In The Levant

We were up before sunrise on Sunday morning. The pilgrims were already leaving for Jerusalem. There was no trace of the last night’s revelry; everything was commonplace in the bright daylight. We were served with coffee, and then finished our exploration of the premises.

That which we had postponed as the most interesting sight was the cell of St. Sabas. It is a natural grotto in the rock, somewhat enlarged either by the saint or by his successors. When St. Sabas first came to this spot, he found a lion in possession. It was not the worst kind of a lion, but a sort of Judæan lion, one of those meek beasts over whom the ancient hermits had so much control. St. Sabas looked at the cave and at the lion, but the cave suited him better than the lion. The lion looked at the saint, and evidently knew what was passing in his mind. For the lions in those days were nearly as intelligent as anybody else. And then St. Sabas told the lion to go away, that he wanted that lodging for himself. And the lion, without a growl, put his tail down, and immediately went away. There is a picture of this interview still preserved at the convent, and any one can see that it is probable that such a lion as the artist has represented would move on when requested to do so.

In the cave is a little recess, the entrance to which is a small hole, a recess just large enough to accommodate a person in a sitting posture. In this place St. Sabas sat for seven years, without once coming out. That was before the present walls were built in front of the grotto, and he had some light,—he sat seven years on that hard stone, as long as the present French Assembly intends to sit. It was with him also a provisional sitting, in fact, a Septennate.

In the court-yard, as we were departing, were displayed articles to sell to the pious pilgrims: canes from the Jordan; crosses painted, and inlaid with cedar or olive wood, or some sort of Jordan timber; rude paintings of the sign-board order done by the monks, St. George and the Dragon being the favorite subject; hyperbolical pictures of the convent and the saint, stamped in black upon cotton cloth; and holy olive-oil in tin cans.

Perhaps the most taking article of merchandise offered was dates from the palm-tree that St. Sabas planted. These dates have no seeds. There was something appropriate about this; childless monks, seedless dates. One could understand that. But these dates were bought by the pilgrims to carry to their wives who desire but have not sons. By what reasoning the monks have convinced them that fruitless dates will be a cause of fruitfulness, I do not know.

We paid our tribute, climbed up the stairways and out the grim gate into the highway, and had a glorious ride in the fresh morning air, the way enlivened by wild-flowers, blue sky, Bedaween, and troops of returning pilgrims, and finally ennobled by the sight of Jerusalem itself, conspicuous on its hill.

VII.—THE FAIR OF MOSES; THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCH

THE Moslems believe that their religion superseded Judaism and Christianity,—Mohammed closing the culminating series of six great prophets, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed,—and that they have a right to administer on the effects of both. They appropriate our sacred history and embellish it without the least scruple, assume exclusive right to our sacred places, and enroll in their own calendar all our notable heroes and saints.

On the 16th of April was inaugurated in Jerusalem the fête and fair of the Prophet Moses. The fair is held yearly at Neby Mûsa, a Moslem wely, in the wilderness of Judæa, some three or four hours from Jerusalem on a direct line to the Dead Sea. There Moses, according to the Moslem tradition, was buried, and thither the faithful resort in great crowds at this anniversary, and hold a four days’ fair.

At midnight the air was humming with preparations; the whole city buzzed like a hive about to swarm. For many days pilgrims had been gathering for this festival, coming in on all the mountain roads, from Grath and Askalon, from Hebron, from Nablous and Jaffa,—pilgrims as zealous and as ragged as those that gather to the Holy Sepulchre and on the banks of the Jordan. In the early morning we heard the pounding of drums, the clash of cymbals, the squeaking of fifes, and an occasional gun, let off as it were by accident,—very much like the dawn of a Fourth of July at home. Processions were straggling about the streets, apparently lost, like ward-delegations in search of the beginning of St. Patrick’s Day; a disorderly scramble of rags and color, a rabble hustling along without step or order, preceded usually by half a dozen enormous flags, green, red, yellow, and blue, embroidered with various devices and texts from the Koran, which hung lifeless on their staves, but grouped in mass made as lively a study of color as a bevy of sails of the Chioggia fishing-boats flocking into the port of Venice at sunrise. Before the banners walked the musicians, filling the narrow streets with a fearful uproar of rude drums and cymbals. These people seem to have inherited the musical talent of the ancient Jews, and to have the same passion for noise and discord.

