Diary of A Tour in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and The Holy Land/Volume 2/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

Village of Bethany—Tomb of Lazarus—View of the Dead Sea—Accounts of Acre—Termination of the Rhamazan—Our Doctor in great request— Want of medical attendance—The Burying Ground—Visit to Mount Calvary—Glorious sunset —Laziness of the Jews—Leave Jerusalem.

DECEMBER 6TH.

—Owing to its being the Mahometan sabbath, we could not set off on our ride to Bethany till after one, when the gates would be open. We crossed the Valley of Jehosaphat, and proceeded to Bethany, leaving Siloam on our right. In Scripture, the distance is said to be a sabbath's journey, (not quite two miles,) but 22

the road is so steep and rugged, our ride must have occupied one hour and a half.

This village, like all in the vicinity of Jerusalem, is in the most ruined and miserable state; groups of ill-clothed, or rather, hardly clothed, peasants, were lying in idleness among the ruins, and appearing indifferent to the spots they chose, as some, who might have selected a less bleak and exposed situation, were sitting on the roofs of their stone habitations, or holes cut in the rocks. In the centre of the village you are shewn the tomb of Lazarus, and you descend a flight of eighteen steps, to the place of his interment, which is capacious enough to allow your creeping in. This narrow descent does not answer to one's impression of the place from whence our Saviour called to Lazarus to come forth.

About a hundred yards further, a cavern in a rock presented itself, which answered much more to our preconceived ideas, as 23

one large stone might have closed it, and “have been rolled away,” and a space surrounds it, where “the much people who followed” might have stood spectators to the miracle. Our convent guide advised our going a little further, to shew us the stone upon which our Saviour was said to have been sitting when Mary conveyed to him the news of her brother's death.

The ruins of Bethphage are discernible, and we were surprised at our cicerone furnishing us with no tradition of the house of Martha and Mary, or that of Simon the leper, where our Saviour was anointed with spikenard.

In returning, by the Mount of Olives, we had again a favourable evening for the view of the Dead Sea, and the spot to which Israel was led by Joshua, and the general view was more distinct from this point than from the higher position. We could not pass the Chapel of the Ascension without again visiting it, as well as the Garden of 24

Gethsemane. Nothing appears to me so certain as the identity of this sacred spot, and of a portion of rock, now of a perfectly smooth, though not level, surface, upon which our Saviour is said to have knelt and fell; every portion of this garden (as it is called) so describes the awful and touching features of the scene. We succeeded in sawing off a large piece of wood from the oldest olive-tree; and I hope we escaped observation, in setting so bad an example for pious thefts.

It is only by repeatedly visiting the immediate country about Jerusalem that one becomes aware of the magnificent scale of its hills and valleys: however desolate, arid, and uncultivated, there is an air of majesty about them to which no description can do justice. The Valley of Judgment cannot bear its name, without inspiring almost thrilling feelings at its depth and vastness; the stony barrenness of the soil at this season meets with no relief, but we are told, 25

that the luxuriance and beauty of the spring flowers cause all this to disappear, and that the neighbourhood of Jerusalem becomes, in April and May, one vast and fragrant flower-garden.

On our return to the convent we found Joseph, the Consul's dragoman, who brought us very unfavourable accounts of the neighbourhood of Acre, and proved to us the impracticability of our going by Damascus; some English travellers, to whom the Governor of Acre did not feel justified in affording protection by land to Beyrout, having been obliged to hire a native vessel and proceed by sea; and we fear we must now turn our minds and our caravans in the direction of Gaza, on our way to Cairo. This change of plan disappoints us much as to our Balbec prospects; perhaps our arriving earlier in Egypt may enable us to realize our wish of visiting Thebes.

The old Jew had brought his wife, Sarah, 26

and his pretty little girl, Rachel, to see us: they only spoke Spanish, and were magnificently dressed; and the mother, in age and costume, might have afforded the model for the Rebecca of Ivanhoe. She is Joseph's fourth wife, and might be his great-granddaughter; but the family group would have been a beautiful one to draw, their dresses and cast of features were so exactly those chosen by the old masters in their representations of patriarchs and their families.

