Part 12

Nearly all the way over the plain we have the long snowy range of Mt. Herinon in sight, a noble object, closing the long northern vista, and a refreshment to the eyes wearied by the parched vegetation of the valley and dazzled by the aerial shimmer. If we turn from the north to the south, we have the entirely different but equally poetical prospect of the blue sea enclosed in the receding hills, which fall away into the violet shade of the horizon. The Jordan Valley is unique; by a geologic fault it is dropped over a thousand feet below the sea-level; it is guarded by mountain-ranges which are from a thousand to two thousand feet high; at one end is a mountain ten thousand feet high, from which the snow never disappears; at the other end is a lake forty miles long, of the saltest and bitterest water in the world. All these contrasts the eye embraces at one point.

We dismount at the camp of the Russian pilgrims by Rîha, and walk among the tents and booths. The sharpers of Syria attend the strangers, tempt them with various holy wares, and entice them into their dirty coffee-shops. It is a scene of mingled credulity and knavery, of devotion and traffic. There are great booths for the sale of vegetables, nuts, and dried fruit. The whole may be sufficiently described as a camp-meeting without any prayer-tent.

At sunset I have a quiet hour by the fountain of Elisha. It is a remarkable pool. Under the ledge of limestone rocks the water gushes out with considerable force, and in such volume as to form a large brook which flows out of the basin and murmurs over a stony bed. You cannot recover your surprise to see a river in this dry country burst suddenly out of the ground. A group of native women have come to the pool with jars, and they stay to gossip, sitting about the edge upon the stones with their feet in the water. One of them wears a red gown, and her cheeks are as red as her dress; indeed, I have met several women to-day who had the complexion of a ripe Flemish Beauty pear. As it seems to be the fashion, I also sit on the bank of the stream with my feet in the warm swift water, and enjoy the sunset and the strange concourse of pilgrims who are gathering about the well. They are worthy Greeks, very decent people, men and women, who salute me pleasantly as they arrive, and seem to take my participation in the bath as an act of friendship.

Just below the large pool, by a smaller one, a Greek boy, having bathed, is about to dress, and I am interested to watch the process. The first article to go on is a white shirt; over this he puts on two blue woollen shirts; he then draws on a pair of large, loose trousers; into these the shirts are tucked, and the trousers are tied at the waist,—he is bothered with neither pins nor buttons. Then comes the turban, which is a soft gray and yellow material; a red belt is next wound twice about the waist; the vest is yellow and open in front; and the costume is completed by a jaunty jacket of yellow, prettily embroidered. The heap of clothes on the bank did not promise much, but the result is a very handsome boy, dressed, I am sure, most comfortably for this climate. While I sit here the son of the sheykh rides his horse to the pool. He is not more than ten years old, is very smartly dressed in gay colors, and exceedingly handsome, although he has somewhat the supercilious manner of a lad born in the purple. The little prince speaks French, and ostentatiously displays in his belt a big revolver. I am glad of the opportunity of seeing one of the desert robbers in embryo.

When it is dusk we have an invasion from the neighboring Bedaween, an imposition to which all tourists are subjected, it being taken for granted that we desire to see a native dance. This is one of the ways these honest people have of levying tribute; by the connivance of our protectors, the head sheykhs, the entertainment is forced upon us, and the performers will not depart without a liberal backsheesh. We are already somewhat familiar with the fascinating dances of the Orient, and have only a languid curiosity about those of the Jordan; but before we are aware there is a crowd before our tents, and the evening is disturbed by doleful howling and drum-thumping. The scene in the flickering firelight is sufficiently fantastic.

The men dance first. Some twenty or thirty of them form in a half-circle, standing close together; their gowns are in rags, their black hair is tossed in tangled disorder, and their eyes shine with animal wildness. The only dancing they perform consists in a violent swaying of the body from side to side in concert, faster and faster as the excitement rises, with an occasional stamping of the feet, and a continual howling like darwishes. Two vagabonds step into the focus of the half-circle and hop about in the most stiff-legged manner, swinging enormous swords over their heads, and giving from time to time a war-whoop,—it seems to be precisely the dance of the North American Indians. We are told, however, that the howling is a song, and that the song relates to meeting the enemy and demolishing him. The longer the performance goes on the less we like it, for the uncouthness is not varied by a single graceful motion, and the monotony becomes unendurable. We long for the women to begin.