As the procession would not move to the Tomb of Moses until afternoon, we devoted the morning to a visit to the Armenian Patriarch. Isaac, archbishop, and by the grace of God Patriarch of the Armenians of Jerusalem, occupant of the holy apostolic seat of St. James (the Armenian convent stands upon the traditional site of the martyrdom of St. James), claims to be the spiritual head of five millions of Armenians, in Turkey, Syria, Palestine, India, and Persia. By firman from the Sultan, the Copts and the Syrian and the Abyssinian Christians are in some sort under his jurisdiction, but the authority is merely nominal.

The reception-room of the convent is a handsome hall (for Jerusalem), extending over an archway of the street below and looking upon a garden. The walls are hung with engravings and lithographs, most of them portraits of contemporary sovereigns and princes of Europe, in whose august company the Patriarch seems to like to sun himself. We had not to wait long before he appeared and gave us a courteous and simple welcome. As soon as he learned that we were Americans, he said that he had something that he thought would interest us, and going to his table took out of the drawer an old number of an American periodical containing a portrait of an American publisher, which he set great store by. We congratulated him upon his possession of this treasure, and expressed our passionate fondness for this sort of thing, for we soon discovered the delight the Patriarch took in pictures and especially in portraits, and not least in photographs of himself in the full regalia of his sacred office. And with reason, for he is probably the handsomest potentate in the world. He is a tall, finely proportioned man of fifty years, and his deportment exhibits that happy courtesy which is born of the love of approbation and a kindly opinion of self. He was clad in the black cloak with the pointed hood of the convent, which made a fine contrast to his long, full beard, turning white; his complexion is fair, white and red, and his eyes are remarkably pleasant and benignant.

The languages at the command of the Patriarch are two, the Armenian and the Turkish, and we were obliged to communicate with him through the medium of the latter, Abd-el-Atti acting as interpreter. How much Turkish our dragoman knew, and how familiar his holiness is with it, we could not tell, but the conversation went on briskly, as it always does when Abd-el-Atti has control of it. When we had exhausted what the Patriarch knew about America and what we knew about Armenia, which did not take long (it was astonishing how few things in all this world of things we knew in common), we directed the conversation upon what we supposed would be congenial and common ground, the dogma of the Trinity and the point of difference between the Armenian and the Latin church. I cannot say that we acquired much light on the subject, though probably we did better than disputants usually do on this topic. We had some signal advantages. The questions and answers, strained through the Turkish language, were robbed of all salient and noxious points, and solved themselves without difficulty. Thus, the “Filioque clause” offered no subtle distinctions to the Moslem mind of Abd-el-Atti, and he presented it to the Patriarch, I have no doubt, with perfect clarity. At any rate, the reply was satisfactory:—

“His excellency, he much oblige, and him say he t’ink so.”

The elucidation of this point was rendered the easier, probably, by the fact that neither Abd-el-Atti nor the Patriarch nor ourselves knew much about it. When I told his highness (if, through Abd-el-Atti, I did tell him) that the great Armenian convent at Venice, which holds with the Pope, accepts the Latin construction of the clause, he seemed never to have heard of the great Armenian convent at Venice. At this point of the conversation we thought it wise to finish the subject by the trite remark that we believed a man’s life was after all more important than his creed.

“So am I,” responded the dragoman, and the Patriarch seemed to be of like mind.

A new turn was given to our interview by the arrival of refreshments, a succession of sweetmeats, cordials, candies, and coffee. The sweetmeats first served were a delicate preserve of plums. This was handed around in a jar, from which each guest dipped a spoonful, and swallowed it, drinking from a glass of water immediately,—exactly as we used to take medicine in childhood. The preserve was taken away when each person had tasted it, and shortly a delicious orange cordial was brought, and handed around with candy. Coffee followed. The Patriarch then led the way about his palace, and with some pride showed us the gold and silver insignia of his office and his rich vestments. On the wall of his study hung a curious map of the world, printed at Amsterdam in 1692, in Armenian characters. He was so kind also as to give us his photograph, enriched with his unreadable autograph, and a. book printed at the convent, entitled Deux Ans de Séjour en Abyssinie; and we had the pleasure of seeing also the heroes and the author of the book,—two Armenian monks, who undertook, on an English suggestion, a mission to King Theodore, to intercede for the release of the English prisoners held by the tyrant of that land. They were detained by its treacherous and barbarous chiefs, robbed by people and priests alike, never reached the headquarters of the king, and were released only after two years of miserable captivity and suffering. This book is a faithful record of their journey, and contains a complete description of the religion and customs of the Abyssinians, set down with the candor and verbal nakedness of Herodotus. Whatever Christianity the Abyssinians may once have had, their religion now is an odd mixture of Judaism, fetichism, and Christian dogmas, and their morals a perfect reproduction of those in vogue just before the flood; there is no vice or disease of barbarism or of civilization that is not with them of universal acceptance. And the priest Timotheus, the writer of this narrative, gave the Abyssinians abiding in Jerusalem a character no better than that of their countrymen at home.

