 12. My first bivouac. The course of the Jordan is from the north to the south, and in that direction, with very little of devious winding, it carries the shining waters of Galilee straight down into the solitudes of the Dead Sea. Speaking roughly, the river in that meridian is a boundary between the people living under roofs and the tented tribes that wander on the farther side. And so as I went down in my way from Tiberius towards Jerusalem, along the western bank of the stream, my thinking all propended to the ancient world of herdsmen and warriors that lay so close over my bridal arm. If a man and an Englishman be not born of his mother with a natural, shifny bit in his mouth, there comes to him a time for loathing the wearisome ways of society, a time for not liking tamed people, a time for not dancing quadrills, not sitting in pews, a time for pretending that Milton and Shelley and all sorts of mere dead people were greater in death than the first living lord of the treasury, a time in short for scoffing and railing, for speaking lightly of the very opera and all our most cherished institutions. It is from nineteen to two or three and twenty perhaps that this war of the man against men is like to be waged most sullenly. You are yet in this smiling England, but you find yourself wending away to the dark sides of her mountains, climbing the dizzy crags, exulting in the fellowship of mists and clouds, and watching the storms how they gather, or proving the metal of your mare upon the broad and dreary downs, because that you feel congenially with the yet unparceled earth. A little while you are free and unlabeled, like the ground that you compass, but civilised station is coming and coming, you and your much-loved wastelands will be surely enclosed, and sooner or later brought down to a state of mere usefulness. The ground will be curiously sliced into acres and roots and perches, and you, for all you sit so smartly in your saddle, you will be caught, you will be taken up from travel as a colt from grass, to be trained and tried and matched and run. All this in time, but first come continental tours and the moody longing for eastern travel. The downs and the moors of England can hold you no longer, with large strides you burst away from these slips and patches of free land. You thread your path through the crowds of Europe, and at last, on the banks of Jordan, you joyfully know that you are upon the very frontier of all accustomed respectabilities. Here on the other side of the river you can swim it with one arm, there reigns the people that will be like to put you to death for not being a vagrant, for not being a robber, for not being armed and houseless. There is comfort in that, health, comfort and strength, to one who is dying from very weariness of that poor, dear, middle-aged, deserving, accomplished, pedantic and painstaking governess, Europe. I had ridden for some hours along the right bank of Jordan, when I came to the Jess el Mejame, an old Roman bridge, I believe, which crossed the river. My Nazarene guide was riding ahead of the party, and now, to my surprise and delight, he turned leftwards and led on over the bridge. I knew that the true road to Jerusalem must be mainly by the right bank of Jordan, but I supposed that my guide was crossing the bridge at this spot in order to avoid some bend in the river, and that he knew of a forward lower down by which we should regain the western bank. I made no question about the road, for I was but too glad to set my horse's hooves upon the land of the wandering tribes. None of my party except the Nazarene knew the country. On we went, through rich pastures, upon the eastern side of the water. I looked for the expected bend of the river, but as far as I could see it kept a straight southerly course. I still left my guide unquestioned. The Jordan is not a perfectly accurate boundary betwixt roofs and tents, for soon after passing the bridge I came upon a cluster of huts. Sometime afterwards the guide, upon being closely questioned by my servants, confessed that the village which we had left behind was the last that we should see, but he declared that he knew a spot at which we should find an encampment of friendly bedwins, who would receive me with all hospitality. I had long determined not to leave the east without seeing something of the wandering tribes, but I had looked forward to this as a pleasure to be found in the desert between Elarish and Egypt. I had no idea that the bedwins on the east of Jordan were accessible. My delight was so great at the near prospect of bread and salt in the tent of an hour of warrior that I willfully allowed my guide to go on and mislead me. I saw that he was taking me out of the straight route towards Jerusalem and was drawing me into the midst of the bedwins, but the idea of his betraying me seemed, I know not why, so utterly absurd that I could not entertain it for a moment. I fancied it possible that the fellow had taken me out of my route in order to attempt some little mercantile enterprise with the tribe for which he was seeking, and I was glad of the opportunity which I might thus gain of coming in contact with the wanderers. Not long after passing the village a horseman met us. It appeared that some of the cavalry of Ibrahim Pasha had crossed the river for the sake of the rich pastures on the eastern bank, and that this man was one of the troopers. He stopped and saluted. He was obviously surprised at meeting an unarmed, or half-armed, cavalcade, and at last fairly told us that we were on the wrong side of the river, and that if we proceeded we must lay our account with falling amongst robbers. All this while and throughout the day my Nazarene kept well ahead of the party, and was constantly up in his stirrups, straining forward and searching the distance for some objects which still remained unseen. For the rest of the day we saw no human being. We pushed on eagerly in the hope of coming up with the Bedouins before nightfall. Night came, and we still went on in our way till about ten o'clock. Then the thorough darkness of the night and the weariness of our beasts, which had already done two good days' journey in one, forced us to determine upon coming to a standstill. From the heights to the eastward we saw lights. These shone from caves on the mountainside, inhabited, as the Nazarene told us, by rascals of a low sort, not real Bedouins, men whom we might frighten into harmlessness, but from whom there was no willing hospitality to be expected. We heard at a little distance the brawling of a rivulet, and on the banks of this it was determined to establish our bivouac. We soon found the stream, and following its course for a few yards, came to a spot which was thought to be fit for our purpose. It was a sharply cold night in February, and when I dismounted I found myself standing upon some wet rank herbage that promised ill for the comfort of our resting place. I had bad hopes of a fire, for the pitchy darkness of the night was a great obstacle to any successful search for fuel, and besides the boughs of trees or bushes would be so full of sap in this early spring that they would not be easily persuaded to burn. However, we were not likely to submit to a dark and cold bivouac without an effort, and my fellows groped forward through the darkness, till, after advancing a few paces, they were happily stopped by a complete barrier of dead prickly bushes. Before our swords could be drawn to reap this welcome harvest, it was found to our surprise that the fuel was already hewn and strewed along the ground in a thick mass. A spot for the fire was found with some difficulty, for the earth was moist and the grass high and rank. At last there was a clicking of flint and steel, and presently there stood out from darkness one of the tawny faces of my mula-tears, bent down to near the ground, and suddenly lit up by the glowing of the spark which he caught it with careful breath. Before long there was a particle of dry fibre or leaf that kindled to a tiny flame, then another was lit from that, and then another. Then small crisp twigs, little bigger than bodkins, were laid a thwart the glowing fire. The swelling cheeks of the mula-tear laid level with the earth, blew tenderly at first, and then more boldly upon the young flame, which was daintily nursed and fed, and fed more plentifully when it gained good strength. At last a whole armful of dry bushes was piled up over the fire, and presently, with a loud, cheery crackling and crackling, a royal tall blaze shot up from the earth, and showed me once more the shapes and faces of my men, and the dim outlines of the horses and mills that stood grazing hard by. My servants busied themselves in unpacking the baggage as though we had arrived at an hotel. Sherif and his helpers unsuddled their cattle. We had left Tiberius without the slightest idea that we were to make our way to Jerusalem along the desolate side of the Jordan, and my servants, generally provident in those matters, had brought with them only, I think, some unleavened bread and a rocky fragment of goat's milk cheese. These treasures were produced. Tea and the contrivances for making it were always a standing part of my baggage. My men