Part 14

The poor fellows had been impaled upon high poles, and so propped up by the transverse spokes beneath them that their skeletons, clothed with some white, wax-like remains of flesh, still sat up lolling in the sunshine, and listlessly stared without eyes. After a fifteen days' journey we crossed the Golden Horn, and found shelter in Stamboul.

All the while I stayed at Constantinople the plague was prevailing. Its presence lent a mysterious and exciting, though not very pleasant, interest to my first knowledge of a great Oriental city. Europeans, during the prevalence of the plague, if they are forced to enter into the streets, will carefully avoid the touch of every human being they pass. The Moslem stalks on serenely, as though he were under the eye of his God, and were "equal to either fate."

In a steep street or a narrow alley you meet one of those coffin-shaped bundles of white linen which implies an Ottoman lady. She suddenly withdraws the yashmak, shines upon your heart and soul with all the pomp and might of her beauty. This dazzles your brain; she sees and exults; then with a sudden movement she lays her blushing fingers upon your arm and cries out, "Yumourdjak!" (plague), meaning, "There is a present of the plague for you." This is her notion of a witticism.

_II.--The Troad, Smyrna, and Cyprus_

While my companion, Methley, was recovering from illness contracted during our progress to Constantinople, I studied Turkish, and sated my eyes with the pomps of the city and its crowded waters. When capable of travelling, we determined to go to Troad together. Away from our people and our horses, we went loitering along the plains of Troy by the willowy banks of a stream which I could see was finding itself new channels from year to year, and flowed no longer in its ancient track. But I knew that the springs which fed it were high in Ida--the springs of Simois and Scamander. Methley reminded me that Homer himself had warned us of some such changes. The Greeks, in beginning their wall, had neglected the hecatombs due to the gods, and so, after the fall of Troy, Apollo turned the paths of the rivers that flow from Ida, and sent them flooding over the wall till all the beach was smooth and free from the unhallowed works of the Greeks.

After a journey of some days, we reached Smyrna, from which place private affairs obliged Methley to return to England. Smyrna may be called the chief town of the Greek race, against which you will be cautioned so carefully as soon as you touch the Levant. For myself, I love the race, in spite of their vices and their meannesses. I remember the blood that is in them. I sailed from Smyrna in the Amphitrite--a Greek brigantine which was confidently said to be bound for the coast of Smyrna. I knew enough of Greek navigation to be sure that our vessel should touch at many an isle before I set foot upon the Syrian coast. My patience was extremely useful to me, for the cruise altogether endured some forty days. We touched at Cyprus, whither the ship ran for shelter in half a gale of wind. A Greek of Limasol who hoisted his flag as English Vice-Consul insisted upon my accepting his hospitality. The family party went off very well. The mamma was shy at first, but she veiled the awkwardness she felt by affecting to scold her children, who had all of them immortal names. Every instant I was delighted by some such phrases as these: "Themistocles, my love, don't fight," "Alcibiades, can't you sit still?" "Socrates, put down the cup!" "Oh, fie! Aspasia, don't be naughty!"

The heathenish longing to visit the scene where for Pallas Athene "the hundred altars glowed with Arabian incense, and breathed with the fragrance of garlands ever fresh," found disenchantment when I spent the night in the cabin of a Greek priest--not a priest of the goddess, but of the Greek church--where there was but one room for man, priest, and beast. A few days after, our brigantine sailed for Beyrout.

At Beyrout I soon discovered that the standing topic of interest was the Lady Hester Stanhope, who lived in an old convent on the Lebanon range at a distance of a day's journey from the town, and was acknowledged as an inspired being by the people of the mountains, and as more than a prophet.

I visited Lady Hester in her dwelling-place, a broad, grey mass of irregular buildings on the summit of one of the many low hills of Lebanon. I was received by her ladyship's doctor, and apartments were set apart for myself and my party. After dinner the doctor conducted me to Miladi's chamber, where the lady prophetess received me standing up to the full of her majestic height, perfectly still and motionless until I had taken my appointed place, when she resumed her seat on a common European sofa.

Her ladyship addressed to me some inquiries respecting my family; and then the spirit of the prophetess kindled within her, and for hours and hours this wondrous white woman poured forth her speech, for the most part concerning sacred and profane mysteries. Now and again she adverted to the period when she exercised astonishing sway and authority over the wandering Bedouin tribes in the desert which lies between Damascus and Palmyra.

Lady Hester talked to me long and earnestly on the subject of religion, announcing that the Messiah was yet to come. She strived to impress me with the vanity and falseness of all European creeds, as well as with a sense of her own spiritual greatness. Throughout her conversation upon these high topics, she skilfully insinuated, without actually asserting, her heavenly rank.

