Nineveh, and no doubt it was not far from the town that the whale threw +him up when he discovered that he had no ticket. Jonah was disobedient, +and of a fault-finding, complaining disposition, and deserves to be +lightly spoken of, almost. The timbers used in the construction of +Solomon's Temple were floated to Jaffa in rafts, and the narrow opening +in the reef through which they passed to the shore is not an inch wider +or a shade less dangerous to navigate than it was then. Such is the +sleepy nature of the population Palestine's only good seaport has now and +always had. Jaffa has a history and a stirring one. It will not be +discovered any where in this book. If the reader will call at the +circulating library and mention my name, he will be furnished with books +which will afford him the fullest information concerning Jaffa. + +<p>So ends the pilgrimage. We ought to be glad that we did not make it for +the purpose of feasting our eyes upon fascinating aspects of nature, for +we should have been disappointed—at least at this season of the year. A +writer in "Life in the Holy Land" observes: +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + "Monotonous and uninviting as much of the Holy Land will appear to + persons accustomed to the almost constant verdure of flowers, ample + streams and varied surface of our own country, we must remember that + its aspect to the Israelites after the weary march of forty years + through the desert must have been very different." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Which all of us will freely grant. But it truly is "monotonous and +uninviting," and there is no sufficient reason for describing it as being +otherwise. + +<p>Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be +the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are +unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a +feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and +despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee sleep in the midst of a +vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the eye rests upon no pleasant +tint, no striking object, no soft picture dreaming in a purple haze or +mottled with the shadows of the clouds. Every outline is harsh, every +feature is distinct, there is no perspective—distance works no +enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land. + +<p>Small shreds and patches of it must be very beautiful in the full flush +of spring, however, and all the more beautiful by contrast with the +far-reaching desolation that surrounds them on every side. I would like much +to see the fringes of the Jordan in spring-time, and Shechem, Esdraelon, +Ajalon and the borders of Galilee—but even then these spots would seem +mere toy gardens set at wide intervals in the waste of a limitless +desolation. + +<p>Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a +curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Where +Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea now +floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists—over +whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs motionless and +dead—about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scattering tufts of +cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to parching +lips, but turns to ashes at the touch. Nazareth is forlorn; about that +ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with +songs of rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins +of the desert; Jericho the accursed, lies a moldering ruin, to-day, even +as Joshua's miracle left it more than three thousand years ago; Bethlehem +and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about +them now to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the +Saviour's presence; the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched their +flocks by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, good will to +men, is untenanted by any living creature, and unblessed by any feature +that is pleasant to the eye. Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest +name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a +pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer there to compel the +admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple which was +the pride and the glory of Israel, is gone, and the Ottoman crescent is +lifted above the spot where, on that most memorable day in the annals of +the world, they reared the Holy Cross. The noted Sea of Galilee, where +Roman fleets once rode at anchor and the disciples of the Saviour sailed +in their ships, was long ago deserted by the devotees of war and +commerce, and its borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is a +shapeless ruin; Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and +Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" round +about them where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour's voice +and ate the miraculous bread, sleep in the hush of a solitude that is +inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes. + +<p>Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can +the curse of the Deity beautify a land? + +<p>Palestine is no more of this work-day world. It is sacred to poetry and +tradition—it is dream-land. + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch57"></a>CHAPTER LVII. +</h2> +<p>It was worth a kingdom to be at sea again. It was a relief to drop all +anxiety whatsoever—all questions as to where we should go; how long we +should stay; whether it were worth while to go or not; all anxieties +about the condition of the horses; all such questions as "Shall we ever +get to water?" "Shall we ever lunch?" "Ferguson, how many more million +miles have we got to creep under this awful sun before we camp?" It was +a relief to cast all these torturing little anxieties far away—ropes of +steel they were, and every one with a separate and distinct strain on +it—and feel the temporary contentment that is born of the banishment of +all care and responsibility. We did not look at the compass: we did not +care, now, where the ship went to, so that she went out of sight of land +as quickly as possible. When I travel again, I wish to go in a pleasure +ship. No amount of money could have purchased for us, in a strange +vessel and among unfamiliar faces, the perfect satisfaction and the sense +of being at home again which we experienced when we stepped on board the +"Quaker City,"—our own ship—after this wearisome pilgrimage. It is a +something we have felt always when we returned to her, and a something we +had no desire to sell. + +<p>We took off our blue woollen shirts, our spurs, and heavy boots, our +sanguinary revolvers and our buckskin-seated pantaloons, and got shaved +and came out in Christian costume once more. All but Jack, who changed +all other articles of his dress, but clung to his traveling pantaloons. +They still preserved their ample buckskin seat intact; and so his short +pea jacket and his long, thin legs assisted to make him a picturesque +object whenever he stood on the forecastle looking abroad upon the ocean +over the bows. At such times his father's last injunction suggested +itself to me. He said: + +<p>"Jack, my boy, you are about to go among a brilliant company of gentlemen +and ladies, who are refined and cultivated, and thoroughly accomplished +in the manners and customs of good society. Listen to their +conversation, study their habits of life, and learn. Be polite and +obliging to all, and considerate towards every one's opinions, failings +and prejudices. Command the just respect of all your fellow-voyagers, +even though you fail to win their friendly regard. And Jack—don't you +ever dare, while you live, appear in public on those decks in fair +weather, in a costume unbecoming your mother's drawing-room!" + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p610"></a><img alt="p610.jpg (20K)" src="images/p610.jpg" height="483" width="321"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>It would have been worth any price if the father of this hopeful youth +could have stepped on board some time, and seen him standing high on the +fore-castle, pea jacket, tasseled red fez, buckskin patch and all, +placidly contemplating the ocean—a rare spectacle for any body's +drawing-room. + +<p>After a pleasant voyage and a good rest, we drew near to Egypt and out of +the mellowest of sunsets we saw the domes and minarets of Alexandria rise +into view. As soon as the anchor was down, Jack and I got a boat and +went ashore. It was night by this time, and the other passengers were +content to remain at home and visit ancient Egypt after breakfast. It +was the way they did at Constantinople. They took a lively interest in +new countries, but their school-boy impatience had worn off, and they had +learned that it was wisdom to take things easy and go along +comfortably—these old countries do not go away in the night; they stay till after +breakfast. + +<p>When we reached the pier we found an army of Egyptian boys with donkeys +no larger than themselves, waiting for passengers—for donkeys are the +omnibuses of Egypt. We preferred to walk, but we could not have our own +way. The boys crowded about us, clamored around us, and slewed their +donkeys exactly across our path, no matter which way we turned. They +were good-natured rascals, and so were the donkeys. We mounted, and the +boys ran behind us and kept the donkeys in a furious gallop, as is the +fashion at Damascus. I believe I would rather ride a donkey than any +beast in the world. He goes briskly, he puts on no airs, he is docile, +though opinionated. Satan himself could not scare him, and he is +convenient—very convenient. When you are tired riding you can rest your +feet on the ground and let him gallop from under you. + + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p611"></a><img alt="p611.jpg (29K)" src="images/p611.jpg" height="479" width="453"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>We found the hotel and secured rooms, and were happy to know that the +Prince of Wales had stopped there once. They had it every where on +signs. No other princes had stopped there since, till Jack and I came. +We went abroad through the town, then, and found it a city of huge +commercial buildings, and broad, handsome streets brilliant with +gas-light. By night it was a sort of reminiscence of Paris. But finally +Jack found an ice-cream saloon, and that closed investigations for that +evening. The weather was very hot, it had been many a day since Jack had +seen ice-cream, and so it was useless to talk of leaving the saloon till +it shut up. + +<p>In the morning the lost tribes of America came ashore and infested the +hotels and took possession of all the donkeys and other open barouches +that offered. They went in picturesque procession to the American +Consul's; to the great gardens; to Cleopatra's Needles; to Pompey's +Pillar; to the palace of the Viceroy of Egypt; to the Nile; to the superb +groves of date-palms. One of our most inveterate relic-hunters had his +hammer with him, and tried to break a fragment off the upright Needle and +could