In The Levant

Jaffa is surrounded by immense orange groves, which are protected along the highways by hedges of prickly-pear. We came out from a lane of these upon the level and blooming Plain of Sharon, and saw before us, on the left, the blue hills of Judæa. It makes little difference what kind of conveyance one has, it is impossible for him to advance upon this historic, if not sacred plain, and catch the first glimpse of those pale hills which stood to him for a celestial vision in his childhood, without a great quickening of the pulse; and it is a most lovely view after Egypt, or after anything. The elements of it are simple enough,—merely a wide sweep of prairie and a line of graceful mountains; but the forms are pleasing, and the color is incomparable. The soil is warm and red, the fields are a mass of wild-flowers of the most brilliant and variegated hues, and, alternately swept by the shadows of clouds and bathed in the sun, the scene takes on the animation of incessant change.

It was somewhere here, outside the walls, I do not know the spot, that the massacre of Jaffa occurred. I purposely go out of my way to repeat the well-known story of it, and I trust that it will always be recalled whenever any mention is made of the cruel little Corsican who so long imposed the vulgarity and savageness of his selfish nature upon Europe. It was in March, 1799, that Napoleon, toward the close of his humiliating and disastrous campaign in Egypt, carried Jaffa by storm. The town was given over to pillage. During its progress four thousand Albanians of the garrison, taking refuge in some old khans, offered to surrender on condition that their lives should be spared; otherwise they would fight to the bitter end. Their terms were accepted, and two of Napoleon’s aids-de-camp pledged their honor for their safety. They were marched out to the general’s headquarters and seated in front of the tents with their arms bound behind them. The displeased commander called a council of war and deliberated two days upon their fate, and then signed the order for the massacre of the entire body. The excuse was that the general could not be burdened with so many prisoners. Thus in one day were murdered in cold blood about as many people as Jaffa at present contains. Its inhabitants may be said to have been accustomed to being massacred; eight thousand of them were butchered in one Roman assault; but I suppose all antiquity may be searched in vain for an act of perfidy and cruelty combined equal to that of the Grand Emperor.

The road over which we rattle is a causeway of loose stones; the country is a plain of sand, but clothed with a luxuriant vegetation. In the fields the brown husbandmen are plowing, turning up the soft red earth with a rude plough drawn by cattle yoked wide apart. Red-legged storks, on their way, I suppose, from Egypt to their summer residence further north, dot the meadows, and are too busy picking up worms to notice our halloo. Abd-el-Atti, who has a passion for shooting, begs permission to “go for” these household birds with the gun; but we explain to him that we would no more shoot a stork than one of the green birds of Paradise. Quails are scudding about in the newly turned furrows, and song birds salute us from the tops of swinging cypresses. The Holy Land is rejoicing in its one season of beauty, its spring-time.

Trees are not wanting to the verdant meadows. We still encounter an occasional grove of oranges; olives also appear, and acacias, sycamores, cypresses, and tamarisks. The pods of the carob-tree are, I believe, the husks upon which the prodigal son did not thrive. Large patches of barley are passed. But the fields not occupied with grain are literally carpeted with wild-flowers of the most brilliant hues, such a display as I never saw elsewhere: scarlet and dark flaming poppies, the scarlet anemone, marigolds, white daisies, the lobelia, the lupin, the vetch, the gorse with its delicate yellow blossom, the pea, something that we agreed to call the white rose of Sharon, the mallow, the asphodel; the leaves of a lily not yet in bloom. About the rose of Sharon we no doubt were mistaken. There is no reason to suppose it was white; but we have somehow associated the purity of that color with the song beginning, “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.” It was probably not even a rose. We finally decided to cherish the red mallow as the rose of Sharon; it is very abundant, and the botanist of our company seemed satisfied to accept it. For myself, the rose by the name of mallow does not smell sweet.