When the women begin, we wish we had the men back again. Creatures uglier and dirtier than these hags could not be found. Their dance is much the same as that of the men, a semicircle, with a couple of women to jump about and whirl swords. But the women display more fierceness and more passion as they warm to their work, and their shrill cries, dishevelled hair, loose robes, and frantic gestures give us new ideas of the capacity of the gentle sex; you think that they would not only slay their enemies, but drink their blood and dance upon their fragments. Indeed, one of their songs is altogether belligerent; it taunts the men with cowardice, it scoffs them for not daring to fight, it declares that the women like the sword and know how to use it,—and thus, and thus, and thus, lunging their swords into the air, would they pierce the imaginary enemy. But these sweet creatures do not sing altogether of war; they sing of love in the same strident voices and fierce manner: “My lover will meet me by the stream, he will take me over the water.”

When the performance is over they all clamor for backsheesh; it is given in a lump to their sheykh, and they retire into the bushes and wrangle over its distribution. The women return to us and say. “Why you give our backsheesh to sheykh? We no get any. Men get all.” It seems that women are animated nowadays by the same spirit the world over, and make the same just complaints of the injustice of men.

When we turn in, there is a light gleaming from a cell high up on Mt. Temptation, where some modern pilgrim is playing hermit for the night.

We are up early in the morning, and prepare for the journey to Jerusalem. Near our camp some Abyssinian pilgrims, Christians so called, have encamped in the bushes, a priest and three or four laymen, the cleverest and most decent Abyssinians we have met with. They are from Gondar, and have been a year and a half on their pilgrimage from their country to the Jordan. The priest is severely ill with a fever, and his condition excites the compassion of Abd-el-Atti, who procures for him a donkey to ride back to the city. About the only luggage of the party consists of sacred books, written on parchment and preserved with great care, among them the Gospel of St. John, the Psalms, the Pentateuch, and volumes of prayers to the Virgin. They are willing to exchange some of these manuscripts for silver, and we make up besides a little purse for the sick man. These Abyssinian Christians when at home live under the old dispensation, rather than the new, holding rather to the law of Moses than of Christ, and practise generally all the vices of all ages; the colony of them at Jerusalem is a disreputable lot of lewd beggars; so that we are glad to find some of the race who have gentle manners and are outwardly respectable. To be sure, we had come a greater distance than they to the Jordan, but they had been much longer on the way.

The day is very hot; the intense sun beats upon the white limestone rocks and is reflected into the valleys. Our view in returning is better than it was in coming; the plain and the foot of the pass are covered with a bloom of lilac-colored flowers. We meet and pass more pilgrims than before. We overtake them resting or asleep by the roadside, in the shade of the rocks. They all carry bundles of sticks and canes cut on the banks of the Jordan, and most of them Jordan water in cans, bottles, and pitchers. There are motley loads of baggage, kitchen utensils, beds, children. We see again two, three, and four on one horse or mule, and now and then a row, as if on a bench, across the horse's back, taking up the whole road.

We overtake one old woman, a Russian, who cannot be less than seventy, with a round body, and legs as short as ducks' and as big as the “limbs” of a piano. Her big feet are encased in straw shoes, the shape of a long vegetable-dish. She wears a short calico gown, an old cotton handkerchief enwraps her gray head, she carries on her back a big bundle of clothing, an extra pair of straw shoes, a coffee-pot, and a saucepan, and she staggers under a great bundle of canes on her shoulder. Poor old pilgrim! I should like to give the old mother my horse and ease her way to the heavenly city; but I reflect that this would detract from the merit of her pilgrimage. There are men also as old hobbling along, but usually not so heavily laden. One ancient couple are riding in the deep flaps of a pannier, hanging each side of a mule; they can just see each other across the mule's back, but the swaying, sickening motion of the pannier evidently lessens their interest in life and in each other.

Our Syrian allies are as brave as usual. The Soudan babies did not go to the Jordan or the Dead Sea, and are consequently fresh and full of antics. The Syrian armament has not thus far been used; eagles, rabbits, small game of all sorts, have been disregarded; neither of the men has unslung his gun or drawn his revolvers. The hunting dogs have not once been called on to hunt anything, and now they are so exhausted by the heat that their master is obliged to carry them all the way to Jerusalem; one of the hounds he has in his arms and the other is slung in a pannier under the saddle, his master's foot resting in the other side to balance the dog. The poor creature looks out piteously from his swinging cradle. It is the most inglorious hunting-expedition I have ever been attached to.

Our sheykh becomes more and more friendly. He rides up to me occasionally, and, nobly striking his breast, exclaims, “Me! sheykh, Jordan, Jerusalem, Mar Saba, Hebron, all round; me, big.” Sometimes he ends the interview with a demand for tobacco, and again with a hint of the backsheesh he expects in Jerusalem. I want to tell him that he is exactly like our stately red man at home, with his “Me! Big Injun. Chaw-tobac?”

