Incidents of travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land

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Presented to the
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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
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INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL

IN

EGYPT, ARABIA PETR^A,

AND

THE HOLY LAND.

BY J. L. STEPHENS,

AXTTHOR OF INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND POLAND.

EtrTWBVJiGR:

PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS;
AND SOLD BY ALL BOOJCSELLERS.

1839.

KniNntTRcn :
W. AND u. ciiAMBnns.

PREFATORY NOTICE.

Tire present work, which appeared originally in the United Stiites of America, where it soon passed through six
editions, has been already mado favoui'ably known in Britain, and now occupies a placo among the most
respectable publications of the day. To the sixth American edition, of which thia is a faithful reprint, the
following preface is prefixed by the author :^

" The preface of a book is seldom read, or the author would express his acknowledgments to the public for
having so soon demanded a sixth edition of his work. If the sale of a book be any evidence of its merit, he has
reason to believe that his subject matter has been interesting, and his m.anner of treating it not unacceptable.
He has, too, a deeper source of satisfaction ; for he cannot help flattering himself that he has been, in some
degree, instrumental in turning the attention of his counti-j-men to subjects comparatively little known ; and, in
addition, he can only say, as before, that in the present state of the world it is almost presumptuous to put forth
a book of travels. Universal peace and extended commercial relations, the introduction of steam-boats, and
increased facilities of travelling generally, have brought comparatively close together the most distant parts of
the world ; and except within the walls of China, there are few countries which have not been visited and
written upon by European travellers. The author's route, however, is conipai-atively new to the most of his
countrj-men ; part of it — through the land of Edom — is, even at this day, entirely new. The author has compiled
these pages from brief notes and recollections, and has probably fallen into errors in facts and impressions,
which his occupations since his I'eturn have prevented his inquiring into and correcting. lie has presented
things as they struck his mind, without perplexing himself with any deep speculations upon the rise and fall of
empires ; nor has he gone much into detail in regard to ruins. His object has been, principally, as the title of
the book imports, to give a narrative of the every-day incidents that occur to a traveller in the East, and to
present to his countrymen, in the midst of the hurry, and bustle, and life, and energy, and daily-developing
Btremgth and resources of the New, a picture of the widely different scenes that are now passing in the faded
and worn-out kingdoms of the Old World."

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Page

Alexandria. Pompey's PilLir. The Cataeomljs. The "War-
wick Vase. The Pacha's Canal. Boats of the Nile, - 6

CHAPTER II,

From Alexandria to Cairo. Experience versus Tr.ivcUcrs'
Tales. An unintended Rath. Iron Rule of the Pacha.
Entrance into Cairo. A Chat with a Pacha, - - 7

CHAPTER III.

The Slave-market at Cairo. Tomb of the Pacha. The
Pyramid of Cheops. Oppressive Attentions of the Arabs.
The Sphinx, - . - -

CHAPTER IV.

11

Journey up the NUe. An Arab Rurial. Pilgrims to Slecca.
Trials of Patience. A Hurricane on the Nile. A Turkish
Bath, 14

CHAPTER V.

BportingontheNile. A Recluse. An Egyptian Itehe. Siout.
A Wolf Race among the Tombs. Adventure mth a
Governor, ------ 16

CHAPTER VI.

Small Favonra thankfully received. Slavery in Ejrypt,
How to catch a Crocodile. An elaborate Joke. Imagi-
nary Perils. Arabs not so bad as they might be, - 18

CHAPTER VII.

The Temple of Dendera. Practice against Theory. Rrjn-
lating the Sun. The French at Thebes. The Curse of
Pharaoh. An Egjptian Tournament. Preparations for
Dinner. An English travelling Lady, - - 21

CHAPTER VIII.

Page

The Rock of the Chain. Ravages of the Plngne. Deserted
Quarries. A youthful Na>'igator. A recollection of Sam
Patch. Ancient Inscriptions. A perplexed Jlajor-Domo.
A Dinner without paralleL An awkward Discovery, 24

CHAPTER IX.

Ascent of the Cataracts. A Nautical Patriarch. Political
Improvement. A Nubian I>amsers Wardrobe. A teht of
Friendship. East and West. ^loonlight on the Nile
Uses of a Temple, - - - - - - 27

CHAPTER X.

Thebes, its Temples and great Ruins, The Obelisk of Luxor,
now of Paris. An Avenue of Sphinxes. Camac. The
Mummy-pits. The Tombs of the Kings. The Memnonium, 31

CHAPTER XI.

The Arabs and the P.icha. JLarch into the Desert. Arab
Christians. A cold Reception. Arab Punctuality. A
Night in a Convent. An Arab Christian Priest Specula-
tive Theologj-. A Journey ended before commenced, 33

CHAPTER XII.

A Travelling Artist and Antiquarj-. An Egj-pHan Sugar-
house. Grecian Architecture. A Jlelancholy Greeting.
Tyranny of the Pacha. Amateurs of Phyfiio. Jlimphia.
Adventure wth a Wild Boar. Perils of a Pyramid. The
Catacombs of Birds. .\mor Patriae. Voyaging on tho Nile, 3G

CHAPTER XIII.

A good Word for the Arabs. A Prophecy fulfilled. Ruins
of a Lost City. A Sheik of the Betlouins. Interviews iind
Negotiations. A Iladj, or PilRrimage to Mecca. Mahom-
medan Heaven for Wives. .\ French Sheik. Tho Bastinado.
Departure for the Dcscrtj . - - - 30

contexts;

CII.VrTER XIV.

Page

CIIArTER XXV.

P.igo

Tbc Caravan. Arab rnUtical Komomy. A pnijccfoil Rail-
rMa.l. The Pinxvti. 8ui>z. A triivcUed Kpslisliman. The
H,-,l Sea. r.inbarWatinn cpf Pilerims. A .Misadventure.
Scriptural Locttlitii-s. The Hitter Fountain, - - A2

CII-VPTER XV.

The A.«pect of the Mountain*. Arab Gmvcx. The Paoha
nn.l the IU>Iiiuln«. Tho Value of Water. Perplexing
Iii---ri|«tii'"-^ llabitsiif the Anihs. Kthics of tho lV>ort.
Hna-h of the .MarriaKo Vow. Arrival at the Convent.
.\ii Exc«« of Welcome. Greece and Ameiica. Amor
P.itri(c, - - ----- 46

CHAPTER XVI.

Amxnt of SInaL A Miracle. The Grotto of EUas. A
,Monkl-h Lofiend. The Pinnacle of Sinai. Anchorites.
Mahonimed and his Camel. An ArRument. I.CKcnd of
St Catharine. Thi- Uock of the Tables. The Stone struck
hv Mi«^«. 'Vscriiitii-n of the Convent Habits ajid Cha-
racter of its Inniatc!>, • - - - - 50

CHAPTER XVII.

l»iet of the Monks. .\dvantaRes of Abstinence. Scruples
overcome. A rnv'teriou* Prother. The Convent IJuri.al-
l>laec. StningeChamelhous.es. I»cath inaMask. Fami-
liaritvbrtvds Contempt. A Man of two Ci-nturies. Doubts
and Pcara. Porting Gifts. The Karewell, - - 54

CHAPTER XVIII.

T1>e Caravan.— .K sudden Change of Purpose.— Perils of a
Storm. Comfortless Hepentance. Solitude. A AVoman
.inil a Chase. .V Patriarchal Kc-.i-t. Condition of the Arab
Vomi-n. Hospitality. No refusing a good Offer. .\
Dilemma, - - - - - " -S7

CHAPTER XTX.

Eveninit Amnfcmcnts. ATrialof thcFcelines. ADisappoint-
ro-jnt. \ .Santon of the Desert An -Vrab I'isheiinan.
Turkish Ctistume. .\ potent Official. \ Comfortless
Sick-room. A VimI from tho bhelk. Interested Friend-
■hip. Akaba. The ICl Aloulns. Questionable Piety, 59

CHAPTER XX.

IV-' -■ --:.l Fnlfilment. Unpleasant Suggestions. Tho

! : I..and. .Manngenienl. .V Kincountir. .\n

1 .;injng. The Cuniel's Hump. Adventure with a

.Mount llor. Delicate Negotiations. Approach

I . tra, ----- - 63

CHAPTER XXI.

Patra. Arrival. Entrance to tbo City. The Temple of
P.'rn. A Keennl. The Theatre. Tombs of Pctra. Arab
-ii.j.'.iritT. i>r(>artu re from Pctra. A Night In a Tonib.
l>.i;i .T^ .>f the It.iutc, - - - - - CO

CHAPTER XXII.

A H-M r.r.!. av iir. Unexpected Obstacle*. Disadvantage
f.f a Dresn. The Dead Hc;u A Ne»- rmject. Tho Tomb
of Aaron. An Alarm. Descent of tho .Mountain. An
awkward Meclintr. Poetic Licence. Air* well that
codawcU. Unexpected Dignities. Arab Notions of Travel, 70

CHAPTER XXI 11.

Valley of EI Chor. Prophecies against Kdom. The Phrlk'd

'1- > — I ., r, ..!..;.„ I' ''-<inn('lof the Arab*. Amiu-

!••*. Aspect n( the Valley.
•Horses. Native Salt, 7*

CHAPTER XXIV.

The Row! tn Oaaa. Unknown Ruina. A ML<tadventur«.
Pastoral IWdoulns. A rinwer of the AVildemc»e. The
Ravage* of War. Testimony of an Eyewitness, 7"

Approach to Hebron. A Sick Governor. A Prescription at
K.anJom. Hospitality of the .lews. Finale with tho
liedouins. A Storm. .\ C;din after tho Storm. Venality
of tho .\raba. Hebron. A Coptic Christian. Story of
the Uabbi. Professional Lmploymcnt, - - 80

CHAPTER XXVI.

An Am.iout. Tho Pools of Solomon. Bethlehem. The
F.mpress Helena. A Clerical K.xquisite. Miraculous
Localities. A Boon Companion. The Soldier's Sleep.
Tho Hirthplacc of Christ. Worship in the Grotto. Moslem
Fidelity, ------- a5

CHAPTER XXVII.

The Tomb of Rachel. First Vie>v of Jerus.alcm. l-' ailing
among Thieves. Potent Sway of the Paehn. A Turkish
Dignit-iry. \ .Missionary. Easter in Jerusalem. A little
Congregation, ------ 00

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre. An unexpected Discovery.
Mount Calvary. The Sepulchre. The Valley of .lehosha-
phat. The G.inlen of Gethsom.ine. Placo of the Temple.
Tho four Great Tombs. Siloa"s lirook, - - - 91

CHAPTER XXIX.

The Field of Blood. A Traveller's Compliment. Singular
Ceremony. A Ragged Rascal. Ostentatious Humility.
Pride must have a Fall. An Ancient Relic. Summary
Legislation, ------ 94

CHAPTER XXX.

Tho S.NTiagoffue. Ideal Speculations. A Ride in the Rain.
An Kx-Offici;J. Joppa. A Jloral Phcnomonon. Revo-
rcnco for tho Grave, - - - - - !I7

CHAPTER XXXI.

Desert of St John. A >lidnight Procession. Raid to
Jericho. A Community of Women. A Navigator of tho
Dead Se.i. A Donee by Moonlight. A rude Lodging, 100

CHAPTER XXXII.

The River Jordan. Tho Dead Sea. Force of Example.
Buoyancy of the Dead Sea. A Perilous Ascent. A Navi-
gator of the Dead Sea. Story of the Voyage. The Convent
of Santa Saba, - • - - - lO-J

CHAPTER -XXXIII.

Convent of Saint Saba. A strange Picture, Celebration of
Gfx>d Friday. I'alm .Sunday. A Struggle for Life. Tho
Grave of a Friend. A Convert. Burialof a Missionary, 10.'i

CHAPTER X.XXIV.

Pilgrimage to the Jordan. Pilgrim's Ccrtificnte. The Tomb
of Samuel. Departure from Jerus-ilem. Last View of tho
Dead Sea. Village of Einbroot. Departure from Juden.
Mounts Gerizim and EbaL An Antique Manuscript. Paas
in Samaria, - - - - - - 107

CHAPTER XXXV.

Scbastc. Ruins of the Palace of Herod. Blount Tabor.
Nazareth. Scriptural Localities. Tiberias. An English
Bportsni.nn. llethsaidaandChorazin. Capernaum. Zaffivd.
Arrival at Acre, .... - 111

CHAPTER XXXVI.

A ride on DonVoyhack. Caipha. Adventure with a Consul.
Jlount Carm< I. The Plain of Jczrcel. Convent of .Mount
CarmcL Kindness of the Monks. Curiosity gratified, HC

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Bt Jean d'Acre. Extortions of the Pacha. Tyre. Ques-
tionable ( nmpany. L.vly Esther Stanhope. Departure
from the Holy Land. Conclusion, - - - lin

NOTF., "20

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL

IN

EGYPT, ARABIA P E T R yE A, &c.

CHAPTER I.

Alexandria.— Pompey's Pillar.— The Catacombs.— The Warwick
Vase.— The Pacha's Canal.— Boats of the Nile.

On the afteruoon of the December, 1835, after a

passage of live days from ^laha, I was perched up in
the rigging of an English schooner, spyglass in hand,
and earnestly looking for the " land of Egypt." The
captain had never been there before ; but we had been
running several hours along the low coast of Barbary,
and the chart and compass told us that we could not
be far from the fallen city of Alexander. Jsight came
on, however, without our seeing it. The ancient Pharos,
the Lantern of Ptolemy, the eighth wonder of the
world, no longer throws its light far over the bosom of
the sea to guide the weary mariner. Morning came,
and we found ourselves directly opposite the city, the
shipping in the outward harbour, and the fleet of the
pacha riding at anchor under the walls of the seraglio,
carrying me back in imagination to the days of the
Macedonian conqueror, of Cleopatra and the Ptolemies.
Slowly we worked our way up the difficult and dangerous
channel, unaided by a pilot, for none appeared to take
us in charge. It is a fact wortliy of note, that one of
the monuments of Egj-pt's proudest days, the celebrated
Pompey's Pillar, is even now, after a lapse of more
than 2000 years, one of the landmarks which guide the
sailor to her fallen capital. Just as we had passed the
List reef, pilots came out to meet us, their swarthy
faces, their turbans, their large dresses streaming in
the wind, and their little boat with its huge latteen sail,
giving a strange wildness to their appearance, the effect
of which was not a little heightened by their noise and
confusion in attempting to come alongside. Failing in
their first endeavour, our captain gave them no assist-
ance ; and when they came upon us again, he refused
to admit them on board. The last arrival at Malta had
brought unfavourable accounts of the plague, and he
was unwilling to run any risk until he should have an
opportunity of advising with his consignee. My servant
w;\s the only person on board who ciiuld speak Arabic ;
and telling the wild, fly-away looking Arabs to fasten
on a-stern, we towed our pilots in, and at about eight
o'clock came to anchor in the harbour. In half an hour
I was ashore ; and the moment I touched it, just as I
bad found at Constantinople, all the illusion of the dis-
tant view was gone.

Indeed, it would be difficult for any man wlio lives at
all among the things of this world to dream of the de-
parted glory of Egypt when first entering tlie fallen
city of Alexander ; the present, and the things of the
present, are uppermost ; and between ambling donkeys,
loaded camels, dirty, half- naked, sore-eyed Arabs,
swarms of flies, yelping dogs, and apprehensions of the
plague, one thinks more of his own movements than of
the pyramids. I groped my way through a long range
of bazaars to the Frank quarter, and here, totally for-
getting what I had come for, and that there were such

thing.'s as obelisks, pyramids, and ruined temples, the
genius of my native land broke out, and with an eye
that had had some experience in such matters at home,
I contemplated the " improvements :" a whole street
of shops, kept by Europeans and filled with European
goods, ranges of fine buildings, fine country houses,
and gardens growing upon barren sands, sliowed that
strangers from a once barbarous land were repaying
the debt which the world owes to the mother of arts,
and i-aising her from the ruin into which she had been
plunged by years of misrule and anarchy.

My first visit was to Mr Gliddon, the American con-
sul, whose reception of me was .such, that I I'elt already
as one not alone in a strange land. While with him,
an English gentleman c.inie in — a merchant in .Alex-
andria— who was going that night to Cairo. Mr Glid-
don introduced us ; and telling him that I, too, was
bound for Cairo, Mr T. immediately pjopnsed that I
should accompany him, saying he had a bo.nt and every
thing ready, and tliat I might save myself the trouble
of making any preparations, and would have nothing
to do but come on board with my luggage at sundown.
Though rather a short notice, I did not hesitate to
accept his offer. Besides the relief from trouble in
fitting out, the plague was in every one's mouth, and
I was not sorry to have so early an opportunity of
escaping from a city, where, above all others, " pesti-
lence walketh in darkness, and destruction wasteth at
noonday."

Having but a short time before me, I immediately
mounted a donkey — an Egyptian donkey — being an
animal entirely unknown to us, or even in Europe, and,
accompanied by my servant, with a sore-eyed Arab boy
to drive us, I started off upon a full gallop to make a
hasty survey of the ruins of .\le.\andria. The Frank
quarter is the extreme part of the city, and a very short
ride brought us into another world. It was not until
now, riding in the suburbs upon burning sands, and
under a burning sun, that I felt myself really in the
land of Egypt. It was not, in fact, till standing at tho
base of Pompey's Pillar, that 1 felt myself among the
ruins of one of tlie greatest cities of the world. Reach-
ing it through long rows of Arab huts, where poverty,
and misery, and famine, and nakedness, stared me in
I the face, one glance at its majestic heiglit told me that
I this was indeed the work of other men and other times.
I Standing on a gentle elevation, it rises a single sliaft of
ninety feet, and ten feet in diameter, surmounted by u
I Corinthian capital, ten feet high, and, independent of its
! own monumental beauty, it is an interesting object us
I marking the centre of the ancient city. It stands far
i outside the present walls, and from its base you may
look over a barren waste of sand, running from the
shores of the Mediterranean to the Lake Mareotis, the
boundaries of Alexandria as it was of old.

All this intermediate space of sandy liills, alternat-
ing with hollows, was once covered with houses, pa-
laces, and perhaps with monuments equal in beauty
to that at who!3e base I stood. Riding over that

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

waste, the stranger sees broken cohunns, crumLling
walls, and fi-agiuents of grauite and marble, thrusting
themselves above their sandy graves, as if struggling
for resurrection ; on one side he beholds a jawning
chasm, in which forty or fifty nal;ed Ai-abs are toiling
to disentomb a column long buried in the sand ; on
another an excavated house, witli all its walls and
apaitincnts almost as entire as when the ancient Egyp-
tian lift it. He is riding over a mighty sepulchre, the
Bopulchro of a ruined city, and at every step some
tell-tale monument is staring at him from the gi-ave.

Riding slowly among the ruins, I passed the cele-
brated wells built in the time of Alexander, at the very
foundation of the city, at whicli generation after gene-
ration have continued to slake their thirst, and ended
my ride at Cleopatra's Needle, a beautiful obelisk sixty
feet high, full of mysterious hieroglyphics that mock
the learning of the wise of our day. Time h;is dealt
lightly with it ; on one side the charactci-s stand bold
and clear as when it came from the hands of the
sculptor, although, on the other, the di'ead sirocco,
blowing upon it from the desert more than 2000 years,
has etlaced the sculptor's marks, and worn away the
ahnost impenetrable granite. By its side, half buried
in tlie sand, lies a fallen brother, of the same size, and
alwut the same age, said to have been taken down by
the English many years ago, for the purpose of bcuig
carried to England ; but the pacha pi-evented it, and
since that time it has lain in fallen majesty, stretching
across a deep chasm formed by excavations around it.
At six o'clock I was riding with my new friend,
spurring my donkey to its utmost to get out of the
city before the gate should close ; and my reader will
acquit me of all intention of writing a book, when I
tell liim that a little after daik of tlie same day on
which I arrived at Alexandria, I was on my way to
Cairo. Accident, however, very unexpectedly brought
me agam to Alexandria; and on my second visit, while
waiting for an opportunity to return to Europe, I
several times went over the same ground more at my
leisure, and visited the other objects of interest which
my haste had before prevented me from seeing.

Among these were the Catacombs, situated about
two miles from the city, on the edge of the Libyan
Desert, and near the shore of the sea. These great
repositories of the dead arc so little known that we
bad some difficulty in finding them, although we in-
quired of every body whom we met. Seeing an Arab
brushing some horses near an opening in the side of
tile rock, we went to him to inquire, and found we
■were at the door of the Catacombs. The real entrance
is now unknown, but was j)robably from above. The
present is a rude forced breach, and tho first chamber
into wliicli wc ontTf^'d, n chamber built with j>ious
regard to the r ' the dead, we found occupied

as a stable for i 'H of one of the pacha's regi-

ments. My donkey-boy lia<l taken the jjrecaution to
bring with him candles, and a line to tie at the en-
trance, after tho manner of Fair liosamond's clue, to
save us from being lost in the labyrinth of passjiges ;
but the latter was unnecessary, as the. Arabs em|)loyod
al ' ' "1 explored them so thoroughly for

!>' r, that they were sutficienfiy sure

gui'tiA. I.ikiiig two of them into jiay, we followed
with our li-.-hrc'l t^rrlirn through two chambers, which,
to me. II the tombs in Thebes, Petra,

»nd J' , ■ acd notliing remarkable, and

came to wliat has been called tho state chamber, a
circular room about thirty feet in diameter, with three
rcccsncs, one at cacli kide of the door and one opposite,
a V '• ' roof, and nltogpther admirably fine in its
pi -'.In each of thf recesses were nicln-s for

tl n f'nc of them skulls and

II' ■■•inrr "n th'- croiind. I''<>I-

Ii : .-il chambers

hi ,• iiis time lost

much of my ardour for wandering among tombs, and
finding the pursuit nnprofitable and unsatisfactory, I
rctiunicd to the state chamber and left the Catacombs.

They arc supposed to extend many miles under the
surface, but how far will probably never bo known.
The excavations that have as yet been made are very
trifling ; and unless the enlightened pacha should need
the state chamber for liis horses, the sands of the
desert may again creep upon them, and shut them for
ever from our eyes.

IS'ear the door of tho entrance, directly on the edge
of the shore, are chambers cut in the rocks, which
open to the sea, called by the imposing name of Cleo-
patra's Baths. It is rather an exposed situation, and,
besides the view from tlie sea, there are several places
where " peeping Tom" might have hidden himself. It
is a rude place, too ; and when I was there, the luxu-
rious queen could hardly have got to her chambers
without at least wetting her royal feet ; in fact, not
to bo imposed upon by names, a lady of the present
day can have a more desirable bath for a quarter of a
dollar than ever the Queen of the East had in her life.

The present city of Alexandria, even after the dread-
ful ravages made by the plague in 1 837, is still sup-
posed to contain more than 50,000 inhabitants, and is
decidedly gi-owing. It stands outside the delta in tho
Libyan Desert, and as Volney remarks, " It is only by
the canal which conducts the waters of the Nile into
the reservoirs in the time of inundation that Alexandria
can be considered as connected with Egypt." Founded
by Alexander, to secure his conquests in the East, being
tl'.e only safe harbour along the coasts of SjTia or
Africa, and possessing peculiar commercial advantages,
it soon grew into .a giant city. Fifteen miles in cir-
cumference, containing a population of 300,000 citizens
and as many slaves, one magnificent street 2000 feet
broad r«n the whole length of the city, from the Gate
of the Sea to the Canopie Gate, commanding a view,
at each end, of the ship|)ing, either in the Mediterranean
or iu the Mareotic Lake, and another of equal length
intersected it at right angles ; a spacious circus with-
out the Canopie Gate for chariot-races, and on the
e.ist a splendid gj'mnasium, more than 600 feet in
length, with theatres, baths, and all that could make
it a desirable residence for a luxurious people. When
it fell 'into the hands of tho Saracens, according to the
report of the Saracen general to the Calif Omar, " it
was impossible to enumerate the variety of its riches
and beauty; and it is said to "have contained 4000
j>alaces, 4000 baths, 400 theatres or public edifices,
1-2,000 shops, and 40,000 tributary Jews." From that
time, like every thing else which falls into the hands
of the Mussulman, it has been going to ruin, and tho
discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good
Hope gaVe the death-blow to its commercial greatness.
At present it stands a phenomenon in the history of
a Turkish dominion. It appears once more to bo
raising its head from the dust. It remains to be seen
whether this rise is the legitimate and permanent effect
of a wise and politic government, combined with natural
advantages, or whether tho pacha is not forcing it to
an unnatural elevation, at tho expense, if not uj)on tho
ruins, of the rest of Egypt. It is almost presumptuous,
on the threshold of my enti-anco into Egypt, to specu-
late upon the future condifi<m of this interesting coun-
try ; but it is clear that the pacha is determined to
build up tho city of Alexandria if he can : his fleet is
here, his army, his arsenal, and his forts arc here, and
he has forced and centered here a commerce that was
before divided between several places. Kosetta Jiaa
lost more than two-thirds of its population, Damietto
has become a mere nothing, and even Cairo the Grand
h.os become tributary to what is called tho regenerated
city.

Alexandria has also been the scene of interesting
events in modem days. Here the long-cherislied ani-
mosity of France and England sought a new battle-
field, as if conscious that the soil of Europe had too
oft<n been moistened with liuman blood. Twice I
visited the spot where the gallant Abercrombie fell,
al>out two miles outside the Kosetta Gate ; the country
was covered with a beautiful verdure, and the Arab

POMPEY'S PILLAR— THE NILE.

was turning up the ground with liis plough ; hrrds of
buffalo were quietly grazing near, and ji caravan of
camels was slowly winding its way along the borders
of a nameless lake, which empties into the Lake Ma-
reotis. Farther on and near the sea is a large square
enclosure, by some called tlie ruins of the palace of
Cleopatra, by others the camp of Civsar. This was the
French position, and ai'ound it the battle was fought.
All is quiet there now, tliough still the curious traveller
may pick up from time to time balls, fragments of shells,
or other instruments of death, which tell him that war,
murderous and destructive war, has been there.

My last ride was to Pompey's Pillar. Chateaubriand
requested a friend to write his name upoa the great
pyramid, not being able to go to it himself, and consi-
dering this one of the duties of a pious pilgrim ; but I
imagine that sentimental traveller did not mean it in
the sense in wliich '' Hero" and " Beatrice," and the less
jomantic name of " Susannah Wilson," are printed in
great black letters, six inches long, about half way up
the shaft.

There can be no doubt that immense treasures are
still buried under the ruins of Alexandria ; but whether
they will ever be discovered will depend upon the pacha's
necessities, as he may need the ruins of ancient temples
for building forts or bridges. New discoveries are
constantly made ; and between my first and second
visit a beautiful vase had been discovered, pronounced
lobe the original of the celebrated Warwick vase found
at Adrian's villa, near Tivoli. It was then in the hands
of the French consul, who told me he would not take
its weight in gold for it. I have since seen the vase at
Warwick Castle ; and if the one found at Alexandria
is not the original, it is certainly remarkable that two
sculptors, one in Egypt and the other in Italy, conceived
and fashioned two separate works of art so exactly
resembling each other.

But to return to th& moment of my first leaving
Alexandria. At dark I was on board a boat at the
mouth of the Mahmoudie, the canal which connects
Alexandria with the Nile ; my companion had made all
necessary provision for the voyage, and I had nothing
to do but select a place and spread my mattrass and
coverlet. In a few minutes we had commenced our
journey on the canal, our boat towed by oiu* Arab
boatmen, each with a rope aci'oss his breast. I have
heard this canal spoken of as one of the greatest works
of modern days, and I have seen it referred to as such
in the books of modern travellers ; and some even, as
if determined to keep themselves under a delusion in
regard to every thing in Egypt, speak of it as they do
of the pyramids, and obeUsks, and mighty temples of
the Upper Nile. The truth is, it is sixty miles in length,
ninety feet in breadth, and eighteen in depth, through
a perfectly level country, not requiring a single lock.
In regard to the time in which it was made, it certainly
is an extraordinary work ; and it could only have been
done in that time, in such a country as Egypt, where
the government is an absolute despotism, and the will
of one man is the supreme law. Every village was
ordered to furnish a certain quota ; 150,000 workmen
were employed at once, and in a year from its com-
mencement the whole excavation was made. As a
great step in the march of public improvement, it cer-
tainly does honour to the pacha, though, in passing
along its banks, our admiration of a barbai-ian struggling
into civilisation is checked by remembering his wanton
'disregard of human life, and the melancholy fact that
it proved the grave of more than 30,000 of his sub-
jects.

We started in company with a Mr Waghom, for-
merly in the East India Company's service, now en-
gaged in forwarding the mails from England to India
by the Red Sea. He was one of the first projectors
of that route, is a man of indefatigable activity and
energy-, and was the first courier sent from England
with dispatches over land. He travelled post to I'l-ieste,
took a Spanish vessel to Alexandria, and thence by
dromedary to Cairo and Suez, where, not finding the

vessel which had been ordered to meet him, and having
with him a compass, his constant travelling cumpuniun,
he hired an open Arab boat, and, to the sistonishmeut
of his Arab crew, struck out into tlie middle of the Red
Sea. At night tiiey wanted, as usual, to anchor near
the shore; but ho sat with the helm in one hand and
a cocked pistol in the other, thn-atening to shoot the
first man that disobeyed his orders. On entering the
harbour of Mocha, ho found an English government
vessel on its way to meet him, and in the then uncom-
monly short time of fifty-fivo days, delivered his dis-
patclics in Bombay.

At about eight o'clock next morning we were stand-
ing on the banks of the Nile, the eternal river, the river
of Egjpt, recalling the days of IMiaroah and Moses —
from the eai'liest periods of recorded time watering and
fertilismg a narrow strip of land in the middle of a
sandy desert, rolling its solitary way more than a thou-
sand miles without receiving a single tributai-y stream ;
the river which the Egyptians worshijipcd and the
Arabs loved, and which, Jis the Mussulmans wiy, if
Mohammed had tasted, " he would have prayed Heaven
for terrestrial immortality, that he might continue to
enjoy it for ever."

I cannot, however, join in the enthusiasm of tlio
Mussulmans, for I have before me at this moment a
vivid picture of myself and servant at Cairo, perclied
upon opposite divans covered with tawdry finery, in a
huge barn of a room, with a ceiling thirty feet high,
like two knights of the rueful countenance, comparing
notes and bodily sj-mptoms, and condoling with each
other upon the corporeal miseries brought upon us by
partaking too freely of the water of the Nile.

The appearance of the river at the mouth of tho
canal is worthy of its historic fame. I found it more
than a mile wide, the current at that season full and
strong ; the banks on each side clothed with a beautiful
verdure and groves of palm-trees (the most striking
feature in African scenery), and the village of Fouah,
the stopping-place for boats coming up from Rosetta
and Damietta, with its mosques, and njinarets, and
whitened domes, and groves of palms, forming a pic-
turesque object in the view.

Upon entering the Nile, we changed our boat, tho
new one being one of the largest and best on the river,
of the class called canjiah, about seventy feet long, with
two enormous lattceu sails ; these are trLingular in
form, and attached to two very tall spars more than
a hundred feet long, heavy at the end, and tapering to
a point ; the spars or yards rest upon two short masta,
playing upon them as on pivots. The spar rests at au
angle of about thirty degrees, and, carrying the sail to
its tapering point, gives the boat when under way a
peculiarly light and graceful appearance. In the stern,
a small place is housed over, \vhich makes a very tole-
rable cabin, except that the ceiling is too low to admit
of standing upright, being made to suit the cross-legged
habits of the e:istern people. She was manned by tea
Arabs, good stout fellows, and a rais or captain.

CHAPTER IL

From Alexandria to Cairo.— Experience rcrsua Travellers' Talcs.
—An unintoniled Hath.— Iron Rule of the Pacha.— Entrance
into Cairo.— A Chat with a Pacha.

We commenced our voyage with that north wind
which, books and travellers tell us, for nine months in
the year continues to blow the same way, making it an
easy matter to ascend from the Mediterranean to tho
Cataracts, even against the strong current of the river ;
and I soon busied myself with meditating upon this
extraordinary operation of nature, tliuis presenting
itself to my observation at the very moment of my
entrance into this wonderful country. It was a beau-
tiful ordinance of Providence in regard to the feeble-

ness and wants of man,

that while the noble river

8

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

rolled on ct.^rnally in one unbroken eiii-rent, .inotlicr
agent of Alniiglitv power sliould almost as constantly
fill the flowinf: canvass, and enable navigators to stem
tlio downward flow. I was i)artieularly pleased with
this train of reflection, iiiasnmch as at tlie moment
we had the best of it. We were ascending against
the current at the i"ate of six or seven miles an hour,
with a noise and dasli through the water that made
it seem like nine or ten, wliile the descending boats,
with tlieir spars taken out and sails tied close, were
crawling down almost imperceptibly, stern first, broad-
side fij-st, not as the current carried tlieni, but as the
wind would let tliom. Our men had nothing to do ;
all day they lay strewed about on deck ; towards even-
ing they gathei*ed around a large pilau of rice ; and as
the sun was setting, one after the other, turning his
face towards the tomb of the Prophet, kneeled down
upon the deck and prayed. And thus passed my first
night upon the Nile.

In the ni->rning I found things not quite so well
ordered ; the wind seemed to be giving " premonitory
s\inptonis" of an intention to chop about, and towards
noon, it canie dead ahead. After my self-eonif)]accnt
observations of yesterday, I would liardly credit it ;
but when it became so strong that we were obliged to
haul alongside the bank and lie-to, in order to avoid
being driven doNvn the stream, I was perfectly satisfied
and convinced. We saw no more of our friend Air
Waghorn ; he had a small boat rigged witli oars, and
while we' were vainly struggling against wind and tide,
he kindly left us to our fate, ^ly companion was a
sportsman, and happened to have on board a couple of
guns ; we went on shore w ith tliem, and the principal
incident of the day that I remember is, tliat instead of
fowler's, I had fisherman's luck. Rambling carelessly
along, we found oui-selves on the bank of a stream
which it w.is necessary to cross ; on the other side we
BAw a strapping Arab, and called to him to come and
carry us over. Like most of his tribe, lie was not
troubled with any superfluous clothing, and slipping
over his head the fragments of iiis frock, lie w;is in a
moment by our side, in all the majesty of nature. 1
started first, mounted upon his slippery shoulders, and
went along very well until we had got more than half
way over, when I began to observe an irregular tottering
movement, and heard behind me the smothered laugli
of my companion. I felt my Arab slowly and delibe-
rately lowering his head ; my feet touched the water ;
but with one hand I held my gun above my head, and
with the other gripped him by the tliroat. I found
myself going, going deeper and deeper, let down with
the most studied deliberation, till all at once he gave
his neck a sudden toss, jerked his head from under me,
and left me standing up to my middle in the stream.
I turned round upon him, hardly knowing whether to
laugh or to strike him w ith the butt end of my gun ; but
one glance at the poor fellow was enough ; the sweat
srtood in large drops on his face and ran down his naked
breast ; his knees shook, and he was just ready to drop
himself. He had supported mo as long as he could ;
but finding himself failing, and fearing wc should both
come down together with a splash, at full length, he liad
lowered me as gently as possible.

The banks of the Nile from here to Cairo furni.sh
nothing interesting. On one side is the Delta, an ex-
tensive tract of low rich land, well cultivated and
watered, and on the other a narrow strip of fertile land,
and then the Libyan I>escrt. TIk; ruined cities which
attract the traveller into Egyjit, their teiii])leH and
tombs, tiie enduring monuments of its former great-
ness, do not yet present themselves. The modern
villages are all built of mud or of uubiirnt bricks, and
w>metimcs, at a distance, licing surrounded by palm-
trees, making a pleasing appearance ; but this vanishes
the moment yon approach them. The houses, or rather
lints, are so low that a man can seldom stand up in
them, with .% hole in front like the door of an oven, info
which the miserable Arab crawls, more like a beast
than a being made to walk in God's image. The same

spectacle of misery and wretchedness, of poverty, fa-
mine, and nakedness, which I had seen in the suburbs
of Alexandria, continued to meet me at every village
on the Nile, and soon suggested the interesting conside-
ration wlutlKy all this came from country and climate,
from tlie eliaractcr of the people, or from the govern-
ment of the great reformer. At one place, I saw on
the banks of the river forty or fifty men chained to-
gether with iron bands around their wrists, and iron
collars around their necks. Yesterday they were peace-
ful Fellahs, cultivators of the soil, earning their scanty
bread by hard and toilsome labour, but eating it at
home in peace. Another day, and the stillness of their
life is for ever broken ; chased, run down, and caught,
torn from their homes, from the sacred threshold of the
mosque, the swoi-d and musket succeed the implements
of their quiet profession ; they are carried away to fight
battles in a cause which does not concern them, and in
wliich, if they conquer, they can never gain.

Returning to our boat ou the brink of the viver, a
slight noise caught my ear ; I turned, and saw a ragged
mother kissing her naked child, while another of two
years old, dirty and disgusting, was struggling to share
its mother's embraces ; their father I had just seen with
an iron collar round his neck ; and she loved these
miserable children, and they loved their miserable
mother, as if they were all clothed " in purple and
fine raiment every day." liut a few minutes after, a
woman, know ing that we were " Franks," brought on
board our boat a child, with a face and head so bloated
with disease that it was disgusting to look at. The
rais took the child in his arras and brought it up to us,
the whole crew following with a friendly interest. My
companion g.ave them a bottle of brandy, with which
the rais carefully bathed the face and head of the child,
all the crew leaning over to help ; and when they had
finished to their satisfaction, these kind-hearted but
clumsy nurses kissed the miserable bawling infant, and
passed it, w ith as much care as if it had been a basket
of crockery, into the hands of the grateful mother.

This scene was finely contrasted with one that im-
mediately followed. The boat wiis aground, and in an
instant, strii>ping their long gowns over their heads, a
dozen large swarthy figures were standing naked on the
deck ; in a moment more they were s]>lashing in the
river, and with their brawny shoulders under the bot-
tom of the vessel, heaved her oflf the sand-bank. Near
this we pa.ssed a long line of excavation, where several
hundred men were then digging, being part of the
gigantic work of irrigating the Delta lately undertaken
by the pacha.

Towards the evening of the fourth day we came in
sight of the " world's great wonder," the eternal pyra-
mids, standing at the head of a long reach in the river
directly in front of us, and almost darkening the horizon ;
solitary, grand, and gloomy, the only objects to be seen
in the great desert before us. The sun was about set-
ting in that cloudless sky known only in Kgypt ; for a
few moments their lofty summits were lighted by a gleam
of lurirl red, and as the glorious orb settled behind
the mountains of the Lilnan Desert, the atmosphere
became dark and more indistinct, and their clear out-
line continued to be seen after the whole earth was
shrouded in gloom.

The next morning at seven o'clock we were alongside
the Island of Rhoda, as the Arab boatmen called it,
where the daughter (jf I'liaraoh came down to bathe,
and found the little Moses. We crossed over in a small
boat to Boulac, the harbour of Cairo, breakfasted with
.Mr T , the brother-in-law of my friend, an en-
gineer in the pacha's service, whose interesting wife ia
the only f^nglish lady there ; and mounting a donkey,
in half an hour I was within the walls of (Jrand Cairo.
The traveller who goes there with the reminiscences
of Arabian tales hanging about him, will nowhere see
the Cairo of the califs; but before arriving there he
will have seen a curious and striking spectacle. He
will have seen, streaming from the gate among loaded
camels and dionicdarics, the dashing Turk, with his

OLD CAIRO— AUDIENCE OF THE PACHA.

9

glittering sabre, tlie wily Greek, the grave Armenian,
and the despised Jew, with their long silk robes, their
turbans, solemn beards, and various and striking cos- I
turaes ; he will have seen the harem of more than one |
rich Turk, eight or ten women on lioi-sebaek, com- |
pletely enveloped in large black silk wrapjK-rs, per- ;
fectly hiding lace and pei*son, and preccdi-d by that |
abomination of the East, a black eunuch ; the mi^^erable
santon, the Arab saint, with a few scanty rags on his
breast and shoulders, the rest of his body perfectly
naked ; the swarthy Bedouin of the desert, the hauglity
janizary, with a cocked gun in his hand, dashing fu-
riously through the crowd, and perhaps bearing some
bloody mandate of his royal master ; and perhaps he
will liave seen and blushed for liis own image in the
person of some beggarly Italian refugee. Entering the
gate, guarded by Arab soldiers in a bastard European
uniform, he will cross a large square filled with otticei-s
and soldiers, surrounded by what are called palaces, but
seeing nothing that can interest him save the house in
which the gallant Kleber, the hero of many a bloody
field, died ingloriously by the hands of an assassin.
Crossing this square, he will plunge into tlie narrow
streets of Cairo. Winding his doubtful and perilous
way among tottering and ruined houses, jostled by
camels, dromedaries, horses, and donkeys, perhaps he
will draw up against a wall, and, thinking of plague, hold
his breath, and screw himself into nothing, while he
allows a corpse to pass, followed by a long train of
howling women, dressed in black, with masks over their
faces ; and entering the large wooden gate which shuts
in the Frank quarter for protection against any sudden
burst of popular fury, and seating himself in a miserable
Italian locanda, he will ask himself. Where is the
" Cairo of the cahfs, the superb town, the holy city, the
delight of the imagination, greatest among the great,
whose splendour aud opulence made the prophet
smile ?"

Almost immediately upon my arrival, I called upon
Mr Gliddon, our vice-consul, and upon Nubar Bey, an
Armenian dragoraau to the pacha, to whom I had a
letter from a gentleman in Alexandria. The purport
of my visit to the latter was to procure a presentation
to the pacha. He told me that several English officers
from India had been waiting sevenil days for that pur-
pose ; that he thought the pacha would receive them
the next day, and, if so, he would ask pennission to
present me. Having arranged this, and not being
- particularly pleased with the interior, and liking exceed-
ingly the donkeys, on which it is the custom there to
mount on all occasions, for long and for short distances,
I selected one that was particularly gay and sprightly,
and followed by an Arab boy who had picked up a few
Italian words, 1 told him to take me any where outside
the city. He happened to take me out at the same gate
by which I had entered, and I rode to Old Cairo.

Old Cairo is situated on the river, about four miles
from Boulac. The road is pretty, and some of the
points of view, particularly in returning, decidedly
beautiful. The aqueduct which conveys water into the
citadel at Cairo is a fine substantial piece of workman-
ship, and an item in the picture. The church and grotto
m which, as tradition says, the Virgin Mai'y took refuge
with the infant Saviour, when obliged to fly from the
tetrarch of Judea, are among the few objects worthy of
note in Old Cairo. The grotto, which is guarded with
pious care by the Coptic priest, is a small excavation,
the natural surface covered with smootli tiles ; it is
hardly large enough to allow one person to crawl in and
sit upright. It is very doubtful whether this plac(''was
ever the refuge of the Virgin, but the craft or simplicity
of the priests sustains the tradition; and a half dozen
Coptic women, with theii- faces covered, and their long
blue dresses, followed me down into the vault, and
kneeled before the door of the grotto, with a devotion
which showed that they at least believed the tale.

At my locanda this morning I made acquaintance
with two English parties, a gentleman, his lady, and
nephew, who had been travelling in theii- own yacht

on the Mediterranean, and the party of English officers
to whom I before referred, as returning from India by
way of the lied Sea. They told me that they wtTc
expecting permission from the pacha to wait on him
that day, and askod me to accompany them. This
suited me bettor than to go alone, as i was not ambi-
tious for a tcte-a-tcle with his liighncs.s, and merely
wished to see him as one of the lions of the country.
Soon after I received a note from the consul, tilling
me that his highness would receive me at half-past
three. This, too, was the hour ajipointed for the
reception of the others, and I saw that hia highness
was disposed to make a lumping business of it, aud
get rid of us all at once. I accordingly suggested to
Mr Gliddon that we should all go together ; but this
did not suit him ; he was determined that 1 should
have the benefit of a special audience. I submitted
myself to his directions, and in this, as in other things,
while at Cairo, found the benefit uf his attentions aud
advice.

It is the custom of the pacha upon such occasions to
send horses from his own stable, and servants from his
own household, to wait upon the sti'anger. At half
past three I left my hotel, mounted on a noble horse,
finely caparisoned, with a dashing red cloth saddle, a
bridle ornamented with shells, and all the decorations
and equipments of a well-mounted Turkish horseman,
and, preceded by the janizary and escorted by the
consul, with no small degree of pomp ami circumstance
I arrived at the gate of the citadel. Piussing tiirough
a large yard, in which are several buildings connected
with the ditterent offices of government, we stopped
at the door of the palace, and, dismounting, ascended
a broad flight of marble steps to a large or central
hall, from which doors opened into the diHerent apart-
ments. There were three recesses fitted up with divans,
where officers were lounging, smoking, and taking cofi'ee.
The door of the divan, or hall of audience, w;i.s open,
at which a guard was stationed ; and in going up to
demand permission to enter, we saw the pacha at the
farther end of the room, with four or five Turks stand-
ing before him.

Not being allowed to enter yet, we walked up and
down the great hall, among lounging soldiers and officers
of all ranks and grades, Turks, Arabs, and beggars,
and went out upon the balcony. The view from this
embraces the most interesting objects in the vicinity of
Cairo, and there are few prospects in the world which
include so many ; the land of Goshen, the Nile, the
obelisk at Hehopolis, the tombs of the califs, the pyi"a-
mitls, and the deserts of eternal sands.

While standing upon the balcony, a janizary came
to tell us that the pacha would receive us, or, in other
words, that we must come to the pacha. The audience
chamber was a very large room, with a high ceiling —
perhaps eighty feet long and thirty high — with ara-
besque paintings on the wall, and a divan all around.
The pacha was sitting near one corner at the extreme
end, and had a long and full view of every one who
approached him. I, too, had the .same advantage, and
in walking up I remarked him as a man about sixty-
five, with a long and very white beard, strong features,
of a somewhat vulgar cast, a short nose, red face, and
rough skin, with an uncommonly fine dark eye, express-
ing a world of determination and enei-gy. He wore a
large turban and a long silk i-obe, and was smoking a
long pipe with an amber mouthpiece. Altogether, ho
looked the Turk much better than his nominal master
the sultan.

His dragoman, Nubar Bey, was there, and presented
me. The pacha took his pipe from his mouth, motioned
me to take a seat at his right hand on the divan, and
with a courteous manner s^iid I was welcome to
Egypt. I told him he would soon have to welcome
half the world there ; he asked me why : and, without
meaning to flatter the old Turk, 1 answered that
every body had a great curiosity to visit that interest-
ing country ; that heretofore it had been very difficult
to get there, and dangerous to travel in when there ;

10

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

but now tlic facilities of access were gi-eatly increased,
and travelling iu K,::yj>t liad become so sivt'e under his
government, that stranLfei-s would soon como with as
niucli contidence as they feel while travelling in Europe ;
and I had no doubt there would be many Americans
among them. Ho took his pipe from his month, and
bowed. 1 eippcd my coffee with groat complacency,
perfectly satiiitied with the manner in which, for the
first time, 1 had played the courtier to royalty. Know-
ing his pa>sion for new things, I went on, and told him
that he ought to continue his good works, and introduce
ou the Nile a steam-boat from Alexandria to Cairo.
He took the pipe from iiis mouth again, and in the tone
of " Let there bo light, and there was light," said lie
had ordered a couple. I knew he was fibbing, and 1
afterwards heard from those through whom ho trans-
acted all liis business in Europe, that he had never
given any such order. Considering that a steam-boat
was an appropriate weapon iu the hands of an Ameri-
can, 1 folii)wcd up my blow by telling him that 1 had
just seen mentioned, in a European paper, a project to
run Btcam-boats from New York to Liverpool iu twelve
or fourteen days. Ho asked mo the distance ; I told
liim, and he said nothing and smoked on. He knew
America, and particularly from a circumstance which
I afterwards found had done wonders in giving her a
name and character in the East, the visit of Commodore
Pattei-sun in the ship JJelaware. So far I had taken
decidedly the lead in tho conversation ; but the constant
repetition of " son altesse" by the dragoman, began to
remind me that I was Lu the presence of royalty, and
that it was my duty to speak only when I was spoken
to. I waited to give him a chance, and tlie first ques-
tion lie asked was as to the rate of sjjeed of the steam-
boats on our rivei-s. Remembering an old, crazy, five
or ""ix mile an hour boat that I had seen in Alexandria,
] id to tell liini tho whole truth, lest he should

ii •• me, and did not venture to go higher than

fitticn miles an hour ; and even then he looked as
lldt-rim may be supposed to have looked when the
Knight of tho Leop.ard told him of iiaving crossed over
a lake like the Dead ijea without wetting his horse's
lioofs. I have no doubt, if ho ever thought of me after-
wards, that it was as the lying American ; and just at
this moment, the party of English coming in, 1 i-ose
and took my leave. Gibbon says, " When Persia was
governed by the descendants of Sefis, a race of princes
whose wanton cruelty often stained their divan, their
table, and their bed, with the blood of their favourites,
there is a B.iying recorded of a young nobleman that
he never departed from the sultan's pi'cscnce without
satisfying himself whether his head was still on his
shoulders." It was in som.ewliat of the same spirit
that, in passing, one of the Englishmen whispered to
me, " .Are you sure of your Icgsl"

During my interview -tvith the pacha, although my
conversation and attention were directed towards him,
I could not help remarking particularly liLs dragoman,
Nubar Bey. He was an Armenian, perhaps a year or
two over thirty, with an olive complexion, and a coun-
tenance liko marble. He stood up before us, about
half w. " . n the pacha and mo, Iiiscalin eye finely

contr.i the roving and unsettled glances of the

pach.i, a juMict i>ictin*e of indift'erence, standing like a
mere machine to translate words, without seeming to
conijir'licnd or take the least interest in their import;
and though I liad been particnlarly recommended to
him, ho did not give me a single glance to intimate that
he had ever seen ir. ' ' • , or cared ever to sec mc
again. He was an s man, and was evidently

acting, an 'J ' •■ an eastern court ;

tho part ii I',' and dnngrmuo

position, as tli' ly of important secrets of go-

vernment. H> i;^h favour with the pacha, and,

wlirn I left, was in a fair way of attaining any honour
at which liis ambitions spirit might aim. On my return
to Alexandria, four months after, ho was dead.

The life and character of ^lohammed Ali arc a study
■ad a problem. Like Bcmadottc of Sweden, he has

risen from the rank of a common soldier, and now sita
firmly and securely on a throne of his own making.
He has risen by the usual road to greatness among the
Turks : war, bloodshed, and treachery. In early life
his bold and daring spirit attracted the attention of
beys, pachas, and tho sultan himself; and having at-
tained a prominent position in the bloody wars that dis-
tracted Egypt under the Mamelukes, boldness, cruelty,
intrigue, and treachery, placed him on the throne of
tho califs ; and neither then nor since have these usual
engines of Turkish government, these usual accompa-
niments of Turkish greatness, for a moment deserted
him. The extermination of the Mamelukes, the former
lords of Egypt, as regards the number killed, is perhaps
nothing in comparison with the thousands whoso blood
cries out from the earth against liim ; but the manner
in wliich it was effected brands the pacha as the princo
of traitors and murderers. Invited to the citadel on a
friendly visit, while they wcro smoking the pipe of
peace he was preparing to murder them ; and no sooner
had they left his presence than they were pent up, fired
upon, cut down and killed, bravely but hopelessly de-
fending themselves to the last. This cruel deed must
not be likened to the slaughter of the janizaries by the
sultan, to which it is often compared, for the janizaries
were a powerful body, insulting and defying the throne.
The sultan staked his head upon the issue, and it wjis
not till he had been driven to the desperate expedient
of unfurling the sacred standard of the prophet, and
calling upon all good Mussulmans to rally round it — in
a word, it was not till the dead bodies of 30,000 jani-
zaries were floating down the Bospliorus, that he became
master in his own dominions. Not so with the pacha;
the Mamelukes were reduced to a feeble band of 400
or 500 men, and could efi'eet nothing, of importance
against the pacha. His cruelty and ti-eachery can
neither bo forgotten nor forgiven ; and when, in pass-
ing out of the citadel, the stranger is shown the place
where the unhappy Mamelukes were penned up and
slaughtered like beasts, one only leaping liis gallant
horee over the walls of the citadel, he feels that he has
left tho presence of a wholesale murderer. Since that
time he has had Egypt quietly to himself; has attacked
and destroyed the Wahabces on the Red Sea, and sub-
dued tho countries above the Cataracts of the Nile, to
Senaar and Dongola. He has been constantly aiming
at introducing J-]uropcan imjn'oveinents ; has raised
and disciplined an army according to European tactics ;
increased tho revenues, particularly by introducing tho
culture of cotton, and has made Egypt, from tlie Medi-
terranean to the Cataracts, as safe for the traveller as
the streets of New York. It remains to be seen, whe-
ther, after all, he has not done more harm than good,
and whether the miserable and opj)resscd condition of
his sul)jects does not more than counterbalance all the
good that ho has done for Egypt. One of the strongest
evidences he gave of his civilising inclinations is tho
tendency lie once manifested to fall under petticoat
government. He was passionately fond of his fii-st wife,
the sharer of his poverty and meridian greatness, and
the mother of his two favourite children, Youssoutf .and
Ibrahim Pacha ; and whenever a request w.is prefeiTcd
in her name, tho enamoured despot would swear his
favourite oath, " By my two eyes, if she wishes it, it
shall be done." Fond of war, and having an eye to tho
islands of Candia and Cyprus, he sent a large fleet and
army, commanded by his son Ibi'ahim Pacha, io aid tho
sultan in his war against Greece, and with his wild Egyp-
tians turned the tide against that uiiha])i)y country, re-
ceiving as his reward the isl.ands w hicli he coveted. More
recently, availing liimself of a triHing dispute with tho
governor of Acre, lie turned his arms against tho sul-
tan, in' : ia, and after a long siege, took and
made Ji _ .i jnaster of Acre; liis victorious armies
under his son Ibrahim swept all Syria; Jerusalem,
Damascus, and Aleppo, fell into his hands ; and beating
the sultan's forces wliencver he met them, in mid
winter he led liis Egyptians over Mount Taurus, de-
feated the grand vizier with more than 100,000 men.

SLAVE-MARKET AT CAIRO.

11

almost under the walls of Constantinople, and would
have driven the sultan from the throne of his ancestors,
if the Russians, the old enemies of the Porto, had not
come in to his relief. According to the policy of tiie
Porte, that which is WTested from her and she cannot
get back, she confirms iu the possession of the rebel ;
and Palestine and Syria are now in the hands of Moham-
med Ali, as the fruits of di-awing his sword against his
master. He still continues to pay tribute to the sultan,
constrained doubtless to make the last payment by tho
crippled state in which he was left by the terrible plague
of 1834; and without any enemy to fear, is at this
moment draining the resources of his country to sustain
a large army and navy. No one can fathom his inten-
tions ; and probably he does not know them himself,
but will be governed, as the Turks always are, by caprice
and circumstances.

On leaving the pacha, Mr Gliddon proposed that we
should call upon the governor of Cairo. We stopped
at what would be called in France the " Palais do
Justice," and, mounting a dozen steps, entered a large
hall, at one end of which stood the governor. He was
a short stout man, of about fifty -five, with a long beard,
handsomely dressed, and stood gently rubbing his hands,
and constantly working his jaws, like an ox chewing the
cud. A crowd was gathered around him, and just as
we were approaching, the crowd fell back, and we saw
an Arab lying on his face on the floor, with two men
standing over him, one on each side, with whips like
cow-skins, carrying into effect the judgment of the
munching govex-nor. The blows fell thickly and heavily,
the poor fellow screamed piteously, and when the full
number had been given he could not move ; he was
picked up by his friends, and carried out of doors. It
was precisely such a scene as realised the reference in
the Scriptures to the manners of the East in the time
of our Saviour, when a complaint was made to the
judge, and the judge handed the off'ender over to justice ;
or the graphic accounts in the Arabian Nights, of
summary justice administered by the cadi or otiier ex-
pounder of the law, without the intervention of lawyers
or jui'y. The poor Arab was hardly removed before
another complaint was entered ; but not feeling parti-
cularly amiable towards the governor, and having seen
enough of the gi-eat Turks for that day, I left the citadel
and rode to my hotel.

CHAPTER III.
The Slave-market at Cairo.— Tomb of the Pacha.— The Pyramid

of Cheops.— Oppressive Attention of tho Arabs.— Tho Sphinx.
Nearly all the time I was at Cairo, Paul and myself
were ill, and for a few days we were in a rather pitiable
condition. Fortunately, a young English army surgeon
was there, on his way to India, and hearing there was
a sick traveller in the house, he with great kindness
called upon me and prescribed for our ailments. If
this book should ever meet tho eye of Dr Forbes, he
will excuse my putting his name in print, as it is the
only means I have of acknowledging his kindness in
saving me from what would otherwise have been a
severe and most inconvenient illness. At that time
there was no JSnghsh physician in Cairo, and I believe
none at all, except some vile, half-bred Italian or French
apotiiecaries, who held themselves fully qualified to
practise, and were certainly very successful in reliev-
ing the sick from all their sufferings. On my return I
found Dr Walne ; and though for his own sake I couid
wish him a better lot, I hope for the benefit of sick
travellers that he is there still.

One of my first rambles in Cairo was to the slave-
market. It' is situated nearly in the centre of the city,
as it appeared to me, although after turning half a
dozen corners in the narrow streets of a Turkish city,
I will defy a man to tell where he is exactly. It is a
large old' building, enclosing a hollow square, with
chambers all ai'ound, both above and below. There
were probably 500 or 600 slaves, sitting on mats in
groups of ten, twenty, or thii-ty, each belonging to a

different proprietor. Most of them wore entirely naked,
though some, whose shivering forms evinced that even
there they felt the want of tlieir native burning sun,
were covered witii blankets. They were mostly from
Dongola and Sennaar ; but some were Abyssinians, with
yellow complexions, fine eyes and teeth, and dt-cidodly
handsome. The Nubians were very dark, but with ov.al,
regularly formed and handsome faces, mild and amiablo
expressions, and no mark of tho African except tho
colour of their skiu. Tho woi-st spectacle in the bazaar
was that of several lots of sick, who were separated
from the rest, and arranged on mats by tlu-mselves ;
their bodies tliiu and shrunken, their chins 1 "<m

their knees, their long lank arms hanging 1. by

their sides, their faces haggard, their eyes fixed with a
painful vacancy, and altogether presenting the imago of
man in his most abject condition. Meeting them on
their native sands, their crouching attitudes, shrunken
jaws, and rolling eyes, might havo led one to mistivko
them for those hideous animals tho orang-outang and
ape. Prices vary from twenty to a hundred dollars;
but the sick, as carrying within them the seeds of pro-
bable death, are coolly offered for almost nothing, as so
much damaged merchandise which the seller is anxious
to dispose of before it becomes utterly worthless on his
hands. There was one, an Abj-ssinLin, who had mind
as well as beauty in lier face ; she was drcs.sed in silk,
and wore ornaments of gold and sliells, and called me
as I passed, and peeped from behind a curtain, smiling
and coquetting, and wept and pouted when I went
away ; and she thrust out her tongue to show me that
she was not like those I had just been looking at, but
that her young blood ran pure and healthy in her veins.