not do it; he tried the prostrate one and failed; he borrowed a +heavy sledge hammer from a mason and tried again. He tried Pompey's +Pillar, and this baffled him. Scattered all about the mighty monolith +were sphinxes of noble countenance, carved out of Egyptian granite as +hard as blue steel, and whose shapely features the wear of five thousand +years had failed to mark or mar. The relic-hunter battered at these +persistently, and sweated profusely over his work. He might as well have +attempted to deface the moon. They regarded him serenely with the +stately smile they had worn so long, and which seemed to say, "Peck away, +poor insect; we were not made to fear such as you; in ten-score dragging +ages we have seen more of your kind than there are sands at your feet: +have they left a blemish upon us?" + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p612"></a><img alt="p612.jpg (17K)" src="images/p612.jpg" height="407" width="345"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>But I am forgetting the Jaffa Colonists. At Jaffa we had taken on board +some forty members of a very celebrated community. They were male and +female; babies, young boys and young girls; young married people, and +some who had passed a shade beyond the prime of life. I refer to the +"Adams Jaffa Colony." Others had deserted before. We left in Jaffa Mr. +Adams, his wife, and fifteen unfortunates who not only had no money but +did not know where to turn or whither to go. Such was the statement made +to us. Our forty were miserable enough in the first place, and they lay +about the decks seasick all the voyage, which about completed their +misery, I take it. However, one or two young men remained upright, and +by constant persecution we wormed out of them some little information. +They gave it reluctantly and in a very fragmentary condition, for, having +been shamefully humbugged by their prophet, they felt humiliated and +unhappy. In such circumstances people do not like to talk. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p614"></a><img alt="p614.jpg (21K)" src="images/p614.jpg" height="419" width="347"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>The colony was a complete fiasco. I have already said that such as could +get away did so, from time to time. The prophet Adams—once an actor, +then several other things, afterward a Mormon and a missionary, always an +adventurer—remains at Jaffa with his handful of sorrowful subjects. The +forty we brought away with us were chiefly destitute, though not all of +them. They wished to get to Egypt. What might become of them then they +did not know and probably did not care—any thing to get away from hated +Jaffa. They had little to hope for. Because after many appeals to the +sympathies of New England, made by strangers of Boston, through the +newspapers, and after the establishment of an office there for the +reception of moneyed contributions for the Jaffa colonists, One Dollar +was subscribed. The consul-general for Egypt showed me the newspaper +paragraph which mentioned the circumstance and mentioned also the +discontinuance of the effort and the closing of the office. It was +evident that practical New England was not sorry to be rid of such +visionaries and was not in the least inclined to hire any body to bring +them back to her. Still, to get to Egypt, was something, in the eyes of +the unfortunate colonists, hopeless as the prospect seemed of ever +getting further. + +<p>Thus circumstanced, they landed at Alexandria from our ship. One of our +passengers, Mr. Moses S. Beach, of the New York Sun, inquired of the +consul-general what it would cost to send these people to their home in +Maine by the way of Liverpool, and he said fifteen hundred dollars in +gold would do it. Mr. Beach gave his check for the money and so the +troubles of the Jaffa colonists were at an end. + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> +*It was an unselfish act of benevolence; it was done without any +ostentation, and has never been mentioned in any newspaper, I think. +Therefore it is refreshing to learn now, several months after the +above narrative was written, that another man received all the credit +of this rescue of the colonists. Such is life. +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p615"></a><img alt="p615.jpg (20K)" src="images/p615.jpg" height="421" width="357"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Alexandria was too much like a European city to be novel, and we soon +tired of it. We took the cars and came up here to ancient Cairo, which +is an Oriental city and of the completest pattern. There is little about +it to disabuse one's mind of the error if he should take it into his head +that he was in the heart of Arabia. Stately camels and dromedaries, +swarthy Egyptians, and likewise Turks and black Ethiopians, turbaned, +sashed, and blazing in a rich variety of Oriental costumes of all shades +of flashy colors, are what one sees on every hand crowding the narrow +streets and the honeycombed bazaars. We are stopping at Shepherd's +Hotel, which is the worst on earth except the one I stopped at once in a +small town in the United States. It is pleasant to read this sketch in +my note-book, now, and know that I can stand Shepherd's Hotel, sure, +because I have been in one just like it in America and survived: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> I stopped at the Benton House. It used to be a good hotel, but that + proves nothing—I used to be a good boy, for that matter. Both of + us have lost character of late years. The Benton is not a good + hotel. The Benton lacks a very great deal of being a good hotel. + Perdition is full of better hotels than the Benton. + +<p> It was late at night when I got there, and I told the clerk I would + like plenty of lights, because I wanted to read an hour or two. + When I reached No. 15 with the porter (we came along a dim hall that + was clad in ancient carpeting, faded, worn out in many places, and + patched with old scraps of oil cloth—a hall that sank under one's + feet, and creaked dismally to every footstep,) he struck a + light—two inches of sallow, sorrowful, consumptive tallow candle, that + burned blue, and sputtered, and got discouraged and went out. The + porter lit it again, and I asked if that was all the light the clerk + sent. He said, "Oh no, I've got another one here," and he produced + another couple of inches of tallow candle. I said, "Light them both + —I'll have to have one to see the other by." He did it, but the + result was drearier than darkness itself. He was a cheery, + accommodating rascal. He said he would go "somewheres" and steal a + lamp. I abetted and encouraged him in his criminal design. I heard + the landlord get after him in the hall ten minutes afterward. + +<p> "Where are you going with that lamp?" + +<p> "Fifteen wants it, sir." + +<p> "Fifteen! why he's got a double lot of candles—does the man want + to illuminate the house?—does he want to get up a torch-light + procession?—what is he up to, any how?" + +<p> "He don't like them candles—says he wants a lamp." + +<p> "Why what in the nation does——why I never heard of such a thing? + What on earth can he want with that lamp?" + +<p> "Well, he only wants to read—that's what he says." + +<p> "Wants to read, does he?—ain't satisfied with a thousand candles, + but has to have a lamp!—I do wonder what the devil that fellow + wants that lamp for? Take him another candle, and then if——" + +<p> "But he wants the lamp—says he'll burn the d—d old house down if + he don't get a lamp!" (a remark which I never made.) + +<p> "I'd like to see him at it once. Well, you take it along—but I + swear it beats my time, though—and see if you can't find out what + in the very nation he wants with that lamp." + +<p> And he went off growling to himself and still wondering and + wondering over the unaccountable conduct of No. 15. The lamp was a + good one, but it revealed some disagreeable things—a bed in the + suburbs of a desert of room—a bed that had hills and valleys in it, + and you'd have to accommodate your body to the impression left in it + by the man that slept there last, before you could lie comfortably; + a carpet that had seen better days; a melancholy washstand in a + remote corner, and a dejected pitcher on it sorrowing over a broken + nose; a looking-glass split across the centre, which chopped your + head off at the chin and made you look like some dreadful unfinished + monster or other; the paper peeling in shreds from the walls. + +<p> I sighed and said: "This is charming; and now don't you think you + could get me something to read?" + +<p> The porter said, "Oh, certainly; the old man's got dead loads of + books;" and he was gone before I could tell him what sort of + literature I would rather have. And yet his countenance expressed + the utmost confidence in his ability to execute the commission with + credit to himself. The old man made a descent on him. + +<p> "What are you going to do with that pile of books?" + +<p> "Fifteen wants 'em, sir." + +<p> "Fifteen, is it? He'll want a warming-pan, next—he'll want a + nurse! Take him every thing there is in the house—take him the + bar-keeper—take him the baggage-wagon—take him a chamber-maid! + Confound me, I never saw any thing like it. What did he say he + wants with those books?" + +<p> "Wants to read 'em, like enough; it ain't likely he wants to eat + 'em, I don't reckon." + +<p> "Wants to read 'em—wants to read 'em this time of night, the + infernal lunatic! Well, he can't have them." + +<p> "But he says he's mor'ly bound to have 'em; he says he'll just go + a-rairin' and a-chargin' through this house and raise more—well, + there's no tellin' what he won't do if he don't get 'em; because + he's drunk and crazy and desperate, and nothing'll soothe him down + but them cussed books." [I had not made any threats, and was not in + the condition ascribed to me by the porter.] + +<p> "Well, go on; but I will be around when he goes to rairing and + charging, and the first rair he makes I'll make him rair out of the + window." And then the old gentleman went off, growling as before. + +<p> The genius of that porter was something wonderful. He put an armful + of books on the bed and said "Good night" as confidently as if he + knew perfectly well that those books were exactly my style of + reading matter. And well he might. His selection covered the whole + range of legitimate literature. It comprised "The Great + Consummation," by Rev. Dr. Cummings—theology; "Revised Statutes of + the State of Missouri"—law; "The Complete Horse-Doctor"—medicine; + "The Toilers of the Sea," by Victor Hugo—romance; "The works of + William Shakspeare"—poetry. I shall never cease to admire the tact + and the intelligence of that gifted porter. +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p617"></a><img alt="p617.jpg (23K)" src="images/p617.jpg" height="371" width="347"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>But all the donkeys in Christendom, and most of the Egyptian boys, I +think, are at the door, and there is some noise going on, not to put it +in stronger language.