gathered in circle round the fire. The Nazarene was in a false position from having misled us so strangely, and he would have shrunk back, poor devil, into the cold and outer darkness, but I made him draw near and share the luxuries of the night. My quilt and my police were spread, and the rest of my party had all their cup oats, or polices, or robes of some sort, which furnished their couches. The men gathered in circle, some kneeling, some sitting, some lying reclined around our common hearth. Sometimes on one, sometimes on another, the flickering light would glare more fiercely. Sometimes it was the good Sherif that seemed the foremost, as he sat with venerable beard, the image of manly piety, unknowingly of all geography, unknowing where he was, or whether he might go, but trusting in the goodness of God, and the clinching power of fate, and the good star of the Englishman. Sometimes like marble, the classic face of the Greek Miserie would catch the sudden light, and then again by turns the ever-perturbed Demetri, with his old Chinaman's eye and bristling terry-alike moustache, shone forth illustrious. I always liked the men who attended me on these eastern travels, for they were all of them brave, cheery-hearted fellows, and although their following my career brought upon them a pretty large share of those toils and hardships, which are so much more amusing to gentlemen than to servants, yet not one of them ever uttered or hinted a syllable of complaint, or even affected to put on an air of resignation. I always liked them, but never perhaps so much as when they were thus grouped together under the light of the Bivouac fire. I felt towards them as my comrades rather than as my servants, and took delight in breaking bread with them, and merrily passing the cup. The love of tea is a glad source of fellow-feeling between the Englishman and the Asiatic. In Persia it is drunk by all, and although it is a luxury that is rarely within the reach of the Osmanese, there are few of them who do not know and love the blessed chai. Our camp kettle, filled from the brook, hummed doubtfully for a while, then busily bubbled under the side-long glare of the flames. Cups clinked and rattled, the fragrant steam ascended, and soon this little circlet in the wilderness grew warm and genial as my ladies' drawing-room. And after this there came the Chibouk, great comforter of those that are hungry and way-worn. And it has this virtue. It helps to destroy the gen and awkwardness which one sometimes feels at being in company with one's dependence, for whilst the amber is at your lips, there is nothing ungracious in your remaining silent, or speaking pithily, in short inter-wif sentences. And for us that night there was pleasant and plentiful matter of talk, for the where we should be on the morrow and the wherewithal we should be fed, whether by some ford we should regain the western bank of Jordan, or find bread and salt under the tents of a wandering tribe, or whether we should fall into the hands of the Philistines, and so come to see death. The last and greatest of all the fine sights that there be, these were questionings not dull nor wearisome to us, for we were all concerned in the answers. And it was not an all-imagined morrow that we probed, with our sharp guesses, for the lights of those low Philistines, the men of the caves, still hung over our heads, and we knew by their yells that the fire of our bevwack had shown us. At length we thought it well to seek for sleep. Our plans were laid for keeping up a good watch through the night. My quilt and my police and my cloak were spread out so that I might lie spoke-wise with my feet towards the central fire. I wrapped my limbs daintily round, and gave myself positive orders to sleep, like a veteran soldier. But I found that my attempt to sleep upon the earth that God gave me was more new and strange than I had fancied it. I had grown used to the scene which was before me, whilst I was sitting or reclining by the side of the fire, but now that I laid myself down at length it was the deep black mystery of the heavens that hung over my eyes. Not an earthly thing in the way, from my own very forehead, right up to the end of all space. I grew proud of my boundless bedchamber. I might have found sermons in all this greatness if I had I should surely have slept, but such was not then my way. If this cherished self of mine had built the universe I should have dwelt with delight on the wonders of creation. As it was I felt rather the vain glory of my promotion from out of mearooms and houses into the midst of that grand, dark, infinite palace. And then too my head, far from the fire, was in cold latitudes, and it seemed to me strange that I should be lying so still and passive whilst the sharp night breeze walked free over my cheek, and the cold damp clung to my hair as though my face grew in the earth and must bear with the footsteps of the wind and the falling of the dew as meekly as the grass of the field. Besides, I got puzzled and distracted by having to endure heat and cold at the same time, for I was always considering whether my feet were not over-develed and whether my face was not too well iced. And so, when from time to time the watch quietly and gently kept up the languishing fire, he seldom, I think, was unseen to my restless eyes. At last, when they called me and said that the mourn would soon be dawning, I rose from a state of half-oblivion, not much unlike to sleep, though sharply qualified by a sort of vegetables consciousness of having been growing still colder and colder for many and many an hour. CHAPTER XIII. The gray light of the morning showed us for the first time the ground which we had chosen for our resting place. We found that we had bivouacked upon a little patch of barley plainly belonging to the men of the caves. The dead bushes which we found so happily placed in readiness for our fire had been strewn as a fence for the protection of the little crop. This was the only cultivated spot of ground which we had seen for many a league, and I was rather sorry to find that our night fire and our cattle had spread so much ruin upon this poor solitary slip of corn land. The saddling and loading of our beasts was a work which generally took nearly an hour, and before this was half-over daylight came. We could now see the men of the caves. They collected in a body, amounting, I should think, to nearly fifty, and rushed down towards our quarters with fierce shouts and yells. But the nearer they got the slower they went. Their shouts grew less resolute in tone and soon ceased altogether. Their fellows, however, advanced to a thicket within thirty yards of us, and behind this took up their position. My men, without premeditation, did exactly that which was best. They kept steadily to their work of loading the beasts without fuss or hurry, and whether it was that they instinctively felt the wisdom of keeping quiet, or that they merely obeyed the natural inclination to silence which one feels early in the morning I cannot tell. But I know that, except when they exchanged a syllable or two relative to the work they were about, not a word was said. I now believe that this quietness of our party created an undefined terror in the minds of the cave-holders and scared them from coming on. It gave them a notion that we were relying on some resources which they knew not up. Several times the fellows tried to lash themselves into a state of excitement which might do instead of pluck. They would raise a great shout and sway forward in a dense body from behind the thicket, but when they saw that their bravery thus gathered to a head did not even suspend the strapping of a portmanteau or the tying of a hat-box, their shout lost its spirit, and the whole mast was irresistibly drawn back like a wave receding from the shore. These attempts at an onset were repeated several times, but always with the same result. I remained under the apprehension of an attack for more than half an hour, and it seemed to me that the work of packing and loading had never been done so slowly. I felt inclined to tell my fellows to make their best speed, but just as I was going to speak I observed that every one was doing his duty already. I therefore held my peace and said not a word, till at last Missouri led up my horse and asked me if I were ready to mount. We all marched off without hindrance. After some time we came across a party of Ibrahim's Calvary, which had bivouacked at no great distance from us. The knowledge that such a horse was in the neighborhood may have conduced to the forbearance of the cave-holders. We saw a scraggly-looking fellow nearly black and wearing nothing but a cloth round the loins. He was tending flocks. Afterwards I came up with another of these goat-herds whose help-meat was with him. They gave us some goat's milk, a welcome present. I pitied the poor devil of a goat-herd for having such a very plain wife. I spend an enormous quantity of pity upon that particular form of human misery. About mid-day I began to examine my map and to question my guide, who at last fell on his knees and confessed that he knew nothing of the country in which we were. I was thus thrown upon my own resources, and