Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/143

CHAP. XVI.] help believing that the frailties of all the hadjis,* whether Christian or Mahometan, are greatly exaggerated. I certainly regarded the pilgrims to Palestine as a well-disposed orderly body of people, not strongly enthusiastic, but desirous to comply with the ordinances of their religion, and to attain the great end of salvation as quietly and economically as possible.

When the solemnities of Easter are concluded the pilgrims move off in a body to complete their good work by visiting the sacred scenes in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, including the wilderness of John the Baptist, Bethlehem, and above all, the Jordan, for to bathe in those sacred waters is one of the chief objects of the expedition. All the pilgrims—men, women, and children—are submerged en chemise, and the saturated linen is carefully wrapped up and preserved as a burial-dress that shall enure for salvation in the realms of death.

I saw the burial of a pilgrim. He was a Greek—miserably poor, and very old— he had just crawled into the Holy City, and had reached at once the goal of his pious journey and the end of his sufferings upon earth. There was no coffin nor wrapper, and as I looked full upon the face of the dead I saw how deeply it was rutted with the ruts of age and misery. The priest, strong and portly, fresh, fat, and alive with the life of the animal kingdom—unpaid, or ill paid for his work, would scarcely deign to mutter out his forms, but hurried over the words with shocking haste. Presently he called out impatiently—"Yalla! Goor!" (Come! look sharp!), and then the dead Greek was seized. His limbs yielded inertly to the rude men that handled them, and down he went into his grave, so roughly bundled in that his neck was twisted by the fall, so twisted, that if the sharp malady of life were still upon him the old man would have shrieked and groaned, and the lines of his face would have quivered with pain. The lines of his face were not moved, and the old man lay still and heedless—so well cured of that tedious life-ache, that nothing could hurt him now. His clay was itself again—cool, firm, and tough. The pilgrim had found great rest. I threw the accustomed handful of the holy soil upon his patient face,