Cairo is surrounded by a wall ; the sands of the de-
sert approach it on every side, and every gate, except
that of Boulac, opens to a sandy waste. Passing out
by the Victory Gate, the contrast between light and
darkness is not greater than between the crowded
streets and the stillness of the desert, separated from
them only by a wall. Immediately without commences
the great burial-place of the city. Among thousands
and tens of thousands of Mussulmans' headstones, I
searched iu vain for the tomb of the lamented Burck-
hardt ; there is no mark to distinguish the grave of tho
enterprising traveller from that of an .\rabian camel-
driver. At a short distance from the gate are the tombs
of tho califs, large and beautiful buildings, monuments
of the taste and skill of the Saracens.

From hence, passing around outside the walls, I
entered by the gate of the Citadel, where I saw what
goes by tho name of Joseph's Well, perhaps better
known as the Well of Saladin. It Ls 45 feet wide at
the mouth, and cut 270 feet deep through the solid rock,
to a spring of saltish water, on a level with the Nile,
whence the water is raised iu buckets on a wheel, tui'ued
by a buffalo.

On the 25th, with a voice that belied my feelings, I
wished Paul a merry Christnuis ; and after breakfast,
wishing to celebrate the day, mounted a donkey and
rode to the site of the ancient Ileliopolis, near tho
village of Matarea, about four miles from Cairo, on tho
borders of the rich land of Goshen. The geographer
Strabo visited these ruins thirty years a. c, and de-
scribes them almost exactly as we see them now. A
great temple of the sun once stood here. Herodotus
and Plato studied philosophy in the schools of Ilelio-
polis ; " a barbarous I'ersian overturned her temples ;
a fanatic Arabian burnt her books ;" and a single obe-
lisk, sixty-seven feet high, in a field ploughed and cul-
tivated to its very base, stands a melancholy monument
of former greatness and eternal ruin.

Passing out by another gate is another vast cemetery,
rauges of tombs extending miles out into tho desert.
In Turkey I had admired the beauty of the gi-ave-
yards, and often thought liow calmly slept the dead
under the thick shade of the mourning cypress. In
Egypt I admired still more the solemn stillness and
gi-andeur of a last resting-place among the eternal sands
of the desert. In this great city of the dead stand tho

13

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

tombs of tlic Manuliikos, ori<rinally slaves from the
foot of the Caucasus, iliin the lords and tyrants of
Ej;y|'t, and now an extirniinated race : the tombs are
large handsume buildings, with domes and minarets,
the interior of the domes beautifully wroujrht, and
windows of stained glass, all fcoi'ig to ruins. Here,
too, is the tomb of the paclia. Fallen, changed, com-
pletely revolutionised as Kgypt is, even to tliis day
peculiar regard is paid to the structure of tombs and
tlie l)urial-places of the dead. The tomb of the pacha
is called tlie greatest structure of modern E^'vpt. It
is a largo stone building, with several domes, strongly
but coai-sely made. The interior, still, solemn, and
imposing, is divided iuto two chambei*s ; in the tirst,
in a conspicuous situation, is the body of his favourite
wife, and around are those of other members of his
family ; in the other chamber are several tombs co-
vered with large and valuable Cashmere shaw-ls ; seve-
ral places yet unoccupied, and in one corner a largo
vacant plat--, reserved for the pacha himself. Both
apartments are carpeted, and illuminated with lamps,
with divans in the recesses, and little wicker chairs for
the different members of the family who come to mourn
and pray. Two ladies were there, sitting near one of the
tombs, their faces completely covered ; and, that I
might not disturb their pious devotions, my guide led !
nie in a different direction.

During the time that I had passed in lounging about
Cairo, I had repeatedly been down to Boulac in search
of a boat for my intendeil voyage up the Nile ; and
going one Sunday to dine on the Island of Ilhoda with
Mr Ti-ail, a young Englishman who hud charge of the
palace and garden of Ibrahim I'aeha, I again rode
along the bank of the river for the same ]jurpose. In
coming up from Alexandria, I had found the incon-
▼eniences of a large boat, and w.is looking for one of
the smallest dimensions that could be at all comfortable.
We were crossing over one more than half sunk in the
water, wliieh I remarked to Paul was about the right
size ; and while we stopped a moment, without the least
idea that it could be made lit for use, an Arab came
up and whisi)ered to I'atil that he could puni]) out the
water in two hours, and had only sunk tin; boat to save
it from the officers of th<' pacha, who woidd otherwise
take it for the use of government. Upon this informa-
tion I struck a bargain for the boat, eight men, a rais,
and a pilot. The officers of the pacha were on the bank
looking out for boats, and, notwithstanding my Arab's
ingenious contrivance, just when I had closed my
agreement, they came on board and claimed possession.
I refused to give up my right, and sent to the agent of
the consul for an .\meriean flag. He could not give
nie an American, but sent nie an English flag, and I
did not hesitate to put myself under its jjroteetion, I
hoisted it with my own hands ; but the rascally Turks
paid no regard to its broad folds. The majesty of
England did not suffer, however, in my hands, and Paul
and I spent more than an hour in running from one
officer to another, before we could jirocure the neces-
sary order for the release of the boat. Leaving this
with the rais, and the flag still flying, I went on to
lihodn, and spent the day there in decidi-dly the
prettiest spot about Cairo. At the head of this island
iathc celebrated .Nilometer, which, for no one knows how
long, has marked the annual rise and fall of the Nile.

1 had been ten days in Cairo without going to tiic
pjTamids. I h.id seen tliein almost every day, but my
doctor, who wa« to accompany mo, had delayed my
visit. He was obliged to leave Cairo, however, before
I was ready to go ; and as soon as ho was off, like a
schoolboy when the master is out of sight, I took ad-
vantage of his absence. My old friend from Alexau-
dria had promi.ied to go with mc, and ji>ining me at
Old Cairo, we cro>«cd over to Ghizeh. Almost from
the gates of C4iro the pyramids arc constantly in sight,
and, after crossing the ferry, we at first mde directly
towards them ; but the waters were yet so high that
we were obliged to diverge from the straight road. In
about an hour we separated, my guide taking one route

and my friends another. With my eyes constantly fixed
on the pyramids, I was not aware of our separation
until 1 had gone too far to return, and my guide proved
to be right. Standing alone on an elevated mountainous
range on the edge of the desert, without any object
with which to compare them, the immense size of
the pyramids did not strike me with full force. Ar-
rived at the banks of a stream, twenty Arabs, more
than half naked, and most of them blind of an eye,
came running towards mc, dashed through the stream,
and pulling, hauling, and scuttling at each other, all
laid hold tif me to carry me over. All seemed bent
upon having something to do with mc, even if they
carried me over )>ieeemeal ; but I selected two of the
strongest, with little more than one eye between them,
and keeping the rest off as well as 1 could, was borne
over dryshod. A]>proaching, the three great jiyramids
and one small one are in view, towering higher and
higher above the jilaiu. I thought I was just upon
them, and that 1 could almost touch them ; yet 1 was
more than a mile distant. The nearer I approached,
the more their gigantic dimensions grew upon me,
until, when I actually reached them, rode up to the
first layer of stones, and saw how very small I was, and
looked up their sloping sides to the lofty sunmiits, they
seemed to have grown to the size of mountains.

The base of the great pyi-amid is about 800 feet
square, covering a surface of about eleven acres, ac-
cording to the best measurement, and four hundred
and sixty-one feet high ; or, to give a clearer idea,
starting from a base as large as Washington Parade
Groumi, it rises to a tapering j)oiiit nearly three times
as high as Trinity church steeple. Even as I walked
around it and looked u)) at it from the base, I did not
feel its immensity until I commenced ascending ; then,
having climbed some distance uj>, whcn'I stopped to
breathe and look down upon my friend below, who was
dwindled into insect size, and up at the great distance
between me and the summit, then I realised in all their
force the huge dimensions of this giant work. It took
me twenty minutes to mount to the summit ; about the
same time that it had required to mount the cones of
yEtna and Vesuvius. The ascent is not particularly
difficult, at least with the assistance of the Arabs. There
are 20C tiers of stone, from one to four feet in height,
each two or three feet smaller than the one below,
making what are called the steps. Very often the steps
were so high that I could not reach them with my feet.
Indeed, for the most part, I was obliged to climb with
my knees, deriving groat assistance from the step which
one Arab made for me with his knee, and the helping
hand of another above.

It is not what it once was to go to the pyramids.
They have become regular lions for the multitudes of
travellers ; but still, common as the journey has be-
come, no man can stand on the top of the great pyra-
mid of Cheops, and look out upon the dark mountains
of Mokattam bordering the .Vrabian desert ; upon the
ancient city of the Pharaohs, its domes, its mosques
and minarets, glittering in the light of a vertical sun ;
upon the rieli valley of the Nile, and the " river of
FOgypt" rolling at his foot ; the long range of pyramids
and tombs extending along the edge of the desert to
the ruined city of Memphis, and the boundless and
etcrual sands of Africa, without considering that mo-
ment an ejMich not to be forgotten. Thousands of
yeai-9 roll through his miiid, and thought recalls tho
men who built thom, their mysterious uses, the jtoets,
historians, philosophers, and warriors, who have gazed
upon them with wonder like his own.

For one who but yesterday was bustling in the streets
of a busy city, it was a thing of strange and indescrib-
able interest to be Ktanding on the toj" of the great
pyramid, surrounded by a dozen half-naked Arabs,
forgetting, as completely as if they had never been, the
stirring scenes of his distant home. But even here
jiotty vexations followed me, and half the interoet of
tho time and scene was destroyed by tho cuiinour of
my guides. The dcsccut I fouod" extremely easy ; many

THE PYRA.MIDS.

13

persons complain of the dizziness caused by looking
down from sudi a height, but I did not find nivself so
affected ; and though the donkeys at tlie base" looked
like flies, 1 could almost have danced down the mighty
sides.*

The great pyramid is supposed to contain 0,000,000
of cubic feet of stone, and 100,000 men are said to have
been employed twenty years in building it. The four
angles stand exactly in the four j)oints of the compass,
inducing the belief that it was intended for other pur-
poses than those of a jsepulchre. The entrance is on
the north side. The sands of the desert have encroached
upon it, and, with the fallen stones and rubbish, have
buried it to the sixteenth step. Climbing over this
rubbish, the entrance is reached, a nari'ow passage
three and a half feet square, lined with broad blocks
of polished granite, descending in the interior at an
angle of twenty-seven degrees for about ninety-two
feet ; then the passage turns to the right, and winds
upward to a steep ascent of eight or nine feet, and then
falls into the natural passage, which is live feet high
and one hundi'cd feet long, forming a continued ascent
to a sort of landing-place ; in a small recess of this is
the orifice or shaft called the well. Moving onward
through a long passage, the explorer comes to what is
called the Queen's Chambers, seventeen feet long, four-
teen wide, and twelve high. I entered a hole opening
from this crypt, and crawling on my hands and knees,
came to a larger opening, not a regular chamber, and
now cumbered with fallen stones. Immediately above
this, ascending by an inclined plane lined with highly
polished granite, and about 120 feet in length, and
mounting a short space by means of holes cut in the
sides, I entered the King's Chamber, about thirty-seven
feet long, seventeen feet wide, and twenty feet high.
The walls of the chamber are of red granite, highly
polished, each stone reaching from the floor to the ceil-
ing ; and the ceiling is formed of nine large slabs of
polished gi-anite, extending from wall to wall. It is
not the least interesting part of a visit to the interior
of the pyramids, as you are groping your way after your
Arab guide, to feel your hand running along the sides
of an enormous shaft, smooth and polished as the finest
marble, and to see by the light of tlie flaring torch
chambei's of red granite from the Cataracts of the Nile,
the immense blocks standing around and above you,
smooth and beautifully polished in places, where, if our
notions of the pyramids be true, they were intended
but for few mortal eyes. At one end of the chamber
stands a sarcophagus, also of red granite ; its length is
seven feet six inches, depth three and a half, breadth
three feet three inches. Here is supposed to have slept
one of the great rulers of the earth, the king of the then
greatest kingdom of the world, the proud mortal for
■whom this mighty structure was raised. Where is he
now ? Even his dry bones are gone, torn away by rude
liands, and scattered by the winds of heaven.

There is something curious about this sarcophagus
too. It is exactly the size of the orifice which forms
the entrance of the pyramid, and could not have been
conveyed to its place by any of the now known passages ;
consequently, must have been deposited during the
building, or before the passage was finished in its pre-

* A few years ago an unfortunate accident happened at this
pyramid. An English officer, Jlr M., who had come up the Hcd
Sea from India with his friend, had mounted to the top, and,
while his friend was looking another way, Mr JI. was walking
around the upper layer of stones, and fell ; he rolled down eight
or ten steps, and caught; for a moment he turned up his face
with an expression that his friend spoke of as horrible beyond
all description, when his head sank, his grasp relaxed, and ho
pitched headlong, rolling over and over to the bottom of the pyra-
mid. Every bone in his body was broken ; his mangled corpse
was sewed up in a sack, carried to Old Cairo, aud buried, and his
friend returned the same day to Cairo. There were at the time
imputations that Mr M. had premeditated this act, as he had
left behind him his watch, money, and pnj.crs, and had been
heard to say what a glorious death it would 'oe to dip by jumping
from the top of a pyramid.

sent state. Tlio interior of the pyramid is excestiively
hot, particularly when surrounded by a number of
Arabs and flaring torches. Leaving the King's Cham-
btr, 1 descended the inclined piano, and prepared to
descend the well referred to by I'liny. The shaft is
small ; merely large enough to permit one to descend
with the legs astride, the fiet resting in little niehes,
and hands clinging to the same. Having no janizary
with me to keep them off, I was very much annoyed
by the Arabs following nu\ I had at first selected two
as my guides, and told the othei-s to go away ; but it
was of no use. They had nothing else to do ; a few
paras would satisfy them for their day's labour ; and
the chance of getting these, either from charity or by
importunity, nuide them all follow. At the mouth of
the well, I again selected my two guides, and again told
the othei-s not to follow ; and, sending the two before
me, followed down the well, being myself <)uiekly fol-
lowed by two othei-9. 1 shouted to them to go back,
but they j)aid no regard to me ; so, coming out again,
I could not help giving the fellow next me a blow with
a club, which sent him bounding among his companions.
I then flourished my stick among them, and after a
deal of expostulation and threatening gesticulation, I
attempted the descent once more. A second time they
followed me, and I came out perfectly furious. My
friend was outside shooting, the pyramids being nothing
new to him, and unfortunately 1 had been obliged to
leave I'aul at Cairo, and had no one with me but a little
Nubian boy. Him I could nut prevail upon to descend
the well ; he was frightened, and begged me not to go
down ; and when he saw them follow the second time,
and me come out and lay about me with a club, ho
began to cry, and, before 1 could lay hold of him, ran
away. I could do nothing without him, and was obliged
to follow. There was no use in battling with the poor
fellows, for they made no resistance ; and I believe I
might have brained the whole of them without one
offering to strike a blow. Moreover, it was very hot
and smothering ; and as there was nothing particular
to see, nor any discovery to make, I concluded to givo
it up ; and calling my guides to return, in a few moments
escaped from the hot and confined air of the pyramid.

At the base I found my friend sitting quietly with
his gun in his hand, and brought upon him the hornet's
nest which had so worried me within. 'J'iie Arabs,
considering their work done, gathered around me,
clamorous for bucksheesh, and none were more imi>or-
tunate than the fellows who had followe<l me so perti-
naciously. I gave them liberally, but this only whetted
their appetites. There was no getting rid of them ; a
sweep of my club would send them away for a moment,
but instantly they would reorganise and come on
again, putting the women and children in the front
rank. The sheik came ostensibly to our relief ; but I
had doubts whether he did not rather urge them on.
He, however, protected us to a certain extent, while
we went into one of the many tombs to eat our luncheon.
For agreat distance around there are large tombs which
would of themselves attract the attention of the tra-
veller, were they not lost in the overwiuhning interest
of the pyramids. That in which we lunched had a deep
shaft in the centre, leading to tho pit where the mum-
mies had been j)iled one upon another. The Arabs had
opened and rifled the graves, and bones and fragments
were still lying scattered around. Our persecutoi-a
were sitting at the door of the tomb looking in upon us,
and devouring with their eyes every morsel that we
put into our mouths. We did not linger long over our
meal ; and, giving them the fragments, set off for a
walk round the pyramid of Cephreiis, the second in
grandeur.

This pyramid was opened at great labour and ex-
pense by the indefatigable Belzoni, and a chamber
discovered containing a sarcophagus, as in that of
Cheops. The pas.sage, however, has now become
choked up and hardly accessible. Though uot so liigh,
it is much more difficult to mount than the other, the
outside being covered with a coat of hard aud polished

14

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

cement, at the top almost perfectly Bmootli and im-
broken. Two English officers had mounted it a few
days before, who told me that they had found the
ascent both difficult and dangerous. One of the Arabs
who accompanied them, after ho had reached the top,
became frightened, and, not daring to descend, remained
hanging on there more than an hour, till his old father
climbed up and inspii'ed him with confidence to come
dowTL

A new attempt is now making to explore the interior
of this p\Tanud. Colonel Vysc, an English gentleman
of fortune, has devoted the last six months to this most
interesting work. He has for an associate iu his labours
the veteniu Cavigha, who returns to the pyramids rich
with the experience of twenty years in exjiloring the
temples and tombs of Upper I'^gypt. By a detailed report
and drawing received by Mr Uliddon from Caviglia
himself, and by private letters of later date, it appears
that they have ali-eady discovered a new passage and
another ch".niber, containing on one of the walls a single
hieroglyphic. This hieroglyphic was then under the
cousidui-ation of the savans and pupils of the Champolion
school in Egypt ; and whether they succeed in reading
it or not, we cannot help promising ourselves the most
interesting results from the enterprise and laboiu-s of
Colonel Vyse and Caviglia.

The pjTamids, like all the other works of the an-
cient Egyptians, are built with great regard to accuracy
of proportion. The sepulchral chamber is not in the
centre, but in an irregular and out-of-the-way position
in the vast pile ; and some idea may be formed of the
gi-eat iguonineo which must exist in regard to the
whole structure and its uses, from the fact that by
computation, allowing an equal soUd bulk for partition
walls, there is sufficient space in the great pyramid for
3700 chambers as large as that containing the sarco-
phagus.

Next to the pjTamids, probably as old, and hardly
inferior in interest, is the celebrated Sphinx. Not-
withstanding the great labours of Caviglia, it is now so
covered with sand that it is difficult to realise the bulk
of this gigantic monument. Its head, neck, shoulders,
and breasts, are still uncovered ; its face, though worn
and broken, is mild, amiable, :uid intelligent, seeming,
among the tombs around it, like a divinity guarding the
dead.

CHAPTER IV.

Jonmty np tho Nile— An Arab Burial.— Pilgrims to Mecca.—
TrliUa of raticncc— A Hurricane on tho Kile— A 'X'urkish
Ilatb.

On the 1st of January I commenced my journey np
tho Nile. My boat was small, for greater convenience
in rowing and towing. She was, however, about forty
feet lone, with two tine lattccn sails, and manned by
€■! ' .a rais or captain, and a govfrnor or pilot.

'J; ;•) l>e my homo from Cairo to tho Cataracts,

or jin long as I remained on tlio river. There was not
a place wh<Te a travi-llor could sleep, and I could not
expect to eat a meal or pass a night except on board ;
consequently, I was obliged to provide myself at Cairo
with all things necessary for tho whole voyage. My
outfit was not very extravagant. It consisted, as near
as I can recollect, of two tin cups, two jiairs of knives
»• ' ' ' . four platen, cofffif, tea, sugar, rice, mac-
c- 1 ft f^^w i]i<?fn of claret. My bedroom furni-

t! 1-asfl and coverlet, which in the

d-, ■■ fo as to make .i divan. Over

the head of my bed wt-re my gun and pi.stols, and at
the foot was a little swinging sliolf containing my
LlBBART, which consisted of the M<idorn Traveller in
Effvpt, Volney's Travelf, and an Italian grammar and
dietionary. My only companion wa<« my servant ; and
as he is about to bo i- ' ' intimate with me, 1

take the liberty of in' • him to the r^nHor.

Paollo N'uozzo, or, T y I'anI, wasn

I h.id met him at ' _ ■• tra>flling \

of my countryraen ; and though thry did not seem

to like him much, I was very well i)loased with him,
and thought myself quite fortunate, on my arrival at
Malta, to find him disengaged. He was a man about
thirty-five years old ; stout, square built, intelligent ;
a passionate admirer of ruins, particularly the ruins of
the Nile ; honest and faithful as the sun, and one of the
greatest cowards that luminary ever shone upon. He
called himself my di-agoman, and, 1 remember, >vroto
himself such in the convent of Mount Sinai and tho
temple at I'etra, though he promised to make him-
self generally useful, and was my only servant during
my whole tour. He spoke French, Italian, Maltese,
Greek, Turkish, and Arabic, but could not read any
one of the.se languages. Ho had lived sevei'al yeai"s in
Cairo, and had travelled on tho Nile before, and
understood all the little arrangements necessary for the
voyage.

At about twelve o'clock, then the hour when at
home my friends were commencing their New-year
visits, accompanied to the boat by my friend from
Alexandria, my first, last, and best friend in Egypt,
I embarked ; and with a fair wind, and the " star-
spangled banner" (made by an Arab tailor) floating
above me, I commenced my journey on the Nile. It
is necessary here for every stranger to place himself
under the flag of his country, else his boat and men
are liable to bo taken at any moment by the officers
of the pacha. It was the first time I had myself ever
raised the banner of my country, and I felt a peculiar
pride in the consciousness that it could protect me eo
far from home.

We started, as when I first embarked upon the Nile,
with a fair wind, at sunset, and again to the gentle
tap of the Arab drum we passed the great pyramids
of Ghizeh and the giant monuments of Sachara and
Dashoor. Long after sunset their dark outline was
distinctly visible over the desert ; I sat on the deck
of my boat till their vast ma,sses became lost in tho
darkness. My situation was novel and exciting, and
my spirits were elated with curious expectation ; but
with the moiTow came a very essential change. A
feeling of gloom came over me when I found the wind
against my progress. The current was still running
obstinately the same way as before, and to be so soon
deserted by the element that I needed, gave rather a
dreary aspect to the long journey before me. That
day, however, we contrived to do something ; my boat
being small, my men were almost continually ashore,
with ropes around their breasts, towing ; and, occasion-
ally, rowing across from side to side would give us tho
advantage of a bend in the river, when we would carry
sail and make some progress.

The scenery of the Nile, about fifty miles from
Cairo, differed somewhat from the rich valley of tho
Delta, the dark mountains of Mokattam, in the neigh-
bourhood of Cairo, bounding tho valley on tho Arabian
side, while on the African the desert ajiproachcd to
the very banks of the river. Though travelling in a
country in which, by poetic licence, and by way of
winding off a period, every foot of ground is said to
posse.ss an exciting interest, during my first day's jour-
ney on the Nile I was thrown very much upon my own
resources.

My gun was the first thing that presented itself. I
had bought it in Cairo, double-barrelled and new, for
fifteen dollars. I did not expect to make much use of
it, and it was so very cheap that I was rather doubtful
of its safety, and intended to make trial of it with a
double charge and a slow match. But Paul had anti-
cipated me ; he had already put in two enormous
charges, and sent one of tho boatmen asliorc to try it.
I remonstrated with him upon the risk to which he had
exposed the n)an ; but he answered in the tone in which
he (like all European servants) always spoko of tho
degraded inhabitants of Egypt — " Poh ! ho is only an
Arab ;" and I was soon relieved from apprehension by
tho Arab returning, full of praises of the gun, having
killed with both shots. One thing disheartened mo
even more th.in the head wind. Ever since I left iiome

JOURNEY UP THE NILE— AN AR.VB BURIAL.

15

I liad been in cfirnest search of a warm climate, and
thouglit I liad secured it ia Lgypt; but wherever I
went, I seemed to carry with me an influence tliat
chilled the atmosphere. In the morning, before I rose,
Paul brought in to me a \noce of ice as tliick as a pane
of glass, made during the uight ; a most extraordinary,
and to me unexpected circumstance. The poor Arabs,
accustomed to their hot and burning sun, shrank in the
cold almost to nothing, and early in the morning and in
the evening were utterly unfit for labour. 1 suffered
very much also myself. Obliged to sit with the door of
my cabin closed, my coat and greatcoat on, and with a
prospect of a long cold voyage, by the eveuuig of the
second day I had lost some portion of the enthusiasm
with which, under a well-filled sail, I had stai'ted the
day before from Cairo.

The third day was again exceedingly cold, the wind
still ahead, and stronger than yesterday. 1 was still in
bed, looking through the many openings of my cabin,
and the men were on shore towing, when I wiis roused
by a loud voice of hmieutation, in which the weeping
and wailing of women predominated. I stepped out,
and saw on the bank of the x-iver the dead body of an
Arab, surrounded by men, women, and children, weep-
ing and howling over it previous to burial. The body
was covered with a wi-apper of coarse linen cloth,
drawn tight over the head aud tied uudcr the neck,
and fastened between two parallel bars, intended as a
b.arrow to carry it to its grave. It lay a liltle apart
before the gi-oup of mourners, who sat on tlie bank
above, with their eyes turned towards it, weeping, and
ajjpareutly talking to it. The women were the most
conspicuous among the mouruei-s. The dead man had
been more happy in his connexions than I imagine the
Arabs genei-ally are, if all the women sitting there
were really mourning his death. Whether they were
real mourners, or whether they were merely going
through the formal part of an Egyptian funeral cere-
mony, I cannot say ; but the big teai-s rolled down theh*
cheeks, and theii- cries sounded like the overflowings of
distressed hearts. A death aud burial scene is at any
time solenui, and I do not know that it loses any of its
Bolenuiity even when the scene is on the banks of the
Is'ile, and the subject a poor and oppressed Arab.
Human affection probably glows as wai-mly here as
under a gilded roof, and I am disposed to be charitable
to the exhibition that 1 then beheld ; but I could not help
noticing that the cries became louder as i approached,
and I h.ad h.irdly seated myself at a little distance from
the corpse before the women seemed to be completely
can'ied away by their grief, and with loud cries, tear-
ing their hair and beating their bre.ists, threw out their
arms towards the corpse, and prayed, and wept, and
then turned away, with shrieks piteous enough to touch
the heart of the dead.

The general territorial division of Egypt, from time
immemorial, has been into upper and lower ; the latter
beginning at the shores of the Mediterranean and ex-
tending very nearly to the ancient Memphis, and the
former commencing at Memphis and extending to the
Cataracts. Passing by, for the present, the ruins of
Memphis, on the fourth day, the wind dead ahead, and
the men towing at a very slow rate, I went ashore with
my gun, and about eleven o'clock in the morning walked
into the town of Beni Souef. This town stands on the
Libyan side of the river, on the borders of a rich valley,
the Nile running close under the foot of the Arabian
mountains ; and contains as its most prominent objects,
a mosque and minaret, and what is here called a palace
or seraglio ; that is, a largo coarse building covered
with white cement, and having grated windows for the
harem.

Here travellers sometimes leave their boats to make
an excursion to Medineh el Fayotm, the ancient Cro-
codopolis, or Arsinoe, near the great Lake Mceris. This
lake was in ancient days one of the wonders of Egypt.
It was sixty miles long (about the size of the Lake of
Geneva), and Herodotus says that it was an artificial
Lake, and tliat in his time the towering summits of two

pyramids were visible above its sinfacc. The groat
labyriuth, too, was supposed to bo souii'whero near this ;
but no pyramids nor any ruins of the labyrinth are
now to be seen. The Lake is comparatively dry, and
very little is left to reward the ti-aveller.

At sundown wo liauled up to the bank, alongside a
boat loaded with pilgrims ; and building a fire on shore,
the two crews, witli their motley p.assengers, spent the
night quietly around it. It \mis tlic firsst time since wo
left Cairo that we had come in contact with pilgrims,
although we had been seeing them from my first enter-
ing Egypt. This was the season for tlio pilgrimage to
Mecca. The great cai-avan was already gathering at
Cau-o, wliile numbers not wishing to wait, were seen on
all parts of the Nile on tiieir way to Kcnueh, from
thence to cross the desert to Cossier, and down the Red
Soa to the Holy City. They were coming from all
parts of the Mussulman dtmiinions, poor and rich, old
and young, women and children, almost piled upon each
otlicr by scores, for several months exposing themselves
to all manner of hardships, in obedience to one of the
principal injunctions of the Koran, once in their lives
to perform a pilgrimage to Mecca.

On the 5th tlie wind was still dead ahead ; the men
continued to tow, but without making much progress ;
and the day dragged heavily. On tho Cth, I saw an-
other burial. Kai'Iy in tlie morning Paul called me to
look out. Wo were lying in company with another
boat, fast to .1 little island of sand nearly in the middle
of the river. I got up exceedingly cold, and saw a dead
man lying on the sand, his limbs drawn up and stirt".
He was a boatman on board the other boat, and had
died during the uight. A group of Ai-abs were sitting
near making coffee, while two were preparing to wash
the body previous to burial. They brought it down to
the margin of the river, and laid it carefully upon tho
sand, then washed it, pressed down the drawn-up legs,
and ^^Tapped it in fragments of tattered garments, con-
tributed by his fellow-boatmen, who could ill spare
even these scanty rags ; and laying it with great decency
a little way from the river, joined the other group, and
sat down witli great gravity to pipes and coffee. In a
few moments two of them rose, and going a little apart,
with their bare hands scratched a shallow gr^ive ; and
the poor Ai*ab was left on a little s;mdbank in the Nile,
to be covered in another season by tho mighty river.
He was an entire stranger, having come on board the
evening beiore his boat set out from Cairo. In all pro-
bability, ho was one of an immense mass which swarms
iu the crowded streets of Cairo, without friends, occu-
pation, or settled means of living.

On tho 7th tho wind was still ahead and blowing
strong, and the air was very cold. Having no books,
no society, and no occupation except talking with
Paul and my boatmen, and tho stragglers on shore, I
became dispirited, and sat, hour after hour, WTapped
in my greatcoat, deliberating whether I should not turn
back. One of the most vexatious things was the satis-
faction apparently enjoyed by all around mc. If wo
hauled up alongside another boat, we were sure to find
the crew sprawling about in a most perfect state of con-
tentment, and seemmgly grateful to the adverse wind
that prevented their moving. My own men were very
obedient, but they could not control the wind. I had
a wTitten contract with my rais, drawn up by a Co\it in
Cairo, in pretty Arabic characters, and signed by both
of us, although neither knew a word of its contents. The
captain's manner of signing, I remember, w.as very pri-
mitive ; he dipped the end of his finger in the ink, and
pressed it on the paper, and in so doing seemed to con-
sider that he had sold himself to me almost body and
Boul. " I know I am obliged to go if Howega says so,"
was his invariable answer ; but though perfectly ready
to go whenever there was a chance, it was easy enough
to see that they were all quite as contented when there
was none. .Several times 1 was on the point of turning
back, the wind drew down the river so invitingly ; but if
I returned, it was too early to go into SjTia ; and Thebes,
" Thebes with her hundred gates," beckoned me on.

IG

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

Oil the 8th I hntl not niatlo much more than fifty
miles, and the wiml was still ahead, and bbwinj,'
stronger than ever ; indeed, it seemed as it' this morn-
ing, for tlie tii-st time, it liad really eonimeneed in
earnest. I bi'camc desja-rate and went ashore, resolved
to wear it out. ^^'e were lying along the bank, on the
Libyan side, in company with fifteen or twenty boats,
wind-bound like oui-selves. It was near a little mud
village, of which I forget the name, and several be-
douin tents were on the bank, in one of which 1 was
sitting smoking a pipe. The wind w:vs blowing down
with a fury 1 havi- never seen surpassed in a gale at
sea, bringing with it the light .'^ands of the desert, and
at times covering the river with a thick cloud which
prevented my seeing across it. A clearing U]) for a
moment showed a boat of the largest class, heavily
laden, and coming down with astouishing velocity ; it
was like the tliglit of an enormous bird. She was
under bare poles, but small portions of the sail liad got
loose, and the .Arabs were out on the very ends of the
long spai-s getting them in. One of the boatmen, with
a rope under his arm, had plunged into the river, and
with strong swimming reached the bank, where a hun-
dred men ran to his assistance. Their united strength
turned her bows around, up stream, but nothing could
stop her ; stern foremost she dragged the whole posse
of Arabs to the bank, and broke away from them per-
fectly ungovernable ; whirling around, her bows pitched
into our fleet with a loud crash, tore away several of
the boats, and carrying one off, fast locked as in a
death-grasp, she resumed her headlong course down
the river. They had gone but a few rods, when the
stranger pitched her bows under and went down in a
moment, bearing her helpless compauion also to the
bottom. It was the most exciting incident 1 had seen
upon the river. The violence of the wind, the swift
movement of the boat, the crash, the wild figui'cs of
the .Arabs on shore and on board, one iu a I'ed dress
almost on the top of -the long spar, his turban loose
and streaming in the wind, all formed a strange and
most animating scene. I need scarcely say that no
lives were lost, for an .Arab on the bosom of his beloved
river is as safe as in his mud cabin.

(Jn the 9th the wind was as contrary as ever ; but
between rowing and towing we had managed to crawl
up as far as Minyeh. It was the season of the Rama-
dan, when for thirty days, from the rising to the setting
of the sun, the followers of the Prophet are forbidden
to eat, drink, or even smoke, or take the bath. My
first inquiry was for a bath. It would not be heated
(•r lighted up till eight o'clock ; at eight o'clock I went,
and was surprised to find it .so large and comfortable.
I was not long surprised, however, for I found that no
sooner was tlie sacred prohibition removed, than the
Turks and Ai-abs began to pour in in throngs ; they came
without any respect of persons, the haughty Turk with
his pipe-bearing slave and the poor Arab boatman ;
in short, every one who could raise a few paras.

It was certainly not a verj* select company, nor over
clean, and probably very fi-w Europeans wouhl have
stood the thing as I did. My boatmen were all there.
They were my servants, said the rais, and were bound
to follow me every where. As I was a Frank, and as
such expected to pay fen times as much as any one
else, I had the best place in the bath, at the head of
the great reservoir of hot water. My white skin made
nie a marked object among the swarthy figures lying
around me ; anfl half a dozen of the operatives, lank,
liony ffjlows, and j>erfectly naked, came up and claimcii
me. They s'^ttled it among thems«'lvcs, however, and
gave the preference to a dried-up old man more than
sixty, a perfect living skeleton, who had been more than
forty years a scruliber in the bath, lie took me through
the first process of rubbing with the glove and brush ;
and having thrown over me a copious ablution of warm
water, left me to recover at leisure. I lay on the marble
that formed the border of the reservoir, only two or
three inches above the sui*face of the wat< r, into which
I put my hand and found it excessively hot ; but the

old man, satisfied with his exertion in rubbing mo, sat
on the edge of the reservoir, with his feet and legs
hanging in the water, with every appearance of satis-
faction. Presently he slid ofl" into the water, and, sink-
ing up to his chin, remained so a moment, drew a long
breath, and seemed to look around him with a feeling
of comfort. I had hardly raised myself on my elbow
to look at this phenomenon, before a fine brawny fellow,
who had been lying for some time torpid by my side,
rose slowly, slid off like a turtle, and continued sinkhig,
until he, too, had immersed himself up to his chin. I
ex]ires3ed to him my astonishment at his ability to
endure such heat ; but he told me that he was a boat-
i man, had been ten days coming up from Cairo, and
I was almost frozen, and his only regret was that the
water was not much hotter, lie had hardly answered
me before another and another followed, till all the
dark naked figures around me had vanished. By the
fitful glimmering of the little lamps, all that I could see
was a jiarcel of shaved heads on the surface of the
water, at rest or turning slowly and (|uietly as on pivots.
Most of them seemed to be enjoying it with an air of
quiet dreamy satisfaction ; but the man with whom I
had spoken first, seemed to be carried beyond the
bounds of Mussulman gi'avity. It operated upon him
like a good dinner ; it made him locjuacious, and he
urged me to come in, nay he even became frolicsome ;
and, making a heavy surge, threw a large body of the
water over the marble on which I was lying. I almost
sci'eamed, and started up as if melted lead had beea
poured upon me ; even while standing up, it seemed to
blister the soles of my feet, and I was obliged to keep up
a dancing movement, changing as fast as I could, to the
astonishment of the dozing bathers, and the utter con-
sternation of my would-be friend. Roused too much
to relapse into the quiet luxury of perspiration, I went
into another apartment, of a cooler temperature, where,
after remaining in a bath of moderately warm water, 1
was wrajiped up in hot cloths and towels, and conducted
into the great chamber. Here 1 selected a couch, and,
throwing myseif ujion it, gave myself to the operators,
who now took charge of me, and well did they sustain
the high reputation of a Turkish hath : my arms were
gently laid upon my breast, where the knee of a jiowerful
man jiressed upon them ; my joints were cracked and
l)ulled ; bivck, arms, the palms of the hands, the soles
of the feet, all visited in succession. 1 had been sham-
pooed at Smyrna, Constantinople, and Cairo ; but who
would have thought of being carried to the .seventh
heaven at the little town of Minyeh i The men who had
me in hand were perfect amateurs, enthusiasts, worthy
of rubbing the hide of the sultan himself; and the pipe
and coffee that followed were worthy, too, of that .same
mighty seigneur. The large room was dimly lighted,
and, turn which way I would, there was a naked body,
apparently without a soul, lying torj)id, and tumbled at
will by a couple of workmen. I had had some fears of
the plague ; aii<l Paul, though he felt his fears gi'adiially
disi)elleil by the soothing jiroccss which he underwent
also, to till' last continued to keep particularly clear of
touching any of them. But 1 left the bath a different
man ; all my moral as well as jdiysical strength was
roused ; I no longer drooi)ed or looked back ; and though
the wind was still blowing a hurricane in my teeth, 1
was bent upon Thebes and the Catai'acts.

CHAPTER V,

SporUnR on the Nile— A Recluse.— An Egyptian ITebc— Stout—
A Wdlf-nicc nni(in({ the Tonibo.— Adventure with a Oovirnor.

Januari/ l.'i. — In the morning, the first thing 1 did was
to shoot at a flock of ducks, the next to shoot at a cro-
codile. He was the first I had seen, and was lying on
a sandbank on an island in the middle of the river. 1
might as well li.ave thrown a stone at him, for he was
out of range twice over, and his hard skin would have
laughed at my bird-shot, even if I had hit him ; but I
did what every traveller on the Nile must do, I shot
al a crocodile. I met several travellers, all abundantly

A RECLUSE— AN EGYPTIAN IIEBE.

17

provided with materials, and believe we were about
c'liially successful. I never killed any, nor did they.
During the day the wind abated considerably, and to-
wards evening it was almost calm. My boat rowed as
easily as a barge, and we were approaching Manfaloot.
For some time before reaching it, there is a change in
the appearance of the river.

The general character of the scenery of the Nile is
that of a rich valley, from six to eight or ten miles wide,
divided by the river, and protected on either .side from
the Libyan and Arabian Deserts by two continuous and
parallel ranges of mountains. These arc the strongly
marked and distinguishing features ; and from C'aii'o to
the Cataracts, almost the only variety is that occasioned
by the greater or less distance of these two ranges.
Before approaching Manfaloot they changed their direc-
tion, and on the Arabian side the dark mountains of
Mokattam advanced to the very border of the river.

Here wc began to approach the eternal monuments
of Egyptian industry. For a long distance the high
range of rocky mountain was lined with tombs, tlicir
open doors inviting us to stop and examine them ; but
most" provokingly, now, for the first time since the day
we started, the wind was fair. It had been my pecu-
liarly bad luck to have a continuance of headwinds on a
part of the river where there was nothing to see ; and
ahnost the very moment I came to an object of interest,
t!:e wind became favourable, and was sweeping us along
bvautifully. One of tlie few pieces of advice given me
at Cairo, of which my own observation taught me the
wisdom, was, with a fair wind never to stop going up ;
and though evei-y tomb seemed to reproach me for my
neglect, we went resolutely on.

In one of the tombs lives an old man, who has been
there more than fifty j-ears ; and an old wife, his com-
panion for more than half a century, is there with him.
His children live in Upper Egypt, and once a-ycar they
come to visit their parents. The old man is still hale
and strong ; at night a light is always burning in his
tomb, a basket is constantly let down to receive the
offerings of the charitable, and few travellers, even
among the poor Ar'abs, ever pass without leaving their
mites for the recluse of the sepulchres.

It was dark \vhen we arrived at Manfaloot, but, being
the season of the Ramadan, the Mussulman day had
just begun ; the bazaars were open, and the cook and
coffee shops thronged with Turks and Arabs indem-
nifying themselves for their long abstinence. ^ly boat-
men wanted to stop for the night ; but as 1 would not
stop for my own pleasure at the tombs below, 1 of
course would not stop here for theirs ; and after an
hour or two spent in lounging through the bazaars and
making a few necessary purchases, we were again under
way. .

At about eight o'clock, with a beautiful wind, I sailed
into the harbour of Siout. This is the largest town on
the Nile, and the capital of Upper Egypt. Brighter
prospects now opened upon me. The wind that had
brought us into Siout, and was ready to carry us on
farther, was not the cold and cheerless one that for
more than two weeks had blown in my teeth, but mild,
balmy, and refreshing, raising the drooping head of the
invalid, and making the man in health feel like walking,
ruiming, climbing, or clearing fences on horseback.
Among the bourriquieres who surrounded me the mo-
ment I jumped on the bank, was a beautiful bright-eyed
little Arab girl, about eight years old, leading a donkey,
and flourishing a long stick with a grace that would
have shamed the best pupil of a fashionable dancing-
master. By some accident, moreover, her face and
hands were clean, and she seemed to be a general fa-
vourite among her ragged companions, who fell back
with a gallantry and politeness that would have dom'
honour to the ballroom of the dancing-master aforesaid.
Leavinn- her without a competitor, they deprived me
of the pleasure of showing my preference ; and putting
myself under her guidance, I followed her nimble little
feet on the road to Siout. I make special mention of
this little gii-1, because it is a rare thing to see an Egyp-

B

tian child in whom one can take any interest. It was
the only time such a tiling ever occurred to me ; and
really she exhibited so much beauty and grace, such a
mild, open, and engaging expression, and such propriety
of behaviour, as she walked by my side, urging on the
donkey, and looking up in my face when I asked her a
question, that 1 felt asiiamed'of myself for riding while
she walked. But, tender and delicate as she looked,
she would have walked by the side of her donkey, and
tired down the strongest man. She was, of coui-se, the
child of poor parents, of whom the donkey was the chief
support. The father had been in the habit of going out
with it himself, and frequently taking the little girl with
hint as a companion. As she grew up, she went out
occasionally alone, and even among the Turks her in-
teresting little figure made her a favourite ; and when
all the other donkeys were idle, hers was sure to bo
engaged. This, and many other things, I learned from
her own pretty little Ifps on my way to Siout.

Siout stands about a mile and a half from the river,
in one of the richest valleys of the Nile. At the season
of inundation, when the river rolls down in all its
majesty, the whole intermediate country is ovei-flowed ;
and boats of the largest size, steering their course over
the waste of waters by the projecting tops of the palm-
trees, come to anchor under the walls of the city. A
high causeway from the river to the city crosses the
plain, a comparatively unknown and unnoticed, but
stupendous work, which for more than .3000 years has
resisted the headlong current of the Nile at its highest,
and now stands, like the pyramids, not so striking, but
an equally enduring, and perhaps more really wonder-
ful, monument of Egyptian labour. A short distance
before reaching the city, on the right, are the handsome
palace and garden of Ibrahim Pach.a. A stream winds
through the valley, crossed by a stone bridge, and over
this is the entrance-gate of the city. The governor's
palace, the most imposing and best structure I had seen
since the citadel at Cairo, standing first within the walls,
seemed like a warder at the door.

'J'he large courtyard befoi-e the door of the palace
contained a group of idlers, mostly officers of the house-
hold, all well armed, and carrying themselves with
the usual air of Turkish conceit and insolence. Sitting
on one side, with large turbans and long robes, un-
armed, and with the largo brass inkhorn by their sides,
the badge of their peaceful and inferior, if not degrad-
ing profession, was a row of Copts, calling themselves,
and believed to be, the descendants of the ancient
Egyptians, having, as they say, preserved their blood
intact during all the changes of their country. Boasting
the blood of the ancient Egyptians, with the ruins of
the mighty temples in which they worshipped, and
the mighty tombs in which they were buried, staring
them in the face, they were sitting on the bare earth
at the door of a petty delegate of a foreign master, a
race of degraded beggars, lifeless and soulless, content
to receive, as a grace from the hands of a tyrant, the
wretched privilege of living as slaves in the land where
their fathers reigned as masters.

I do not believe that the contents of all the bazaars
in Siout, one of the largest towns in Egypt, were worth
as much as the stock of an ordinary dealer in dry goods
in Broadway. But these are not the things for which
the traveller stops at Siout. On the lofty mountains
overlooi;ing this richest valley of the Nile, and pro-
tecting it from the Libyan Desert, is a long range of
tombs, the burial-place of the ancient Egyptians ; and
looking for a moment at the little Mahommcdan bui-y-
ing-ground, the traveller turns with wonder from the
little city he has left, and asks, Where is the great city
which had its graves in the sides of yonder niountains ?
Where are the people who despised the earth as a burial-
place, and made for themselves tombs in the eternal
granite ?

The mountain is about as far from the city as the river,
and the approach to it is by another strong causeway
over the same beautiful plain. Leaving our donkeys at
its foot, and following the nimble footsteps of my little

18

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

Arab girl, wo climlicd by a steep ascent to the first
range of tombs. Tliey were tlie iir.st I had seen, and
are but little visited by travellers ; and tliougli I after-
wards s;iw all that were in Egypt, I still consider these
well worth a visit. Of the fii*st we entered, the entrance
chamber was perhaps forty feet square, and adjoining
it, in the same i"ange, were five or si.K others, of which
the entrance-chambers had about the same dimensions.
The ceilings were covered with paintings, finished
with exquisite taste and delicacy, and in some places
)Vi'-h as if just executed ; and on the walls were hiero-
glyphics enough to fill volumes. Behind the principal
eiiamber were five or six others nearly as largo, with
sm.aller ones on each side, and running back perhaps
150 feet. Tho back chambers were so dark, and their
atmosphere was so unwholesome, that it was unplea-
sant, and perhaps unsafe, to explore them ; if we went
in far, there was ahv.ays a loud rushing noise, and, as
I'aiil suggested, their innermost recesses might now
bo tho auode of wild beasts. Wishing to see what
caused the noise, and at the same time to keep out of
liarm's way, we stationed ourselves near tho back-door
of the entrance chamber, and I fired my gun within ;
a stream of firo lighted up the dai'kness of the sepul-
chral chamber, and the report went grumbling and
roaring into tho innermost recesses, rousing their
occupants to phreusy. There was a noise hke the
rushing of a strong wind ; tlio light was dashed from
I'aul's hand ; a soft skinny substance struck against
my face ; and thousands of bats, wild with fright, came
w hizzing forth from every part of the tomb to the only
avenue of escape. We threw ourselves down, and
allowed the ugly frightened birds to pass over us, and
then hurried out oiu-selves. For a moment I felt guilty ;
the beastly birds, driven to the light of day, wex'o
dazzled by the glorious sun, and, flying and whirling
blindly about, were dashing themselves against the
rocky side of the mountain, and falling dead at its base.
Cured of all wish to explore very deeply, but at the
same time relieved from all fears, wo continued going
from tomb to tomb, looking at the pictures on the walls,
endeavouring to make out the details, admiring the
beautyandfreshneasof the colours, and speculating upon
the mysterious hicroglypliics which mocked our feeble
knowledge. We were in one of tho last when we were
nUxrtled by a noise dirterent from any wo had yet hoard,
and from the door leading to tho dark recesses within,
foaming, roaring, and gnashing his teeth, out ran an
enormous wolf : close upon his lieels, in hot pursuit,
came another, and almost at tho door of the tomb they
•.Tnnplod, fought, growled fearfully, rolled over, and
:• . Ill the first broke loose and fled ; another chase along
untain, another grapple, a fierce and
■, and they rolletl over the side, and
•I them. Tho whole aflitir had been so

■ •one .so stirring, and the interest so keen,
ii, t I'aul and I had stood like st.itncs, our whole souls
tiii'iuni into our eyes, and following the movements of
tlie furious beasts. Paul was the first to recover him-
self ; and as soon as tho wolves were fairly out of sight,
with a characteristic movement, suddenly took the gun
out of my hand, and started in pursuit, it Ls needless
ti( ".ny that lie ilid not go far.

Unt t!' ► of the day was not yet over. Wliile

'^'■■'^' I"'-' • edge of the mouittain, in spite of

ill taking another and another look,

1 idcnly struck with a loud voice of

Mtation con)ing up from tho valley below ; and

l.j ..,ing in tho direction of the city, I paw approaching

over tiio olevat«'d causeway a long funeral procession,

" ' *' came from tho i ■ . following the

V were evidently . ilio Mahom-

Mtnin ; and
,'yptians to
'irial of oue wlio but yesterday was a dweller
' 'id.

Uemg far bevond the regular path for descending,
and winhing to intercept the procession before its ar-
rival at the burjing-ground, I had something like the

wolf-raco I liad Jiisf beheld to get down hi time; un-
hickily, I had sent Paul back to the place where we had
left our cloaks and donkeys, and the little girl, with
directions to ride round the foot of the hill and moot
mc at the burying-ground. J low I got down I do not
know ; but I was quietly sitting under a large palm-
tree near the cemetery when the procession came up.
It approached with funeral banners and devices which
I could not mako out, but probably containing some
precept of tho Koran, liaving reference to death, and
the gi'ave, and a paradise of houris ; and tho loud
wailing which had reached mo on the top of tho moun-
tain, hero was almost deafening. Fii'st in the strange
procession came tho beggars, or santons, men who are
supposed to lead peculiarly pure and holy lives, deny-
ing themselves all luxuries and pleasures, labouringnot,
and taking no heed for themselves what they shall cat
or what they shall drink, and living upon the willing,
though necessarily stinted charity, of their miserable
countrymon. I could road all this at the first glance;
I could see that poverty had been their portion through
life ; that they had drunk tho bitter cup to its very
dregs. Their beards were long, white, and grizzled ;
over their shoulders and breasts they wore a scanty
covering of r.ags, fastened together with strings, and all
with some regard to propriety. This ragged patchwork
covered their breasts and shoulders only, the rest of
their bodies being entirely naked, and they led the
funeral procession among a throng of spectators, with
heads erect and proud step, under what, any where
else, would be called an indecent and shanieless expo-
sure of person, unbecoming their character as saints or
holy beggars. Over their shoulders were slung by ropes
large jars of water, which for charity's sweet sake, and
for the love of the soul of the deceased, they carried to
distribute gratis at his grave. After them came a
parcel of boys, then the sheiks and two otticers of tho
town, then the corpse, tightly wrapped from head to
foot in a red sash, on abler carried by four men ; then
a procession of men, and more than a hundred women
in long cotton dresses, covering their heads and drawn
over their faces, so as to hide all except their eyes.

These were the last, but by no means tho least im-
portant part of tho procession, as, by general consent,
the whole business of mourning devolved upon them ;
and tho poor Arab who was then being trundled to his
grave, had no reason to complain of their neglect.
Smiles and tears are a woman's wca])ons ; and she is
the most to be admired, and has profited most by tho
advantage of education, who knows how to make tho
best use of them. Education and refinement can no
doubt do wonders ; but the most skilful lady in civilised
life might have taken lessons from these untutored
Egyptians. A group of them were standing near me,
chattering and langiiing until tho procession came up,
when all at once big tears started from their eyes, ami
their cries and lamentations rent the air as if their
hearts were breaking. 1 was curious to see the form
of a modern burial in Eg}"pt, but I hesitated in follow-
ing. Some of the Arabs had looked rudely at me in
passing, and I did not know whether the bigoted Mus-
sulmans would toh rate tho intrusion of a stranger and
a Christian. I followed on, however, looking out for
Paul, and fortunately met him at the gate of the bury-
ing-ground. The sheik was standing outside, ordering
and arranging ; and I went up to him with Paul, and
asked if there were any objection to my entering ; ho
not only permitted it, but, telling me to follow him,
with a good deal of noise and an unceremonious use of
tho scabbard of his sword, he cleared a way through
the crowd ; and even roughly breaking through tho
ranks of the women, so as materially to disturb their
business of mourning, and putting back friends and
relations, gave me a place at the head of the tomb. It
was square, with a round top, built of Nile mud, and
whitewashed ; two men were engaged in opening it,
which was done simply by pulling away a few stones,
and scooping out the sand with their hands. In front,
but a few feet from the door, eat the old moth.er, »o old

ADVENTURE AVITH A GOVERNOR.

19

as to be liardly conscious of what was passing around
her, and probably, long before this, buried in the same
grave ; near her was the widow of the deceased, dressed
in sillv, and sitting on the bare earth willi an air of total
abaudonment ; her hands, her breast, the top of her
head and her face, plastered with thick coats of mud,
and her eyes fixed upon the door of the tomb. A few
stones remained to bo rolled away, and the door, or
rather the hole, was opened ; the two men crawled in,
remained a minute or two, came out, and went for the
corpse. The poor widow followed them with her eyes,
and when they returned with the body, carefully and
slowly dragging it within the tomb, and the feet and
the body had disappeared, and the beloved head was
about to be shut for ever from her eyes, she sprang up,
and passionately throwing her arms towards the tomb,
broke forth in a perfect phrensy of grief. " Twenty years
we have lived together ; we have always lived happily ;
you loved me, you were kind to nic, you gave me bread ;
wjiat shall I do now? I will never marry again.
Every day I will come and weep at your tomb, my love,
my life, my soul, my heart, my eyes. Remember me
to my father, remember me to my brother," &c, &c.
I do not remember half she said ; but as Paul translated
it to me, it seemed the vei-y soul of pathos ; and all this
time she was walking distractedly before the door of
the tomb, wringing her hands, and again and again
plastering her face and breast with mud. The moui-u-
ing women occasionally joined in chorus, the simtons
ostentatiously crying out, " Water, for the love of God
and the Prophet, and the soul of the deceased ;" and
a little girl about seven or eight years old was standing
on the top of the tomb, naked as she was born, eating
a piece of sugai' cane. Paul looked rather suspiciously
upon the whole aft'aii", particularly upon that part where
she avowed her determination never to many again.
" The old Beelzebub," said he ; " she will marry to-mor-
row, if any one asks her."

Leaving the burying ground, we returned to Siout.
On my way I made acquaintance with the governor,
not only of that place, but also of all Upper Egypt, a
pacha with two or three tails ; a great man by virtue
of his office, and much greater in his own conceit. I
saw coming towards me a large, fine-looking man,
splendidly dressed, mounted on a fine horse, with two
runners before him, and several officers and slaves at
his side. I was rather struck with his appearance, and
looked at him attentively as I passed, without, however,
saluting him, which I would have done had I known
his rank. I thought ho returned my gaze with interest ;
and, in passing, each continued to keep his eyes fixed
upon the otljer, to such a degree that we must either
have twisted our necks off" or turned our bodies. The
latter was the easier for both ; and we kept turning,
he on horseback and I on foot, until we found ourselves
directly facing each other, and then both stopped. His
guards and attendants tm-ned with him, and, silent as
statues, stood looking at me. I had nothing to say,
and so I stood and said nothing. Ilis mightiness opened
his lips, and his myrmidons, with their hands on their
sword-hilts, looked as if they expected an order to deal
with me for my unparalleled assurance. His mighti-
ness spoke, and I have no doubt but the Turks around
him thought it was the ne plus ultra of dignity, and
wondered such words had not confounded me. Jiut it
was not very easy to confound me with words I could
not understand, although I could perceive that there
was nothing very gracious in his manner. Paul an-
swered, and, after the governor had turned his back,
told me that his fix-st address was, " Do I owe you any
tlung ?" which he followed up by slapping his horse on
the neck, and saying, in the same tone, "Is this your
horse ?" Paul says that he answered in a tone of equal
dignity, " A cat may look at a king ;" though, from his
pale cheeks and quivering lips, I am inclined to doubt
whether he gave so doughty a reply.

I was exceedingly amused at the particulars of the
interview, and immediately resolved to cultivate the
^quaiutance. During the long days and nights of my

voyage up the Nilo, in poring over my books and mai)3,
I had frequently found my attention lixed upon the
great Oasis in the Libyjui Desert. A Ciu-avan road runs
through it from Siout, and 1 resolved, since I had had
the pleasure of ono interview witii his excellency, to
learn from him the p.irticulars of time, danger, &c. I
therefore hurried down to the boat for my lirman, and,
strong in this as if I had the pacha at my right hand,
I proceeded forthwith to the palace ; but my friend ob-
served as much state in giving audience as the pacha
himself. Being the season of the Ramadan, he received
nobody on business until after the evcuijig meal, and
so my purpose was defeated. Several were already
assembled at the gate, waiting the appointed hour j but
it did not suit my humour to sit down with them and
exercise my patience, and perhaps feel the littleness of
Turkish tyranny in bemg kept to the kist, so 1 marched
back to my boat.

It was still an hour before sunset ; my men had laid
in their stock of bread, the wind was fair, a boat of the
largest size, belonging to a Turkish officer, with a long
red satin tlag, was just opening her large sails to go up
the river, and bidding good-bye to my little Ai'ab girl,
we cast off our fastening to the bank at Siout. It was
the first day I had speut on shore in the legitimate
business of a tourist, and by far the most pleasant since
I left Cairo.

CHAPTER VI.

Small Favoxirs th.-uikfully received.— Slavery in Egj-pt.— How to
catch a Crocodile. — An elaborate Joke. — Imaginary Perils-
Arabs not so bad as they might be.

The next day, at about four o'clock, we arrived at
Djiddeh, formerly the capital of Upper Egypt, and
the largest town on the Nile. My humour for going
to the Oasis had been growing upon me, and, finding
that there was a track from this place also, I lauded, ,
and working my way through the streets and bazaars,
went to the governor's palace. As I before remarked,
the place where the governor lives is always, by extra-
ordinary courtesy, called a palace.

