Part 11

The dragoman of the Kentuckians we have already encountered in Egypt and on the journey, and been impressed by his respectable gravity. It would perhaps be difficult for him to tell his nationality or birthplace; he wears the European dress, and his gold spectacles and big stomach would pass him anywhere for a German professor. He seems out of place as a dragoman, but if any one desired a savant as a companion in the East, he would be the man. Indeed, his employers soon discover that his forte is information, and not work. While the other servants are busy about the camps Antonio comes over to our tent, and opens up the richness of his mind, and illustrates his capacity as a Syrian guide.

“You know that mountain, there, with the chapel on top?” he asks.

“No.”

“Well, that is Mt. Nebo, and that one next to it is Pisgah, the mountain of the prophet Moses.”

Both these mountains are of course on the other side of the Jordan in the Moab range, but they are not identified,—except by Antonio. The sharp mountain behind us is Quarantania, the Mount of Christ's Temptation. Its whole side to the summit is honey-combed with the cells of hermits who once dwelt there, and it is still the resort of many pilgrims.

The evening is charming, warm but not depressing; the atmosphere is even exhilarating, and this surprises us, since we are so far below the sea level. The Doctor says that it is exactly like Colorado on a July night. We have never been so low before, not even in a coal-mine. We are not only about thirty-seven hundred feet below Jerusalem, we are over twelve hundred below the level of the sea. Sitting outside the tent under the starlight, we enjoy the novelty and the mysteriousness of the scene. Tents, horses picketed among the bushes, the firelight, the groups of servants and drivers taking their supper, the figure of an Arab from Gilgal coming forward occasionally out of the darkness, the singing, the occasional violent outbreak of kicking and squealing among the ill-assorted horses and mules, the running of loose-robed attendants to the rescue of some poor beast, the strong impression of the locality upon us, and I know not what Old Testament flavor about it all, conspire to make the night memorable.

“This place very dangerous,” says Antonio, who is standing round, bursting with information. “Him berry wise,” is Abdel-Atti's opinion of him. “Know a great deal; I tink him not live long.”

“What is the danger?” we ask.

“Wild beasts, wild boars, hyenas,—all these bush full of them. It was three years now I was camped here with Baron Kronkheit. 'Bout twelve o'clock I heard a noise and came out. Right there, not twenty feet from here, stood a hyena as big as a donkey, his two eyes like fire. I did not shoot him for fear to wake up the Baron.”

“Did he kill any of your party?”

“Not any man. In the morning I find he has carried off our only mutton.”

Notwithstanding these dangers, the night passes without alarm, except the barking of jackals about the kitchen tent. In the morning I ask Antonio if he heard the hyenas howling in the night. “Yes, indeed, plenty of them; they came very near my tent.”

We are astir at sunrise, breakfast, and start for the Jordan. It is the opinion of the dragoman and the sheykh that we should go first to the Dead Sea. It is the custom. Every tourist goes to the Dead Sea first, bathes, and then washes off the salt in the Jordan. No one ever thought of going to the Jordan first. It is impossible. We must visit the Dead Sea, and then lunch at the Jordan. We wished, on the contrary, to lunch at the Dead Sea, at which we should otherwise only have a very brief time. We insisted upon our own programme, to the great disgust of all our camp attendants, who predicted disaster.

The Jordan is an hour and a half from Jericho; that is the distance to the bathing-place of the Greek pilgrims. We descend all the way. Wild vegetation is never wanting; wild-flowers abound; we pass through thickets of thorns, bearing the yellow “apples of the Dead Sea,” which grow all over this plain. At Gilgal (now called Biha) we find what is probably the nastiest village in the world, and its miserable inhabitants are credited with all the vices of Sodom. The wretched huts are surrounded by a thicket of nubk as a protection against the plundering Bedaween. The houses are rudely built of stone, with a covering of cane or brush, and each one is enclosed in a hedge of thorns. These thorns, which grow rankly on the plain, are those of which the “crown of thorns” was plaited, and all devout pilgrims carry away some of them. The habitations within these thorny enclosures are filthy beyond description, and poverty-stricken. And this is in a watered plain which would bloom with all manner of fruits with the least care. Indeed, there are a few tangled gardens of the rankest vegetation; in them we see the orange, the fig, the deceptive pomegranate with its pink blossoms, and the olive. As this is the time of pilgrimage, a company of Turkish soldiers from Jerusalem is encamped at the village, and the broken country about it is covered with tents, booths, shops, kitchens, and presents the appearance of a fair and a camp-meeting combined. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pilgrims, who go every morning, as long as they remain here, to dip in the Jordan. Near the village rises the square tower of an old convent, probably, which is dignified with the name of the “house of Zacchæus.” This plain was once famed for its fertility; it was covered with gardens and palm-groves; the precious balsam, honey, and henna were produced here; the balsam gardens were the royal gift of Antony to Cleopatra, who transferred the balsam-trees to Heliopolis in Egypt.