We come in sight of Rainleh, which lies on the swelling mounds of the green plain, encompassed by emerald meadows and by groves of orange and olive, and conspicuous from a great distance by its elegant square tower, the most beautiful in form that we have seen in the East. As the sun is sinking, we defer our visit to it and drive to the Latin convent, where we are to lodge, permission to that effect having been obtained from the sister convent at Jaffa; a mere form, since a part of the convent was built expressly for the entertainment of travellers, and the few monks who occupy it find keeping a hotel a very profitable kind of hospitality. The stranger is the guest of the superior, no charge is made, and the little fiction of gratuitous hospitality so pleases the pilgrim that he will not at his departure be outdone in liberality. It would be much more agreeable if all our hotels were upon this system.

While the dragoman is unpacking the luggage in the court-yard and bustling about in a manner to impress the establishment with the importance of its accession, I climb up to the roofs to get the sunset. The house is all roofs, it would seem, at different levels. Steps lead here and there, and one can wander about at will; you could not desire a pleasanter lounging-place in a summer evening. The protecting walls, which are breast-high, are built in with cylinders of tile, like the mud houses in Egypt; the tiles make the walls lighter, and furnish at the same time peep-holes through which the monks can spy the world, themselves unseen. I noticed that the tiles about the entrance court were inclined downwards, so that a curious person could study any new arrival at the convent without being himself observed. The sun went down behind the square tower which is called Saracenic and is entirely Gothic in spirit, and the light lay soft and rosy on the wide compass of green vegetation; I heard on the distant fields the bells of mules returning to the gates, and the sound substituted Italy in my mind for Palestine.

From this prospect I was summoned in haste; the superior of the convent was waiting to receive me, and I had been sought in all directions. I had no idea why I should be received, but I soon found that the occasion was not a trivial one. In the reception-room were seated in some state the superior, attended by two or three brothers, and the remainder of my suite already assembled. The abbot, if he is an abbot, arose and cordially welcomed “the general” to his humble establishment, hoped that he was not fatigued by the journey from Jaffa, and gave him a seat beside himself. The remainder of the party were ranged according to their rank. I replied that the journey was on the contrary delightful, and that any journey could be considered fortunate which had the hospitable convent of Ramleh as its end. The courteous monk renewed his solicitous inquiries, and my astonishment was increased by the botanist, who gravely assured the worthy father that “the general” was accustomed to fatigue, and that such a journey as this was a recreation to him.

“What in the mischief is all this about?” I seized a moment to whisper to the person next me.

“You are a distinguished American general, travelling with his lady in pursuit of Heaven knows what, and accompanied by his suite; don’t make a mess of it.”

“Oh,” I said, “if I am a distinguished American general, travelling with my lady in pursuit of Heaven knows what, I am glad to know it.”

Fortunately the peaceful father did not know anything more of war than I did, and I suppose my hastily assumed modesty of the soldier seemed to him the real thing. It was my first experience of anything like real war, the first time I had ever occupied any military position, and it did not seem to be so arduous as has been represented.

Great regret was expressed by the superior that they had not anticipated my arrival, in order to have entertained me in a more worthy manner; the convent was uncommonly full of pilgrims, and it would be difficult to lodge my suite as it deserved. Then there followed a long discussion between the father and one of the monks upon our disposition for the night.

“If we give the general and his lady the south room in the court, then the doctor”—etc., etc.

“Or,” urged the monk, “suppose the general and his lady occupy the cell number four, then mademoiselle can take”—etc., etc.

The military commander and his lady were at last shown into a cell opening out of the court, a lofty but narrow vaulted room, with brick floor and thick walls, and one small window near the ceiling. Instead of candles we had antique Roman lamps, which made a feeble glimmer in the cavern; the oddest water-jugs served for pitchers. It may not have been damp, but it felt as if no sun had ever penetrated the chill interior.

“What is all this nonsense of the general?” I asked Abd-el-Atti, as soon as I could get hold of that managing factotum.

“Dunno, be sure; these monk always pay more attention to ‘stinguish people.”

“But what did you say at the convent in Jaffa when you applied for a permit to lodge here?”

“Oh, I tell him my gentleman general American, but ‘stinguish; mebbe he done gone wrote ‘em that you ‘stinguish American general. Very nice man, the superior, speak Italian beautiful; when I give him the letter, he say he do all he can for the general and his suite; he sorry I not let him know ‘forehand.”