The Patriarch, with many expressions of civility, gave us into the charge of a monk, who showed us all the parts of the convent we had not seen on a previous visit. The convent is not only a wealthy and clean, but also an enlightened establishment. Within its precincts are nuns as well as monks, and good schools are maintained for children of both sexes. The school-house, with its commodious apartments, was not unlike one of our buildings for graded schools; in the rooms we saw many cases of antiquities and curiosities from various countries, and specimens of minerals. A map which hung on the wall, and was only one hundred years old, showed the Red Sea flowing into the Dead Sea, and the river Jordan emptying into the Mediterranean. Perhaps the scholars learn ancient geography only.

At twelve the Moslems said prayers in the Mosque of Omar, and at one o’clock the procession was ready to move out of St. Stephen’s Gate. We rode around to that entrance. The spectacle spread before us was marvellous. All the gray and ragged slopes and ravines were gay with color and lively with movement. The city walls on the side overlooking the Valley of Jehoshaphat were covered with masses of people, clinging to them like bees; so the defences may have appeared to Titus when he ordered the assault from the opposite hill. The sunken road leading from St. Stephen’s Gate, down which the procession was to pass, was lined with spectators, seated in ranks on ranks on the stony slopes. These were mostly women,—this being one of the few days upon which the Moslem women may freely come abroad,—clad in pure white, and with white veils drawn about their heads. These clouds of white robes were relieved here and there by flaming spots of color, for the children and slaves accompanied the women, and their dress added blue and red and yellow to the picture. Men also mingled in the throng, displaying turbans of blue and black and green and white. One could not say that any color or nationality was wanting in the spectacle. Sprinkled in groups all over the hillside, in the Moslem cemetery and beneath it, were like groups of color, and streaks of it marked the descent of every winding path. The Prince of Oldenburg, the only foreign dignitary present, had his tents pitched upon a knoll outside the gate, and other tents dotted the roadside and the hill.

Crowds of people thronged both sides of the road to the Mount of Olives and to Gethsemane, spreading themselves in the valley and extending away up the road of the Triumphal Entry; everywhere were the most brilliant effects of white, red, yellow, gray, green, black, and striped raiment: no matter what these Orientals put on, it becomes picturesque,—old coffee-bags, old rags and carpets, anything. There could not be a finer place for a display than these two opposing hillsides, the narrow valley, and the winding roads, which increased the apparent length of the procession and set it off to the best advantage. We were glad of the opportunity to see this ancient valley of bones revived in a manner to recall the pageants and shows of centuries ago, and as we rode down the sunken road in advance of the procession, we imagined how we might have felt if we had been mounted on horses or elephants instead of donkeys, and if we had been conquerors leading a triumph, and these people on either hand had been cheering us instead of jeering us. Turkish soldiers, stationed every thirty paces, kept the road clear for the expected cavalcade. In order to see it and the spectators to the best advantage, we took position on the opposite side of the valley and below the road around the Mount of Olives.

The procession was a good illustration of the shallow splendor of the Orient; it had no order, no uniformity, no organization; it dragged itself along at the whim of its separate squads. First came a guard of soldiers, then a little huddle of men of all sorts of colors and apparel, bearing several flags, among them the green Flag of Moses; after an interval another squad, bearing large and gorgeous flags, preceded by musicians beating drums and cymbals. In front of the drums danced, or rather hitched forward with stately steps, two shabby fellows, throwing their bodies from side to side and casting their arms about, clashing cymbals and smirking with infinite conceit. At long intervals came other like bands with flags and music, in such disorder as scarcely to be told from the spectators, except that they bore guns and pistols, which they continually fired into the air and close over the heads of the crowd, with a reckless profusion of powder and the most murderous appearance. To these followed mounted soldiers in white, with a Turkish band of music,—worse than any military band in Italy; and after this the pasha, the governor of the city, a number of civil and military dignitaries and one or two high ulemas, and a green-clad representative of the Prophet,—a beggar on horseback,—on fiery horses which curveted about in the crowd, excited by the guns, the music, and the discharge of a cannon now and then, which was stationed at the gate of St. Stephen. Among the insignia displayed were two tall instruments of brass, which twirled and glittered in the sun, not like the golden candlestick of the Jews, nor the “host” of the Catholics, nor the sistrum of the ancient Egyptians, but, perhaps, as Moslemism is a reminiscence of all religions, a caricature of all three.