As we ride away from Gilgal and come upon a more open and desert plain, I encounter an eagle sitting on the top of a thorn-tree, not the noblest of his species, but, for Palestine, a very fair eagle. Here is a chance for the Syrian hunter; he is armed with gun and pistols; he has his dogs; now, if ever, is the time for him to hunt, and I fall back and point out his opportunity. He does not embrace it. It is an easy shot; perhaps he is looking for wild boars; perhaps he is a tender-minded hunter. At any rate, he makes no effort to take the eagle, and when I ride forward the bird gracefully rises in the air, sweeping upward in magnificent circles, now veering towards the Mount of Temptation, and now towards Nebo, but always as serene as the air in which he floats.

And now occurs one of those incidents which are not rare to travellers in Syria, but which are rare and scarcely believed elsewhere. As the eagle hangs for a second motionless in the empyrean far before me, he drops a feather. I see the gray plume glance in the sun and swirl slowly down in the lucid air. In Judæa every object is as distinct as in a photograph. You can see things at a distance you can make no one believe at home. The eagle plume, detached from the noble bird, begins its leisurely descent.

I see in a moment my opportunity. I might never have another. All travellers in Syria whose books I have ever read have one or more startling adventures. Usually it is with a horse. I do not remember any with a horse and an eagle. I determine at once to have one. Glancing a moment at the company behind me, and then fixing my eye on the falling feather, I speak a word to my steed, and dart forward.

A word was enough. The noble animal seemed to comprehend the situation. He was of the purest Arab breed; four legs, four white ankles, small ears, slender pasterns, nostrils thin as tissue paper, and dilating upon the fall of a leaf; an eye terrible in rage, but melting in affection; a round barrel; gentle as a kitten, but spirited as a game-cock. His mother was a Nedjed mare from Medina, who had been exchanged by a Bedawee chief for nine beautiful Circassians, but only as a compromise after a war by the Pasha of Egypt for her possession. Her father was one of the most respectable horses in Yemen. Neither father, mother, nor colt had ever eaten anything but selected dates.

At the word, Abdallah springs forward, bounding over the sand, skimming over the thorn bushes, scattering the Jordan pilgrims right and left. He does not seem to be so much a horse as a creation of the imagination,—a Pegasus. At every leap we gain upon the feather, but it is still far ahead of us, and swirling down, down, as the air takes the plume or the weight of gravity acts upon the quill. Abdallah does not yet know the object of our fearful pace, but his docility is such that every time I speak to him he seems to shoot out of himself in sudden bursts of enthusiasm. The terrible strain continues longer than I had supposed it would, for I had undercalculated both the height at which the feather was cast and my distance to the spot upon which it must fall. None but a horse fed on dates could keep up the awful gait. We fly and the feather falls; and it falls with increasing momentum. It is going, going to the ground, and we are not there. At this instant, when I am in despair, the feather twirls, and Abdallah suddenly casts his eye up and catches the glint of it. The glance suffices to put him completely in possession of the situation. He gives a low neigh of joy; I plunge both spurs into his flanks about six or seven inches; he leaps into the air, and sails like a bird,—of course only for a moment; but it is enough; I stretch out my hand and catch the eagle's plume before it touches the ground. We light on the other side of a clump of thorns, and Abdallah walks on as quietly as if nothing had happened; he was not blown; not a hair of his glossy coat was turned. I have the feather to show.

Pilgrims are plenty, returning from the river in a continuous procession, in numbers rivalling the children of Israel when they first camped at Gilgal. We descend into the river-bottom, wind through the clumps of tangled bushes, and at length reach an open place where the river for a few rods is visible. The ground is trampled like a watering-spot for cattle; the bushes are not large enough to give shade; there are no trees of size except one or two at the water's edge; the banks are slimy, there seems to be no comfortable place to sit except on your horse—on Jordan's stormy banks I stand and cast a wistful eye; the wistful eye encounters nothing agreeable.