calculating that on the preceding day we had nearly performed a two-day's journey I concluded that the Dead Sea must be near. In this I was right, for at about three or four o'clock in the afternoon I caught a first sight of its dismal face. I went on and came near to those waters of death. They stretched deeply into the southern desert, and before me, and all around, as far away as the eye could follow, blank hills piled high over hills, pale, yellow, and naked, walled up in her tomb for ever the dead and damned Gamora. There was no fly that hummed in the forbidden air, but instead a deep stillness. No grass grew from the earth, no weed peered through the void sand, but in mockery of all life there were trees borne down by Jordan in some ancient flood, and these, grotesquely planted upon the forlorn shore, spread out their grim skeleton arms, all scorched and charred to blackness by the heats of the long silent years. I now struck off towards the dubu-share of the river, but I found that the country, though seemingly quite flat, was intersected by deep ravines, which did not show themselves until nearly approached. For some time my progress was much obstructed, but at last I came across a track which led towards the river, and which might, as I hoped, bring me to afford. I found, in fact, when I came to the river's side that the track reappeared upon the opposite bank, plainly showing that the stream had been affordable at this place. Now however, in consequence of the late rains, the river was quite impracticable for baggage-horses. A body of waters about equal to the Thames had eaten, but confined to a narrower channel, poured down in a current so swift and heavy that the idea of passing with laden baggage-horses was utterly forbidden. I could have swum across myself, and I might perhaps have succeeded in swimming a horse over. But this would have been useless, because in such case I must have abandoned not only my baggage but all my attendants, for none of them were able to swim, and without that resource it would have been madness for them to rely upon the swimming of their beasts across such a powerful stream. I still hoped, however, that there might be a chance of passing the river at the point of its actual junction with the Dead Sea, and I therefore went on in that direction. Night came upon us whilst laboring across gullies and sandy mountains, and we were obliged to come to a standstill quite suddenly upon the very edge of a precipitous descent. Every step towards the Dead Sea had brought us into a country more and more dreary. This sand hill, which we were forced to choose for our resting place, was dismal enough. A few slender blades of grass which here and there singly pierced the sand, mocked bitterly the hunger of our jaded beasts, and with our small remaining fragment of goat's milk, rock, by way of supper, we were not much better off than our horses. We wanted, too, the great requisite of a cheery bivouac, fire. Moreover the spot on which we had been so suddenly brought to a standstill was relatively high and unsheltered, and the night wind blew swiftly and cold. The next morning I reached the debauchere of the Jordan, where I had hoped to find a bar of sand that might render its passage possible. The river, however, rolled its eddying waters fast down to the sea in a strong, deep stream that shut out all hope of crossing. It now seemed necessary either to construct a raft of some kind, or else retrace my steps and remount the banks of the Jordan. I had once happened to give some attention to the subject of military bridges, a branch of military science which includes the construction of rafts and contrivances of the like sort, and I should have been very proud indeed if I could have carried my party and my baggage across by dint of any idea gathered from Sir Howard Douglas or Robinson Crusoe. But we were all faint and languid from want of food, and besides there were no materials. Higher up the river there were bushes and river-plants, but nothing like timber, and the cord with which my baggage was tied to the pack-saddles amounted altogether to a very small quantity, not nearly enough to haul any sort of craft across the stream. And now it was, if I remember rightly, that deathimetry submitted to me a plan for putting to death the Nazarene whose misguidance had been the cause of our difficulties. There was something fascinating in this suggestion, for the slaying of the guide was, of course, easy enough, and would look like an act of what politicians call vigor. If it were only to become known to my friends in England that I had calmly killed a fellow creature for taking me out of my way, I might remain perfectly quiet and tranquil for all the rest of my days, quite free from the danger of being considered slow. I might ever after live on upon my reputation, like single-speech Hamilton in the last century, or single sin in this, without being obliged to take the trouble of doing any more harm in the world. This was a great temptation to an indolent person, but the motive was not strengthened by any sincere feeling of anger with the Nazarene. Whilst the question of his life and death was debated, he was riding in front of our party, and there was something in the anxious writhing of his supple limbs that seemed to express a sense of his false position, and struck me as highly comic. I had no crotchet at that time against the punishment of death, but I was unused to blood, and the proposed victim looked so thoroughly capable of enjoying life, if he could only get to the other side of the river, that I thought it would be hard for him to die merely in order to give me a character for energy. Acting on the result of these considerations, and reserving myself to a free and unfettered discretion to have the poor villain shot at any future moment, I magnanimously decided that for the present he should live and not die. I bathed in the Dead Sea. The ground covered by the water sloped so gradually that I was not only forced to sneak in, but to walk through the water for nearly a quarter of a mile before I could get out of my depth. When at last I was able to attempt to dive, the salts held in solution made my eyes smart so sharply that the pain which I thus suffered, together with the weakness occasioned by want of food, made be giddy and faint for some moments, but I soon grew better. I knew beforehand the impossibility of sinking in this buoyant water, but I was surprised to find that I could not swim at my accustomed pace. My legs and feet were lifted so high and dry out of the lake that my stroke was baffled, and I found myself kicking against the thin air instead of the dense fluid upon which I was swimming. The water is perfectly bright and clear, its taste detestable. After finishing my attempts at swimming and diving, I took some time in regaining the shore, and before I began to dress I found that the sun had already evaporated the water which clung to me, and that my skin was thickly encrusted with salts. My steps were reluctantly turned towards the north. I had ridden some way, and still it seemed that all life was fenced in barren out from the desolate ground over which I was journeying. On the west there flowed the impassable Jordan. On the east stood an endless range of barren mountains, and on the south lay that desert sea that knew not the plashing of an oar. Greatly, therefore, was I surprised when suddenly there broke upon my ear the long, ludicrous, persevering bray of a donkey. I was riding at this time some few hundred yards ahead of all my party except the Nazarene, who by a wise instinct kept closer to me than to Dithymetry, and I instantly went forward in the direction of the sound, for I fancied that where there were donkeys there too must surely would be men. The ground on all sides of me seemed thoroughly void and lifeless, but at last I got down into a hollow, and presently a sudden turn brought me within thirty yards of an Arab encampment. No low black tents which I had so long lusted to see were right before me, and they were all teeming with live Arabs, men, women and children. I wished to have let my party behind know where I was, but I recollected that they would be able to trace me by the prints of my horse's hooves in the sand, and having to do with Asiatics, I felt the danger of the slightest movement which might be looked upon as a sign of a resolution. Therefore, without looking behind me, without looking to the right or to the left, I rode straight up towards the foremost tent. Before this was strewed a semicircular fence of dead bows, through which there was an opening opposite to the front of the tent. As I advanced, some twenty or thirty of the most uncouth-looking fellows imaginable came forward to meet me. In their appearance they showed nothing of the Bedouin blood. They were of many colors, from dingy brown to jet black, and some of these last had much of the negro look about them. They were tall, powerful fellows, but awfully ugly. They wore nothing but the Arab shirts, confined at the waist by leatheren belts. I advanced to the gap left in the fence, and it once alighted from my horse. The chief greeted me after his fashion by alternately touching first my hand and then