The crush in the narrow road round the hill and the grouping of all the gorgeous banners there produced a momentary fine effect; but generally, save for the spectators, the display was cheap and childish. Only once did we see either soldiers or civilians marching in order; there were five fellows in line carrying Nubian spears, and also five sappers and miners in line, wearing leathern aprons and bearing theatrical battle-axes. As to the arms, we could discover no two guns of the same pattern in all the multitude of guns; like most things in the East, the demonstration was one of show, color, and noise, not to be examined too closely, but to be taken with faith, as we eat dates. A company of Sheridan’s cavalry would have scattered the entire army.

The procession, having halted on the brow of the hill, countermarched and returned; but the Flag of Moses and its guard went on to the camp, at his tomb, there to await the arrival of the pilgrims on the Monday following. And the most gorgeous Moslem demonstration of the year was over.

VIII.—DEPARTURE FROM JERUSALEM

THE day came to leave Jerusalem. Circumstances rendered it impossible for us to make the overland trip to Damascus or even to Haifa. Our regret that we should not see Bethel, Shechem, Samaria, Nazareth, and the Sea of Galilee was somewhat lessened by the thought that we knew the general character of the country and the villages, by what we had already seen, and that experience had taught us the inevitable disenchantment of seeing the historical and the sacred places of Judæa. It is not that one visits a desert and a heap of ruins,—that would be endurable and even stimulating to the imagination; but every locality which is dear to the reader by some divine visitation, or wonderful by some achievement of hero or prophet, is degraded by the presence of sordid habitations, and a mixed, vicious, and unsavory population, or incrusted with the most puerile superstitions, so that the traveller is fain to content himself with a general view of the unchanged features of the country. It must be with a certain feeling of humiliation that at Nazareth, for instance, the object of his pilgrimage is belittled to the inspection of such inventions as the spot upon which the Virgin stood when she received the annunciation, and the carpenter-shop in which Joseph worked.

At any rate, we let such thoughts predominate, when we were obliged to relinquish the overland journey. And whatever we missed, I flatter myself that the readers of these desultory sketches will lose nothing. I should have indulged a certain curiosity in riding over a country as rich in memories as it is poor in aspect, but I should have been able to add nothing to the minute descriptions and vivid pictures with which the Christian world is familiar; and, if the reader will excuse an additional personal remark, I have not had the presumption to attempt a description of Palestine and Syria (which the volumes of Robinson and Thompson and Porter have abundantly given), but only to make a record of limited travel and observation. What I most regretted was that we could not see the green and fertile plain of Esdraelon, the flower-spangled meadow of Jezreel, and the forests of Tabor and Carmel,—seats of beauty and of verdure, and which, with the Plain of Sharon, might serve to mitigate the picture of grim desolation which the tourist cames away from the Holy Land.

Finally, it was with a feeling akin to regret that we looked our last upon gray and melancholy Jerusalem. We had grown a little familiar with its few objects of past or present grandeur, the Saracenic walls and towers, the Temple platform and its resplendent mosque, the agglomeration called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the ruins of the palace and hospice of the Knights of St. John, the massive convents and hospices of various nations and sects that rise amid the indistinguishable huddle of wretched habitations, threaded by filthy streets and noisome gutters. And yet we confessed to the inevitable fascination which is always exercised upon the mind by antiquity; the mysterious attraction of association; the undefinable influence in decay and desolation which holds while it repels; the empire, one might say the tyranny, over the imagination and the will which an ancient city asserts, as if by force of an immortal personality, compelling first curiosity, then endurance, then sympathy, and finally love. Jerusalem has neither the art, the climate, the antiquities, nor the society which draw the world and hold it captive in Rome, but its associations enable it to exercise, in a degree, the same attraction. Its attraction is in its historic spell and name, and in spite of the modern city.