_III.--Nazareth, Jordan, and the Dead Sea_

I crossed the plain of Esdraelon, and entered amongst the hills of beautiful Galilee. It was at sunset that my path brought me sharply round into the gorge of a little valley, and close upon a grey mass of dwellings that lay happily nestled in the lap of the mountain. It was Christian Nazareth.

Within the precincts of the Latin convent, in which I was quartered, there stands a great Catholic church, which encloses the sanctuary--the dwelling of the Blessed Virgin. This is a grotto, forming a little chapel, to which you descend by steps.

The attending friar led me down, all but silently, to the Virgin's home. Religion and gracious custom commanded me that I fall down loyally and kiss the rock that blessed Mary pressed. With a half-consciousness, a semblance of a thrilling hope that I was plunging deep into my first knowledge of some most holy mystery, or of some new, rapturous, and daring sin, I knelt and bowed down my face till I met the smooth rock with my lips.

One moment--my heart, or some old pagan demon within me, woke up, and fiercely bounded--my bosom was lifted and swam as though I had touched her warm robe. One moment--one more, and then--the fever had left me. I rose from my knees. I felt hopelessly sane. The mere world reappeared. My good old monk was there, dangling his keys with listless patience; and as he guided me from the church, and talked of the refectory and the coming repast, I listened to his words with some attention and pleasure.

Having engaged a young Nazarene as guide to Jerusalem, our party passed by Cana, and the house in which the water had been turned into wine, and came to the field in which our Saviour had rebuked the Scotch Sabbath-keepers of that period by suffering His disciples to pluck corn on the Sabbath day.

I rode over the ground on which the fainting multitude had been fed, and was shown some massive fragments--relics, I was told, of that wondrous banquet, now turned into stone. The petrifaction was most complete. I ascended the heights on which our Lord was standing when He wrought the miracle, and looked away eagerly eastward. There lay the Sea of Galilee, less stern than Wastwater, less fair than gentle Windermere, but still with the winning ways of an English lake. My mind, however, flew away from the historical associations of the place, and I thought of the mysterious desert which stretched from these grey hills to the gates of Bagdad.

I went on to Tiberias, and soon got afloat upon the water. In the evening I took up my quarters in the Catholic church. Tiberias is one of the four holy cities, the others being Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safet; and, according to the Talmud, it is from Tiberias, or its immediate neighbourhood, that the Messiah is to arise. Except at Jerusalem, never think of attempting to sleep in a "holy city."

After leaving Tiberias, we rode for some hours along the right bank of the Jordan till we came to an old Roman bridge which crossed the river. My Nazarene guide, riding ahead of the party, led on over the bridge. I knew that the true road to Jerusalem must be mainly by the right bank, but I supposed that my guide had crossed the bridge in order to avoid some bend in the river, and that he knew of a ford lower down by which we should regain the western bank. For two days we wandered, unable to find a ford across the swollen river, and at last the guide fell on his knees and confessed that he knew nothing of the country. Thrown upon my own resources, I concluded that the Dead Sea must be near, and in the afternoon I first caught sight of those waters of death which stretched deeply into the southern desert. Before me and all around as far as the eye could follow, blank hills piled high over hills, pale, yellow, and naked, walled up in her tomb for ever the dead and damned of Gomorrah.

The water is perfectly bright and clear, its taste detestable. My steps were reluctantly turned towards the north. On the west there flowed the impassable Jordan, on the east stood an endless range of barren mountains, on the south lay the desert sea. Suddenly there broke upon my ear the ludicrous bray of a living donkey. I followed the direction of the sound, and in a hollow came upon an Arab encampment. Through my Arab interpreter an arrangement was come to with the sheikh to carry my party and baggage in safety to the other bank of the river on condition that I should give him and his tribe a "teskeri," or written certificate of their good conduct, and some baksheish.

The passage was accomplished by means of a raft formed of inflated skins and small boughs cut from the banks of the river, and guided by Arabs swimming alongside. The horses and mules were thrown into the water and forced to swim over. We camped on the right side of the river for the night, and the Arabs were made most savagely happy by the tobacco with which I supplied them, and they spent the whole night in one smoking festival. I parted upon very good terms from this tribe, and in three hours gained Rihah, a village said to occupy the ancient site of Jericho. Some hours after sunset I reached the convent of Santa Saba.