Tlie governor was not at home ; he had gone to Siout,
on a visit to my handsome friend tho governor there,
but he had left his deputy, who gave us such an account
of the journey and its perils as almost put an end to it
for ever, at least so far as Paul was concerned. Ho
sjiid that the road was dangerous, and could not be
travelled except under tho protection of a caravan or
guard of soldiers ; that the Ar.ibs among the mountains
were a fierce and desperate people, and would certainly
cut the throats of any unprotected travellers. He added,
however, that a caravan was about forming, wiiich
would probably be ready in four or five days, and that,
perhaps, before that time, the governor would return
and give me a guard of soldiers. It did not suit my
views to wait the uncertain movements of a caravan,
nor did it suit my pocket to incur the expense of a
guard. So, thanking the gentleman for his civility (ho
had given us pipes and coffee, as usual), I baile him
good-bye, and started for my boat ; but 1 had not gone
far before I found him trotting at my heels. In tho
palace he had sat with his legs crossed, with as nuicli
dignity as the governor himself could have dispLaycd ;
but as soon as he slid down fi-om tho divan, he seemed
to have left dignity for his betters, and pounced upon
Paul for " bucksheesh." I gave him five piastera (about
equal to a quarter of a dollar), for which the deputy of
the governor of Djiddeh, formerly the capital of Upper
Egypt, laid his hand upon his heart, and invoked upon
my liead tlie blessing of Allah and the prophet.

At Djiddeh, for tlie first time, I s.aw carried on one
of the great branches of trade on the Nile, a trade
which once stained the annals of our own couutrj', and
the fatal effects of which we still continue to experience.
There were two large boat-loads — perhaps 500 or 600
slaves — collected at Dongola and Senaar, probably
bought from their parents for a shawl, a string of beads,
or some trifling article of necessity. Born under the

20

TRAVELS IX EGVrT.

burning sun of the tropics, several of tlieui had died of
cold even before reachinfj the latitude of Lower Egypt ;
many were sick, and otlu-i-s dying. Tliey were arranged
on board the boats and on the banks in separate groups,
according to their state of health. Among them was
everv vai-ietv of face and complexion, anil it was at once
startling and painful to note the gradations of man
descending to tlie brute. I could almost sec the very
line of sejiaralion. Tliongh made in God's image, there
seenied no ray of the divinity within them. They did
not move upon all-fours, it is true, but they s;it, as I
had seen them in the slave-market at Cairo, perfectly
naked, with their long arms wound round their legs,
and their chins resting upon their knees, precisely as
wo see monkeys, baboons, and apes ; and as, while look-
ing at these miserable caricatures of our race, 1 have
sometimes been almost electrified by a transient gleam
of resemblance to humanity, so here I was struck w ith
the closeness of man's approach to the inferior grade
of animal existence. Nor was tliei'e much difiercnce
between the sick and well ; the sick were more pitialjle,
for they seemed doomed to die, and death to any thing
that lives is terrible ; but tlie strong and lusty, men
and women, were bathing in the river; and when they
came out tliey smeared themselves with oil, and laid
their shining bodies in the sun, and slept like brutes.
To such as these, slavery to the Turk is not a bitter
draught ; philantliropists may refine and speculate, and
liberals declaim, but what is liberty to men dying for
bread, and what hardship is there in being sejuirated
from the parents who have sold them, or doomed to
labour where that labour is light compared with what
they must endure at home ?

In the East slavery exists now precisely as it did in
the days of the patriarchs. The slave is received into
the family of a Turk in a relation more confidential and
respectable than that of an ordinary domestic ; and
when liberated, which very often happens, stands upon
the bame footing with a free man. Tlie curse does not
rest upon him for ever ; he may sit at the same board,
dip his hand in the .same dish, and, if there are no other
impediments, may marry his master's daugiiter.

in the evening we left Djiddeh, and about ten o'clock
liauled up to the bank, and rested rjuietly till morning.
Next day the wind wiu^ fair, but light, and I pa.ssed it
on shore with my gun. This same gun, by the way,
proved a better companion to me on my journey than
I had expected. There were always plenty of j)igeons ;
indeed, advancing in Upper Egypt, one of the most
striking features in the villages on the Nile is the num-
ber of pigeon-cots, Ijuilt of nmd in the form of a sugar-
loaf, and whitewashed. They are much more lofty
than any of the liouscs, and their winged tenants con-
stitute a great portion of the wealth of the villagers.
It is not, however, allowable to shoot at these, the laws
regulating the right of property in animals/frtc nainuc
being as wi-U establi.-<hed on the banks of the Nile as at
Westminst'T Hall ; but there are hiuidivds of pigeons
in tlie neighbourhood of every village which no one
claimfl. In .some places, too, thi.re is tine sport in hunt-
ing hares ; ami if a man can bring himself to it, ho
may hunt the gazelle ; and almost the whole lino of the
river, nt least above Siout, abounds w-ith ducks and
geese. These, however, are very wild, and, moreover,
■very tough ; and, except for the sport, are not worth
shooting. No keeping and no cooking could make them
tender, and good ma.sticators were thrown away ui)on
them.

I3nt the standing shots on the Nile arc crocodiles and
pelicani. The former .still alwund, as in the days when
the Egyptian won<hippcd tlu'in ; and as you sec one
basking in the sun, on .some little bank of sand, even
in the act of firing at him, you cannot help going back
to the time when the pa.v«ing Egyptian would have
bowed to him as to a god ; and yon may imagine tlu!
descendant of the ancient river-god, as he feels a ball
r.Attling against liis scaly side, invoking the shades of his
departed worshipjters, telling his little ones of the glory
of ills ancestors, aud cursing the march of improvement.

which has degraded him from the deity of a mighty
])eo]de into a target for strolling tourists. I always
hked to see a ci'ocodile upon the Nile, and always took
a shot at him, for the sake of the associations. In one
place I counted in sight at one time twenty-one, a de-
gree of fruitfulness in the river probably eijual to that
of tho time when each of them would have been deemed
worthy of a temple while living, and embalmment and
a mighty tomb when dead.

Wliile walking by the river-side, I met an Arab with
a gun in his hand, who jiointed to the dozing crocodiles
on a hank before us, and, marking out a space on the
ground, turned to the village a little back, and made
me understand that he had a large crocodile there. As
I was some distance in advance of my boat, 1 accom-
panied him, and found one fourteen feet long, stuffed
with straw, and hanging under a palm-tree. He had
been killed two days before, after a desperate resistance,
having been disabled with bullets, and pierced with
spears in a dozen places. I looked at him with interest
and eom]iassion, rellecting on the difference between
his treatment and that exi)erienccd by his ancestors,
but nevertheless o]>ened a negotiation for a jmrchase ;
and though our languages were as far apart as our
countries, bargain sharpens the intellect to such a de-
gree that the Arab and I soon came to an understand-
ing, and I bought liim as he hung, for forty jiiasters and
a charge of gunpowder. I had conceived a joke for my
own amusement. A friend had requested me to buy
for him some mosaics, cameos, &c., in Italy, which
circumstances had prevented me from doing, and 1 had
written to him, regretting my inability, and felling him
that I was going to Egypt, and would send him a
mummy or a pyramid; and when I saw tho scaly
monster hanging by the tail, with his large jaws dis-
tended by a stick, it struck me that he would make a
still better substitute for cameos and mosaics, and that
I would box him up, and, without any advice, send him
to my frieiKl.

The reader may judge how desperately I was pushed
for amusement, when 1 tell him that I chuckled greatly
over this happy conceit ; and having sent my Nubian
to hail the boat as she was coming by, J followed with
my little memorial. The whole village turned out to
escort us, more than a hundred Arabs, men, women, and
children, and we dragged him down with a pomp and
eii'cumstance worthy of his better days. Paid looked
a little astonished when he saw me with a ro]ie over
my shoulder, leading the van of this ragged escort, and
rather turned up his nose wlien 1 told Inm my joke. I
had great difficulty in getting my prize on board, and,
when I got him there, ho deranged every thing else ;
but the first day I was so tickled that I could have
thrown all my otiier cargo overboard rather than liini.
The second day the joke was not so good, and the third
I grew tired of it, and tumbled my crocodile into the
river. 1 followed him with my eye as his body floated
down the stream ; it waa moonlight, and the cre;iking
of the water-wheel on the banks sounded like the moan-
ing spirit of an ancient Egyi>tian, indignant at the
murder and i>rofanation of his god. It was, perhaps,
liardly worth while to mention this little circumstance,
but it amused me for a day or two, brought me into
nuMital contact with my friends at home, and gave me
the credit of having myself shot a crocodile, any one of
which was worth all the tremble it cost me. \i the
reader will excuse a bad ptin, in consideration of its
being my first aud last, it was not a rfry joke ; for in
getting the crocodile on board I timibled over, and,
very unintentionally on my part, had a January bath
in the Nile.

During nearly the whole of that day, I was walking
on the bank of the river; there was more tillalde land
than usual on tho Arabian side, and I continually saw
the Arabs, naked or with a wreath of gra.ss around
their loins, drawing water to irrigate the ground, in a
ba.sket fastened to a pole, like one of our old-fashioned
well-poles.

Ou the 17th wc approached Dendera. I usually

TEMPLE OF DENDERA.

21

dined at one o'clock, because it was then too hot to go
on shore, and also, to tell the truth, because it served
to break the very long and tedious day. I was now
about four hours from Dendera by land, of which two
and a half were desert, the Libyan sands here euniing
down to the river. It was a tine afternoon, there was
no wind, and I hoped, by walking, to have a view of
the great teiuple before niglit. It was warm enough
tlien ; but as it regularly became very cold towards
evening, I told my Nubian to follow nie with my cloak.
To my surprise, he objected. It was the first time he
had done so. He was always glad to go ashore w itli me,
as indeed were they all, and it was considered that I
was showing partiality in always selecting him. I asked
one of the others, and found that he, and in fact all of
them, made objections, on the ground that it was a
dangerous road.

This is one of the things that vex a traveller in
Egypt, and in the East generally. He will often find
tlie road which he wishes to travel a dangerous one,
and, though no misadventure may have happened on
it for years, he will find it impossible to get his Arabs
to accompany him. My rais took the matter in hand,
began kicking them ashore, and swore they should all
go. This I W()uld not allow. 1 knew that the whole
course of the Nile was safe as the streets of London ;
that no accident had happened to a traveller since the
pacha had been ou the throne ; and that women and
cliildrcn might travel with perfect safety from Alex-
andria to the Cataracts ; and, vexed with their idle
fears, after whipping Paul over their shouldei's, who I
saw was quite as much infected as any of them, I went
ashore alone. Paul seemed quietly making up his
mind for some desperate movement ; without a word,
he was arranging the' things about the boat, shutting
up the doors of the cabin, buttoning his coat, and with
my cloak under his arm and a sword in his hand, he
jumped asliore and followed mo. He had not gone far,
however, before liis courage began to fail. The Arabs,
whom we found at theu" daily htbour drawing water,
seemed particularly black, naked, and hairy. They gave
dubious arid suspicious answers, and when we came to
the edge of the desert, he began to grumble outright ;
he did not want to be shot down like a dog ; if we were
strong enough to make a stout resistance, it would be
another thing, &c. &c. In truth, the scene before us
was dreary enough, the desert commencing on the very
margin of the river, and running back to the eternal
sands of Africa. Paul's courage seemed to be going
with the green soil we were leaving behind us ; and as
we advanced where the grass seemed struggling to re-
sist the encroachments of the desert, he was on the
point of yielding to the terror of his own imagination,
until I suggested to him that we could see before us
the whole extent of desert we were to cross ; that
there was not a shrub or bush to interrupt the view,
and not a living thing moving that could do us harm. He
theu began to revive ; it was not for himself, but for
me he feared. VV'e walked on for about an hour, when,
feeling that it was safe to trust me alone, and being
tired, he sat down on the bank, and I proceeded. Fear
is infectious. In about half an hour more I met three
men, who had to me a peculiarly cut-throat appearance;
they spoke, but I, of course, could not understand them.
At length, finding night approaching, I turned back to
meet the boat, and saw that the three Arabs had turned
too, and were again advancing to meet me, which I
thought a very suspicious movement. Paul's ridiculous
fears had coinpletely infected me, and I would have
dodged them if I could ; but there was no bush to hide
behind. I almost bluslied at myself for thinking of
dodging three Arabs, when 1 had a double-barrelled
gun in my hand and a pair of pistols in my sash ; but
I nmst say I was not at all sorry, before I met them
again, to hear Paul shouting to me, and a moment
after to see my boat coming up under full sail.

One who has never met an Arab in the desert, can
have no conception of his terrible appearance. The
worst pictures of the Italian bandits or Greek moun-

tain robbers I over saw are fame in comparison. I
have seen the celfbrated Gasperini, who ten years ago
kept in terror the whole country between Home and
Naples, and wjio was so strong as to negotiate and
make a treaty with the jiope. 1 saw him surrounded
by nearly twenty of his comrades ; and when he told
me he could not remember how many nmrders lie had
committed, he looked civil and harndcss compared with
a Bedouin of the desert. The swarthy complexion of the
latter, his long beard, ids piercing coal-black eyes, lialf-
naked figure, an enonnous sword shmg over ids back,
and a rusty matchlock in liis hand, make the best
figure for a painter I ever saw ; but, happily, he is not
so bad as lie looks to be.

CHAPTER VII.

The Temple of Dendera.— Practice .ic;ninst Theory — Uegulaliiiij
the Sun. — The I'rencli at Thebes. — The Cuine of Pharaoh. — An
Egyptian Tournament.— Preparations for Dinner. — An KnglinU
travelling Lady.

Sunday, January 18 At eight o'clock in tlie morning

we arrived at Ghenneh, where, leaving my boat and
crew to make a few additions to our stock, Paul and I
cro.ssed over in a sort of ferry-boat to Dendera.

The temple of Dendera is one of the finest specimens
of the arts in Egypt, and the best preserved of any on
the Nile. It stands about a mile from the river, on
the edge of the desert, and coming up, may be seen at
a great distance. The temples of the Egyptians, like
the chapels in Catholic countries, in many instances
stand in such positions as to arrest the attention of the
passer-by ; and the Egyptian boatman, long licforc he
reached it, might see the open doors of the temple of
Dendera, reminding him of his duty to the gods of Ins
country. I shall not attem))t any description of this
beautiful temple ; its great dimensions, its magnificent
propylon or gateway, portico, and columns ; the sculp-
tured figures on the walls ; the spirit of the devices, and
their adnurable execution ; the winged globe and the
sacred vulture ; the hawk and the ibis, Isis, Osiris, and
liorus, gods, goddesses, priests, and women ; harp.s,
altars, and people clapping their hands; and the whole
interior covered with hieroglyphics and i)aintings, in
some places, after a lapse of more than '2000 years, in
colours fresh as if but the work of yesterday.

It was the first temple I had seen in Egypt ; and
although I ought not perhaps to siiy so, 1 was disap-
pointed. I found it beautiful, far more beautiful than
I expected ; but look at it as I would, wander around
it as I would, the ruins of the Acropolis at Athens rose
before me ; the severe and stately form of the Parthe-
non; the beautiful fragment of the tcmplo of Minerva,
and the rich Corinthian columns of the temple of
Jupiter, came upon me with a clearness and vividness
I could not have conceived. The temple is more than
half buried in the sand. For many years it has formed
the nucleus of a village. The Arabs have built their
huts within and around it, range upon range, until
they reached and almost covered the tops of the temple.
Last year, for what cause I know not, they left their
huts in a body, and the village, which for jnany years
had existed there, is now entirely deserted. The ruined
huts still remain around the colunms and against the
broken walls. On the very top is a chamber, beauti-
fully sculptured, and formed for other uses, now black-
ened with smoke, and the polished floors sti'ewed with
fragments of pottery and culinary vessels.

Nor is this the worst affliction of the traveller at
Dendera. He sees there other ruins, more lamentable
than the encroachments of the desert and the burial
in the sand, worse than the building and ruin of suc-
cessive Arab villages; he sees wanton destruction by
the barbarous hand of man. The beautiful columns,
upon which the skilful and industrious Egyptian artist
had laboured witli his chisel for months, and perhaps
for years, which were then looked upon witlr religious
reverence, and ever since with admiration, have been

22

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

dashed into a thousand pieces, to build bridges and forts
for tlic givat modern reformer.

It is strange how the organ of mischief developes
itself when it has something to work upon. I sat
down upon the sculptured fragments of a column,
which perhaps at this moment forms the abutment of
some bridge, and, looking at the wreck around me,
even while admiring and almost reverencing the noble
ruin, began breaking off the beautifully chiselled figure
of a hawk, and perhaps in ten minutes had demo-
lished the work of a year. I felt that I was doing
wrong, but excused myself by tlie plea that I was
destroj-ing to preserve, and saving that precious frag-
ment from the ruin to which it was doomed, to show
at home as a specimen of the skill of the Old World.
So far I did well enough ; but I went farther. I was
looking intently, though almost unconsciously, at a
pigeon on the head of Isis, the capital of one of the
front columns of the temple. It was a beautiful shot ;
it could not have been liner if the temple had been
built expressly to shoot pigeons from. I lired : the shot
went smack into the beautifully sculptured face of the
goddess, and put out one of her eyes ; the pigeon fell
at the foot of the column, and while the goddess seemed
to weep over her fallen state, and to reproach me for
this renewed insult to herself and to the ai"ts, I picked
up the bird and returned to my boat.

On board I had constantly a fund of amusement in
the movements of my Arab crew. During the Rama-
dan, a period of thirty days, no good Mussulman eats,
drinks, or smokes, from the rising to the setting of the
Bun. My men religiously observed this severe requi-
sition of the Koran, although sometimes they were at
work at the oar under a burning sun nearly all day.
They could form a pretty shrewd conjecture as to the
time of the setting of the sun, but nevertheless they fell
into the habit of regulating themselves by my watch,
and I did not think the Prophet would be p.articulaily
hard upon them if I sometimes brought the day to a
close half an hour or so before its time. Sometimes I
was rather too liberal ; but out of respect for me they
considered the sun set when I told them it was ; and it
was interesting to see them regularly every evening,
one after another, mount the upper deck, and, spread-
ing out their cloaks, with their faces towards the tomb
of the Prophet, kneel down and pray.

On the 20th, the wind was light but favour.ablo, and
part of the time the men were on shore towing with the
cords. We were now approaching the most interest-
ing spot on the Nile, perhaps in the world. Thebes,
immortal Thebes, was before us, and a few hours more
would place us among her ruins. Towards noon the
wind died away, and left us again to the slow move-
ment of the tow line. This was too slow for my then
excited humour. I could not bear that the sun should
again set before I stood among the ruins of the mighty
City ; and landing on the right side of the river, 1 set
out to walk. About an hour before dark the lofty
columns of the great temple at Luxor, and tho still
greater of Camac, were visible. 'Die glowing descrip-
tions of travellers had to a certain extent inflamed my
imagination. Denon, in his account of the expedition
to I lys, that when the French soldiers fii-st

cai t of Thebes, tho whole army involuntarily

tliri-A down their nnns and stood in silent admiration —
a sublime idea, wh<thcr true or not ; but I am inclined
to think that the French soldiers would have thrown
down their arms, and clapped their hands with much
greater satisfaction, if they had seen a living city and
prospect of good quarters. For my o\vn part, w ithout
at this moment referring to particulars, I was disap-
pointed in tlio first view of the ruins of Thebes. Wo
walked on the risht sido of tho river, the valley, as
usual, runnii • -•-•rt.

It «.i.s ni . ■ arrived at the ruined

village, which now occupit s p-ort of the site of the once
magniticcnt city. The plough has been driven over
the ruins of the temples, and grass was growing where
palaces had stood. A single boat was lying along the

bank — a single flag, the red cross of England, was
drooping lazily against tho mast ; and though it be
death to my reputation as a sentimental traveller, at
that moment I hailed the sight of that flag with more
iutci'cst than the ruined city. Since I left Cairo I had
seen nothing but Arabs ; "for three weeks I had not
opened my lijis except to Paul ; and let me tell the
reader, that though a man may take a certain degree
of pleasure in travelling in strange and out-of-the-way
places, he cannot forget the world he has left behind
him. In a land of comparative savages, he hails the
citizen of any civilised country as his brother ; and
when on tho bank of the river I w.as accosted in my
native tongue by a strapping fellow in a Tui'kish dress,
though in the broken accents of a Sicilian servant, I
thought it the purest English I had ever heard. I
went on board the boat, and found two gentlemen, of
whom I had heard at Cairo, who had been to Mount
Sinai, from thence to Hor, by the Red Sea to Cosseir,
and thence across the desert to Thebes, where they
had only arrived that day. I sat with them till a late
hour. I cannot flatter myself that the evening passed
as agreeably to them as to me, for they had been a party
of six, and I alone ; but I saw them afterwards, and
our acquaintance ripened into intimacy ; and though
our lots are cast in difierent places, and we shall pro-
bably never meet again, if 1 do not deceive myself,
heither will ever forget the acquaintance formed that
night on the banks of the Nile.

Our conversation during the evening was desul-
tory and various. We mounted the pyramids, sat
down among the ruins of temples, groped among
tombs, and, mixed up with these higher matters,
touched incidentally upon rats, fleas, and all kinds of
vermin. I say we touched incidentally upon these
things ; but, to tell the truth, we talked bo much about
them, that when I went to my boat, I fairly crawled.
I have omitted to mention that the cui-se provoked by
Pharaoh still rests upon the land, and that rats, fleas,
and all those detestable animals into which Aaron con-
verted the sands, are still the portion of the tr.aveller
and sojourner in Egypt. I had suff'ercd considerably
during the last four days, but, not willing to lose a
favourable wind, had put off resorting to the usual
means of relief. To-night, however, there was no en-
during it any longer ; the x-ats ran, shrieked, and shouted,
as if celebrating a jubilee on account of some great
mortality among the cats, and the lesser anim.als came
upon me as if the rod of Aaron had been lifted for my
special affliction. I got up during the night, and told
Paul that we would remain here a day, and early in tho
morning they must sink the boat. Before I woke, we
were half across the rivex', being obliged to cross in
order to find a convenient place for sinking. I was
vexed at having left so abruptly my new companions ;
but it w.-is too late to retuni. We pitched our tent on
the bank, and immediately commenced uuloaduig the
boat.

On a point a little above, in front of a lai'ge house
built by tho Fi'ench, at the south end of the temple of
Luxor, and one of the niost beautiful positions on tho
Nile, wex'o two tents. I knew that they belonged to the
companions of the two gentlemen on the opposite side,
and that there was a lady with them. 1 lather put
myself out of the way for it, and the fii'st time I met
tho three gentlemen on the baidv, I was not particularly
pleased with them. I may have deceived myself, but
1 thought they did not greet me as cordially as I was
disposed to greet every traveller I met in that remote
country. True, I w.as not a very inviting-looking ob-
ject ; but, as I said to myself, " Take the beam out of
your own eye, and then — " True, too, their beards
were longer, and one of them w.as redder than mine,
but I did not think that gJivo them any right to put on
airs. In short, I left them with a sort of go-to-the-
devil feeling, and did not expect to have any more to
do with them, I therefore strolled away, and spent
tho day rambling among the ruins of the temples of
Luxor and C.irnac. T '■hnll n"' '"ow attempt .iny de-

AN EGYPTIAN TOURNAiMENT.

23

Ecription of these temples, nor of the ruins of Thebes
generally (no easy task), but reserve the whole until
my return from the Cataracts.

At about three o'clock I returned to my tent. It was
the first day of the feast of Bairani, the tliirty days of
fasting (Ilamadan) being just ended. It was a great
day at Luxor ; the bazaai-s were supplied with country
products, tiie little cal'terias were tilled with smokers,
indemnifying themselves for their long abstinence, and
the Fellahs were coming in from the country. On my
return from Carnac, I for the first time Baw di-ome-
daries, richly cjiparisoned, mounted by well-armed
Ai-abs, and dashing over tlie ground at full gallop. I
had never seen dromedai'ies before, except in caravans,
accommodating themselves to the slow pace of the
camel, and I did not think the clumsy, lumbering ani-
mal, could carry himself so proudly, and move so rapidly.
Their movement, however, was very far from realising
the exti-avagant expression of "swift as the wind," ap-
plied to it in the East. I was somewhat fatigued on my
return, and Paul met me on the bank with a smiluig
face, and infonnation tliat the English party had sent
their janizary to ask me to dine with them at six o'clock.
Few things tend to give you a better opinion of a man,
of his intelligence, his piety, and morals, than receiving
from him an invitation to dinner. I am what is called
a sure man in such cases, and the reader may suppose
that I was not wanting upon this occasion.

It was an excessively hot iiy. You who were hover-
ing over your coal fires, or moving about wTapped in
cloaks or greatcoats, can hardly believe that on the
20th of January the Arabs were refreshing their heated
bodies by a bath in the Nile, and that I was lying under
my tent actually panting for breath. I had plenty to
occupy me, but the heat was too intense ; the sun seemed
to scorch the brain, while the sands blistered the feet.
I think it was the hottest day I experienced on the Nile.

While leaning on my elbow, looking out of the door
of my tent towards the temple of Luxor, I saw a large
body of Arabs, on foot, ou dromedaries, and on horse-
back, coming down towards the river. They came
about lialf way across the sandy plain between the
temple and the river, and stopped nearly opposite to
my tent, so as to give me a full view of all their move-
ments. The slaves and pipe-bearers immediately spread
mats on the sand, on which the principal persons seated
themselves, and, while they were taking coflfee and
pipes, others were making preparations for equestrian
exercises. The forms and ceremonies presented to my
mind a lively picture of preparing the lists for a tour-
nament; and the intense heat and scorching sands
reminded me of the gi*eat passage of arms in Scott's
Crusaders, near the Diamond of the Desert, on the
shores of the Dead Sea.

The parties were on horseback, holding in their right
hands long wooden spears, the lower ends resting on
the sand, close together, and fonning a pivot around
which their movements were made. They rode round
in a cix-cle, with their spears in the sand, and their
eyes keenly fixed on each other, watching an oppor-
tunity to strike ; chased, turned, and doubled, but never
leaving the pivot ; occasionally the spears were raised,
crossed, and struck together, and a murmuring ran
through the crowd like the cry in the fenchng-scene in
Hamlet, " a hit, a fair hit !" and the parties separated,
or again dropped their poles in the centre for another
round. The play for some time seemed confined to
slaves and dependents, and among them, and decidedly
the most skilful, was a young Nubian. His master, a
Tui-k, who was sitting on the mat, seemed particularly
pleased with his success.

The whole of this seemed merely a preliminary,
designed to stir up the dormant spirit of the masters.
For a long time they sat quietly puffing their pipes,
and probably longing for the stunulus of a battle-cry
to rouse them from their torpor. At length one of
them, the master of the Nubian, slowly rose from the
mat, and challenged an antagonist. Slowly he laid
down his pipe, and took and raised the pole ia his

hand ; but still J>e was not more than half roused. A
fre.^h horse w:ia brought hiui, and, wilhout taking oil"
his heavy cloth mantle, he drowsily placed his left foot
in the broad shovel stirrup, Ills right on the rump of
the hoi'se, behind the saddle, and swung himself into
tlio seat. The fii*st touch of the saddle seemed to rouso
him ; lie took the j>o!o from the hand of his attendant,
gave his hoi'se a severe check, and, driving the heavy
corners of the stirrups into his sides, dashed through
the sand ou a full run. At the other end of the coui-bo
he stopped, rested a moment or two, tlieii again driving
his irons into his horse, dashed back at. full »peed ; and
when it seemed as if liis ue.\t step would carry him
headlong among the Turks on the mat, with one jerk
he threw his horse back on his haunches, and brought
him up from a full run to a dead stop. This seemed tu
warm him a little ; his attendant came up and took otf
his cloak, under which he had a red silk jacket and
white trousers, and again ho dashed through the t>aud
and back as before. This time he brought up his hoi-so
witli fiu-ious vehemence ; his turban became unrolled,
he flew into a violent passion, tore it oft" and threw it on
the sand, and, leaving his play, fiercely struck the spear
of his adversary, and the battle at once commenced.
The Turk, who had seemed too indolent to move, now
showed a fire and energy, and an endurance of fatigue,
that would have been terrible in battle. Botli horsso
and rider scorned the blazing sun and burning sand;*,
and rouud and round they ran, chasuig, turning, and
doubling within an incredibly small circle, till au ap-
proving murmur was heai'd among the crowd. Tho
trial was now over, .and tho excited Turk again seated
himself upon the mat, and rehipscd into a state of calm
indifterence.

The exercise finished just in time to enable me to
make my toilet for dinner. As there was a lady in
tho case, I had some doubt whether I ought not to
shave, not having performed that operation since I left
Cairo ; but as I had ah'cady seen the gentlemen of tiie
party, and had fallen, moreover, into the fashion of
the country, of shaving the head and wearing the tar-
bouch (one of the greatest luxuries in Egypt, by the
way), and could not in any event sit with my head un-
covered, I determined to stick to the beard ; and dis-
guising myself in a clean shirt, and giving directious
to my bo.itmen to be i-eady to stai't at ten o'clock, I
walked along the bank to the tent of my new friends.
I do not know whether my notion in the morning was
right, or whether I had misjipprehended things ; but
at any rate, I had no re;ison to comjjlain of my recep-
tion now ; I think myself that there was a ditterence,
which I accounted for in my own way, by ascribing
to their discovery that I was an American. I havo
observed that English meeting abroad, though they
would probably stand by each other to the death in a
quarrel, are ridiculously shy of each other as acquain-
tances, on account of the great difference of caste at
home. As regards Americans, tiie case is different, and
to them the English display none of that feeling. After
I had started on my ramble, Paul liad planted niy flag
at the door of tlie tent, and, among the other advan-
tages which that flag brought me, I included my invi-
tation to dinner, agreeable acquaintances, and one of
the most pleasant evenings I spent on tho Nile. Indeed,
I hope I may be pardoned a burst of national feeling,
and be allowed to say, without meaning any disrespect
to any other country, that I would rather travel under
the name of an American than under any other known
in Europe. Every American abroad meets a general
prepossession in favour of his country, and it is an
agreeable truth that the impression made by our coun-
trymen abroad generally sustains the prepossession.
I have met with some, however, who destroyed this
good effect, and made themselves disagreeable and gave
offence by a habit of intruding their country, and its
institutions, and of drawing invidious comparisons, with
a pertinacity and self-complacency I never saw in any
other people.

But to return to the dinner : a man may make a long

24

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

tli;jression before a tlinncr c.ii \^a\^or, wlio would scorn
sut-h a thing before a dinner de Jacto. The narty con-
sisted of four — a gentleman and liis lady, he an lionour-
able, and heir to an old and resjiectable title; a brother
of the lady, an ex-captain in the guards, who changed
liis name and resigned his commission on receiving a
fortune from an uncle ; and anotiier gentleman, 1 do
not know whether of that family, but bearing one of
the proudest names in England. They were all young,
the oldest not more than thirty-Hve, and, not excepting
the lady, full of thirst for adventure and travel. 1 say
not excepting the lady ; I should rather say that the
lady was the life and soul of the juirty. She was young
and beautiful, in the most attractive style of English
beauty ; she was married, and therefore dead in law ;
and as we may say what we will of the dead, I venture
to sav that she had slione as a beauty and a belle in
the proudest circles of England, and was now enjoying
more pleasure than Almack's or drawing-rooms could
give, rambling among ruins, and sleeping under a tent
on the banks of the Nile. They had travelled in Spain,
had just come from Mount Sinai and the Red Sea, and
talked of Bagdad. 1 had often ntct on the continent
with Englishmen who " were out" as they called it, for
a certain time, one year or two years, but this party
had no fixed time ; they " were out" for as long as
suited their humour. To them I am indebted for the
most interesting part of my journey in the East, for tliey
first suggested to me the' route by Petra and Arabia
Petnea. We made a calculation by whicli we hoped,
in reference to what each had to do, to meet at Cairo
and make the attempt together. It was a great exer-
tion of resolution that I did not abandon my own plans,
and keep in company with them, but they had too much
time for me ; a month or two wjis no object to them,
but to me a very great one.

All this, and much more, including the expres.sion of
a determination, when they had finishid their travels
in the Old World, to visit us in the New, took place
while we were dining under the tent of the captain and
his friend. 'Jhe table stood in the middle on cauteens,
about eight inches from the ground, with a mattrass on
each side for seats. It was rather awkward sitting,
particularly for me, who was next the lady, and in that
position felt some of the trammels of conventional life ;
there was no room to put my legs under the table, and,
not anticipating the precise state of things, 1 had not
arranged straps and suspenders, and my feet seemed to
be bigger than ever. I doubled them under me ; they
got asleep, not the ((uiet and tranfjuil sleep which makes
you forget existence, but the slumber of a troubled con-
science, pricking and burning, till human nature could
endure it no longer, and I kicked out the ofl'ending
members with very little regard to elegance of atti-
tude. The ice once broken, 1 felt at my ease, and the
evening wore away too soon. An embargo had been
laid upon my tongue so long, that my eai-s fairly
tingled witli pleasure at hearing myself talk. It was,
in fact, a glorious evening; a bright spot that 1 love
to look back upon, more than indemnifying mo for
weeks of loneliness. I sat with them till a late hour ;
anil when I parted, I did not feel aa if it were the first
time I had seen thenj, or think it would be the last,
1 ■ ,■ to meet them a few days afterwards at the

• lint I never saw thi;m again ; we passed

catii oii • '■ river during the night. 1 received

several i^ - Irom them ; and at Heyroot, after I

had finished my tour in Arabia I'etrtca and the Holy
I>and, I received a letter from them, still on the Nile.
1 should be extremely B<jrry to think that we arc never
to ntcet again, an<l hope tiiat, when wearied with
rambling among the ruins of the Old World, they will
executethcir purpose of visiting America, and that here
we may talk over our nieeting on the banks of the Nile.
I went back to my l>oat to greater loneliness than
Ix-fore, but tliere was a fine wind, and in a few miinites
we were ng.'\in under way. I sat on deck till a late
hour,sinoked twgor three pipes, and retired to my little
cabin.

CHAPTER VIII.
The Rock of the Ch.iiu.— Ilavages of the Plague— Deserlc<i Quar-
ries.—A youthful Navigator. — A recollection of Sam I'ateh. —
Ancient Inscriptions. — A perplexed Jliijur-domo. — A Dinner
without Parallel. — An awkward Discovery.

The next day and the next still brought us favourable
winds and strong, and we were obliged to take down
one of our tall latleens, but made great progress with
the other, even i'gainst the rajiid current of the river.
The Nile was very wide, the water turbulent, ami the
waves rolling with such violence that Paul became sea-
sick ; and if it had not been for the distant banks, we
could hardly have believed ourselves on the bosom of a
river 1000 miles from the ocean.

In the evening we were approaching Iladjar Silsily,
the Hock of the Chain, the narrowest part of the river,
where the mountains of Africa and Arabia seem march-
ing to meet each other, and stopping merely to leave a
narrow passage for the river. Tradition says that in
ancient days an iron chain was drawn across the narrow
strait, whicli checked the current ; and the Arab boat-
man believes he can still see, in the sides of the moun-
tains, the marks of the rings and bolts to which the
miraculous chain was fastened.

We hauled up alongside of the bank for part of the
night, and the next morning, with a strong and favour-
able wind, were approaching Assouan, the last town
in Egypt, standing on the borders of Ethiopia, and at
the foot of the Cataracts of the Nile. For some time
before reaching Assouan, the river becomes broader
and the mountains again retire, leaving space for the
islands, and a broad surface for the body of the river.
About tliree miles this side, on the Arabian bank, is
the new palace of Ibrahim, where he retired and shut
himself up during the terrible plague of last year. On
the right, tlie top of the Libyan mountain is crowned
with the tomb of a Marabout Sheik, and about lialf
way down are the ruins of a convent, picturesque and
interesting, as telling that before the Crescent came
and trani]iled it under foot, the Cross, the symbol of
the Christian faith, once reared its sacred form in the
interior of Africa. In front is the beautiful Island of
Elephantina, with a green bank sloping down to the
river. On the left are rugged mountains ; and pro-
jecting in rude and giant masses into the river are the
rocks of dark grey granite, from which came the
mighty obelisks and monuments that adorned the an-
cient temples of Egypt. The little town of Assouan
stands on the bank of the river, almost hid among
])alm-trces ; and back at a distance on the height are
the ruins of the old city.

From the deck of my boat, the approach to the Ca-
taracts presented by far the finest scene on the Nile,
possessing a variety and wildness equally striking and
beautiful, after the monotonous scenery along the whole
ascent of the river. With streamers gallantly Hying, I
entered the little harbour, and with a feeling of satis-
faction that amply repaid me for all its vexations, i
looked upon the end of my journey. I woulil have
gone to the second cataract if time had been no object
to me, or if I had li.id at that time any idea of writing
a book, as the second caUiract is the usual terminus for
travellers on the Nile ; and a man who returns to Cairo
without having been tliere, is not considei'ed entitled to
talk much about his voyage up the river.

I am, perhaps, publishing my own want of taste when
I S!iy that the notion of going to the great Oasis had
taken such a hold of me, that it w.as mainly for this
object that 1 sacrificed the voyage to the second cata-
ract. With the feeling, therefore, that here w:is the
end of my journey in this direction, 1 jumped upon the
bank ; and, li.aving been pent up on board for two days,
I put myself in rapid action, and, in one of the cant
phi-ases of continental tourists, began to " kuock down
the lions,"

My first move was to the little town of Assouan ; but
here 1 found little to detain me. It was better built
than most of the towns on the Nile, .and has its street
of bazaars; the slave-bazaars being by far the best

RAVAGES OF THE PLAGUE— THE CATARACTS.

25

supplied of any. In one of the little cafterias opposite
the slave-market, a Turk meanly dressed, though with
arms, and a mouthpiece to his pipe that marked him as
a man of rank, attracted my particular attention. lie
was almost the hist of the Mamelukes, but yesterday
the lords of Egypt ; one of the few who escaped the
general massacre of liis race, and one of the very few
jiormitted to drag out the remnant of their days iu the
pacha's dominions.

The ruins of the old town are in a singularly high,
bold, and commanding situation, overlooking the rivt-r,
tlie Cataracts, the island of Elephantina, and the Ara-
bian desert. More than 1000 years ago this city con-
tained a large and flourishing population ; and some
idea may be formed of its former greatness, from the
fact that more than 20,000 of its inhabitants died in
one year of the plague. In consequence of the terrible
ravages of this scourge, the inhabitants abandoned it ;
but, still cluiging to their ancient homes, commenced
building a new town, beginning at the northern wall of
the old. The valley here is very narrow ; and the
desert of Arabia, with its front of dark granite moun-
tains, advances to its bank.

The southern gate of the modern town opens to the
sands of the desert, and immediately outside the walls
is a large Mahommedan buryiug-ground, by its extent
and the number of its tombstones exciting the wonder
of the sti-anger how so small a town could pay such a
tribute to the king of terroi-s. In many places the
bodies were not more than half buried, the loose sand
which had been sprinkled over thcni having been blown
away. Skulls, legs, and arms, were scattered about
in every direction ; and in one place we saw a pile of
skulls and bones, which seemed to have been collected
by some pious hand, to save them from the foot of the
passing traveller. In another, the rest of the body
Btill buried, the feet were sticking out, and the naked
skull, staring at us from its sightless sockets, seemed
struggling to free itself from the bondage of the grave,
and claiming the promise of a resurrection from the
dead. We buried again these relics of mortality, and
hoping it might not be our lot to lay our bones where
the grave was so little reverenced, contmued our way
to the ancient granite quarries of Syene.

These quarries st;ind about half an hour's walk from
the river, in the bosom of a long range of granite
mountains, stretching off into the desert of Arabia.
Time and exposure have not touched the freshness of
tlie stone, and the whole of the immense quarry looks
as if it were but yesterday that the Egyptian left it.
You could imagine that the workman had just gone
to his noonday meal ; and as you look at the mighty
obelisk lying rude and unfinished at your feet, you feel
disposed' to linger till the Egj-ptian shall come to re-
sume his work, to carve his mysterious characters upon
it, and make it a fit portal for some mighty temple.
But the hammer and chisel will never be heard there
more. The Egj-ptian workmen have passed away, and
these immense quan-ies are now and for ever silent
and deserted.

Aside from the great interest of these ancient quar-
ries, it is curious to notice how, long befoi-e the force
of gunpowder and the art of blasting rocks were known,
immense stones were separated from the bides of the
mountains, and divided as the artist wished, by the
slow process of boring small holes, and splitting them
apart with wedges.

I returned by the old city, crossing its biirying-
gi-ound, which, filce that of the new town, told, in lan-
guage that could not be misunderstood, that before the
city°was destroyed, it, too, had paid a large tribute to
the gi-ave. This burying-ground has an interest not
possessed by any other in Egypt, as it contain^;, scat-
tered over its extended surface, many tombstones with
Coptic inscriptions, the only existing remains of the
language of a people who style themselves, and are
styled,'the descendants of the ancient Egyptians.

It was late in the afternoon as I stood on the height
crowned by the ruins of the ancient city, with a mo-

mentary feeling of returning loneliness, and gazed upon
the sun retiring with glorious splendour towards my
far-distant home. I turned my eyes to my boat, and
beyond it at a distance down the river, I saw a bo;it
coming uj> under full Kiil, bearing wliat my now prac-
tised eye told me was the English Hag. 1 huiTied down,
and arrived in time to welcome to the Catai*acts of tho
Nile the two gentlemen I had first met at Thebes.

We spent the evening togetlier, and 1 abandoned my
original intention of taking my own boat up tho Cata-
racts, and agreed to go up with them.

In the morning, after an early bjtakfast, wo started
for the Island of I'lulu}, about eight milen from As-
souan, and above all the Cataracts ; an island singu-
larly beautiful in situation, and containing the ruins
of a magnificent temple. The road lay nearly all tho
way along the river, conunanding a full view of tho
Cataracts, or rather, if a citizen of a new world may
l.iy his innovating hand upon things consecrated by
the universal consent of ages, what we w ho have heard
the roar of Niagara, would call simply the '' rapids."
Wo set off on shaggy donkeys, without saddle, bridle,
or halter. A short distance from .\ssouan, unmarked
by any monument, amid arid sands, we crossed the
Une which, since the days of Phai-aoh, has existed as
the boundary between Egypt and Ethiopia. We passed
through several villages, standing alone at the foot of
the granite mountains, without green or verdure around
them, even to the extent of a blade of grass, and irre-
sistibly suggesting the question, " How do the miserable
inhabitants live?" It was not the first time I had had
occasion to remark the effect of blood on physical cha-
racter, and the strong and marked difference of races
among people living under the same sun, and almost
on a conmion soil. In the first village in Nubia, though
not half an hour from Assouan, there is a difference
obvious to the most superficial observer, and here, on
the very confines of Egypt, it would be impossible to
mistake a border Nubian for an .\rab of Assouan.

Before arriving at Philoe, the river is filled with
rocks and islands, and tiie view becomes singularly bold
and striking. At the foot of one of the islands is a sort
of ferry, with a very big boat and a very little boy to
manage it ; we got on board, and were astonished to
see with what coui"age and address the little fellow con-
ducted us among the islands washed by the Cataracts.
And it was not a straight ahead navigation either ; he
was obliged to take advantage of an eddy to get to ono
point, jump ashore, tow tiie boat to another, again drop
to another, tow her again, and so on ; and all this time
the little fellow was at tho helm, at the oar, at the rope,
leading the chorus of a Nubian song, and ordering his
crew, which consisted of three boys and one little girl.
In this way we worked to an island inhabited by a few
miserable Nubians, and, crossing it, came to the point
of the principal cataract (I continue to call it cataract
by courtesy), being a fall of about two feet.

And these were tiie great Cataracts of the Nile,
whose roar in ancient days affrighted the Egyptian
boatmen, and which history and poetry have invested
with extraordinary and ideal terrors ! The traveller
who has come from a country as far distant as mine,
bringing all that freshness of feeling with which a
citizen of the New \\'i)rl(l turns to the storied wonders
of the Old, and h;is roamed over the mountains and
dinink of ilie rivers of Greece, will have found himself
so often cheated by the exaggerated accounts of the
ancients, the vivid descriptions of poets, and liis own
iiuagin;itioii, that he will hardly feel disappointed when
ho stands by this apology for a cataract.

Here the Nubian boys had a great feat to show,

namely, jump into the cataract and float down to the

point of the island. The inhabitants of the countries

bordering on the Nile arc great swimmers, and the

Nubians are perhaps the best of all ; but this was no

I great feat. The great and ever-to-be-Iamented Sam

Patch would have made the Nubians stare, and shown

< them, ill his own pithy phrase, " that .some folks could

i do things as well as other folks ;" and I question if

2C

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

there is a cataract on tlio Nile at wliich that daring
(livtr would not liavo turned up his nose in scorn.

Wo returned by tlio sjinie way we had come, and
under tlie same guidance, augmented, however, by a
motley collection of men and boys, who had joined us
as our escort. In paying for the boat wc showed a
preference for our little boy, which brought down upon
him all the i-est, and he had to run to us for protection.
We saved him for the present, but left him exposed to
one of the evils attendant ujion tlie acquisition of money
all the world over, tlio difficulty of keejiing it, which
difHculty, in his case, was so gi-eat physically, that I
have no doubt lie was stripped of more than half before
we were out of sight

Getting rid of them, or as many of them as wc could,
we again mounted our shaggy donkeys,' and rode to the
l>laii'l of Philoe. This island makes one of the most
beautiful pictures I ever saw. Perhaps the gcnoi-al
monotony of the scenery on the Nile gives it a peculiar
beauty; but I think it would be called beautiful any
where, even among the finest scenes in Italy. It
brouglit forcibly to my mind, but seemed to nie far
more lovely than, the Lake Maggiore, with the beauti-
ful Isola Bella and Isola Madre. It is entirely unique,
a beautiful Itisiu naturte, a little island about 1000 feet
long and 400 broad, rising in the centre of a circular
bay, which appears to bo cut off from the river, and
firms a lake surrounded by dark sandstone rocks, car-
]Ktfd with green to the water's edge, and covered with
columns, propylons, and towers, the iniins of a majestic
temj)Ie. A sunken wall encircles it on all sides, on
which, in a few moments, we landed.

I have avoided description of ruins when I could.
The fact is, I know nothing of architecture, and never
measured anything in my life ; before I came to Egypt
I Could not tell the ditrcronce between a dromos and
a propylon, and my whole knowledge of Egyptian
antiquities was little more than enough to enable me
to distinguish between a mummy and a pyramid. I
picked np about enougli on the spot to answer my pur-
pose ; but I have too much charity for my reader to
impose my smattering on him. In fact, 1 have already
forgotten nioro than half of the little that I then
liarnnd, and I should show but a poor return for his
kinilness if I were to puzzle him with the use or mis-
use of technical phrases. Still I must do something ;
the temples of Egypt must have a place here ; for I
might as well leave out Jerusalem in the story of a
tour through the Holy Land.

The temple of Philoe is a magnificent ruin, 435 feet
in length, and 105 in width. It stands at the south-west
corner of the island, close upon the bank of the river,
and the approach to it is by a grand colonnade, extend-
ing '_M0 feet along the edge of the river to the gi'and
I'l-iipylon. Th'! propylon is nearly 100 feet long, and
ri.s»s on eacli side of tho gateway in two lofty towers,
in the form of a truncated jnTamid. The front is deco-
rated wiili sculpture and hieroglyphics ; on each side a
figure of Isis, twenty feet high, with the moon over her
head, and near tho front formerly stood two obelisks
and two sj>Iiiiixe«, the pedestals and ruins of which still
remain. The body of the temple contains eleven cliam-
ficra, rnv<To<l witli Rculpturo aufl hieroglyphics, the
' iti the most lively colours, and the ceiling

1 , and studded with stars.

iiut there arc other things which touch the beholder
more nearly than tlie majestic ruins of tho temple —
thinK« which carry him from tho works of man to a
grander and liighcr subject, that of man himself. On
the lofty lowers in front of the temple, among tho
>' ■ ' ' wn writings of tho E;;yptian8,

^ ■<.k niid Latin, telling that they

•1 had come to worship
' II had livc<l and looked

up)on the sun, mo ars, tho mountains and the

rolling river, and v . , , d a mute idol. And ng.-iin,
on the front wall was the sacred cross, tho emblem of
tho Christian faith, and the figures of the Egyptian
deities were defaced and plastered over, showing that

another race had been there to worship, who scorned
and trampled on the gods of the heatlien. And ag.iin
there was an inscription of later days, that in the ruins
of tho temple carried with it a wild and fearful inte-
rest ; telling that the thunder of modern war had
been heard above the roar of tho cataract, and that
the arm of the soldier which had struck terror in tho
frozen regions of the north, had swept tho burning
sands of Africa. In the grand propylon, among tho
names of tourists and travellers, in a small i)lain hand,
is WTitten — " L'an 6 de la rdpubliquc, le 13 Messidor,
une armc^e Fran^aisc, comniandt'o par Buonaparte, est
descendue h Alexandrie ; I'armce ayant mis, vingt
jours aprcs, les Mamelukes en fuito aux pyramides,
Dcssaix, commandant la premiere division, les a pour-
suivi, an de-li des cataractes, oil il est ari'ive le 13
Ventose, dc l'an 7." Near this w.is an inscription that
to i|ie was far more intei-esting than all the i-est, tho

name of an early friend, " C B , U. S. of

America," written with his own hand. I did not
know that he had been here, although I knew he had
been many years from home, and I had read in a news-
paper that he had died in Palestine. A thousand re-
collections crowded upon me, of joys dep.arted never
to return, and mado me sad. I wi'otc my name under
his, and left tho temple.

I was glad to get back to my rascally donkey. If
a man wei'e oppressed and borne down with mental
anxiety, if he were m.ouriiing and melancholy, cither
from the loss of a friend or an undigested dinnei-, I
would engage to cure him. I would put him on a
donkey w iiliout saddle or halter, and if he did not find
himself by degrees drawn from the sense of his misery,
and worked up into a towering passion, getting off and
belabouring his brute with his stick, and forgetting
every thuig in this world but the obstinacy of the ass,
and his own folly in attempting to ride one, man is a
more quii;t animal than I take him to be.

As 1 int<?nded going the next day up iho Cataracts
with my companions, and expected to spend the day
on board their boat, I had asked them to dine with mo
in the evening. After giving the invitation, I hold a
council with Paul, who told mo that the thing was im-
jiossible, and, with a prudence worthy of Caleb Balder-
stone, expressed his wonder that 1 had not worked an
invitation out of them. I told him, however, that the
thing was settled, and diue with me they must. My
house- keeping had never been very extravagant, and
maccaroni, rice, and fowl, had been my standiiig dishes.
Paul was pertinacious in r.aising objections, but 1 told
him peremptorily there was no escape; that he must
buy a cow or a camel, if necessary, and left him scratch-
ing his head and pondering over the task before him.

In tho liurried business of the day, I had entirely
forgotten Paul and his perplexities. Once only, I i-e-
mcmber, with a commendable prudence, I tried to get
my companions to expend some of their force upon
dried dates .and Nubian bread, which they as maUciously
declined, that they might do justice to me. Returning
now, at the end of nine hours' hard work, crosshig rivers
aud rambling among ruins, the sharp exercise, and tho
grating of my teeth at tho stubborn movements of my
donkey, gave me an extraordinary voracity, and dinner
— the all-important, never-to-be-forgotten business of
tho day, the di^light alike of the ploughman and philo-
sopher— dinner with its uncertain goodness, began to
press upon tho most tender sensibilities of my nature.
My companions felt the vibrations of the same chord,
and, with an unnecessary degree of circumstance, talked
of tho effect of air and exorcise in sh.arpening the appe-
tite, and tho glorious satisfaction, after a day's work, of
sitting down to a good dinner. I had perfect confidence
in Paul's zeal and ability, but I began to have somrs
misgivings. I felt a hungi-y devil within me, that roared
as if ho would never bo satisfied. I looked at my com-
panions, and heard them talk ; and as I followed their
humour with an hysteric laugh, 1 thouglit the genius
of famine was at my heels in the shape of two hungry
Englislnncu. I tixuibled for Paul, but the first glimpse

ASCENT OF THE CATARACTS.

27

I caught of him reassured mc. He sat on the deck of
the boat, with his arms folded, coolly, though with an
air of conscious importance, looking out for us. Slowly
and with dignity he came to assist us from our cursed
donkeys; neither a smile nor frown was on his face,
but there reigned an expression that you could not mis-
take. Reader, you have seen the countenance of a good
man lighted up with the consciousness of having done
a good action ; even so was Paul's. I could read in
his face a consciousness of having acted well his part.
One might almost have dined on it. It said, as plainly
as face could speak, one, two, three, four, five coui-ses
and a dessert, or, as they say at the two-franc restau-
rants in Paris, " Quatre plats, une demi bouteille de
vin, et pain h discretion."

In fact, the worthy butler of Ravenswood could not
have stood in the hall of his master in the days of its
glory, before thunder broke china and soured butter-
milk, with more sober and conscious dignity than did
Paul stand on the deck of my boat to receive us. A
load was removed from my heart. I knew that my
credit was saved, and I led the way with a proud step
to my little cabin. Still I asked no questions, and made
no apologies. I simply told my companions we were
in Paul's hands, and he would do with us as seemed to
him good. Another board had been added to my table,
and my towel had been washed and dried during the
day, and now lay, clean and of a rather reddish white,
doing the duty of a table-cloth. I noticed, too, tumblers,
knives and forks, and plates, which were sti-angers to
me, but I said nothing ; we seated ourselves and waited,
nor did we wait long ; soon we saw Paul coming towai-ds
us, staggering under the weight of his burden, the sa-
voury odour of which preceded him. He entered, and
laid before us an Irish stew. Reader, did you ever eat
an Irish stew? Gracious Heaven! I shall never for-
get that paragon of dishes ; how often in the Desert,
among the mountains of Sinai, in the Holy Land, ram-
bling along the Valley of Jehoshaphat, or on the shores
of the Dead Sea — how often has that Irish stew risen
before me to tease aud tantalise me, and haunt me with
the memory of departed joys ! The potato is a vegetable
that does not grow in Egj-pt. I had not tasted one for
more than a month, and was almost startled out of my
propriety at seeing them ; but I held my peace, and
was as solemn and dignified as Paul himself. Without
much ceremony, we threw ourselves with one accord
upon the stew. I think I only do our party justice,
when I say that few of those famished gentlemen, from
whoso emerald isle it takes its name, could have shown
more affection for the national dish. For my o^\ti part,
as I did not know what was coming next, if any thing,
I felt loath to part with it. My companions were
knowing ones, and seemed to be of the same way of
thinking, and, without any consultation, all appeared to
be approaching the same end, to wit, the end of the stew.
With the empty dish before him, demonsti-ative to Paul
that so far we were perfectly satisfied with what he had
done, that worthy purveyor came forward with an in-
crease of dignity to change our plates. 1 now saw that
something more was coming. I had suspected from
the beginning that Paul was in the mutton line, and
involuntarily murmured, " This day a sheep has died ;"
and presently on came another cut of the murdered
innocent, in cutlets, accompanied by fried potatoes.
Then came boiled mutton and boiled potatoes, and then
roast mutton and roast potatoes, and then came a mac-
caroni pattJ. I thought this was going to spoil the whole ;
until this I had considered the dinner as something
extraordinary and recherchd But the maccaroni, the
thing of at least six days in the week, utterly discon-
certed me. I tried to give Paul a wink to keep it back,
but on he came ; if he had followed ■with a chicken, I
verUy believe I should have thrown it at his head. But
my friends were unflinching and uncompromising. They
were determined to stand by Paul to the last ; and we
laid in the maccaroni patd with as much vigour as if
we had not already eaten a sheep. Paul wound us up
and packed us down with pancaics. I never knew a

man that did not like pancakes, or who could not cat
them even at the end of a mighty dinner. Aud now,
feeling that happy sensation of fulness which puts a man
above kings, princes, or pachas, wo lighted our long
pipes and smoked. Our stomachs wci^o full, and our
liearts were open. Talk of mutual symp.athy, of con-
genial spuits, of smiiiarity of tastes, and all that ; 'tis
the dinner wliich unlocks the heart ; yon feel yourself
warming towards the man that has dined with you. It
was in this happy spirit that we lay like warriors, rest-
ing on our arms, and talked over the particulars of our
battles.

And now, all dignity put aside and all restraint
removed, and thinking my fi-iends might have recog-
nised acquaintances among the things at the table
which were strangers to me, and thinking, too, that I
stood on a pinnacle, and, come what might, I could
not fall, I led the way in speculating upon the manner
in which Paul had served us. The ice onco broken,
my friends solved many of the mysteries, by claiming
this, that, and the other, as part of their furniture and
stores. In fact, they were going on most unscrupu-
lously, making it somewhat doubtful whether I had
furnished any thing for my own dinner, and 1 called in
Paul. But that functionary had no desire to be ques-
tioned ; he hemmed, and hawed, and dodged about ;
but I told hhn to make a clean heart of it, and then it
came out, but it was like drawing teeth, that he had
been on a regular foraging expedition among their stores.
Tho potatoes with which he had m.ade such a flourish
were part of a very small stock furnished them by a
friend, as a luxury not to be had on the Nile ; and,
instead of the acknowledgments which I expected to
receive on account of my dinner, my friends congratu-
lated me rather u'onically upon possessing such a trea-
sure of a steward. We sat together till a late hour ;
were grave, gay, laughing, and lachrjTnose, by turns ;
and when we began to doze over our pipes, betook our-
selves to slumber.

CHAPTER IX.

Ascent of the Catanicts.— A Nautical Patriarch.— Political Im-
provemeDt — A Nubian Damsel's Wardrobe.— A tc^t of Friend-
ship.— East and AVcst, — Moonlight on tho Nile— Uses of a
Temple.