Jerusalem, in fact, is incrusted with layer upon layer of inventions, the product of credulity, cunning, and superstition, a monstrous growth always enlarging, so that already the simple facts of history are buried almost beyond recognition beneath this mass of rubbish. Perhaps it would have been better for the growth of Christianity in the world if Jerusalem had been abandoned, had become like Carthage and Memphis and Tadmor in the wilderness, and the modern pilgrim were free to choose his seat upon a fallen wall or mossy rock, and reconstruct for himself the pageant of the past, and recall that Living Presence, undisturbed by the impertinences which belittle the name of religion. It has always been held well that the place of the burial of Moses was unknown. It would perhaps have conduced to the purity of the Christian faith if no attempt had ever been made to break through the obscurity which rests upon the place of the sepulchre of Christ. Invention has grown upon invention, and we have the Jerusalem of to-day as a result of the exaggerated importance attached to the localization of the Divine manifestation. Whatever interest Jerusalem has for the antiquarian, or for the devout mind, it is undeniable that one must seek in other lands and among other peoples for the robust virtue, the hatred of shams and useless forms, the sweet charity, the invigorating principles, the high thinking, and the simple worship inculcated by the Founder of Christianity.

The horses were ready. Jerusalem had just begun to stir; an itinerant vender of coffee had set up his tray on the street, and was lustily calling to catch the attention of the early workmen, or the vagrants who pick themselves up from the doorsteps at dawn, and begin to reconnoitre for the necessary and cheap taste of coffee, with which the Oriental day opens; the sky was overcast, and a drop or two of rain fell as we were getting into the saddle, but “It is nothing,” said the stirrup-holder, “it goes to be a beautiful time”; and so it proved.

Scarcely were we outside the city when it cleared superbly, and we set forward on our long ride of thirty-six miles, to the sea-coast, in high spirits. We turned to catch the first sunlight upon the gray Tower of David, and then went gayly on over the cool free hills, inhaling the sparkling air and the perfume of wild-flowers, and exchanging greetings with the pilgrims, Moslem and Christian, who must have broken up their camps in the hills at the earliest light. There are all varieties of nationality and costume, and many of the peaceful pilgrims are armed as if going to a military rendezvous; perhaps our cavalcade, which is also an assorted one of horses, donkeys, and mules, is as amusing as any we meet. I am certain that the horse that one of the ladies rides is unique, a mere framework of bones which rattle as he agitates himself; a rear view of the animal, and his twisting and interlacing legs, when he moves briskly, suggest a Chinese puzzle.

We halted at the outlet of Wady ‘Aly, where there is an inn, which has the appearance of a Den of Thieves, and took our lunch upon some giant rocks under a fig-tree, the fruit of which was already half grown. Here I discovered another black calla, and borrowed a pick of the landlord to endeavor to dig up its bulb. But it was impossible to extract it from the rocks, and when I returned the tool, the owner demanded pay for the use of it; I told him that if he would come to America, I would lend him a pick, and let him dig all day in the garden,—a liberality which he was unable to comprehend.

By four o’clock we were at Bamleh, and turned aside to inspect the so-called Saracen tower; it stands upon one side of a large enclosure of walls and arches, an extensive ruin; under ground are vaulted constructions apparently extending as far as the ruins above, reminding one of the remains of the Hospice of St. John at Jerusalem. In its form and treatment and feeling this noble tower is Gothic, and, taking it in connection with the remains about it, I should have said it was of Christian construction, in spite of the Arabic inscription over one of the doorways, which might have been added when the Saracens took possession of it; but I believe that antiquarians have decided that the tower was erected by Moslems. These are the most “rural” ruins we had seen in the East; they are time-stained and weather-colored, like the remains of an English abbey, and stand in the midst of a green and most lovely country; no sand, no nakedness, no beggars. Grass fills all the enclosure, and grain-fields press close about it. No view could be more enchanting than that of the tower and the rolling plain at that hour: the bloom on the wheat-fields, flecked with flaming poppies; the silver of the olive groves; the beds of scarlet anemones and yellow buttercups, blotching the meadows with brilliant colors like a picture of Turner; the soft gray hills of Judæa; the steeples and minarets of the city. All Ramleh is built on and amid ruins, half-covered arches and vaults.

Twilight came upon us while we were yet in the interminable plain, but Jaffa announced itself by its orange-blossoms long before we entered its straggling suburbs; indeed, when we were three miles away, the odor of its gardens, weighted by the night-air, was too heavy to be agreeable. At a distance this odor was more perceptible than in the town itself; but next day, in the full heat of the sun, we found it so overpowering as to give a tendency to headache.