—We are about starting to the illustrious Pyramids +of Egypt, and the donkeys for the voyage are under inspection. I will go +and select one before the choice animals are all taken. + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch58"></a>CHAPTER LVIII. +</h2> +<p>The donkeys were all good, all handsome, all strong and in good +condition, all fast and all willing to prove it. They were the best we +had found any where, and the most 'recherche'. I do not know what +'recherche' is, but that is what these donkeys were, anyhow. Some were +of a soft mouse-color, and the others were white, black, and +vari-colored. Some were close-shaven, all over, except that a tuft like a +paint-brush was left on the end of the tail. Others were so shaven in +fanciful landscape garden patterns, as to mark their bodies with curving +lines, which were bounded on one side by hair and on the other by the +close plush left by the shears. They had all been newly barbered, and +were exceedingly stylish. Several of the white ones were barred like +zebras with rainbow stripes of blue and red and yellow paint. These were +indescribably gorgeous. Dan and Jack selected from this lot because they +brought back Italian reminiscences of the "old masters." The saddles +were the high, stuffy, frog-shaped things we had known in Ephesus and +Smyrna. The donkey-boys were lively young Egyptian rascals who could +follow a donkey and keep him in a canter half a day without tiring. We +had plenty of spectators when we mounted, for the hotel was full of +English people bound overland to India and officers getting ready for the +African campaign against the Abyssinian King Theodorus. We were not a +very large party, but as we charged through the streets of the great +metropolis, we made noise for five hundred, and displayed activity and +created excitement in proportion. Nobody can steer a donkey, and some +collided with camels, dervishes, effendis, asses, beggars and every thing +else that offered to the donkeys a reasonable chance for a collision. +When we turned into the broad avenue that leads out of the city toward +Old Cairo, there was plenty of room. The walls of stately date-palms +that fenced the gardens and bordered the way, threw their shadows down +and made the air cool and bracing. We rose to the spirit of the time and +the race became a wild rout, a stampede, a terrific panic. I wish to +live to enjoy it again. + +<p>Somewhere along this route we had a few startling exhibitions of Oriental +simplicity. A girl apparently thirteen years of age came along the great +thoroughfare dressed like Eve before the fall. We would have called her +thirteen at home; but here girls who look thirteen are often not more +than nine, in reality. Occasionally we saw stark-naked men of superb +build, bathing, and making no attempt at concealment. However, an hour's +acquaintance with this cheerful custom reconciled the pilgrims to it, and +then it ceased to occasion remark. Thus easily do even the most +startling novelties grow tame and spiritless to these sight-surfeited +wanderers. + +<p>Arrived at Old Cairo, the camp-followers took up the donkeys and tumbled +them bodily aboard a small boat with a lateen sail, and we followed and +got under way. The deck was closely packed with donkeys and men; the two +sailors had to climb over and under and through the wedged mass to work +the sails, and the steersman had to crowd four or five donkeys out of the +way when he wished to swing his tiller and put his helm hard-down. But +what were their troubles to us? We had nothing to do; nothing to do but +enjoy the trip; nothing to do but shove the donkeys off our corns and +look at the charming scenery of the Nile. + +<p>On the island at our right was the machine they call the Nilometer, a +stone-column whose business it is to mark the rise of the river and +prophecy whether it will reach only thirty-two feet and produce a famine, +or whether it will properly flood the land at forty and produce plenty, +or whether it will rise to forty-three and bring death and destruction to +flocks and crops—but how it does all this they could not explain to us +so that we could understand. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p620"></a><img alt="p620.jpg (25K)" src="images/p620.jpg" height="639" width="311"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>On the same island is still shown the spot +where Pharaoh's daughter found Moses in the bulrushes. Near the spot we +sailed from, the Holy Family dwelt when they sojourned in Egypt till +Herod should complete his slaughter of the innocents. The same tree they +rested under when they first arrived, was there a short time ago, but the +Viceroy of Egypt sent it to the Empress Eugenie lately. He was just in +time, otherwise our pilgrims would have had it. + +<p>The Nile at this point is muddy, swift and turbid, and does not lack a +great deal of being as wide as the Mississippi. + +<p>We scrambled up the steep bank at the shabby town of Ghizeh, mounted the +donkeys again, and scampered away. For four or five miles the route lay +along a high embankment which they say is to be the bed of a railway the +Sultan means to build for no other reason than that when the Empress of +the French comes to visit him she can go to the Pyramids in comfort. +This is true Oriental hospitality. I am very glad it is our privilege to +have donkeys instead of cars. + +<p>At the distance of a few miles the Pyramids rising above the palms, +looked very clean-cut, very grand and imposing, and very soft and filmy, +as well. They swam in a rich haze that took from them all suggestions of +unfeeling stone, and made them seem only the airy nothings of a +dream—structures which might blossom into tiers of vague arches, or ornate +colonnades, may be, and change and change again, into all graceful forms +of architecture, while we looked, and then melt deliciously away and +blend with the tremulous atmosphere. + +<p>At the end of the levee we left the mules and went in a sailboat across +an arm of the Nile or an overflow, and landed where the sands of the +Great Sahara left their embankment, as straight as a wall, along the +verge of the alluvial plain of the river. A laborious walk in the +flaming sun brought us to the foot of the great Pyramid of Cheops. It +was a fairy vision no longer. It was a corrugated, unsightly mountain of +stone. Each of its monstrous sides was a wide stairway which rose +upward, step above step, narrowing as it went, till it tapered to a point +far aloft in the air. Insect men and women—pilgrims from the Quaker +City—were creeping about its dizzy perches, and one little black swarm +were waving postage stamps from the airy summit—handkerchiefs will be +understood. + +<p>Of course we were besieged by a rabble of muscular Egyptians and Arabs +who wanted the contract of dragging us to the top—all tourists are. Of +course you could not hear your own voice for the din that was around you. +Of course the Sheiks said they were the only responsible parties; that +all contracts must be made with them, all moneys paid over to them, and +none exacted from us by any but themselves alone. Of course they +contracted that the varlets who dragged us up should not mention +bucksheesh once. For such is the usual routine. Of course we contracted +with them, paid them, were delivered into the hands of the draggers, +dragged up the Pyramids, and harried and be-deviled for bucksheesh from +the foundation clear to the summit. We paid it, too, for we were +purposely spread very far apart over the vast side of the Pyramid. There +was no help near if we called, and the Herculeses who dragged us had a +way of asking sweetly and flatteringly for bucksheesh, which was +seductive, and of looking fierce and threatening to throw us down the +precipice, which was persuasive and convincing. + +<p>Each step being full as high as a dinner-table; there being very, very +many of the steps; an Arab having hold of each of our arms and springing +upward from step to step and snatching us with them, forcing us to lift +our feet as high as our breasts every time, and do it rapidly and keep it +up till we were ready to faint, who shall say it is not lively, +exhilarating, lacerating, muscle-straining, bone-wrenching and perfectly +excruciating and exhausting pastime, climbing the Pyramids? I beseeched +the varlets not to twist all my joints asunder; I iterated, reiterated, +even swore to them that I did not wish to beat any body to the top; did +all I could to convince them that if I got there the last of all I would +feel blessed above men and grateful to them forever; I begged them, +prayed them, pleaded with them to let me stop and rest a moment—only one +little moment: and they only answered with some more frightful springs, +and an unenlisted volunteer behind opened a bombardment of determined +boosts with his head which threatened to batter my whole political +economy to wreck and ruin. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p622"></a><img alt="p622.jpg (47K)" src="images/p622.jpg" height="549" width="585"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Twice, for one minute, they let me rest while they extorted bucksheesh, +and then continued their maniac flight up the Pyramid. They wished to +beat the other parties. It was nothing to them that I, a stranger, must +be sacrificed upon the altar of their unholy ambition. But in the midst +of sorrow, joy blooms. Even in this dark hour I had a sweet consolation. +For I knew that except these Mohammedans repented they would go straight +to perdition some day. And they never repent—they never forsake their +paganism. This thought calmed me, cheered me, and I sank down, limp and +exhausted, upon the summit, but happy, so happy and serene within. + +<p>On the one hand, a mighty sea of yellow sand stretched away toward the +ends of the earth, solemn, silent, shorn of vegetation, its solitude +uncheered by any forms of creature life; on the other, the Eden of Egypt +was spread below us—a broad green floor, cloven by the sinuous river, +dotted with villages, its vast distances measured and marked by the +diminishing stature of receding clusters of palms. It lay asleep in an +enchanted atmosphere. There was no sound, no motion. Above the +date-plumes in the middle distance, swelled a domed and pinnacled mass, +glimmering through a tinted, exquisite mist; away toward the horizon a +dozen shapely pyramids watched over ruined Memphis: and at our feet the +bland impassible Sphynx looked out upon the picture from her throne in +the sands as placidly and pensively as she had looked upon its like full +fifty lagging centuries ago. + +<p>We suffered torture no pen can describe from the hungry appeals for +bucksheesh that gleamed from Arab eyes and poured incessantly from Arab +lips. Why try to call up the traditions of vanished Egyptian grandeur; +why try to fancy Egypt following dead Rameses to his tomb in the Pyramid, +or the long multitude of Israel departing over the desert yonder? Why +try to think at all? The thing was impossible. One must bring his +meditations cut and dried, or else cut and dry them afterward. + +<p>The traditional Arab proposed, in the traditional way, to run down +Cheops, cross the eighth of a mile of sand intervening between it and the +tall pyramid of Cephron, ascend to Cephron's summit and return to us on +the top of Cheops—all in nine minutes by the watch, and the whole +service to be rendered for a single dollar. In the first flush of +irritation, I said let the Arab and his exploits go to the mischief. +But stay. The upper third of Cephron was coated with dressed marble, +smooth as glass. A blessed thought entered my brain. He must infallibly +break his neck. Close the contract with dispatch, I said, and let him +go. He started. We watched. He went bounding down the vast broadside, +spring after spring, like an ibex. He grew small and smaller till he +became a bobbing pigmy, away down toward the bottom—then disappeared. +We turned and peered over the other side—forty seconds—eighty +seconds—a hundred—happiness, he is dead already!