DECEMBER 7TH.

— We were disturbed from our sleep by a regular cannonade, and my first idea was, that Jerusalem was in a state of siege; but it turned out the very common-place event of some guns firing on the ushering in of the Beiram, and the rejoicing attending the termination of the Rhamazan. I partook of it, as it is quite distressing to have one's horse led by attenuated Arabs, and feel that all they are watching is the setting sun, at the very 27

moment we wish the light prolonged, so as not to be shut out of the gates.

We had been trying to engage an Arab, much recommended by Sir A. Bernard, whom Mr. Y. could not succeed in finding, as he was always from home; this morning, our pilgrim, or rather seller of rosaries, offered himself as a guide, which offer met with no encouragement. M. Chacaton hinted to us that he was a tailor by trade, who had undertaken to put his wardrobe in repair; our turbaned friend, however, insisted, in bad Italian, on his qualifications for a travelling servant, and at last we discovered that the same individual pursued these various avocations, and that the very man with whom we had for days been endeavouring to obtain an interview, was the same whom George and always been trying to eject from our convent quarters.

Just as I was setting off with our doctor, to see the fête of Beiram outside the walls, 28

he was summoned to the governor's, to attend one of the officers. He has visited at least forty patients a day since our arrival, and been consulted daily by more than double that number, and we are followed from our convent by the poor, asking to see our hakim. We do not cease being grateful that we took the resolution of bringing him with us, so great a comfort and relief has he proved in this wretched place, where, in a population of fifteen thousand, there has only been one medical attendant, a German convert, whom we found at the point of death, without any assistant to compound or to dispense the scanty stock of medicine he possessed.

The doctor says he has seen two people who have recovered from the plague; one an old man who is left paralytic, another a youth who is left dumb. He supposes that the virus of the disease entered the system, and thus left behind the proofs of its venom. 29

Many Jews have consulted him; and it is sad to know the vast proportion of sickness solely caused by famine and cold,—the general disease being low fever, which can only be relieved by better living. We made up small packets of quinine to distribute, which were eagerly accepted; and the doctor dispensed occasionally soup, bread, and biscuit, and some article of warm coarse clothing among his patients; these were more gratefully received than money, which forms a great contrast to our English poor.

One cannot help wishing to suggest that some of the funds subscribed for the Jewish Society, should be applied to establishing a physician, and a regular supply of medical assistance. Might it not be feasible, under proper and judicious management, to afford the poor of Jerusalem, on the plan practised in England, some relief by soup tickets, or rather bread tickets, in a country where the 30

grain is abundant, and the climate allows such food to be of sufficient nourishment to its inhabitants, many of whom I have actually seen during our rides eat grass and clover? The attention to their physical sufferings might lead to higher results, and put our missionaries, and those desirous of conveying religious instruction, in more direct and intimate communication with Jew and Gentile.

Have we not the Divine example in more than one instance, of the sick being cured, the lepers cleansed, and the hungry fed, before religious instruction was imparted? I feel convinced that greater charity could not be exercised at Jerusalem than by the appointment of medical attendance; the selection should fall on some one whose zeal would induce him to bear the sacrifice of settling in such a country. Devotion to the cause is more required than great skill, as the prevailing maladies are obviously low 31

fever and ophthalmia, for both of which the remedies are well understood.

Minney and her father during this time rode to see the Prophets' Tombs, into which they could not effect an entrance. They described the monument as having little claim to its appellation, as its architecture is comparatively of a recent period, and evidently not Jewish. The doors are of solid stone, and it is supposed could not have been hung after the building was terminated, but at the time of its construction; the ornamental part of the frieze was in very delicate and beautiful work, and in a degree of preservation very superior to its general state.