We are very glad to get out of the heat at noon and take shelter in the rock grotto at the Red Khan. We sit here as if in a box at the theatre, and survey the passing show. The Syro-Phoenician woman smokes her narghileh again, the dogs crouching at her feet, and the Soudan babies are pretending to wait on her, and tumbling over each other and spilling everything they attempt to carry. The woman says they are great plagues to her, and cost thirty napoleons each in Soudan. As we sit here after lunch, an endless procession passes before us,—donkeys, horses, camels in long strings tied together, and pilgrims of all grades; and as they come up the hill one after the other, showing their heads suddenly, it is just as if they appeared on the stage; and they all—Bedaween, Negroes, Russians, Copts, Circassians, Greeks, Soudan slaves, and Arab masters—seem struck with a “glad surprise” upon seeing us, and tarry long enough for us to examine them.

Suddenly presents himself a tall, gayly dressed, slim fellow from Soudan (the slave of the sheykh), showing his white teeth, and his face beaming with good-nature. He is so peculiarly black that we ask him to step forward for closer inspection. Abd-el-Atti, who expresses great admiration for him, gets a coal from the tire, and holds it up by his cheek; the skin has the advantage of the coal, not only in lustre but in depth of blackness. He says that he is a Galgam, a tribe whose virtues Abdel-Atti endorses: “Thim very sincere, trusty, thim good breed.”

When we have made the acquaintance of the Galgam in this thorough manner, he asks for backsheesh. The Doctor offers him a copper coin. This, without any offence in his manner, and with the utmost courtesy, he refuses, bows very low, says “Thanks,” with a little irony, and turns away. In a few moments he comes back, opens his wallet, takes out two silver franc pieces, hands them to the Doctor, says with a proud politeness, “Backsheesh, Bedawee!” bows, runs across the hill, catches his horse, and rides gallantly away. It is beautifully done. Once or twice during the ride to Jerusalem we see him careering over the hills, and he approaches within hail at Bethany, but he does not lower his dignity by joining us again.

The heat is intense until we reach the well within a mile of Bethany, where we find a great concourse of exhausted pilgrims. On the way, wherever there is an open field that admits of it, we have some display of Bedawee horsemanship. The white Arab mare which the sheykh rides is of pure blood and cost him £200, although I should select her as a broken-down stage-horse. These people ride “all abroad,” so to say, arms, legs, accoutrements flying; but they stick on, which is the principal thing; and the horses over the rough ground, soft fields, and loose stones, run, stop short, wheel in a flash, and exhibit wonderful training and bottom.

The high opinion we had formed of the proud spirit and generosity of the Bedawee, by the incident at the Bed Khan, was not to be maintained after our return to Jerusalem. Another of our Oriental illusions was to be destroyed forever. The cool acceptance by the Doctor of the two francs so loftily tendered, as a specimen of Bedawee backsheesh, was probably unexpected, and perhaps unprovided for by adequate financial arrangements on the part of the Galgam. At any rate, that evening he was hovering about the hotel, endeavoring to attract the attention of the Doctor, and evidently unwilling to believe that there could exist in the heart of the howadji the mean intention of retaining those francs. The next morning he sent a friend to the Doctor to ask him for the money. The Doctor replied that he should never think of returning a gift, especially one made with so much courtesy; that, indeed, the amount of the money was naught, but that he should keep it as a souvenir of the noble generosity of his Bedawee friend. This sort of sentiment seemed inexplicable to the Oriental mind. The son of the desert was as much astonished that the Frank should retain his gift, as the Spanish gentleman who presents his horse to his guest would be if the guest should take it. The offer of a present in the East is a flowery expression of a sentiment that does not exist, and its acceptance necessarily implies a return of something of greater value. After another day of anxiety the proud and handsome slave came in person and begged for the francs until he received them. He was no better than his master, the noble sheykh, who waylaid us during the remainder of our stay for additional sixpences in backsheesh. O superb Bedawee, we did not begrudge the money, but our lost ideal!

VI.—BETHLEHEM AND MAR SABA.

BETHLEHEM lies about seven miles south of Jerusalem. It is also a hill village, reposing upon a stony promontory that is thrust out eastward from the central mountain-range; the abrupt slopes below three sides of it are terraced; on the north is a valley which lies in a direct line between it and Jerusalem; on the east are the yawning ravines and the “wilderness” leading to the Dead Sea; on the south is the wild country towards Hebron, and the sharp summit of the Frank mountain in the distance. The village lies on the ridge; and on the point at the east end of it, overlooking a vast extent of seamed and rocky and jagged country, is the gloomy pile of convents, chapels, and churches that mark the spot of the Nativity.