The dinner was served in the long refectory, and there were some twenty-five persons at table, mostly pilgrims to Jerusalem, and most of them of the poorer class. One bright Italian had travelled alone with her little boy all the way from Verona, only to see the Holy Sepulchre. The monks waited at table and served a very good dinner. Travellers are not permitted to enter the portion of the large convent which contains the cells of the monks, nor to visit any part of the old building except the chapel. I fancied that the jolly brothers who waited at table were rather glad to come into contact with the world, even in this capacity.

In the dining-room hangs a notable picture. It is the Virgin, enthroned, with a crown and aureole, holding the holy child, who is also crowned; in the foreground is a choir of white boys or angels. The Virgin and child are both black; it is the Virgin of Ethiopia. I could not learn the origin of this picture; it was rude enough in execution to be the work of a Greek artist of the present day; but it was said to come from Ethiopia, where it is necessary to a proper respect for the Virgin that she should be represented black. She seems to bear something the relation to the Virgin of Judæa that Astarte did to the Grecian Venus. And we are again reminded that the East has no prejudice of color: “I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem”; “Look not upon me because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.”

The convent bells are ringing at early dawn, and though we are up at half past five, nearly all the pilgrims have hastily departed for Jerusalem. Upon the roof I find the morning fair. There are more minarets than spires in sight, but they stand together in this pretty little town without discord. The bells are ringing in melodious persuasion, but at the same time, in voices as musical, the muezzins are calling from their galleries; each summoning men to prayer in its own way. From these walls spectators once looked down upon the battles of cross and crescent raging in the lovely meadows,—battles of quite as much pride as piety. A common interest always softens animosity, and I fancy that monks and Moslems will not again resort to the foolish practice of breaking each other’s heads so long as they enjoy the profitable stream of pilgrims to the Holy Land.

After breakfast and a gift to the treasury of the convent according to our rank—I think if I were to stay there again it would be in the character of a common soldier—we embarked again in the ark, and jolted along behind the square-shouldered driver, who seemed to enjoy the rattling and rumbling of his clumsy vehicle. But no minor infelicity could destroy for us the freshness of the morning or the enjoyment of the lovely country. Although, in the jolting, one could not utter a remark about the beauty of the way without danger of biting his tongue in two, we feasted our eyes and let our imaginations loose over the vast ranges of the Old Testament story.

After passing through the fertile meadows of Ramleh, we came into a more rolling country, destitute of houses, but clothed on with a most brilliant bloom of wild-flowers, among which the papilionaceous flowers were conspicuous for color and delicacy. I found by the roadside a black calla (which I should no more have believed in than in the black Virgin, if I had not seen it). Its leaf is exactly that of our calla-lily; its flower is similar to, but not so open and flaring, as the white calla, and the pistil is large and very long, and of the color of the interior of the flower. The corolla is green on the outside, but the inside is incomparably rich, like velvet, black in some lights and dark maroon in others. Nothing could be finer in color and texture than this superb flower. Besides the blooms of yesterday we noticed buttercups, various sorts of the ranunculus, among them the scarlet and the shooting-star, a light purple flower with a dark purple centre, the Star of Bethlehem, and the purple wind-flower. Scarlet poppies and the still more brilliant scarlet anemones, dandelions, marguerites, filled all the fields with masses of color.

Shortly we come into the hills, through which the road winds upward, and the scenery is very much like that of the Adirondacks, or would be if the rocky hills of the latter were denuded of trees. The way begins to be lively with passengers, and it becomes us to be circumspect, for almost every foot of ground has been consecrated or desecrated, or in some manner made memorable. This heap of rubbish is the remains of a fortress which the Saracens captured, built by the Crusaders to guard the entrance of the pass, upon the site of an older fortification by the Maccabees, or founded upon Roman substructions, and mentioned in Judges as the spot where some very ancient Jew stayed overnight. It is also, no doubt, one of the stations that help us to determine with the accuracy of a surveyor the boundary between the territory of Benjamin and Judah. I try to ascertain all these localities and to remember them all, but I sometimes get Richard Cour de Lion mixed with Jonathan Maccabæus, and I have no doubt I mistook “Job’s convent” for the Castellum boni Latronis, a place we were specially desirous to see as the birthplace of the “penitent thief.” But whatever we confounded, we are certain of one thing: we looked over into the Valley of Ajalon. It was over this valley that Joshua commanded the moon to tarry while he smote the fugitive Amorites on the heights of Gibeon, there to the east.