_IV.--Jerusalem and Bethlehem_

The enthusiasm that had glowed, or seemed to glow, within me for one blessed moment when I knelt by the shrine of the Blessed Virgin at Nazareth was not rekindled at Jerusalem. In the stead of the solemn gloom, and a deep stillness which by right belonged to the Holy City, there was the hum and the bustle of active life. It was the "height of the season." The Easter ceremonies drew near, and pilgrims were flocking in from all quarters. The space fronting the church of the Holy Sepulchre becomes a kind of bazaar. I have never seen elsewhere in Asia so much commercial animation. When I entered the church I found a babel of worshippers. Greek, Roman, and Armenian priests were performing their different rites in various nooks, and crowds of disciples were rushing about in all directions--some laughing and talking, some begging, but most of them going about in a regular, methodical way to kiss the sanctified spots, speak the appointed syllables, and lay down their accustomed coins. They seemed to be not "working out," but "transacting" the great business of salvation.

The Holy Sepulchre is under the roof of this great church. It is a handsome tomb of oblong form, partly subterranean. You descend into the interior by a few steps, and there find an altar with burning tapers. When you have seen enough of it you feel, perhaps, weary of the busy crowd, and ask your dragoman whether there will be time before sunset to procure horses and take a ride to Mount Calvary.

"Mount Calvary, signor! It is upstairs--on the first floor!" In effect you ascend just thirteen steps, and then are shown the now golden sockets in which the crosses of our Lord and the two thieves were fixed.

The village of Bethlehem lies prettily couched on the slope of a hill. The sanctuary is a subterranean grotto, and is committed to the joint guardianship of the Romans, Greeks, and Armenians, who vie with each other in adorning it. Beneath an altar gorgeously decorated, and lit with everlasting fires, there stands the low slab of stone which marked the holy site of the Nativity, and near to this is a hollow scooped out of the living rock. Here the infant Jesus was laid. Near the spot of the Nativity is the rock against which the Blessed Virgin was leaning when she presented her babe to the adoring shepherds.

_V.--To Cairo and the Pyramids_

Gaza is upon the edge of the desert, to which it stands in the same relation as a seaport to the sea. It is there that you charter your camels, "the ships of the desert," and lay in your stores for the voyage. The agreement with the desert Arabs includes a safe conduct through their country as well as the hire of the camels. On the ninth day, without startling incident, I arrived at the capital of Egypt.

Cairo and the plague! During the whole time of my stay, the plague was so master of the city, and showed himself so staringly in every street and alley, that I can't now affect to dissociate the two ideas. I was the only European traveller in Cairo, and was provided with a house by one Osman Effendi, whose history was curious. He was a Scotchman born, and landed in Egypt as a drummer-boy with Mackenzie Fraser's force, taken prisoner, and offered the alternative of death or the Koran.

He did not choose death, and followed the orthodox standard of the Prophet in fierce campaigns against the Wahabees. Returning to Cairo in triumph from his Holy Wars, Osman began to flourish in the world, acquired property, and became effendi, or gentleman, giving pledge of his sincere alienation from Christianity by keeping a couple of wives. The strangest feature in Osman's character was his inextinguishable nationality. In his house he had three shelves of books, and the books were thoroughbred Scotch! He afterwards died of the plague, of which visitation one-half of the whole people of the city, 200,000 in number, were carried off. I took it into my pleasant head that the plague might be providential or epidemic, but was not contagious, and therefore I determined that it should not alter my habits in any one respect. I hired a donkey, and saw all that was to be seen in the city in the way of public buildings--one handsome mosque, which had been built by a wealthy Hindoostanee merchant, and the citadel. From the platform of the latter there is a superb view of the town. But your eyes are drawn westward over the Nile, till they rest upon the massive enormities of the Ghizeh pyramids. At length the great difficulty which I had in procuring beasts for my departure was overcome, and with two dromedaries and three camels I and my servants gladly wound our way from out the pest-stricken city.

Of course, I went to see and explore the pyramids of Ghizeh, Aboucir, and Sakkara, which I need not describe. Near the pyramids, more wondrous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely sphinx. Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings, upon conquerors, down through all the ages till to-day, this unworldly sphinx has watched like a Providence with the same earnest eyes, and the same sad, tranquil mien. And we shall die, and Islam will wither away, and the Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile and sit in the seats of the faithful, and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching the works of the new, busy race with those same sad, earnest eyes, the same tranquil mien everlasting.

I accomplished the journey to Suez after an exciting adventure in the desert. There are two opinions as to the point at which the Israelites passed the Red Sea. One is that they traversed only the very small creek at the northern extremity of the inlet, and that they entered the bed of the water at the spot on which Suez now stands. The other is that they crossed the sea from a point eighteen miles down the coast.