I.N the morning we were up betimes, expecting another
stirring day in mounting the Cataracts. Carryuig boats
up and down the rapids is the great business of the
Nubians who live on tho borders of Egjpt. It is a
business that i-equires great knowledge and address ;
aud the rais who commands the large squad of men
necessary to mount a boat, is an imi)ortant person among
them. He was already there with part of his men,
the others being stationed among the islands of the
Cataracts, at the places where their services would be
needed. This rais was one of the most noble-looking
men I ever saw. He was more than eighty, a native
of Barbary, who had in early life wandered with a cai-a-
van across the Libyan Desert, and been left, he knew
not why, on a little island among the Cataracts of the
Nile. As the Nubian does now, firmly .seated on a log
and paddling with his hands, he had floated in every
eddy, and marked every stone that the falling river lays
bare to the eye ; and now, with the experience of yeare,
he stood among the Nubians, confessedly one of their
most skilful pilots through a diflicult and sometimes
dangerous navigation. He was tall and thin, with a
beard of uncommon length and whiteness ; a face dried,
scarred, and wrinkled, and dark as it could bo without
having the blackness of a uegro. His costume was a
clean white turban, red jacket, and red sash, with white
trousers, red slippers, and a heavy club fastened by a
string ai'ound his wrist. I am particular in describing
the appearance of the hardy old man, for we were ex-
ceedingly struck with it. Nothing could be finer than
his look, his walk, his every movement ; aud the pic-
turesque eflcct was admirably heightened by contrast
with his swarthy assistants, most of whom were despc-

28

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

ratcly raj;s;e<l, and many of them as naked as they were
boni' 'I'lie old man came on board with a dignity that
savoured mon; of a youtli passed amid the j)olish of a
European court, than on the sands of IJarbary, or the
rude ii>lands of the Nile. \\'e received hitn as if he
liad been the groat pacha himself, gave him cotl'ee and
l)ipes, and left him to the greatest luxury of the East,
perfect rest, until his services should be required.

In the meantime, with a strong and favourable wind,
we st.irted from the little harbour of Assouan, while a
throng of idlers, gathered together on the beach, watched
our departure witli as much interest as though it were
ni>t an event of almost diiily occurrence. Almost imme-
diately above Assouan the view extends over a broad
surface, and the rocks and islands begin to nudtiply.
The strong wind enabled us to ascend some distance
with the sails ; but our progress gradually diminished,
and at length, while our sails were yet filled almost to
bui-sling, we came to a dead stand, struggled vainly for
u while against the increasing current, and then fell
astern. The old mis, who liad sat quietly watcliing
the movements of the boat, now roused himself; and
at his command, a naked Nubian, with a rope over his
shoulders, plunged into the river and swam fur the
shore. At first he swam boldly and vigorously ; but
soon his strength began to fail, and the weiglit of the
slackened rope effectually stopped his progress ; when,
resting for a little space, he dived like a duck, kicking
his heels in the air, came up clear of the ro)ie, and soon
gained the bank. A dozen Nubians now ilirew them-
selves into the water, caught the sinking rope, carried
it Hshore, and wound it I'ound a rock. Again the rais
spoke, and fifty swarthy bodies were splashing in the
water, and in a moment more they were on tlio i-ocky
bank, hauling upon the rope; others joined tliem, but
where they came from nobody could see ; and by the
strength cf a hundred men, all jmlling and shouting
together, and both yails full, we passed the first Cataract.

Above this the passage became more difficult, and
the old rais seemed to rise in s|)irit and energy witli the
emergency. As we approached the second Cataract,
half a dozen ropes were thrown out, and tiic men seemed
to nmltiply as if by magic, springing up among the
rocks like a parcel of black river-gods, ^lore than two
liundred of them were hauling on the ropes at once,
climbing over the rocks, descending into the river, ami
again mounting, with their naked bodies shining in the
sun, all talking, tugging, ordering, and shouting toge-
ther ; and among lliem, liigh above the rest, was heard
the clear voice of the rais. ilia noble figure, too, was
Seen, now scrambling along the base of a rock, now
standing on its sununit, his long arms thrown above
his head, hi.s white beard and ample dress streaming
in the wind, until the inert mans had trium|>hed over
the mshing river; when he again took his seat upon
the deck, and in the luxury of jiis pipe forgot the ani-
mating scene that for a moment had cheated him back
to youth.

At tills scas<m there was in no place a fall of more
tlian two feet ; though the river, breaking among the
almost inmmierabic rocks and islands, hurried along
witli great violence and raj>idity. In the midst of the
most furious rushing of the waters, adding much to the
strikmg wildness of the scene, were two figures, with
tlnir clothes tied above their heads, sitting U]>on the
siirlare of the water ajiparently, and floating as if by a
niiratle. They were a man and his wife, crossing from
one of the islands ; their bark a log, with a bundle of
cornstalks on each side ; too fniil to support their weight,
yet strong enough to keej) thrm from sinking.

And now all was over; we had passed the Cataraet-f,
catcliing our dinner at intervnls as wc came up. We
had Wound round the b<'autiful Island of I'hilie, and
the boat had haiil.'d up .ilongtide the bank to let Hu-
go ashore. The moment of parting and returning to
my former loneliness had come, and I felt my courage
failing. I verily believe that if my own boat had been
above the CataracUi, I should have given up my own
project and acconifianied my English friends. I'aul

was even more reluctant to part than his master. He
had never travelled except with a party, where the
other servants and dragomen were company for him,
and after these chance encounters he was for a while
completely prostrated. The moment of parting came
and passed ; warm adieus were exchanged, and, with
Paul and my own rais for company, 1 set out on foot
for Assouan.

Directly opposite the Island of Philoo is a stopping-
l)lace for boats, where dates, the great produce of
Upper Egypt, arc brought in large quantities, and
deposited preparatory to being sent down to Cairo.
All along the ujiper part of the Nile the palm-tree
had become more plentiful, and here it was the prin-
cipal and almost only j)roduct of the country. Its
value is inestimable to the Nubians, as well ius to the
Ai'abs of Upper Egypt ; and so well is this value known,
and so general is the progress of the country in Euro-
pean improvements, that every tree pays an annual tax
to the great reformer.

The Nubian is interesting in his appearance and
chai'acter ; his figure is fall, thin, sinewy, and graceful,
possessing what would be called in civilised life an un-
common degree of gentility ; his face is rather dark,
though far removed from African blackness; his fea-
tures are long and aquiline, decidedly resembling the
Roman ; the expression of his face mild, amiable, and
approaching to melancholy. 1 i-emember to have
thought, when reading Sir Walter Scott's Crusaders,
that the metamorphosis of Kenneth into a Nubian was
strained and improbable, as I did not then understand
the shades of difterenec in the features and complexion
of the inhabitants of Africa ; but observation has shown
me that it was my own ignorance that deceived me ;
and in this, as in other descriptions of Eastern scenes,
1 have been forced to admire the great and intimate
knowledge of details possessed by the unequalled nove-
list, and his truth and liveliness of description.

The inhabitants of Nubia, like all who come under
the rod of the pacha, suffer the accunmlatcd ills of
poverty. Ilai>pily, they live in a country where their
wants arc few; the sun warms them, and the palm-
tree feeds and clothes them. The use of fire-arms is
almost unknown, and their weapons are still the spear
and shield, as in ages long past. In the upper part of
Nubia the men and women go entirely naked, except a
pit'ce of leather about six inches wide, cut in strings,
and lied about their loins ; and even here, on the ci'ii-
liues of Egypt, at least one half of the Nubians appear
in the same costume.

I do not know what has made me introduce these
remarks upon the character and mannei's of the Nu-
bians here, exci-pt it be to p.ave the way for the inci-
dents of my walk down to Assouan, ^\'ishing to got
rid of my unpleasant feelings at parting with my com-
panions, I began to bargain for one of the l.irge heavy
clubs, made of the palm-tree, which every Nubian
carries, and bought what a Kcntuckian would call a
screamer, or an Irishman a toothpick ; a large round
club, about two inches in diameter, which seldom left
my hand till i lost it in the Holy Land. Then seeing
a Nubian riding backward and forward on a dromedary,
showing his paces like a jockey at a horse-market, 1
hcgan to barg.'iin for him. 1 mounted him (the first
time 1 hatl mounted a dromedary) ; and as I expected
to have eonsid<;rat>le use for him, ami liked his jiaces,
I w;us on the point of buying him, but was i>reveiit<-d
by the sudden reflection that I had no means of getting
hitn down to Cairo.

My next essay was upon more delicate ground. I
began to barg.'iin for the costume of a Nubian lady,
and to use an expressive phrase, though in this case
not literally true, I bought it ofl" liir back. One of my
friends ill Italy liad been very particul.ir in making a
collection of ladies' costumes, and, to a man curious in
those things, it struck me that nothing could be more
curious than this. One of the elements of beauty is
said to be simplicity ; and if this be not a mere poetical
fiction, and beauty when unadorned is really adorned

TEST OF FRIENDSHIP— EAST AND WEST.

20

the most, then was the young Nubian girl whose dress
I bought adorned in every perfection. In fact, it was
impossible to be more simple, without going back to
tliL- origin of all dress, the simple fig-leaf. She was not
more than sixteen, with a sweet mild face, and a figure
tliat the finest lady might be proud to exhibit in its na-
tive beauty ; every limli charmingly roundeil, and every
muscle finely develoi)eil. It would have been a burn-
ing shame to put such a figure into frock, petticoat, and
tiie other et ccteras of a lady's dress. I now look back
upon this, and many other scenes, as strange, of which
I tliought nothing at the time, when all around w.is in
conformity. I remember, however, though I thought
notiiing of seeing women all but naked, that at first I
did feel somewhat delicate in attempting to buy the few
inches that constituted the young girl's wardrobe. Paul
had no such scruples, and 1 found, too, that as in the
road to vice, " ce n'est que le premier pas qui coutc."
In short, I bought it, and have it with me; and to the
curious in sucli matters I have no hesitation in saying,
that the costume of a Nubian lady is far more curious
than any thing to be found in Italy, and would make a
decided sensation at a masquerade or fancy ball.

It was nearly dark, when, from the ruined height of
the old city of Assouan, I saw my little boat with the
Hag of my country, and near it, hardly less welcome
to my eyes, the red-cross banner of England. The
sight of these objects, assisted by my multifarious bar-
gainings, relieved me from the loneliness I had felt in
parting from my friends ; and I went on board the
English boat, hoping to find a party with which I had
partially arranged to set out from Cairo, and which 1
was every day expecting. I was disappointed, how-
ever ; but found a gentleman to whom I was then a
sti-anger, the English consul at Alexandria. He had
been eighteen years in the country, closely devoted to
his public and private duties, without ever having been
in Upper Egypt. On the point of returning homo, to
enjoy in his own country and among his own people
the fruits of his honourable labours, he had now for
the first time ascended tl-.e Nile. He was accompanied
by his daughter, who had reigned as a belle and beauty
in the ancient city of Cleopatra, and her newly married
husband. Coming from home, their boat was furnished
and fitted up with all kinds of luxuries. Their tea-
table, in particular, made such a strong impression on
me, that when I met them again at Thebes, I happened
to find myself on board their boat regularly about the
time for the evening meal. I was exceedingly pleased

with Mr T ; so much so, that at Thebes 1 gave him

the strongest mark of it a man could give — I bor-
rowed money of him ; and I have reason to remember
his kindness in relieving me from a situation which
might have embari-asscd me.

Early the next morning the .sails were already loosed
and the stake pulled up, when Paul, from the bank,
cried out, " A sail !" and looking down the river, 1 saw
a boat coming up, and again the English flag. I furled
ray sails, fastened the stake, and waited till she came
up, and found the party I had expected. I went on
board, and breakfasted with them. They had started
from Cairo on the same day with me, but with their
large boats could not keep up with me against the wind.
They had heard of me along the river ; and, among
other things, had heard of my having shot a crocodile.
Waiting to see them off for the Island of Philoe, and
bidding them good-bye until we should meet at Thebes,
I returned to my boat, and, letting fall the sails, before
they were out of sight was descending the Nile.

My face was now turned towards home. Thousands
of miles, it is true, were between us ; but I was on the
bosom of a mighty river, which was carrying me to the
mightier ocean, and the waves tliat were rolling by
mv side were rapidly hurrying on, and might one day
wash the shores of my native land. It was a beautiful
prospect I had before me now. I could lie on the deck
of my boat, and float hundreds of miles, shooting at
crocodiles ; or I could go ashore and ramble among
modern villages, and the ruins of ancient cities, and

all the time I thought I would be advancing on my
journey. Before night, however, the wind was blow-
ing dead ahead, and we were obliged to furl our sails
and take to our oars. I$ut it was all of no use ; our
boat was blown along like a feather ; carried round,
backward and forward, across the river, zigzag, ond at
last faii'ly driven up the stream. \\'ith great diHicully
we Worked down to Oinbos ; and here, imder the ruins
of an ancient temjiie, part of which had already fallen
into the river, we hauled up to the baidc, and, in com-
pany with half a dozen .Arab boats, lay by till morning.

^lan is a gregarious animal. My boatmen always
liked to stop where they saw other boats. I i-emcmbcr
it was the same on the Ohio and Mississippi. Several
years since, when the water was low, I started froni
Pittsburgh, in a flat-bottomed boat, to float down to
New Orleans. There, too, we were in the habit of
stopping along the bank at night, or in windy or foggy
weather, and the scenes and circumstances were so
different that the contrast was most interesting and
impressive. Here we moored under tlie ruins of an
ancient temple, there we made fast to the wild trees of
an untrodden forest ; here we joined half a dozen boats
with eight or ten men in each, and they all gathered
round u fire, sipped coffee, smoked, and lay down (juietly
to sleep ; there we met the dashing roaring boys of the
VVest, ripe for fun, frolic, or fight. The race of men
" half hoi-se, half alligator, and t'other half stean>-boat,"
had not yet passed away, and whenever two boats met,
these restless i-ovcrsmust " do something ;" play cards,
pitch pennies, fight cocks, set fire to a house, or have a
row of some description. Indeed, it always involved a
long train of interesting reflections, to compare the still-
ness and quiet of a journey on this oldest of rivers with
the moving castles and the splashing of paddle-wheels
on the great rivers of the New World.

At daylight I had mounted the bank, and was grop-
ing among the ruins of the temple. The portico fronting
the river is a noble ruin, nearly 100 feet in length, with
three rows of columns, five in each row, 30 feet high,
and 10 feet in diameter at the base. Tiie jjrincipal
figure on the walls is Osiris, with a crocodile head, and
the sacred tau in his hand. The Ombites were distin-
guished for their worship of the crocodile, and this
noble temple was dedicated to that bestial god : among
the ruins are still to be seen the wall on which the
sacred animal was led in religious procession, and the
tank in which he was bathed.

To\^ards noon we were approaching Hadjar Silsily,
or the Rock of the Chain, the narrowest part of the
river, bounded on each side by ranges of sanAstono
mountains. On the eastern side are ancient quarries
of great extent, with the same appearance of freshness
as at Assouan. Nothing is known of the history of
these quarries ; but they seem to have furnished ma-
terial enough for all the cities on the Nile, as well
as the temples and moimments that adorned them.
Whole mountains have been cut away ; and while the
solitary traveller walks among these deserted work-
shops, and looks at the smooth .'•ides of tlie mountains,
and the fragments of unfinished work aroimd him, he
feels a respect for the people who have pa.'-sed away,
greater than when standing among the ruins of their
mi''hty temples ; for here he has only the evidences
of Iheir gigantic industry, without being reminded of
the gross and disgusting purposes to wliich that in-
dustry was prostituted. The roads worn in the stone
by the ancient carriage-wheels are still to be seen, and
somewhere among these extensive quarries travelleia
have found an unfinished sphinx. I remember one
place where there was an irregular range of unfinished
doors, which might well have been taken for the work
of beginnei-s, practising under the eyes of their masters.
Paul took a philosophic and familiar view of them, and
said, that it seemed as if, while the men weru at work,
the boys playing around had taken up the tools, and
amused themselves by cutting these doors.

On the opposite side, too, are quarrie-s, and several
ranges of tombs, looking out on the river, excavated

50

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

in the solid rock, with pillars in front, and imaj^es of
deities in the recesses for the altax's. I remember a
beautiful chamber overhanging the river like a balcony.
It had been part of a temple, or perhaps a tomb. We
thought of stopping there to dine, but our boat had
gone ahead, and our «aut of provisioua was somewhat
of an impediment.

At about four o'clock we saw at a distance the
minaret of Edfou. Thei'O was no wiiid, the men were
gently pulling at the oai's, and I took one myself, much
to the uneasiness of the rais, who thought I was di.s-
Batisfied. Sloth forms so prominent a feature in the
composition of the Orientals, and quiet is so material an
item in their ideas of enjoyment, that they cannot con-
ceive why a man should walk when he can stand, why he
should stand when lie can sit, or, in short, why he should
do any thing when he can sit still and do nothing.

It was dark before we arrived at Kdfou. I mean it
was that period of time when, by nature's laws, it should
be dark , that is, the day had ended, the sun had set
with that rich and burning lustre which attends his
departing glui'ics nowhere but in Egypt, and the moon
was shedding her pale light over the valley of the Nile.
But it was a moon that lighted up all nature with a
paler, purer, and more lovely light ; a moon that would
have told secrets ; a moon — a moon — in shortj a moon
■whose light enabled one to walk over iielda without
stumbling, and this was, at the moment, the principal
consideration with me.

Edfou lies about a mile from the bank of the river,
and, taking Paul and one of the Arabs with me, I set
off to view the temple by moonlight. The town, as
usual, contained mnd houses, many of them in ruins, a
mosque, a bath, bazaars, the usual apology for a palace,
and more than the usual quantity of ferocious dogs ;
and at one corner of this miserable place stands one of
the magnificent temples of the Nile. The propylon, its
lofty proportions enlarged by the light of the moon, was
the most gi-and and imposing portal I saw in Egypt.
From a base of nearly 100 feet in length and 30 in
breadth, it rises on each side the gate in the form of a
truncated pyramid, to the height of 100 feet, gradually
narrowing, till at the top it measures 75 feet in length
and 18 in breadth. Judge, then, what was the temple
to which this formed merely the entrance ; and this
was far from being one of the large temples of Egypt.
It measured, however, 440 feet in length and 220 in
breadth, about equal to the whole space occupied by
St Paul's churchyard. Its dromos, ]>ronaos, columns,
and capitals, all correspond, and enclosing it is a high
wall, still in a state of perfect preservation. I walked
round it twice, and, by ine.ins of the wall erected to
exclude the unhallowed gaze of the stranger, I looked
down upon the interior of the temple. Built by the
Egyptians fcr the highest uses to ^^hich a building
could bo dedicated, for the worship of their gods, it is
now used by the pacha as a granary and storehouse.
The portico and courtyard, and probably the interior
chambers, were filled with gi'ain. A guard was sta-
tioned f t the pilfering Ai-aba ; and to
secure ;. . ijuard himself, he was locked
in at sunset, and the kt.y left with the governor. The
lofty entrance was closed by a wooden door ; the vigi-
lant gnanJ was already asleep, and we were obliged to
knock some time before we could wake him.

It was a novel and extraordinary scene, our parley

wit!' •' :.ird at the door of the temple. We were

Bti lor the great propylon, mere insects at the

base <Ji tii'j i ■ ' ■ ■ .it a little distance sat

a group of » , nivl I'^aning against

a column in • fj indistinct

figure of th'- ring in a low

deep tone, like an ari ■ t delivering the answers

of the oracles. Byti , v light of the moon every

thing seemed magniticd ; the majestic proportions of

the temple appeared mriv ■■- *if, and the miserable

huts around it still more • . and the past glory
and the present ruin of ' 'soured land

rushed upon me with a f ; even at the

foot of the pyramids. If the tcmjtle of that little un-
known city now stood in Hyde Park or the garden of
the Tuilleries, France, England, all Europe, would gaze
upon it with wonder and admiration ; and when thou-
sands of yeara shall have rolled away, aud they, too,
shall have fallen, there will be no monument in those
proudest of modern cities like this in the little town of
Edfou, to raise its majestic head aud tell the passing
traveller the story of their former greatness.

Some of the Arabs pi'oposed to conduct me to the
interior through a passage opeuing from the ruined huts
on the top ; but after searchmg a while, the miserable
village could not produce a candle, torch, or taper to light
the way. But I did not care much about it. I did not
cai'c to disturb the strong impressions aud general effect
of that moonlight scene ; and though in this, as in other
things, I subject myself to the imputation of having
been but a, supei-ficial obsei">'er, I would not exchange
the lively recollection of that niglu for the most accurate
knowledge of evei-y particular stone in the whole temple.

I returned to my l)oat, and to the surprise of my rais
ordered him to pull up stake and drop down the river.
I intended to drop down about two hours to Elythia.s,
or, in Arabic, Elkob. No one on board knew where it
was, and, tempted by the mildness and beauty of the
night, I staid on deck till a late hour. Several times
we saw fires on the banks, where Arab boatmen were
p.issing the night, and hailed them, but no one knew
the place ; and though seeking and inquiring of those
who had spent all their lives on the banks of the river,
we p.assed, without knowing it, a city which once carried
on an extensive commerce with the Red Sea, where the
traces of a road to the emerald mines and the fallen
city of Berenice are still to bo seen, and the ruins of
whose temples, with the beautiful paintings in its tombs,
excite the admiration of every traveller.

Wc continued descending with the current all night,
and iu the morning I betook myself to my old sport of
shooting at crocodUes and pelicans. At about eleven
o'clock we aiTived at Esneh, the ancient Latopolis, so
called from the worship of a fish, now containing 1300
or 2000 inhabitants. Here, too, the miserable subjects
of the pacha may turn from the contemplation of their
degraded state to the greatness of those who have gone
before them. In the centre of the village, almost buried
by the accumulation of sand from the desert and the
ruins of Arab huts, is another magnificent temple. The
street is upon a level with the roof, and a hole has been
dug between two columns so as to give entrance to the
interior. The traveller has by this time lost the wonder
and indignation at the barbarity of converting the won-
derful remains of Egyptian skill and labour to the
meanest uses ; and, descending between the excavated
colunina, finds himself, without any feeling of siirpriHc,
in a largo cleared space, filled with grain, earthen jars,
and Arabs, The gigantic columns, with their lotus-
leaved capitals, are familiar things ; but among the
devices on the ceiling, his wandering eye is fixed by
cert.iin mysterious characters, which have been called
the signs of the zodiac, and from which speculators in
science have calculated tliat the temple was built more
than GOOO years ago, before the time assigned by the
Mosaic account as the beginning of the world.

But this little town contains objects of more interest
than tho ruin of a heathen temple ; for Jiere, among
the bigoted followers of Mahommed, dwell fifty or sixty
Christian families, being the last in Egypt, and stand-
ing on tho very outposts of tho Cliristian world. They
exhibited, however, a melancholy picture of tho reli-
gion they i>rofpsa. The priest was a swarthy, scowling
Arab, and, as Paul said, looked more like a robber than
a jiasfor. He followed us for bucksheesh, and attended
by a crowd of boys, we went to the house of tho bishop.
This bishop, as he is styled by courtesy, is a miserable-
looking old m.an ; he told us he had charge of the two
churches at Esneh, and of all the Christiana in tho
world beyond it to the south. His flock consists of
about 200, poor wanderers from the true principles of
Christianity, and knowing it only a3 teaching them to

THEBES-ITS TEIMPLES AND RUINS,

SI

make the feign of the cross, and to call upon the Son,
and Virg;in, and a long calendar of saints. Outside the
door of tlie church was a school ; a pai'cel of dirty boys
sitting on the ground, under the shade of some palm-
trees, with a more dii-ty blind man for their master, who
seemed to be at the work of teacliing because he was not
tit for any thing else. I turned away with a feeling of
melancholy, and almost blushed in the presence of the
haughty Mussulmans, to recognise the ignorant and
degraded objects around me as my Christian bretliren.

CHAPTER X.
Thebes, its Templce and great Ruins.— The Obelusk of Luxor, now
of Paris.— An Avenue of Sphin.xcs.— Comae— The Jluniniy

Pits The Tomba of the Kings.— The ^Icmnoniunj.

It wa.s nearly noon, when, with a gentle breeze, we
dropped into" the harbour of Thebes. The sun was
beating upon it with meridian splendour ; the inhabi-
tants were seeking shelter in their miserable huts from
its scorching rays ; and when we made fast near the
remains of the ancient port, to which, more than thirty
centuries ago, the Egyptian boatman tied his boat, a
small group of Arabs, smoking under the shade of some
palm-trees on a point above, and two or three stragglers
who came down to the bank to gaze at us, were the
only living beings we beheld in a city which had num-
bered its millions. When Greece was just emerging
from the shades of barbarism, and before the name of
Rome was known, Egypt was far advanced in science
and the arts, and Thebes the most magnificent city in the
world. But the Assj-rian came and overthrew for ever
the throne of the Pharaoiis. The Persiim war-cry rang
through the crowded streets of Thebes, Cambyses laid
his destroying hands upon the temples of its gods, and
a greater than Babylon the Great fell to rise no more.
The ancient city was twenty-three miles in circum-
ference. The valley of the Nile was not large enough
to contain it, and its extremities rested upon the bases
of the mountains of Arabia and Africa. The whole of
tliis great extent is more or less strewed with ruins,
broken columns, and avenues of sphinxes, colossal
figures, obelisks, pyramidal gateways, porticoes, blocks
of polished granite, and stones of extraordinary mag-
nitude, while above them, " in all the nakedness of
desolation," the colossal skeletons of giant temples are
standing " in the unwatered sands, in solitude and
silence. They are neither grey nor blackened ; there
is no lichen, no moss, no rank grass or mantling ivy, to
robe them and conceal their deformities. Like the
bones of man, they seem to whiten tmder the sun of
the desert." The sand of Africa has been their most
fearful enemy ; blown upon them for more than 3000
years, it has buried the largest monuments, and, in some
instances, almost entire temples.

At this day the temples of Thebes are kno'mi almost
every where, by the glowing reports of travellers. Ar-
tists have taken drawmgs of all their minute details, and
I shall refer to them very briefly. On tho Arabian side
of the Nile are the great temples of Luxor and Carnac.
The temple of Luxor stands near the bank of the river,
built there, as is supposed, for the convenience of the
Egyptian boatmen. Before the magnificent gateway
of this temple, until within a few years, stood two lofty
obelisks, each a single block of red granite, more than
eighty feet high, covered with sculpture and hiero-
glyphics fresh as if but yesterday from the hands of the
sculptor. One of them has been lately taken down by the
French, and at this moment rears its daring summit
to the skies in the centre of admiring Paris ; the other
is yet standing on the spot where it was first erected.

Between these and the grand propylon are two colossal
statues with mitred head-dresses, also single blocks of
granite, buried to the chest by sand, but still rising more
than twenty feet above the gi-ound. The grand propylon
is a magnificent gateway, more than 200 feet in length
at its present base, and more than 60 feet above the
. sand. The whole front is covered with sculpture — the
battle scenes of an Egyptian warrior, designed and exe-

cuted with extraordinary force and spirit. In one com-
partment the hero is represented advancing at the head nf
his forces, and breaking through tlie r.inks of the enemy ;
then standing, a colossal figure, in a car drawn by two
fiery horses, with feathers waving overhead, tho reuis
tied round liLs body, his bow bent, the arrow drawn to
its head, and the dead and wounded lying under tho
wheels of his car and the hoof's of his hoi-ses. In an-
other place several cars are seen in full speed for tho
walls of a town, fugitives passing a river, horses, cha-
riots, and men, struggling to reach the opposite bank,
while the hero, hurried impetuously beyond the rank
of his own followers, is standmg alone among tho slain
and wounded who have fallen under liLs formidable arm.
At the farthest extremity he is sitting on a throne as a
conqueror, with a sceptre in his hand, a row of the
pvuicipal captives before him, each with a rope around
his neck ; one with outstretched hands imploring pity,
and another on his knees to receive the blow of tho
executioner, while above is the vanquished monarch,
with his hands tied to a car, about to grace the triumph
of the conqueror.

Passing this magnificent entrance, the visitor enters
the dromos, or large open court, surrounded by a ruined
portico formed by a double row of columns covered
with sculpture and hieroglyphics ; and working his way
over heaps of rubbish and Arab huts, among stately
columns twelve feet in diameter, and between thirty
and forty feet in height, with spreading capitals rcsem-
bUng the budding lotus, some broken, some prostrate,
some half buried, and some lofty and towering as when
they were erected, at the distance of 600 feet reaches
the sanctuary of the temple.

But great and magnificent as was the temple of Luxor,
it served but as a portal to the greater Carnac. Stand-
ing nearly two miles from Luxor, the whole i-oad to it
was lined with rows of sphinxes, each of a solid block
of granite. At this end they are broken, and, for tho
most part, buried under the sand and heaps of rubbish.
But approaching Carnac, they stand entire, still and
solemn as when the ancient Egj-ptian passed between
them to worship in the great temple of Ammon. Four
grand propylons terminate this aveime of sphinxes, and,
passing through the last, the scene which presents itself
defies description. Belzoni remarks of the ruins of
Thebes generally, that he felt as if he were in a city of
giants ; and no man can look upon the ruins of Carnac
without feeling humbled by the greatness of a people
who have passed away for ever. The western entrance,
facing the temple of Northern Dair on the opposite
side of the river, also approached between two rows of
sphinxes, is a magnificent propylon 400 feet long and
40 feet in thickness. In the language of Dr Richard-
son, " looking forward from the centre of this gateway,
the vast scene of havoc and destruction presents itself
in all the extent of this immense temple, with its co-
lumns, and walls, and immense propylons, all prostrate
in one heap of ruins, looking as if the thunders of heaven
had smitten it at the command of an insulted God."

The field of ruins is about a mile in diameter ; tho
temple itself 1200 feet long and 420 broad. It has
twelve principal entrances, each of which is approached
through rowsof sphinxes, as across the plain from Luxor,
and each is composed of propylons, gateways, and other
buildings, in themselves larger than most other temples ;
the sides of some of them are equal to the bases of most
of the pyramids, and on each side of many are colossal
statues, some sitting, others erect, from twenty to thirty
feet in height. In front of the body of the temple is a
large court, with an immense colonnade on each side,
of thirty columns in length, and through the middle two
rows of columns fifty feet in height ; then an immense
portico, thereof supported by 134 columns,from twenty-
six feet to thirty-four feet in circumference. Next were
four beautiful obelisks more than seventy feet high,
threeof whichare still standmg ; and then thesanctuary,
consisting of an apartment twenty feet square, the walls
and ceiling of large blocks of highly-poUshed granite, the
ceiling studded with stars on a blue ground, and the

32

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

v.iils covered with sculpture and liieroglvphics repre-
senting ofteriiigs to Osiris, illustniting the nivsterious
uses of tliis saered eliainber, and showing tiie degrading
character of the Kgvptian woi-ship. Bevond tliis is
anotlier colonnade, and again porticoes and walls to
another propvlon, at a distance of 2000 feet from tlie
western extremity of the temple.

lint these are not half of the i-uins of Tliebcs. On
tlie western side of tlie river, besides others prostrate
and nearly buried under the sands, but tlie traces of
whieli are still visible, the temples of Gornou, Northern
Dair, Dair-el-Medinet, the Meninonium, and Medinet
Abou, with their columns, and sculpture, and colossal
figures, still raise their giant skeletons above the sands.
Volumes have been written ui)on them, and volumes
may yet be written, and he that reads all will still have
but an imperfect idea of tlie ruins of Thebes. 1 will
only add, that all these temples were connected by long
aviiiuea of .'sphinxes, statues, prupylnns, and colossal
figures, and the reader's imaginatu>ii will workout the
imposing scene that was presented in the crowded streets
of the now desolate city, when with all the gorgeous
ceremonies of pagan idolatry, the priests, bearing the
sacred image of their god, and followed by thousands of
the citizens, made their animal procession from temple
to temple, and, " with harps, and cymbals, and songs of
rfjoicinjj," brought back their idol, and replaced him in
liis shrine in the grand temple at Carnac.

The rambler among the ruins of Thebes will often
ask himself, " Where are the palaces of the kings, and
princes, and people, who worshipped in these mighty
temples?" With the devout though degraded spirit of
religion that possessed the Egyptians, they seem to have
paic] but little regard to their earthly habitations ; their
temples and their tombs were the principal objects that
en)jros.--cd the thoughts of this extraordinary i)eople.
It has been well said of them that they regarded the
habitations of the living mei-ely as temporary resting-
places, while the tombs were regarded as permanent and
eternal mansious ; and while not a vestige of a habitation
is to be seen, the tombs remain monuments of splendour
and magnilicence, perhai)s even more wonderful than
the ruins of their temples. Clinging to the clurished
doctrine of the metempsychosis, the immortal part, on
leaving its earthly tenement, was supposed to become
a wanderin;,', migratory spirit, giving life and vit.ality
to some bird of the air, some beast of the field, or some
fisli of the sea, waiting for a regeneration in the natural
body. And it was of the very essence of this faith to
inculcate a pious regard for the security and preserva-
tion of tlie de.id. The whole mountain-side on tlie
■westem bank of the river is one vast necropolis. The
ojKJij doors of tombs are seen in long i-anges, and at
difterent elevations, and on the plain large pits have
been opened, in whicli have been found 1000 mummies
at a time. For many years, and until a late order of
tlie paeha preventing it, the Arabs have been in the
habit of rilling the tombs to sell the mummies to travel-
lers. Thousands have been torn from the places where
pious bands had laid them, and the bones meet the tra-
vellnr at every step. The .Arabs use the mummy-cases
for firewood, the bituminous matters used in the em-
balmment being well adapted to ignition ; and the epicu-
rean traveller may cook his breakfast with the coffin of
a king. Notwithstanding the depredations that have
L*'en committed, the mummies that have been taken
M»ay and scattered all over the world, those that have
I<cen burnt, and othrrs that now remain in fragments
Around the tombs, the numbers yet undisturbed are no
doubt infinitely greater ; for the practice of embalming
II to have existed from the earliest pi-riods re-
i the history of Kgypt ; and by a rough com-
i ui«on the age, thi; popidation of the
r.ige duration of human liff, it is sup-
p.-s.-d that th. n; are from J!,(tOO,000 to 10,000,000 oJ
iii'iiTimieil iKxlirs in the vast necropolis of 'J'helx-s.

Leaving thes*' resting-places of the dead, I turn for
one moment to those of more than royal magnificence,
called the tombs of the kings. The world can bhow

nothing like them ; and lie who has not seen them can
hardly believe in their existence. They lie in the valley
of Biban-el-Melook, a dark and gloomy opening in the
sandstone mountains, about three quarters of an hour
from Gornou. The road to them is over a dreai*y waste
of sands, and their doors open from the most desolate
spot that the imagination can conceive.

Diodorus Siculus says that forty-seven of these tombs
were i-ntered on the saered rogistere of the Egyptian
priests, only seventeen of which romaiued at tlie time
of his visit to Egypt, about sixty years n.v. In onr
own diiys, the industry and enterprise of a single indi-
vidual, the indefatigable Belzoni, have bi'ought to light
one that was probably entirely unknown in the time of
the Grecian traveller. The entrance is by a narrow
door ; a simple excavation in the side of the mountain,
without device or orii.ament. The entrance-liall, which
is extremely beautiful, is twenty-seven feet long and
twenty-five broad, having at the end a large door open-
ing into another chamber, twenty-eight feet by twenty-
five, the walls covered with figures drawn in outline,
but perfect as if recently done. Descending a large
staircase, and passing through a beautiful corridor,
Belzoni came to another staircase, at the foot of which
he entered another apartment, twenty-four feel by
tiiirtcen, and so ornamented with sculjiture and jiaint-
ings that he called it the Hall of Beauty. The sides of
all the chambers and corridors arc covered with sculp-
ture and paintings ; the colours appearing fresher as the
visitor advances towards the interior of the tomb ; and
the walls of this chamber are covered with the figures
of Egyptian gods and goddesses, seeming to hover round
and guard the remains of the honoured dead.

Farther on is a large hail, twenty-eight feet long and
twenty-seven broad, supj)orted by two rows of square
pillars, which Belzoni called the Hall of Pillars ; and
beyond this is the entry to a large saloon with a vaulted
roof, thirty-two feet in length and twenty-seven in
breadth. Opening from this were several other cham-
bers of different dimensions, one of them unfinished,
and one forty-three feet long by seventeen feet six
inches wide, in which he found the mummy of a bull ;
but in the centre of the grand saloon was a sarcophagus
of tlie finest oriental alabaster, only two inches thick,
minutely sculptured within and without with sevend
hundred figures, and perfectly ti'ansparent when a light
was placed within it.

All over the corridoi-s and chambers the walls are
adorned with sculptures and paintings in intaglio and
relief, representing gods, goddesses, and the hero of the
tomb in the most jirominent events of his life, priests,
religious jirocessioiis and sacrifices, boats and agricul-
tural scenes, and the most familiar pictures of every-
day life, in colours as fresh aa if th<-y were painted not
more than a month ago ; and the large saloon, lighted
up with the blaze of our torches, seemed more fitting
for a baii(|ueting-liall, for song .and d.inee, than a burial-
place of the di'ad. All travellers concur in pronounc-
ing the sudden transition from the dreary desert without
to these magnificent tombs sus operating like a scene of
enchantment ; and we may imagine what must have
been the sensations of Belzoni, when, wandering with
the excitement of a first discoverer through these beau-
tiful Corridors and chambers, he found hims,elf in the
great saloon leaning over the alab:i.ster sarcoph.igus.
An old Arab who accompanieil us remembered Belzoni,
and pointed out a chamber where the fortunate ex-
jdorer entertained a party of European travellers who
happened to an-ive there at that time, making the tomb
of I'haranh* ring with shouts and gongs of merriment.

At different times I waiuhaed among all these tombs.
All were of the same gfiieral cluiraeter; all possessed
the same beauty and magnificence of design and finish,
and ill all, at the extnmc end, w.as a large saloon,
adorned with seidpture and paintings of extraordinary
beauty, and containing a siiigh- h;ircf)j)hagns. " The
kings of the nations did lie in glory, every one in his
own house, but thou art cast out of thy grave like an
* .Supposed to be the tomb of I'haraoli Nccho.

THE MEMNONIUM— THE ARABS AND THE PACHA.

33

abominable braucli." Every sarcophagus is broken,
and the bones of the kings of Egypt are seattored. In
one 1 picked up a skull. I-mused over it a moment,
and handed it to Paul, who moralised at large. " That
man," said he, " once talked, and laughed, and sang,
and danced, and ate maccaroni." Among the paintings
on the walls was represented a heap of hands severed
from the arms, showing that the hero of the tomb ha<l
played the tyrant in his brief hour on earth. I dashed
the skull against a stone, bx'oke it in fx'agments, and
pocketed a piece as a memorial of a king. Paul cut off
one of tlie ears, and we left the tomb.

Travellers and commentators concur in supposing
that these magniticent e.xcavations nmst have been in-
tended for other uses than the burial, each of a single
king. Perhaps, it is said, like the chambei-s of imagery
seen by the Jewish prophet, they were the scene of
idolatrous rites performed " in the dark ;" and as the
Israelites are known to have been mei-e copyists of the
Egyptians, these tombs ai'e supposed to illustrate the
words of Ezekiel : " Then said ho to me, Son of man,
dig now in the wall ; and when I had digged in the wall,
behold a door. And he said unto me, Go iu and see
the abominable things that they do there. So I went
in, and saw, and behold, every form of creeping thing
and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house
of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about." —
Ezek. viii. 8-10.

Amid the wrecks of former greatness which tower
above the plain of Tliebes, the inhabitants wlio now
hover around the site of the ancient city are perlia{>s
the most miserable in Egypt. On one side of the river
they build their mud huts around the ruins of the temples,
and on the other their best habitations are iu the tombs ;
wherever a small space has been cleared out, the inhabi-
tants crawl in, with their dogs, goats, sheep, women, and
children ; and the Arab is passing rich who has for his
sleeping-place the sarcophagus of an ancient Egyptian.

I have several times spoken of my intended journey
to the great Oasis. Something was yet wanting in my
voyage on the Nile. It was calm, tame, and wanting
in that high excitement which I had expected from
travelling in a barbarous country. A woman and child
might go safely from Cairo to the Cataracts ; and my
blood began to run sluggishly in my veins. Besides, I
I'.ad a great curiosity to see an oasis ; a small spot of
green fertile land in the great desert, rising in solitary
beauty before the eyes of the traveller, after days of
journeying through arid wastes, and divided by vast
simdy ramparts from the rest of tjie world. The very
name of the great Oasis in the Libyan Desert carried
with it a wild and almost fearful interest, too powerful
for me to resist. It was beyond the beaten track ; and
the sheik with whom I made my arrangements insisted
on my taking a guard, telling me that he understood
the character of his race, and an Arab in the desert
could not resist the temptation to rob an unprotected
traveller. For my own part, I had more fear of being
followed by a party of the very unprepossessing fellows
who wei-e stealthily digging among the tombs, and all
of whom knew of the preparations for our journey, than
from any we might encounter in the desert. I must
confess, however, that I was rather amused when I
reviewed my body-guard, and, with the gravest air in
the world, knocked out the primings from their guns,
and primed them anew with the best of English powder.
When 1 got through, I was on the point of discharging
them altogether ; but it would have broken the poor
fellows' hearts to disappoint them of their three piastres
(about fifteen cents) per diem, dearly earned by a walk
all day in the desert, and a chance of being shot at.

In the afternoon before the day fixed for my depar-
ture, I rode by the celebrated Memnons, theDamyand
Shamy of the Arabs. Perhaps it was because it was
the last time, but I had never before looked upon them
•with so much interest. Among the mightier moimments
of Thebes, her temples and her tombs, I had passed
these ancient statues with a comparatively cai-eless eye,
scarcely even bestowing a thought upon the vocal Mem-

C

non. Now I was in a different mood, and looked upon
its still towering form with a feeling of melancholy in-
terest. I stood before it and gazed up at its worn face,
its scars and bruises, and my heart warmed to it. It
told of exposure, for unknown ages, to the rude assaults
of the elements and the ruder assaults of man. I
climbed upon the pedestal, upon the still hardy legs of the
Memnon. I pored over a thousand inscriptions in Greek
and Latin. \ thousand names of strangers from distant
lands, who had come like me to do homage to the mighty
monuments of Thebes ; Greeks and Romans who had
been in their graves more than "2000 years, and who had
written with their own hands that they had heard the
voice of the vocal Memnon. IJut, alas ! the voice has
departed from Memnon ; the soul has Hed, and it stands
a gigantic skeleton in a grave of ruins. I returned to
my boat, and in ten minutes thereafter, if the vocal
Memnon liad bellowed in my ears, he could not have
awaked me.

CHAPTER XI.
The Arabs and the Pacha.— March into the Desert.— Arab Chris-
tians.— A cold Reception.— Arab Punctuality. — A Night in a
Convent. — An Arab Christian Priest.— Speculative Tlieology. —
A Journey ended before commenced.
Early in the morning I was on the bank, waiting for
my caravan and guides. I had every thing ready, rice,
maccaroni, bread, biscuit, a hare, and a few shirts. I
had given instructions to my rais to take my boat down
to Siout, and wait for me there, as my intention was to
go from the great Oasis to the Oasis of Siwah, contain-
ing the ruins of the temple of Jupiter Ammon, to destroy
which Cambyses had sent from this very spot an army
of 50,000 menj who, by the way, left their bones on the
sands of Africa ; and 1 need not remind the reader that
Alexander the Great had visited it iu person, and been
acknowledged by the priest as the sou of Jupiter. I
waited a little longer, and then, becoming impatient,
mounted a donkey to ride to the sheik's. iMy rais and
crew accompanied me a little way ; they were the only
persons to bid us farewell ; and, as Paul remarked, if
we never got back, they were the only persons to make
an\' report of us to our friends.

The sheik's house was situated near the mountains,
in the mid.st of the tombs forming the great necropolis
of Thebes, and we found him surrounded by fifty or
sixty men, and women and children without number,
all helping to fit out the expedition. There did not
appear to be much choice among them, but I picked
out my body-guard ; and when I looked at their swarthy
visages by broad daylight, I could not help asking the
sheik what security I had against them. The sheik
seemed a little touched, but, jjointing to the open doors
of the tombs, and the miserable bi^ngs around us, he
said he had their wives and children in his hands as
pledges for my siifety. Of the sheik himself I knew
nothing, except that he was sheik. I knew, too, that
though by virtue of the pacha's firman he was bound to
do every thing he could for me, he was no friend to the
pacha or his government ; for one evening, in speaking
of the general poverty of the .Arabs, he said that if one
fourth of them owned a musket, one charge of powder,
and one ball, before morning there would not be a Turk
in Egypt. However, I luiew all this before.

At 1 2 o'clock the last sack of biscuit was packed upon
the camels, and I mounted a fine dromedary, while my
companions bade farewell to their wives, childi'en, and
friends ; a farewell so calm and quiet, particularly for
a people whose blood was warmed by the burning sun
of Africa, that it seemed cold and heartless.

My caravan consisted of six camels, or rather four
camels and two dromedaries, four camol-drivers armed
with gword.s, eight men witli pistols and muskets, Paul,
and myself. It was the first time 1 had undertaken a
journey in the desert. My first endeavour was to learn
something of the character of my companions, and even
Paul became j)erfectly satisfied and pleased with the
journey, when, upon acquaintance, he found that their
ugly outsides gave no true indication of the inward man.

34

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

Oiir puiJo, lio who was to conduct ua tlirough the
pathless desert, was not yet with us; he lived at a vil-
L»ge about four miles distant, and a messenger had been
sent forward to adviso him of our coming. Riding for the
last time among the ruined temples of Thebes, beyond
the limits of the ancient city, our road lay behind the
valley bordering the river, and along the edge of the
desert. On one side was one of the richest and most
extensive valleys of the Nile, well cultivated, and at this
season of the year covered with the richest greens ; on
the other wore barren mountains and a shandy desert.

In about four liours we saw, crossing the valley and
stoppmg ou the edge of the desert, a single Arab. It
was our messenger, come to tell us tlvat our guide would
meet us at a Christian church about four hours' march
in the desert. We now left the borders of the valley,
and struck directly into the desert. Before us, at some
distance over a sandy plain, was a high range of sand-
stone mountains, and beyond these was the mighty
waste ol sand and barrenness. Towards evening we
saw from afar the church at which we were to meet our
guide. It was the only object that rose above the level
of tlie sands ; and as the setting sun was fast reminding
us that the day was closing, it looked like a resting-place
for a weai'y ti-avcUer.

Congratulating myself upon my unexpected good for-
tune in meeting with those who bore the name of Chris-
tians, I was still more happy in the prospect, for this
night at least, of sleeping under a roof. As we ap-
proached, we saw the figure of a man sfealing along the
wall, and were near enough to hear the hasty closing of
the door and the heavy drawing of bolts inside. It was
nine o'clock when we dismounted and knocked at the
door of the convent, but received no answer; we knocked
again and again without success. We then commenced
a regular battery. I rattled against the door with my
Nubian club in a small way, like Richard at the gate of
the castle of Front do Ba-uf ; but my blows did not tell
like the battle-axe of the Lion-hearted, and the churlish
inmates, secure behind their strong walls, paid no re-
gard to us. Tired of knocking, and irritated at this
inhospitable treatment from men calling themselves
Christians, I walked rouud the building to see if by
accident there was not some back-door loft open. The
convent was enclosed by a square wall of unburnt brick,
twelve or fourteen feet high, and not a door, window,
or loop-hole, was to be seen. It was built for defence
against the roving Arabs, and if we had intended to
.storm it, we could not have found an assailable point.
I returned, vexed and disappointed ; and calling away
my men, and almost cursing the unchristian spirit of its
inmates, I pitched my tent under its walls, and prepiared
to pass the night in the desert.

1 had liardly 8tr»tched myself upon my mat before
I heard the smart trot of a dromedary, and presently
my guide, whom I had almost forgotten, dismounted
at till! door (if the tent. He was a tall, hard-faced,
wc-atlier- beaten man of about fifty, the white hairs
just brginning to make their appearance in his black
beard. I wanted to have a good view of him, and,
calling him inside, gave him a seat on the mat, a pipe,
and coffee. He told me that for rnauy years he had
been in the habit of going once a-year to the Oasis,
on a trailing voyage, and that he knew the i-oad per-
foctly. Almost the first thing he said was, that he
' • 'led to remain there the next day. The

■ other Orientals, have no respect for
tiiu val.i': ol lime; and among the petty vexations of
travelling among them, few annoyed me more than the
eternal " I'likhara, bokhara" — ** to-mon'ow, to-morrow."
When they first sent to this guide to know whether he
could engage with me, he said he was ready at any mo-
ment, by wYiich he probably meant a week's notice ; and
when they sent word th.it 1 had named a j)articular day,
lie probably •' hat I would bo along in the course

of two or till ifler, and was no doubt taken by

whi'u the messenger came to tell him that I
.Illy on the march. I, of course, had no idea
of remaining tlicrc. He told mc that I had better stay ;

that ono day could not make any diffei-ence, and finally
said he had no bread baked, and must have a day or
two to prepare himself. I answered that ho had told
the sheik at Thebes that he would bo ready at any mo-
ment; that it was absurd to think I would wait there
in the desert ; that I would not bo trifled with, and
if he were not ready the next morning, 1 would ride
over to his village and make a complaint to the sheik.
After a long parley, which those only can imagine who
have had to deal with Arabs, he promised to bo there
at sunrise the next morning, and took his leave.

After supper, when, if ever, a man should feel good-
natured, I began again to feel indignant at the churlish
inmates of the convent, and resolved upon another
effort to see what stuff these Christians were made of.
I know that the monks in these isolated jilaccs, among
fanatic Mussulmans, were sometimes obliged to have
recourse to carnal weapons ; and telling I'aul to keep
a look-out, and give mo notice if he saw tlio barrel of
a musket presenting itself over the wall, I again com-
menced thundering at the door ; almost at the first
blow it was thrown wide open, with a suddenness that
startled me, and a d.ark, surly, and half-naked Arab
stood facing me in the doorway. He had been I'ccon-
noitring, and though not sufficiently assured to come
out and welcome us, he was ready to open when again
summoned. With no small degree of asperity, and
certainly without the meekness of the character upon
which I was then presuming, I asked him if that was
his Christian spirit, to let a stranger and a Chi'istiaii
sleep outside his walls when he had a roof to shelter
him ; and before he could interpose a word, I had read
him a homily upon the Christian virtues that would
have done credit to some pulpits. Ho might have re-
torted upon mc, that with the Christian duties coming
so glibly from my tongue, I was amazingly deficient in
the cardinal vii-tue of forbearance ; but I had the satis-
faction of learning that I had not been excluded by the
hands of Christians. The priests and monks had gone
to a neighbouring village, and he was left alone. 1 fol-
lowed him through a sort of courtyard into a vesti-
bule, where was a noble fire, with a large caldron boiling
over it. He neither asked me to stay, nor told me to
go, and seated himself by the fire, perfectly indifferent
to my movements. As soon as I had satisfied myself
that ho was alone, and saw that my Arabs had followed
me, I thought I r.an no risk in considering the building
as a castle which I had stonued, and him as the captive
of my bow and spear. I therefore required him to show
me the interior of the convent, and he immediately took
up a blazing sticlcjrom the fire, and conducted me with-
in; and when I told him that I meant to sleep there,
he said it would be for him a night " white as milk."

From the vestibule the door opened into tho chapel,
which consisted of a long apartment running trans-
versely, the door in the centre ; the floor was covered
with mats, ostrich-eggs were suspended from the ceil-
ings, and three or four recesses contained altars to
favourite saints. Directlv opposite the door was a larger
recess, in which stood the great altar, separated by a
railing, ornamented with bono and mother-of-pearl, and
over tlie top were four pictures of St George slayipg the
dragon. I walked up and down the chapel two or three
times, followed in silence by my swarthy friends, not
altogether with the reverential spirit of a pious Chris-
tian, but with the prudence of a man of the world, look-
ing out for the best place to sleep, and finally deposited
my mat at the foot of the great altar.

I might better have slept on tho sand after all, for
tho walls of the church wore damp, and a strong current
of air from the largo window above had been pouring
in ujion me tho whole night. When I first woke, I felt
as if pinned to the floor, and I was startled and alarmed
at the recurrence of a malady, on account of which I
was then an exile from home. I went outside, and
found, although it was late, that the guide had not come.
If he had been there, I should no doubt liavo gone on ;
but, most fortunately for me, I had time to roHect. 1
was a changed man since the day before ; my buoyancy

A NIGHT IN A CONVENT.

35

of spirits was gone, and I was depressed and dejected.
I sent a messenger, however, for tlie guide ; and while
I was sitting under the walls, hesitating whetiier I
Bliould expose myself to the long and dreary journey
before me, I saw four men coming across the desert
towards the convent. They were the priest and three
of his Christian flock ; and their greeting was sucli as
to make me reproach myself for the injustice 1 had
done the Arab Christians, and feel that there w;is sonie-
tl'.ing in that religion, even in the corrupt state in w liich
it existed there, that had power to open and warm the
heart. Tlio priest was a tall thin man, his dark face
almost covered with a black beard and mustaches, and
wore the common blue gown of the better class of Arabs,
witli a square black cap on his head, and his feet bare.
I could not understand him, but 1 could read in his face
that he saluted me as a brother Christian, and welcomed
me to all that a brother Christian could give.

Living as we do, in a land where the only religious
difierence is that of sect, and all sects have the bond of
a common faith, it is difficult to realise the feeling which
di-aws together believers in the same God and the same
Redeemer, in lands where power is wielded by the wor-
sliippers of a false religion. One must visit a country
in which religion is the dividing line, where haughty
and deluded fanatics are the mastei's, and hear his faith
reviled, and see its professors persecuted and despised,
to know and feel how strong a tie it is.

After exchanging our greetings outside, the priest
led the way to the church. I do not know whether it
was a customary thing, or done specially in honour of
me (Paul said the latter) ; but, at any rate, he imme-
diately lighted up the edifice, and, slipping over his
frock a dirty white gown, with a large' red cross down
tlie back, commenced the service of the mass. His ap-
pearance and manner were extremely interesting, and
very different from those of the priest I had seen at
Esneh. His fine head, his noble expression, his ear-
nestness, his simplicity, his apparent piety, his long black
beard and mustaches, his mean apparel and naked feet,
all gave him the primitive aspect of an apostle. He was
assisted by a dirty, ragged, barefooted boy, who followed
him round with a censer of incense, vigorously perfum-
ing the church from time to time, and then climbing up
a stand, holding on by his naked feet, and reading a
lesson from the thumbed, torn, and tattered leaves of an
Arabic Bible. There were but three persons present
besides myself; poor, ignorant people, far astray, no
doubt, from the path of true Christianity, but worship-
l)ing, in all honesty and sincerity, according to the best
light they had, the God of their fathers. The priest went
through many long and unmeaning forms, which I did
not understand, but I had seen things quite as incompre-
hensible to me in the splendid cathedrals of Europe, and
I joined, so far as I could, in the humble worship of
these Egj'ptiau Christians. There were no vessels of
silver and gold, no imjiosLng array of costly implements,
to captivate the senses. A broken tumbler, a bottle of
wine, and three small rolls of bread, formed the simple
materials for the holy rite of the Lord's Supper. The
thi-ee Arabs, partook of it, and twice it was offered to
me ; but the feelings with which I had been accustomed
to look upon this solemn sacrifice forbade me to partake
of the consecrated elements, and never did I regret my
unworthiness so bitterly as when it prevented me fi*om
joining in the holy feast with these simple-hearted
Christians. In the meantime Paul came in, and the ser-
vice being ended, I fell into conversation with the priest.
He was a good man, but very ignoi-ant, weak, and of
great simplicity of character. He conducted me around
the little church into the several chapels, and pointed
out all that he thought curious, and particularly the
ornaments of bone and mother-of-pearl ; and, finally,
with a most imposing an-, like a priest in a church in
Italy uncovering the works of the fu'st masters, he
drew the curtain from the four pictures of St George
slaying the di-agon, and looked at me with an air of
great satisfaction to enjoy the expression of my sur-
prise and astonishment. I did not disappomt him, nor

did I tell him that I had the night before most I'rrcve*
rently drawn aside the curtain, and exposed theso
sacred speeiinens of the arts to the eyes of my unbe-
lieving Arabs ; nor did I tell him that, in each of the
four, St George seemed to be making a different thrust
at tlie dragon. There w.is no use in disturbing the
complacency of the poor priest ; he had but little of
which he could be proud, and 1 would not depiive him
of that. Leaving him undisturbed in his exalted
opinion of St George and his dragons, 1 inquired of him
touching the number aud condition of the Christians
under his charge, and their state of security under the
govermnent of the pacha ; aud, among other things,
asked him if they increased. He told mo that they
remained about the same, or perhaps rather decreased.
I asked him if a Mussulman ever became a Christian.
He answered never, but sometimes a Christian would
embrace the religion of Mahommed, and assigned a
cause for this unhappy difference which I am sorry to
mention, being no less than the influence of the tender
passion. He told me that, in the free intcrcoiu'se now
existing under the government of the pacha between
Christians and Mussulmans, it often happened that a
Christian youth became enamoured of a iNIoslem girl ;
aud as they could not by any possibihty marry aud re-
tain their separate religions, it was necessai-y that one of
them should change. The Moslem dare not, for death
by the hands of her own friends would be the certain
consequence, while the Christian, mstead of runnmg
any temporal rislcs, gains with his bride the protection
and favour of the Mussulmans. Paul seemed rather
scandalised at this information, and began to catechise
the priest on his own account. I could not understand
the conversation, but could judge, from the movements,
that Paul was examining him on that cardinal point,
the sign of the cross. All appeared to go smoothly-
enough for a little while, but I soon noticed the flashing
of Paul's eyes, and sundry other symptoms of indigna-
tion and contempt. I asked him several times what it
was all about ; but, without answering, he walked back-
ward and forward, slapping his hands under the priest's
nose, and talking louder and faster than ever, and I
had to tidcc hold of him, and ask him shai-ply what the
plague was the matter, before 1 could get a word out of
him. " A pretty Christian," said Paul ; " fast fifty-six
days for Lent, when we fast only forty-six ; forty that
our Saviour was in the mount, and six Sundays." I
told him there was not so much dill'erence between
them as I thought, as it was only ten days ; he looked
at me for a moment, and then, as if fearful of trusting
himself, shrugged his shoulders, and marched out of the
chapel. During all this time, the condition of the poor
priest was pitiable and amusing ; he had never been so
sharply questioned before, and he listened with as much
defex'ence to Paul's questions and rebukes as if he had
been listening to the Pope of Rome, and, when it was
over, looked perfectly crest-fallen.

It was twelve o'clock when the man we Jiad sent after
the guide returned, but before tills time my malady had
increased to such a degree as to leave mo no option ;
and 1 had resolved to abandon the Oasis, and go back
to Thebes. I had great reason to congratulate myself
upon my accidental detention, and still greater that
the symptoms of my malady had developed themselves
before 1 had advanced another day's journey in the
desert. Still, it w.os with a heavy heart that 1 mounted
my dromedary to return. 1 had not only the regret of
being compelled abruptly to abandon a long-ciierislicd
plan, but I had great uneasuiess as to what w.os to be-
come of me on my ai-rival at Thebes. My boat was
probably already gone. 1 knew that no other could bo
obtamed there, and, if obliged to wait for a casual
opportunity, I must live in my tent on the banks of the
rivei', or in one of the tombs. My anxieties, however,
were quickly dispelled on my arrival at Thebes, where
I found the English gentleman and lady whom I liad
met at Cairo, and afterwards at the Cataracts. They
kindly took me on boai-d their boat ; and so ended my
expedition to the gi-eat Oasis.

