Touring in 1600

… dyed in mummy which the skilfulConserved of maiden's hearts …

Mummies were therefore broken up as soon as found, and sold piecemeal; sometimes also to painters, who by means of them obtained certain shades of brown otherwise unattainable. There was, nevertheless, an Englishman, named John Sanderson, who brought one away intact, besides six hundred pounds of fragments to sell to London apothecaries, in spite of mummy being contraband export from Egypt.

A third, and the chief, excursion was to Sinai and the Red Sea. It is no exaggeration to say that for most it was a terrible experience; there were many who visited Mohammedan lands often and some who saw Jerusalem more than once, but not one went a second time to Sinai. No big caravans travelled that way, few were the merchants who traded to Suez; it meant, then, being subject to the pleasure of the Arabs. There privation was the best that could be looked for, they were dependent for their lives and the endurance of life on their own enforced liberality and the chance of forbearance from others; and very thankful must they have been when they caught sight of the two great towers, since pulled down, which stood in the suburbs of Cairo for landmarks to those coming from Suez, although they might expect to receive a welcome, as they had probably had a send-off, from the boys of Cairo in the shape of dirt, bricks, and bad lemons. Two Germans were reduced to such a state as to become subject to hallucinations.

Especially strange did the journey seem to a Russian who passed by the Cairo route to Jerusalem. So totally different a desert from those he knew, – neither forests nor vegetation, no people, no water; nothing but sand and stones, except for the Red Sea. And it happens that here, in particular, does he show how far more second-hand was his knowledge of the Bible stories than was that of other Europeans. The function of the cloud which is said to have accompanied the Israelites by day on their flight was, to him, to hide them from pursuers, and at the Red Sea there were still visible to him the twelve ways that Moses had opened up for his people, one for each tribe, marked on the surface of the water by a deeper tint, and the prints of Pharaoh's chariot-wheels were as indelible as ever for him, whereas Christians from farther west ceased to see them soon after the beginning of the sixteenth century. Some facts were even more exclusively his own, as that Pharaoh's soldiers were changed into fish after their drowning; and were to be known when caught by having human heads, men's teeth and noses, though their ears had grown to fins; nobody eats them. Pharaoh's horses were likewise fishified; hairy fish with skins as thick as your finger.

It goes without saying that every scene from Hebrew history was localised to a square foot; but there was, besides, a rock to be seen written over in characters that none could decipher, yet identified by tradition as the writing of Jeremiah the prophet done with his finger. This rock was near the monastery. Hither came the pilgrim, to find the gate barred, whether he had sent word of his approach or not; the monastery was surrounded as a rule by two or three hundred Arabs, howling day and night, and sometimes threatening, for food; let down every now and then from a window high up. Once inside, there was the monks' well to see, the very same one at which Moses watered Jethro's sheep, and a chapel behind the choir built over the spot where had stood the burning bush that Moses saw; with Our Lady and her Baby standing in the middle thereof unharmed, say the Russian pilgrims. Then to bed; and in the morning, after being wakened, maybe, by a monk calling his brethren to "offices" by striking spears of wood and iron with a stick, for bell they had none, a start would be made up what was assumed to be Mt. Horeb, at the foot of which, on the side nearest Cairo, lay the monastery. Not far from the top were four chapels, one dedicated to St. Elijah, at the back of which was the grotto where he hid from Jezebel, forty days, fasting. At the top was the rock behind which Moses lay while God passed, and, hard by, the church of the Holy Summit and a mosque – it was a pilgrimage place for Mohammedans, too. Then down again the farther side to the valley between Mts. Horeb and Sinai, to the hospice where pilgrims stayed the night.

Before reaching Sinai, and after leaving it, these travellers are in the habit of making assertions so flatly contradictory that some of them will be hardly put to it on Judgment Day; but when at Sinai, there is only one opinion – to get to the top thereof was the most terrific struggle they had ever gone through. Only one account has the least suggestion of enjoyment in it, Della Valle's; and yet his ascent was made under worse conditions than any other's.

