In The Levant

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.

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!