30

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

CHArTER XII.
A Travelling Artist and Antiquary.— An Esyptian Suji-nr-bouse.
— Grecian .\rchitccturc.— .\ Melancholy Greeting. — Tyranny of
Uie Pacha.— .Vmatcurs of Thysic. — Memphis. — Adventure with
a Wild llo.ir. —Perils of a Pyramid.— The Catacombii of Itirds.
— Amor Putria-.- Voyaging on the Nile.

I SMALL never forget the kiiulness of these excellent
friends ; ami, inih-ftl, it was a iiappy thing for nic that
niv own boat had gone, and that 1 was thrown nj>on
their hospitality ; for, in addition to the greater com-
forts I found with them, I had the benefit of cheerful
society, under circumstances when to be alone would
have been horrible. Even when we arrived at Siout,
after a voyage of seven days, they would not let nie leave
them, but assumed the right of pliysicians, and pre-
scribed that I should be their guest until perfectly
restor<d. I remained, accordingly, three days longer
with them, n>y little boat following like a tender to a
man-of-var, and passed my time luxuriously. I had
book.-i, convei-sation, and a medicine-chest. But one
thing troubled me. We liad a cook who looked upon
his profession as a hberal and enlightened science, and
had attained ita very highest honours. He had served
various noblemen of eminent taste, iiad accumulated
50,000 dollars, and w:i8 now cooking at the rate of fifty
dollars n-month upon the Nile. Michel was au extra-
ordinary man. He came from the mountains of Dal-
matia, near the shores of the Adriatic ; one of a small
nation who had preserved the name, and form, and
spirit of a republic against Italians, Hungarians, and
Turks, and fell only before the irresistible arm of Na-
poleon. He had been a great traveller in his youth, and,
besides his attainments in the culinary art, was better
acijuainted with history, ancient and modern, than
almost any man I ever met. He had two great pas-
sions, the love of liberty and the love of the fine arts
(cookery included), and it was really extraordinary to
hear him, with a ladle in his hand, and tasting, from
time to time, some piquant sauce, discourse of the re-
publics of Rome and .\merica, of the ruins of Italy,
I'almyra, and Egypt. Michel's dinners, making j)roper
allowance for the want of a daily market, would have
done lionour to the best lord he ever served ; and I was
obliged to sit down, day after day, to my tea, rice-water,
biscuit, &c., and listen to the praises of his dainties
while they passed untasted from me.

It was not until within two days of Cairo that we
parted, with an agreement to meet at Jerusalem and
travel together to Palmyra. We did meet for a few
moments at Cairo, but the plague was beginning to
rage, the pacha had been putting himself into quaran-
tine, and we had barely time to renew our engagement,
which a i)articularly unfortunate circumstance (the ill-
nessof Mrs .S.) prevented us from keeping, and we never
met again. Few things connected with my compelled
departure from the Holy Land gave me more regret than
thi.s ; and if these pages should ever meet their eyes,
they will believe me when I say that I shall remember,
to the lait day of my life, their kindness on the Nile.

The story of my journeying on this river is almost
ended. Kenneh was our first stopping-place on our
way down ; a i>Iacc of considerable note, there being a
rf»ute from it across the desert to Cosseir, by which many
of the pilgrims, and a great portion of the trade of the
Red Sfa, are convoyed.

At lUimaioum, not far behiw Siout, we went ashore
to visit a HUicar-factory belonging to the pacha. This
manufactory is pointed out as one of the great improve-
nienU introduced into Egypt, and, so far iis it shows the
capabilities of the Ai-abs, of which, however, no one can
doubt, it may Ik; considered useful. Formerly eighty
Europeans were employed in the factory, but now the
work is carried on entirely by Arabs. Tlie principal
«aa educated in France at the expense of the pacha,
and is one of the few who liave returned to render any
ser^-ice to their country and master. The enlightened
pacha understands thoroughly that liberal principle of
political economy which consists in encouraging do-
mestic manufactures, no matter at what expense. The

sugar costs more than that imported, and is bought by
none but governors and dependents of the pacha. It
is made from cane, contains a great deal of saccharine
matter, and has a good taste, but a bad colour. This
factory, however, can hardly be considered iis influential
upon the general interests'of the country, for its prin-
cipal business is the making of rock candy for the ladies
of tlie harem. They gave us a little to taste, but would
not sell any except to Mrs S., the whole being wanted
for the use of the ladies. Thci-c was also a distillery
attached to the factory, under the direction of another
Arab, who gave satisfactory evidence, in his own person
at least, of the strength of the spirit made, being more
than two-thirds drunk.

The same evening we came to at Beni Hassan, and
the next morning landed to visit the tombs. Like all the
tombs in Egypt, except those of the kings at Thebes,
they are excavated in the sides of the mountain, com-
manding an extensive view of the valley of the Nile ;
but in one respect they are different from all others
in Egypt. The doors have regular Doric columns, and
they are the only specimens of architecture in Egypt
which at all approximate to the Grecian style. This
would not be at all extraordinary if they were con-
structed after the invasion of Aleximder and the settle-
ment of the Greeks in the country, but it is ascertained
that they wei-e built long before that time ; and, indeed,
i-t is alleged by antiquaries that tiicso tombs and ihe
obelisk at Heliopolis arc the oldest monuments in Egypt.
The interiors are large and handsomely propoi'tioned
(one of them being sixty feet square and forty feet high),
and adorned with paintings, representing principally
scenes of domestic life. Amonij them Mr S. and myself
made out one, which is constantly to be seen at the
present day, namely, a half-naked Egyptian, with a skin
of water acro.ss his back, precisely like the modern
Arab in the streets of Cairo.

W'c returned to our boat, and, being now within two
days of Cairo, and having different places to stop at
below, after dinner I said farewell to my kind friends,
and returned to my own boat. My crew received mo
with three cheers, I was going to say, but they do not
understand or practise that noisy mode of civilised wel-
come, and gave me the grave and quiet saluUitiun of
their country, all rising as soon as 1 touched the deck,
and one after the other taking my hand in his, and
touching it to his forehead and lips. My poor rais gave
me a inelancholy greeting. He had been unwell during
the whole voyage, but since we parted had been grow-
ing worse. He told me that our stars were the same,
and that misfortune had happened to us both as soon
as we separated. I could but hope that our stars were
not inseparably connected, for I looked upon him as a
doomed man. 1 had saved liini at Cairo from being
pressed into the pacha's service ; and again in descend-
ing, when he stopped at Kenneh, he ami his whole crew
had been seized in the bazaars, and, in 8]>ite of their
protestations that thoy were in the service of an Ameri-
can, the iron bonds were jiut around their wrists and
the iron collars round their necks. The governor after-
wards rode down to the river, and the American flag
streaming from the masthead of my little boat procured
their speedy relea.se, and saved them from the miserable
fate of Arab soldiers.

Under all the oppressions of the pacha's government,
there is nothing more grinding than this. The gover-
nor of a town, or the sheik of a village, is ordered to
furnish so many mc-n as soldiers. He frequently has
a leaning towards his own subjects or followers, and is
disposed to save them if he can; and if any unlucky
stranger happens to pass before the complement is made
up, he is inevitably jtounced upon as one of the re(|uired
number. It is useless for the i)Oor captive to complain
that he is a stranger, and that the rights of h<.s|iitaiity
are violated ; he ajipeals to those who are interested in
tightening his bonds ; and when he is transferred to the
higher authorities, they neither know nor care who ho
is or whence he comes. He has the thews and sinews
of a man, and tliough his heartstrings be cracking, ho

MEMPHIS— ADVENTURE WITH A WILD BOAR.

87

can bear a musket, and that is enough. For centuries
Egj-pt has been overrun by sti-angei-s, and tlie foot of a
tyrant has been upon the necks t)f her inhabitants ; but
I do not beheve that, since the days of the Pharaolis,
there has been on the tlirone of Kgyjit so thorough a
despot as the present pacha.

But to return to my rais. His first request was for
medicine, which, unfortunately, I could not give him.
The Arabs have a perfect passion for medicine. Early
in our voyage my crew had discovered that 1 had some
on board, and one or another of them was constantly
sick until they had got it all ; and then they all got well
except the rais ; and for him 1 feared there was no cure.
On the eleventh, early in the morning, Paul burst
into the cabin, cui-sing all manner of Arabs, snatched
the gun from over my head, and was out again in a
moment. I knew tliere was no danger when Paul was
80 valorous ; and, opening my broken shutter, I saw
one of my men struggling with an Arab on shore, the
latter holding him by the throat with a pistol at his liead.
The rascal had gone on shore just at daylight to steal
wood, and while in the act of tearing down a little fence,
the watchful owner had sprung upon him, and seemed
on the point of correcting for ever all his bad habits.
His fellows ran to the rescue, with Paul at their head ;
and the culprit, relieved from the giant grasp of his ad-
vei-sary, quietly sneaked on board, and we resumed our
progress.

In the course of my last day on the Nile, I visited
one of the greatest of its ruined cities, and for moral
effect, for powerful impression on the imagination and
feelings, perliaps the most interesting of them all. So
absolute, complete, and total is the ruin of tliis once
powerful city, that antiquaries have disputed whether
there is really a single monument to show where the
great Memphis stood ; but the weight of authority seems
to be, that its stately temples and palaces, and its thou-
sands of inhabitants, once covered the ground now oc-
cupied by the little Arab village of Metrahcnny. This
village stands about four miles from the river ; and the
traveller might pass through it and around it, without
ever dreaming that it had once been the site of a mighty
city. He might, indeed, as he wandered around the
miserable village, find, half buried in the earth, the
broken fragments of a colossal statue; and, looking
from the shattered reUc to the half-savage Arabs around
him, he might say to himself, " This is the w ork of other
men and other times, and how comes it here T' But
it would never occur to him that this was the last re-
maining monument of one of the greatest cities in the
world. He might stop and gaze upon the huge mounds
of ruins piled among the groves of palm, and ask
himself, " Whence, too, came these I" But he would
receive no answer that could satisfy him. In a curious
and unsatisfied mood, he would stroll on through the
village, and from the other extremity would see on the
mountains towerhig before him, on the edge of the de-
sert, a long range of pyramids and tombs, some crum-
bling in ruin, others upright and unbroken as when they
were reared, and all stretching away for miles, one vast
necropolis; his reason and reflection would tell him
that, where are the chambers of the dead, there must
also have been the abodes of the living ; and with wonder
he would ask himself, " Where is the mighty city whose
inhabitants now sleep in yonder tombs I Here are the
proud graves in which they were buried ; whore are the
palaces in w Inch they revelled, and the temples in which
they worshipped ?" And he returns to the broken statue
and the mounds of ruins, with the assurance that they
are the sad remnants of a city once among the proudest
in the world.

My movements in Egypt were too hurried, my means
of observation and my stock of knowledge too Kmited,
to enable me to speculate advisedly upon the mystery
which overhangs the liistory of her ruined cities ; but I
always endeavoured to come to some decision of my
own, from the labours, the speculations, and the con-
flicting opinions of others. An expression which I had
seen referred to in one of the books, as being the only

one in the Bible in which Memphis was mentioned by
nanie, was uppermost in my mind while I was wander-
ing over its site — " And Memphis shall bury them."
Thei-e must be, 1 thought, some special meaning in this
expression ; some allusion to the manner in which the
dead were buried at .Memphis, or to a cemetery or tombs
different from those which existed in other cities of its
day. It seems almost impos.sible to believe that a city,
having for its burying-place the immense tombs and
pyramids which even yet for many miles skirt the
borders of the desei't, can ever have stood upon the site
of this miserable village ; but the evidence is irresistible.
The plain on which this ancient city stood is one of
the richest on the Nile, and herds of cattle are still seen
grazing upon it, as in the days of the Pharaohs. The
pyramids of Sacchara stand on the edge of the desert, a
little south of the site of Memphis. If it was not for
their mightier neighbours, these pyramids, which are
comparatively seldom honoured with a visit, would alone
be deemed worthy of a pilgrimage to Egypt. The first
to which we came is about 350 feet high, and 700 feet
square at its base. The door is on the north side, 180
feet from the base. The entrance is by a beautifully
polished shaft, 200 feet long, and inclining at an angle
of about ten degrees. We descended till we found the
passage choked up with huge stones. I was very anxious
to see the interior, as there is a chamber within said to
resemble the tomb of Agamemnon at Mycene ; and hav-
ing once made an interesting visit to that tomb of the
king of kings, I wished to compare them ; but it was
excessively close, the sweat was pouring from us in
streams, and we were suffocating with heat and dust.
We came out and attempted to clamber up the side
from the door to the top, but found it so difficult that
we abandoned the effort, although Paul afterwards
mounted, with great ease, by one of the corners. A\'hilc
I was walking round the base, I heard a loud scream
fi'om that courageous dragoman, and saw him stand-
ing about half way up, the picture of terror, star-
ing at a wild boar that was running away, if possible,
more frightened than himself. It was a mystery to mo
what the animal could be doing there, unless he went
up on purpose to frighten Paul. After he got over his
fright, however, the boar was a great acquisition to him,
for I always had great difficulty in getting him into any
tomb or other place of the kind without a guide ; and
whenever I urged him to enter a pyramid or excavation
of any kind, he always threw the wild boar in my teeth,
whose den, lie was sure to say, was somewhere within.
There are several pyi"amids in this vicinity ; among
others, one which is called the brick pyramid, and which
has crumbled so gradually and uniformly that it now
appears only a huge misshapen mass of brick, somewhat
resembling a bee-hive. Its ruins speak a moral lesson.
Herodotus says that this fallen pyramid was built by
King Asychis, and contained on a piece of marble the
vain-glorious inscription — " Do not dispai-age my worth
by comparing me to those pyramids composed of stone ;
I am as much superior to them as Jove is to the rest of
the deities."

Retracing my steps, I continued along the edge of the
mountain, which every where showed the marks of hav-
ing been once lined with pyramids and tombs. I was
seeking for one of the most curious and intercstiug ob-
jects that exist iu Lgypt — not so interesting in itself, as
illustrating the character of the ancient inhabitants and
their superstitions — I mean the burial-place of thesacred
birds. Before we reached it, my Arab guide pointed to
a pyramid on our left, saying that it contained a re-
markable chamber, so high that a stone hurled with a
man's utmost strength could not reach the top. As
this pyramid was not mentioned in my guide-book, and
I had'no hope in a country so trodden as Egy]<t now is,
to become a discoverer of new wonders, I at first paid
no attention to him ; but he continued urging me to visit
the lofty chamber ; and at last, telling him that if I did
not find it as he said, I would not give him a para of
bucksheesh, I consented. There was no door to the
pyramid ; but, about 100 feet from it base,, en the north

88

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

side, was a siiuarc excavation or shaft about 40 feet
deep, at tlie ciul of which was a little liolo not more than
large enough to admit a man's arm. Tiie Arab scooped
out the sand, and with his hands and feet worked his
meagre body through, and I followed on my back, feet
foremost. Tliough not j)articularly bulky, I wanted
more room than the Arab, and my shoulders stuck fast.
I was trying to work out agam, when lie graf^ped me
by the heels, and began pulling me in with all liis might ;
but, luckily, 1 had play for my legs, and, drawing them
lip, I gave him a kick w ith my heavy boots that kept him
from taking hold again until I had time to scramble out.

^^'Ilile Paul and the Arab were enlarging the hole be-
low, the top of the pit was darkened, and, looking up, I
saw two young Englishmen witli whom 1 had dined a
few days before, wiiile coming down the river with Mr
S. and his lady. They had seen my boat, and come to
join me, and 1 was very glad to see them ; for tliough
I had no actual apprehension of the thing, yet it oc-
curred tc me that it would be very easy for my Arab
friends to roll a stone against the hole, and shut me in
for ever. It would have been something to be buried
in a pyramid, to be sure ; but even the belief that it
vas the tomb of a king would liardly compensate for
the inconvenience of being buried alive. We left their
Bcrvant, a strapping Greek, at the door, and the Arab
liaving enlarged the hole, we went to work systemati-
cally, laid ourselves upon our backs, .ind, being prepared
beforehand, were dragged in by the heels. The narrow
part of the hole was not more than half the length of
the body, and once past this, there was more room to
move about than in any other of the pjTamids ; we could
■walk without stooping. Descending some hundred feet
through an inclined passage excavated in the rock, with
doors opening from it at regular intervals, we came to
the large chamber of which the Arab had spoken. As
in all the pjTamids and tombs, the interior was in per-
fect darkness, and the feeble light of our torches gave
us but an imperfect view of the apartment. The Arab
immediately conunonced his experiment with the stone ;
we could litar the whizzing as it cut through the empty
ppace, and, after what seemed a very long time, the
sound of its fall upon the rocky floor. At some distance
up we could distinguish a door, and sending one of the
Arabs up to it, by the flaring light of his torch, held as
hi^i as lie could reach, we thought, but we were not
certain, that we could make out the ceiling.

From hence it was but a short distance to the cata-
combs of birds; a small opening in the side of a rock
leads to an excavated chamber, in the centre of which
is a square pit or well. De.'^cending the pit by bracing
our arms, and putting our toca in little holes in the side,
■we reached the bottom, where, crawling on our iiands
and knees, vie wore among the mummies of the sacred
ibis, tiio embalmed deities of the Egyptians. The extent
of tlicse catacombs is unknown, but they are supposed
to occupy an area of many miles. The birds are pre-
served in stone jars, piled one upon another as closely
aa they can be stowtd. By the light of our torches,
Bometinies almost flat upon our faces, we groped and
crawled along ti tied on each side with rows

of jars, until Wf ; . . es again and again 8to])ped

by an impenetrable pliaianx of the little mummies, or
rather of the j.ar3 containing them. Once we reached
a small open sp.icc where we jiad room to turn ourselves ;
and knocking togetlicr two of tlio v<'sS(;Ih, the offended
deities within sent forth volumes of dust which almost
Fuflocatcd us. The bird was still entire, in form and
linfamcnt pcrfert ns the mummied man, and like him,
too, wantii v the breath of life. The Arabs

brought r.i r-m !">veral jars, which we broke

and e.x ', more at our case. With

thcpyi 1 UH, it was almost impos-

sible to believe that the nien who ]ia<l r.aihcd such mighty
structures h.od fallen down and worshipped the ptiny
birds whose skeletons we were now dashing at our feet.

My List work was now done, and 1 liad seen my List
sight on the isilc. Leaving behind me for ever the
pyramids of Egypt, and the mountains and sands of the

Libyan Desert, I rode along the valley, among villages
and groves of paliii-trces, and a little befoi-e dark arrived
at Gliizeh. My boat was there ; I went on boai-d for
the last time ; my men took to their oars, and in half an
hour we were at Bonlac. It was dark wlicn we arrived,
and I jumped on shore searching for a donkey, but none
was to be had. I was almost tired out with the labours
of the day, but Paul and I set off, nevertheless, on foot
for Cairo. We were obliged to walk smartly, too, as
the gate closed at nine o'clock ; but when about lialf
way there, we met an Arab with a donkey, cheering
the stillness of the evening with a song. An extrava-
gant price (I believe it was something like eighteen and
three quarter cents) bribed him to dismount, and I
galloped on to Cairo, while Paul retraced his steps to
the boat. Tho reader may judge how completely
" turned up" must have been the feelings of a quiet
citizen of New York, when told that, in winding at night
through the narrow streets of Grand Cairo, the citizen
aforesaid felt himself quite at home ; and that the greet-
ing of Francisco, the gar^on at the Locanda d'ltalia,
seemed the welcome of an old friend. Hoping to re-
ceive letters from home, I went immediately to the
American consul, and was disappointed ; there were no
letters, but there was other and interesting news for
me ; and as an American, identified with the honour of
my country, I was congratulated there, thousands of
miles from home, upon the expected speedy and honour-
able termination of our difficulties with France. An
English vessel had ai'rived at Alexandria, bringing a
London paper containing the president's last message,
a notice of the offer of mediation from the English go-
vernment, its acceptance by France, and tho general
impression that the quarrel might be considered settled
and the money paid. A man must be long and far from
home to feel how dearly he loves his country, how his
eye brightens and his heart beats when he hears her
praises fi'om the lips of strangers ; and when the paper
was given me, with congratulations and compliments
on the successful and honourable issue of the affair with
Franco, my feelings gi-ew prouder and prouder as I
read, until, when I had finished the last line, I threw
up my cap in the old city of Cairo, and shouted tho old
gathering cry, " IluiTali for Jackson !"

I have heard all manners of ojiinion expressed in
regard to a voyage on the Nile, and may be allowed,
perhaps, to give my own. Mrs S. used frequently to
say, that altliough she had travelled in France, Swit-
zerland, Germany, Italy, and Sicily, she had never en-
joyed a journey so much before, and was always afraid
that it would end too soon. Another lady's sentiments,
expressed in my hearing, were just the contrary. For
myself, being aloiio, and not in very good health, I had
some hoavy moments ; but I have no hesitation in say-
ing that, with a friend, a good boat well fitted up, books,
guns, plenty of time, and a cook like Michel, a voyage
on the Nile would exceed any travelling within my
experience. The perfect freedom from all restraint,
and from the conventional trammels of civilised society,
forms an episode in a man's life tliat is vastly agreeable
and exciting. Think of not shaving for two months, of
washing your shirts in the Nile, and wearing them with-
out being ironed. True, these things are not absolutely
necessary ; but who would go to Egypt to travel as ho
does in Europe ? " Away with all fantasies and fettoi-s,"
is the motto of the tourist. We throw aside pretty
much every thing except our pantaloons; and a gene-
rous rivalry in long beards and soiled linen is kept up
with exceeding spirit. You m.ay go ashore whenever
you like, and stroll through the little villages, and ho
starcil at l>y the Arabs, or walk along the banks of tho
river till darkness covers the earth ; shooting pigeons,
and Bnmctimcs jilioasants and hares, besides tho odd
shots from tho deck of your boat at geese, crocodiles,
and pelicans. And then it is so ridiculously cheap an
amusement. You get your lioat with ten men for thirty
or forty dollars a-month, fowls for three piastres (about
a shilling) a-pair, a sheep for half or three quarters of
a dollar, and eggs almost for the asking. You sail under

A GOOD WORD FOR THE ARABS.

39

your own country's banner ; and when you walk along
the river, if the Arabs look particularly black and trii-
culeut, you proudly feel that there is safety in ils folds.
From time to time you hear that a French or English
flag has passed so many days before you, and you meet
your fellow-voyagers with a freedom and cordiality which
exist nowhere but on the Nile.

These arc the little evcry-day items in the voyage,
without referring to the gi-eat and interesting objects
•which are the traveller's principal inducements and
rewards — the ruined cities on its banks, the mighty
temples and tombs, and all the wonderful monuments
of Egypt's departed greatness. Of them I will barely
say, that their great antiquity, the mystery that over-
hangs them, and their extraordinary preservation amid
the surrounding desolation, make Egypt perhaps the
most interesting coimtry in the world. In the words of
an old traveller, " Time sadly overcometh all things, and
is now dominant, and sitteth upon a sphinx and looketh
into Mempliis and old Thebes, while his sister Oblivion
reclineth semi-sominous on a pyramid, gloriously tri-
umphing and turning old glories into dreams. History
sinketh beneath her cloud. The traveller as he passeth
amazedly through those deserts, asketh of her who
builded them, and she mumbleth something, but what
it is he heareth not."

It is now more than 3000 years since the curse went
forth against the land of Egypt. The AssjTian, the Pei--
sian, the Greek, the Roman, the Arabian, the Georgian,
the Circassian, and the Ottoman Turk, have successively
trodden it down and trampled upon it ; for thirty cen-
turies the foot of a stranger has been upon the necks
of her inhabitants ; and in bidding farewell to this once
favoured land, no.v lying in the most abject degrada-
tion and miseiy, groaning under the iron rod of a tyrant
and a stranger, 1 cannot help recurring to the inspired
words, the doom of prophecy — " It shall be the basest
of the kingdoms, neither shall it exalt itself any more
among the nations ; and there shall be no more a prince
of the land of Egj-pt."

CHAPTER XIII.

A good Word for the Arabs.— A Prophecy fulfilled.— Kuins of a
Lost City.— A Sheik of the Bedouins.- Interviews and Negotia-
tions.—A IT.iilj, or Pilgrimage to Mecca. — Slahommcdau
}Teaven for Wives.— A French Sheik.— The Bastinado.— De-
parture for the Desert.
I HAD now finished my journey in Egj-pt, from the Me-
diten-anean to the Ca'tai-acts, or, as the boundaries of
this ancient country are given in the Bible, from " Mig-
dol to Syene, even unto the borders of Ethiopia." For
nearly two months I had been floating on the celebrated
river, with a dozen Arabs, prompt to do my slightest
bidding, and, in spite of bugs and all manner of creep-
ing things, enjoying pleasures and comforts that are not
to°be found in E'urope ; and it was with something more
than an ordinary feeling of regret that I parted from
my worthy boatmen. I know tiiat it is the custom with
many travellers to rail at the Arabs, and perhaps to
beat' them, and have them bastinadoed ; but I could not
and cannot join in such oppression of this poor and
much abused people. On the contrary, I do not hesi-
tate to say that I always found them kind, honest, and
faithful, thankful for the smallest favour, never surly
or discontented, and always ready and anxious to serve
me with a zeal that I have not met in any other people ;
and when they came up in a body to the locanda to say
fai-ewell, I felt that I was parting with tried and trusty
friends, most probably for ever. That such was the case
with the rais, there could be little doubt ; he seemed to
look upon himself as a doomed man, and a broken cough,
a sunken eye, and a hollow cheek, proclaimed hmi one
fast hurrying to the grave.

I was now about wandering amid new and dsfrerent
scenes. I was about to cross the dreary waste of sand,
to exchange my quiet, easy-going boat for a caravan of
dromedaries and camels; to pitch my tent wherever
the setting sun might find me, and, instead of my gentle

Arabs of the Nile, to have for my companions the wild,
rude Bedouins of the desert; to follow the wandering
footsteps of the cliildren of Israel when they took up
the bones of Joseph, and fled before the anger of Pha-
raoh, from their laud of bondage ; to visit the holy moun-
tain of Sinai, where the Almighty, by the hands of his
servant Moses, delivered the tables of his law to his
chosen people.

But I had in view something beyond the lioly moun-
tain. My object was to go from thence to the Holy Land.
If I should return to Suez, and thence cross the desert
to El Aricli and Gaza, I should be subjected to a quaran-
tine of fourteen days on account of the plague in Egyj)t ;
and I thought I might avoid this by striking directly
through the heart of the desert from Mount Sinai to
the frontier of the Holy Land. There were difliculties
and perhaps dangers on this route ; but besides the ad-
vantage of escaping the quarantine, another considera-
tion presented itself, which, in the end, I found it im-
possible to resist. This route was entirely new. It lay
through the land of Edom — a land that occupies a largo
space on the pages of the Bible ; Edom denounced by
God himself, once given to Esau for his inheritance,
" as being of the fatness of the earth," but now a deso-
late monument of the divine WTath, and a fearful wit-
ness to the truth of the words spoken by his prophets.
The English friends with whom I had dined at Thebes
first suggested to me this i-oute, referring me, at the
same time, to Keith on the Prophecies, in which, after
showing with great clearness and force the fulfilment
of prophecy after prophecy, as illusti-ated by the writ-
ings and repoi'ts of travellers, the learned divine en-
larges upon the prophecy of Isaiah against the land of
Idumea, " None shall pass through it for ever and ever ;"
and proves, by abundant references to the woi'ks of
modern travellers, that though several have crossed its
borders, none have ever passed through it. Burckhardt,
he says, made the nearest approach to this achieve-
ment ; but by reference to the geographical boundaries,
he maintains that Burckliardt did not pass through the
land of Edom ; and so strenuously does the learned
divine insist upon the fulfilment of the prophecy to its
utmost extent, as to contend that, if Burckhardt did
pass through the land of Edom, he died in consequence
of the hardships he sufTored on that journry. I did not
mean to brave a prophecy. I had already learned to
regard the words of the inspired penmen with an inte-
rest I never felt before ; and with the evidence I had
already had of the sure fulfilment of their predictions,
I should have considered it daring and impious to placu
myself in the way of a still impending curse. But I
did not go so far as the learned commentator, and to
me the words of the prophet seemed sufficiently veri-
fied in the total breaking up of the route then travelled,
as the great highway from Jerusalem to the Red Sea
and India, and the general and probably eternal deso-
lation that reigns in Edom.

Still, however, it added to the interest with which I
looked upon this route ; and, moreover, iu this dreary
and desolate region, for more than a thousand years
buried from the eyes of mankind, its place unknown,
and its very name almost forgotten, lay the long lost
city of Peti-a, the capital of Arabia Petra-a, and the
Edom of the Edomites, containing, according to the
reports of the only travellers who have ever been per-
mitted to enter it, the most curious and wonderful re-
mains existing in the world : a city excavated from the
solid rock, with long ranges of dwellings, temples, and
tombs, cut in the sides of the moiuilaiu, and all lying
in ruins ; " thorns coming up in her palaces, nettles and
brambles in the fortresses thereof, a habitation of dra-
gons, and a court for owls." Three parties had at
different times visited Petra, but neither of tiiem had
passed through the land of Idumea ; and, according to
the reports of the few travellers who had crossed its
borders, the Bedouins who roamed over the dreary
sands of Idumea wei-e the most ferocious tribe of the
desert race. It will not be considered sui-prising, there-
fore, that, having once conceived the project, I was will-

40

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

ing to fulfil it even at the cost of some personal difficulty
and hazard.

1 have said that this route was entirely new. It was
known that two Kn^lishnien, with an ItaUan, long re-
sident in Egypt, and understanding thoroughly the lan-
guage and eharacter of the Arabs, had started from
Cairo about a year before to make this journey, and, as
they had been heard of afterwards in Europe, it was
known that they had succeeded ; but no account of their
journey had ever been published, and all the intelli-
};ence I could obtain of the route and its perils was
doubtful and confused. The general remark was, that
the undertaking was dangerous, and that I liad better
let it alone. Almost the only person who encouraged
me was Mr Gliddon, our vice-consul ; and, probably, if
it had not been for him, I should liavo given up the idea.
Besides the difficulties of the road, tiicre were othei-s of
a more personal nature. I was alone. I could not
speak the language, and I had with me a servant, who,
instead of leading me on, and sustaining me when I. fal-
tered, was consUmtly torturing himself with idle fears,
and was very reluctant to accompany me at all. Nor
was this all ; my health was far irora being restored,
and my frieml \\'aghorn was telling me every day, with
a warning voice, to turn my steps westward ; but ob-
jections presented themselves in vain ; and perhaps it
was precisely because of the objections that 1 finally
determined upon attempting the journey through the
land of Idumea.

By singular good fortune, the sheik of Akaba was
then at Cairo. The gi-eat yearly caravan of pilgrims
for Mecca was a.ssembling outside the walls, and he was
there, on the summons of the pacha, to escort and pro-
tect them through the di-sert as far as Akaba. He was
the chief of a powerful tribe of Bedouins soujewhat re-
duced by long and bloody wars with other ti-ibes, but
still maintaining, in all its vigour, the wild independence
of the race, and yet strong enough to set at defiance
even the powerful arm of the pacha. A system of
uuitual forbearance seemed to exist between thiyn, the
Bedouins knowing that, although the pacha might not
subdue them, his long ann could reach and disturb them
even in their sandy hills ; while the pacha could not
overlook the fact that the eftbrt would cost him the lives
of his best troops, and that the ])lunder of their mise-
I'able tents would bring him neither glory nor profit.
Thus the desert was still the possession of the Bedouins;
tliey still claimed a tribute from the stranger for per-
mission to pass over it ; and this induced the pacha
annually to invite the .sheik of Akaba to Cairo, to con-
duct the caravan for Mecca, knowing that if not so in-
vited, even the sacred character of the pilgrims would
not proteet them in passing through his country.

I found him about a mile outside the walls near the
tombs of the califs, on the edge of the desert, sitting on
a mat under his tent, and surrounded by a dozen of his
swarthy tribe, armed with long sabres, pistols, and
matchlock guns. The sheik was a short stout man, of
the darkest shade of bronze ; liis eye keen, roving, and
un.scttled ; his teeth white ; and liis skin so dried up
and withered that it seemed cleaving to his very bones.
At the first glance, I did not like his face ; it wanted
frankness, and even boldness ; and I thought at the
time, that if I liad met him alone in the desert, I should
not have trusted iiira. lie received me with great civi-
lity, while liis companions rose, gave me their low
salaam, seated me on tlie mat beside him, and then re-
sumed their own cross-legged attitude, \vith less noise
than would have attend>'d the entrance of a gentleman
into a drawitiK-room on a morning call. All stared at me
with silent gra>ity ; and the sheik, though desert born
and bred, »ith an air and manner that showed him
familiar with the usages of good society in Cairo, took
the pipe from his mouth an<l handed it to me.

All being seated, the consul's janizary, who had come
with me, opened the divan ; but he had scarcely begun
to declare my object before the whole group, sheik and
all, apparently surprised out of their habitual ]ihl<'gm,
died out together that they were ready to escort me,

and to defend me with their lives against every danger.
I said a few words, and they became clamorous in their
assurances of the great friendship they had conceived
for me ; that life was nothing in my service ; that they
would sleep in my tent, guard and watch me by day and
night, and, in short, that they would bo my father,
mother, sister, and brother, and all my relations, in the
desert ; and the final assurance was, that it would not
be possible to travel that road except under their pro-
tection. I then began to inquire the terms, when, as
before, all spoke at once ; some fixed one price, some
another, and for bucksheesh whatever I pleased. I did
not like this wild and noisy negotiation. I knew that 1
must niake great allowance for the extravagant language
of the Arabs ; but there seemed to be an eagerness to get
me among them, which, in my eyes, was rather ominous
of bad intentions. They were known to be a lawless
people, and distinguished, even among their desert
brethren, as a wild and savage tribe. And these were
the people with whom I was negotiating to meet in the
desert, at the little fortress of Akaba, at the eastern
extremity of tlie Red Sea ; into whose hands I was to
place myself, and from whom 1 was to expect protec-
tion against greater dangei-s.

My interview with them was not vei'y satisfactory,
and, wishing to talk the matter over more quietly with
the sheik alone, I asked him to go with me to my hotel ;
whereupon the whole gi'oup started up at once, and,
some on foot, and others on dromedaries or on horse-
back, prepared to follow. This did not suit me, and the
sheik contrived to get rid of all except one, his principal
and constant attendant, " his black," as he was called.
He followed me on hoi-seback ; and when he came up
into my room, it ^as, perhaps, the first time in his life
that he had ever been under a roof. As an instance of
his simplicity and ignorance, it may be worth mention-
ing here, although 1 did not know it until we were ou
the point of sej)arating after our journey was completed,
that he mistook the consul's janizary, who wore a dash-
ing red Turkish dress, sword, <!ii.c., for an officer of the
pacha's household, and, consequently, had alw.ays looked
upon me as specially recommended to him by the pacha.
1 could not come to any definite understanding with
him. The precise service that 1 i-cquired of him was
to conduct me from Akaba to Hebron, through the land
of Edom, diverging to visit the excavated city of Petra,
a journey of about ten days. I could not get him to
name any sum as compensation for this service ; he told
me that he would conduct me for nothing, that 1 might
give him what 1 pleased, &c. When I first spoke about
the terms at his tent, he liad said twelve dollars a-camel,
and, as it seemed to me, lie had named this sum with-
out the least calculation, as the first that happened to
occur to him. 1 now referred him to this i)rice, which
he had probably forgotten, hoping to establish it as a
sort of basis upon which to negotiate ; but when liis
attention was called to it, he insisted upon the twelve
dollars, and something more for bucksheesh. A fair
price for this service would have been about two dol-
lai-s. I told him this did not satisfy me ; that I wanted
every thing definitely arranged beforehand, and that I
Would not give the enormous j)rice lie asked, and buck-
sheesh in pro|)ortioii ; but I could do nothing with him:
he listened with perfect coolness; and taking his pii)e
from his month, in answer to every thing I said, told
mo to come to him at Akaba, come to him at his tent;
he had plenty fif camels, and would conduct me with-
out any reward, or 1 might give him what I jileased.
We parted witliout coming to an arrangement. Ho
offered to send one of his men to eonduct me from
Mount ijiiiai to Akaba; but as something might occur
to prevent my going, I would not take him. He gave me,
however, his signet, whieh he told me every Bedouhi
on that route knew and would respect, and writing his
name under it according to the sound, I repeated it
over and over, until I could pronounce it intelligibly,
and treasured it up as .i ])a.''3word for the desert.

The next morning, under j)retence that I went to seo
the starting of the great caravan of pilgrims for Mecca,

A FRENCH SHEIK— THE BASTINADO.

41

I rode out to the sheik ; and telling him that, if I came
to him, I should come destitute of every thing, and he
must have some good tobacco for mc, I slipped a couple
of gold pieces into his hand, and, without any further
remark, left the ((uestion of my going undetermined.
It was worth my ride to see the departure of the cara-
van. It consisted of more than 30,000 pilgrims, who
had come from the shores of the Caspian, the extre-
mities of Persia, and the confines of Africa ; and having
assembled, according to usage for hundreds of years, at
Cairo as a central point, the whole mass was getting in
motion for a pilgrimage of fifty days, through dreai-y
sands, to the tomb of the Prophet.

Accustomed as I was to associate the idea of order
and decorum w ith the observance of all rites and duties
of religion, I could not but feel surprised at the noise,
tumult, and confusion, the strifes and battles, of these
pilgrim-travellers. If I had met them in the desert
after their line of march was formed, it would have
beeii an imposing spectacle, and comparatively easy
to describe ; but here, as far as the eye could reach,
they were scattered over the sandy plain ; 30,000 people,
with probably 20,000 camels and dromedaries, men,
women, and children, beasts and baggage, all commingled
in a confused mass that seemed hopelessly inextricable.
Some had not yet struck their tents, some were making
coffee, some smoking, some cooldng, some eating, many
shouting and cursing, others on their knees praying, and
others, again,hurryingon to join the long moving stream
that already extended several miles into the desert.

It is a vulgar prejudice the belief that women are not
admitted into the heaven of iMahommed. It is true tliat
the cunning Prophet, in order not to disturb the joyful
serenity with which his followers look forward to their
promised heaven, has not given to women any fixed
position there, and the pious Mussulman, although
blessed with the lawful complement of four wives, is not
bound to see among his seventy-two black- eyed houris
the faces of his companions upon earth ; but the w^omen
are not utterly cast out ; they are deemed to have souls,
and entitled to a heaven of their own ; and it may be,
too, that their visions of futurity are not less bright, for
that there is a mystery to be unravelled beyond the
grave, and they are not doomed to eternal companion-
ship with their earthly lords. In the wildest, rudest
scene where woman appears at all, there is a sweet and
undefinable charm ; and their appearance among th6
pilgrims, the care with which they shrouded themselves
from every eye, their long thick veils, and their tents or
four-post beds, with curtains of red silk, fastened down
all around and secured on the high backs of camels, were
the most striking objects in the caravan. Next to them
in intei-est were the miserable figures of the marabouts,
santons, or Arab saints, having only a scanty covering
of rags over their shoulders, and the rest of their bodies
completely naked, yet struttuig about as if clothed in
purple and fine linen ; and setting off utterly destitute
of every thing, for a journey of months across the desert,
safely trusting to that open-handed charity which forms
so conspicuous an item in the list of Mussulman vii-tues.
But the object of universal interest was the great box
containing the presents and decorations for the tomb of
the Prophet. The camel which bears this sacred burden
is adorned with banners and rich housings, is watched
and tended with pious care, and when his joumiey is
ended, no meaner load can touch his back ; he has filled
the measure of a camel's glory, and lives and dies re-
spected by all good Mussulmans.

In the evening, being the last of my stay in Cairo, I
heard that Mr Linant, the companion of M. Laborde on
his visit to Petra, had arrived at Alexandria, and, with
Mr Gliddon, went to see him. Mr L. is one of the many
French emic^re's driven from their native soil by political
convulsions°and who have risen to distinction in foreign
lands by military talents, and the force of that restless
energy so peculiar to his countrymen. Many years
before, he had thrown himself into the Arabian Desert,
where he had become so much beloved by the Bedouins,
that on the occasion of a dispute between two contend-

ing claimants, the customs of their tribe were waived,
the pretensions of the rivals set aside, and he was elected
sheik of Mount Sinai, and invested with the flattering
name, which he retains to this day, of Abdd Hag, or
the slave of truth. Notwithstanding liis desert rank
and dignity, he received mc with a politeness which
savoured of the salons of Paris, and encouraged me in
my intention of visiting Petra, assuring me that it would
abundantly repay mc for all tlic ditticulties attending it ;
in fact, he spoke lightly of these, although I afterwards
found that his acquaintance with the language, his high
standing among the Bedouins, and his lavish distribu-
tion of money and presents, had removed or diminished
obstacles which, to a stranger without these advantages,
were by no means of a trifling nature. In addition to
much general advice, lie counselled me particularly to
wear the Turkish or Arab dress, and to get a letter from
the Habeeb Effendi to the governor of the little fortress
of Akaba. Mr Linant has been twenty years in Egypt,
and is now a bey in the pacha's service ; and that very
afternoon, after a long interview, had received orders
from the great reformer to make a survey of the pyra-
mids, for the purpose of deciding which of those gigantic
monuments, after having been respected by all preced-
ing tyrants for 3000 years, should now be demolished for
the illustrious object of yielding material for a petty for-
tress, or scarcely more useful and important bridge.

Early in the morning I went into the bazaars, and
fitted out Paul and myself with the necessary dresses.
Paul was soon equipped with the common Arab dress,
the blue cotton shirt, tarbouch, and Bedouin shoes. A
native of Malta, he was very probably of Arab descent
in part, and his dark complexion and long black beard
would enable him readily to pass for one born under the
sun of Egypt. As for myself, I could not look the
swarthy Arab of thedesert, and the dress of the Turkish
houaja or gentleman, with the necessary arms and equip-
ments, was very expensive ; so I provided myself with
the unpretending and respectable costume of a Cairo
merclmnt ; a long red silk gown, with a black abbas of
camel's hair over it ; red tarbouch, with a green and
yellow striped handkerchief rolled round it as a turban ;
white trousers, large red shoes over yellow slippers,
blue sash, sword, and a pair of large Turkish pistols.

Having finished my jiurchases iu the bazaars, I re-
turned to my hotel ready to set out, and found the dro-
medaries, camels, and guides, and expected to find the
letter for the governor of Akaba, which, at the sugges-
tion of Mr Linant, I had requested Mr Gliddon to
procure for me. I now learned, however, from that
gentleman, that, to avoid delay, it would be better to go
myself, first sending my caravan outside the gate, and
representing to the minister that I was actually waiting
for the letter, in which case he would probably give it
to me immediately. I accordingly sent Paul with my
little caravan to wait for me at the tombs of the califs,
and, attended by the consul's janizary, i-ode up to the
citadel, and stopped at the door of the governor's palace.
The reader may remember that, on my first visit to
his excellency, I saw a man whipped ; this time 1 saw
one bastinadoed. I had heard much of this, a [)unisli-
mentexisting, I believe, only in the East, but I had never
seen it inflicted before, and hope I never shall see it
again. As on the foi-mcr occasion, I found the little
governor standing at one end of the large hall of entrance,
munching, and trying causes. A crowd was gathered
around, and before him was a poor Arab, pleading and
beseeching most piteously, while the big tears were roll-
ing down his checks ; near him was a man whose reso-
lute and somewhat angry expression marked him as the
accuser, seeking vengeance rather than justice. Sud-
denly the governor made a gentle movement with his
hand ; all noise ceased ; all stretched their necks and
turned their eager eyes towards him ; the accused cut
short his crying, and stood with his mouth wide open,
and his eyes fixed upon the governor. The latter spoke
a few words in a very low voice, to me of course unin-
telligible, and, indeed, scarcely audible, but they seemed
to fall upon tlie quick ears of the culprit like bolts of

42

TRAVELS IN EGYPT.

thunder ; the agony of suspense was over, and, without
a word or look, he laid himself down on his face at the
feet of the governor. A space was immediately cleared
around ; a man on each side took him by the hand, and,
stretching out his arms, kneeled upon and held them
down, while another seated himself across his neck and
shoulilei-s. Thus nailed to the ground, the poor fellow,
knowing that there was no chance of escape, threw up
liis feet from the knee-joint, so as to present the soles
in a horizontal position. Two men came forward with
a pair of long stout bars of wood, attached together by
a cord, between which they placed the feet, drawing
them together with the cord so as to fix them in their
horizontal position, and leave the whole flat surface ex-
posed to the full force of the blow. In the meantime
two strong Turks were standing ready, one at each side,
armed with long whips resembling our common cowskin,
but longer and thicker, and mailo of the tough hide of
the liippoi)otamus. While the occupation of the judge
was suspended by these preparations, the janizai'y liad
presented the consul's letter. My sensibilities are not
particularly acute, but they yielded in this instance. I
had watched all the preliminary arrrangements, nerv-
ing myself for what was to come ; but when I heard
tlie scourge whizzing through the air, and, when the
first blow fell upon the naked feet, saw the convulsive
movements of the body, and heard the first loud pierc-
ing shriek, I could stand it no longer ; I broke thi-ough
the crowd, forgetting the governor and every thing else,
except the agonising sounds from which I was escaping ;
but the janizary followed close at my lieels, and, laying
liis hand upon my arm, hauled me back to the govei-nor.
If I had consulted merely the impulse of feeling, I should
have consigned him, and the governor, and the whole
nation of Turks, to the lower regions ; but it was all-
important not to offend this summary dispenser of jus-
tice, and I never made a greater sacrifice of feeling to
expediency than when I re-entered his presence. The
shrieks of the unhappy criminal were ringing through
the chamber; but the governor received nie with as
calm a smile as if he had been sitting on his own divan,
listening to the strains of some pleasant music, while
I stood with my teeth clenched, and felt the hot breath
of the victim, and heard the whizzing of the accursed
whip, as it fell again and again upon his bleeding feet.
I liave heard men cry out in agony when the sea was
raging, and the drowning man, rising for the last time
upon the mountain waves, turned liis imploring arms
towards ns, and with his dying breath called in vain
for help ; but I never heard such heart-rending sounds
as those from the poor bastinadoed wretch before me.
I thought the governor would never make an end of
reading the letter, when the scribe handed it to him for
his signature, although it contained but half a dozen
lines; he fumblid in \\\s pocket for his seal, and dip])C(l
it in the ink; the impression did not suit him, and he
made another ; and, after a delay that seemed to me
eternal, cmployi-d in folding it, handed it to me with a
most gracious wmile. I am sure I grinned honibly in
return ; and almost snatching the letter just as the'last
blow fell, I turned to hasten from the scene. The poor
Bcotirged wretch was silent ; he had found relief in in-
■cnsibility; I cast one look upon the senseless body,
and B.aw the feet laid open in gashes, and the blood
streaming down the legs. At that moment the bai-s
were taken away, and the mangled feet fell like lead
upon thf" floor. I had to work my way through the
crowd, and before I could escape, I saw the poor fellow
revive, and liy the first natural impulse rise upon his
feet, but fall again as if he had stepped upon red-hot
irons. He crawled npon his hands and knees to the
door of the hall, and here it was most grateful to see
that the poor miserable, mangled, and degraded Arab,
yet had friends who<<e hearts yearned towards him;
they took him in thfir anna, and carried him awav.

1 was sick of Cairo, and in a right humour to bid
farewell to cities, with all their arliticLil laws, their
crimes and punbbmentA, and all the varied shades of
inhmnanity from man to man, and in a few minutes I

was beyond the gate, and galloping away to join my
companions in the desert. At the tombs of the calita
I found Paul with my caravan ; but I had not yet
escaped the stormy passions of men. With the cries
of the poor Arab still ringing in my ears, I was greeted
with a furious quarrel, arising from the apportionment
of the money I had paid my guides. I was in no hu-
mour to interfere, and, mounting my dromedai-y, and
leaving Paul to arrange the affair with them as he best
could, I rode on alone.

It was a journey of no ordinary interest on which I
was now beginning my lonely way. I had travelled in
Italy, among the mountains of Greece, the plains of
Turkey, the wild steppes of Russia, and the plains of
Poland, but neither of these afforded half the material
for curious expectation that my journey through the
desert promised. After an interval of 4000 years, I
was about to pursue the devious path of the children of
Israel, when they took up the bones of Joscj)li and fled
before the anger of Pharaoh, amimg the mountain pusses
of Sinai, and through that great and terrible desert
which shut them from the Land of Promise. I rode on
in silence and alone for nearly two hours, and just as
the sun was sinking behind the dark mountains of Mo-
kattam, halted to wait for my little caravan ; and 1
pitched my tent for the first night in the desert, with
the door opening to the distant land of Goshen.

CHAPTER XIV.
TIio Caravan.— Arab Political Econnmy.— A projected Itailroad.
—The Sirocco.— Suez. — A travelled Engli.shman.— The Red Sea.
—Embarkation of Pilffrims.— A Misadventure.— Scriptural Lo-
calities.— The bitter Fuuntuin.

Ti!K arrangements for my jmn-ncy as far as Mount
Sinai had been made by Mr Gliddon. It was necessary
to have as my guides some of the Bedouins from around
the mountains, and he had procured one known to him,
a man in whom I could place the most implicit confi-
dence ; and possessing another not less powerful recom-
mendation, in the fact that he had been with Messra
Linant and Laborde to Petra. My cai-avan consisted
of eight camels and dromedaries, and, as guide and
camel-dri%'ers, three young Bedouins from nineteen to
twenty-two years old. My tent was the common tent
of the I'^gyptian soldiers, bought at the government
factory, easily carried, and as easily pitched ; my bed-
ding was a mattrass and coverlet ; and I had, moreover,
a couple of boxes, about eighteen inches high, and the
width of my mattrass, filled with eatables, which 1 car-
ried slung over the back of a camel, one upon each side,
and at night, by the addition of two pieces of board, con-
verted into a bedstead. My store of provisions con-
sisted of bread, biscuit, rice, maccaroni, tea, eofl'ee, dried
apricot.s, oranges, a roa.sted leg of mutton, and two of the
largest skins containing the filtered water of the Nile.

In the evening, while we were sitting around a fire,
I inquired the cause of the quarrel from which I had
escaped, and this led Toualeb into an explanation of
some of the customs of the Bedouuis. There exists
among them that community of interest and projicrty
for which radicals and visionaries contend in civilised
society. The property of the tribe is to a great extent
conmion, and their earning.^, or tlie profits of their
labour, are shared among the whole. A Bedouin's
wives are his own; and as the chastity of women is
guarded by the most sanguinary laws, his cliildi-en are
generally his own ; his tent, also, and one or two camels,
arc his, and the rest belongs to his tribe. The practi-
cal operation of this law is not attended with any great
difficulty ; for, in goneral, the rest, or that which belongs
to the tribe, is notliing ; there are no hoarded treasures,
no coflfers of wealth, the bequest of ancestors, or the
gains of enterprise and industry, to excite the cupidity
of the avaricious. Poor is the Bedouin born, and poor
he dies, and his condition is more than usually prospe-
rous when his poverty does not lead him to the shed-
ding of blood.

I did not expect to learn lessons of politictl economy

A PROJECTED RAILROAD— THE SIROCCO.

43

among the Bedouin Arabs ; but in the commencement
of my journey with them, I found the embarrassment
and evil of trammelling individual enterprise and in-
dustry. The consul had applied to Toualeb. Touak-b
was obliged to propose the thing to such of his tribe as
were then in Cairo, and all had a right to participate.
The consequence wa?, that when we were ready to move,
instead of five there were a dozen camels and drome-
daries, and their several owners were the men whom I
had left wrangling at the tombs of the califs ; and even
■when it was ascertained that only five were wanted,
still three supernumeraries were sent, that all might be
engaged in the work. In countries where the labour
of man and beast has a per diem value, the loss of the
labour of three or four men and three or four camels
would be counted ; but in the East, time and labour
have no value.

I do not mean to go into any dissertations on the cha-
racter of the Bedouins, and shall merely refer to such
tr.aits as fell under my obserN'ation, and were developed
by circumstances. While I was eating my evening
meal, and talking with Toualeb, the three young camel-
drivers sat at the door of the tent, leaning on their
hands, and looking at me. I at first did not pay much
attention to them, but it soon struck me as singular
that they did not prepare their own meal ; and, noticing
them more attentively, I thought they were not looking
so much at me as at the smoking pilau before me. I
asked them why they did not eat their supper, and they
told me that their masters had sent them away without
a particle of any thing to eat. I was exceedingly vexed
at this, inasmuch as it showed that I had four mouths
to feed more than I had prepared for ; no trifling matter
on a journey in the desert, and one which Paul, as my
quartermaster, said it was utterly impossible to accom-
jilisli. I at first told one of them to mount my drome-
dary and go back to Cairo, assuring him that, if he did
not return before daylight, I would follow and have both
him and his master bastinadoed ; but before he had
mounted, I changed my mind. I hated all returns and
delays, and, smothering my WTath, told Paul to give
them some rice and biscuit, at the risk of being obliged
to come down to Arab bread myself. And so ended the
first day of ray journey.

Early in the morning we began our march, with our
faces towards the rising sun. Before mid-day we were
in as perfect a desert as if we were removed thousands
of miles from the habitations of men ; behind, before,
and around us, was one wide expanse of level and arid
sands, although we were as yet not more than eight
houra from the crowded city of Cairo ; and I might
already cry out, in the spirit of Neikomm's famous
cavatina, "The sea, the sea, the open sea!" Indeed,
in all the travelling in the East nothing strikes one more
forcibly than the quick transitions from the noise of
cities to the stillness of the unpeopled waste.

It does, indeed, appear remarkable that, within so
short a distance from Cairo, a city of so gi-eat antiquity
and large population, and on a road which we know to
have been travelled more than 4000 years, and which
at this day is the principal route to the Red Sea, there
is so little travelling. During the whole day we did
not meet more than a dozen Arabs, with perhaps twenty
or thirty camels. But a mighty change will soon be
made in this particular. A railroad is about to be con-
structed across the desert, over the track followed by
the children of Israel to the Red Sea. The pacha had
already ordered iron from England for the purpose wlien
I was in Egypt, and there is no doubt of its practica-
bility, being'only a distance of eighty miles over a dead
level ; but whether it will ever be finished, or whether, if
finished, it will pay the expense, is much more question-
able. Indeed, the better opinion is, that the pacha does
it merely to bolster up his reputation in Europe as a
reformer ; that he has begun without calculating the
costs ; and that he will get tii-ed and abandon it before
it is half completed. It may be, however, that the reader
will one day be hurried by a steam engine over the route
which I was now crossing at the slow pace of a camel ;

and when that day comes, all the excitement and wonder
of a journey in the desert will be over. There will be
no more pitching of tents, or sleeping under the starry
firmament, surrounded by Arabs and camels; no more
carrying provisions, and no danger of 'lying of thirst ; all
will be reduced to the systematic tameness of a cotton-
factory, and the wild Arab will retire farther into tho
heart of the desert, shunning, like our native Indians,
the faces of strangers, and following for ever the foot-
steps of his wandering ancestors. Blessed bo my for-
tune, improvement had not yet actually begun its march.
In the course of the night I was suddenly awakened
by a loud noise like the flapping of sails. A high wind
had risen, and my tent not being well secured, it had
turned over, so that the wind got under it and carried
it away. In the civilised world, we often hear of re-
verses of fortune which reduce a man to such a state
that he has not a roof to cover him ; but few are ever
deprived of the protection of their roof in so summary
a way as this, and it is but fair to add that few have
ever got it back so expeditiously. I opened my eyes
upon the stars, and saw my house fleeing from me.
Paul and I were on our feet in a moment, and gave
chase, and with the assistance of our Arabs, brought it
back and planted it again ; I thought of the prudent
Kentuckian who tied his house to a stump to keep it
from being blown aw.ay, and would have done the same
thing if I could have found a stump ; but tree or stump
in the desert there is none.

I was not disturbed again during the night ; but tho
wind continued to increase, and towards morning and
all the next day blew with great violence. It was tho
dread sirocco, the wind that has for ever continued to
blow over the desert, carrying with it the fine particles
of sand which, by the continued action of centuries, have
buried the monuments, the temples, and the cities of
Egypt ; the su'occo, always disagreeable and dangerous,
and sometimes, if the reports of travellers be true, suf-
focating and burying whole caravans of men and camels.
Fortunately for me, it was blowing upon my back ; but
still it was necessary to draw my Arab cloak close over
my head ; and even then the particles of sand found their
way within, so that my eyes were soon filled with them.
This was very far from being one of the worst su'occos ;
but the sun was obscured, the atmosphere was a perfect
cloud of sand, and the tracks were so completely obli-
terated, that a little after mid-day we wore obliged to
stop and take shelter under the lee of a hillock of sand ;
occasionally we had met caravans coming upon us
through the thick clouds of sand, the Arabs riding with
their backs to the heads of their camels, and their faces
covered, so that not a single feature could be seen.

By the third morning the wind had somewhat abated,
but the sand had become so scattered that not a single
track could be seen. I was forcibly reminded of a cir-
cumstance related to me by Mr Waghorn, A short
time before I met him at Cairo, in making a hurried
march from Suez, with an Arab unaccustomed to tho
desert, he encamped about mid-way, and starting two
hours before daylight, continued travelling, half asleep,
upon his dromedary, until it happened to strike him
that the sun had risen in the wrong |)lace, and w.is then
shining in his face instead of warming his back ; he had
been more than three hours retr.acing his steps to Suez.
If I had been alone this mornuig, I might very easily
have fallen into the s;ime or a worse error. The pro-
spect before me was precisely the same, turn which way
I would ; and if I had been left to myself, I might have
wandered as long as the children of Israel in search of
the Promised Land, before I should have arrived at tho
gate of Suez.

We soon came in sight of the principal, perhaps tho
only object, which a stranger would mark in the route
from Cairo to Suez. It is a large jialni-trco, standing
alone about half way across, the only green and living
thing on that expanse of barrenness. We saw it two
or three hours; and moving with the slow pace of
our camels, it seemed as if we should never reach it ;
and then, again, as if we should never leave it behmd

44

TRAVELS IN ARABIA TETRiEA.

us. A journey in tlic desert is so barren of incident,
that wayfarers note tlio smallest circumstances, and our
relative distance fmm the palm-tree, or lialf-wuy house,
furnished occupation for a great part of the day.