From Suez I crossed the desert once more to Gaza, and thence to Nablous and Safet--beautiful on its craggy height. Thereafter, for a part of two days, I wound under the base of the snow-crowned Djibel El Sheik, and then entered upon a vast plain. Before evening came there were straining eyes that saw, and joyful voices that announced, the sight of the holy, blessed Damascus. This earthly paradise of the Prophet is a city of hidden palaces, of copses and gardens, fountains and bubbling streams.

The path by which I crossed the Lebanon is like that of the Foorca in the Bernese Oberland, and from the white shoulder of the mountain I saw the breadth of all Syria west of the range. I descended, passing the group of cedars which is held sacred by the Greek Church. They occupy three or four acres on the mountain-side, and many of them are gnarled in a way that implies great age; but I saw nothing in their appearance that tended to prove them contemporaries of the cedars employed in Solomon's temple. Beyrout was reached without further adventure, and my eastern travel practically ended.

AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD

Nineveh and Its Remains

_I.--Mosul and its Hidden Mysteries_

Sir Austen Henry Layard, the most famous of all Oriental archæological explorers and discoverers, was born in Paris, on March 5, 1817, and died on July 5, 1894. Intended for the English legal profession, but contracting a dislike to the prospect, he determined to make himself familiar with the romantic regions of the Near East, and travelled in all parts of the Turkish and Persian Empires, and through several districts of Arabia. The desire came upon him to investigate the mysterious mounds on the great plains of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and he began that series of excavations which resulted in the most sensational discoveries of modern times, for he unearthed the remains of the long-buried city of Nineveh. With the marvellous, massive, and sublime sculptures of winged, human-headed bulls and lions, and eagle-headed deities, he enriched the galleries of the British Museum, England thus becoming possessed of the finest collection of the kind in the world. Layard's two volumes, "Nineveh and Its Remains" (1848) and "Monuments of Nineveh" (1850), are unique records of special enterprise and skill.

During the autumn of 1839 and winter of 1840, I had been wandering through Asia Minor and Syria, scarcely leaving untrod one spot hallowed by tradition, or unvisited one spot consecrated by history. I was accompanied by one no less curious and enthusiastic than myself--Edward Ledwich Mitford, afterwards engaged in the civil service in Ceylon. We were both equally careless of comfort and unmindful of danger. We rode alone; our arms were our only protection; and we tended our own horses, except when relieved from the duty by the hospitable inhabitants of a Turcoman village or an Arab tent.

We left Aleppo on March 18, took the road through Bir and Orfa, and, traversing the low country at the foot of the Kurdish hills, reached Mosul on April 10.

During a short stay in the town we visited the great ruins on the east bank of the river which have been generally believed to be the remains of Nineveh. We rode into the desert and explored the mound of Kalah Shergat, a vast, shapeless mass, covered with grass, with remains of ancient walls laid open where the winter rains had formed ravines.

A few fragments of ancient pottery and inscribed bricks proved that it owed its construction to the people who had founded the city of which the mounds of Nimroud are the remains. These huge mounds of Assyria made a deeper impression upon me than the temples of Baalbec and the theatres of Ionia. My curiosity had been greatly excited, and I formed the design of thoroughly examining, whenever it might be in my power, the ruins of Nimroud.

It was not till the summer of 1842 that I again passed through Mosul on my way to Constantinople. I found that M. Botta had, since my first visit, commenced excavations on the opposite side of the Tigris in the large mound of Kouyunjik, and in the village of Khorsabad. To him is due the honour of having found the first Assyrian monument. He uncovered an edifice belonging to the age preceding the conquests of Alexander. This was a marvellous and epoch-making discovery.

My first step on reaching Mosul was to present my letters to Mohammed Pasha, governor of the province. His appearance matched his temper and conduct, and thus was not prepossessing. Nature had placed hypocrisy beyond his reach. He had one eye and one ear, was short and fat, deeply marked by small-pox, and uncouth in gestures and harsh in voice. At the time of my arrival the population was in despair at his exactions and cruelties.

The appearance of a stranger led to hopes, and reports were whispered about the town that I was the bearer of the news of the disgrace of the tyrant. But his vengeance speedily fell on the principal inhabitants, for such as had hitherto escaped his rapacity were seized and stripped of their property, on the plea that they had spread reports detrimental to his authority.

Such was the pasha to whom I was introduced two days after my arrival by the British Vice-Consul, M. Rassam. I understood that my plans must be kept secret, though I was ready to put them into operation. I knew that from the authorities and people of the town I could only look for the most decided opposition. On November 8, having secretly procured a few tools, I engaged a mason at the moment of my departure, and carrying with me a variety of guns, spears, and other formidable weapons, declared that I was going to hunt wild boars in a neighbouring village, and floated down the Tigris on a small raft, accompanied by Mr. Ross, a British merchant then residing at Mosul, my cavass, and a servant.