The road is thronged with pilgrims to Jerusalem, and with travellers and their attendants,—gay cavalcades scattered all along the winding way over the rolling plain, as in the picture of the Pilgrims to Canterbury. All the transport of freight as well as passengers is by the backs of beasts of burden. There are long files of horses and mules staggering under enormous loads of trunks, tents, and bags. Dragomans, some of them got up in fierce style, with baggy yellow trousers, yellow kuffias bound about the head with a twisted fillet, armed with long Damascus swords, their belts stuck full of pistols, and a rifle slung on the back, gallop furiously along the line, the signs of danger but the assurances of protection. Camp boys and waiters dash along also, on the pack-horses, with a great clatter of kitchen furniture; even a scullion has an air of adventure as he pounds his rack-a-bone steed into a vicious gallop. And there are the Cook’s tourists, called by everybody “Cookies,” men and women struggling on according to the pace of their horses, conspicuous in hats with white muslin drapery hanging over the neck. Villanous-looking fellows with or without long guns, coming and going on the highway, have the air of being neither pilgrims nor strangers. We meet women returning from Jerusalem clad in white, seated astride their horses, or upon beds which top their multifarious baggage.

We are leaving behind us on the right the country of Samson, in which he passed his playful and engaging boyhood, and we look wistfully towards it. Of Zorah, where he was born, nothing is left but a cistern, and there is only a wretched hamlet to mark the site of Timnath, where he got his Philistine wife. “Get her for me, for she pleaseth me well,” was his only reply to the entreaty of his father that he would be content with a maid of his own people.

The country gets wilder and more rocky as we ascend. Down the ragged side paths come wretched women and girls, staggering under the loads of brushwood which they have cut in the high ravines; loads borne upon the head that would tax the strength of a strong man. I found it no easy task to lift one of the bundles. The poor creatures were scantily clad in a single garment of coarse brown cloth, but most of them wore a profusion of ornaments; strings of coins, Turkish and Arabic, on the head and breast, and uncouth rings and bracelets. Farther on a rabble of boys besets us, begging for backsheesh in piteous and whining tones, and throwing up their arms in theatrical gestures of despair.

All the hills bear marks of having once been terraced to the very tops, for vines and olives. The natural ledges seem to have been humored into terraces and occasionally built up and broadened by stone walls; but where the hill was smooth, traces of terraces are yet visible. The grape is still cultivated low down the steeps, and the olives straggle over some of the hills to the very top; but these feeble efforts of culture or of nature do little to relieve the deserted aspect of the scene.

We lunch in a pretty olive grove, upon a slope long ago terraced and now grass-grown and flower-sown; lovely vistas open into cool glades, and paths lead upward among the rocks to inviting retreats. From this high perch in the bosom of the hills we look off upon Ramleh, Jaffa, the broad Plain of Sharon, and the sea. A strip of sand between the sea and the plain produces the effect of a mirage, giving to the plain the appearance of the sea. It would be a charming spot for a country-seat for a resident of Jerusalem, although Jerusalem itself is rural enough at present; and David and Solomon may have had summer pavilions in these cool shades in sight of the Mediterranean. David himself, however, perhaps had enough of this region—when he dodged about in these fastnesses between Ramah and Gath, from the pursuit of Saul—to make him content with a city life. There is nothing to hinder our believing that he often enjoyed this prospect; and we do believe it, for it is already evident that the imagination must be called in to create an enjoyment of this deserted land. David no doubt loved this spot. For David was a poet, even at this early period when his occupation was that of a successful guerilla; and he had all the true poet’s adaptability, as witness the exquisite ode he composed on the death of his enemy Saul. I have no doubt that he enjoyed this lovely prospect often, for he was a man who enjoyed heartily everything lovely. He was in this as in all he did a thorough man; when he made a raid on an Amorite city, he left neither man, woman, nor child alive to spread the news.