—two minutes—and a +quarter—"There he goes!" Too true—it was too true. He was very small, now. +Gradually, but surely, he overcame the level ground. He began to spring +and climb again. Up, up, up—at last he reached the smooth coating—now +for it. But he clung to it with toes and fingers, like a fly. He +crawled this way and that—away to the right, slanting upward—away to +the left, still slanting upward—and stood at last, a black peg on the +summit, and waved his pigmy scarf! Then he crept downward to the raw +steps again, then picked up his agile heels and flew. We lost him +presently. But presently again we saw him under us, mounting with +undiminished energy. Shortly he bounded into our midst with a gallant +war-whoop. Time, eight minutes, forty-one seconds. He had won. His +bones were intact. It was a failure. I reflected. I said to myself, he +is tired, and must grow dizzy. I will risk another dollar on him. + +<p>He started again. Made the trip again. Slipped on the smooth +coating—I almost had him. But an infamous crevice saved him. He was with us +once more—perfectly sound. Time, eight minutes, forty-six seconds. + +<p>I said to Dan, "Lend me a dollar—I can beat this game, yet." + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p625"></a><img alt="p625.jpg (51K)" src="images/p625.jpg" height="565" width="591"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Worse and worse. He won again. Time, eight minutes, forty-eight +seconds. I was out of all patience, now. I was desperate.—Money was +no longer of any consequence. I said, "Sirrah, I will give you a hundred +dollars to jump off this pyramid head first. If you do not like the +terms, name your bet. I scorn to stand on expenses now. I will stay +right here and risk money on you as long as Dan has got a cent." + +<p>I was in a fair way to win, now, for it was a dazzling opportunity for an +Arab. He pondered a moment, and would have done it, I think, but his +mother arrived, then, and interfered. Her tears moved me—I never can +look upon the tears of woman with indifference—and I said I would give +her a hundred to jump off, too. + +<p>But it was a failure. The Arabs are too high-priced in Egypt. They put +on airs unbecoming to such savages. + +<p>We descended, hot and out of humor. The dragoman lit candles, and we all +entered a hole near the base of the pyramid, attended by a crazy rabble +of Arabs who thrust their services upon us uninvited. They dragged us up +a long inclined chute, and dripped candle-grease all over us. This chute +was not more than twice as wide and high as a Saratoga trunk, and was +walled, roofed and floored with solid blocks of Egyptian granite as wide +as a wardrobe, twice as thick and three times as long. We kept on +climbing, through the oppressive gloom, till I thought we ought to be +nearing the top of the pyramid again, and then came to the "Queen's +Chamber," and shortly to the Chamber of the King. These large apartments +were tombs. The walls were built of monstrous masses of smoothed +granite, neatly joined together. Some of them were nearly as large +square as an ordinary parlor. A great stone sarcophagus like a bath-tub +stood in the centre of the King's Chamber. Around it were gathered a +picturesque group of Arab savages and soiled and tattered pilgrims, who +held their candles aloft in the gloom while they chattered, and the +winking blurs of light shed a dim glory down upon one of the +irrepressible memento-seekers who was pecking at the venerable +sarcophagus with his sacrilegious hammer. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p626"></a><img alt="p626.jpg (89K)" src="images/p626.jpg" height="363" width="627"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>We struggled out to the open air and the bright sunshine, and for the +space of thirty minutes received ragged Arabs by couples, dozens and +platoons, and paid them bucksheesh for services they swore and proved by +each other that they had rendered, but which we had not been aware of +before—and as each party was paid, they dropped into the rear of the +procession and in due time arrived again with a newly-invented delinquent +list for liquidation. + +<p>We lunched in the shade of the pyramid, and in the midst of this +encroaching and unwelcome company, and then Dan and Jack and I started +away for a walk. A howling swarm of beggars followed us—surrounded +us—almost headed us off. A sheik, in flowing white bournous and gaudy +head-gear, was with them. He wanted more bucksheesh. But we had adopted a +new code—it was millions for defense, but not a cent for bucksheesh. I +asked him if he could persuade the others to depart if we paid him. He +said yes—for ten francs. We accepted the contract, and said— + +<p>"Now persuade your vassals to fall back." + +<p>He swung his long staff round his head and three Arabs bit the dust. He +capered among the mob like a very maniac. His blows fell like hail, and +wherever one fell a subject went down. We had to hurry to the rescue and +tell him it was only necessary to damage them a little, he need not kill +them.—In two minutes we were alone with the sheik, and remained so. +The persuasive powers of this illiterate savage were remarkable. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p627"></a><img alt="p627.jpg (25K)" src="images/p627.jpg" height="369" width="437"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>Each side of the Pyramid of Cheops is about as long as the Capitol at +Washington, or the Sultan's new palace on the Bosporus, and is longer +than the greatest depth of St. Peter's at Rome—which is to say that each +side of Cheops extends seven hundred and some odd feet. It is about +seventy-five feet higher than the cross on St. Peter's. The first time I +ever went down the Mississippi, I thought the highest bluff on the river +between St. Louis and New Orleans—it was near Selma, Missouri—was +probably the highest mountain in the world. It is four hundred and +thirteen feet high. It still looms in my memory with undiminished +grandeur. I can still see the trees and bushes growing smaller and +smaller as I followed them up its huge slant with my eye, till they +became a feathery fringe on the distant summit. This symmetrical Pyramid +of Cheops—this solid mountain of stone reared by the patient hands of +men—this mighty tomb of a forgotten monarch—dwarfs my cherished +mountain. For it is four hundred and eighty feet high. In still earlier +years than those I have been recalling, Holliday's Hill, in our town, was +to me the noblest work of God. It appeared to pierce the skies. It was +nearly three hundred feet high. In those days I pondered the subject +much, but I never could understand why it did not swathe its summit with +never-failing clouds, and crown its majestic brow with everlasting snows. +I had heard that such was the custom of great mountains in other parts of +the world. I remembered how I worked with another boy, at odd afternoons +stolen from study and paid for with stripes, to undermine and start from +its bed an immense boulder that rested upon the edge of that hilltop; I +remembered how, one Saturday afternoon, we gave three hours of honest +effort to the task, and saw at last that our reward was at hand; I +remembered how we sat down, then, and wiped the perspiration away, and +waited to let a picnic party get out of the way in the road below—and +then we started the boulder. It was splendid. It went crashing down the +hillside, tearing up saplings, mowing bushes down like grass, ripping and +crushing and smashing every thing in its path—eternally splintered and +scattered a wood pile at the foot of the hill, and then sprang from the +high bank clear over a dray in the road—the negro glanced up once and +dodged—and the next second it made infinitesimal mince-meat of a frame +cooper-shop, and the coopers swarmed out like bees. Then we said it was +perfectly magnificent, and left. Because the coopers were starting up +the hill to inquire. + +<p>Still, that mountain, prodigious as it was, was nothing to the Pyramid of +Cheops. I could conjure up no comparison that would convey to my mind a +satisfactory comprehension of the magnitude of a pile of monstrous stones +that covered thirteen acres of ground and stretched upward four hundred +and eighty tiresome feet, and so I gave it up and walked down to the +Sphynx. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p629"></a><img alt="p629.jpg (65K)" src="images/p629.jpg" height="374" width="629"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>After years of waiting, it was before me at last. The great face was so +sad, so earnest, so longing, so patient. There was a dignity not of +earth in its mien, and in its countenance a benignity such as never any +thing human wore. It was stone, but it seemed sentient. If ever image +of stone thought, it was thinking. It was looking toward the verge of +the landscape, yet looking at nothing—nothing but distance and vacancy. +It was looking over and beyond every thing of the present, and far into +the past. It was gazing out over the ocean of Time—over lines of +century-waves which, further and further receding, closed nearer and +nearer together, and blended at last into one unbroken tide, away toward +the horizon of remote antiquity. It was thinking of the wars of departed +ages; of the empires it had seen created and destroyed; of the nations +whose birth it had witnessed, whose progress it had watched, whose +annihilation it had noted; of the joy and sorrow, the life and death, the +grandeur and decay, of five thousand slow revolving years. It was the +type of an attribute of man—of a faculty of his heart and brain. It was +MEMORY—RETROSPECTION—wrought into visible, tangible form. All who know +what pathos there is in memories of days that are accomplished and faces +that have vanished—albeit only a trifling score of years gone by—will +have some appreciation of the pathos that dwells in these grave eyes that +look so steadfastly back upon the things they knew before History was +born—before Tradition had being—things that were, and forms that moved, +in a vague era which even Poetry and Romance scarce know of—and passed +one by one away and left the stony dreamer solitary in the midst of a +strange new age, and uncomprehended scenes. + +<p>The Sphynx is grand in its loneliness; it is imposing in its magnitude; +it is impressive in the mystery that hangs over its story. And there is +that in the overshadowing majesty of this eternal figure of stone, with +its accusing memory of the deeds of all ages, which reveals to one +something of what he shall feel when he shall stand at last in the awful +presence of God. + +<p>There are some things which, for the credit of America, should be left +unsaid, perhaps; but these very things happen sometimes to be the very +things which, for the real benefit of Americans, ought to have prominent +notice. While we stood looking, a wart, or an excrescence of some kind, +appeared on the jaw of the Sphynx. We heard the familiar clink of a +hammer, and understood the case at once. One of our well meaning +reptiles—I mean relic-hunters—had crawled up there and was trying to +break a "specimen" from the face of this the most majestic creation the +hand of man has wrought. But the great image contemplated the dead ages +as calmly as ever, unconscious of the small insect that was fretting at +its jaw. Egyptian granite that has defied the storms and earthquakes of +all time has nothing to fear from the tack-hammers of ignorant +excursionists—highwaymen like this specimen. He failed in his +enterprise. We sent a sheik to arrest him if he had the authority, or to +warn him, if he had not, that by the laws of Egypt the crime he was +attempting to commit was punishable with imprisonment or the bastinado. +Then he desisted and went away. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p630"></a><img alt="p630.jpg (24K)" src="images/p630.jpg" height="449" width="401"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>The Sphynx: a hundred and twenty-five feet long, sixty feet high, and a +hundred and two feet around the head, if I remember rightly—carved out +of one solid block of stone harder than any iron. The block must have +been as large as the Fifth Avenue Hotel before the usual waste (by the +necessities of sculpture) of a fourth or a half of the original mass was +begun. I only set down these figures and these remarks to suggest the +prodigious labor the carving of it so elegantly, so symmetrically, so +faultlessly, must have cost. This species of stone is so hard that +figures cut in it remain sharp and unmarred after exposure to the weather +for two or three thousand years. Now did it take a hundred years of +patient toil to carve the Sphynx? It seems probable. + +<p>Something interfered, and we did not visit the Red Sea and walk upon the +sands of Arabia. I shall not describe the great mosque of Mehemet Ali, +whose entire inner walls are built of polished and glistening alabaster; +I shall not tell how the little birds have built their nests in the +globes of the great chandeliers that hang in the mosque, and how they +fill the whole place with their music and are not afraid of any body +because their audacity is pardoned, their rights are respected, and +nobody is allowed to interfere with them, even though the mosque be thus +doomed to go unlighted; I certainly shall not tell the hackneyed story of +the massacre of the Mamelukes, because I am glad the lawless rascals were +massacred, and I do not wish to get up any sympathy in their behalf; I +shall not tell how that one solitary Mameluke jumped his horse a hundred +feet down from the battlements of the citadel and escaped, because I do +not think much of that—I could have done it myself; + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p631"></a><img alt="p631.jpg (16K)" src="images/p631.jpg" height="463" width="285"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>I shall not tell of +Joseph's well which he dug in the solid rock of the citadel hill and +which is still as good as new, nor how the same mules he bought to draw +up the water (with an endless chain) are still at it yet and are getting +tired of it, too; I shall not tell about Joseph's granaries which he +built to store the grain in, what time the Egyptian brokers were "selling +short," unwitting that there would be no corn in all the land when it +should be time for them to deliver; I shall not tell any thing about the +strange, strange city of Cairo, because it is only a repetition, a good +deal intensified and exaggerated, of the Oriental cities I have already +spoken of; I shall not tell of the Great Caravan which leaves for Mecca +every year, for I did not see it; nor of the fashion the people have of +prostrating themselves and so forming a long human pavement to be ridden +over by the chief of the expedition on its return, to the end that their +salvation may be thus secured, for I did not see that either; I shall not +speak of the railway, for it is like any other railway—I shall only say +that the fuel they use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three +thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that +purpose, and that sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out +pettishly, "D—n these plebeians, they don't burn worth a cent—pass out +a King;"—[Stated to me for a fact. I only tell it as I got it. I am +willing to believe it. I can believe any thing.]—I shall not tell of +the groups of mud cones stuck like wasps' nests upon a thousand mounds +above high water-mark the length and breadth of Egypt—villages of the +lower classes; I shall not speak of the boundless sweep of level plain, +green with luxuriant grain, that gladdens the eye as far as it can pierce +through the soft, rich atmosphere of Egypt; I shall not speak of the +vision of the Pyramids seen at a distance of five and twenty miles, for +the picture is too ethereal to be limned by an uninspired pen; I shall +not tell of the crowds of dusky women who flocked to the cars when they +stopped a moment at a station, to sell us a drink of water or a ruddy, +juicy pomegranate; I shall not tell of the motley multitudes and wild +costumes that graced a fair we found in full blast at another barbarous +station; I shall not tell how we feasted on fresh dates and enjoyed the +pleasant landscape all through the flying journey; nor how we thundered +into Alexandria, at last, swarmed out of the cars, rowed aboard the ship, +left a comrade behind, (who was to return to Europe, thence home,) raised +the anchor, and turned our bows homeward finally and forever from the +long voyage; nor how, as the mellow sun went down upon the oldest land on +earth, Jack and Moult assembled in solemn state in the smoking-room and +mourned over the lost comrade the whole night long, and would not be +comforted. I shall not speak a word of any of these things, or write a +line. They shall be as a sealed book. I do not know what a sealed book +is, because I never saw one, but a sealed book is the expression to use +in this connection, because it is popular. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p633"></a><img alt="p633.jpg (17K)" src="images/p633.jpg" height="359" width="315"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>We were glad to have seen the land which was the mother of +civilization—which taught Greece her letters, and through Greece Rome, and through +Rome the world; the land which could have humanized and civilized the +hapless children of Israel, but allowed them to depart out of her borders +little better than savages. We were glad to have seen that land which +had an enlightened religion with future eternal rewards and punishment in +it, while even Israel's religion contained no promise of a hereafter. +We were glad to have seen that land which had glass three thousand years +before England had it, and could paint upon it as none of us can paint +now; that land which knew, three thousand years ago, well nigh all of +medicine and surgery which science has discovered lately; which had all +those curious surgical instruments which science has invented recently; +which had in high excellence a thousand luxuries and necessities of an +advanced civilization which we have gradually contrived and accumulated +in modern times and claimed as things that were new under the sun; that +had paper untold centuries before we dreampt of it—and waterfalls before +our women thought of them; that had a perfect system of common schools so +long before we boasted of our achievements in that direction that it +seems forever and forever ago; that so embalmed the dead that flesh was +made almost immortal—which we can not do; that built temples which mock +at destroying time and smile grimly upon our lauded little prodigies of +architecture; that old land that knew all which we know now, perchance, +and more; that walked in the broad highway of civilization in the gray +dawn of creation, ages and ages before we were born; that left the +impress of exalted, cultivated Mind upon the eternal front of the Sphynx +to confound all scoffers who, when all her other proofs had passed away, +might seek to persuade the world that imperial Egypt, in the days of her +high renown, had groped in darkness. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p634"></a><img alt="p634.jpg (37K)" src="images/p634.jpg" height="437" width="621"> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch59"></a>CHAPTER LIX. +</h2> +<p>We were at sea now, for a very long voyage—we were to pass through the +entire length of the Levant; through the entire length of the +Mediterranean proper, also, and then cross the full width of the +Atlantic—a voyage of several weeks. We naturally settled down into a +very slow, stay-at-home manner of life, and resolved to be quiet, +exemplary people, and roam no more for twenty or thirty days. No more, +at least, than from stem to stern of the ship. It was a very comfortable +prospect, though, for we were tired and needed a long rest. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p635"></a><img alt="p635.jpg (40K)" src="images/p635.jpg" height="419" width="517"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>We were all lazy and satisfied, now, as the meager entries in my +note-book (that sure index, to me, of my condition,) prove. What a stupid +thing a note-book gets to be at sea, any way. Please observe the style: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "Sunday—Services, as usual, at four bells. Services at night, + also. No cards. + +<p> "Monday—Beautiful day, but rained hard. The cattle purchased at + Alexandria for beef ought to be shingled. Or else fattened. The + water stands in deep puddles in the depressions forward of their + after shoulders. Also here and there all over their backs. It is + well they are not cows—it would soak in and ruin the milk. The + poor devil eagle—[Afterwards presented to the Central Park.]