It was one Christmas. In the night snow had fallen; the morning promised more snow. Only one monk was found to act as guide; but Della Valle was ready, and his servants would go wherever he chose to lead them; two Arabs were bribed into carrying food. So a start was made; Della Valle in the pilgrim's tunic which he always wore in holy places, but tucked up high this time; and all with sticks cut from the tree whence Moses cut his rod. First went the monk, taking the rocks like a young deer; and he must have known his way well, for the stones which marked the way could not have been visible for snow. At first it was just wet; then they met the snow; higher up it came to mid-thigh; still higher, still deeper. Farther still, where in the best of weathers it was a place for hands and knees, it was all frozen; more snow was falling and the wind terrific. The interpreter gave himself up for dead, cursed the monk who encouraged the ascent, commended himself to God and St. Catherine, remembered his sins, and forswore meat on every Monday that he might live to see. However, they did reach the top, where, once upon a time, the angels laid St. Catherine's body for a while; and saw the hard stone which retained the imprint of her body where she had lain and of the angels' posteriors where they sat, one at each side of her head, and one at her feet. They prayed, eat, and forthwith started to descend, to reach the hospice that night. What with snow and mist they could often see but a foot or two before them, and their idea of descending under the conditions was to toboggan on their backs; the only risk being, he says, that of getting buried in snowdrifts, which was no real risk, because they never all got buried at the same time. However, once he found himself sitting on the edge of a precipice with his legs dangling; and yet, in the end, no casualties occurred except to one of Della Valle's shoes, and he and his servants, after buying some of the little rings the monks provided by way of souvenirs, made of gold, of silver, and of bone, went back to Cairo to prepare for the other journey across the desert, to Gaza and Rama.

Cairo to Gaza was twelve days' journey by caravan, but an Arab could do it in four days. A merchant-pilgrim who had to rejoin his ship at Alexandria by a certain date in 1601 could find no way of return except under the escort of the Arabs to whom a friendly Moor introduced him. They travelled on dromedaries at first, but he changed to horseback towards the end to save his life from death by jolting. One evening his dromedary ran away, and the two Arabs pursued it out of sight, and there were the Moor and the merchant alone in the desert with night descending on them, not to mention other Arabs who had taken no oaths to respect their lives and pockets, but who eventually postponed beheading them till their guides returned.

An Arab guide meant safety from the chief danger of the desert, that of the Arab bands who laid in wait for every caravan and attacked small ones; in 1611 a caravan of three hundred camels was carried off bodily. The average number of persons in a caravan seems to have been about one thousand and the number of camels three for every four persons, besides the extra ones that would be required for merchandise; a camel carried two persons, and one camel luggage for four, – no small load, for each one had to provide for himself as if he was about to set up housekeeping. The camel had this advantage over the horse, that the latter and his fodder were more coveted by the Arab than the former; and it was all one whether the Arab took horse and fodder or fodder only, for there was none to be bought and the horse would starve if left with the owner. The camels used for caravan purposes were not the small ones the Arabs were accustomed to, but the large ones, on which alone, at that time, at any rate, was it customary to travel in cradles, one cradle slung each side of the camel. They were comfortable, these cradles; comfortable enough to sleep in, hooded and lined to defend the traveller from sun and weather, with a secret pocket in the seat for valuables. The camels themselves were protected against the evil eye by charms written by dervishes slung round their necks in leathern bags; and on special occasions they were painted orange from head to foot, like the Polish horses.

Three of the halts were beside castles maintained by the Turks; elsewhere there was always the chance of an Arab chief enquiring if there were Franks in the caravan and then inviting himself to dinner; after dinner he would want a present, would probably name his needs, and lucky was one particular tourist whose guest only asked for some sugar and a pair of shoes. That the Arab was born to command and the Frank to obey, was an axiom with Franks and caravan-leaders, except to Della Valle, who always showed fight and always won; it is to be hoped that none of the other tourist-pilgrims came to know later how much money they would have saved had they known the effect of gunpowder, even minus the bullet, on an Arab.