his own forehead, as if he were conveying the virtue of the touch like a spark of electricity. Presently I found myself seated upon a sheepskin, which was spread for me under the sacred shade of Arabian canvas. The tent was of a long, narrow, oblong form, and contained a quantity of men, women, and children so closely huddled together that there was scarcely one of them who was not in actual contact with his neighbor. The moment I had taken my seat the chief repeated his salutations in the most enthusiastic manner, and then the people, having gathered densely about me, got hold of my unresisting hand and passed it round like a clare jug for the benefit of everybody. The women soon brought me a wooden bowl full of buttermilk, and welcome indeed came the gift to my hungry and thirsty soul. After some time my party, as I had expected, came up, and when poor dithymetry saw me on my sheepskin, the life and soul of this ragamuffin party he was so astounded that he even failed to check his cry of horror. He plainly thought that now, at last, the Lord had delivered me, interpreter in all, into the hands of the lowest Philistines. Masiri carried a tobacco-pouch slung at his belt, and as soon as its contents were known the whole population of the tent began begging like spaniels for bits of the beloved weed. I concluded from the abject manner of these people that they could not possibly be thoroughbred Bedowins, and I saw, too, that they must be in the very last stage of misery, for poor indeed is the man in these climes who cannot command a pipeful of tobacco. I began to think that I had fallen amongst thorough savages, and it seemed likely enough that they would gain their very first knowledge of civilization by ravishing and studying the contents of my dearest portmanteaus, but still my impression was that they would hardly venture upon such an attempt. I observed indeed that they did not offer me the bread and salt which I had understood to be the pledges of peace amongst wandering tribes, but I fancied that they refrained from this act of hospitality, not in consequence of any hostile determination, but in order that the notion of robbing me might remain for the present and open question. I afterwards found out that the poor fellows had no bread to offer. They were literally out at grass. It is true that they had a scanty supply of milk from goats, but they were living almost entirely upon certain grass-stems which were just in season at that time of the year. These, if not highly nourishing, are pleasant enough to the taste, and their acid juices come gratefully to thirsty lips. And now the metri began to enter into a negotiation with my hosts for a passage over the river. I never interfered with my worthy dragamon upon these occasions, because from my entire ignorance of the Arabic I should have been quite unable to exercise any real control over his words, and it would have been silly to break the stream of his eloquence to no purpose. I have reason to fear, however, that he lied transcendently, and especially in representing me as the bosom friend of Ibrahim Pasha. The mention of that name produced immense agitation and excitement, and the shake explained to the metri the grounds of the infinite respect which he and his tribe entertained for the Pasha. A few weeks before Ibrahim had crafted his centre body of troops across the Jordan, the force went warily round to the foot of the mountains on the east, so as to cut off the retreat of this tribe, and then surrounded them as they lay encamped in the veil. Their camels and indeed all their possessions worth taking were carried off by the soldiery, and moreover the then shake, together with every tenth man of the tribe, was brought out and shot. You would think that this conduct on the part of the Pasha might not procure for his friend a very gracious reception amongst the people whom he had thus despoiled and decimated, but the Asiatic seems to be animated with a feeling of profound respect, almost bordering upon affection for all who have done him any bold and violent wrong. And there is always too so much of vague and undefined apprehension mixed up with his really well-founded alarms, that I can see no limit to the yielding and bending of his mind when it is wrought upon by the idea of power. After some discussion the Arabs agreed, as I thought, to conduct me to a forward, and we moved on towards the river, followed by seventeen of the most able-bodied of the tribe, under the guidance of several grey-bearded elders, and shake Ali Jabran at the head of the whole detachment. Upon leaving the encampment a sort of ceremony was performed, for the purpose it seemed of ensuring, if possible, a happy result for the undertaking. There was an uplifting of arms and a repeating of words that sounded like formulae, but there were no prostrations, and I did not understand that the ceremony was of a religious character. The tented Arabs I looked upon as very bad Mohammedans. We arrived upon the banks of the river, not at a forward, but at a deep and rapid part of the stream, and I now understood that it was the plan of these men, if they helped me at all, to transport me across the river by some species of raft. But a reaction had taken place in the opinions of many, and a violent dispute arose upon a motion which seemed to have been made by some honourable member, with a view to robbery. The fellows all gathered together in circle, at a little distance from my party, and they're disputed with great vehemence and fury for nearly two hours. I can't give a correct report of the debate, for it was held in a barbarous dialect of the Arabic, unknown to my dragamon. I recollect, I sincerely felt at the time that the arguments in favour of robbing me must have been almost unanswerable, and I gave great credit to the speakers on my side for the ingenuity and sophistry, which they must have shown in maintaining the fight so well. During the discussion I remained lying in front of my baggage, which had all been taken from the pack-saddles and placed upon the ground. I was so languid from want of food, that I had scarcely animation enough to feel as deeply interested as you would suppose in the results of the discussion. I thought, however, that the pleasantest toys to play with during this interval were my pistols, and now and then, when I listlessly visited my loaded barrels with the swivel ramrods, or drew a sweet musical click from my English firelocks, it seemed to me that I exercised a slight and gentle influence on the debate. Thanks to Ibrahim Pasha's terrible visitation, the men of the tribe were wholly unarmed, and my advantage in this respect might have counterbalanced in some measure the superiority of numbers. Miserie, not interpreting in Arabic, had no duty to perform, and he seemed to be faint and listless as myself. Sherif looked perfectly resigned to any fate, but Demetri, faithful Teria, was bristling with zeal and watchfulness. He could not understand the debate, which indeed was carried on at a distance too great to be easily heard, even if the language had been familiar. But he was always on the alert, and now and then conferring with men who had straggled out of the assembly. At last he found an opportunity of making a proposal, which at once produced immense sensation. He offered, on my behalf, that if the tribe should bear themselves loyally towards me, and take my party and my baggage in safety to the other bank of the river, I should give them a teskeli, or written certificate of their good conduct, which might avail them hereafter in the hour of their direst need. This proposal was received and instantly accepted by all the men of the tribe there present with the utmost enthusiasm. I was to give the men too a bakshish, that is, a present of money, which is usually made upon the conclusion of any sort of treaty. But although the people of the tribe were so miserably poor, they seemed to look upon the pecuniary part of the arrangement as a matter quite trivial in comparison with the teskeli. Indeed, the sum which their metri promised them was extremely small, and not the slightest attempt was made to extort any further reward. The council now broke up, and most of the men rushed madly towards me, and overwhelmed me with vehement congratulations. They caressed my boots with much affection, and my hands were severely kissed. The Arabs now went to work in right earnest to effect the passage of the river. They had brought with them a great number of the skins which they used for carrying water in the desert. These they filled with air, and fastened several of them to small boughs, which they cut from the banks of the river. In this way they constructed a raft, not more than about four or five feet square, but rendered buoyant by the inflated skins which supported it. On this a portion of my baggage was placed, and was firmly tied to it by the cords used on my pack saddles. The little raft with its weighty cargo was then gently lifted into the water, and I had the satisfaction to see that it floated well. Twelve of the Arabs now stripped, and tied inflated skins to their loins. Six of the men went down into the river, got in front of the little raft, and pulled it off a few feet from