At about twelve o'clock the next day we caught the
firet view of the lied Sea, rolling between the dark
mountains of Kgypt and Arabia, as in the days of Pha-
raoh and Moses. In an hour more we came in sight of
Suez, a low dark spot on the sliore, above the coin-
niencenient of tlie chains of mountains on each side.
About two hours before arriving, we passed, at a little
distance on the left, a large khan, on the direct road to
Akaba, built by the pacha as a stopping-place for the
pilgrims on their way to Mecca. Three days before,
more than 30,000 pilgrims liad halted in and around
it, but now not a living being was to be seen. About
lialf an hour ou tiic hither side of Suez we came to a
well, where, for the first time since we left Cairo, we
watered our camels.

Even among the miserable cities of Turkey and
Egypt, few j)rcsent so wretched an appearance as Suez.
Standing ou the borders of the desert, and on the shore
of the sea, with bad and unwholesome water, not a blade
of grass growing around it, and dependent upon Cairo
for the food that supports its inhabitants, it sustains a
poor existence by the trade of the great caravan for
Mecca, and the small connnerce between the poi-ts of
Cos.seir, Djiddeh, and Mocha. A new project ha.s lately
been attempted here, which, it might be supposed, would
have a tendency to regenerate the fallen city. The route
to India by the Red Sea is in the full tide of successful
experiment ; the English flag is often seen waving in
the harbour, and about once in two months an English
steamer arrives from I5ombay ; but even the clatter of
a steam-boat is unable to infuse life into its sluggish
population.

The gate was open, a single soldier was lying on a
mat basking in the sun, his musket gleaming brightly
by his side, and a single cannon projected over the wall,
frowning with Tom Thumb greatness upon the stranger
entering the city. Passing the gate, we found ourselves
within a large open space crowded with pilgrims. Even
the small space enclosed by the walls was not more than
one quarter occupied by buildings, and these few were
at the farthest extremity. The whole intermediate area
was occupied by pilgrims, scattered about in every ima-
ginable position and occupation, who stared at me as I
passed among them in my European dress, and noticed
me according to their various humours, some greeting
me with a smile, some with a low and res|)ectful salaam,
and others with the black look and ferocious scowl of
the bigoted and Prank-detesting Mussulmans.

We stopped in the square in front of the harbour,
and inquired for an Englishman, the agent of Mr Wag-
hom, to whom 1 had a letter, and from whom I hoped to
obtain a bod ; but lie had airived only two days before,
and I doubt whether he had one for himself. He did all
he could for me, but tliat was very little. I remember
one thing about iiim, which is characteristic of a class
of European residents in Egypt ; he had lived fourteen
years between Alexandria and Cairo, and had never
been in the desert before, and talked as if he had made
A voyage to Babylon or Ragdad. lie had jirovided him-
self with almost every thing that his Engli.sh notions of
comfort could suggest, and with these he talked of liis
three days' journey in the desert as a thing to be done
but once in a man's life. 1 ought not to be harsh on
him, however, for ho wat as kind as he could be to me,
and in one thing I felt very sensibly the benefit of his
kindnc!:.<<. Hy bad management, my water-skins, instead
of being old and seasoned, were entirely new ; the second
day out the water was injured, aiul the third it wa.s not
drinkable. I did not suffer bo much as Paul and the
Arabs did, liaviri'' fallen into the habit fif drinking but
little, and assuaging my thirst with an orange ; but I
suffered from a cau«« much worse ; my eyes were badly
inflamed, and the water was so nnich impregnated
with the noxious absorption from the leather, that
it dt-stroycd the effect of the powders which I dduted

in it, and aggravated instead of relieving the inflamma-
tion. The Englishman had used kegs made for the pur-
pose, and had more than a kegful left, which he insisted
on my taking. One can hardly imagine that the giving
or receiving a keg of water should be a matter of any
moment ; but, nuich as 1 wanted it, indeed, all-impor-
tant as it was to me for the rest of my journey, I hesi-
tated to deprive liiuj of it. Before going, however, I
filled one of my skins, and counted it at the time one of
tlie most valuable presents I had ever received. He
had been in the desert, too, the same day that we
sutt'ered from the sirocco, and his eyes were in a worse
condition than mine.

The first thing he did was to find me a place to pass
the night in. Directly ojijiosite the open space was a
large rociuel or stone building, containiilg a ground and
upper floor, and open in the centre, forming a hollow
square. The whole building was divided by partitions
into perhaps a hundred apartments, and every one of
these and the open square outside were filled with pil-
grims. The apartments consisted merely of a floor,
roof, door, and walls, and sometimes one or the other
of these requi.sites was wanting, and its deficiency sup-
plied by the excess of another. My room was in one
corner in the second story, and had a most unnecessary
and uncomfortable proportion of windows ; bat I had
no choice. 1 regretted that I had not pitched my tent
outside the walls ; but, calling to my assistance the in-
genuity and contriving spirit of my country, fastened
it up as a screen to keep the wind fi'oni coming upon
me too severely, and walked out to see the little that
was to be seen of Suez.

I had soon made a tour of the town ; and having per-
formed this duty, I hurried where my thoughts and
feelings had long been carrying me, to the shore of the
sea. Half a dozen vessels of some eighty or a hundred
tons, sharp built, with tall s]iars for latteen sails, high
poojis, and strangely painted, resembling the ancient
ships of war, or thi; Turkish corsair or ,\a-ab ])irate of
modern days, were riding at anchor in the harbour,
waiting to take on board the thousands of pilgrims who
were ail around me. I followed the shore till I had
turned the walls, and was entirely alone. I sat down
under the wall, where 1 liad an extensive view down
the sea, and saw the ])lace where the waters divided for
the pjissage of the Israelites. Two hours I strolled along
the shore, and when the sun was sinking behind the
dark mountains of Mokattam, I was bathing my feet in
the waters of the coral sea.

Early in the morning I went out on the balcony, and
looking down into the open square, filled with groups
of pilgrims, male and female, sleeping on the bare
ground, in all manner of attitudes, I saw directly under
me a dead 'J'artar. He had died during the night, liia
death-bed a single plank, and he was lying in the sheep-
skin dress which he wore when living. Two friends
fi-om the frozen regions of the north, companions in his
long pilgrimage, were sitting on the ground preparing
their morning coffee, and my Arabs were sleeping by
his side, unconscious that but a few feet from them,
during the stillness of the night, an immortal spirit had
been called away. I gazed long and steadhistly ujioii
the face of the deaci Tartar, and moralise<i very solemnly
— indeed, ])ainfiilly — njxm the imaginary incidents
which my fancy summonecl uji in connection with liis
fate. Nor was the possibility of my own death, among
strangei-s in a distant land, the least i)rominent or
least .saddening portion of my reverie.

I ascribe this unconwnon moping-fit to my exposing
myself before breakfast. The stomacli must be for-
tified, or force, moral and j>hysical, is gone, ami melan-
choly and blue devils nvi) the inevitable conseciuonce.
After breakfast I was another creature. My acute
sensibility, my tender sympathies, were gone ; and when
1 went out again, 1 looked upon the body of the dead
Tartar with the utmost indifference.

The jiilgriins were now nearly all stirring, and the
square wa.s all in motion. The balcony, and, indeed,
every part of the old roquel, were filled \>ith the better

A MISADVENTURE— SCRIPTURAL LOCALITIES.

46

class of pilgrims, principally Turks, the lords of tlie
laud ; and in an apax-traent opening on the balcony,
immediately next to mine, sat a beautiful Circassian,
with the regular features and brilliant complexion of
her country. By her side were two lovely children, fair
and beautiful as their mother. Her face was completely
uncovered, for she did not know that a stranger was
gazing on her, and, turning from tlie black visages
around him to licr fair and lovely face, was revelling in
recollections of the beauties of his native land. And
lo, the virtue of a breakfat.t ! I, that by looking upon
a dead Tartar had buried myself in the deserts of
Arabia, written my epitaph, and cried over my own
grave, was now ready to break a lance with a Turk to
rob him of his wife.

The balcony and staircase were thronged with pil-
grims, many still asleep, so tliat I was obliged to step
over their bodies in going down, and out of doors the
case was much the same. At home 1 should have
thought it a peculiarly interesting circumstance to join
a caravan of Mussulmans on their pilgrimage to Mecca;
but long before I had seen them start from the gate of
Cairo, my feelings were essentially changed. 1 had hired
my caravan for Mount Sinai ; but feeling rather weak,
and wishing to save myself six days' journey in the
desert, I endeavoured to hire a boat to go down the
Red Sea to Tor, supposed to be the Elim, or place of
palm-trees, mentioned in the Exodus of the Israelites,
and only two days' journey from Mount Sinai. The
boats were all taken by the pilgrims, and these holy
travellei's wei-e packed together as closely as sheep on
board one of our North River sloops for the New York
market. They were a filthy set, many of them probably
not changing their clothes from the time they left their
homes until they reached the tomb of the Pi'ophet. I
would rather not have travelled with them ; but as it
was my only way of going down the sea, I applied to an
Arab to hire a certain portion of space on the deck of a
boat for myself and servant ; but he advised me not to
think of such a thing. He told me if I hired and paid
for such a space, the pilgrims would certainly encroach
upon me ; that they would beg, and borrow, and at last
rob me ; and, above all, that they were bigoted fanatics,
and, if a storm occurred, would very likely throw me
overboard. With this character of his bretlix-en from a
true believer, I abandoned the idea of going by sea, and
tliat the more readily, as his account was perfectly con-
sistent with w hat I had before heard of the pilgrims.

The scene itself did not sustain the high and holy
character of a pilgrimage. As I said before, all were
abimiinably filthy ; some were sitting around a great
dish of pilau, thrusting their hands in it up to the
knuckles, squeezing the boiled i-ice, and throwing back
their heads as they crammed the huge morsel down
their throats ; others packing up their merchandise, or
carrying water-skins, or whetting their sabres ; others
wrangling for a few paras ; and in one place was an
Arab butcher, bare-legged, and naked from the waist
upward, with his hands, breast, and face smeared with
blood, leaning over the body of a slaughtered camel,
brandishing an axe, and chopping oft" huge pieces of
meat for the surrounding pilgrims. A little off from
the shore a Large party were embarking on board a
small boat to go down to their vessel, which was lying
at the mouth of the harbour ; they were wading up to
their middle, every one with something on his shoulders
or above his head. Thirty or forty had already got on
board, and as many more were trying to do the same ;
but the boat was already full. A loud wrangling com-
menced, succeeded by clinching, throttling, splashing
in the water, and runmng to the shore. I saw bright
swords gleaming in the aii-, heard the ominous click of
a pistol, and in one moment more blood would have been
shed, but for a Turkish aga, who had been watching the
scene from the governor's balcony, and now dashing in
among them with a huge silver-headed mace, and laying
about him right aud left, brought the turbulent pilgrims
to a condition more suited to their sacred character.
At about nine o'clock I sent off my camels to go round

the head of the gulf, intending to cross over in a boat
and meet them. At the moment they loft the rotiuel,
two friends were holding up a quilt before tiie body of
the dead Tartar, wliile a third was within, washing and
preparing it for burial. At twelve o'clock I got on board
my boat ; she was, like the otliers, sharp built, with a
high poop and tall latteen sails, and, for the first time
in all my travelling, I began to think a voyage better
than a journey. In addition to the greater ease and
pleasantness, there was something new and exciting in
the passage of the Ited Sea ; and we had hardly given
our large latteen sails to the wind, before I l)egun to
talk with the rais about carrying me down to Tor : but
he told me the boat was too small for such a voyage,
and money would not induce him to attempt it.

Late in the afternoon we landed on tiie opposite side,
on the most sacred spot connected with the wanderings
of the Israelites, where they rose from the dry bed of
the sea, and, at the command of flloscs, the divided
waters rushed together, overwhelming I'haraoh and his
chariots, and the whole host of Egypt, ^\'■ith the devo.
tion of a pious pilgrim, I picked up a shell, and put it
in my pocket as a memorial of the place ; and then
Paul and I, mounting the dromedaries which my guide
had brought down to the shore in readiness, rode to a
grove of palm-trees, shading a fountain of bad water,
called Ayoun Moussa, or the Fountain of Moses. I was
riding carelessly along, looking behind me towards the
sea, and had almost reached the grove of palm-trees,
when a lai'ge flock of crows flew out, and my dromedary,
frightened with their sudden whizzing, started back and
threw me twenty feet over his head, completely clear
of his long neck, and left me sprawling in the sand. It
was a mercy I did not finish my wanderings where the
children of Israel began theirs ; but I saved my head
at the expense of my hands, which sank in the loose
soil up to the wi-ist, and bore the marks for more than
two mouths afterwards. I seated myself where I fell,
and, as the sun was just dipping below the horizon, told
Paul to pitch the tent, with the door towards the place
of the miraculous passage. I shall never forget that
sunset scene, and it is the last I shall inflict upon the
reader. I was sitting on the very spot where the chosen
people of God, after walking over the dry bed of the
sea, stopped to behold the divided waters returning to
theii- place and swallowing up the host of the pursuers.
The mountains on the other side looked dark and por-
tentous, as if proud and conscious witnesses of the
mighty miracle, wliile the sun, descending slowly behind
them, long after it had disappeared, left a reflected
brightness which illumined with an almost supernatural
light the dark surface of the water.

But to return to the Fountain of Moses. I am aware
that there is some dispute as to the precise spot where
Moses crossed ; but having no time for scepticism on
such mattei-s, I began by making up my mind that this
wiis the place, and then looked around to see whether,
according to the account given in the Bible, the face of
the country and the natural landmarks did not sustain
my opinion. I remember I looked up to the head of
the gulf, where Suez or Kolsum now stands, and saw
that almost to the very head of the gulf there was a
high range of mountains which it would be necessary
to cross, an undertaking which it would have been phy-
sically impossible for 600,000 people, men, women, and
children, to accomplish, with a hostile army pursuing
them. At Suez, iloses could not have been hemmed
in as he was ; he could go off into the Syrian Desert,
or, unless the sea has greatly changed since that time,
round the head of the gulf. But here, directly opposite
where 1 sat, was an opening in the mountains, making
a clear passage from the desert to the shore of the sea.
It is admitted that, from the earliest history of the
countrv, there was a caravan route from the Ii;»mcseli
of the Pharaohs to this spot, and it was perfectly clear
to my mind that, if the account be true at all, Moses
had taken that route ; that it was directly opposite me,
between the two mountains, where he had come down
with his multitude to the shore, and that it was there

46

TRAVELS IN AR.\IiIA TETRiEA.

he had found himself hemmed in, in the manner de-
scribed iu tlie Bible, with the sea before him, and the
army of Phanioh iu his rear ; it was there he had
stretched out liis baud and divided the waters ; and
probably, on the very spot where I sat, the children of
Israel had kneeled upon the sands to offer thanks to
God for his miraculous interposition. The distance,
too, was in coiitirmation of this opinion. It was about
twenty miles aci'oss ; the distance which that immense
multitude, with their necessjiry baggage, could have
I)assed iu the space of time (a nijjht) mentioned in the
Bible. Besides my own judgment and conclusions, 1
had authority ou the sjjot, in my Bedouin Toualeb, wlso
talked of it with as nmcii certainty as if he had seen it
himself; and, by the waning light of the moon, pointed
out the metes and bounds according to the tradition re-
ceived fx-oui his fatliei-s. " And even yet," said he, "on
a still evening like this, or sometimes when the sea is
raging, the ghosts of the departed Egj-ptians are seen
walking iipon the waters ; and once, when, after a long
day's journey, I lay down with my camels on this very
spot, I Siiw the ghost of I'liaraoii himself, with the crown
upon his head. Hying with liis chariot and horses over
the face of the deep ; and even to tliis day the Arab
diving for coral, brings up fragments of swords, broken
helmets, or chaiiot-wheels, swallowed up with the host
of Egypt."

Early tlie next mornuig we resumed our journey,
and travelled several hours along a sandy valley, di-
verging slowly from the sea, and approaching the moun-
tains Oil our left. Tlie day's journey was barren of
incident, though not void of interest. We met only one
small Ciiravan of Bedouins, with their empty sacks, like
the children of Jacob of old, journeying from a land of
famine to a land of plenty. From time to time we passed
the bones of a camel bleaching on the sand, and once
the body of one just dead, his eyes already picked out,
and tlieir sockets hollow to the brain. A huge vulture
was st:inding over him, with bis long talons fastened in
tiie entrails, his beak and his whole head stained with
blood. I drove the horrid bird aw.iy ; but befoi'e 1 had
got out of sight, he had again fastened on his prey.

The third day we started at teveu o'clock, and, after
three hours' journeying, entered among the mountains
of Sinai. Tlie scene was now entirely changed in cha-
racter ; the level expanse of the sandy desert for the
wild and rugged mountain-pass. At eleven we came to
tiie fountain of Marah, supposed to be that at which the
Israelites rested after their three days' journey from
the Ilcd Sea. There is some uncertainty as to the par-
ticulars of this journey ; the jiriiit of their footsteps did
not long remain in the shifting sands ; their descendants
liave long been slrangei's in the land ; and tradition but
imperfectly supplies the want of more accurate and en-
during records. Of the general fact there is no doubt ;
no other road from the Ked Sea to Mount Sinai has
existed since the days of Moses, and there is no part of
the world where the face of nature and the natural
land-marks have remained so totally unchanged. Then,
as now, it was a barrt^n mountainous region, bare of
verdure, and destitute of streams of living water; so
that the Almiglity was obliged to sustain his people
with manna from heaven, and water from tlie rocks.

But travellers have questioned whether this is the
fountain of Marah. The Bible account is simple and
brief — " They went three days into the wilderness, and
found no water ; and when they came to Marah, they
could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were
bitter." Bnickhardt objiefs that the distance is too
short for thrci! days' journey, but this cavil is suffi-
ciently answired by others ; that the movements of
such an immense multitude, of all ages and both sexes,
with flocks and cattle, which they must have had for
the sacrifices, if for no other jmrposc, must necessarily
have been slow. Besides, supposing the habits of the
people to liave been the same as we find them now
among Orientals, the presumption is rather that they
would march slowly than push on with speed, after
the danger of pursuit was over. Time Is thought of

little consequence by the Arabs ; and as the Jews were
Arabs, it is probable that the same was a feature of
their character also. At all events, I was disposed to
consider this the fountain, and would fain have per-
formed the duty of a pious pilgrim by making my noon-
day me.al at its brink ; but, as in the" days of Moses, wo
could not drmk of the waters of Marah, " for they were
bitter." 1 do not wonder that the people murmured,
for even our camels would not drink of them. The
ground around the fountain was white with salt. In
about two hours more wc came to the valley of Gher-
ondel, a large valley with palm-trees ; away at the right,
in the mountains, is another spring of water, which
Shaw makes the bitter fountain of Moses, the water
being also undriiikable.

That night Paul was unwell, and, as it always hap-
pened with him when he had a headache, he thought
he was going to die. As soon as we pitched our tent,
I made him lie down; and not knowing how to deal
with his real and fancied ailments, gave him some Jiot
tea, and then piled upon him quilts, blankets, empty
sacks, saddle-cloths, and every other covering I could
find, until he cried for quarter. I had no ditliculty in
cooking my own supper, and, I remember, tried the
savage taste of my Bedouins with the China weed, which
they liked exceedingly, when so abundantly sweetened
as utterly to destroy its flavour.

CHAPTER XV.

Tlie Aspect of the Mountains.— Arab Graves. — The Pacha and
the Bedouins. — The Value of Water. — Perplexing Inscriptions.
— Habits of the Arabs.— Ethics of the Deiert— Breach of the
Marriage Vow.— Arrival at the Convent.— An Exceaaof 'Wel-
come.— Greece and America. — Amor Patrice.

In the morning Paul was well, but I recommended a
little starvation to make all sure ; this, however, by no
means agreed with his ojiinioii, or his appetite ; for, as
he said, a man who rode a dromedary all d.ay must eat
or die. Lato in the afternoon we passed a hill of stones,
which Burekhardt calls the tomb of a saint ; but ac-
cording to Toualeb's account, and he spoke of it as a
thing within his own knowledge, it was the tomb of a
very different personage, n.imely, a woman who was
surprised by her kindred with a paramour, and killed
and buried on the spot ; on a little eminence above, a
few stones marked the place where a slave had been
stationed to give the guilty pair a timely notice of ap-
proaching danger, but had neglected his important trust.

Our road now lay between wild and rugged mountains,
and the valley itself was stony, broken, and gullied by
the washing of the winter torrents ; and a few straggling
thorn-bushes were all that grew in that region of deso-
lation. I had remarked for some time, and every mo-
ment impressed it more and more foi'cibly upon my
mind, tli.it every thing around me seemed old and in
decay : the valley was barren and devastated by tor-
rents ; the rocks were rent ; the mountains cracked,
broken, and crumbling into thousands of pieces ; and
wc encamped at night between roeks which seemed to
have been torn asunder by some violent convulsion,
where the stones had wa.shed down into the valley, and
the drifted sand almost choked the passage. It had
been excessively hot during the day, and at night the
wind was whistling around my tent as in mid-winter.

Early in the morning we were again in motion, our
route lying nearly all day in the same narrow valley,
bounded by the same lofty mountains. At every step
the scene became more solemn and impressive ; all w.-xs
still around us ; and not a sound broke the universal
silence, except the soft tread of our camels, and now
and then the voice of one of us ; but there was little
encouragement to garrulity. The mountains becamo
more and more striking, venerable, and interesting. Not
a shrub or blade of grass grew on their naked sides,
deformed with gaps and fissures ; and they looked as if,
by a slight jar or shake, they would crumble into millions
of pieces. It is impossible to describe correctly tho
aingularly interesting appearance of these mountains.

THE PACHA AND THE BEDOUINS— THE VALUE OF ABATER.

47

Age, hoary aud venerable, is the predomuiant character.
Tliey looked as if their great Creator had made them
higlier than they are, aud their summits, worn and
weakened by the action of tlie elements for thousands
of years, had cracked and fallen. My days in the desert
did not pass as quickly as 1 hurry through thoni here.
They wore away, not slowly alone, but sometimes
licavily ; and to help them in their progress, I sometimes
descended to very conmionplace amusements. On one
occasion I remember meeting a party of friendly Be-
douins, and, sitting down with them to pipes and coHee,
I noticed-a Hue lad of nineteen or twenty, about the size
of one of my party, and pitted mine against him for a
wrestling-match. The old Bedouins took the precaution
to remove theii' luiives and swords, and it was well they
did, for tlie two Lads throttled each other like young
furies ; and when mine received a pretty severe pro-
stration on tho sand, he first attempted to regain his
sword, and, failing ui that, sprang again upon his adver-
sary with such ferocity that I was glad to have the young
devils taken apart, and still more glad to know that they
were going to travel different roads.

Several times we passed the rude burying-grounds of
the Bedouins, standing alone in the waste of sand, a few
stones thrown together in a he.ap marking tlie spot
where an Arab's bones reposed ; but the wanderer of
the desert looks forward to his final rest in this wild
burying-place of his tribe with the same feehng that
animates the English peasant towards the churchyard
of his native village, or the noble peer towards the
honoured tomb of his ancestors.

About noon we came to an irregular stone fence,
running aci'oss the valley and extending up the sides
nearly to the top of the adjacent mountains, built as a
wall by the Bedouins of Sinai during the war with the
Pacha of Egypt. Among the strong and energetic
measures of his government, Mahommed Ali had en-
deavoured to reduce these children of the desert under
his iron rule ; to subject them to taxes, lilie his subjects
of the Nile, and, worse, to establish his oppressive system
of military conscription. But the free spirit of the un-
tameable could not brook this invasion of their inde-
pendence. They plundered his caravans, drank his
best Mocha coftee, devoured his spices from Arabia and
India, and clothed themselves and their wives in the
rich silks intended for the harems of the wealthy Turks.
Hassan Bey was sent against them with 2500 men ; 400
Bedouins defended this pass for several days, when,
craftily permitting him to force his way to the convent
of Mount Sinai, the tribes gathered in force between
him and the lied Sea, and held him there a prisoner
untU a treaty of perpetual amity had been ratified by
the pacha, by which it was agreed that the pacha should
not invade their territory, and that they would be his
subjects, provided he would not call upon them for
duties, or soldiers, or, indeed, for any thing which should
abridge their natural freedom ; or, in other words, that
he might do as he pleased with them, provided he let
them have their own way. It was, iu fact, the school-
boy's bargain, " Let me alone, and I will let you alone,"
and so it has been faithfully kept by both parties, and I
have no doubt will continue to be kept, until one of them
shall have a strong probability of profit aud success in
breaking it. Upon the whole, however, the Bedouins of
Mount Sinai are rather afraid of Mahommed Ali, and
he has a great rod over them in his power of excluding
them from Cairo, where they come to exchange their
dates and apricots for grain, clothing, weapons, and
ammunition. As they told me themselves, before his
time they had been great robbers, and now a robbery is
seldom heard of among them.

For two days we had been suffering for want of water.
The skins with which I had been provided by the con-
sul's janizai-y at Cairo were so new that they contami-
nated the water ; and it had at last become so bad. that,
fearful of mjurious effects from drinking it, and prefer-
ring the evil of thirst to that of sickness, 1 had poured
it all out upon the sand. Toualeb had told me that
some time during the day we should come to a fountain.

but the evening was drawing nigh, aud we had not
reached it. Fortunately we had still a few oranges left,
which served to moisten our parched mouths; and we
were in tho momentary expectation of coming to tho
\rater, when Toualeb discovered some marks, from which
he told us that it was yet three hours distant. We had
no apprehension of being reduced to the extremity of
thii-st ; but for men who had already been suffering for
some tune, the prolongation of such thirst was by no
means pleasant. During those three lioura I thought
of nothing but water. Rivers were Hoating through my
imagination, and, while moving slowly on my dromedary,
with the hot sun beating upon my head, 1 wiped tho
sweat from my face, and thought upon the frosty Cau-
casus ; aud when, after travellhig au liour aside from
the main track, through an opening in the mountains,
we saw a single jialm-tree shading a fountain, our pro-
gress was gradually accelerated, until, as wo approached,
we broke into a run, and dashing through the sand, and
witliout much respect of persons, all threw ourselves
upon the fountain.

If any of my friends at homo could have seen mo
then, they would have laughed to see me scrambluig
among a party of Arabs for a place around a fountain,
all prostrate on the ground, with our heads together, for
a moment raising them to li)ok gravely at each other
while we paused for breath, and then burying our noses
again in the dehcious water ; and yet, when my tlm-st
was satisfied, and I had time to look at it, I thougiit it
lucky that 1 had not seen it before. It was not a foun-
tain, but merely a deposite of water in a hollow sand-
stone x'ock ; the surface was green, and the bottom
muddy. Such as it was, however, we filled our skins,
and returned to the main track.

We continued about an hour iu the valley, rising
gently until we found ourselves on the top of a little
eminence, from which we saw before us another valley,
bounded also by higli rocky cliffs ; and directly iu front,
still more than a day's journey distant, standing directly
across the road, and, as has been forcibly and truly said,
" looking hke the end of the world," stood the towering
mountains of Sinai. At the other end of the plain the
mountains contracted, and on one side was an immense
block of porphyry, which had fallen, probably, thousands
of years ago. I could still see where it had come leap-
ing and crashing down the mountain-side, and trace its
destructive course to the very spot where it now lay,
itself almost a mountain, though a mere pebble when
compared with the giant from «hich it came. I pitched
my tent by its side, with the door open to tiie holy moun-
tain, as many a weary pilgrim had done before me. Tiie
rock was covered with inscriptions, but I could not
read them. I walked round and round it with I'aul at
my elbow, looking eagerly for some small scrap, a single
fine, in a language we could read ; but all were strange,
and at length we gave up the search. In several places
in the wilderness of Sinai, the rocks are filled with in-
scriptions, supposed to have been made by the Jews ;
and finding those before me utterly beyond my com-
prehension, I resolved to carry tliem back to a respec-
table antiquity, and in many of the worn and faded
charactei's, to recognise the work of some wandering
Israehte. I meditated, also, a desperate but noble deed.
Those who had written before me were long since dead ;
but in this lonely desert they had left a record of them-
selves and of their language. I resolved to .add one of
my country's also. Dwelling fondly in imagination upon
the absorbing interest with which some future traveUer,
perhaps from my own distant land, would stop to read
on this lonely rock a greeting in his native tongue, I
sought with great care a stone that would serve as a
pencil. It made a mark which did not suit me, and I
laid it down to break it into a better shape, but unluckily
smashed my fingers, and in one moment all my enthu-
siasm of sentiment was gone ; I crammed my fiugers into
my mouth, and danced about the rock in au agony of
heroics ; and so my inscription remained unwritten.

At seven o'clock of the tenth day from Cairo I was
again on my dromedary, and during the whole day tho

48

TRAVELS IN ARAUIA PETR.lilA.

lofty top of Sinai was constantly before me. We were
now in a country of fiit-ndly Ai'abs. The Bedouins
around Mount Sinai were all of the same tribe, and
the escort of any child of that tribe was a sutHcient
protection. About nine o'clock Toualeb left me for his
tent anion^ the mountains. He was a little at a loss,
having twn wives living in separate tents, at sonio dis-
tance from <-ach other, and he liesitated which to visit.
I made it my business to pry into particulars, and found
the substance of tlic Arab's nature not much dillerent
from other men's. Old ties and a sense ot duty called
him to his old wife — to her who had been his only wife
when Ii^was young and poor ; but something stronger
than old tics or the obligation of duty impelled liiin to
his younger bride. Like the Prophet whom he wor-
shipped, he honoured and respected his old wife, but
his heart yearned to her younger and more lovely rival.

The last was by far tlic most interesting day of my
journey *o .Mount Sinai. We were moving along a
broad valley, bounded by ranges of lofty and crumbling
mountains, forming an immense rocky rampart on each
side of us ; and rocky and barren as these mountains
seemed, on their tops were gardens which produced
oranges, dates, and figs, in great abundance. Hero, on
heights almost inaccessible to any but the children of the
desert, the Bedouin pitches his tent, p.istures his sheep
and goats, and gains the slender subsistence necessary
for himself and family ; and often, looking up the bare
side of the mountain, we could see on its summit's edge
the wild figurcof a half-naked Arab, with his longmatch-
lock gun in his hand, watching the movement of our
little caravan. Sometimes, too, the eye rested upon the
form of a woman stealing across the valley, not a tra-
veller or passer-by, but a dweller in the land where no
smoke curled from the domestic hearth, and no sign of
a habitation was perceptible. There was something
very interesting to me in the greetings of my compa-
nions with the other young men of their tribe. They
were just returning from a journey to Caii'o, an event
in the life of a young Bedouin, and they were bringing
a stranger from a land that none of them had ever heard
of; yet their greeting had the coldness of frosty age, and
the reserve of strangcre ; twice they would gently touch
the palms of each other's hands, mutter a few words,
and in a moment the wclcomers were again climbing to
their tents. One, 1 remember, greeted us more warmly,
and staid longer among us. He was by profession a
beggar or robber, as occasion required, and wanted
something from us, but it was not much ; merely some
bread and a charge of powder. Not far from the track,
we saw, hanging on a thorn-bush, the black cloth of a
Bedouin's tent, with the pole, ropes, pegs, andevery thing
necessary to convert it into a habitation for <a family.
It had been there six months ; the owner had gone to
a new pasture-ground, and there it had hung, and there
it would hang, sacred and untf)uched, until he returned
toclaim it. " It belongs to one of our tribe, and cursed
be tiie hand that touclies it," is the feeling of every
Bedouin, l.'ncounted gold might be exposed in the
same way ; and the poorest Bedouin, though a robber
by birth and profession, would pass, by and touch it not.

On the very summit of the mountain, apparently
ensconced behind it as a wall, liis body not more than
half visible, a Bedouin was looking down upon ua ; and
one of my l>arty, who had long kept his face turned that
way, toM me that there was llic tent of his father. I
talked with him about liis kindred and liis motmtain
home, not expecting, liowever, to discover any thing of
extraordinary interest or novelty. The sons of Ishmael
have ever been the same, inhaliilants of the desert,
despising the dwellers undi'r a roof, wande-rers and wild
men from their birth, with their hands against every
man, and every man's hand against them. " There is
blood between us," says the liedouin when he meets in
the desert one of a tribe by s<iine individual of wJiicli
an ancestor of his own was killed, ]>erhaps a hunrlred
years before. And then they firaw their swords, and a
new account of b!" id is opened, to be handed down as
a legacy to their children. " Tiiy aunt wants thy purse,"

says the Bedouin when he meets the stranger travelling
through his wild domain. " The desert is ours, and
every man who passes over it must pay us tribute."
These principal and distinguishing traits of the Bedouin
character have long been known ; but as 1 had now been
with them ten days, and expected to be with them a
month longer, to see them in their tents, and be thrown
among diflei*ent tribes, claiming friendship from those
who were enemies to each other, 1 was curious to know
something of the lighter shades, the details of their lives
and habits ; and 1 listened with exceeding interest while
the young Bedouin, with his eyes constantly fixed upon
it, told me that for more than 400 years the tent of his
fathers had been in that mountain. Wild and unsettled,
robbers and plunderers iis they are, they have laws
which are as sacred as our own ; and the tent, and the
garden, and the little pasture-ground, are transmitted
from father to son for centuries. I have jjrobably for-
gotten more than half of our conversation ; but I re-
member he told me that all the sons shared equally ;
that the datighters took nothing ; that the children lived
together ; that if any of the brothers got married, the
property must be divided ; that if any difficulty arose
on the division, the man who worked the ])lace for a
share of the profits must divide it ; and, lastly, that the
sisters nmst remain with the brothers, until they (the
sisters) arc married. I asked him, if the brothers did
not choose to keep a sister with them, what became of
her ; but he did not understand me. I repeated the
question, but still he did not comprehend it, and looked
to his companions for an explanation. And when, at
last, the meaning of my question became apparent to
his mind, he answered, with a look of wonder, " It is
impossible ; she is his own blood." 1 pressed my ques-
tion again and again in various forms, suggesting the
possibility that the brother's wife might dislike the
sister, and other very supposable cases ; but it was so
strange an idea, that to the last he did not fully com-
prehend it, and his answer was still the same — " It is
impossible ; she is his own blood." Paul was in ecsta-
cics at the noble answers of the young savage, and de-
clared him the finest fellow he had ever met since he
left Cairo. This was not very high praise, to be sure ;
but Paul intended it as a compliment, and the young
Bedouin was willing to believe him, though he could
not exactly comprehend how Paul had found it out.

I asked him who governed them ; he stretched him-
self up, and answered in one word, " God." I asked
him if they paid tribute to the pacha ; and his answer
was, " No, we take tribute from him." I asked him
how. " We plunder his caravans." Desirous to under-
stand my exact position with the sheik of Akaba,
under his i)romise of protection, I asked him if they
were governed by their sheik ; to which he answered,
" No, we govern him." 'J'he sheik was their represen-
tative, their mouthpiece with the pacha and with other
tribes, and had a personal influence, but not more than
any other member of the tribe. 1 asked him, if the
sheik had j)romised a stranger to conduct him through
liis territory, whether tin; tribe would not consider
themselves bound by his promise. He said no; they
would take the siieik apart, ask him what he was going
to do with the stranger ; how much he was going to get ;
and, if they were satisfied, would let iiim pass, otherwise
they would send him back ; but they would respect tlu;
promise of the sheik so far as not to do him any personal
injury. In case of any (juarrel or Jiffereiice between
members of a tribe, they had no law or tribunal to ad-
just it ; but if one of them was wounded — and lie spoke
as if this was the regular consequence of a <(uarrel —
upon his recovery he made out his account, charging a
per diem price for the loss of his services, and the other
must pay it. But what if he will not! " He must;'
was the reply, given in the same tone with which lie
had before pronounced it " impossible" for the brother
to withhold protection and shelter from his sister. If
he does not, he will be visited with the contempt of his
tribe, and very soon he or one of his near relations will
be killed. They have a law whicii is as powerful iu its

I

HABITS OF THE ARABS— ARRIVAL AT THE CONVENT.

49

operations as any tliat we have ; and it is a sti-angc and
not uninteresting feature in their social compact, tliat
wliat wecall public opinion should be as powerful among
them as among civilised people, and that even the wiM
and lawless Bedouin, a man who may fight, rob, and kill
with unpuuity, cannot live under the contempt of his
tribe.

In regard to their yet more domestic habits, lie told
rae that though the law of Miiliouimed allowed four
wives, the Bedouin seldom took more than one, unless
that one was barren or could not make good bread, or
unless he fell in love with another girl, or could aftbrd
to keep more than one ; with these, and some few other
extraordinary exceptions, the Bedouin married but one
wife ; and the chastity of women was protected by san-
guinary laws, the guilty woman having her head cut off
by her own relations, while her paramour, unless caught
in the act, is allowed to escape ; the Arabs proceeding
on the ground that the chastity of the woman is a pearl
above all price ; that it is in her own keeping ; and that
it is but part of the infirmity of man's nature to seek to
rob her of it.

The whole day we were moving between parallel
ranges of mountains, receding in some places, and then
again contracting, and at about mid-day entered a nar-
row and rugged defile, bounded on each side with pre-
cipitous granite rocks more than a thousand feet high.
We entered .at the very bottom of this defile, moving
for a time along the dry bed of a torrent, now ob-
structed with sand and stones, the rocks on every side
shivered and torn, and the whole scene wild to subli-
mity. Our camels stumbled among the rocky frag-
ments to such a degree that we dismounted, and passed
through the wild defile on foot. At the otlier end we
came suddenly upon a plain table of ground, and before
us towered in awful grandeur, so huge and dark that
it seemed close to us and barring all farther progress,
the end of my pilgrimage, the holy mountain of Sinai.
On our left was a large insulated stone, rudely resem-
bling a chair, called the chair of Moses, on which tra-
dition says that Moses rested himself when he came up
with the people of his charge ; farther on, upon a little
eminence, are some rude stones, which are pointed out
as the ruins of the house of Aaron, where the great high-
priest discoui'sed to the wandering Isi-aelites. On the
right is a stone alleged to be the petrified golden calf.
But it was not necessary to draw upon false and frivo-
lous legends to give interest to this scene ; the majesty
of nature was enough. I felt that I was on holy ground ;
and dismounting from my dromedary, loitered for more
than an hour in the valley. It was cold, and I sent my
shivering Bedouins forward, supposing myself to be at
the foot of the mountain, and lingei'ed there until after
the sun had set. It was after dark, as alone, and on
foot, I entered the last defile leading to the holy moun-
tain. The moon had risen, but her light could not
penetrate the deep defile through which I was toiling
slowly on to the foot of Sinai. I'rohi about half-way up
it shone with a pale and solemn lustre, while below all
was in the deepest shade, and a dark spot on the side of
the mountain, seeming perfectly black in contrast with
the light above it, marked the situation of the convent.
I passed a Bedouin tent, under which a group of Arabs
were sleeping around a large fire, and in a few moments
stood at the foot of the convent wall. My camels were
lying down eating their evening meal, and my Bedouins
were asleep on the ground close under the walls.

Knowing that they would not be admitted themselves,
they had not demanded entrance ; and as I had not told
them to do so, they had not given notice of my coming.
The convent was a very large building, and the higli
stone walls surrounding it, with turrets at the corners,
gave it the appearance of a fortress. Exposed as tliey
are to occasional attacks by the Bedouins, the holy
fathers are sometimes obliged to have recourse to carnal
weapons. The walls are accordingly mounted with
cannon, and there is no entrance except by a subter-
raneous passage under tlie garden, or by a small door
in one of the walls, about thirty feet from the ground.

My Bedouins had stopped under this door, and here wo
commenced shouting for admis.siun, first singly, and then
altogether, in I'reuch, English, and Arabic ; but no unu
came to admit us. I was strongly reminded of the
scene under the walls of the little convent in the desert,
on my attempted expedition to the great Oasis. Then,
as now, it was a moonlight night, anil the sceiie was a
convent, a lonely habitation of Christians, with its door
closed against a fellow-CArii/ia/j. I remember that then
I had to force my way in and make my own welcome,
and I resolved that no trille should keep me from an
entrance here. The convent belonged to the Greek
church. I did not know how many monks were in it,
or what was the sanctity of their lives, but 1 wishetl
that some of them had slept with more troubled eon-
sciences, for we made almost noise enough to wake the
dead ; and it was not until we had discharged two vol-
leys of fire-arms that we succeeded in rousing any of the
slumbering inmates. On one side were two or three
little slits or portholes, and a n>onk, with a long white
beard and a lighted taper in iiis hand, cautiously thrust
out his head at one of them, and demanded our business.
This was soon told ; we were strangers and Christians,
and wanted admission ; and had a letter from the Greek
patriarch at Cairo. The head disappeared fi-oni the
loophole, and soon after I saw its owner slowly open
the little door, and let down a rope for the patriarch's
letter. He read it by the feeble glimmer of his lamp,
and then again appeared at the window, and bade us
welcome. The rope was again let down ; 1 tied it around
my arms ; and after dangling in the air for a brief space,
swinging to and fro against the walls, found myself
clasped in the arms of a burly, long-bearded monk, who
hauled me in, kissed me on both cheeks, our long beards
rubbing together in friendly union, and, untwisting the
rope, set me upon my feet, and passed me over to his
associates.

By this time nearly all the monks had assembled, and
all pressed forward to welcome me. They shook my
hand, took me in their arms, and kissed my face ; and if
I had been their dearest friend just escaped from the
jaws of death, they could not have received me with a
more cordial greeting. Glad as I was, after a ten days'
journey, to be received with such warmth by these re-
cluses of the mountains, I could have spared the kissing.
The custom is one of the detestable things of the Ea.'^t.
It would not be so bad Lf it wci-e universal, and the
traveller might sometimes receive his welcome from
rosy lips ; but, unhappily, the women hide their faces and
run away from a stranger, while the men rub him with
their bristly beai'ds. At first 1 went at it with a stout
heart, flattering myself that I could give as well as
take ; but I soon Hiuched and gave up. Their beards
were the growth of years, while mine had only a few
months to boast of, and its downward aspirations must
continue many a long day before it would attain the
respectable longitude of theirs.

During the kissing scene, a Bedouin servant came
from the other end of the terrace with an armful of
burning brush, and threw it in a blaze upon the stony
floor. The monks were gathered around, talking to me
and uttering assurances of welcome, as I knew them to
be, although I could not understand them ; and, con-
fused and almost stunned with their clamorous greeting,
I threw myself on the floor, thrust my feet in the fire,
and called out for Paul. Twice the rope descended and
brought up my tent, baggage, &c. ; and the third time
it brought up Paul, hung round with guns, pistols, and
swords, like a travelling battery. The rope was wound
up by a windlass, half a dozen monks, in long black
frocks with white stripes, turning it with all their might.
In the general eagerness to help, they kept on turning
until they had carried Paul above the window, and
brought his neck up short under the beam, his feet
strugghng to hold on to the sill of the door. He roared
out lustily in Greek and Arabic ; and while they were
helping to disencumber him of his multifarious annour,
he was curbing and abusing them for a set of blunder-
ing workmen, who had almost broken the neck of as

80

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETILEiV.

good a Oiristian as any among them. Probably, since
the last ineui-sion of tiie Bedouins, the peaceful walls
of the convent had not been disturbed by such an in-
fernal clatter.

The monks had been roused from sleep, and some of
them were hardly yet awake ; the superior was the last
vho came, and his presence quickly restored order. He
va.s a remarkably noble-looking old man, of moi-e than
sixty. He asked me my country, and called me his child,
and told me that God would reward me for coming from
so distant a land to do homage on the holy mountain ;
and 1 did not deny the character he ascribed to me, or
correct his mistake in supposing that the motive of my
journey was purely religious ; and looking upon me as
a devout pilgrim, he led me through a long range of
winding passages, which seemed like the sti-eets of a
city, into a small room spread with mats, having a jiile
of coverlets in one corner, and wearing an ajipearance
of comf-n-t that could be fully appreciated by one who
had then spent ten nights in the desert. I threw myself
on the mats with a feeling of gratitude, while the supe-
rior renewed his welcome, telling me that the convent
was the pilgi-im's home, and that every thing it con-
tained was mine for a week, a month, or the rest of my
days. Nor did he neglect my innnediate wants, but,
with all the warmth and earnestness of a man >vho could
feel for others' woes in so important a matter as eating,
expressed his resTret that meat was alwavs a forbidden
thing within the walls of the convent, and that now,
during their forty days of fasting, even fish and eggs
were proscribed. I told him that I was an invalid, and
wanted only the plainest and simplest viands, but insi-
nuated that speed was of more importance than richness
of fare, having eaten only a biscuit and an orange since
morning. The cook of the convent, however, a lay
brother in his noviciate, was not used to do things in a
liurry, and before he was ready I felt myself goaded by
the Hend of famine ; and when he came with a j)latter
of beans and a smoking pilau of rice, I made such an
attack upon tliem as made the good superior stare with
wonder and admiration ; and I have no doubt that,
before I had done, he must liavo thought a few more
such invalids would bring him and the whole brother-
hood to actual starvation.

The superior was a Greek by birth ; and though it
was forty years since he had first come to the convent
at Sinai, and twenty years since he entered it for the
last time, he was still a Greek in heart. His I'elations
with his native land were kept up by the occasional
visits of pilgrims. He had heard of their bloody struggle
for liberty, and of what America had done for her in
lier hour of need, and he told me tliat, next to his own
country, he loved mine ; and by liis kindness to me as
an individual, he sought to repay, in part, his country's
debt of gratitude. In my wandt-rings in Greece, I liad
invariably fmind the warmest feeling towards my coun-
tr)-. I had found it in the offices of government, in my
boatmen, my muleteer, and I remember a ploughman
on immortal .Marathon sang in my greedy ears the
praises of America. 1 liad seen the tear stream down
the manly cheeks of a mustached Greek when he talked
of .Vmeriea. I had seen those who had received directly
from the hands of my countrymen the bounty that came
from home. Ono, I remember, pointed me to a family
of Hons and daughters, who, he told me, were saved
from absolute 8t.arv;ition by our timely lielp ; and so
dearly was our country loved there, that I verily believe
the mountain robber would have spared the unprotected
American.

I knew that this feeling existed in Greece, but I did
not expect to find it thus glowing in the wilderness of
.Sinai. For myself, difffrent in this respect from most
others travellers, I liked the Grerks. Travellers and
strangers condemn the whole people as dishonest be-
cause they are clieatetl by their boatmen or muleteers,
without ever thinking of their four centuries of bitter
Bervitude ; but when I remembered their long oppres-
sion and galling chains, instead of wondering that they
were so bad, 1 wondered that they were not worse. I

liked the Greeks ; and when I talked of Greece and
what I had seen there, of the Bavarians lording it over
the descendants of Cimon and Miltiades, the face of the
superior flushed, and his eyes flashed fire ; and when I
spoke of the deep interest their sufferings and their
glorious struggle liad created in America, the old man
wept. Oh, who can measure the feeling that binds a
man to his native land ! Though forty years an exile,
buried in the wilderness, and neither expecting nor
wishing to revisit the world, he loved his country as if
his foot now pressed her soil, and under his monkish
robe there glowed a heart as patriotic as ever beat be-
neath a soldier's corslet. The reader will excuse an
unusual touch of sensibility in me when he reflects upon
my singular position, sitting at the base of Mount Sinai,
and hearing from the lips of a white-bearded Greek the
praises of my beloved country. He sat with me till the
ringing of the midnight bell for prayers, when I throw
myself upon the mat, and, before the hollow sounds had
died away in the cloisters, I was fast asleep.

CHAPTfJR XVI.
Ascont of Sinai.— A Miracle.— The Grotto of Elias.— A Monkt^ih
Legend. — Tho Pinnacle of Sinai. — Anchorites. — Mahommed
and bis Camel. — An Arjaiment.— Legend of St Catharine.— Tho
Rock of the Tables.— Tlie Stone struck by Closes.- Dcscriptiou
of the Convent.— Habits and Character of its Inmates.

The next day was one of the most interesting of my
life. At eight o'clock I was breakfasting ; the superior
was again at my side ; again ottering me all the convent
could give, and urging me to stay a month, a fortnight,
a week, at lea.st to spend that day with him, and repose
myself after the fatigues of my journey ; but from the
door of the little room in which I sat, I saw the holy
mountain, and I longed to stand on its lofty snmmit.
Though feeble and far from well, I felt the blood of
health again coursing in my veins, and congratulated
myself tliat I was not so hackneyed in feeling as 1 had
once supposed. I found, and 1 was happy to find, for
the pro.si)ective enjoyment of my farther journey, that
the first tangible monument in the history of the Bible,
the first spot that could be called holy ground, I'aised
in me feelings that had not been awakened by the most
classic ground of Italy and Greece, or the proudest
monuments of the arts in Egypt.

hnmediately after breakfast I rose to ascend tho
mountain. The sui)erior conducted me through tho
convent, which, even more than at night, seemed like
a small city, through long galleries built of stone, with
iron doors, and finally through a long subterraneous
passage to the outer garden, a beautiful spot in the
midst of the surrounding barrenness, now blooming with
almonds and oranges, lemons, dates, and apricots, and
shaded by arbours of grape-vines to the extreme end of
the walls. At this moment I gave but a p.a-ssing glance
at the garden ; and hurrying on to the walls, where a
trusty Arab was sitting as sentinel, 1 descended by a
rope, tho superior, or papa, as lie is called, bidding mo
farewell, and telling me not to fatigue myself or be long
aw.ay. At the foot of the wall I found Toualeb waiting
orders for my final departure. He said that he mu-st
consult with his tribe before he could make any bar-
gain ; and 1 told him to come to the convent in two
days, prepared to start tipon the third.

Immediately behind the wall of the convent we began
to ascend. A Bedouin dwarf, the first s[)ecimen of de-
formity I had seen among the Arabs, led the way, with
a leather b.ig of refreshments on his back. An old
monk followed, with long white hair and beard, sup-
porting himself by a staff'; after him came a young no-
vice from Corfu, who spoke Italian, and then Paul and
myself. For some time the a.icent was easy. I>vcr
since the establishment of the convent, it had been the
business of the monks to improve the path to the top
of the mountain ; and for about twenty minuti^s we con-
tinued ascending by regular steps. In half an hour we
came to a beautiful founfarn under an overhanging rock.
Besides the hallowed localities in and around the nioua-

MOUNT SINAI.

61

tnin, consecrated by scenes of Bible history, almost
every spot lias some monkish legend, of wliicli that con-
nected with the fountain is a specimen. Taking a long
draught from its stony bed, our younger companion be-
gan the story somewhat in the usual Eastern form.
" Once there was a poor shoemaker" who, in making
his pilgrimage to the holy mountain, on a hot d:iy, sat
down under the shade of tlie impending rock. He was
an industrious man, and while resting himself, took out
his cobbling materials, and began to cobble ; he was a
good man, and while he sat there at his work, he thought
of the wickedness of the world and its temptations, and
how the devil was always roaming about after poor cob-
blers, and resolved to leave the world for ever, and live
under that rock. There was no water near it then ;
but as soon as he had made this resolution, the water
gushed forth, and a living fountain has remained there
ever since. The same year there w.as a dispute between
the Greek and Armenian patriarchs at Cairo, and the
pacha gave notice that he would decide in favour of him
who should perform a miracle. This was more than
either had power to do ; but the Greek dreamed one
night of the poor cobbler, and the next moi-ning dis-
patched a messenger to the mountain with a drome-
dary, and a request that the holy man should come and
perform a miracle. The cobbler was a modest man,
and said he would be glad to make a pair of shoes for
the patriarch, but could not perform a miracle. The
niessengei", however, insisted upon taking him to Caii'o,
where, roused into a belief of his own powers, he or-
dered a mountain to approach the city. The obedient
mountain marched till it was told to stop, and there it
stands to the present day.

In half an hour more we came to a little chapel de-
dicated to the Virgin, to whicli, some 200 or 300 years
ago, certain holy men, who wished to separate them-
selves more completely from the world, had withdrawn
from the convent, and here lived and died upon the
mountain. The chapel had been fitted up several times,
but the Bedouins had always entered and destroyed
every thing it contained. The situation w:is well suited
for retii-ement ; quiet and isolated, but not dreary, and
fitted for a calm and contemplative spirit. Paul was
particularly struck \\ ith it, and in a moment of enthu-
siasm said he would like to end his days there ; and,
with his characteristic prudence, asked if he could get
his meals from the convent. The monk did not approve
his enthusiasm, and told him that his inspiration was of
the devil, and not of God, but suddenly said that there
were no hermits now ; that all men thought too much
of eating anddrinking,and indulging in luxuries; sighed,
kissed the cross, asked Paul for a cigar, and then walked
on again. Passing through a defile of precipitous rocks,
we soon reached a gate about three feet wide, where
foraierly, when pilgrimages to this place were more
frequent, a guard was stationed, to whom it was neces-
sary to show a permission from the superior of the con-
vent. A little beyond this was another narrow passage
secured by a door, where it was formerly necessary to
show a pass from the keeper of the gate, and where a
dozen men could make a good defence against a thou-
sand. Soon after we entered a large open space, form-
ing a valley surrounded on all sides by mountains ; and
on the left, high above the others, rose the lofty peak
of Sinai. It is this part of the mountain which bears
the sacred name of Horeb. In the centre, enclosed by
a stone fence, is a tall cypress, the only tree on the
mountain, planted by the monks more than 100 years
ago. Near it is a fountain, called the Fountain of Elias,
which the prophet dug with his own hands when he
lived in the mountain, before he was ordered by the
Lord to Jerusalem. According to the monks, the pro-
phet is still living somewhere in the world, wandering
about with Enoch, and preparing for the great final
battle with Antichrist. A little above is an old church,
with strong walls and iron doors, now falling and dila-
pidated, and containing a grotto, called the Grotto of
Elias, which, according to the legend, formed the pro-
phet's sleeping-chamber. I crawled into the rocky cell,

and, thanks to my travelling experience, which liad
taught me not to be fastidious in such matters, found
the bedroom of the prophet by no means an uncomfort-
able place ; often in the desert I would have been thank-
ful for such a shelter.

Here our dwarf left us, and, continuing our ascent,
the old monk still leading the way, in about a quarter
of an hour we came to a table of rock standing boldly
out, and running down almost perpendicularly an im-
mense distance to the valley. I was expecting another
monkish legend, and my very heart thrilled when the
monk told me that this was the top of the hill on which
Closes had sat during the battle of the Israelites and
the Amalekites, while Aaron and Ilur supported his up*
lifted liands, until the sun went down upon the victo*
rious arms of his jieople. From the height I could see,
clearly and distinctly, every part of the battle-ground,
and the whole vale of Rephedim and the mountains be-
yond ; and Moses, while on this spot, must have been
visible to the contending parties fi-om every part of the
field on which they were engaged.

Some distance farther on, the old monk stopped, and
prostrating himself before a stone, kissed it devoutly,
and then told me its history. He said that the last time
the monks in the convent were beset by the Arabs, when
their communication with Cairo was cut off, and death
by the sword or famine staring them in the face, the
superior proposed that they should put on their holiest
vestments, and, under the sacred banner of the cross,
ascend in a body, and for the last time sing their Te
Deum on the top of the mountain. On their return,
at this stone they met a woman with a child, who told
them that all their danger was over : and, in accord-
ance with her words, when they returned to the con-
vent they found the Arabs gone, and forty camels from
Cairo laden with pi'ovisions standing under the walls.
Since that time they had never been molested by the
Arabs ; " and there is no doubt," continued the old
monk, "tliat the woman was the mother of God, and
tlie child the Saviour of the world."

But away with monkish superstition. I stand upon
the very peak of Sinai, where Moses stood when ho
talked with the Almighty. Can it be, or is it a mere
di'eam 1 Can this naked rock have been the witness
of that great interview between man and his Maker —
where, amid thunder and lightning, and a fearful quak-
ing of the mountain, the Almighty gave to his chosen peo-
ple the precious tables of liis law, those rules of infinite
wisdom and goodness, which to this day best teach man
his duty towards his God, his neighbour, and himself!

The scenes of many of the incidents recorded in the
Bible are extremely uncertain. Historians and geo-
graphers place the garden of Eden, the paradise of our
first parents, in different parts of Asia ; and they do not
agree upon the site of the Tower of Babel, the mountain
of Ararat, and many of the most interesting phices in
the Holy Land ; but of Sinai there is no doubt. This is
the holy mountain ; and among all the stupendous woi-ks
of Natui-e, not a place can be selected more fitted for the
exhibition of Almighty power. I have stood upon the
summit of the giant Etna, and looked over the clouds
Heating beneath it, upon the bold scenery of Sicily, and
the distant mountains of Calabria ; upon the top of Ve-
suvius, and looked down upon the waves of lava, and
the ruined and half-recovered cities at its foot ; but they
are nothing compared with the terrific solitude and
bleak majesty of Sinai. An observing traveller has well
called it " a perfect sea of desolation." Not a tree, or
shrub, or blade of grass, is to be seen upon the bare and
rugged sides of innumerable mountains, lieaving their
naked summits to the skies, while the crumbling masses
of granite around, and the distant view of the Syrian
desert, with its boundless waste of sands, form the
wildest and most dreary, the most terrific and desolate,
picture that imagination can conceive.

The level surface of the very top, or pinnacle, is about
sixty feet square. At one end is a single rock about
twenty feet high, on which, as said the monk, the spirit
of God descended, while in the crevice beneath, his fa-

52

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETRiEA.

voured servant received the tables of the law. There,
on the same spot where they were given, 1 opened the
sacred book in which those laws are recorded, and read
thuai with a deeper feeling of devotion, as if I were
standing nearer and receiving them more directly from
the Deity himself.

The ruins of a church and convent are still to be seen
upon the mountain, to which, before the convent below
was built, monks and hermits used to retire, and, secluded
from the w orld, sing the praises of God upon his chosen
hill. Near this, also in ruins, stands a Maliommedan
mosque ; for on this sacred spot the followers of Christ
and .Mahommed have united in worshipping the true and
living God. Under the chapel is a hermit's cell, where
in the iron age of fanaticism the anchorite lingei'ed out
his days in f;»sting, meditation, and prayer.