At Gaza the caravan would split. The tourist would accompany those who were for Damascus, whose way lay through Rama, where, as already mentioned, all pilgrim ways met. Then to Jerusalem. At the gate the pilgrim's weapons were taken from him and his name registered in a book, to assure that his tribute should not be overlooked. Then the resident representative of his sect took charge of him; if he was a Frank he went to the Roman Catholic monastery of San Salvatore, whether Protestant or not. There was one Calvinist at this time who preferred to deal direct with the Turks rather than endanger his soul; but this meant money to the monks and he found himself in prison, from which he was only released by influence. The fact was that none of the Protestant rulers contributed to the upkeep of any foundation at Jerusalem and all Western Europeans were consequently classed together as in days gone by. At the monastery he would be fairly certain to make the acquaintance of Giovanni Battista, the monastery guide, for by 1612 he had filled that post for twenty-five years; and he it was from whom pilgrims derived most of their information during their stay – in Italian; if their knowledge of Italian was hazy, it probably added one or two marvels to those he meant to tell them. And, indeed, this may be said of most of these tourists on most of their journeys; much of the information they retail, in their own books and in this, they acquired by word of mouth in a language they only half understood.

Of Jerusalem as a town they say that the walls were the best part of the building; that there were three Christians living there to every Turk; that the Christians dwelled there for devotion and the Turks for the income derived from the Christians, and that otherwise it would have been wholly deserted. Partially deserted it actually was, since for the scarcity of human beings in its streets it is compared to Padua, the emptiest city in Europe, by one Englishman. All the trades driven there were elementary ones, shoemakers, cooks, smiths, tailors; and Moryson, on being seen walking about with gloves and a shirt, was taken for a prince in spite of his being poorly dressed otherwise; although that did not prevent the natives egging on their children to leap on to his back from upper stories and snatch things from him.

But just consider the sights in these streets! Passing over the localisations of New Testament incidents (such as where the Apostles composed the Creed and Christ the Lord's prayer) so exact and frequent that one must have had to walk slowly to avoid missing them when the guide pointed them out, there were besides the houses of Annas, Zebedee, Caiaphas, Veronica, Dives, Mary Magdalen, Uriah the Hittite, Pilate, where nightly were heard noises and whippings and sighs, and of the school which Our Lady attended; the orchard where Bathsheba bathed and the terrace from which David beheld her; the fountain where Our Lady used to wash her baby-clothes; the stone on which the cock stood to crow at St. Peter's downfall, and another which had been the seat of the angel who told the Marys of Christ's resurrection, etc., etc.

These were every-day matters. To see Jerusalem at its best one had to go at Easter, when the concourse of pilgrims was greatest for two reasons: first, the only excursion to Jordan took place; secondly, the descent of the Holy Fire from heaven into the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The incidents of the season are described in detail by George Sandys, Lithgow, Coryat and Della Valle, who were there at Easter in the years 1611, 1612, 1614, and 1616 respectively. On Palm Sunday the warden of the monastery set out for Bethphage in the afternoon and returned riding on an ass, the people shouting "Hosanna, etc.," and strewing the way with boughs and garments. When Lithgow was there they made too much noise to please the Turks and therefore returned black with bruises and somewhat bloody, the warden not excepted. In the evening the warden had recovered far enough to give an address to the Frank pilgrims, entreating the Protestants to refrain from reviling what they did not agree with, and concluding with the advice that three things were preëminently needful for a Jerusalem pilgrim; Faith (to believe what was told him), Patience (with the Turks), and Money.

On Maundy Thursday came the ceremony of washing the pilgrims' feet by the warden, and great was his disgust if he found that he had washed and kissed the feet of a Protestant. Some spent the next three nights in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, some only Easter Eve; a survival of the pre-Christian idea of the healing influence of passing a night in a temple.90 Those who could not afford, or borrow, the heavy entrance-fee, never entered but stood outside and wept, or looked through the round hole in the door through which food was passed. Inside, it made all the difference whether or no the Oriental Palm Sunday or Easter Day fell on the Frank Easter. If so, the Frank would find the number in the church of the Holy Sepulchre anything between one and two thousand, many belonging to nations he had never heard of, all frantic with excitement, dancing, leaping, and lamenting by torchlight, in garments that he had never dreamt of, to the sound of kettle-drums and horns and other instruments as strange to him as their languages and manner of singing; all combining, with their flags and banners, in a general cumulative effect of inexpressible weirdness, without a single touch to bring it into relation with ordinary life, except the Turks bringing to reason with sticks those who were really too outrageous even for the occasion. And so the pilgrims spent the three nights, on the floor, in as utter disregard of decency and sanitation, and sometimes of morality, as of silence.