the bank. The other six then dashed into the stream with loud shouts, and swam along after the raft, pushing it from behind. Off went the craft in capital style at first, for the stream was easy on the eastern side, but I saw that the tug was to come, for the main torrent swept round in a bend near the western bank of the river. The old men, with their long gray grizzly beards, stood shouting and cheering, praying and commanding. At length the raft entered upon the difficult part of its course. The whirling stream seized and twisted it about, and then bore it rapidly downwards. The swimmers flagged, and seemed to be beaten in the struggle. But now the old men on the banks with their rigid arms up lifted straight, sent forth a cry and a shout that tore the wide air into tatters, and then to make their urging yet more strong, they shrieked out the dreadful syllables, Brahim Pasha! The swimmers, one moment before, so blown and so weary, found lungs to answer the cry, and shouting back the name of their great destroyer, they dashed on through the torrent, and bore the raft in safety to the western bank. Afterwards, the swimmers returned with the raft, and attached it to the rest of my baggage. I took my seat upon the top of the cargo, and the raft, thus laden, passed the river in the same way, and with the same struggle as before. The skins, however, not being perfectly airtight, had lost a great part of their buoyancy, so that I, as well as the luggage that passed on this last voyage, got wet in the waters of Jordan. The raft could not be trusted for another trip, and the rest of my party passed the river in a different, and for them, much safer way. Inflated skins were fastened to their loins, and thus supported, they were tugged across by Arabs, swimming on either side of them. The horses and mills were thrown into the water, and forced to swim over. The poor beasts had a hard struggle for their lives, in that swift stream, and I thought that one of the horses would have been drowned, for he was too weak to gain a footing on the western bank, and the stream bore him down. At last, however, he swam back to the side from which he had come. Before dark all had passed the river, except this one horse, and old Sharif. He, poor fellow, was shivering on the eastern bank, for his dread of the passage was so great that he delayed it as long as he could, and at last it became so dark that he was obliged to wait till the morning. I lay that night on the banks of the river, and at a little distance from me, the Arabs kindled a fire round which they sat in a circle. They were made most savagely happy by the tobacco with which I supplied them, and they soon determined that the whole night should be one smoking festival. The poor fellows had only a cracked bowl without any tube at all, but this morsel of a pipe they handed round from one to the other, allowing to each a fixed number of whiffs. In that way they passed the whole night. The next morning, old Sharif was brought across. It was a strange sight to see this solemn old musselman with his shaven head and his sacred beard, sprawling and puffing upon the surface of the water. When at last he reached the bank, the people told him that by his baptism in Jordan he had surely become a mere Christian. Poor Sharif, the holy man, the descendant of the prophet, he was sadly hurt by the taunt, and the morsel as he seemed to feel that there was some foundation for it and that he really might have absorbed some Christian errors. When all was ready for departure, I wrote the Teschery in French and delivered it to Sheikh Ali Jabran, together with the promised Bakshish. He was exceedingly grateful, and I parted in a very friendly way from this ragged tribe. In two or three hours I gained Rihah, a village said to occupy the site of ancient Jericho. There was one building there which I observed with some emotion, for although it may not have been actually standing in the days of Jericho, it contained at this day a most interesting collection of modern lobes. Some hours after sunset, I reached the convent of Santo Sabah and there remained for the night. End of chapter 15, chapter 16 of Ayothen. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Ayothen by Alexander King Lake. Chapter 16, Terah Santa. The enthusiasm that had glowed or seemed to glow within me for one blessed moment when I knelt by the shrine of the Virgin at Nazareth was not rekindled at Jerusalem. In the stead of the solemn gloom and the deep stillness that of right belonged to the holy city, there was the harm and bustle of active life. It was the height of the season. These two ceremonies drew near. The pilgrims were flocking in from all quarters and although their objects were partly at least of a religious character, yet their arrivals brought as much stir and liveliness to the city as if they had come up to marry their daughters. The voter is who every year the crowd to the holy sepulchre are chiefly of the Greek and Armenian churches. They are not drawn into Palestine by mere sentimental longing to stand upon the ground trodden by our saviour, but rather they perform the pilgrimage as a plain duty, strongly inculcated by their religion. A very great proportion of those who belong to the Greek church can thrive at some time or other in the course of their lives to achieve the enterprise. Many in their infancy and childhood are brought to the holy sites by their parents, but those who have not had this advantage will often make it the main object of their lives to save money enough for this holy undertaking. The pilgrims begin to arrive in Palestine some weeks before the Easter festival of the Greek church. They come from Egypt, from all parts of Syria, from Armenia and Asia Minor, from Istanbul, from Rumelia, from the provinces of the Danube and from all the rushes. Most of these people bring with them some articles of merchandise, but I myself believe, notwithstanding the common taunt against pilgrims, that they do this rather as a mode of paying the expenses of their journey than from a spirit of mercenary speculation. They generally travel in families, for the women are of course more ardent than their husbands in undertaking these pious enterprises and they take care to bring with them all their children, however young, for the efficacy of the rites does not depend upon the age of the votary so that people whose careful mothers have obtained for them the benefit of the pilgrimage in early life are saved from the expense and trouble of undertaking the journey at a later age. The superior veneration so often excited by objects that are distant and unknown shows not perhaps the wrongheadedness of a man, but rather the transcendent power of his imagination. However this may be and whether it is by mere obstinacy that they poke their way through intervening distance or whether they come by the winged strength of fancy, quite certainly the pilgrims who flock to Palestine from the most remote homes are the people most eager in the enterprise and in number two they bear a very high proportion to the whole mass. The great bulk of the pilgrims make their way by sea to the port of Jaffa. A number of families will charter a vessel amongst them, all bringing their own provisions which are of the simplest and cheapest kind. On board every vessel thus freighted there is I believe a priest who helps the people in their religious exercises and tries and fails to maintain something like order and harmony. The vessels employed in this service are usually Greek brigs or brigantines and schooners and the number of passengers stowed in them is almost always horribly excessive. The voyages are sadly protracted not only by the land-seeking storm-flying habits of the Greek seamen, but also by their endless schemes and speculations which are for ever tempting them to touch at the nearest port. The voyage too must be made in winter in order that Jerusalem may be reached some weeks before the Greek Easter and thus by the time they attain to the holy shrines the pilgrims have really and truly undergone a very respectable quantity of suffering. I once saw one of these pious cargoes put ashore on the coast of Cyprus where they had touched for the purpose of visiting not Paphos, but some Christian sanctuary. I never saw, no, never even in the most horridly stuffy ballroom such a discomfortable collection of human beings. Long huddled together in a pitching and rolling prison fed on beans exposed to some real danger and to terrors without end they had been tumbled about for many wintry weeks in the chopping seas of the Mediterranean. As soon as they landed they stood upon the beach and chanted a hymn of thanks. The chant was mourn and doleful but really the poor people were looking so miserable that one could not fairly expect from them any lively outpouring of gratitude. When the pilgrims have landed at Jaffa they hire camels, horses, mills or donkeys and make their way as well as they can to the holy city. The space fronting the church of the holy sepulchre soon becomes a kind of bizarre or rather perhaps reminds you of an English fair. On this spot the pilgrims display their merchandise and there too the trading residents of the place offer their goods for