—from + Syria looks miserable and droopy in the rain, perched on the forward + capstan. He appears to have his own opinion of a sea voyage, and if + it were put into language and the language solidified, it would + probably essentially dam the widest river in the world. + +<p> "Tuesday—Somewhere in the neighborhood of the island of Malta. Can + not stop there. Cholera. Weather very stormy. Many passengers + seasick and invisible. + +<p> "Wednesday—Weather still very savage. Storm blew two land birds to + sea, and they came on board. A hawk was blown off, also. He + circled round and round the ship, wanting to light, but afraid of + the people. He was so tired, though, that he had to light, at last, + or perish. He stopped in the foretop, repeatedly, and was as often + blown away by the wind. At last Harry caught him. Sea full of + flying-fish. They rise in flocks of three hundred and flash along + above the tops of the waves a distance of two or three hundred feet, + then fall and disappear. + +<p> "Thursday—Anchored off Algiers, Africa. Beautiful city, beautiful + green hilly landscape behind it. Staid half a day and left. Not + permitted to land, though we showed a clean bill of health. They + were afraid of Egyptian plague and cholera. + +<p> "Friday—Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening, + promenading the deck. Afterwards, charades. + +<p> "Saturday—Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening, + promenading the decks. Afterwards, dominoes. + +<p> "Sunday—Morning service, four bells. Evening service, eight bells. + Monotony till midnight.—Whereupon, dominoes. + +<p> "Monday—Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening, + promenading the decks. Afterward, charades and a lecture from Dr. + C. Dominoes. + +<p> "No date—Anchored off the picturesque city of Cagliari, Sardinia. + Staid till midnight, but not permitted to land by these infamous + foreigners. They smell inodorously—they do not wash—they dare not + risk cholera. + +<p> "Thursday—Anchored off the beautiful cathedral city of Malaga, + Spain.—Went ashore in the captain's boat—not ashore, either, for + they would not let us land. Quarantine. Shipped my newspaper + correspondence, which they took with tongs, dipped it in sea water, + clipped it full of holes, and then fumigated it with villainous + vapors till it smelt like a Spaniard. Inquired about chances to run + to blockade and visit the Alhambra at Granada. Too risky—they + might hang a body. Set sail—middle of afternoon. + +<p> "And so on, and so on, and so forth, for several days. Finally, + anchored off Gibraltar, which looks familiar and home-like." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>It reminds me of the journal I opened with the New Year, once, when I was +a boy and a confiding and a willing prey to those impossible schemes of +reform which well-meaning old maids and grandmothers set for the feet of +unwary youths at that season of the year—setting oversized tasks for +them, which, necessarily failing, as infallibly weaken the boy's strength +of will, diminish his confidence in himself and injure his chances of +success in life. Please accept of an extract: + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "Monday—Got up, washed, went to bed. + "Tuesday—Got up, washed, went to bed. + "Wednesday—Got up, washed, went to bed. + "Thursday—Got up, washed, went to bed. + "Friday—Got up, washed, went to bed. + "Next Friday—Got up, washed, went to bed. + "Friday fortnight—Got up, washed, went to bed. + "Following month—Got up, washed, went to bed." +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>I stopped, then, discouraged. Startling events appeared to be too rare, +in my career, to render a diary necessary. I still reflect with pride, +however, that even at that early age I washed when I got up. That +journal finished me. I never have had the nerve to keep one since. My +loss of confidence in myself in that line was permanent. + +<p>The ship had to stay a week or more at Gibraltar to take in coal for the +home voyage. + +<p>It would be very tiresome staying here, and so four of us ran the +quarantine blockade and spent seven delightful days in Seville, Cordova, +Cadiz, and wandering through the pleasant rural scenery of Andalusia, the +garden of Old Spain. The experiences of that cheery week were too varied +and numerous for a short chapter and I have not room for a long one. +Therefore I shall leave them all out. + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch60"></a>CHAPTER LX. +</h2> +<p>Ten or eleven o'clock found us coming down to breakfast one morning in +Cadiz. They told us the ship had been lying at anchor in the harbor two +or three hours. It was time for us to bestir ourselves. The ship could +wait only a little while because of the quarantine. We were soon on +board, and within the hour the white city and the pleasant shores of +Spain sank down behind the waves and passed out of sight. We had seen no +land fade from view so regretfully. + +<p>It had long ago been decided in a noisy public meeting in the main cabin +that we could not go to Lisbon, because we must surely be quarantined +there. We did every thing by mass-meeting, in the good old national way, +from swapping off one empire for another on the programme of the voyage +down to complaining of the cookery and the scarcity of napkins. I am +reminded, now, of one of these complaints of the cookery made by a +passenger. The coffee had been steadily growing more and more execrable +for the space of three weeks, till at last it had ceased to be coffee +altogether and had assumed the nature of mere discolored water—so this +person said. He said it was so weak that it was transparent an inch in +depth around the edge of the cup. As he approached the table one morning +he saw the transparent edge—by means of his extraordinary vision long +before he got to his seat. He went back and complained in a high-handed +way to Capt. Duncan. He said the coffee was disgraceful. The Captain +showed his. It seemed tolerably good. The incipient mutineer was more +outraged than ever, then, at what he denounced as the partiality shown +the captain's table over the other tables in the ship. He flourished +back and got his cup and set it down triumphantly, and said: + +<p>"Just try that mixture once, Captain Duncan." + +<p>He smelt it—tasted it—smiled benignantly—then said: + +<p>"It is inferior—for coffee—but it is pretty fair tea." + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p639"></a><img alt="p639.jpg (27K)" src="images/p639.jpg" height="409" width="417"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>The humbled mutineer smelt it, tasted it, and returned to his seat. He +had made an egregious ass of himself before the whole ship. He did it no +more. After that he took things as they came. That was me. + +<p>The old-fashioned ship-life had returned, now that we were no longer in +sight of land. For days and days it continued just the same, one day +being exactly like another, and, to me, every one of them pleasant. At +last we anchored in the open roadstead of Funchal, in the beautiful +islands we call the Madeiras. + +<p>The mountains looked surpassingly lovely, clad as they were in living, +green; ribbed with lava ridges; flecked with white cottages; riven by +deep chasms purple with shade; the great slopes dashed with sunshine and +mottled with shadows flung from the drifting squadrons of the sky, and +the superb picture fitly crowned by towering peaks whose fronts were +swept by the trailing fringes of the clouds. + +<p>But we could not land. We staid all day and looked, we abused the man +who invented quarantine, we held half a dozen mass-meetings and crammed +them full of interrupted speeches, motions that fell still-born, +amendments that came to nought and resolutions that died from sheer +exhaustion in trying to get before the house. At night we set sail. + +<p>We averaged four mass-meetings a week for the voyage—we seemed always in +labor in this way, and yet so often fallaciously that whenever at long +intervals we were safely delivered of a resolution, it was cause for +public rejoicing, and we hoisted the flag and fired a salute. + +<p>Days passed—and nights; and then the beautiful Bermudas rose out of the +sea, we entered the tortuous channel, steamed hither and thither among +the bright summer islands, and rested at last under the flag of England +and were welcome. We were not a nightmare here, where were civilization +and intelligence in place of Spanish and Italian superstition, dirt and +dread of cholera. A few days among the breezy groves, the flower +gardens, the coral caves, and the lovely vistas of blue water that went +curving in and out, disappearing and anon again appearing through jungle +walls of brilliant foliage, restored the energies dulled by long drowsing +on the ocean, and fitted us for our final cruise—our little run of a +thousand miles to New York—America—HOME. + +<p>We bade good-bye to "our friends the Bermudians," as our programme hath +it—the majority of those we were most intimate with were negroes—and +courted the great deep again. I said the majority. We knew more negroes +than white people, because we had a deal of washing to be done, but we +made some most excellent friends among the whites, whom it will be a +pleasant duty to hold long in grateful remembrance. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p640"></a><img alt="p640.jpg (49K)" src="images/p640.jpg" height="489" width="553"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<p>We sailed, and from that hour all idling ceased. Such another system of +overhauling, general littering of cabins and packing of trunks we had not +seen since we let go the anchor in the harbor of Beirout. Every body was +busy. Lists of all purchases had to be made out, and values attached, to +facilitate matters at the custom-house. Purchases bought by bulk in +partnership had to be equitably divided, outstanding debts canceled, +accounts compared, and trunks, boxes and packages labeled. All day long +the bustle and confusion continued. + +<p>And now came our first accident. A passenger was running through a +gangway, between decks, one stormy night, when he caught his foot in the +iron staple of a door that had been heedlessly left off a hatchway, and +the bones of his leg broke at the ancle. It was our first serious +misfortune. We had traveled much more than twenty thousand miles, by +land and sea, in many trying climates, without a single hurt, without a +serious case of sickness and without a death among five and sixty +passengers. Our good fortune had been wonderful. A sailor had jumped +overboard at Constantinople one night, and was seen no more, but it was +suspected that his object was to desert, and there was a slim chance, at +least, that he reached the shore. But the passenger list was complete. +There was no name missing from the register. + +<p>At last, one pleasant morning, we steamed up the harbor of New York, all +on deck, all dressed in Christian garb—by special order, for there was a +latent disposition in some quarters to come out as Turks—and amid a +waving of handkerchiefs from welcoming friends, the glad pilgrims noted +the shiver of the decks that told that ship and pier had joined hands +again and the long, strange cruise was over. Amen. + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p641"></a><img alt="p641.jpg (21K)" src="images/p641.jpg" height="427" width="349"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch61"></a>CHAPTER LXI. +</h2> +<p>In this place I will print an article which I wrote