The descent of the Holy Fire was no more than an interesting sight to the European tourist; Roman Catholic and Protestant alike expressed disbelief in its actuality as openly as the Turk.

On Easter Monday the monks journeyed to Emmaus, passing the house of Simeon and the spot where David slew Goliath, returning by another road past the valley where Joshua commanded the staying still of the sun, and the house of Samuel. It was on the Tuesday preceding the Oriental Easter that the great excursion of the year took place, to Jordan; the only one in the year because the danger from the Arabs was considered prohibitive unless an escort of Turkish soldiers accompanied the pilgrims, so strong that only the Easter concourse could pay them. It was more than a day's journey, so Tuesday night was spent in the open, starting again however before dawn at the pace set by the escort's horses; of the poorer pilgrims who could not afford a mount, many died either from exhaustion or from fear. So says Della Valle, and it is confirmed by Lithgow; the latter, who walked, sometimes was up to his middle in sand, and "true it is, in all my travels, I was never so sore fatigued, nor more fearfully endangered than that night." At dawn they arrived where Christ had been baptised, to see the medley of nationalities, all distinct from each other in some striking detail or other, once more in the highest state of excitement; some drinking, some being baptised by friends, some dipping their clothes, some renouncing clothes altogether, scores, perhaps hundreds, of men and women stark naked, there in the chilly spring morning, douching themselves till their teeth chattered and their bodies turned blue, while others who came to pray remained to laugh.

On the way back some diverged to visit Mt. Quarantana, the scene of the forty days' fast; very few ascended it. The way up was a narrow path along precipices; broken by forty-five steps, each from five to ten feet high, where there was little foothold and slipping meant death. This ended at the little cave where Christ was tempted by the Devil; the way thence to the summit, from which Christ had surveyed the kingdoms of the world, was not attempted by any one: Lithgow says he reached the top but proves that he did not; and Della Valle says that the only means of reaching it was that used by Christ, being carried up by the Devil.

Easter, too, gave a good opportunity for a visit to Hebron, for the largest caravan went thither at that time also. But this was as much a Mohammedan pilgrimage as Christian, and Abraham's house, another of the remarkably well-preserved buildings of Palestine, was shut against Christians and Jews. Of these latter there were many who journeyed to the Holy Land; how many cannot be guessed, but they certainly outnumbered the Christians of the West, and equally certainly were too many to be omitted from a record of Europeans then, though the only piece of direct evidence at hand is from the itinerary of one Samuel Jemsel91 with whom, in 1641, one hundred sailed in one ship of the regular fleet from Constantinople to Egypt, some bound for Jerusalem, some for Safed. They come into notice chiefly when a caravan is on the move on their Sabbath, when they remain behind and make up the lost ground as best they can.

From other pilgrims they differed in this; the Christian was leaving home, the Jew was going home. When they reached Palestine, besides, some of the spots they visited were famous among Christians; but mostly they were not. In the best Jewish guide-book in use in 1600, are mentioned one hundred and sixty-eight of their famous ancestors whose tombs were localised. If a Christian visited Abraham's, his duty to the Old Testament was done with; and even then he invariably omitted to observe the stone on which the patriarch sat when he was circumcised. And as for the tomb of Adam and Eve, and of Jacob and Leah, and the prophet Hosea (may his memory be blessed), and of Isaiah (may Salvation be his), and of Rachel (with whom be peace), and of the Rabbi Jeremiah who was buried upright, and, at Ras-ben-Amis, of the wife of Moses our master, and of the wife of the high-priest Aaron, and, on Mt. Ephraim, of Joshua the son of Nun and of Caleb the son of Jephunneh (may God, in his mercy, be mindful of them and of all other righteous men) – why, of all these the Ishmaelites knew nothing, nor even that at Rama was to be seen the spot where the Messiah shall appear, nor that there should be rending of garments when Jerusalem is first seen and again on reaching the place where once stood the Temple, now, for our sins, destroyed.