sale. I have never I think seen elsewhere in Asia so much commercial animation as upon this square of ground by the church door. The money changers seem to be almost as brisk and lively as if they had been within the temple. When I entered the church I found a babel of worshipers. Greek, Roman and Armenian priests were performing their different rites in various nooks and corners and crowds of disciples were rushing about in all directions some laughing and talking, some begging but most of them going round in a regular and methodical way to kiss the sanctified spots and speak the appointed syllables and lay down the accustomed coin. If this kissing of the shrines had seemed as though it were done at the bidding of enthusiasm or of any poor sentiment even feebly approaching to it the sight would have been less odd to English eyes but as it was I stared to see grown men thus steadily and carefully embracing the sticks and stones not from love or from zeal else God forbid that I should have stared but from a calm sense of duty. They seemed to be not working out but transacting the great business of salvation. Demetri however, who generally came with me when I went out in order to do duty as interpreter really had in him some enthusiasm. He was a zealous and almost fanatical member of the Greek church and had long since performed the pilgrimage. So now great indeed was the pride and delight with which he guided me from one holy spot to another every now and then when he came to an unoccupied shrine he fell down on his knees and performed devotion. He was almost distracted by the temptations that surrounded him. There were so many stones absolutely requiring to be kissed that he rushed about happily puzzled and sweetly teased like jack among the maidens. A Protestant familiar with the holy scriptures but ignorant of tradition and the geography of modern Jerusalem finds himself a good deal mazed when he first looks for the sacred sites. The holy sepulchre is not in a field without the walls but in the midst and in the best part of town under the roof of the great church which I've been talking about. It is a handsome tomb of oblong form partly subterranean and partly above ground and closed in on all sides except the one by which it is entered. You descend into the interior by a few steps and there find an altar with burning tapers. This is the spot which is held in greater sanctity than any other at Jerusalem. When you have seen enough of it you feel perhaps weary of the busy crowd and inclined for a gallop. You ask your dragamon whether there will be time before sunset to procure horses and take a ride to Mount Calvary. Mount Calvary, Signor, ecoló, it is upstairs on the first floor. In effect you ascend, if I remember rightly, just thirteen steps and then you are shown the now golden sockets in which the crosses of our Lord and the two thieves were fixed. All this is startling but the truth is that the city, having gathered round the sepulchre which is the main point of interest has crept northward and thus in great measure are occasioned the many geographic or surprises that puzzle the Bible Christian. The church of the Holy Sepulchre comprises very compendiously almost all the spots associated with the closing career of our Lord. Just there on your right he stood and wept. By the pillar on your left he was scourged. On the spot just before you he was crowned with the crown of thorns. Up there he was crucified and down here he was buried. A locality is assigned to every the minutest event connected with the recorded history of our Saviour. Even the spot where the cock crew when Peter denied his master is ascertained and surrounded by the walls of an Armenian convent. Many Protestants are want to treat these traditions contemptuously and those who distinguish themselves from their brethren by the appellation of Bible Christians are almost fierce in their denunciation of these supposed errors. It is admitted, I believe, by everybody that the formal sanctification of these spots was the act of the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, but I think it is fair to suppose that she was guided by a careful regard to the then prevailing traditions. Now, the nature of the ground upon which Jerusalem stands is such that the localities belonging to the events there enacted might have been more easily and permanently ascertained by tradition than those of any city that I know of. Jerusalem, whether ancient or modern, was built upon and surrounded by sharp, salient rocks intersected by deep ravines. Up to the time of the siege, Mount Calvary, of course, must have been well enough known to the people of Jerusalem. The destruction of the mere buildings could not have obliterated from any man's memory the names of those steep rocks and narrow ravines in the midst of which the city had stood. It seems to me, therefore, highly probable that in fixing the site of Calvary the Empress was rightly guided. Recollect, too, that the voice of tradition at Jerusalem is quite unanimous and that Romans, Greeks, Armenians and Jews, all hating each other sincerely, concur in assigning the same localities to the events told in the Gospel. I concede, however, that the attempt of the Empress to ascertain the sites of the minor events cannot be safely relied upon. With respect, for instance, to the certainty of the spot where the cock crew I am far from being convinced. Supposing that the Empress acted arbitrarily in fixing the holy sites, it would seem that she followed the Gospel of Saint John and that the geography sanctioned by her can be more easily reconciled with that history than with the accounts of the other evangelists. The authority exercised by the Muslim government in relation to the holy sites is in one view somewhat humbling to the Christians for it is almost as an arbitrator between the contending sects. This always, of course, for the sake of pecuniary advantage that the Muslim lens his contemptuous aid. He not only grants but enforces toleration. All persons of whatever religion are allowed to go as they will into every part of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher but in order to prevent indecent contests and also from motives arising out of money payments. The Turkish government assigns the peculiar care of each sacred spot to one of the ecclesiastic bodies. Since this guardianship carries with it the receipt of the coins which the pilgrims leave upon the shrines it is strenuously fought for by all the rival churches and the artifices of intrigue are busily exerted at Stambul in order to procure the issue or revocation of the firmens by which the coveted privilege is granted. In this strife the Greek Church has of late years signally triumphed and the most famous of the shrines are committed to the care of their priesthood. They possess the golden socket in which stood the cross of our Lord whilst the Latins are obliged to content themselves with the apertures in which were inserted the crosses of the two thieves. They are naturally discontented with that poor privilege and sorrowfully look back to the days of their former glory the days when Napoleon was emperor and Sebastiani ambassador at the port. It seems that the citizen sultan, old Louis Philippe has done very little indeed for Holy Church in Palestine. Although the pilgrims perform their devotions at the several shrines with so little apparent enthusiasm they are driven to the verge of madness by the miracle displayed before them on Easter Saturday. Then it is that the heaven sent fire issues from the holy sepulchre. The pilgrims all assemble in the great church and already long before the wonder is worked. They are wrought by anticipation of God's sign as well as by their struggles for room and breathing space to a most frightful state of excitement. At length the chief priest of the Greeks accompanied of all people in the world by the Turkish governor enters the tomb. After this there is a long pause and then suddenly from out of the small apertures on either side of the sepulchre they issue long shining flames. The pilgrims now rush forward madly struggling to light their tapers at the holy fire. This is the dangerous moment and many lives are often lost. The year before that of my going to Jerusalem Ibrahim Pasha from some whim or motive of policy chose to witness the miracle. The vast church was of course thronged as it always is on that awful day. It seems that the appearance of the fire was delayed for a very long time and that the growing frenzy of the people was heightened by suspense. Many too had already sunk under the effect of the heat and the stifling atmosphere when at last the fire flashed from the sepulchre. Then a terrible struggle ensued. Many sunk and were crushed. Ibrahim had taken his station in one of the galleries but now feeling perhaps his brave blood warmed by the sight and sound of such strife. He took upon himself to quiet the people by his personal presence and descended into the body of the church with only a few guards. He had forced his way into the midst of the dense crowd when unhappily he fainted away. His guards shrieked out and the event instantly became known. A body of soldiers recklessly forced their way through