for the New York +Herald the night we arrived. I do it partly because my contract with my +publishers makes it compulsory; partly because it is a proper, tolerably +accurate, and exhaustive summing up of the cruise of the ship and the +performances of the pilgrims in foreign lands; and partly because some of +the passengers have abused me for writing it, and I wish the public to +see how thankless a task it is to put one's self to trouble to glorify +unappreciative people. I was charged with "rushing into print" with +these compliments. I did not rush. I had written news letters to the +Herald sometimes, but yet when I visited the office that day I did not +say any thing about writing a valedictory. I did go to the Tribune +office to see if such an article was wanted, because I belonged on the +regular staff of that paper and it was simply a duty to do it. The +managing editor was absent, and so I thought no more about it. At night +when the Herald's request came for an article, I did not "rush." In +fact, I demurred for a while, because I did not feel like writing +compliments then, and therefore was afraid to speak of the cruise lest I +might be betrayed into using other than complimentary language. However, +I reflected that it would be a just and righteous thing to go down and +write a kind word for the Hadjis—Hadjis are people who have made the +pilgrimage—because parties not interested could not do it so feelingly +as I, a fellow-Hadji, and so I penned the valedictory. I have read it, +and read it again; and if there is a sentence in it that is not fulsomely +complimentary to captain, ship and passengers, I can not find it. If it +is not a chapter that any company might be proud to have a body write +about them, my judgment is fit for nothing. With these remarks I +confidently submit it to the unprejudiced judgment of the reader: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> RETURN OF THE HOLY LAND EXCURSIONISTS—THE STORY OF THE CRUISE. + +<p> TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD: + +<p> The steamer Quaker City has accomplished at last her extraordinary + voyage and returned to her old pier at the foot of Wall street. + The expedition was a success in some respects, in some it was not. + Originally it was advertised as a "pleasure excursion." Well, + perhaps, it was a pleasure excursion, but certainly it did not look + like one; certainly it did not act like one. Any body's and every + body's notion of a pleasure excursion is that the parties to it will + of a necessity be young and giddy and somewhat boisterous. They + will dance a good deal, sing a good deal, make love, but sermonize + very little. Any body's and every body's notion of a well conducted + funeral is that there must be a hearse and a corpse, and chief + mourners and mourners by courtesy, many old people, much solemnity, + no levity, and a prayer and a sermon withal. Three-fourths of the + Quaker City's passengers were between forty and seventy years of + age! There was a picnic crowd for you! It may be supposed that the + other fourth was composed of young girls. But it was not. It was + chiefly composed of rusty old bachelors and a child of six years. + Let us average the ages of the Quaker City's pilgrims and set the + figure down as fifty years. Is any man insane enough to imagine + that this picnic of patriarchs sang, made love, danced, laughed, + told anecdotes, dealt in ungodly levity? In my experience they + sinned little in these matters. No doubt it was presumed here at + home that these frolicsome veterans laughed and sang and romped all + day, and day after day, and kept up a noisy excitement from one end + of the ship to the other; and that they played blind-man's buff or + danced quadrilles and waltzes on moonlight evenings on the + quarter-deck; and that at odd moments of unoccupied time they jotted a + laconic item or two in the journals they opened on such an elaborate + plan when they left home, and then skurried off to their whist and + euchre labors under the cabin lamps. If these things were presumed, + the presumption was at fault. The venerable excursionists were not + gay and frisky. They played no blind-man's buff; they dealt not in + whist; they shirked not the irksome journal, for alas! most of them + were even writing books. They never romped, they talked but little, + they never sang, save in the nightly prayer-meeting. The pleasure + ship was a synagogue, and the pleasure trip was a funeral excursion + without a corpse. (There is nothing exhilarating about a funeral + excursion without a corpse.) A free, hearty laugh was a sound that + was not heard oftener than once in seven days about those decks or + in those cabins, and when it was heard it met with precious little + sympathy. The excursionists danced, on three separate evenings, + long, long ago, (it seems an age.) quadrilles, of a single set, made + up of three ladies and five gentlemen, (the latter with + handkerchiefs around their arms to signify their sex) who timed + their feet to the solemn wheezing of a melodeon; but even this + melancholy orgie was voted to be sinful, and dancing was + discontinued. + +<p> The pilgrims played dominoes when too much Josephus or Robinson's + Holy Land Researches, or book-writing, made recreation + necessary—for dominoes is about as mild and sinless a game as any in the + world, perhaps, excepting always the ineffably insipid diversion + they call croquet, which is a game where you don't pocket any balls + and don't carom on any thing of any consequence, and when you are + done nobody has to pay, and there are no refreshments to saw off, + and, consequently, there isn't any satisfaction whatever about + it—they played dominoes till they were rested, and then they + blackguarded each other privately till prayer-time. When they were + not seasick they were uncommonly prompt when the dinner-gong + sounded. Such was our daily life on board the ship—solemnity, + decorum, dinner, dominoes, devotions, slander. It was not lively + enough for a pleasure trip; but if we had only had a corpse it would + have made a noble funeral excursion. It is all over now; but when I + look back, the idea of these venerable fossils skipping forth on a + six months' picnic, seems exquisitely refreshing. The advertised + title of the expedition—"The Grand Holy Land Pleasure + Excursion"—was a misnomer. "The Grand Holy Land Funeral Procession" would have + been better—much better. + +<p> Wherever we went, in Europe, Asia, or Africa, we made a sensation, + and, I suppose I may add, created a famine. None of us had ever + been any where before; we all hailed from the interior; travel was a + wild novelty to us, and we conducted ourselves in accordance with + the natural instincts that were in us, and trammeled ourselves with + no ceremonies, no conventionalities. We always took care to make it + understood that we were Americans—Americans! When we found that a + good many foreigners had hardly ever heard of America, and that a + good many more knew it only as a barbarous province away off + somewhere, that had lately been at war with somebody, we pitied the + ignorance of the Old World, but abated no jot of our importance. + Many and many a simple community in the Eastern hemisphere will + remember for years the incursion of the strange horde in the year of + our Lord 1867, that called themselves Americans, and seemed to + imagine in some unaccountable way that they had a right to be proud + of it. We generally created a famine, partly because the coffee on + the Quaker City was unendurable, and sometimes the more substantial + fare was not strictly first class; and partly because one naturally + tires of sitting long at the same board and eating from the same + dishes. + +<p> The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They + looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of + America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. + They noticed that we looked out for expenses, and got what we + conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the + mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes + and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in + making those idiots understand their own language. One of our + passengers said to a shopkeeper, in reference to a proposed return + to buy a pair of gloves, "Allong restay trankeel—may be ve coom + Moonday;" and would you believe it, that shopkeeper, a born + Frenchman, had to ask what it was that had been said. Sometimes it + seems to me, somehow, that there must be a difference between + Parisian French and Quaker City French. + +<p> The people stared at us every where, and we stared at them. We + generally made them feel rather small, too, before we got done with + them, because we bore down on them with America's greatness until we + crushed them. And yet we took kindly to the manners and customs, + and especially to the fashions of the various people we visited. + When we left the Azores, we wore awful capotes and used fine tooth + combs—successfully. When we came back from Tangier, in Africa, we + were topped with fezzes of the bloodiest hue, hung with tassels like + an Indian's scalp-lock. In France and Spain we attracted some + attention in these costumes. In Italy they naturally took us for + distempered Garibaldians, and set a gunboat to look for any thing + significant in our changes of uniform. We made Rome howl. We could + have made any place howl when we had all our clothes on. We got no + fresh raiment in Greece—they had but little there of any kind. But + at Constantinople, how we turned out! Turbans, scimetars, fezzes, + horse-pistols, tunics, sashes, baggy trowsers, yellow slippers—Oh, + we were gorgeous! The illustrious dogs of Constantinople barked + their under jaws off, and even then failed to do us justice. They + are all dead by this time. They could not go through such a run of + business as we gave them and survive. + +<p> And then we went to see the Emperor of Russia. We just called on + him as comfortably as if we had known him a century or so, and when + we had finished our visit we variegated ourselves with selections + from Russian costumes and sailed away again more picturesque than + ever. In Smyrna we picked up camel's hair shawls and other dressy + things from Persia; but in Palestine—ah, in Palestine—our splendid + career ended. They didn't wear any clothes there to speak of. We + were satisfied, and stopped. We made no experiments. We did not + try their costume. But we astonished the natives of that country. + We astonished them with such eccentricities of dress as we could + muster. We prowled through the Holy Land, from Cesarea Philippi to + Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, a weird procession of pilgrims, gotten + up regardless of expense, solemn, gorgeous, green-spectacled, + drowsing under blue umbrellas, and astride of a sorrier lot of + horses, camels and asses than those that came out of Noah's ark, + after eleven months of seasickness and short rations. If ever those + children of Israel in Palestine forget when Gideon's Band went + through there from America, they ought to be cursed