Outside Palestine, too, was much that the uncircumcised knew not of. He passed through Cairo without hearing of the copy of the law of Moses, written by the hand of Esdras the scribe; though, indeed, no man might see it, not even, incredible as it may sound, if he offered the keeper thereof silver (partly because the holy volume had by now been stolen, and lost, with the thief, at sea). And Damascus Hebrew and Frank might equally remember as the city where fresh fruit was never lacking, but only the former remembered that hard by Esdras himself lay buried, any more than the merchant who reached Baghdad heard that there rested Ananias, Mizael, and Azarias, and also, with the river flowing over his head, Daniel, of glorious memory, – unless the merchant wished to catch some of the great fish which swam thereabouts, for fishing was prohibited at that spot lest harm might befall the greatest fish of all, Zelach by name, who had abided there since Daniel's own time and was fed from the royal table.

And if any of the twentieth-century uncircumcised hesitate to believe that so much could be satisfactorily identified, the twentieth-century Hebrew may answer that there are other tests of identification than those of the "research" that has achieved such wonders at Stratford-on-Avon and that tradition can be traced back, unvarying even in trifles, for centuries.

He might go on to point out that Christian tradition might well be more stable. It is curious how much that is mentioned by fifteenth-century Christians is habitually omitted by those who came after. That the taking of Rhodes by the Turks should cause the disappearance of the basin in which Christ washed his apostles' feet is intelligible; but why, e. g., should the table disappear from Bethany at which the disciples were sitting when the Holy Ghost descended? And why should it have dropped out of remembrance that the torrent of Cedron had been bridged with stone by St. Helen to replace the wooden one from which the wood for the Cross had been taken and over which the Queen of Sheba had refused to walk, saying in a spirit of prophecy, that the Saviour of the world was to die on it? It seems as though there had occurred a diminishment of devotion resulting in the concentration of what devotion remained on fewer objects; or else a widening of interests diverting the attention from minor objects. Sometimes, of course, transference took place; which may, or may not, account for one traveller being shown the pillar of salt which had once been Lot's wife at a monastery near Trapani in Sicily in 1639, whereas in 1613 Coryat was told that she existed on the farther side of "Lake Asphaltitis with her child in her arms and a pretty dog, also in salt, by her." Still, no doubt Giovanni Battista and the warden did their best, and the latter was willing, in addition, to confer knighthood of the Holy Sepulchre on all and sundry, with no questions asked as to lineage, not even of a Dutchman in the grocery business; and at least there was the certificate of the pilgrim's visit to Jerusalem to be received – and paid for.

And now the tourist's last and longest journey has been told; he is at home safe, leaving us with nothing fresh to tell except the incidentals of his journeyings, and leaving us, one tourist, at least, with his blessing: "In the meantime I leave thee, gentle reader, travelling towards the heavenly Jerusalem, where God grant at length we may all arrive, Jesus Christ being our pilot and Janizary to conduct us thereunto."

CHAPTER VI

INNS

Müller, "Linguæ Hispanicæ Institutio," 1630.

It is a most unsatisfactory thing – reading about what you would like to see; but if seeing sixteenth-century Europe implied spending the nights in sixteenth-century inns there is much to be said for preferring the experience in print only. Luxury of a kind certainly was to be had. At the "Vasa d'Oro" at Rome were gorgeous beds, hung with silk and cloth of gold, worth four to five hundred crowns each; at the "Ecu" at Châlons silken bedding, too; and Germany occasionally provided sheets trimmed with lace four-fingers'-breadth wide in panelled rooms, while by 1652 Amsterdam possessed a hotel reckoned the best in Europe, every room in which was floored with black and white marble and hung with pictures, with one room containing an organ and decorated with gilded leather in place of tapestries. But these superfluities did not imply that a comfortable medium was easily found. In any case, accommodation divided itself into bedroom and dining-room; of anything approaching a sitting-room there is rarely a word. The chief exception to this is the five or six halls, decorated and furnished like those of a rich gentleman, at the inn outside Sinigaglia. This was the finest hotel in Italy when built, shortly before 1578, by the Duke of Urbino, who allowed no other there. Its forty bedrooms, with no more than two beds in each, all opened on to one long gallery by separate doors.92