IX.—ALONG THE SYRIAN COAST

OUR only business in Jaffa being to get away from it, we impatiently expected the arrival of the Austrian Lloyd steamer for Beyrout, the Venus, a fickle and unsteady craft, as its name implies. In the afternoon we got on board, taking note as we left the land of the great stones that jut out into the sea, “where the chains with which Andromeda was bound have left their footsteps, which attest [says Josephus] the antiquity of that fable.” The Venus, which should have departed at three o’clock, lay rolling about amid the tossing and bobbing and crushing crowd of boats and barges till late in the evening, taking in boxes of oranges and bags of barley, by the slow process of hoisting up one or two at a time. The ship was lightly loaded with freight, but overrun with third-class passengers, returning pilgrims from Mecca and from Jerusalem (whom the waters of the Jordan seemed not to have benefited), who invaded every part of deck, cabin, and hold, and spreading their beds under the windows of the cabins of the first-class passengers, reduced the whole company to a common disgust. The light load caused the vessel to roll a little, and there was nothing agreeable in the situation.

The next morning we were in the harbor of Haifa, under the shadow of Mt. Carmel, and rose early to read about Elijah, and to bring as near to us as we could with an opera-glass the convent and the scene of Elijah’s victory over the priests of Baal. The noble convent we saw, and the brow of Carmel, which the prophet ascended to pray for rain; but the place of the miraculous sacrifice is on the other side, in view of the plain of Esdraelon, and so is the plain by the river Kishon where Elijah slew the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, whom he had already mocked and defeated. The grotto of Elijah is shown in the hill, and the monks who inhabit the convent regard themselves as the successors of an unbroken succession of holy occupants since the days of the great prophet. Their sumptuous quarters would no doubt excite the indignation of Elijah and Elisha, who would not properly discriminate between the modern reign of Mammon and the ancient rule of Baal. Haifa itself is only a huddle of houses on the beach. Ten miles across the curving bay we saw the battlements of Akka, on its triangle of land jutting into the sea, above the mouth of Kishon, out of the fertile and world-renowned plain. We see it more distinctly as we pass; and if we were to land we should see little more, for few fragments remain to attest its many masters and strange vicissitudes. A prosperous seat of the Phoenicians, it offered hospitality to the fat-loving tribe of Asher; it was a Greek city of wealth and consequence; it was considered the key of Palestine during the Crusades, and the headquarters of the Templars and the Knights of St. John; and in more modern times it had the credit of giving the checkmate to the feeble imitation of Alexander in the East attempted by Napoleon I.

The day was cloudy and a little cool, and not unpleasant; but there existed all day a ground-swell which is full of all nastiness, and a short sea which aggravated the ground-swell; and although we sailed by the Lebanon mountains and along an historic coast, bristling with suggestions, and with little but suggestions, of an heroic past, by Akka and Tyre and Sidon, we were mostly indifferent to it all. The Mediterranean, on occasion, takes away one’s appetite even for ruins and ancient history.

We can distinguish, as we sail by it, the mean modern town which wears still the royal purple name of Tyre, and the peninsula, formerly the island, upon which the old town stood and which gave it its name. The Arabs still call it Tsur or Sur, “the rock,” and the ancients fancied that this island of rock had the form of a ship and was typical of the maritime pursuits of its people. Some have thought it more like the cradle of commerce which Tyre is sometimes, though erroneously, said to be; for she was only the daughter of Sidon, and did but inherit from her mother the secret of the mastery of the seas. There were two cities of Tyre,—the one on the island, and another on the shore. Tyre is not an old city in the Eastern reckoning, the date of its foundation as a great power only rising to about 1200 b. c., about the time of the Trojan war, and after the fall of Sidon, although there was a city there a couple of centuries earlier, when Joshua and his followers conquered the hill-countries of Palestine; it could never in its days of greatness have been large, probably containing not more than 30,000 to 40,000 inhabitants, but its reputation was disproportionate to its magnitude; Joshua calls it the “strong city Tyre,” and it had the entire respect of Jerusalem in the most haughty days of the latter. Tyre seems to have been included in the “inheritance” allotted to Asher, but that luxurious son of Jacob yielded to the Phoenicians and not they to him; indeed, the parcelling of territory to the Israelitish tribes, on condition that they would conquer it, recalls the liberal dying bequest made by a tender Virginian to his son, of one hundred thousand dollars if he could make it. The sea-coast portion of the Canaanites, or the Phoenicians, was never subdued by the Jews; it preserved a fortunate independence, in order that, under the Providence that protected the Phoenicians, after having given the world “letters” and the first impulse of all the permanent civilization that written language implies, they could still bless it by teaching it commerce, and that wide exchange of products which is a practical brotherhood of man. The world was spared the calamity of the descent of the tribes of Israel upon the Phoenician cities of the coast, and art was permitted to grow with industry; unfortunately the tribes who formed the kingdom of Israel were capable of imitating only the idolatrous worship and the sensuality of their more polished neighbors. Such an ascendency did Tyre obtain in Jewish affairs through the princess Jezebel and the reception of the priests of Baal, that for many years both Samaria and Jerusalem might almost be called dependencies of the city of the god, “the lord Melkarth, Baal of Tyre.”