In the Kast, tlie fruitful parent of superstition, oc-
curred the first inst;inces of monastic life. A single
enthusiast w ilhdrew himself from the society of his fel-
low-men, and wandered for years among the rocks and
s;uids of the desert, devoting himself to the service of
liis Maker by the mistaken homage of bodily mortifica-
tion. The deep humility of the wanderer, his purity
and sincerity, and the lashes and stripes he inflicted
upon his worn and haggard body, excited tlie warm ima-
ginations of the Christians of the East. Others, tortured
by the same overpowering consciousness of sin, followed
his example, emulating each other in self-punishment ;
and he was accounted the niost holy, and the most
Worthy it) be received at the right hand of God, who
showed himself most dead to all the natural feelings of
humanity. The deserts of the Thebaid were soon
covered with hermits ; and more than 70,000 anchorites
were wasting their lives in the gloomy wilds of .Sinai,
startling the solitude with the cries of their self-inflicted
torture. The ruins of their convents are still to be seen
uj'On the rudest mountain side, in the most sa\ age chasm,
or upon the craggiest top ; and, strange as the feeling
may seem, my very soul cleaved to the scene around me.
I, too, felt myself lifted above the world, and its petty
cares and troubles, and almost Imrried into the wild
enthusiasm which had sent the tenants of these ruined
convents to live and die among the mountains.

I'lamcme not, reader, nor think me impious, that, on
the toj) of the holy mountain of Sinai, half unconscious
what 1 did, 1 fired at a partridge. The sound of my
gun, ringing in frequent echoes from the broken and
hollow rocks, startled and aroused me ; and, chasing the
bird down the tnountain side, I again reached " the place
in Horeb," and threw myself on the ground under the
palm-tree, near the Fountain of Elias.

I always endeavoured to make my noonday meal near
some rock or ruin, some tree or fountain ; and 1 could
not pas-s by the fountain of the projjliet. My Arab
dwarf had anticipated my wants ; and now ])repared
some of the genuine .Mocha, which every Arabian (and
an .\rabian only) knows how to prepare, exhaling an
aroma that refreshes and invigorates the wearied frame ;
and, in the desert, a cordial more i>recious than the
finest wines of France or Madeira. .Seated under the
palm-tree, monks, Bedouins, Paul, and myself, all to-
gether, eating our frugal meal of bread and fruit, accom-
panied with long draughts from the Fountain of Llias,
I talked with the IJrilouins about the mountain conse-
crated in the eyes of all true .Mussulmans by the legend
of .Mahommrd and his camel.

In onr respect I was very unlucky in this journey. I
had no guide-books. Having formed no definite \t\nn in
my wandcTJngs, I never knew w ith what books to provide
myself, and therefore cniTied none, trusting to chance
for finding what I wanted. As might be 8upj)oscd, when
I needed them most it wa.s utterly imposMJble to obtain
any ; and from the bt>rdei-s of Kgypt to the confines of
the Holy Land, I wjls in some measure groping in the
dark ; the Bible was my only guide ; and though the
I»est a man could have in his pilgrimage through life,
and far better than any other in this particular journey,
yet others would have been exceedingly saluable, as
illustrating obscure passages in tlio sacred book ; and

particularly as referring, besides, to circumstances .ind
traditions other than scriptural, connected with the holy
mountain.

In the book of one of the modern travellers, I believe
of the lamented Burckhardt, I remembered to have seen
a reference to a tradition among the .Mussulmans, that
Mahonnned had ascended the mountain on the back t)f
his camel, and from its lofty summit had taken his de-
parture to tile seventh heaven, and that the prints of
the beast's footsteps were still to be seen on the surface
of the rock. I questioned the Arab about this story. In
the more engrossing interest of the scene, I had forgotten
to look for the prints of the camel's feet, and told him,
with great truth, that I had examined every thing care- '
fully, but had not seen them. The old monk, who had
sat quietly numching his bread and figs, scandalised at
my inquiring into such a profane story, and considering
the holy mountain iu a manner his property, broke out
unceremoniously, and denounced it as a wicked inven-
tion of the .\rabs, averring that every body knew that,
before Mahonnned got half way up, the camel stumbled,
fell, and broke the neck of the Prophet. This was equally
new and monstrous to the Arab, who swore that tlu;
legend was true, for it w.os written in the Koran, and
that he himself had often seen the print of the foot ; and
he accounted for my not seeing it by the very sensible
and satisfactory explanation that it was visible only to
the eyes of true believers. The good father was com-
l)lctely roused by this obstiiiate resistance in the scandal ;
and a reckless Bedouin and an old Bulgarian monk,
sitting by a fountain among the deserts of Sinai, were
soon disputing with as much clamour and bitterness as
if they had been brought up in the midst of civilisation,
to harangue, from opposing pulpits, the jireachers of tho
promises and the denouncers of tho curses of rival
churches. One thing the pious father especially insisted
on : the strong i>oint in his argument, and particularly
ludicrous, as coming from sucli an old bundle of super-
stitions, was the impossibility of a camel's foot making
an impression on stone ; and, judging from this alone,
one might have suspected him of having had in his youth
some feeble glimmerings of common sense ; but a few
minutes after he told me the legend of Alount St Ca-
tharine.

Mount St Catharine is the great rival of Sinai in tho
range of mountains in the Arabian peninsula. Tlvey
rise like giant twin brothers, towering above every
other ; and the only thing which detracts in the slightest •
degree from the awful supremacy of Sinai, is the fact
that Mount St Catharine is somewhat the highest. Tho
legend is, that in the early days of the Christian church
the daughter of a king of Alexandria became converted.
While her father remained a pagan, she tried to con-
vert him ; but, indignant at the attempt, he cast her
into prison, where she was visited by the .Saviour, who
entered through the key-hole, and married her with a
ring, which is now in the hands of the I'^nijiress of Rus-
sia. Her father cut her head off, and angels carried
her body to the top of the mountain, and laid it on tho
rock. For centuries no one knew where it was depo-
sited, the Christians believing that it had been carried
up into heaven, until about two centuries ago, when a
monk at the convent dreamed where it had been laid.
The next morning he took his staff and climbed to the
top of the mountain ; and there, on the naked roek,
fresh and blooming as in youthful beauty, after a death
of more than a thousand years, he found the body of the
saint. The monks then went up in solemn procession,
and, taking up the body, bore it in pious triumjdi to the
convent below, where it now lies in a coffin with a silver
lid, near the great altar in the chapel, aud receives the
homage of all jiious jtilgrinis.

It was nearly dark when I nturned to the convent ;
and, in no small degree fatigneil with the labours of tho
day, I again threw myself on (he mat, ami welcomed
rest. In th<,' evenini; the superior came to my room,
and again we mingled the names of Greece and America.
I was weary, and talkeil with the old man when I would
rather have been asleep ; but with his owu hands hu

THE ROCK OF THE TABLES— THE STONE STRUCK BY MOSES.

63

drew mats and cushions around me, and made mo so
comfortable, that I could not refuse to indulge liini with
the rare luxury of conversation on the suliject of his
native land, and of the world from which he was shut
out for ever. He was single-hearted and simple, or,
perhaps I should rather say, simple and ignorant ; I
remember, for instance, when we had been emban-assed
for a time by the absence of the younger monk who
served as our interpreter, the old man told me very
gravely, and as a new thing, which 1 could not be ex-
pected to know, but which he did not think the less of
me for not knowing, that formerly, in the time of Adam,
all mankind spoke but one tongue ; and that men became
wicked, and built a tower to roach to heaven (he had
forgotten its name), and that God had destroyed it, and
confounded the impious builders with a variety of
tongues. I expressed my astonisliment, as in duty
bound, and denounced, in good set terms, the wickedness
of our fathers, which now prevented us from enjoying
at cur ease the sweets of friendly converse.

Before breakfast the next morning he was with me
again, with a striped abbas over his black gown, and a
staff in his hand, prepared to accompany me outside
the walls. I was surprised. He had told me that he
had not left the convent for more than three years, when
he had accompanied a great apostolic vicar, holding a
distinguished situation in the church of France ; and
this was the last and only time he had ever bestowed
such attention ou a stranger. The kind-hearted old
man intended it as an act of extraordinary kindness ; I
received it as such ; and, as such, he told me I could
mention it to my friends in America. Humble and
unimportant as was that old monk in the great drama
of life, I felt proud of his kindness — prouder than I
should have been of a reception at a European court,
or a greeting from royal lips — and my pride was the
greater that I did not ascribe it to any merits of my
own. My only claim wa« that possessed by all my
countrymen — 1 was an American ; my country had
hoard the cry of his in her distress, and from her seat
across the broad Atlantic had answered that cry.

We passed, as before, tlirough the subterraneous
passages into the garden. The miserable Bedouins who
were gathered around outside, waiting for the bread
which they received daily from the convent, surprised
at the unexpected but welcome appearance of the supe-
rior, gathered around him, and kissed his hands and
the hem of his garment. He had provided himself with
an extr-a sack of bread, which he distributed among
them, and which they seemed to receive with peculiar
pleasure from his hands. The monks of Mount Sinai
ai-e now no longer obliged to have recourse to carnal
weapons for protection ; peace reigns between them and
the Bedouins ; and part of the price of peace is the
distribution of 2500 rolLsof bread among the pooraround
the mountain. I did not think so much of this price
when I saw the bread, hard, black, and mouldy, and
such as the meanest beggar in our country would not
accept from the hand of charity. But the Bedouins
took it, and thanked God and the monks for it.

Hurrjing away from these grateful pensioners, we
descended by the defile through which we had entered ;
and again passing the ruins of the house of Aaron, and
the spot from which he preached to the assembled people,
we came to a long flat stone, with a few holes indented
in its surface, which the superior pointed out as that on
wliich Moses threw down and broke the tablets of the
law, when he descended from the mountain and found
the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. About half
an hour farther on was another stone much hoUer than
this ; at first 1 understood the interpreter that it was
the petriiaction of the golden calf; but gathered, with
some difriculty, from the superior, that it was the mould
in which the head of the golden calf was run. He
pointed out to me the prints of the head, ears, and horns,
clear even to the eyes of a man of sixty ; and told me
the story of the golden calf somewhat differently from
the Bible account. He said that the people, wanting
another god, came up with one accord and tlsrev,- their

golden ornaments upon that stone, and agreed by accla-
mation that when it was melted they would worship
whatever should come out ; three times it came out the
head of a calf ; and then they fell down and worshipped
it.

Some distance farther on wc passed on our right a
Hebrew burying-ground — " The burial-place," said the
superior, "of the Israelites who died in tlieir forty
years' wandering among the mountains of Sinai." The
old man had heard those things so long, and had told
them so often, and believed them so firmly, that it would
have broken his heart — besides shaking his conlidenco
in my Christian principles — if I had intimated the sliglit-
est doubt. I asked whether the Jews ever came in pil-
grimage to the mountain of their fathers ; and he told
me that, four years ago, two Asiatic Jews had come
disguised as Europeans, and attempted to pa.ss them-
selves as Christians ; " but," said the priest, with a vin-
dictive spirit lighting his usually mild eye," 1 detected
them under their sheeps' clothing, and they did not stay
long in the convent." Yet I remember seeing on the
wall of the convent, and with no small degree of interest,
the name of an .\merican Jew.

Farther on, turning into a valley which opened be-
tween the mountains on the left, we came to a garden
belonging to tlie convent, which presented a strange
appearance in the midst of the surroimding desolation,
producing all kinds' of fruits ; where one might almost
wonder to see a blade of gr;iss put forth, the oi-ange, the
date, thefig, and the vine, are growing inrich luxuriance.
The soil is formed from the debris of rocks washed from
themouutains; and though too light for strong products,
for fruit it is bettor than the rich valley of the Nile.
.Sitting under the shade of the fig-tree, the superior
pointed out to me a rent in the mountain opposite, which,
he said, was caused by an earthquake that had swallowed
up two friends aud servants of Moses, of whom I had
never heard before, and who were so swallowed up for
disobeying the orders of their earthly master.

The superior, unused to such a task as he had im-
posed upon himself, here completely gave out, and I
left him panting under the shade of his fig-troe, while
I wont on to the Valley of Rephidim ; and, passing
another garden, came to the rock of Horeb, the stone
which Moses struck with his rod, and caused the waters
to gush out. The stone is about twelve foot high, and
on one side are eight or ten deep gashes from one to
three feet long, and from one to two mchcs wide, some
of which were trickling with water. These gashes are
singular in their appearance, though probably showing
only the natural effect of time and exposure. They look
something like the gashes in the bark of a growing tree,
except that, instead of the lips of the gash swelling
and growing over, they are worn and reduced to a po-
lished smoothness. They are, no doubt, the work of
men's h.ands, a clumsy artifice of the early monks to
touch the hearts of pious pilgrims ; but the monks of the
convent, and the Greek pilgrims who go there now, be-
lieve in it with as much honesty aud sincex'ity as in the
crucifixion.

Will the reader forgive me if I say that this rock had
in my eyes an interest scarcely less than that which the
rod of Moses gave it ? Three names were written on
it : one of a German, the second of an Englishman, and
the thud of my early friend, the same which 1 had seen
above the Cataracts of the Nile. When, a few years
since, he bade mo farewell in my native city, little did
I think that I afterwards should trace him beyond the
borders of Egypt, and through the wilderness of Sinai,
to his grave in Jerusalem !

Again I wrote my name under his, and, returning
by the way I came, found the superior still sitting under
the fig-tree, and, moving ou, we soon reached the con-
vent. He hun-ied away to his ofiBcial duties, and I re-
tired to my room. I staid there three or four hours,
poring over the scriptural account of the scenes that
hallowed the wilderness of Sinai, with an attention that
no sound disturbed. Indeed, the stillness of the con-
vent was at all times most extraordinary ; day or night

54

TRAVELS IN AR.\BIA PETRiEA.

not a sound was to be licard but the tolling of the bell
for prayers, or occasionally the soft step of a monk steal-
ing through the cloisters.

In the afternoon I lounged around the interior of
the convent. The walls form an irregular quadrangle,
of about 1 30 paces on eacli side, and, jis 1 before re-
marked, it has the appearance of a small city. The
building was erected by tho Empi'css Helena, the
mother of the first Christian emperor, and I might almost
call her the mother of the Holy Land. Her pious heart
sent her, with the same spirit which afterwards ani-
mated the crusaders, to searcli out the holy places re-
ferred to iu the Bible ; and when the found one, she
erected a monument to mark it for the guidance of
future Christians ; and the pilgi-ini may see the fruits
of her pious laboui's, from the mountain where God spake
in thunder, down to the place where the cock crew when
Peter denied his master. Tiie convent is capable of
containing sevei-al hundred peoj)le. It was originally
built as a place of defence ; but the necessity of keeping
it fortified has passed away : a parcel of rusty guns are
lying in a sort of armoury, and a few small cannon are
frowning from the walls. The cells of the monks, com-
pared with any thing else I had seen in the East, are ex-
ceedingly comfortable ; on one side, raised about a foot
from the floor, is a stone platform, on which the monk
spreads his mat and coverlet, and the furniture includes
a table, chairs, sometimes two or three books, and the
fragment of a looking-glass. There are twenty-four
chapels erected to different saints, in which prayers are
said regularly in rotation, I went through them, but
saw nothing to interest me until I came to the church
of the convent. Hero I was surprised to find the hand-
somest Greek church I had seen, except in Russia ; the
floor and steps were of marble ; and distribute<l around
in various places were j)illars and columns, the works
of ancient artists, plundered from heathen temples, and
sent to this lonely spot in the desert by the active piety
of the early Christian emperors. Tlie convent was
raised in honour of the transfiguration, and the dome
of the altai* contains a coarse but antique painting of
the holy scene. In front, near the great altar, in a
coffin covered with rich palls and a silver lid, are the
bones of St Catharine, the patroness of the convent.
Among tire chapels, one, I remember, is dedicated to
Constantine and Helena, and another to Justinian and
his wife ; but the groat object of interest is the holy of
holies, the spot wliere God appeared to Moses in the
burning bush. A chapel is now erected over it ; and
the pilgrim, on entering, heai-s at this day almost the
same words which God addressed to Moses, " Put thy
shoes from off thy feet, for tlie gi'ound whereon thou
treadest is holy ground;" 1 pulled off my shoes, and
followed my conductor. The ])lace is now bedizened
with Grecian ornaments; the rudesimplicity of nature,
which beheld the interview between God and Ills ser-
vant, is utterly gone, and tho burning bush is the last
tiling one would think of on the spot where it grew.

There are but few objects of interest besides. In one
of the chapels are a copy of the Evangelists, written in
letters of gold by the Eniperor Theodosius, and portraits
of tho four evangelists and the twelve apostles, and all
the jwalms of David, written in an inconceivably small
spi'-c by a young Virgin who camo out and died in the
d-.-^'Tt.

The condition and character of the monks formed a
subject of no little interest for my speculating observa-
tion ; and I investigated tlieir habits and dispositions
ms closely as bicn.H^ancc and my inability for conversing
with them, except through an interpreter, would permit.
SofarasI could judge, they seemed perfectlycontentcd ;
but thoy were for the most part mere drones and slug-
gards, doing little good for themselves or others, and
living idly upon tlio misapplied bounty of Christian pil-
CTims. I do not mean to s,iy that tliey were bad men.
Alost of them were too simjile to bo bad ; and if there
was evil in their nature, they had no temptation to do
evil ; and, after all, the mere negative goodness which
does uo harm in not to be lightly spoken of; in a world

so full of restlessness and mischief as this of ours. Many
of them had been a long time in the convent, some as
much as twenty or thirty yeai-s, and one, who was now
105 yoars old, had been seventy-five years worshipping
the Loi'd, after his fashion, at the foot of Sinai. Among
them were a baker, shoemaker, and tailor ; they baked,
cooked, made and mended for themselves, and had but
one other duty to perform, and that was four times
daily to kneel down and pray. Nothing could be more
dull and monotonous than their lives, and none but the
mustsluggishorthe most philosophic spirit couldendure
it. They were philosophers without knowing it, and dozed
away their existence in one unvarying round of prayer,
and meals, and sleep. Their discipline was not rigid,
save in one particular, and that a matter in regard to
which there has been much discussion with us ; they
never ate meat ; no animal food of any kind is permitted
to enter the walls of the convent. During all the va-
rious periods of their abode in the convent, some thirty,
some forty, and one more tlian seventy-five years, not
one of them had eaten a p.article of animal food ; and yet
I never saw more healtliy-looking men. Hardier men
I have seen, for they are indolent in their habits, take
but little exercise, and in most cases show a strong dis-
position to corpulency ; but 1 had some little opportunity
of testing their ability to endure fatigue ; and though
the superior soon walked himself out of breath, the
■monk who guided us up the mountain, and who was more
than sixty years old, when he descended, after a hard
day's labour, seemed less tired tlian eitlier Paul or my-
self. I am aware that climate may make a difference ;
but, from my own observation and experience, I am
perfectly satisfied that, even in our climate, invalids and
persons of sedentary habits, and, indeed, all except
labouring men, would be much benefited by a total
abstinence from animal food. I have travelled for a
week at a time, night and day, not under the mild sky
of tho East, but in the ro^gh climate of Russia, and
found myself perfectly able to endure the fatigue upon
bread and milk diet ; and I have been told tliat the
Tartars who ride post from Constantinople to Bagdad
in an incredibly short time, never sleeping, except on
horseback, during the whole of their immense journey
rigidly abstain from any thing more solid and nutritious
than eggs.

The night of my return from tho top of Sinai I was
awake wlien the bell tolled for midnight prayers ; and,
wra])ping myself in my Arab cloak, took .a snuill lamp
in my hand, and, groping my way along the passage,
descended to the chapel, where tho monks were all
.assembled. I leiined behind a protecting pillar, and
watched their proceedings ; and it was an event of no
conimon interest, thus, at the dead hour of night, to bo
an unobserved witness of their sincerity, and earnest
though erroneous devotion. There was not one among
them who did nc)t believe he was doing God good ser-
vice, and that liis works would find acceptance at tho
throne of grace, and obtain for him that blessed immoi'-
tality which we arc all seeking,

CHAPTER XVII.

Diet of tho Monks. — Advant.'iRCs of Abstinence. — Scnipica Over-
come.— A niyntorioiis Urotlicr. — The Convent Hiiriiil-iilnco. —
Btrnntro ChiirncIliouNCB. — Death In a Mahk. — Fiimiliarity breeds
Contempt.— A Man of two Centuries. — l>oubt« and i'eaia.—
I'urlinK (jitta. — Tho I'arewelL

The next day was Sunday, and early in the morning tho
superior sent for me to come down and take my meal
with the holy brotherhood. The monks were all at the
table, and it was the first time I had had so good an
opportunity of seeing them together. They were about
thirty in number, mostly old men with long white beards,
all Greeks, and some with faces as noble as Grecian
chisel ever traced. There w.is not a beard at table less
than eight inches long ; and my own, though it would
have been rather distingue at home, blushed more than
its natural red at its comparative insignificance. The
tabic was a long naked board ; the vessels were all of

THE CONVENT BURIAL-PLACE.

65

metal, and before each ruan were a wooden spoon, and
a drinkuig-cup in the form of a porringer. It was Lent,
the season of forty or fifty days' fasting, during which
even fish, eggs, and oil, are prohibited. A large basin
of boiled beans was set before each of the monks ; and,
besides this, there were black olives, beans in water,
ealad, vinegar, salt, dates, and bread. My companions
had never been pampered with luxuries, and ate their
bread and beans with as keen a relish as if they were
feasting on turtle and venison, and drank thrir water
as freely as though it were Tokay or burgundy. The
meal was eaten in silence, all appearing of opinion tiiat
they came simply to eat ; and tiie only unusual circum-
stance I remarked was the civility of my immediate
neighbours in pushing the tempting viands before me.
It was curious to see how they found the way to their
mouihs through such a wilderness of beard, and the
spoon disappearing in a huge red opening, leaving the
handle projecting from a bush of liair. The room in
wliicii we ate was perhaps sixty feet long, having at one
end a chapel and altar, and a reading-desk close by, in
which, during the whole of the meal, a monk was read-
ing aloud from the lives of the saints. After dinner the
monks all rose, and wiping their mouths, walked in a
body to the foot of the altar, and two of them com-
menced burning incense. One of my neighbours took
me by the hand, and led me up with them. There they
kneeled, prayed, and chanted, and went througii a long
routine of ceremonies, in wliich, so far as it was prac-
ticable, they carried me with them. They could not get
me up and down as fast as they moved themselves, but
they flung the incense at me as hard as at the worthiest
of them all. I supposed this to be a sort of grace after
meat, and tlijit there it would end ; but to my sux-prise
and great regret, I found that this was merely prepai'a-
tory to the administration of the sacrament. It was the
second time I had been placed in the same situation ;
and the second time, and even more earnestly than be-
fore, I wished for tliat state of heart which, according
to the notions of its solemnity in which I had been
brought up, would have permitted me to join in the
sacred rite. I I'efused the consecrated bread, and the
monk, after pausing some moments, apparently in as-
tonishment, passed on to the next. After he had com-
pleted the circle, the superior crossed and brought him
back again to me ; I could not wound the feelings of
the good old man, and ate the consecrated bread and
drank the wine. May God forgive me if I did wrong ;
but, though rigid censors may condemn, I cannot be-
lieve that 1 incurred the sin of "the unworthy partaker"
by yielding to the benevolent importunity of the kind
old priest. After this we walked out on the terrace,
under the shade of some venerable grape-vines, and
sitting down along the wall, took coffee. The reading-
desk was brought out, and the same moidi continued
reading for more than two hours.

I had noticed that monk before ; for he was the same
who had conducted me through the church, had visited
me in my room, and I had seen him in his cell. He was
not more than thirty-five, and his face was as perfect as
art could make it ; and the sunbeams occasionally glanc-
ing through the thick foliage of the vines, and lighting
up his pale and chiselled features and long black beard,
made him one of those perfect figures for a sketch which
I had often dreamed of, but had never seen. His face
was thin, pale, and emaciated ; the excitement of read-
ing gave it a hectic flush, and he looked like a man who,
almost before the springtime of life was over, had drained
the cup of bitterness to its dregs. If I am not deceived,
he had not always led so peaceful and innocent a hfe,
and could unfold a tale of stirring incident, of wild and
high excitement, and perhaps of crime. He was from
the island of Tenos, but spoke Italian, and I had talked
with him of the islands of Greece, and the ports in tiie
Mediterranean and the Black Sea, with many of which
he seemed iamiliar ; and then he spoke of the snares
and temptations of the world, and his freedom from
them in the convent ; and, above all, of the perils to
which meu are exposed by the wiles aad witcheries of

the sex ; and I could not but imagine that some beauti-
ful Grecian girl, not less false than fair, iiad driven him
to the wilderness. One of the other monks told me that
it was about the time when the last of the pirates were
swept from the Mediterranean that the young ishmder
had buried himself in the walls of the convent. They
told me, too, that he was rich, and would give all he had
to the fraternity. Poor fellow! they will soon como
into possession.

In the garden of the convent is the cemetery of the
monks. Though not of a particularly melancholy hu-
mour, I am in a small way given to meditation among
the tombs ; and in many of the countries I liave visited,
the burial-pLices of the dead have been the most inte-
resting objects of examination. The superior had pro-
mised to show me his graves ; and sometiiing in the look
of the reader reminding me of death and burial, I now
told the old man of his promise, and he hobbled oif to
get the key ; for it appeared that the cemetery was not
to be visited without his special permission. At the end
of a long arbour of grape-vines, a naiTow staircase cut
in the rock, which 1 had not seen before, led down to
an excavated square of about twenty feet ; on the left
of which was a small door opening into a vault, where
formerly the bodies of the dead monks were laid on an
iron bedstead, and there suffered to I'eniain until all
the corruptible pai-t was gone, and only the dry bones
remained. Now they are buried for about three years,
or as long as may be necessary to effect the same ob-
ject ; and when the flesh and muscles have disappeared,
the bones are deposited in the great cemetery, the door
of whicli is directly opposite. Within the door is a
small antechamber, containing a divan and a portrait
of some saint who wandered eighteen years in the desert
without meat or drink. From this the door opens into
the cemetery, which w.as so different from any 1 had
ever seen, that I started back on the threshold with sur-
prise. Along the wall was an excavation about thirty
feet in length, but of what depth I could not tell. It
was enclosed by a fence, which was three or four feet
above the gi-ound, and filled with human skulls ; and
in front, extending along the whole width of the cham-
ber, was a pile of bones about twenty feet high, and
running back I could not tell how far. They were very
regularly disposed in layers, the feet and shoulders being
placed outward alternately, and by the side of the last
skeleton was a vacant place for the next that should bo
read}'.

I had seen thousands of Egj^ptian mummies, and the
catacombs of Chioff, the lioly city of Russia, where the
bodies of the saints are laid in rows, in ojjcn coffins,
clothed in their best apparel, and adorned with gold and
jewels ; and in that extraordinary burial-place I had
seen, too, a range of small glasses in a dead stone wall,
where wild and desperate fanatics had made their own
tombs, with their own hands building themselves in an
upright position against the walls, leaving a small hole
open in front by which to receive their bread and water ;
and when they died, tlie small opening was closed with
a piece of glass, and the body of the saint was left thus
buried. I had seen the catacombs of the Capuchin con-
vent at Syracuse, where the bodies of the monks are
dried and laid in open coffins, or fixed in niches in the
walls, with their names labelled on their breasts ; and
in the vault of the convent of Palermo I had seen the
bodies of nobles and ladies, the men arranged upright
along the walls, dressed as in life, with canes in their
hands and swords by their sides ; and the noble ladies
of Palermo lying in state, their withered bodies clothed
in silks and satins, and adorned with gold and jewels ;
and I remember one among them, who, if then living,
would have been but twenty, who two years before had
shone in the bright constellation of Sicilian beauty, and,
lovely as a light from heaven, had led the dance in the
royal palace ; I saw her in the same white dress which
she had worn at the ball, complete even to the white
slippers, the belt around her waist, and the jewelled
mockery of a watch hanging at her side, as if she had
not done with time for ever ; her face was bare, the akia

56

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETRiEA.

dry, black, and slirivoUcd, like burnt paper ; the cheeks
sunken ; the rosy lips a piece of discoloured parchment ;
the teetli horribly i>rojecting ; the nose gone ; a wreath
of roses around her head, and a long tress of hair curl-
ing in eacii hollow eye. I had seen these things, and
even these did not strike nie so powei-fuUy as the char-
nel-house at the convent of Mount Sinai. There was
something peculiarly and terribly revolting in this pro-
miscuous heaping togt-tlKT of mortal relics ; bones upon
bones; the old and young ; wise men and fools; good
men and bad ; martyrs and mnrderci*s ; mastei"s and
servants ; bold, daring, and ambitious men — men who
would have plucked bright honour fron> the moon — lying
pell-mell with cowards and knaves. The superior told
me that there were more than 30,000 skeletons in the
cemetery — literally an army of dead men's bones. Be-
sides the ])ile of skulls and bones, in a chambi-r adjoin-
ing were the bones of the archbishops, in open boxes,
with tlieir names and ages labelled on them, and those
of two sons of a king of Persia, who came hither on a
pilgrimage and died in the convent ; their iron shirts,
the only dress they wore on their long journey from
their father's court, are in the same box. Other skele-
tons were lying about, some in ba.skcts, and sonic ar-
ranged on shelves, and others tied together and hanging
from the roof. In one corner were the bones of St
Stephen — not the martyr who was stoned to death at
Jerusalem, but some pious anchorite of later and less
authentic canonization.

As to the eftect upon the mind of such burial-places
as this, or the catacombs to which I have referred, I
can siiy from my own exjierience that they destroy
altogether the feeling of solemnity with which we look
upon the grave. 1 remember once, in walking through
long rows of dead, arranged like statues in niches of the
wall, 1 remarked to the friar who accompanied me that
he promenaded every day among his old acquaintances ;
and he stopped and opened a box, and took out piece-
meal the bones of one who, he said, had been his closest
friend, and laughed as he pulled them about, and told
me of the fim and jokes they two had had together.

Returning to the convent, and passing through the
great chapel on the way to my room, 1 met one who,
in the natural course of thing?, must soon be borne to
the charnel-house I had just left. It was the aged monk
of whom I have before spoken ; he whose years exceeded
)>y thirty-five tlie seventy allotted to man. I had de-
sired an opportunity of speaking with him, and was cu-
rious to know the workings of his mind. The superior
had told me that he had outlived every feeling and affec-
tion ; that he spent all his time in prayer, and had hap-
pily arrived at a new and perfect state of innocence ;
and I remember, that after comjiaring him to the lamb,
and every other emblem of purity, the good superior
ended, with a simplicity that showed his own wonderful
ignorance of human nature, by declaring that the old
monk was as innocent as a yoimg girl. It occurred to
me that this might be a dubious comparison ; but as I
knew tliat tiic monastic life of the old eulogist, and his
long seclusion from the world, had prevented him from
acipiiring any very accurate knowledge of young girls,
I undi-r.-.tor>d him lo mean the perfection of innocence.

1 looked upon the old monk with exceeding interest,
as a venerable relic of the past. For more than seventy-
five years lie had wandered around the lioly mountain,
prostrating himself daily at the foot of the altar, and,
witli three generations of men, liad sung the praises of
God under the lialiowed [>eak of .Sinai. I a]>proached
him, and toM liini my plejisure in knowing so old and
holy a man, and the wonder with whieh his story woidd
be lieard in my own far-distant country. ISut the old
man listened with iin|<atienco. The other monks were
rather pleased when I stopped to talk with them, but
he seemed anxious to get away, and stood, as I supposed,
with his liand on his heart, as if ple.iding some religiotiH
duty as an excuse for his haste ; but it turned out that
he was merely complaining of the emptiness of his sto-
mach, and was hungering for his evening meal. I was
eorry to have the interesting picture I had conceived of

this monkish Methuselah marred and effaced by so mat-
ter-of-fact an incident ; but I describe him as I found
him, not as I would have wished him to be.

Ever since I liad left Cairo, I had been troubled with
misgivings touching my ability to undertake the jour-
ney by Petra. I had hoped to recruit during my few
days' residence at the convent, but I was obliged to
acknowledge to myself that I was, to siiy the least, no
better. The route through Iduniea was difficult and
dangerous, requiring all the energy of mind and body
that perfect lioalth could give ; and a wrong movement
from the point where I now was might place me in a
position in which the loudest cry of distress could
never be heard. It was not necessary to inflict upon
the reader all my hesitations ; it is enough to say, that
with one of the strongest efforts of resoIuti(nt I was ever
called upon to make, I abandoned mj* cherished pro-
ject of visiting Petra and the land of Idumea ; and, with
a heavy lieart, wrote to Mr Gliddon that I was a broken
reed, and was bound on the safe and direct road to Gaza.
My kind friend the superiorwould not hear of me leaving
the convent : but I i-esisted his importunities, and
laughingly told him I did not like that unchristian way
of burial, cutting up and piling away a man's bones like
sticks of firewood to dry. Finding me resolved, he took
me to his room, and gave me from his little store of trea-
sures some shells and petrifactions (whicli I threw away
when out of liis sight), engravings of Mount Sinai, and
incidents of which it has been the scene, the rudest and
most uncouth conceptions that ever were imagined, and
a small box of manna, the same, as he religiously believed,
which fed the Israelites during their sojourn in the
wilderness. lie gave me, too, a long letter, written in
modern Greek, and directed to the governor of Gaza,
certifying that I was a pilgrim from America ; that I
had performed all the duties of the pilgrimage, and was
now travelling to the holy city of Jerusalem. The letter
contahied, also, a warm and earnest recommendation
to all the Greek convents in the Holy Land to receive
and comfort, feed and clothe, and help and succour me,
in case of need. Last of all, he put on my finger a
ring of the simplest form and substance, and worthy to
accompany the palmer's staff of an older age. Every
pilgrim to Mount Sinai receives one of these rings ; and
like the green turban of the Mussulman, which distin-
guishes the devout hadji who has been to Mecca, among
the Christians of the East it is the honoured token of a
complete and perfect pilgrimage.

At eight o'clock hi the morning the whole convent was
in conunotion, preparing for my dejiarture. My old
Bedouin guide had been out among his tribe, and ar-
rived the night before with three times as many men and
camels as I wanted, ready to conduct me to Akaba or
Gaza. I took my leave of the holy brotherhood, who
now sped me on my way as kindly and warmly as they
had welcomed mc on my arrival ; and, after a long and
most affectionate i)arting with the good old superior,
who told me that in all probability lie should never see
me again, but should always remember me, and begged
me not to forget him — assuring me that there in the
desert I always had a home, and telling me that if, when
I returned to my own country, misfortune should press
upon me, and I should lind my kindred gone and friends
standing aloof, I must shake the dust from off my feet,
and come back and live with him in the wilderness — I
fastened the rope around mc, and w;us let down for the
last time to the foot of the convent-wall. A group of Be-
douins, beggars, and dependents n])on thecliarity of the
convent, gatlii/red aroun<l, and invoked blessings u|)on
me as I started. Twice since my arrival there had been
rain. In that dry and thirsty desert, every drop of water
falls upon the earth like i)recious ointment, and " wel-
come,"'says the Arab," is the stranger who brings us rain."

I turned my back upon the ri.sing sun, and felt by
comparison on my homeward way ; but a long journey
was still before mc ; I had still to cross " the great and
terrible desert" of the Bible, which spread before tlio
wandering Israelites its drcai^ ami et^-rnal sands, from
the base of Sinai to the Promised Land.

THE CARAVAN— PERILS OF A STORM.

57

CHAPTER XYIII.

The Caravan. — A sudden Change of Purpose. — Perils of a Storm.
— Comfortles-s Repentance. — SolituiU-. — A 'Wiinian and a Chase.
— A Patriarchal Feast. — Condition of tho Arab 'Wonicn. — Hos-
pitality.— No refusing a good Offer. — A Dilemma.
My caravan consisted of five camels, four Arabs, Paul,
and myself. We moved silently down the valley, and
I tried hard to fa.ston my tlioujjlits on Gaza, the strong
city of the Philistines, the city of Delilah and Samson,
and to amuse my discontented spirit with imaginin;^ the
gates which he carried away, and tho temple which lie
pulled down ; but it would not do— i'etra, the rock of
Edom, the excavated city, was uppermost in my mind.
We had been marching in perfect silence about four
hours, and I was sitting carelesjily on my dromedary,
thinking of every thing but what I saw, when Toualeb
pointed to a narrow opening in the mountain as the road
to Akaba. I raised my head unconsciously, and it struck
me, all of a sudden, that I was perfectly recovered, and
fit for any journey. It was a day such as can only be
seen in the mountainous de.sert of Arabia, presenting a
clearness and purity in the atmosphere, and a gentle
freshness in the air, which might almost bring to life a
dying man. I stretched myself and brandished my
Nubian club ; my arm seemed nerved with uncoinmon
vigour ; I rose in my saddle strong as the slayer of the
Philistines, and, turning the liead of my dromedary to-
wards the opening in the mountains, called out briefly
and decidedly, to " Akuba and Petra." Paul was asto-
nished ; he took the pipe from liis mouth, aud for a
moment paused ; then knocking out the aslies, he slipped
from his dromedary and ran up to the side of mine,
looking up in my face with an expression of countenance
that seemed to intimate strong suspicions of my sanity.
After gazing at ine as steadfastly as he could without
being impertinent, he went away, still apparently in
doubt, and I soon saw him following with Toualeb, in
earnest conver.sation. Toualeb was even more astonished
than Paul. The Arabs are not used to any of these
mercurial changes of humour ; and, according to their
notion, if a man sets out for Gaza, he must go to Gaza :
they cannot conceive how one in his right reason can
change his mind ; and Toualeb would have been very
easily persuaded tlsat an evil spirit w-as hurrying me on,
particularly as, like Paul, from the beginning he had
opposed my going by Petra and Iduniea. Finding me
resolute, however, he soon began to run, and brought
back the camels, which were some distance in advance,
and for several hours we moved on in perfect silence
through the wild and rugged defile.

The mountains on each side were high, broken, and
rugged, and ever presenting the same appearance of
extreme old age. The road, if road it might be called,
was rougher than any I had yet travelled ; it was the
only opening among the mountains by which we could
pass at all, made, by the hand of Nature, and so ea-
cumbered with fallen rocks that it was exceedingly
difficult for our camels to advance. I did not intend to
push far that day ; and a little before dark I proposed
to encamp in a narrow pass between the mountains,
where there was barely room to pitch our tents ; but
appearances threatened rain, and Toualeb, pointing to
the accumulation of stones and rocks which had fallen
from the mountain and been washed through the pass,
told me it would be a dangerous place to spend the
night in. There was no earth to driidc the falling rain,
aud, pouring down the hard and naked mountain sides,
it formed a torrent in the pass, which hurried and
dashed along, gathering force at every moment, and
carrying with it bodies of sand and stones that would
have crushed to atoms any obstruction they might meet
in their resistless progress. I felt at once the force of
the suggestion ; and as I had no idea of being disturbed
in the night by such a knock at the door of my tent as
cue of these gigantic missiles would have made, we kept
on our difficult way. At dark we were still in the ravine.
Toualeb w;vs right in his apprehensions ; for some time
. before we reached the end of the pass the rain was fall-
ing in torrents, the rocks and stones were washing

under our feet, and wc heard the loud roar of thunder,
and saw the forked lightning play among the mountain-
tops. It was two hours after dark before we reached a
place where it was prudent to encamp. We pitched our
tent in the open valley ; the thunder was rumbling, and
ever and anon bursting with a terrific crash among tho
riven mountains, and the rod lightning was Hashing
around the hoary head of Sinai. It was a .scene for a
poet or painter ; but, under the circmnstauces, I would
have given all its sublimity for a pair of dry j'antaloonH.
Thunder and lightning among mountains are exceed-
ingly sublime, and excellent things to talk about in a
ball-room or by the fireside ; but my word for it, a man
travelling in the desert has other things to think of.
Every thing is wet and sloppy ; the wind catches under
his tent before he can get it pinned down ; and when
it is nvstenod, and he finds his tight conva.ss turning
the water like a cemented roof, and begins to rub his
hands and feel himself comfortable, he finds but the be-
ginning of trouble in a wet mat and coverlet.

I was but poorly prepared for a change like this, for
I had been so long used to a clear, unclouded sky, that
I almost considered myself beyond the reach of the
changing elements. It was the beauty of the weather
more than any thing else that had tempted me to turn
off from the road to Gaza ; and, hardly equal to this
change of scene, my heart almost sank within me. 1
reproached myself as if for a wilful and unjustifiable
disregard of prudence, and no writer on moral duties
could have written a better lecture than 1 infiicted upon
myself that evening. In wet clothes, I was literally sit-
ting on the stool of repentance. Drooping and disheart-
ened, I told Paul that I was already punished for my
temerity, and the next morning I would go back and
resume the road to Gaza. For the night, how ever, there
was but one thing to be done, and tliat was to sleep if
I could, and sleep I did. A man who rides all day upon
a dromedary must sleep, come what niay, and even
thunder among the mountains of Sinai cannot wake him.
Daylight brought back my courage ; the storm was over ;
the sun was shining brightly as I ever saw it even in the
East ; and again there was the same clear and refresh-
ing atmosphere that had beguiled me from my prudent
resolution. I, too, wius changed again ; and in answer
to the suggestion of Paul, tliat we should retrace our
steps, I pointed towards Akaba, and gave the brief and
emphatic order — " Forward !"

We continued for several hours along the valley,
which was closely bounded on either side by mountains,
not high, but bare, cracked, and crumbling into frag-
ments. The tops had apparently once been lofty and
pointed, but time, and the action of the elements, had
changed their character. The summits had crumbled
and fallen, so as to expose on every side a rounded sur-
face, and the idea constantly present to my mmd was,
that the whole range had been shaken by an .Almighty
hand — shaken so as to break the rugged surface of the
mountains, but not with sufficient force to dash them
into pieces ; I could not help thinking that, with another
shock, the whole mass would fall in ruins. I had often
remai'ked the silence and stillness of the desert ; but
never had I been so forcibly impressed with this pecu-
liarity as since I left the convent. The idea was con-
stantly present to my mind, " How still, how almost
fearfully still !" The mountains were bare of verdure ;
there were no .shrubs or bushes, and no rustling of the
wind, and the quiet was like that of the ocean in a per-
fect calm, when there is not a breath of air to curl a
wave or shake the smallest fold in the lazy .sail that
hangs useless from the yard. Occasionally we disturbed
a hare or a partridge, but we had not met a huniun
being since we left the convent. Once we saw the track
of a solitary dromedary, the prints of his feet deeply
bedded in the sand, as if urged by one hurrying with
hot haste ; perhaps some Bedouin robber Hying to liis
tent among the mountains with the plunder of some
desert victim. We followed it for more than an hour,
and when we lost sight of it on the rocky road, I felt as
if we were more lonely than before.

£3

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETR^A.

I was thinking what an incident it would be in the
life of one used to the hurrying bustle of steam-boats
and rail-roads, to travel for days through this oldest of
countries without meeting a living being; and as far us
1 could understand, it might well bo so ; there was no
trade even for small caravans, and years passed by with-
out any iierson, even an Arab, travelling this road. Toua-
leb had been over it but once, and tliat was ten years
before, when he accompanied M. Laborde on his way
to Petra. I knew that there were Uedouin tents among
the mountains, but, unless by accident, we might pass
through without seemg any of them ; and I was specu-
lating on the chances of our not meeting a single crea-
ture, when Paul cried out that he saw a woman ; and
Boon after repeating the exclamation, dismounted and
gave chase. Toualeb ran after him, and in another
moment or two I caught a glimpse and followed,

I have before mentioned that, aiuong these barren
and desolr.te mountains, there was frequently a small
space of ground, near some fountain or deposito of
water, known only to the Arabs, capable of producing
a scanty crop of grass to pasture a few camels and a
small Hock of sheep or goats. There the Bedouin pitches
liis tent, and remainstill the scanty product is consumed ;
and then packs up his household goods, and seeks an-
other jiasture-ground. The Bedouins are essentially, a
pastoral people ; their only riches are their flocks and
herds, their home is in the wide desert, and they have
no local attachments ; to-day they pitch their tent among
the mountains, to-morx-ow in the plain ; and wherever
they plant themselves for the time, all that they have
on earth, wife, children, and friends, arc immediately
around them. In fact, the life of the Bedouin, his ap-
pearance and habits, are precisely the same as those
of the patriarchs of old. Abraham himself, the first of
the patriarchs, was a Bedouin, and 4000 years have not
made the slightest alteration in the character and habits
of this extraordinary people. Read of the patriarchs
in the Bible, and it is the best description you can have
of pastoral life in the East at the present day.

The woman whom we liad pursued belonged to the
tent of a Bedouin not far from our road, but com])letely
hidden from our view ; and when overtaken by Toualeb,
she i-ecogniscd in him a friend of her tribe, and in the
same spirit, and almost in the same woi-ds which would
have been used by her ancestors 4000 years ago, she
asked us to her tent, and promised us a lamb or a kid
for supper. Iler husband was stretched on the ground
in front of his tent, and welcomed us with an air and
manner that belonged to the desert, but which a king
on his throne could not have excelled. He was tlie em-
boflied personification of all my conceptions of a patri-
arch. A large loose frock, a striped handkerchief on
liis head, bare legs, sandals on his feet, and a long white
beard, formed the outwanl man. Almost immediately
after we were seated, he took his shejiherd's crook, and,
a«si.sted by his son, selected a lamb from the flock for
the evening meal ; and now I would fain prolong the
illusion of this pastoral scene. To stop at the door of
an Arab's tent, and partake with liim of a Iamb or kid
prcj>ared by his iiospitablo liands, allsitting together on
the ground, and provided with no other implements
than those which Nature gave us, is a picture of primi-
tive aud captivating simplicity ; but the details were
such at to destroy for ever all its poetry, and take away
all relish for patriarchal feasts. Wliile we were taking
coffee, tlio lamb lay bleating in our ears, as if conscious
of its coming fate. The coflce druidi, and the pipe
smoked, our host arose and laid his hand upon the vic-
tim ; the long sword which he wore over liis shoulder
was quickly drawn ; one man held the head, and another
the hind legs ; and, with a rapidity almost inconceivable,
it was kille<l and dressed, and its smoking entrails, yet
curling with life, were broiling on the fire.

I was the guest of tlic evening, and had no reason to
complain of the civility of my entertainer ; for, with the
air of a well-bred host, and an epicure to boot, he drew
from the burning coals one of the daintiest pieces, about
» jiixd and a hail' in length, and lyiling oug end between

the palms of his hands to a tapering point, broke off
about a foot and handed it to me. Now I was by no
means dainty. I could live upon the coarsest fare, and
all the little luxuries of tables, knives and forks, were
of very little moment in my estimation. 1 was prepared
to go full length in this patriarchal feast. But my in-
ditlerence was not proof against the convivial elegances
of my companions ; and as I saw yard after yard disap-
pear, like long strings of maccaroni, down their capa-
cious throats, I was cured of all poetical associations
and my appetite together.

In the teutof the Arabian patriarch, woman, thepride,
the ornament, and the charm of domestic life, is the
mere household drudge. In vain may one listen for her
light footstep, or look to find her by the side of her
natural lord, giving a richer charm to the hospitaUty he
is extending to a stranger. It would repay one for much
of the toil and monotony of a journey in the desert, if,
when by chance he found himself at a Bedouin tent, he
could be greeted by her sunny smile. Dark and swarthy
as she is, and poor and ignorant, it would pay the tra-
veller for many a weary hour to receive his welcome
from the lips of an Arabian girl. But this the customs
of the tribes forbid. When the stranger ajiproaehes,
the woman retires ; and so completely is she accustomed
to this .seclusion, thai, however closely he may watch,
he can never catch her even peeping at him from behind
a screen or partition of the tent ; curiosity, which in
civilised life is so universally imputed to the daughters
of Eve, seems entirely unknown to the se.x in this wild
region. Nor is this the worst of her lot. Even when
alone, the wife of the Bedouin is not regarded as his
equal ; the holy companionship of wedded life has be-
tween them no existence. Even when no guest is pre-
sent, she never eats with him. I have seen the father
and sons sit down together, and when they had with-
drawn from the tent, the mother and daughtei's came
in to what was left. Away, then, with all dreams of
superior happiness in this more primitive condition of
society. Captivating as is the wild idea of roving abroad
at will, unfettered by the restraints of law or of conven-
tional observances, the meanest tenant of a log-hut in
our western prairies has sources of happiness which the
wandering Arab can never know. A spirit of perfect
weariness and dissatisfaction with the world might drivo
a man to the desert, and, after having fallen into the
indolent and mere animal habits of savage life, he might
find it difiieult to return to the wholesome restraints and
duties of society ; but I am satisfied that it is sheer
affectation or ignorance in whicii a member of the civi-
lised family sighs, or pretends to sigh, for the imagined
delights of an untried freedom. For my own part, I
had long been satisfied of this truth, and did not need
the cumulative evidence of my visit to the Bedouin's
tent. He would have had me sleep under its shelter;
but I knew that in all the Bedouin tents there wero
multitudes of enemies to rest — creatures that murder
sleep ; and I preferred the solitude of my own.

One word as to the hospitality of the Arabs. I had
read beautiful descrijrtions of its manifestation, and in
some way or other had gathered up the notion that the
Bedouin would be offended by an ofl'er to reward his
hospitality with a price ; but, feeling naturally anxious
not to make a blunder on cither side of a question so
delicate, 1 applied to my guide Toualeb for information
on the subject. His answer was brief and exjjlicit. Ho
said there was no obligation to give or jiay, it being (ho
custom of the Bedouins (among friendly tribes) to ask
the wayfaring man into his tent, give him food and
shelter, and send him on his way in the morning ; that
I could give or not, as I pleased ; but that, if 1 did not,
the hos|iitable host would wish his Iamb alive again ;
and from the exceeding satisfaction with wliich that
estimable person received my parting gift, I am very
sure that in this instance, at leaat, I did better in tak-
ing Toualeb's knowledge of hi? jjcople for my guide than
I should have done by acting upon what 1 had read in
books. It may be that, if 1 liad gone among them poor
aud friendless, I should haw been received in the eamo

EVENING AMUSEMENTS— A TRIAL OF THE FEELINGS.

60

manner, and nothing would have been expected or re-
ceived from me ; but I am inclined to think, fi'om what
I saw afterwards, that in such case the lamb would have
been spared for a longer term of existence, and the
hospitality conrined to a dip into the dish aud a mat at
the door of the tent.

Early in the morning we left the tent of our Bedouin
landlord. We were still among mountains ; at every
moment a new view px-esented itself, wild, fanciful, and
picturesque ; and in tho distance was still visible the
long range of dark mountains bordering the lied Sea.
Our course was now directly for this sea, but the moun-
tain range appeared so contiguous and unbroken that
there seemed no way of getting to it but by crossing
their rugged summits. There was a way, however ; an
opening which we could not distinguish at so great a
distance, and for some time Toualeb was at a loss. He
was so purblind that he could scarcely distinguish me
from one of his dark companions, yet he could read tho
firmament like a book, and mark the proportions of the
almost shapeless mountains ; but he was uncertain how
to hit precisely the opening by which we must pass
through. There was no danger of our losing ourselves,
and the only hazard was that of wasting a day in the
search ; but, fortunately, at the commencement of our
perplexity, we came upon a Bedouin whose tent was at
the foot of the mountain ; and, under his instructions,
we pushed on with contideuce and ultimate success.

CHAPTER XIX.

Evening Amusements. — A Trial of the Feelings. — A Disappoint-
ment.—A Santon of the Desert.— An Arab Fisherman.— Turk-
ish Costume. — A potent Official. — A Comfortless Sick-room. —
A Visit from the Sheik. — Interested Friendship. — Akaba. — The
El Alouins.— Questionable Piety.

It was late in the afternoon when our little caravan
entered the narrow opening, presenting itself like a
natural door between precipitous rocks several hundred
feet in height. P.issLng this, and continuing onward to
a vast amphitheatre, or hollow square of lofty rocks
through a larger opening on our left, we again saw the
dark waters of the Red Sea. About midway across I
dismounted from my dromedary to survey the scene
around me ; and among the many of high interest pre-
sented to the traveller in the wilderness of Sinai, I re-
member none moi'e striking and impressive. It was
neither so dreary and desolate, nor so wild and terrible,
as others I had seen, but different from all. The door
by which we entered was undistinguishable, the rocks
in the background completely closing it to the sight ; on
all sides except towards the sea, and forming almost a
perfect square, were the naked faces of the rock, lofty,
smooth, aud regular, like the excavated sides of an
ancient quarry, and quiet to that extraordinary and in-
describable degree of which I have already spoken.
Descending towards the opening that led to the sea,
directly under us was an e.xtensive and sandy plain,
reaching to its very margin ; and nearly opposite, rising
abruptly from the clear waters, a long unbroken range
of steep and rugged mountains, their dark irregular
outline finely contrasted with the level surface at their
feet, while the sea itself extended on the right and left
as far as the eye could reach in that clear atmosphere ;
but the first stage of my journey, the head of the gulf,
and the little fortress of Akaba, were still invisible.

We rode about an hour along the shore, passing at a
distance the tents of some Bedouins ; and about an hour
before dark, encamped in a grove of wild palm-trees, so
near the sea that the waves almost reached the door of
my tent. When the moon rose, I walked for an hour
along the shore, and, musing upon the new scenes which
every day was presenting me, picked up some shells and
bits of coral as memorials of the place. I am no star-
gazer, but I had learned to look up at the stars ; and
though I knew most of them merely by sight, I felt an
attraction towards them as faces I bad seen at home ;

while the Great Bear with his pointers, and the North
Star, seenjed my particular friends.

Returning to my tent, I found my Bedouins, with
some strangei's from the tents which we had passed,
sitting round a fire of the branches of palm-trees, smok-
ing, and telling stories as extravagant as any in the
Arabian Nights' EniertainnH'nts. 1 sat down with them
a few moments, then entered my tent, and lay down on
my mat on the very shore of tho sea, and was lulled to
sleep by the gentle murmur of its waters.

In the morning Paul told me that there w.is a strange
Arab outside, who wanted to see me. When wo first
came down from the mountain on the preceding day, a
Bedouin had come out and requested mo to turn aside
and visit a sick man in his tent. In their perfect igno-
rance of the healing .art, the Arabs believe every stranger
to be a hakim ; and so great is their confidence in tho
virtue of medicine, and so great their indifference to the
hands from which they receive it, that tho path of the
traveller is constantly beset with applications from the
sick or their friends. 1 had been so often besought
aud entreated to cure blindness, deafness, and other
maladies beyond even the reach of medical skill, that
now I paid little attention to such applications; and
when this last request was made,, after inquiring into
the symptoms of the case, I told the messenger that I
could do the sick man no good, and passed on. This
morning Paul told me that the patient himself had come
over during the night, and was then at the door, begging
me to cure liim. Paul had told him of my utter inability,
but he would not be satisfied ; and when 1 went out of
my tent, he was sitting directly before the door, a thin,
ghastly figure; and opening hismouth andattemptingan
inarticulate jabbez-, there fell out a tongue so festered
to the very throat, that the sight of it made me sick. I
told him that it was utterly out of my power to help him ;
that I knew no more of the healing art than he did him-
self; and that the only advice I could give him w.is to
endeavour to get to Cairo, and put hhnself under the
hands of a physician. I shall never forget the poor
fellow's look, and almost blamed myself for not giving
him some simple preparation, which might have cheated
him, at least for a few days, with the hope that he might
escape the tomb to which he was hurrying. His hands
fell lifeless by his side, as if he had heard a sentence of
death ; he gave me a look which seemed to say that it
was all my fault, and fell senseless on the ground. His
two companions lilted him up ; his faithful dromedary
kneeled to receive him ; and as he turned away, he cast
a reproachful glance towards me, which made me almost
imagine myself guilty of his death. I have no doubt
that, long before this, the poor Arab is dead, and that in
his dying moments, when struggling with the king of
terrors, he has seen in his distracted visions the figure
of the hard-hearted strangei", who, as he thought, might
have saved him, but would not.

Anxious to escape an object so painful to my feelings,
I walked on, and was soon busily engaged in picking up
shells and coral ; of the former I never saw so many as
at this place. Some were particularly beautiful, but ex-
ceedingly delicate, and difficult to be carried. The first
day I could have loaded a camel with them. The coral,
too, such as it was, lay scattered about in lavish profusion.
I remembei', the first piece Paul found, he rubbed his
hands like the toiling and untiring alchymist when he
thinks he has discovered the philosopher's stone ; but
when he came to a second, he threw away the first, in
the same spirit in which the Irishman, on his arrival
in America, the El Dorado of his dreams, threw down
a sixpence which he had picked up in the street, assur-
ing himself that there was more where that came from.
Some of this coral was exceedingly beautiful ; we did
not know its value, but I did not think very highly of
it merely from the circumstance of its lying there in
such abundance. It was not the rock or branch coral,
but a light porous substance, resembling very much the
honeycomb. Paul gathered a large quantity of it, and
contrived to caiTy it to Jerusalem, though it got very
much broken on the way. He bad tbe satisfaction o£

60

TRAVELS IN ARABIA TETR^A.

knowing, however, that he had not sustained any great
loss ; for, on our fii-st visit to the Church of the Jloly
Sepulchre, we iound in the porch a green-turbaned Mus-
sulman, wlu), ri-turning from his pilgrimage to Mecca,
had thouglit to indeninifv himself for the expense and
fatigue of his iimg and dreary journey with this treasure
of the sea. Paul took up a large piece and asked him
tlie price, whon the Miis>ulman, with an air as dejected
in telhng as was that of Paul in hearing it, told him two
paras, a para being about one-eighth of a cent ; and the
next day 1 saw before the door of the convent at which
we were staying a large lieap of tiie coral which Paul
had been so careful in carrying ; and after that he talked
only t>f his shells, the value of which was not yet ascer-
tained.

At about twelve o'clock, close by the shore, we came
to a stunted wild jiahn-tree, with a small stone fence
around it ; and lookmg down from my dromedary, I
saw extei.ded on the ground the figure of an Arab. I
at first thought he was dead ; but at the noise of our
approach, he raised his head from a stone which served
him as a i>illow, and the first greeting he gave us was
to ask for bread. Among all the habitations of hermits
I had yet seen, in caves, among rocks or n)ountains,
there was none which could be compared with this by
the shore of the sea ; a small fence, but little higher than
liis recumbent body, ])rotected him from the wind ; the
witiiered branches of the palm-tree were his only cover-
ing ; his pillow a stone, and the bare earth his bed ; and
when he crawled out and stood before us, erect as age
and infirmity would allow, I thought I had never seen
such a miserable figure. I could not have believed,
without seeing it, that any thing so wretched, made in
God's image, existed on the earth. He was more than
sixty ; his face was dried, and seamed with the deep
wrinkles of age and exjiosure ; his beard long and white,
and his body thin to emaciation. Over his shoulders
and breast wiis a miserable covering of rags, but the
rest of his body was ]>erfectly naked : his skin was dry,
horny, ami covered with blotches resembling large scales,
whicli, on his legs, and particularly over his knees, stood
out like the greaves of an ancient coat of mail ; and he
looked like one who literally crawled on his belly and
licked the dust of the earth. He reminded me of the
wild hermit of Kngaddi, who came out upon the Saracen
emir when he journeyed with the Knight of the Leopard
on the shore of the Dead Sea. And this man was a .saint,
and my .\rabs looked on him with respect and reve-
rence : and when he died, a public tomlj would be erected
over him, anil they upon whose charity he now lived
would resort to it as a shrine of prayer. We gave him
Home bread, and left him in his solitary den : and before
we had got out of sight, he had crawled back under his
jialnj-leave.s, and w-as again resting upon his jiillow of
8tone. In our busy and stirring worlil, we cannot ima-
gine tlie possibility of existing in such a dronish state ;
but in all probability that man would lie there till the
breml we gave him was exhausted, and when he had
taken his last morsel, again lie down in hope that more
would come.