From its earliest mention till now the home of shepherds and of hardy cultivators of its rocky hillsides, it has been noted for the free spirit and turbulence of its inhabitants. The primal character of a place seems to have the power of perpetuating itself in all changes. Bethlehem never seems to have been afflicted with servility. During the period of David's hiding in the Cave Adullam the warlike Philistines occupied it, but David was a fit representative of the pluck and steadfastness of its people. Since the Christian era it has been a Christian town, as it is to-day, and the few Moslems who have settled there, from time to time, have found it more prudent to withdraw than to brave its hostility. Its women incline to be handsome, and have rather European than Oriental features, and they enjoy the reputation of unusual virtue; the men are industrious, and seem to have more selfrespect than the Syrians generally.

Bethlehem is to all the world one of the sweetest of words. A tender and romantic interest is thrown about it as the burial-place of Rachel, as the scene of Ruth's primitive story, and of David's boyhood and kingly consecration; so that no other place in Judæa, by its associations, was so fit to be the gate through which the Divine Child should come into the world. And the traveller to-day can visit it, with, perhaps, less shock to his feelings of reverence, certainly with a purer and simpler enjoyment, than any other place in Holy Land. He finds its ruggedness and desolateness picturesque, in the light of old song and story, and even the puerile inventions of monkish credulity do not affect him as elsewhere.

From Jerusalem we reach Bethlehem by following a curving ridge,—a lovely upland ride, on account of the extensive prospect and the breeze, and because it is always a relief to get out of the city. The country is, however, as stony as the worst portions of New England,—the mountain sheep-pastures; thick, double stone-walls enclosing small fields do not begin to exhaust the stones. On both sides of the ridge are bare, unproductive hills, but the sides of the valleys are terraced, and covered with a good growth of olive-trees. These hollows were no doubt once very fruitful by assiduous cultivation, in spite of the stones. Bethlehem, as we saw it across a deep ravine, was like a castle on a hill; there is nowhere level ground enough for a table to stand, off the ridges, and we looked in vain for the “plains of Bethlehem” about which we had tried, trustfully, to sing in youth.

Within a mile of Bethlehem gate we came to the tomb of Rachel, standing close by the highway. “And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day.” This is the testimony of the author of Genesis, who had not seen the pillar which remained to his day, but repeated the tradition of the sons of Jacob. What remained of this pillar, after the absence of the Israelites for some five centuries from Bethlehem, is uncertain; but it may be supposed that some spot near Bethlehem was identified as the tomb of Rachel upon their return, and that the present site is the one then selected. It is possible, of course, that the tradition of the pagan Canaanites may have preserved the recollection of the precise spot. At any rate, Christians seem to agree that this is one of the few ancient sites in Judæa which are authentic, and the Moslems pay it equal veneration. The square, unpretentious building erected over it is of modern construction, and the pilgrim has to content himself with looking at a sort of Moslem tomb inside, and reflecting, if he can, upon the pathetic story of the death of the mother of Joseph.

There is, alas! everywhere in Judæa something to drive away sentiment as well as pious feeling. The tomb of Rachel is now surrounded by a Moslem cemetery, and as we happened to be there on Thursday we found ourselves in the midst of a great gathering of women, who had come there, according to their weekly custom, to weep and to wail. .

You would not see in farthest Nubia a more barbarous assemblage, and not so fierce an one. In the presence of these wild mourners the term “gentler sex” has a ludicrous sound. Yet we ought not to forget that we were intruders upon their periodic grief, attracted to their religious demonstration merely by curiosity, and fairly entitled to nothing but scowls and signs of aversion. I am sure that we should give bold Moslem intruders upon our hours of sorrow at home no better reception. The women were in the usual Syrian costume; their loose gowns gaped open at the bosom, and they were without veils, and made no pretence of drawing a shawl before their faces; all wore necklaces of coins, and many of them had circlets of coins on the head, with strips depending from them, also stiff with silver pieces. A woman's worth was thus easily to be reckoned, for her entire fortune was on her head. A pretty face was here and there to be seen, but most of them were flaringly ugly, and—to liken them to what they most resembled—physically and mentally the type of the North American squaws. They were accompanied by all their children, and the little brats were tumbling about the tombs, and learning the language of woe.