We have already mounted over two thousand feet. The rocks are silicious limestone, crumbling and gray with ages of exposure; they give the landscape an ashy appearance. But there is always a little verdure amid the rocks, and now and then an olive-tree, perhaps a very old one, decrepit and twisted into the most fantastic form, as if distorted by a vegetable rheumatism, casting abroad its withered arms as if the tree writhed in pain. On such ghostly trees I have no doubt the five kings were hanged. Another tree or rather shrub is abundant, the dwarf-oak; and the hawthorn, now in blossom, is frequently seen. The rock-rose—a delicate white single flower—blooms by the wayside and amid the ledges, and the scarlet anemone flames out more brilliantly than ever. Nothing indeed could be more beautiful than the contrast of the clusters of scarlet anemones and white roses with the gray rocks.

We soon descend into a valley and reach the site of Kirjath-Jearim, which has not much ancient interest for me, except that the name is pleasing; but on the other side of the stream and opposite a Moslem fountain are the gloomy stone habitations of the family of the terrible Abu Ghaush, whose robberies of travellers kept the whole country in a panic a quarter of a century ago. He held the key of this pass, and let no one go by without toll. For fifty years he and his companions defied the Turkish government, and even went to the extremity of murdering two pashas who attempted to pass this way. He was disposed of in 1846, but his descendants still live here, having the inclination but not the courage of the old chief. We did not encounter any of them, but I have never seen any buildings that have such a wicked physiognomy as their grim houses.

Near by is the ruin of a low, thick-walled chapel, of a pure Gothic style, a remnant of the Crusaders’ occupation. The gloomy wady has another association; a monkish tradition would have us believe it was the birthplace of Jeremiah; if the prophet was born in such a hard country it might account for his lamentations. As we pass out of this wady, the German driver points to a forlorn village clinging to the rocky slope of a hill to the right, and says,—

“That is where John Baptist was born.”

The information is sudden and seems improbable, especially as there are other places where he was born.

“How do you know?” we ask.

“O, I know ganz wohl; I been five years in dis land, and I ought to know.”

Descending into a deep ravine we cross a brook, which we are told is the one that flows into the Valley of Elah, the valley of the “terebinth” or button trees; and if so, it is the brook out of which David took the stone that killed Goliath. It is a bright, dashing stream. I stood upon the bridge, watching it dancing down the ravine, and should have none but agreeable recollections of it, but that close to the bridge stood a vile grog-shop, and in the doorway sat the most villanous-looking man I ever saw in Judæa, rapacity and murder in his eyes. The present generation have much more to fear from him and his drugged liquors than the Israelite had from the giant of Gath.

While the wagon zigzags up the last long hill, I mount by a short path and come upon a rocky plateau, across which runs a broad way, on the bed rock, worn smooth by many centuries of travel: by the passing of caravans and armies to Jerusalem, of innumerable generations of peasants, of chariots, of horses, mules, and foot-soldiers; here went the messengers of the king’s pleasure, and here came the heralds and legates of foreign nations; this great highway the kings and prophets themselves must have trodden when they journeyed towards the sea; for Ï cannot learn that the Jews ever had any decent roads, and perhaps they never attained the civilization necessary to build them. We have certainly seen no traces of anything like a practicable ancient highway on this route.

Indeed, the greatest wonder to me in the whole East is that there has not been a good road built from Jaffa to Jerusalem; that the city sacred to more than half the world, to all the most powerful nations, to Moslems, Jews, Greeks, Roman Catholics, Protestants, the desire of all lands, and the object of pilgrimage with the delicate and the feeble as well as the strong, should not have a highway to it over which one can ride without being jarred and stunned and pounded to a jelly; that the Jews should never have made a road to their seaport; that the Romans, the road-builders, do not seem to have constructed one over this important route. The Sultan began this one over which we have been dragged, for the Empress Eugenie. But he did not finish it; most of the way it is a mere rubble of stones. The track is well engineered, and the road bed is well enough; soft stone is at hand to form an excellent dressing, and it might be, in a short time, as good a highway as any in Switzerland, if the Sultan would set some of his lazy subjects to work out their taxes on it. Of course, it is now a great improvement over the old path for mules; but as a carriage road it is atrocious. Imagine thirty-six miles of cobble pavement, with every other stone gone and the remainder sharpened!