once more and + finished. It was the rarest spectacle that ever astounded mortal + eyes, perhaps. + +<p> Well, we were at home in Palestine. It was easy to see that that + was the grand feature of the expedition. We had cared nothing much + about Europe. We galloped through the Louvre, the Pitti, the + Ufizzi, the Vatican—all the galleries—and through the pictured and + frescoed churches of Venice, Naples, and the cathedrals of Spain; + some of us said that certain of the great works of the old masters + were glorious creations of genius, (we found it out in the + guide-book, though we got hold of the wrong picture sometimes,) and the + others said they were disgraceful old daubs. We examined modern and + ancient statuary with a critical eye in Florence, Rome, or any where + we found it, and praised it if we saw fit, and if we didn't we said + we preferred the wooden Indians in front of the cigar stores of + America. But the Holy Land brought out all our enthusiasm. We fell + into raptures by the barren shores of Galilee; we pondered at Tabor + and at Nazareth; we exploded into poetry over the questionable + loveliness of Esdraelon; we meditated at Jezreel and Samaria over + the missionary zeal of Jehu; we rioted—fairly rioted among the holy + places of Jerusalem; we bathed in Jordan and the Dead Sea, reckless + whether our accident-insurance policies were extra-hazardous or not, + and brought away so many jugs of precious water from both places + that all the country from Jericho to the mountains of Moab will + suffer from drouth this year, I think. Yet, the pilgrimage part of + the excursion was its pet feature—there is no question about that. + After dismal, smileless Palestine, beautiful Egypt had few charms + for us. We merely glanced at it and were ready for home. + +<p> They wouldn't let us land at Malta—quarantine; they would not let + us land in Sardinia; nor at Algiers, Africa; nor at Malaga, Spain, + nor Cadiz, nor at the Madeira islands. So we got offended at all + foreigners and turned our backs upon them and came home. I suppose + we only stopped at the Bermudas because they were in the programme. + We did not care any thing about any place at all. We wanted to go + home. Homesickness was abroad in the ship—it was epidemic. If the + authorities of New York had known how badly we had it, they would + have quarantined us here. + +<p> The grand pilgrimage is over. Good-bye to it, and a pleasant memory + to it, I am able to say in all kindness. I bear no malice, no + ill-will toward any individual that was connected with it, either as + passenger or officer. Things I did not like at all yesterday I like + very well to-day, now that I am at home, and always hereafter I + shall be able to poke fun at the whole gang if the spirit so moves + me to do, without ever saying a malicious word. The expedition + accomplished all that its programme promised that it should + accomplish, and we ought all to be satisfied with the management of + the matter, certainly. Bye-bye! + +<p> MARK TWAIN. + +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p> +I call that complimentary. It is complimentary; and yet I never have +received a word of thanks for it from the Hadjis; on the contrary I speak +nothing but the serious truth when I say that many of them even took +exceptions to the article. In endeavoring to please them I slaved over +that sketch for two hours, and had my labor for my pains. I never will +do a generous deed again. + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="CONCLUSION"></a>CONCLUSION +</h2> + + +<p>Nearly one year has flown since this notable pilgrimage was ended; and as +I sit here at home in San Francisco thinking, I am moved to confess that +day by day the mass of my memories of the excursion have grown more and +more pleasant as the disagreeable incidents of travel which encumbered +them flitted one by one out of my mind—and now, if the Quaker City were +weighing her anchor to sail away on the very same cruise again, nothing +could gratify me more than to be a passenger. With the same captain and +even the same pilgrims, the same sinners. I was on excellent terms with +eight or nine of the excursionists (they are my staunch friends yet), and +was even on speaking terms with the rest of the sixty-five. I have been +at sea quite enough to know that that was a very good average. Because a +long sea-voyage not only brings out all the mean traits one has, and +exaggerates them, but raises up others which he never suspected he +possessed, and even creates new ones. A twelve months' voyage at sea +would make of an ordinary man a very miracle of meanness. On the other +hand, if a man has good qualities, the spirit seldom moves him to exhibit +them on shipboard, at least with any sort of emphasis. Now I am +satisfied that our pilgrims are pleasant old people on shore; I am also +satisfied that at sea on a second voyage they would be pleasanter, +somewhat, than they were on our grand excursion, and so I say without +hesitation that I would be glad enough to sail with them again. I could +at least enjoy life with my handful of old friends. They could enjoy +life with their cliques as well—passengers invariably divide up into +cliques, on all ships. + +<p>And I will say, here, that I would rather travel with an excursion party +of Methuselahs than have to be changing ships and comrades constantly, as +people do who travel in the ordinary way. Those latter are always +grieving over some other ship they have known and lost, and over other +comrades whom diverging routes have separated from them. They learn to +love a ship just in time to change it for another, and they become +attached to a pleasant traveling companion only to lose him. They have +that most dismal experience of being in a strange vessel, among strange +people who care nothing about them, and of undergoing the customary +bullying by strange officers and the insolence of strange servants, +repeated over and over again within the compass of every month. They +have also that other misery of packing and unpacking trunks—of running +the distressing gauntlet of custom-houses—of the anxieties attendant +upon getting a mass of baggage from point to point on land in safety. +I had rather sail with a whole brigade of patriarchs than suffer so. +We never packed our trunks but twice—when we sailed from New York, and +when we returned to it. Whenever we made a land journey, we estimated +how many days we should be gone and what amount of clothing we should +need, figured it down to a mathematical nicety, packed a valise or two +accordingly, and left the trunks on board. We chose our comrades from +among our old, tried friends, and started. We were never dependent upon +strangers for companionship. We often had occasion to pity Americans +whom we found traveling drearily among strangers with no friends to +exchange pains and pleasures with. Whenever we were coming back from a +land journey, our eyes sought one thing in the distance first—the +ship—and when we saw it riding at anchor with the flag apeak, we felt as a +returning wanderer feels when he sees his home. When we stepped on +board, our cares vanished, our troubles were at an end—for the ship was +home to us. We always had the same familiar old state-room to go to, and +feel safe and at peace and comfortable again. + +<p>I have no fault to find with the manner in which our excursion was +conducted. Its programme was faithfully carried out—a thing which +surprised me, for great enterprises usually promise vastly more than they +perform. It would be well if such an excursion could be gotten up every +year and the system regularly inaugurated. Travel is fatal to prejudice, +bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on +these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can +not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's +lifetime. + +<p>The Excursion is ended, and has passed to its place among the things that +were. But its varied scenes and its manifold incidents will linger +pleasantly in our memories for many a year to come. Always on the wing, +as we were, and merely pausing a moment to catch fitful glimpses of the +wonders of half a world, we could not hope to receive or retain vivid +impressions of all it was our fortune to see. Yet our holyday flight has +not been in vain—for above the confusion of vague recollections, certain +of its best prized pictures lift themselves and will still continue +perfect in tint and outline after their surroundings shall have faded +away. + +<p>We shall remember something of pleasant France; and something also of +Paris, though it flashed upon us a splendid meteor, and was gone again, +we hardly knew how or where. We shall remember, always, how we saw +majestic Gibraltar glorified with the rich coloring of a Spanish sunset +and swimming in a sea of rainbows. In fancy we shall see Milan again, +and her stately Cathedral with its marble wilderness of graceful spires. +And Padua—Verona—Como, jeweled with stars; and patrician Venice, afloat +on her stagnant flood—silent, desolate, haughty—scornful of her humbled +state—wrapping herself in memories of her lost fleets, of battle and +triumph, and all the pageantry of a glory that is departed. + +<p>We can not forget Florence—Naples—nor the foretaste of heaven that is +in the delicious atmosphere of Greece—and surely not Athens and the +broken temples of the Acropolis. Surely not venerable Rome—nor the +green plain that compasses her round about, contrasting its brightness +with her gray decay—nor the ruined arches that stand apart in the plain +and clothe their looped and windowed raggedness with vines. We shall +remember St. Peter's: not as one sees it when he walks the streets of +Rome and fancies all her domes are just alike, but as he sees it leagues +away, when every meaner edifice has faded out of sight and that one dome +looms superbly up in the flush of sunset, full of dignity and grace, +strongly outlined as a mountain. + +<p>We shall remember Constantinople and the Bosporus—the colossal +magnificence of Baalbec—the Pyramids of Egypt—the prodigious form, the +benignant countenance of the Sphynx—Oriental Smyrna—sacred +Jerusalem—Damascus, the "Pearl of the East," the pride of Syria, the fabled Garden +of Eden, the home of princes and genii of the Arabian Nights, the oldest +metropolis on earth, the one city in all the world that has kept its name +and held its place and looked serenely on while the Kingdoms and Empires +of four thousand years have risen to life, enjoyed their little season of +pride and pomp, and then vanished and been forgotten! + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p651"></a><img alt="p651.jpg (7K)" src="images/p651.jpg" height="263" width="397"> +</center> +<br><br> +<hr> +<br> +<br><br><br> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Innocents Abroad, Part 6 of 6 +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, PART 6 OF 6 *** + +***** This file should be named 5693-h.htm or 5693-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/9/5693/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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