Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/65

 ii s. in. JAN. 21, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

on

ir//i8 about Jerusalem. By the Rev. J. E. Hanauer. (London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.)

THOUGH written by a missionary and published by a missionary society, this is a book of un- restricted interest, being, in fact, a learned, closely detailed survey of Jerusalem and its immediate surroundings, from a point of view entirely human, by one who is regarded as the chief authority on the folk-lore and topography of Palestine.

Mr. Hanauer is a native of Jerusalem, and has spent most of his life there. He has seen ex- plorers, excavators, come and go ; has weighed their theories, but has kept an open mind. The present work, so unpretentious in appearance, is the result of the personal investigation and research of fifty years ; and, though it purports to be little more than a gossiping guide-book for the Protestant pilgrim, offers a mine of informa- tion to all future writers on Jerusalem. It con- tains more curious local knowledge than did the author's ' Folk-lore of the Holy Land ' ; which is saying much. On the first page we learn the reason why the southern and eastern faces of the older buildings of the city have an ochre tinge " a remarkable shower of yellow mud that fell early in February, 1857, plastering the houses from top to bottom " ; and every page has its touch of personal reminiscence giving life to the dry bones of archaeology.

Mr. Hanauer describes Jerusalem as he first remembers it in 1860. In those days there were only three houses outside the walls, and those quite newly built. "The gates were closed at sunset, and also on Fridays " for two hours while the garrison was at mosque, and a special permit, " not always obtainable," was required before one could enter or leave the city :

" The writer, on several occasions about 1867, when he was serving on Sir Charles Warren's excavations, had himself lowered by a rope over the city wall in order to be at his appointed post outside the town. . . .The roadway was unpaved. In the rainy season there was a ' slough of des- pond ' outside the gateway, and in the open space inside, within the city, a pond about one foot deep," which could be passed on stepping-stones kindly provided by the municipality. " In summer the bed of the little lake was encumbered with all sorts of filth, and not unfrequently by the rotting carcases of dogs, cats, and smaller crea- tures." The tannery close to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the shambles at the entrance to the Jewish quarter nuisances preserved by the Muslims expressly to annoy the " infidels " \\-i-re then still in existence.

Mr. Hanauer is that most useful of beings, the local antiquary, a born lover of things ancient, who, in a modest station and with few books of reference, has yet, by patience and indefatigable industry, made himself completely master of his subject. He is acquainted with every stone of the city, and knows Hebrew and Arabic tho- roughly as modern languages. His descriptions of the Haram esh-Sherif (the Temple Area) and

of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are the result of personal research, and will astonish casual writers on those subjects. The book abounds in matter worthy of quotation, and by quotation, only can we hope to indicate its scope and value ^ We choose at random :

" Christian ^Street is remarkably straight and,, for the first part of its course, level, the reason being that in that part it passes along the top of a huge and very ancient dam or causeway, which forms the eastern limit of the Pool of Hezekiah. The western side of the dam-top has houses built along it ; that is why this remarkable specimen of ancient engineering, which is about 200 ft. long and 50 wide, escapes notice."

" As we walk through the old bazaars. . . .here and there where the white-washed plaster has fallen we remark old lettering cut into the stones ;: generally a capital T or ' Seta Anna.' The former shows that the shops or buildings on which it occurs belonged to the Knights Templars, and the- latter marks the property of the Crusaders' church and nunnery of St. Anne just inside St. Stephen's Gate. The new buildings which in the last twenty years have been erected by the Greeks are in like manner marked with <, the monogram of ' taphos,' the Sepulchre."

"To escape from the throng we turn aside into a coffee-shop with a thoroughfare leading right through it, an old cruciform church . . . .Tradition says that it was built on the site of the house- which belonged to Zebedee. The Franciscans curiously hold that the reason why St. John was known to the high priest was the very simple one that the family of Zebedee used to supply the high* priest's family with fish from the lake of Gennes- areth ; and, as that was at least three days'" journey from Jerusalem, the Apostle's parents must have had a dwelling and a place of business in the Holy City."

Mr. Hanauer offers a new suggestion as to the origin of the Greek ceremony of the Holy Fire. Quoting Eusebius, though at second hand, he writes :

" It was on the great Vigils of the Feast of Easter, when oil was wanting for the church, and the drawers were greatly perplexed, that he [Narcissus, Bishop of ^lia Capitolina A.D. 180- 222] ordered them to draw water from the nearest well, which, being consecrated by his prayers, and poured into the lamps with sincere faith in the Lord, contrary to all reason and expectation, by a miraculous and Divine power, was changed into the fatness of oil."

It was Mr. Hanauer who, some years ago, succeeded in identifying the Philip D'Aubeny whose tombstone is before the doorway of the Church of the Sepulchre with Sir Philip D'Aubeny, tutor of our Henry TIL In his description of the- Mosque El Aksa, in the present work, he writes of the so-called " Tomb of the Sons of Aaron " : " It marks the last resting-place of some of the murderers of Th omas a Becket. . . .Their epitaph,, now totally effaced, ran, translated into English, thus : ' Here lie the wretches who martyred the blessed Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury.' "

By way of adverse criticism we must say that the book is much too full of learned matter to serve its purpose as a simple guide-book for the- pious.