The arts of the Phoenicians the Jews were not apt to learn; the beautiful bronze-work of their temples was executed by Tyrians, and their curious work in wood also; the secret of the famous purple dye of the royal stuffs which the Jews coveted was known only to the Tyrians, who extracted from a sea-mussel this dark red violet; when the Jews built, Tyrian workmen were necessary; when Solomon undertook his commercial ventures into the far Orient, it was Tyrians who built his ships at Ezion-geber, and it was Tyrian sailors who manned them; the Phoenicians carried the manufacture of glass to a perfection unknown to the ancient Egyptians, producing that beautiful ware the art of which was revived by the Venetians in the sixteenth century; the Jews did not learn from the Phoenicians, but the Greeks did, how to make that graceful pottery and to paint the vases which are the despair of modern imitators; the Tyrian mariners, following the Sidonian, supplied the Mediterranean countries, including Egypt, with tin for the manufacture of bronze, by adventurous voyages as far as Britain, and no people ever excelled them in the working of bronze, as none in their time equalled them in the carving of ivory, the engraving of precious metals, and the cutting and setting of jewels.

Unfortunately scarcely anything remains of the abundant literature of the Phoenicians,—for the Canaanites were a literary people before the invasion of Joshua; their language was Semitic, and almost identical with the Hebrew, although they were descendants of Ham; not only their light literature but their historical records have disappeared, and we have small knowledge of their kings or their great men. The one we are most familiar with is the shrewd and liberal Hiram (I cannot tell why he always reminds me of General Grant), who exchanged riddles with Solomon, and shared with the mountain king the profits of his maritime skill and experience. Hiram’s tomb is still pointed out to the curious, at Tyre; and the mutations of religions and the freaks of fortune are illustrated by the chance that has grouped so closely together the graves of Hiram, of Frederick Barbarossa, and of Origen.

Late in the afternoon we came in sight of Sidon, that ancient city which the hand-book infers was famous at the time of the appearance of Joshua, since that skilful captain speaks of it as “Great Zidon.” Famous it doubtless had been long before his arrival, but the epithet “great” merely distinguished the two cities; for Sidon was divided like Tyre, “Great Sidon” being on the shore and “Little Sidon” at some distance inland. Tradition says it was built by Sidon, the great-grandson of Noah; but however this may be, it is doubtless the oldest Phoenician city except Gebel, which is on the coast north of Beyrout. It is now for the antiquarian little more than a necropolis, and a heap of stones, on which fishermen dry their nets, although some nine to ten thousand people occupy its squalid houses. What we see of it is the ridge of rocks forming the shallow harbor, and the picturesque arched bridge (with which engravings have made us familiar) that connects a ruined fortress on a detached rock with the rocky peninsula.

Sidon cames us far back into antiquity. When the Canaanitish tribes migrated from their seat on the Persian Gulf, a part of them continued their march as far as Egypt. It seems to be settled that the Hittites (or Khitas) were the invaders who overran the land of the Pharaohs, sweeping away in their barbarous violence nearly all the monuments of the civilization of preceding eras, and placing upon the throne of that old empire the race of Shepherd kings. It was doubtless during the dynasty of the Shepherds that Abraham visited Egypt, and it was a Pharaoh of Hittite origin who made Joseph his minister. It was after the expulsion of the Shepherds and the establishment of a dynasty “which knew not Joseph” that the Israelites were oppressed.