We then proceeded outside the walls to the burying-grounds, which presented a very pretty scene, as the Turkish women were celebrating the first day of the Beiram, in visiting the tombs of their friends, and ornamenting them with fresh flowers. Some 32

had placed tents, where they were eating and amusing themselves; several groups made signs to us to go and join them.

Our European dresses seemed to cause them more interest and amusement than the Turkish women had shewn at Constantinople. I tried to attract some very pretty little children, employing my little stock of Arabic in calling out Imshi, which did not produce the desired effect, and even disturbed the gravity of our Cavasse Hassan. It seems that I had substituted the va via, for vienni qui.

A poor little Arab girl was among a group of well-dressed children, with nothing on but a sort of blouse of coarse canvas, but was a complete miniature of the Arabian style of countenance—such a clear olive complexion, long cut eye, a beautifully-formed mouth, and rather dilated nostrils. I gave her a little piece of money, which was received with much pleasure and surprise. 33

On walking on, I soon heard a great wrangle raised by the Turkish children, imitating their elders, in despoiling this poor little Arab. My Frank interference however speedily settled the matter, and the little Turks looked so crest-fallen, that I hope this may be de bonne augure for the future settlement of the question.

I finished my day by paying Mrs. Young a visit, where I acted as newspaper, in telling them what was, in fact, rather old political gossip, which their long failure of Galignanis had made them miss. We went home very heavy at heart at finding no letters from Alexandria.

DECEMBER 8TH.

—We went to church at the Consul's, and our congregation amounted to only ten, including an American missionary and two German converts. The consciousness that we were attending Divine worship at Jerusalem made the service particularly impressive; and the text, taken 34

from the lesson of the day, Luke xxi., “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the whole earth distress of nations with perplexity,” was very ably treated by Mr. Nicholaison, and appeared a most forcible anticipation of what every day becomes more apparent here, some great and general change.

Just as we got back to our convent door, Mr. Young overtook us, to tell us of a fresh revolt at Mount Hebron; four hundred men having been sent for by the governor, to reinforce the eleven hundred who had gone two days before to put down a less serious disturbance. As fast as one rebellion is quelled here, another springs up; and the soldiers are so little to be relied on that the governor's son, though willing to give us an escort to conduct us beyond Mount Hebron, strongly advised our making the détour of Ramla and Gaza, where the country is (for Syria) in a secure state. 35

In the afternoon we again visited Mount Calvary; the organ was playing, but anything less impressive it is difficult to conceive: the overture to Lodoaiska was one of the pieces selected. The sacred spots we wished once more to see, were pointed out in so irreverent a manner that it caused an almost painful impression; the closeness and the accumulation of bad smells at that part of the church which adjoins the Holy Sepulchre was something dreadful. We saw the Pillar of the Flagellation, which we had missed on our first visit, and which has all the appearance of an ancient column.

It is satisfactory, with regard to the site of Mount Calvary, to observe, as was pointed out to us by Mr. Young, that the stones composing the walls of the town in this direction have all the character of Roman construction, and a complete absence of the larger blocks that distinguished the Jewish substructures in other directions of the 36

walls, so that it encourages one to believe the original walls were within those of this quarter, and would at once establish the fact of Mount Calvary being outside the city at our Saviour's crucifixion. That the site of Pilate's house is correctly fixed, there appears no doubt; at present it is occupied by a Turkish barrack. We then walked out by St. Stephen's gate, and looked up at the spot allotted to Mahomet at the day of doom; we had intended to reach the Garden of Gethsemane, but the day closed too suddenly to allow our doing so, though the distance was only computed at a Sabbathday's journey (six furlongs).

I never saw so glorious a sunset; the clouds of purple were of the most vivid and beautiful tints; any attempt to represent them in painting would have appeared exaggerated: it must have been such a sky as this which our Saviour pointed out as the one from which the Pharisee could deduce 37

an opinion of the future weather: “Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky, but ye cannot discern the signs of the times.” George went with Mr. Y. to the house of the Governor, whose son received them with great civility, but confirmed the bad news we had heard from Hebron.