The Jordan here resembles the Arkansas above Little Rock, says the Doctor; I think it is about the size of the Concord where it flows through the classic town of that name in Massachusetts; but it is much swifter. Indeed, it is a rapid current, which would sweep away the strongest swimmer. The opposite bank is steep, and composed of sandy loam or marl. The hither bank is low, but slippery, and it is difficult to dip up water from it. Close to the shore the water is shallow, and a rope is stretched out for the protection of the bathers. This is the Greek bathing-place, but we are too late to see the pilgrims enter the stream; crowds of them are still here, cutting canes to carry away, and filling their tin cans with the holy water. We taste the water, which is very muddy, and find it warm but not unpleasant. We are glad that we have decided to lunch at the Dead Sea, for a more uninviting place than this could not he found; above and below this spot are thickets and boggy ground. It is beneath the historical and religious dignity of the occasion to speak of lunch, but all tourists know what importance it assumes on such an excursion, and that their high reflections seldom come to them on the historical spot. Indeed, one must be removed some distance from the vulgar Jordan before he can glow at the thought of it. In swiftness and volume it exceeds our expectations, but its beauty is entirely a creation of the imagination.

We had the opportunity of seeing only a solitary pilgrim bathe. This was a shock-headed Greek young man, who reluctantly ventured into the dirty water up to his knees and stood there shivering, and whimpering over the orders of the priest on the bank, who insisted upon his dipping. Perhaps the boy lacked faith; perhaps it was his first experiment with water; at any rate, he stood there until his spiritual father waded in and ducked the blubbering and sputtering neophyte under. This was not a baptism, but a meritorious bath. Some seedy fellahs from Gilgal sat on the bank fishing. When I asked them if they had anything, they produced from the corners of their gowns some Roman copper coins, picked up at Jericho, and which they swore were dropped there by the Jews when they assaulted the city with the rams'-horns. These idle fishermen caught now and then a rather soft, light-colored perch, with large scales,—a sickly-looking fish, which the Greeks, however, pronounced “tayeb.”

We leave the river and ride for an hour and a half across a nearly level plain, the earth of which shows salts here and there, dotted with a low, fat-leaved plant, something like the American sage-bush. Wild-flowers enliven the way, and although the country is not exactly cheerful, it has no appearance of desolation except such as comes from lack of water.

The Dead Sea is the least dead of any sheet of water I know. When we first arrived the waters were a lovely blue, which changed to green in the shifting light, but they were always animated and sparkling. It has a sloping sandy beach, strewn with pebbles, up which the waves come with a pleasant murmur. The plain is hot; here we find à cool breeze. The lovely plain of water stretches away to the south between blue and purple ranges of mountains, which thrust occasionally bold promontories into it, and add a charm to the perspective.

The sea is not inimical either to vegetable or animal life on its borders. Before we reach it I hear bird-notes high in the air like the song of a lark; birds are flitting about the shore and singing, and gulls are wheeling over the water; a rabbit runs into his hole close by the beach. Growing close to the shore is a high woody stonewort, with abundance of fleshy leaves and thousands of blossoms, delicate protruding stamens hanging over the waters of the sea itself. The plant with the small yellow fruit, which we take to be that of the apples of Sodom, also grows here. It is the Solarium spinosa, closely allied to the potato, egg-plant, and tomato; it has a woody stem with sharp recurved thorns, sometimes grows ten feet high, and is now covered with round orange berries.

It is not the scene of desolation that we expected, although some branches and trunks of trees, gnarled and bleached, the drift-wood of the Jordan, strewn along the beach, impart a dead aspect to the shore. These dry branches are, however, useful; we build them up into a wigwam, over which we spread our blankets; under this we sit, sheltered from the sun, enjoying the delightful breeze and the cheering prospect of the sparkling sea. The improvident Arabs, now that it is impossible to get fresh water, begin to want it; they have exhausted their own jugs and ours, having neglected to bring anything like an adequate supply. To see water and not be able to drink it is too much for their philosophy.

The party separates along the shore, seeking for places where bushes grow out upon tongues of land and offer shelter from observation for the bather. The first impression we have of the water is its perfect clearness. It is the most innocent water in appearance, and you would not suspect its saltness and extreme bitterness. No fish live in it; the water is too salt for anything but codfish. Its buoyancy has not been exaggerated by travellers, but I did not expect to find bathing in it so agreeable as it is. The water is of a happy temperature, soft, not exactly oily, but exceedingly agreeable to the skin, and it left a delicious sensation after the bath but it is necessary to be careful not to get any of it into the eyes. For myself, I found swimming in it delightful, and I wish the Atlantic Ocean were like it; nobody then would ever be drowned. Floating is no effort; on the contrary, sinking is impossible. The only annoyance in swimming is the tendency of the feet to strike out of water, and of the swimmer to go over on his head. When I stood upright in the water it came about to my shoulders; but it was difficult to stand, from the constant desire of the feet to go to the surface. I suppose that the different accounts of travellers in regard to the buoyancy of the water are due to the different specific gravity of the writers. We cannot all be doctors of divinity. I found that the best way to float was to make a bow of the body and rest with feet and head out of water, which was something like being in a cushioned chair. Even then it requires some care not to turn over. The bather seems to himself to be a cork, and has little control of his body.