the crowd trampling over every obstacle that they might save the life of their general. Nearly 200 people were killed in the struggle. The following year however the government took better measures for the prevention of these calamities. I was not present at the ceremony having gone away from Jerusalem sometime before but I afterwards returned into Palestine and I then learnt that the day had passed off without any disturbance of a fatal kind. It is however almost too much to expect that so many ministers of peace can assemble without finding some occasion for strife and in that year a tribe of wild bedwins became the subject of discord. These men it seems led an Arab life in some of the desert tracks bordering on the neighbourhood of Jerusalem but were not connected with any of the great ruling tribes. Some whim or notion of policy had induced them to embrace Christianity but they were grossly ignorant of the rudiments of their adopted faith and having no priest with them in their desert they had as little knowledge of religious ceremonies as of religion itself. They were not even capable of conducting themselves in a place of worship with ordinary decorum but would interrupt the service with scandalous cries and warlike shouts. Such is the account the Latins give of them but I've never heard the other side of the question. These wild fellows not withstanding their entire ignorance of all religion are yet claimed by the Greeks not only as proselytes who have embraced Christianity generally but as converts to the particular doctrines and practice of their church. The people thus alleged to have concurred in the great schism of the Eastern Empire are never, I believe, within the walls of a church or even of any building at all except upon this occasion of Easter and as they then never fail to find a row of some kind going on by the side of the sepulchre. They fancy it seems that the ceremonies there enacted are funeral games of a martial character held in honour of a deceased chieftain and that a Christian festival is a peculiar kind of battle fought between walls and without cavalry. It does not appear, however, that these men are guilty of any ferocious acts or that they attempt to commit depredations. The charge against them is merely that by their way of applauding the performance by their horrible cries and frightful gestures they destroy the solemnity of divine service and upon this ground the Franciscans obtained a ferman for the exclusion of such tumultuous worshipers. The Greeks, however, did not choose to lose the aid of their wild converts merely because they were a little backward in their religious education and they therefore persuaded them to defy the ferman by entering the city en masse and overrowing their enemies. The Franciscans as well as the government authorities were obliged to give way and the Arabs triumphantly marched into the church. The festival, however, must have seemed to them rather flat for although there may have been some casualties in the way of eyes black and noses bloody and women missing there was no return of killed. Formerly the Latin Catholics concurred in acknowledging but not, I hope, in working the annual miracle of the heavenly fire but they have for many years withdrawn their countenance from this exhibition and they now repudiate it as a trick of the Greek church. Thus, of course, the violence of feeling with which the rival churches meet at the Holy Sepulchre on Easter Saturday is greatly increased and a disturbance of some kind is certain. In the year I speak of though no lives were lost there was it seems a tough struggle in the church. I was amused at hearing of a taunt that was thrown that day upon an English traveller. He had taken his station in a convenient part of the church and was no doubt displaying that peculiar air of serenity and gratification with which an English gentleman usually looked on at a row when one of the Franciscans came by all reeking from the fight and were so disgusted at the coolness and placid contentment of the Englishman who was a guest at the convent that he forgot his monkish humility as well as the duties of hospitality and plainly said you sleep under our roof you eat our bread you drink our wine and then when Easter Saturday comes you don't fight for us. Yet these rival churches go on quietly enough till their blood is up. The terms on which they live remind one of the peculiar relation subsisting at Cambridge between town and gown. These contests and disturbances certainly do not originate with the lay pilgrims the great body of whom are as I believe quiet and inoffensive people. It is true however that their pious enterprise is believed by them to operate as a counterpoise for a multitude of sins whether past or future and perhaps they exert themselves in afterlife to restore the balance of good and evil. The Turks have a maxim which like most cynical apathems carries with it the buzzing trumpet of falsehood as well as the small fine sting of truth. If your friend has made the pilgrimage once distrust him if he has made the pilgrimage twice cut him dead. The caution is said to be as applicable to the visitants of Jerusalem as to those of Mecca but I cannot help believing that the frailties of all the hadgis whether Christian or Muhammadan are greatly exaggerated. I certainly regarded the pilgrims to Palestine as a well-disposed orderly body of people not strongly enthusiastic but desire us to comply with the ordinances of their religion and to attain the great end of salvation as quietly and economically as possible. When the solemnities of Easter are concluded the pilgrims move off in a body to complete their good work by visiting the sacred scenes in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem including the wilderness of John the Baptist, Bethlehem and above all the Jordan for to bathe in those sacred waters is one of the chief objects of the expedition. All the pilgrims men women and children are submerged on chemise and the saturated linen is carefully wrapped up and preserved as a burial dress that shall inure for salvation in the realms of death. I saw the burial of a pilgrim. He was a Greek, miserably poor and very old. He had just crawled into the Holy City and had reached at once the goal of his pious journey at the end of his sufferings upon earth. There was no coffin nor wrapper and as I looked full upon the face of the dead I saw how deeply it was rutted with the ruts of age and misery. The priest, strong and portly, fresh, fat and alive with the life of the animal kingdom, unpaid or ill-paid for his work, would scarcely deign to mutter out his forms but hurried over the words with shocking haste. Presently he called out impatiently, Yalagur, come, look sharp! and then the dead Greek was seized. His limbs yielded inertly to the rude men that handled them and down he went into his grave, so roughly bundled in that his neck was twisted by the fall, so twisted that if the sharp melody of life was still upon him the old man would have shrieked and groaned and the lines of his face would have quivered with pain. The lines of his face were not moved and the old man lay still and heedless, so well cured of that tedious life-ache that nothing could hurt him now. His clay was itself again, cool, firm and tough. The pilgrim had found great rest. I threw the accustomed handful of the holy soil upon his patient face, and then, and in less than a minute, the earth closed coldly around him. I did not say alas! Nobody ever does that I know of, though the word is so frequently written. I thought the old man had got rather well out of the scrape of being alive and poor. The destruction of the mere buildings in such a place as Jerusalem would not involve the permanent dispersion of the inhabitants, for the rocky neighbourhood in which the town is situate abounds in caves, which would give an easy refuge to the people until they gained an opportunity of rebuilding their dwellings. Therefore, I could not help looking upon the Jews of Jerusalem, as being in some sort the representatives, if not the actual descendants of the rascals who crucified our Saviour. Supposing this to be the case, I felt that there would be some interest in knowing how the events of the Gospel history were regarded by the Israelites of modern Jerusalem. The result of my inquiry upon this subject was, so far as it went, entirely favourable to the truth of Christianity. I understood that the performance of the miracles was not doubted by any of the Jews in the place. All of them concurred in attributing the works of our Lord to the influence of magic, but they were divided as to the species of enchantment from which the power proceeded. The great mass of the Jewish people believe, I fancy, that the miracles had been wrought by the aid of the powers of darkness, but many, and those the more enlightened, would call Jesus the Good Magician. To Europeans repudiating the notion of all magic, good or bad, the opinion of the Jews as to the agency by which the miracles were worked is a matter of no importance, but the circumstance of their admitting that those miracles were in fact performed is certainly curious, and perhaps not quite immaterial. If you stay in the Holy