We met two very beautifully accoutred officers coming to our convent, in search of the hakim, to afford military assistance, their colonel having been taken suddenly ill. Our mild-looking Christian servant, Youssoff, came to ask us for a horse and a new set of clothes, preparatory to our journey into the desert; he also signified that his services were to be confined to leading my horse or dromedary when the occasion required, and attending only on me. These demands and conditions not suiting our arrangements, I was grieved to see Youssoff's steps turned towards Jaffa.

DECEMBER 9TH.

—We were again disappointed 38

about our letters, and the Consul did not seem surprised, as it is supposed that the Egyptian and Turkish Governments frequently detain letters of any bulk directed to foreigners, lest they should transmit some political information; perhaps we are spared some bad news, which might make our journey through the Desert one of tedious anxiety. We employed all the morning in writing to England, and only went out to dine at Mr. Young's, where the appareil of an English dinner afforded a great contrast to our convent scramble.

DECEMBER 10TH.

—The wrangling of our horse purveyors made our departure appear impracticable; but after George had shewn great determination of resisting Jewish and Mussulman extortion, we succeeded in getting the Tartahuan out of the maker's hands, and proceeded to pay Mrs. Nicholaison a farewell visit.

Some interesting conversation was interrupted 39

by the entrance of a German Jew, whom Mrs. N. described as one of their few converts, and one whom they had prevailed upon to exercise himself in the shoe-making trade, as extreme and hopeless idleness was the great evil they had to contend against. In this instance their good intentions had sadly failed; for the good Isaac, with many apologies, produced a child's shoe from his pocket he had been for some months manufacturing for Mrs. N.'s little girl, and expressed great regret at the utter impossibility of making its fellow till the mildness of the weather allowed him to work; for he said that at present his fingers and faculties were equally benumbed. This declaration was as seriously made as it was absurdly delivered. The complaints of being unemployed were very general, but every attempt to encourage industry had failed, even with regard to those in the greatest state of destitution. 40

One of the Spanish Jews had shewn some talent for sculpture, in making a pretty candlestick from the sandstone of the country. Mr. Y. bespoke its pendant and a vase for the centre ornament; but on being sent home, the vase proved quite crooked, and the candlestick out of all proportion with the original: in short, the stimulus of gain is not yet sufficient to arouse their moral or physical energies, though “to beg they are not ashamed.”

We actually left Jerusalem at half-past two; our last view of Mount Olivet was from the leads of the convent, and we left our artist to take the view of that unpicturesque but most interesting spot, the Garden of Gethsemane. Mr. and Mrs. Young accompanied us on our road as far as the village, or rather to the site of the ancient Emmaus.

We reached our gîte at Aber-Gosh about sunset, expecting to find the sheik's house 41

“swept and garnished” for our reception; but great was our dismay when Denino met us with a chicken half-plucked in his hand, and told us that the sheik's house was shut up, and that there was only one room for our whole party, à la maison d'un individu, and that the sheik was himself absent; of this fact we were well aware, as he was the famous robber whom the government had so long failed in capturing, and who had for many years levied a tax on passing travellers, but his son was allowed the privilege of exercising hospitality; and after some démélé, we succeeded in getting possession of a room without a single article of furniture.

Unluckily for us, the horse loaded with our folding chairs had fallen, and so ingeniously as to render all unfit for use, so that we had to sit on our saddles round our table, which was composed of a packing-case. But all these contrivances added to 42

our amusement and appetite; and how our good dinner was produced was incomprehensible, unless by a coup de baguette.

On leaving Jerusalem, one was impressed with a feeling of awe, in passing by the valley of Jehoshaphat, associated as it appears with the denunciations contained in the prophecies of Joel; and it made one ask oneself, under what awful circumstances we might next contemplate this spot?

The only exception to the generally melancholy expression of countenance of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, was that of one of our guides, who was deaf and dumb; he was always bursting with good humour and wild animal spirits, and his pantomimic manner was quite successful in expressing to us whatever he wished: in short, it served us much better than Arabic. 43