About two hundred yards from the shore is an artificial island of stone, upon which are remains of regular masonry. Probably some crusader had a castle there. We notice upon looking down into the clear depths, some distance out, in the sunlight, that the lake seems, as it flows, to have translucent streaks, which are like a thick solution of sugar, showing how completely saturated it is with salts. It is, in fact, twelve hundred and ninety-two feet below the Mediterranean, nothing but a deep, half-dried-up sea; the chloride of magnesia, which gives it its extraordinarily bitter taste, does not crystallize and precipitate itself so readily as the chloride of sodium.

We look in vain for any evidence of volcanic disturbance or action of fire. Whatever there may be at the other end of the lake, there is none here. We find no bitumen or any fire-stones, although the black stones along the beach may have been supposed to be bituminous. All the pebbles and all the stones of the beach are of chalk flint, and tell no story of fire or volcanic fury.

Indeed, the lake has no apparent hostility to life. An enterprising company could draw off the Jordan thirty miles above here and make all this valley a garden, producing fruits and sugar-cane and cotton, and this lake one of the most lovely watering-places in the world. I have no doubt maladies could be discovered which its waters are exactly calculated to cure. I confidently expect to hear some day that great hotels are built upon this shore, which are crowded with the pious, the fashionable, and the diseased. I seem to see this blue and sunny lake covered with a gay multitude of bathers, floating about the livelong day on its surface; parties of them making a pleasure excursion to the foot of Pisgah; groups of them chatting, singing, amusing themselves as they would under the shade of trees on land, having umbrellas and floating awnings, and perhaps servants to bear their parasols; couples floating here and there at will in the sweet dream of a love that seems to be suspended between the heaven and the earth. No one will be at any expense for boats, for every one will be his own boat, and launch himself without sail or oars whenever he pleases. How dainty will be the little feminine barks that the tossing mariner will hail on that peaceful sea! No more wailing of wives over husbands drowned in the waves, no more rescuing of limp girls by courageous lovers. People may be shipwrecked if there comes a squall from Moab, but they cannot be drowned. I confess that this picture is the most fascinating that I have been able to conjure up in Syria.

We take our lunch under the wigwam, fanned by a pleasant breeze. The persons who partake it present a pleasing variety of nations and colors, and the “spread” itself, though simple, was gathered from many lands. Some one took the trouble to note the variety: raisins from Damascus, bread, chicken, and mutton from Jerusalem, white wine from Bethlehem, figs from Smyrna, cheese from America, dates from Nubia, walnuts from Germany, water from Elisha's well, eggs from Hen.

We should like to linger till night in this enchanting place, but for an hour the sheykh and dragoman have been urging our departure; men and beasts are represented as suffering for water,—all because we have reversed the usual order of travel. As soon as we leave the lake we lose its breeze, the heat becomes severe; the sandy plain is rolling and a little broken, but it has no shade, no water, and is indeed a weary way. The horses feel the want of water sadly. The Arabs, whom we had supposed patient in deprivation, are almost crazy with thirst. After we have ridden for over an hour the sheykh's horse suddenly wheels off and runs over the plain; my nag follows him, apparently without reason, and in spite of my efforts I am run away with. The horses dash along, and soon the whole cavalcade is racing after us. The object is soon visible,—a fringe of trees, which denotes a brook; the horses press on, dash down the steep bank, and plunge their heads into the water up to the eyes. The Arabs follow suit. The sheykh declares that in fifteen minutes more both men and horses would have been dead. Never before did anybody lunch at the Dead Sea.

When the train comes up, the patient donkey that Madame rides is pushed through the brook and not permitted to wet his muzzle. I am indignant at such cruelty, and spring off my horse, push the two donkey-boys aside, and lead the eager donkey to the stream. At once there is a cry of protest from dragomans, sheykh, and the whole crowd, “No drink donkey, no drink donkey, no let donkey, bad for donkey.” There could not have been a greater outcry among the Jews when the ark of the covenant was likely to touch the water. I desist from my charitable efforts. Why the poor beast, whose whole body craved water as much as that of the horse, was denied it, I know not. It is said that if you give a donkey water on the road he won't go thereafter. Certainly the donkey is never permitted to drink when travelling. I think the patient and chastened creature will get more in the next world than his cruel masters.