City long enough to fall into anything like regular habits of amusement and occupation, and to become, in short, for a time, a man about town at Jerusalem, you will necessarily lose the enthusiasm which you may have felt when you trod the sacred soil for the first time, and it will then seem almost strange to you to find yourself so entirely surrounded in all your daily pursuits by the designs and sounds of religion. Your hotel is a monastery, your rooms are cells, the landlord is a stately abbot, and the waiters are hooded monks. If you walk out of the town, you find yourself on the Mount of Olives, or in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, or on the Hill of Evil Council. If you mount your horse and extend your rambles, you will be guided to the wilderness of St John or the birthplace of our Saviour. Your club is the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre where everybody meets everybody every day. If you lounge through the town, your Bond Street is the Via Dolorosa, and the object of your hopeless affections is some maid or matron all full on, and sadly shrouded in her pilgrim's robe. If you would hear music, it must be the chanting of friars. If you look at pictures, you see virgins with mists for shortened arms, or devils out of drawing, or angels tumbling up the skies in impious perspective. If you would make any purchases, you must go again to Church doors, and when you inquire for the manufacturers of the place, you find that they consist of double-blessed beads and sanctified shells. These last are the favourite tokens which the pilgrims carry off with them. The shell is graven, or rather scratched, on the white side with a rude drawing of the Blessed Virgin, or of the crucifixion, or some other scriptural subject. Having passed this stage, it goes into the hands of a priest. By him it is subjected to some process for rendering it efficacious against the schemes of our ghostly enemy. The manufacture is then complete, and is deemed to be fit for use. The village of Bethlehem lies prettily couched on the slope of a hill. The sanctuary is a subterranean grotto, and is committed to the joint guardianship of the Romans, Greeks, and Armenians who vie with each other in adorning it. Beneath an altar, gorgeously decorated, and lit with everlasting fires, there stands the low slab of stone which marks the holy site of the Nativity, and near to this is a hollow scooped out of the living rock. Here the infant Jesus was laid. Near the spot of the Nativity is the rock against which the Blessed Virgin was leaning when she presented her babe to the adoring shepherds. Many of those Protestants who are accustomed to despised tradition consider that this sanctuary is altogether unscriptural, that a grotto is not a stable, and that mangers are made of wood. It is perfectly true, however, that the many grottos and caves which are found among the rocks of Judea were formerly used for the reception of cattle. They are so used at this day, I have myself seen grottos appropriated to this purpose. You know what a sad and somber decorum it is that outwardly reigns through the lands oppressed by Muslim sway. Mohammedans make beauty their prisoner and enforce such a stern and gloomy morality, or at all events such a frightfully close semblance of it, that far and long the weary traveler may go without catching one glimpse of outward happiness. By a strange chance in these latter days it happened that, alone of all the places in the land, this Bethlehem, the native village of our Lord, escaped the moral yoke of the Muslims, and heard again, after ages of dull oppression, the cheering clatter of social freedom and the voices of laughing girls. It was after an insurrection which had been raised against the authority of Mohammed Ali that Bethlehem was freed from the hateful laws of Asiatic decorum. The Muslims of the village had taken an active part in the movement, and when Ibrahim had quelled it, his wrath was still so hot that he put to death every one of the few Mohammedans of Bethlehem who had not already fled. The effect produced upon the Christian inhabitants by the sudden removal of this restraint was immense. The village smiled once more. It is true that such sweet freedom could not long endure, even if the population of the place should continue to be entirely Christian, the sad decorum of the Muslims, or rather of the Asiatics, would sooner or later be restored by the force of opinion and custom. But for a while the sunshine would last, and when I was at Bethlehem, though long after the flight of the Muslims, the cloud of Muslim propriety had not yet come back to cast its cold shadow upon life. When you reached that gladsome village, pray heaven, there still may be heard there the voice of free innocent girls. It was sound so dearly welcome. To a Christian and thoroughbred Englishman, not even the licentiousness which generally accompanies it can compensate for the oppressiveness of that horrible outward decorum, which turns the cities and palaces of Asia into deserts and jails. So I say, when you see and hear them, those romping girls of Bethlehem will gladden your very soul, distant at first, and then nearer and nearer the timid flock will gather around you, with their large burning eyes gravely fixed against yours, so that they see into your brain. And if you imagine evil against them, they will know of your ill thought before it is yet well-born, and will fly and be gone in the moment. But presently, if you will only look virtuous enough to prevent alarm and vicious enough to avoid looking silly, the Blythe maidens will draw nearer and nearer to you, and soon there will be one, the bravest of the sisters, who will venture right up to your side and touch the hem of your coat in playful defiance of the danger, and then the rest will follow the daring of their youthful leader and gather close round you, and hold a shrill controversy on the wondrous formation that you call a hat, and the cunning of the hands that clothed you with cloth so fine, and then, growing more profound in their researches, they will pass from the study of your mere dress to a serious contemplation of your stately height, and your nut-brown hair and the ruddy glow of your English cheeks. And if they catch a glimpse of your ungloved fingers, then again will they make the air ring with their sweet screens of wonder and amazement, as they compare the fairness of your hand with their warmer tints, and even with the hues of your own sunburnt face. Instantly the ringleader of the gentle rioters imagines a new sin. With tremulous boldness she touches, then grasps your hand, and smooths it gently betwixt her own, and pries curiously into its make and color, as though it were silk of Damascus or shawl of Kashmir. And when they see you, even then, still sage and gentle, the joyous girls will suddenly and screamingly and all at once explain to each other that you are surely quite harmless and innocent, a lion that makes no spring, a bear that never hugs, and upon this faith, one after the other, they will take your passive hand and strive to explain it, and make it a theme and a controversy. But the one, the fairest and the sweetest of all, is yet the most timid. She shrinks from the daring deeds of her playmates, and seeks shelter behind their sleeves, and strives to screen her glowing consciousness from the eyes that look upon her. But her laughing sisters will have none of this cowardice. They vow that the fair one shall be their accomplice, shall share their dangers, shall touch the hand of the stranger. They seize her small wrist and drag her forward by force, and at last, whilst yet she strives to turn away and to cover up her whole soul under the folds of downcast eyelids, they vanquish her utmost strength, they vanquish your utmost modesty, and marry her hand to yours. The quick pulse springs from her fingers and throbs like a whisper upon your listening palm. For an instant her large timid eyes are upon you. In an instant they are shrouded again, and there comes a blush so burning that the frightened girls stay their shrill laughter as though they had played too perilously and harmed their gentle sister. A moment and all with a sudden intelligence turn away and fly like deer. Yet soon, again like deer, they wheel round and return, and stand, and gaze upon the danger, until they grow brave once more. I regret to observe that the removal of the moral restraint imposed by the presence of the Mohammedan inhabitants has led to a certain degree of boisterous, though innocent, levity in the bearing of the Christians, and more especially in the demeanour of those who belong to the younger portion of the female population. But I feel assured that a more thorough knowledge of the principles of their own pure religion will speedily restore these young people to habits of propriety, even more strict than those which were imposed upon them by the authority of their Mohammedan brethren. Bah! Thus you might chant if you chose. But loving the truth, you will not so disown sweet Bethlehem. You will not disown or disemble your right good hearty delight, when you find, as though in a desert, this gushing spring of fresh and joyous girlhood. End of chapter 16