But the Canaanites did not all pass beyond Syria and Palestine; some among them, who afterwards were distinctively known as Phoenicians, established a maritime kingdom, and founded among other cities that of Sidon. This maritime branch no doubt kept up an intercourse with the other portions of the Canaanite family in Southern Syria and in Egypt, before the one was driven out of Egypt by the revolution which restored the rule of the Egyptian Pharaohs, and the other expelled by the advent of the Philistines. And it seems altogether probable that the Phoenicians received from Egypt many arts which they afterwards improved and perfected. It is tolerably certain that they borrowed from Egypt the hieratic writing, or some of its characters, which taught them to represent the sounds of their language by the alphabet which they gave to the world. The Sidonians were subjugated by Thotmes III., with all Phoenicia, and were for centuries the useful allies of the Egyptians; but their dominion was over the sea, and they spread their colonies first to the Grecian isles and then along the African coast; and in the other direction sent their venturesome barks as far as Colchis on the Black Sea. They seem to have thrived most under the Egyptian supremacy, for the Pharaohs had need of their sailors and their ships. In the later days of the empire, in the reign of Necho, it was Phoenician sailors who, at his command, circumnavigated Africa, passing down the Red Sea and returning through the Pillars of Hercules.

The few remains of Sidon which we see to-day are only a few centuries old,—six or seven; there are no monuments to carry us back to the city famous in arts and arms, of which Homer sang; and if there were, the antiquity of this hoary coast would still elude us. Herodotus says that the temple of Melkarth at Tyre (the “daughter of Sidon”) was built about 2300 B.C. Probably he errs by a couple of centuries; for it was only something like twenty-three centuries before Christ that the Canaanites came into Palestine, that is to say, late in the thirteenth Egyptian dynasty,—a dynasty which, according to the list of Manetho and Mariette Bey, is separated from the reign of the first Egyptian king by an interval of twenty-seven centuries. When Abraham wandered from Mesopotamia into Palestine he found the Canaanites in possession. But they were comparatively new comers; they had found the land already occupied by a numerous population who were so far advanced in civilization as to have built many cities. Among the peoples holding the land before them were the Rephaim, who had sixty strong towns in what is now the wilderness of Bashan; there were also the Emim, the Zamzummim, and the Anakim,—perhaps primitive races and perhaps conquerors of a people farther back in the twilight, remnants of whom still remained in Palestine when the Jews began, in their turn, to level its cities to the earth, and who lived in the Jewish traditions as “giants.”

X.—BEYROUT.—OVER THE LEBANON

ALL the afternoon we had the noble range of Mt. Lebanon in view, and towards five o’clock we saw the desert-like promontory upon which Beyrout stands. This bold headland, however, changed its appearance when we had rounded it and came into the harbor; instead of sloping sand we had a rocky coast, and rising from the bay a couple of hundred feet, Beyrout, first the shabby old city, and then the new portion higher, up, with its villas embowered in trees. To the right, upon the cliffs overlooking the sea, is the American college, an institution whose conspicuous position is only a fair indication of its pre-eminent importance in the East; and it is to be regretted that it does not make a better architectural show. Behind Beyrout, in a vast circular sweep, rise the Lebanon mountains, clothed with trees and vineyards, terraced, and studded with villas and villages. The view is scarcely surpassed anywhere for luxuriance and variety. It seems to us that if we had an impulse to go on a mission anywhere it would be to the wicked of this fertile land.

At Beyrout also passengers must land in small boats. We were at once boarded by the most ruffianly gang of boatmen we had yet seen, who poured through the gangways and climbed over the sides of the vessel, like privileged pirates, treading down people in their way. It was only after a severe struggle that we reached our boats and landed at the custom-house, and fell into the hands of the legalized plunderers, who made an attack upon our baggage and demanded our passports, simply to obtain backsheesh for themselves.

“Not to show ‘em passport,” says Abd-el-Atti, who wastes no affection on the Turks; “tiefs, all of dem; you he six months, not so? in him dominion, come now from Jaffa; I tell him if the kin’ of Constantinople want us, he find us at the hotel.”

The hotel Bellevue, which looks upon the sea and hears always the waves dashing upon the worn and jagged rocks, was overflowed by one of those swarms, which are the nuisance of independent travellers, known as a “Cook’s Party,” excellent people individually no doubt, but monopolizing hotels and steamboats, and driving everybody else into obscurity by reason of their numbers and compact organization. We passed yesterday one of the places on the coast where Jonah is said to have left the whale; it is suspected—though without any contemporary authority—that he was in a Cook’s Party of his day, and left it in disgust for this private conveyance.

Our first care in Beyrout was to secure our passage to Damascus. There is a carriage-road over the Lebanons, constructed, owned, and managed by a French company; it is the only road in Syria practicable for wheels, but it is one of the best in the world; I suppose we shall celebrate our second centennial before we have one to compare with it in the United States. The company has the monopoly of all the traffic over it, forwarding freight in its endless trains of wagons, and despatching a diligence each way daily, and a night mail. We went to the office to secure seats in the diligence.