About an hour afterwards we came upon a fisherman
stealing along the shore with his net in his hand, looking
into the sea, and ready to tiirow it when he saw any
fish. The process, like every thing else that one sees
liere, is perfectly primitive, and carries the beholder
back to the early days of this ancient country. Carrying
the net on liis left ami crooked, cleareil and prepared
for a throw, with the one end in his right hand, and
taking advantage of ri]i]>les made by the wind, and the
sun throwing his shadow lichind him, h<- runs along the
sliore until he sfps a shoal of fish, when, with a gentle
jerk, and without any noise, lie throws his net, which
opens and spreads as it falls, so that a little thing, which
coulil be put easily into a hat, expands sufKciently to
cover a surface of twenty or thirty feet. While running
along with ns, he threw several times ; and as he ma-
naged his cr:xft with skdl, iievi-r throwing until he rjiw
Bomeiiiing, he was always successful. I could not make
any thing out of the Arabic nuiue of the fish, but I have

the flavour of them still on my tongue ; a flavour at
the moment finer than that of" the sole or turbot of
Paris, or the trout of Long Island.

In the afternoon the weather changed. Since we first
struck the sea, our road along its shore had been one
of unconmion beauty, and my time passed very plea-
santly, sometimes allowing my dromedary to cool his
feet in the clear water, sometimes dismounting to pick
up a shell, and all the time having a warm sun and a
refreshing breeze ; but it was my fortune to see this
ancient country under every hue of the changing ele-
ments. The sun was now obscured ; a strong wind came
down the sea directly in our teeth ; the head of the gulf
was cut off frt)m our view ; the sea was troubled, and
the white caps were dancing on its surface ; the dark
mountains looked darker and more lonely ; while before
us a rainbow was forming over the ])oint of Akaba,
which threw itself across the gulf to the east, marking
in the firmament, with its rich and varied colours, the
figure of the crescent. Soon after, we were in the midst
of a perfect hurricane. Several times during the day 1
had wished to float upon the bosom of the tranquil sea,
and had looked in vain for some boat or fisherman's
skiff to carry me up the gulf; but I now shrank from the
angry face of the deep, and, under the shelter of an im-
l)eiiding rock, listened to the fierce whistling of the wind,
and the crashing of the thunder among the mountains.

In the morning the storm was over, and the atmo-
sphere pure, clear, and refreshing as before ; but as a
set-off to the pleasure of returning sunshine, Toualeb
told me that we had passed the boundaries of the friendly
tribes, and that we must look to our weapons, for we
wore now among strangers, and perhaps enemies. Here,
too, for the first time, I put on my Turkish dress, being
tl'.at of a merchant of Cairo, with the addition of pistols
and sabre ; but, fearful of taking cold, I cut down an
old coat and tied up a pair of pantaloons, so as to have
a complete suit under the large white trousers and red
silk gown which formed the principal items of my dress.
The red tarbouch 1 had worn ever since I had been in
Kgypt ; but I now rolled romul it a green and j'cUow
striped handkerchief, to which Toualeb gave the projier
twist; and, with my yellow slijipers and red shoes over
them, sash, pistols, sword, and long beard, 1 received
the congratulations and compliments of my friends upon
my improved appearance.

Indeed, I played the Turk well. Different from my
notions of the appearance of the Turks, they have gene-
nilly light and florid complexions; and if 1 could have
talked their language, dressed as a Turk, they could not
have judged from my appearance that 1 had ever been
outside the walls of old Staniboul. There is no exagge-
ration in the unanimous reports of travellers of the
effect which the costumes of the East give to personal
aj>j)earance ; and having seen and known it even in my
own person, I am inelineil to believe that there is fal-
lacy in the equally prevalent opinion of the per.sonal
beauty of the Turks. Their dress com[)letely liides all
deformity of person, and the variety of colours, the
arms and the long beard, divert the attention of the
observer from a close examination of features. The
striking effect of costume is strongly perce|)til)le in tin;
soldiers of the sultan, and the mongrel, half iMiropean
uniform in which he has ]int them, and which they arc
not by any means an unconmionly fine-looking set of
men. These soldiers are taken wherever they are caught,
and, consef|iienfly, are a fair s|)ecinien of the Turkish
race ; ami any I'jiglish regiment will turn out fin<'r mt'ii
than the best in the sultan's army. Following my ex-
ample, Paul also slipped into his Bedouin shirt, and
could hardly be distinguished from the best Arab of
them all.

Again our road lay along the shore, so near that
sometimes we had to dismount and pick our way over
the rocks, and at others our dromedaries bathed their
feet in the water. In one place tlie side of the mountain
rose so directly and aliru|>tly from the watcrsedge, that
we had to turn awide and jiass around it, coming again
to the shore after about an hour's ride. Here we saw

A COMFORTLESS SICK-ROOM.

61

I

the gulf narrowing towards its extremity ; and on the
oj)posite side a ehister of pahn-troes, within whieh, and
completely hidden from view, was the end of our first
stage, the fortress of Akaba. Never was the sight of one
of the dearest objects on eai'tli, home to the wanderer,
land to the sailor, or a mistress to the lover, more wel-
come than the sight of those palm-trees to me. The
malady under whieh I had been labouring had grown
upon me every day ; and in spite of all that was rich
and interesting, time after time I had regretted my
rashness in throwing myself so far into the desert. The
repose, therefore, which awaited me at Akaba, seemed
the most precious thing on earth.

Towards evening \vc could see Akaba more distinctly,
though still on the opposite side of the gulf, and still at
a formidable distauce to me. A brisk trot would have
carried me there in an hour ; but this was more than I
could bear, supported as I was by a mattrass on each side
of me, and barely able to sustain the slow and measured
riiovement of a walk. Night was again coming on, and
heavy clouds were gathering in the east. 1 was ex-
tremely anxious to sleep within the fortress that night;
and fearful that a stranger would not be admitted after
dark, I sent Paul ahead with my compliments to tiie
governor, and tlie modest request that he would keep
the gates open till I came.

A governor is a governor all the world over. Honour
and respect attend him wherever he may be ; whether
the almost regal governor-genei-al of India, the untitled
chief magistrate of our own democratic state, or the
governor of a little fortress on the shore of the Red Sea.
But there are some governors one may take a liberty
with, and others not ; and of the former class was my
friend of Akaba. His name was Suliman, his title aga,
and therefore he was called Suliman Aga. He had his
appointment by favour of the pacha, and permission to
retain it by favour of the Bedouins around ; he had
under him nominally a garrison of Mogrebbin soldiers,
but they were as restive as some of our own unbi'oken
militia ; and like many a worthy disciplinarian among
us, he could do just as he pleased with them, if he only
let them have their own way. He was, in short, an
excellent governor, and I gave him two dollars and a
reconmiendation at parting.

But I am going too fast. I arrived before dark, and

in such a state that I almost fell from my dromedary

in dismounting at the gate of the foi-tress. The first

glance told me that this was not the place of rest I had

promised, myself. Half a dozen Mogrebbins from the

shores of Moi'occo, the most tried and faithful of the

hired troops of the pacha, were sitting on a mat within

the gate, smoking their long pipes, with their long guns,

swords, and pistols, hanging above their heads. They

rose and gave me a seat beside them, and the whole of

the little population of the fortress, and the Bedouins

living under the palm-trees outside, gathered around to

gaze at the stranger. The great caravan of pilgrims

from Mecca had left them only three days before ; and,

except upon the passing and return of the caravan,

years pass by without a stranger ever appearing at the

fortress. They had heard of my coming, for the sheik

had waited two days after the departure of the caravan,

and had only gone that morning, leaving directions with

the governor to send for him as soon as 1 arrived. I

was somewhat surprised at his confidence in my coming,

for when I saw him, I was very far from being decided;

but in the miserable condition in which I found myself,

I hailed it as a favourable omen. The governor soon

came, and was profuse in his ofl'ers of service, beginning,

of course, with coffee and a pipe, which I was forced

to decline, apologising on the ground of my extreme

indisposition, and begged to be conducted to a room by

myself. The governor rose and conducted me, and

every Bedouin present followed after ; and when I came

to the room by myself, I had at least forty of them

around me. Once Paul prevailed on some ef them to

go out ; but they soon came back again, and I was too

ill to urge the matter.

The very aspect of the room into which I was shown

prostrated the last remains of my physical strength.
It was !!0 or 100 feet long, 40 feet wide, an<l about as
many high, having on one side a dead wall, being that
of the fortress, and on the other, two large windows
without shutters, and the door ; the naked floor was of
mud, and so were tiie walls and ceiling. I looked for
one spot less cheerless than the rest ; and finding at tiie
upi)er end a place wliere the floor was elevated about a
foot, with a feeling of despondency I have seldom known,
I stretched my mattrass in the extreme corner, and,
too far gone to have any regard to the presence of the
governor or his Arab soldiers, threw myself at full
length upon it. I was sick in body and soul ; for be-
sides the actual and prostrating deljility under wliioli I
was labouring, 1 had before me the horrible certainty
that I was completely cut off from all medical aid, and
from all the comforts which a sick nuin wants. I was
ten days from Cairo ; to go there in person was impos-
sible ; and if I should send, I could not obtain the aid
of a physician in less than twenty-five or thirty days,
if at all ; and before that 1 might be juist his help.
M'hen I left Cairo, Dr Walne had set me up, so that I
held out tolerably well until I reached jNIount Sinai ;
and, moreover, had given me sundry medicines, with
directions for their use under particular circumstances ;
but my symptoms had so completely changed, that the
directions, if not the medicines themselves, were en-
tirely useless. In a spirit of desperation, however, I
took them out, and not knowing where to begin, re-
solved to go through the whole catalogue in sueli order
as chance might direct. I began with a double dose
of cathartic powders, and while lying on my mat, I
was diverted from the misery of my own gloomy re-
tiections by the pious conversation of the Mussulman
governor. If God willed, he said, I would soon get
well ; himself and his wife had been ill three months,
and had no physician, but God willed that they should
recover, and they did ; and as I looked in his believing
face and those of the Bedouins, I found myself gradnally
falling into the fatalism of their creed. I shall never
forget the manner in which I passed that night, and
the sombre fancies that chased each other through my
brain. A single lamp threw a dim and feeble light
through the large apartment, scarcely revealing the
dusky forms of the sleeping Bedouins, with their wea-
pons by their sides, and I was the only one awake. Busy
memory called up all the considerations that ought to
have prevented my taking such a journey, and the
warning voice of my friend at Cairo, " Turn your steps
westward," again rang in my ears. I saw the figure of
the dead Tartar at Suez, like me a wanderer from home,
and buried by strangei-s in the sandy desei't ; and so
nervous and desponding had I become, that the words
of the prophet in regard to the land of Idumea, "None
shall pass through it for ever and ever," struck upon
my heart like a funeral knell. I was now upon the
borders of Edom ; and, in the despondency of sickness,
I looked upon myself as rash and impious, in under-
taking what might be considered a defiance of the pro-
phetic denunciations inspired by God himself.

In the morning I was worse ; and following up niy
almost desperate plan of treatment, commenced tho
day with a double emetic. The governor came in ; and
though I tried to keep the door shut, another and an-
other followed, till my room was as public as any part
of the fortress. Indeed, it was by far the most public,
for all the rest was stripped of its bronzed figures to
ornament my room. Annoyed to death by seeing
twenty or thirty pairs of hery black eyes constantly
fixed upon me, I remembered, with feelings of envy,
my tent in the desert. There I could at least be alone,
and I resolved, at all hazards, not to pass another night
in the fortress.

In the midst of my exceeding perplexities, the sheik
of Akaba, my friend of Cairo, made his appearance. I
was in a pitiable condition wlien he entered, under the
immediate operation of my emetic, with the whole of
the Mogrebbin guard and every beggarly Bedouin about
the fortress staring at me. He looked surprised and

C2

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETR.EA.

startled when he saw mo ; hut with a <Thmmcriii2; of
good sense, tliough, as I thought, with unnecessary
harshness, told me tliat I would die if I staid there, and
that he was ready to set out with me at a inonient's
notice. Uy the advice of Mr Gliddon, my plan had been
to make this my place of negotiation and arrangement,
and not to proceed farther without having alt things
definitclv explained and settled. But I w.i.s in no con-
dition to negotiate, and was ready to do any thing to get
away from the fortress. He was exceedingly anxious
to start innnediately, and gave me a piece of information
that almost lifted me from the ground — namely, that
he could provide me with a horse of the best blood of
Arabia for tlie whole of the journey. He could not
have given me more grateful intelligence, for the bare
idea of again mounting my dromedary deprived me of
all energy and strength. I had endeavoured to procure
a sort of palanquin, to be swung between two camels ;
but so der.titute was the fortress of all kinds of material,
that it was impossible to make it. When he spoke to
me, then, of a horse, it made me a new man ; and, with-
out a moment's hesitation, I told him that if he would
give me till five o'clock in the afternoon, I would be
ready to set out with him. One thing I did not like.
I wished and designed to take with me my faithful
Toualeb ; but he had told mc that he did not believe
that the Kl Alouins would allow it; and when lie spoke
to the sheik, the latter had positively refused, pretending
that all was arranged between us at Cairo. 1 was fain,
therefore, to abandon the idea, not having energy to
insist upon any thing that was disputed, aud to trust
every thing to fortune and the sheik. I told Paul to
do all that was necessary ; and begging to be left alone
for a few hours, I laid myself down upon my mat, and,
worn out with the watching of the last night, and the
excitement of thinking and deciding on my future move-
ments, quickly fell asleep.

At five o'clock the sheik returned, punctual to In's
appointment ; I had slept soundly, and awoke somewhat
refreshed. The room was again filled with the Be-
douins, and I was as ready to go as he was to take me.
He had ordered what was necessary upon the journey
for man and beast, and provisions for six camels and
ten men for ten days. T gave Paul my purse, and told
him to pay, and, walking to the gate of the fortress, a
dozen Arabs helped me to my saddle ; they would have
taken me up in their arms and carried me, and, when
I liad mounted, they would have taken up the horse and
carried him too, so great a friendship had they already
conceived for me. 15ut the friendship was not for what
1 was, but for what I had. They had welcomed me as
they would have welcomed a bag of gold ; and 1 had
scarcely mounted before they all, governor, Mngrebbin
soldiers, and Bedouins, began to clamour for buckshecsh.
Ten years before, M. Laborde had passed along this
route, and stopped at the fortress while waiting for the
sheik who was to guide and protect him to Petra ; and
liaving in view the purpose of preparing the great work
whicli li.as since given iiim siicli merited reputation, lie
had scattered money and presents with a most liboi-al
hand. ,M. Laborde himself was not personally ki!own
to any of those now at the fortress ; but his companion,
Mr ]>iiiant, of whom I iiave before spoken, was known
to them all ; and they all had heard of the gold shower
in which M. Laborde appeared among them. They
therefore expected the same from me ; and when Paul
had got through his distrilnition, I was startled at per-
ceiving thn dissatisfied air with which they received a
buckslieesli tliat would have overwhelmed any other
Anibs with joy .ind gratitude.

But I muHt not hurry the reader from Akaba with
the same eagerness wliich 1 displayed in leaving it.
This little fortreKS is seldom visited by travellers, and
it is worth a brief description. It stands at the ex-
tremity of the eastern or Klanitic branch of the Red
Sea, at the foot of the sandstone mountains, ne.nr the
shore, and almost buried in a grove of pnlm-frees, the
only living things in that region of barri'U sands. It
is the last stopping-place of the caravan of pilgrims on

its way to Mecca, being yet thirty days' journey from
the tomb of the Prophet, and, of course, the first at
which they touch on their return. Except at the time
of these two visits, the place is desolate from the begin-
ning of the year to its close ; the arriv.il of a traveller
is ol exceedingly rare occurrence, and seldom does even
the wandering Bedouin stop within its walls ,• no ship
rides in its harbour, and not even a solitary fishiu"-
boat breaks the stillness of the water at its feet. But
it was not always so desolate, for this was the Ezion-
gebcr of the Bible, where, 3000 years ago. King Solo-
mon made a navy of ships, which brought from Ophir
gold and precious stones for the great temple at Jeru-
salem ; and again, at a later day, a great city existed
here, through which, at this distant point of the wilder-
ness, the wealth of India w.is conveyed to imperial Rome.
But all these are gone, and there are no relics or monu-
ments to tell of former greatness ; like the ships which
once floated in the harbour, all have passed away. Still,
ruined and desolate as it is, to the eye of feeling the little
fortress is not without its interest ; for, as the governor
told me, it was built by the heroic Saladin.

I had taken leave of my trusty Toualeb, and was again
in the hands of sti-angcrs ; and I do not deceive myself
when I say, that on the very borders of Edom 1 noticed
a change for the worse in the appearance of the
Bedouins. According to the reports of travellers and
writers, those with whom I now set out from Akaba
belonged to one of the most lawless tribes of a lawless
race, and they were by far the wildest and fiercest-look-
ing of all I had yet seen ; with complexions bronzed and
burnt to blackness ; dark eyes, glowing with a fire <ap-
proachingtoferocity ; figures thin and shrunken, though
sinewj- ; chests standing out, and ribs projecting from
the skin, like those of a skeleton. The sheik, like my-
self, was on horseback, dressed in a red silk gown like my
own, and over it a large cloak of scarlet cloth, both the
gifts of Messieurs Linant and Laborde ; a red tarbouch
with a shawl rolled I'ound it, long red boots, and a sash ;
and carried pistols, a sword, and a spear about twelve
feet long, pointed with steel at both ends ; his brother,
too, wore a silk gown, and carried pistols and sword,
and the rest wei'e armed with swords and matchlock
guns, and wore the common Bedouin dress ; some of
them almost no dress at all. We had moved some dis-
tance from the fortress without a word being uttered,
for they neither spoke to me nor with each other. I
was in no humour for talking myself, but it was unplea-
sant to have more than a dozen men around, all bending
their keen eyes upon mo, and not one of them uttering
a word. With a view to making some approach to ac-
quaintance, and removing their jealousy of me as a
stranger, I asked some casual question about the road ;
but I might better have held my peace, for it seemed
that I could not well have hit upon a subject more dis-
pleasing. My amiable companions looked as black as
midnight, and one of them, a particularly swarthy and
truculent-looking fellow, turned short Vound, and told
me that I had too much curiosity, and that he did not
understand what right a Christian had to come there and
hunt up their villages, t;ike down their names, &c. But
the sheik came in as mediator, and told them that I was
a good man : th.at he had been to my house in Cairo,
and that 1 w.is no spy ; and so this cloud passed off. I
did not mean to go far that afternoon, for I had left tho
fortress merely to get rid of the crowd, and return to
fresh air and quiet; and in less than an liour I again
pitched my tent in the desert. Finding plenty of brush,
we kindled a large fire, and all sat down ari)und it. It
was a great object with mo to establish myself on a
good footing with my companions at tho outset; and,
more fortunate on my second attempt, before one round
of coffee and pipes was over, the sheik turned to me,
and with all the extravagance of Eastern hyperbole, said
he thanked God for having permitted us again to see
each other's face, and that I li.ad been recovering since
I saw his face ; and, turning his eyes to lieaven, with
an expression of deep and confiding piety, he added,
" God grant that you may soon become a strong man !"

PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT.

G3

and then the others all took their pipes from their
mouths, and turning up their eyes to heaven, the whole
band of breechless desperadoes added, " WuUali —
WuUali !"— " God grant it !"

CHAPTER XX.

Prophecy and Fulfilment. — TJnplcasnnt Suggestions. — The De-
nounced Land. — Management. — A Rencounter. — An Arab's
Cunning. — The Camel's Uump. — Adventure with a Lamb. —
Mount Uor. — Delicate Negotiations. — Approach to Pctra.

I HAD now crossed the borders of Edom. Standing
near the shore of the Elanitic branch of the Red Sea,
the doomed and accursed land lay stretched out before
me, the theatre of awful visitations and their more
awful fulfilment ; given to Esau as being of the fatness
of the earth, but now a barren waste, a picture of deatli,
an eternal monument of the wrath of an offended God,
and a fearful witness to the truth of the words spoken
by his prophets — " For my sword shall be bathed in
heaven : behold it shall come down upon Idumea, and
upon the people of my curse, to judgment." " From
generation to generation it shall lie waste ; none shall
pass through it for ever and ever. But the comiorant
and the bittern shall possess it ; the owl also and the
raven shall dwell in it ; and he shall stretch out upon it
the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness. They
shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none
shall be there, and all herprinces shall be nothing. And
thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and bram-
bles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be a habita-
tion of dragons, and a court for owls. The wild bea.sts
of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the
island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow : the screech-
owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of
rest. There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay,
and hatch, and gather under her shadow : there shall
the vultures also be gathered, everyone with her mate.
Seek ye out the book of the Lord, and read : no one of
these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my
mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath
gathered them. And he hath cast the lot for them, and
his hand hath divided it unto them by line : they shall
possess it for ever ; from generation to generation shall
they dwell therein." — Isaiah xxxiv.

I read in the sacred book prophecy upon prophecy
and curse upon curse against the very land on which I
stood. I was about to journey through this land, and
to see with my own eyes whether the Almighty had
stayed his uplifted arm, or whether his sword had indeed
come down " upon Idumea, and the people of his curse,
to judgment." I have before referred to Keith on the
Prophecies, where, in illustrating the fulfilment of the
prophecies against Idumea, " none shall pass through
it for ever and ever," after refeiTing to the singular fact
that the great caravan routes existing in the days of
David and Solomon, and under the Roman empire,
are now completely broken up, and that the great hadji
routes to Mecca from Damascus and Cairo lie along the
borders of Idumea, barely touching, and not passing
tlirougli it, he proves by abundant rcfei'cnces that to
this day no traveller has ever passed through the land.

The Bedouins who roam over the land of Idumea have
been described by travellers as the worst of their i-ace.
" The Arabs about Akaba," says Pococke, " are a very
bad people and notorious robbers, and are at war with
all others." Mr Joliffe alludes to it as one of the wildest
and mostdangerousdivisions of Arabia ;and Burckhardt
says, " that for the first time he had ever felt fear dur-
ing his travels in the desert, and his route was the most
dangerous he had ever travelled ;" that he had " nothing
with him that could atti-act the notice or excite the cu-
pidity of the Bedouins," and was "even stripped of some
rags that covered his wounded ankles." ^lessrs Lcgh
and Banks, and Captains Irby and Mangles, were told
that the Arabs of Wady Moussa, the tribe that formed

my escort, " were a most savage and treacherous race,
and that they would use their Frank's blood for a nicdi-
cine ;" and they learned on the spot that " u]nv:irds of
thirty pilgrims from liarbary liad been murdered at
Petra the preceding year by the men of Wady Moussa ;"
and tliey speak of the opposition and obstruction from
the Bedouins as resembling the ca.se of tlio Israelites
under Moses, when Edom refused to give them pas.sage
through his country. None of these had passed through
it; and unless the two Englislinien and Italian before
referi'cd to succeeded in their attenijit, when I pitched
my tent on the borders of Edom no traveller had ever
done so. The ignorance and mystery that hung over
it added to the iPiterest with wliicli I looked to the land
of barrenness and desolation stretched out before me ;
and I would have regarded all the difficulties and dan-
gei*s of the road merely as materials for a not unplea-
sant excitement, if I had only felt a confidence in my
physical strength to carry me through. But some idea
may be formed of my unhappy condition from the cir-
cumstance that, in the evening, my servant, an honest
and faithful fellow, who I believe was sincerely attached
to me, while I was lying on my mat, with many apolo-
gies, and hoping I would not think hard of him, and
praying that no accident might happen to me, told me
that he was a poor man, and it would be very liard for
him to lose his earnings, and that an English traveller
had died in Syria the year before, and his consul iiad
taken possession of his effects, and to this day his poor
servant had never received his wages. I at first thought
it unkind of him to come upon me at that moment with
such a suggestion ; but I soon changed my mind. I
had not paid him a cent since he had been with me, and
his earnings were no trifle to him ; and, after all, what
was I to him except a debtor 1 In any event 1 should
leave him in a few months, and in all probability should
never see him again. I told him that he knew the cir-
cumstances under which we had left Cairo ; that I had
brought with me barely enough to pay my expenses on
the I'oad ; nor could I give him what he wanted, an or-
der upon my consul at Beyroot ; but after he had gone
out, with somewhat the same feelings that may be sup-
posed to possess a man in extremis writing his own will,
I wTote an order, including a gratuity which lie richly
deserved, upon a merchant in Beyroot, upon whom I
had a letter of credit ; but the cheerlessness and help-
lessness of my situation never struck me so forcibly as
when I reflected that, in the uncertain position in which
I was placed, it was not prudent to give it into his hands.
At that moment I mistrusted evei-y body ; and though
I had not then, nor at any subsequent time, the slightest
reason to doubt his faith, I did not dare to let him know
that he could in any event be a gainer by my death. I
considered it necessary to make him suppose that his
interest was identified with my safety, and therefore
folded up the paper, enclosed it in the letter of credit
directed to the merchant, and put it back in my trunk ;
and I need not say that it was a great satisfaction to
me that the validity of the draft was never tested.

When I awoke in the morning, thefirst thing I thought
of was my horse. It almost made me well to think of
him, and it was not long before I was on his back.

Standing near the shore of this northern extremity
of the Red Sea, I saw before me an immense sandy val-
ley, wliich, without the aid of geological science, to the
eye of common observation and rea.son had once been
the bottom of a sea or the bed of a river. This dreary
valley, extending far beyond the reach of the eye, had
been partly explored by Burckhardt ; sufficiently to
ascertain and mention it in the latest geography of the
country as the great valley of El Ghor, extending from
the shores of the Elanitic Gulf to the southern extremity
of the Lake Asphaltites or the Dead Sea ; and it was
manifest, by landmarks of Nature's own providing, that
over that sandy plain those seas had once mingled their
waters, or, perhaps, more probably, that before the cities
of the plain had been consumed by brimstone and fire,
and Sodom and Gomorrah covered by a pestilential
lake, the Jordan had here rolled its waters. The valley

64

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETRyEA.

varied from four to ciglit miles in breadth, and on each
side weri' high, dark, and barren mountains, bounding
it lilie a wail. (>ii the Ifl't were tlie mountains of Judca,
aud on the rililit those of Seir, tlio portion given to Esau
as an iniun-itancf ; and among tlu-ni, burii-d from the
eyes of strangers, tlie approach to it known only to the
wandering Uedouins, was the ancient ca])ital of his king-
dom, the excavated city of Petra, the cursed and blighted
Edoni of the Edomites. The land of hhunea lay before
nie. in barrenness and desolation ; no trees grew in the
valley, and no verdure on the mountain tops. All was
bare, dreary, and desolate.

But the beauty of the weather atoned for this barren-
ness of scene ; and, mounted on the back of my Arabian,
1 felt a lightness of frame and an elasticity of spirits that
I could not have believed possible in my actual state of
health. Patting the neck of the noble animal, I talked
with tlie sheik about his horse, and, by warm and honest
praises, was rapidly gaining upon the atlections of my
wild companions. The sheik tt)ld me that the race of
these horses had been in liis family more than 400 years,
though I am inclined to think, from bis not being able
to tell his own age, that he did not precisely know the
pedigree of his beasts. If any thing connected with my
journey in the East could throw mc into ecstacies, it
would be the recollection of that horse. I felt lifted up
when on his back, and snuffed the pure air of the desert
with a zest not unworthy of a Bedouin. Like all tlieAra-
bian horses, he was broken only to the walk and gallop,
the unnatural and ungraceful movement of a trot being
deemed unworthy the free limbs of an Arab courser.

The sheik to-day Was more conmiunicative. Indeed,
he became very fond of talking ; suspicious as I was,
and on th.e watch for any thing that might rouse my
apprehensions, I observed that he regularly settled
down upon the same topics, namely, the dangers of the
road, the bad character of the Arabs, his great friend-
ship for me the first moment he saw me, and his deter-
mination to protect me with his life against all dangers.
This was well enough for once or twice, but lie re])eated
it too often, and overshot the mark, as I did when I
fii-st began to recommend myself to them. I suspected
him of exaggerating the dangers of the road tc^nhance
the value of liis services ; and lest I should entertain
any doubt upon the subject, lie betrayed himself by
always winding up with a i-eference to the generosity
of Monsieur Linant. The consecjuencc was, that instead
of inspiring me with fear, he gave me confidence ; and
by the end of my first day's journey, I had lost nearly
all apprehensions of the dangers of the road, and ac-
quired some distrust and contempt for my protector.
Wc were all getting along very well, however. P.aul
had been playing a great game among the men, and, by
his superior knowledge of mankind, easily circumvented
these ignorant Bedouins ; and his Arabic name of "Os-
man" was constantly in some one's mouth. I forgot
to mention that, very early in my journey in the desert,
my companions, unable to twist my name to suit their
Arabic intonations, had called me Abdel Hasis (literally,
the slave of the good God), and Paul, Osman.

In the evening, while making a note in a little memo-
randum-book, and on the point of lying down to sleep,
I heard a deep guttural voice at some distance outside,
and approaching nearer, till the harsh sounds grated as
if spoken in my very ears. My Bedouins were sitting
aroimd a large fire at the door of the tent, and through
the flames 1 saw coming up two wild and ferocious-look-
ing Arabs, their dark visages reddeneil by the blaze,
and their keen eyes fla.sliing; and hardly had they
reached my men, before all drew their swords, and be-
gan cutting away at each other with all their might. 1
did not feel much apprehension, and could not but ad-
mire the boldness of the fellows, two men walking up
deliberately and drawing upon ten. One of the first
charges Toualeb gave me on my <!ntrance into the desert
was, if the Arabs composing my escort got into any
quarrel, to keep out of the way and let them fight it out
by themselves j and in pursuance of tlii', advice, without
making any attempt to inteiferc, 1 stood in the door

watching the progress of the fray. Tlie larger of the
two was engaged with the sheik's brother, and their
swords were clashing in a wa}- that would soon have
put an end to one of them, when the sheik, who liad Ijeen
absent at the moment, sjn-ang in among them, and knock-
ing up their swords with his long spear, while his scarlet
cloak fell from his shouldei-s, his dark face reddened,
and his black eyes glowed in the firelight, with a voice
that drowned the clatter of the weapons, roared out a
volley of Arabic gutturals which made them di-op their
points, and ajiparently silenced them with shame. What
he said we did not know, but the result was a general
cessation of hostilities. The sheik's brother had received
a cut in the arm, and his adversary helped to bind up
the wound, and they all sat down together round the
fii'e to pipes and cotfee, as good friends as a party of
Irishmen with their heads broken after a Donnybi-ook
fairing. I had noticed, in this flurry, the exceeding
awkwardness with which thej' used their swords, by their
overhand blows constantly laying themselves open, so
that any little Frenchman with his toothpick of a rapier
would have run them through before they could have
cried quarter. After the thing was all over, Paul went
out and asked the cause ; but the sht-ik told him that it
was an affair of their own, and with this satisfactory
answer we were obliged to rest content.

Though all was now quiet, the elements of discord
were still existing. The new-comer was a ferocious
fellow ; his voice was constantly heard, like the hoarse
croaking of some bird of evil omen, and sometimes it
was raised to the pitch of high and deadly passion. Paul
heard him ask if I was a European, to which the sheik
answered No ; I was a Turk. He then got upon the
railroad to Suez, and the poor benighted Bedouin, com-
pletely behind the age in the march of improvement,
having never read Say's Political Economy or Smith's
Wealth of Nations, denounced it as an invasion of the
natural rights of the people, and a wicked breaking up
of the business of the camel-drivers. He cursed every
European thatevcr set foot in their country ; and, speak-
ing of Mr (Jalloway, the engineer of the proposed rail-
road, hoped that he might some day meet him, andswore
he would strangle him with his own hands.

In the morning we wcx'c again under way. Our
quarrelsome friend of the night befoi'c was by our side,
perched on the bare back of a dromedary, and, if pos-
sible, looking more grim and savage by daylight. His
companion was mounted behind him, and he kept near
the sheik, occasionally crossing my path, looking back
at me, and croaking in the sheik's ears as he had done
the night before. Two or three times he crossed my
path, as if with the intention of goingintothemountains ;
and then, as if he found it imjiossible to fear himself
away, returned to the slicik. At length he did go, and
with a most discontented and disconsolate air ; and after
he had gone, the sheik told us, that when they came up
to the fire, tliey demanded tribute or bucksheesli from
the stranger j'assing over the Bedouins' highway ; that
his brother had refused to pay it, wjiicli had been the
cause of the i|uarrel ; and that, when he himself came
up, he had told the demanders of tribute that he had
undertaken to protect me from injury through the
desert ; that he had given his head to Mahommed Ali
for my safety, and would defend me with his life against
i-very danger ; but that, finally, he had pacified them by
giving them a couple of dollars apiece. I did not be-
lieve this. They looked too disconsolate when they went
away ; for the four dollars would have made the hearts
of two beggarly Bedouins lea|> for joy ; and I could not
help asking him if we were obliged to buy our jieaco
when only two came upon us, what we should do when
100 should come ; to which he .answered that they must
all be paid, ami that it was impos-sible to pass through
the desert without it.

Wc got through the day remarkably well, the scene
being always prec^isely the same ; before us, the long,
desolate, sandy valley, and on each side the still more
desolate and dreary mountains. Towards evening we
encamped ; and after sitting some time around a fire

THE CAMEL'S HUiMP— MOUNT HOR.

G6

with my companions, I entered my tent. Soon after,
the sheik, in pursuance of his pitiful phin of exciting
my fears and raising his own value, sent in for my gun
and pistols, telling me that there were Arabs near'; that
he heard tlie barking of a dog, and intended to keep
watch all night. I had already seen so mucii of him,
that I knew this was a mere piece of braggadocio ; and
I met it with anothei-, by telling him that no man could
use my pistols better than myself, and that all he had
to do was, upon the tii*st alarm, to give me notice, and
I would be among them. About an hour afterwards I
went out and found them all asleep; and I could not
help making Paul rouse the sheik, and ask liim if he
did not want the pistols for his vigilant watch.

In the morning we started at half-past six. The day
was again beautiful and inspiriting ; my horse and
myself had become the best friends in the world ; and
though I was disgusted with the sheik's general con-
duct, I moved quietly along the valley, conversing with
him or Paul, or with any of the men, about any thing
that happened to suggest itself. I remember I had a
long discourse about the difterence between the camel
and the dromedary. Buft'on gives the camel two humps,
and the dromedary one ; and this I believe is the re-
ceived opinion, as it had always been mine ; but since
I had been in the East, I had remarked that it was ex-
ceedingly rare to meet a camel with two humps. I had
seen together at one time, on the starting of the caravan
of pilgrims to Mecca, perhaps 20,000 camels and dro-
medaries, and had not seen among them more than half
a dozen with two humps. Not satisfied with any expla-
nation from European residents or travellers, I liad
inquired among the Bedouins ; and Toualeb, my old
guide, brought up among camels, had given such a
strange account that I never paid any regard to it. Now,
however, the sheik told me the same thing, namely, that
they were of different races, the dromedary being to the
camel as the blood-horse is to the cart-horse ; and that
the two humps were peculiar neither to the di-omedary
nor the camel, or natural to either ; but that both are
always born with only one hump, which being a mere
mass of flesh, and very tender, almost as soon as the
young camel is born a piece is sometimes cut out of the
middle for the convenience of better arranging the
saddle ; and, being cut out of the centre, a hump is left
on either side of the cavity ; and this, according to the
account given by Toualeb, is the only way in which two
liumps ever appear on the back of a camel or drome-
dary. I should not mention this story if I had heard it
only once ; but, precisely as I had it from Toualeb, it
was confirmed with a great deal of circumstantial detail
by another Bedouin, who like himself had lived among
camels and dromedaries all his life ; and his statement
was assented to by all his companions. I do not give
this out as a discovery made at this late day in regard
to an animal so well known as the camel — indeed, I
am told that the Arabs are not ignorant of that elegance
of civilised life called " quizzing ;" I give it merely to
show how I whiled away my time in the desert, and for
what it is worth.

Towards mid-day the sheik dashed across the plain,
with his long lance poised in his hand, and his scarlet
dress streaming in the wind ; and about an hour after-
wards we came"to his spear stuck in the sand, and a
little Bedouin boy sitting by it to invite us to his father's
tent. We turned aside, and, coming to the tent, found
the sheik sitting on the ground refreshing himself with
long draughts of goat's milk. He passed the skin to us;
but, as master of the ceremonies, he declined the regu-
lar Arab invitation to stay and eat a lamb. He could nut,
however, neglect the goods the gods provided, and told
our host that we would take a lamb with us for our
evening meal. The lamb was caught, and, with his legs
tied, was thrown into a sack, where he made music for
us for the rest of the day. To the Bedouin, next to the
pleasure of eating a lamb is that of knowing he has one
to eat ; and so the bleating of the doomed innocent was
merely a whetter of appetite. After we had gone some
distance from the tent, we set down the lamb on the
E

ground, and I never saw a creature so pei-fectly the
emblem of lulplessness. At first he ran back alittlo
way from us ; then stopped ; and api)arently feeling the
lonelines.s of his condition, returned and followed us,
and in a few moments was under the feet of the camels, a
part of our caravan unwittingly moving to the slaughter.
The tent was liardly pitched before he lay bleeding on
the ground ; and the fire was no sooner kiiidled than his
entrails, liver, &c., were in the burning brush ; and in
a few nioments the .Vrabs were greedily devouring the
meal into which he had been so specdily'converted. The
whole scene which 1 have before described was re-
peated ; and, as before, in the morning the skm was
the only part of the lamb to be seen.

One thing in the sheik was particularly disagreeable.
He was constantly talking with Paul about the sacrifice
he niade in accompanying me; liis confident expec-
tation that I would pay him well for it, and the gene-
rosity of M. Linant; always winding up with asking
what bucksheesh I intended to give him. Paul told
me all that passed, and it was evident that the sheik
and his men were making extravagant calculations. I
had estimated with Mr Gliddon the probable expenses
to Jerusalem, founded on the rate of hire for camels
which the sheik had named at Cairo ; and as it was not
beyond the rangeof possibilitiesthati should be stripped
on the way, I had brought with me barely enough to
cover my probable expenses ; and, consequently, I saw
that my means were very likely to fall short of the
sheik's expectations. I did not want any disappointment
at the last, and that night I called him to my tent,
resolved upon coming to an understanding. I told him
that, knowing it was a dangerous road, and that I was
subject to the risk of being robbed, I had brought with
me a specific sum of money, all of which I intended for
him, and that all he scattered along the road would be
so much taken fi-om his own pocket in the end. He
was evidently startled, and exjiressed his surprise that
a howaga, or gentleman, should have any bottom to liis
pocket, but ju-omised to economise in future.

The next day the general features of the scene were
the same, eternal barrenness and desolation ; and mov-
ing to the right, at one o'clock we were at the foot of
the mountains of Seir ; and towering above all the rest,
surmounted by a circular dome, like the tombs of the
sheiks in Egypt, was the bare and rugged summit of
Mount Hor, the burial-place of Aaron, visible in every
direction at a great distance from below, and on both
sides the great range of mountains, and foi-ming one
of the marks by which the Bedouin regulates his wan-
derings in the desert. Soon after, we turned in among
the mountains, occasionally passing small spots of ver-
dure, strangely contrasting with the surrounding and
general desolati(jn. Towards evening, in a small moun-
tain on our left, we saw an excavation in the rock, which
the sheik said had been a fortress ; and, as of every
other work of which the history is unknown, its con-
struction was asci'ibed to the early Christians. It was
a beautiful afternoon ; gazelles were playing in the val-
leys, and partridges running wild up tlie sides of the
mountains, and we pitched our tent partly over a cari)et
of grass, with the door open to the lofty tomb of the
gi'eat high priest of Israel.

In the evening the sheik came to my tent for money,
having been very pertinacious on that tender subject
all day with Paul, asking him how much he thought I
had with me, and how much 1 intended to give him.
He began by asking me for pay for the camels, at the
price agreed upon at Cairo. If he had asked me before
starting from Akaba, I should probably have paid him;
but after what I had seen, and what had passed between
him and Paul, I did not hke his asking for it now. He
told me, too, that wo were now at the door of Petra,
and that it would be necessary to pay a bucksheesh or
tribute on entering, but he could not tell liow nmcli
would be required, as that would depend altogether oa
circumstances. There was always a guard stationed at
the entrance of the defile leading to Petra, and the
amount to be paid would depend upon the number

CG

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETR.EA.

•we might happen fo fiiul when we entered. These
•\vei-e never less than thirty or forty; and if there
should not be more, tlie tribute exacted would not
bo more than thirty or forty dollars, but there might
be two or three hundred ; and, at all events, 1 had
better give him my i)urse,nnd he would return me what
was lift. I suspected that, as he could not find out
from Taul cither how mucli I had with me or what I
intended to give him, this story of the tribute was
merely a pretext to levy an immediate contribution.
The precise danger I had to fear was, that he would get
my money from me piecemeal, and, when we came
among bedouins where it would be necessary to buy
my peace, go off and leave me to their mercy. I did
not want to have any rupture with him, particularly at
that moment when I was at the very door of Petra,
and might lose all that I had been endeavouring with so
nmch personal difhculty to accomplish ; and therefore
told him, as to the bucksheesh for entering Petra, that
I expected ; and, when we should arrive there and learn
how much it w;us, would be ready to pay it ; but, in the
meantime, for any little casual expense that might be
incurred, I would give him a purse of 500 piastres, or
25 dollars. Touching the hire of camels, I said that I
did not expect to pay it until we should arrive at Hebron;
and, hurling back upon him one of his own flourishes,
told him that it was distrusting my honour to ask it now.
I reminded him of our conversation at Cairo, remark-
ing that 1 had come into the desert upon the faith of
his promise ; and he replied very impertinently, if not
menacingly, that one word here was worth a Imndred
at Cairo. I was somewhat roused at this, and, deter-
mined not to be dragooned into compliance, forgot for
a moment my prudential plan, and told him that 1 would
not be driven into that or any thing else ; and that
sooner than submit to his demand, I would turn back
lu-rc, at the very door of Petra, and return to Cairo.
This had its effect, for he was no more disposed to pro-
ceed to extremities than myself; and when I found
him giving way a little, I threw in a powerful argument,
which I had several times before hinted at, namely,
that there were two parties on the Nile, who were ex-
ceedingly anxious to make the same journey, and who
would be governed altogether by the rei)ort I should
make. I saw that his avarice and hope of future gain
Were rapidly getting the better of his eagerness to touch
his money before it was earned ; and without inflicting
uj)on the reader a full account of our long negotiation,
made up principally of blustering and exaggeration,
with some diplomatic concessions on both sides, it is
enough to say that at last, to my great relief, he with-
drew ills demand, and took what 1 oflered.

Before daybreak the next morning we had struck our
tent, and sending it and the other baggage by another
route, the sheik being afi'aid to take with us any thing
that might tempt the Bedouins, and leaving behind us
several of our men, the sheik, liis brother, three Arabs,
Paul, and myself, with nothing but what we had on, and
jjrovisions for one day, started for Wady Mouss.a and
the city of Petra. Our course was a ctuitinued ascent.
I iiave found it throughout difficult to give any descri()-
tiou which c;in impart to the reader a distinct idea of
the wild and desolate scenes presented among these
mountainous deserts. I have been, too, in so many of
the name general nature, that particular ones do not
present themselves to my mind now with the force and
di-<tiiictiiess of perfect recollection ; and in the few rough
and hurried notes which I made on the s|(ot, I marked
rather the effect than the causes which produced it. I
remember, however, that the mountains were barren,
solitary, and dcsohito, and tiiat as we ascended, their
aspect became mr)re and more wild and rugged, and
rose to grandeur and sublimity. I remember, too, that
among these arid wastes of crumbling rock there were
beautiful streams gushing out fi-om the sides of the
mountains; and sometimes small valleys, where the
green gr.iss, and shrubs, and bushes, were putting forth
an early spring ; and that, altogether, I saw among the
Stony mountains of Arabia Petrtea more verdure than

I had observed since I left the banks of the Nile. I re-
member, moreover, that the ascent was difficult ; that
our camels toiled laboriouslv : and that even imr sure-
footed Arabian horses often slipped upon the steep and
rugged path. Once the sheik and myself, being in ad-
vance of the rest, sat down upon an eminence which
overlooked, on one side, a range of wild and barren
mountains, and on the other, the dreary valley of El
Glior; above us was the venerable summit of Mount
Ilor; and near us a stone blackened with smoke, and
surrounded by fragments of bones, showing the place
where the Arabs had sacrificed sheep to the Prophet
Aaron. From this point we wound along the base of
Mount Ilor, which, from this great height, seemed just
beginning to rise into a mountain ; and I remember,
that, in winding slowly along its base, as our companions
bad objected to our mounting to the tomb of Aaron,
Paul and I were narrowly examining its sides for a |)ath,
and making arrangements to slip out as soon as they
should all be asleep, and ascend by moonlight. Not far
from the base of Mount Hor we came to some tombs cut
in the sides of the rocks, and standing at the threshold
of the entrance to the excavated city. Before entering
this extraordinary place, it would not be amiss, in a few
words, to give its history.

CHAPTER XXI.

Petra.— Arrival.— Entrance to the City. — The Temple of retra.—
A Record. — The Theatre. — Tombs of Petra. — Arab Simplicity
—Departure from Petra.— A Kight in a Tomb.- Dangers of tho
Iloute.

Petha, the excavated city, the long lost capital of Edom,
in the Scriptures and profane writing.s, in every language
in which its name occurs, signifies a rock ; and through
the shadows of its early history, we learn that its inha-
bitants lived in natural clefts or excavations made in
the solid rock. Desolate as it now is, we have rea.son
to believe that it goes back to the time of Esau, " the father
of Edom ;" that princes and dukes, eight successive kings,
and again a long line of dukes, dwelt there before any
king " reigned over Israel ;" and we recognise it from
the earliest ages as the central point to which came the
caravans from the interior of Arabia, Persia, and India,
laden with all the precious commodities of the East,
and through which these commodities were distributed
through Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, and all the coun-
tries bordering on tho Mediterranean, even Tyre and
Sidon deriving their purple and dyes from Petra. Eight
hundred years before Chri.st, Amaziah, the King t/f
Judea, " slew of Edom in the Valley of .'^alt 10,000, and
took Selah (the Hebrew name of Petra) by war." Threo
hundred years after the last of the prophct.s, and nearly
a century before the Christian era, the " King of Arabia"
issued from his palace at Petra, at the head of 50,000
men, horse and foot, entered Jerusalem, and, uniting
with the Jews, pressed the siege of the temple, which
was only raised by the advance of the Romans ; and in
the beginning of the second century, though its inde-
pendence was lost, Petra was still the capital of a Koman
province. After that time it rajjidly declined ; its his-
tory became more and more obscure ; for more than
a thousand years it was completely lost to the civili.se<l
world ; and until its discovery by Burckhardt in llil'J,
except to tho wandering BedouiiLs, its very site was
unknown.

And this was the city at whose door I now stood.
In a few words, this ancient and extraordinary city is
situated within a natural amphitheatre of two or three
miles in circumference, encompassed on all sides by
rugged mountains 500 or GOO feet in height. The whole
of this area is now a wa-ste of ruins; dwelling-houses,
palaces, temples, and triumphal arches, all jn-ostrate
together in undistinguishable confusion. The sides of
the mountains arc cut smooth, in a perpendicular dir<!c-
tion, and filled with long and continued ranges of dwell-
ing-houses, temples, and tombs, excavated with vast

i

PETRA.

C7

labour out of the solid rock ; and while their summits
present Nature in her wildest and most savage form,
their bases are adorned with all the beauty of architec-
ture and ait, with columns, and porticoes, and pedi-
ments, and ranges of corridors, enduring as the moun-
tains out of which they are hewn, and fresh aa if the
Avork of a generation scarcely yet gone by.

Nothing can be finer than the innnense rocky i-ampart
which encloses the city. Strong, firm, and innnoveable
as Nature itself, it seems to deride the walls of cities,
and the puny fortifications of skilful engineei-s. The
only access is by clambering over this wall of stone,
practicable only in one place, or by an entrance the most
cxtniordinary that Nature, in her wildest freaks, has
ever framed. The loftiest portals ever raised by the
hands of man, the proudest monuments of architectural
skill and daring, sink into insignificance by the compa-
rison. It is, perhaps, the most wonderful object in the
world, except the ruins of the city to which it forms the
entrance. Unfortunately, 1 did not enter by this door,
but by clambering over the mountains at the other end ;
and when I stood upon the summit of the mountain,
though I looked down upon the vast area filled with
ruined buildings and lieaps of rubbish, and saw the
mountain sides cut away so as to form a level surface,
and presenting long ranges of doors in successive tiers
or stories, the dwelling and burial-places of a people long
since passed away ; and though immediately before me
was llie excavated front of a large and beautiful temple,
1 was disappointed. 1 had read the unjjublished descrip-
tion of Captains Irby and Mangles. Several times the
sheik had told me, in the most positive manner, that there
was no other entrance ; and 1 was moved to indignation
at tiiemarvellous and exaggerated, not to sayfalse repre-
sentations, as 1 thought, of theonly persons who had given
any account of this wonderful entrance. I was disap-
pointed, too, in another matter. Burckhardt had been
accosted, immediately upon his entry, by a large party of
Bedouins, and been suffered to remain but a very short
time. Messrs Legh, Banks, Irby, and Mangles, had been
opposed by hundreds of Bedouin.s, who swore " that they
should never enter their territory nor drink of their
watei-s," and " that they would shoot them like dogs if
they attenipted it." And I expected some immediate
opposition from at least the thirty or forty, fewer than
whom, the sheik had told me, were never to be found
in Wady Moussa. I expected a scene of some kind ;
but at the entrance of the city there was not a creature
to dispute our passage ; its portals were wide open, and
we passed along the stream down into the area, and still
no man came to oppose us. We moved to the extreme
end of the area ; and when in the act of dismounting at
the foot of the rock on which stood the temple that had
constantly faced us, we saw one solitary Arab, straggling
along without any apparent object, a mere wanderer
among the ruins ; and it is a not uninteresting fact, that
this poor Bedouin was the only living being we saw in
the desolate city of Petra. After gazing at us for a few
moments from a distance, he came towards us, and in a
few moments was sitting down to pipes and coffee with
my companions. I again asked the sheik for the other
entrance, and he again told mo there was none ; but I
could not believe him, and set out to look for it myself;
and although in my search I had already seen enough
abundantly to repay me for all my difficulties in getting
there, I could not be content without finding this de-
sired avenue.

In front of the great temple, the pride and beauty of
Petra, of which mox-e hereafter, I saw a narrow opening
in the rocks, exactly corresponding with my conception
of the object for which I was seeking. A full stream of
water was gushing through it, and filling up the whole
mouth of the passage. Mounted on the shoulders of one
of my Bedouins, 1 got hfrn to carry me through the
swollen stream at the mouth of the opening, and set me
down on a dry place a little above, whence I began to
pick my way, occasionally taking to the shoulders of my
follower, and continued to advance more than a mile.
I was beyond all peradventure in the great entrance I

was seeking. Tlicre could not bo two such, and I should
have gone on to the extreme end of the ravine, but my
Bedouin suddenly refused mo the further use of his
shoulders. Ho hud been some time objecting and beg-
ging me to return, and now positively refused to go any
fartiier ; and, in fact, turned about himself. 1 was
anxious to i)roceed, but 1 did not like wading up to my
knees in the water, nor did I feel very resolute to go
where 1 might expose myself to danger, as he seemed
to intimate. While 1 was hesitating, another of my
men came running up the ravine, and shortly after hiia
Paul and the sheik, breathless with baste, and crying
in low gutturals, " El Arab ! el .\rab !"— " The Arabs!
the Arabs 1" This was enough fur me. 1 had licard
so nmch of El Arab that I had become nervous. It
was like the cry of Delilah in the ears of the sleeping
Samson, " The Philistines be upon thee." At the other
end of the ravine was an encampment of the El Aiouins ;
and the sheik, having due yegard to my connnunication
about money matters, had shunned this entrance to
avoid bringing upon me this horde of tril)ute-gatherer3
for a particiiiation in the spoils. Without any dispo-
sition to explore farther, I turned towards the city ;
and it was now that I began to feel the powerful and
indelible impression that must be produced on entering,
through this mountainous passage, the excavated city
of Petra.

For about two miles it lies between high and preci-
pitous ranges of rocks, from 500 to 1000 feet in height,
standing as if torn asunder by some great convulsion,
and barely wide enough for two horsemen to pass
abreast. A swelling stream rushes between them ; the
summits are wild and broken ; in some places over-
hanging the opposite sides, casting the darkness of night
upon the narrow defile ; then receding and forming an
opening above, through which a strong ray of liglit is
tlu'own down, and illuminates with the blaze of day the
frightful chasm below. Wild fig-trees, oleanders, and
ivy, were growing out of the rocky sides of the cliffs
hundreds of feet above our heads; the eagle was scream-
ing above us; all along were the oj)en doors of tombs,
forming the great necropolis of the city ; and at tho

extreme end was

a large

open space, with a ))owerful

body of light thrown down upon it, and exhibiting in
one full view the fafade of a beautiful temple, hewn out
of the rock, with rows of Corinthian columns and orna-
ments, standing out fresh and clear, as if but yester-
day fi"om the hands of the sculptoi*. Though coming
directly from the banks of the Nile, where the ])re-
scrvation of the temples excites the admiration and
astonishment of every travellur, we were rcnised and
excited by the extraordinary beauty and excellent con-
dition of the great temple at Petra. Even in coming
upon it, as we did, at disadvantage, I remember that
Paul, who was a passionate admirer of the arts, wlien
he fii'st obtained a glimpse of it, involuntarily cried out,
and moving on to the front with a vivacity I never saw
him exhibit before or afterwards, clapped his hands,
and shouted in ccstacy. To the last day of our being
together he was in the habit of referring to his extra-
ordinary fit of enthusiasm when he first came upon that
temple; and I can well imagine that, entering by this
narrow defile, with the feelings rousyd by its extraor-
dinary and romantic wildness and beauty, the first view
of that superb facade must produce an efttct which
could never pass away. Even now, that 1 have returned
to the pursuits and thought-engrossing incidents of a
life in the busiest city in the world, often in situations
as widely different as light from darkness, 1 see before
me the facade of that temjile ; neither the Coliseum
at Rome, grand and interesting as it is, nor the ruins
of the Acropolis at Athens, nor the Pyramids, nor the
mighty temples of the Nile, are so often present to my
memory.

The whofe temple, its columns, ornaments, porticoes,
and porches, are cut out from and form part of the
sohd rock ; and this rock, at the foot of which the
temple stands like a mei-e print, towers several hundred
feet above, its face cut smooth to the very summit, and

68

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETR^A.

the top remaining wild and misshapen as Nature made
it. The wliole area before the temple is perhaps an
acre iu extent, inclosed on all sides except at the nar-
row entrance, and an opening to the left of the temple,
which leads into the ai'ea of tlie city by a pass through
perpendicular rocks 500 or 600 feet in height.

It is not my design to enter into the details of the
many monuments in this extraordinary city ; but to
give a genei-al idea of the character of all the excava-
tions, I cannot do better than go within the temple.
Ascending several broad steps, we entered under a
colonnade of four Corinthian columns, about thirty-tive
feet high, into a large chamber of some fifty feet square
and twenty-five feet high. The outside of the temple is
richly ornamented, but the interior is perfectly plain,
thore being no ornament of any kind upon the walls or
ceiling ; on each of the tliree sides is a small chamber
for the ivception of the dead ; and on tlic back wall of
the innermost chamber I saw the names of Messrs
Legh, Banks, Irby, and Mangles, the four Knglish tra-
vellers who with so much difficulty had ett'ected their
entrance to the city ; of Messieurs Laborde and Linant,
and the two Englishmen and Italian of whom 1 have
before spoken ; and two or three otiiors, which, from
the cliaracter of the writing, I supposed to be the names
of attendants upon some of these gentlemen. These were
the only names recorded in the temple ; and, besides
liurckliardt, no other traveller had ever reached it. 1
w.is the fii-st American who had ever been there. Many
of my countrymen, probably, as was the case with me,
have never known the existence of such a city ; and,
independently of all personal considerations, I confess
that I felt what I trust was not an inexcusable pride, in
writing upon the innermost wall of that temple the
name of an American citizen ; and under it, and fiou-
risliing on its own account in temples, and tombs, and
all the most conspicuous places in Petra, is the illus-
trious name of '' I'aulo Nuozzo, dragomano."

Leaving the temple and the open area on which it
fronts, and following the stream, wo entered another
defile much broader than the first, on each side of
which wei-e ranges of tombs, with sculptured doors and
columns ; and on the left, in the bosom of the mountain,
hewn out of the solid rock, is a large theatre, circular
in form, the pillars in front fallen, and containing thirty-
three rows of seats, capable of containing more than
3000 persons. Above the corridor was a range of doors
opening to chambers in the rocks, the seats of tlic jirinccs
and wealthiest inhabitants of Petra, and not unlike a
row of private boxes in a modern theatre.

The whole theatre is at this day in such a state of
preservation, that if the tenants of the tombs around
could once moi-e rise into life, they might take their old
places on its seats, and listen to the declamation of their
favourite i)layer. To me the stillness of a ruined city
is nowhere so impressive as when sitting on the steps
of it.i theatre ; once thronged with the gay and pleasure-
seeking, but now given u|> to solitude and desolation.
l)ay after day these seats had been filled, and the now
silent rocks had echoed to the a]>plaudiiig .shout of
thousands ; and little could an ancient I'Momite ima-
gine that a solitary stranger, from a then unknown
world, would one day be wandering among the ruins of
his proud and wonderful city, meditating upon the fate
of a race that has for ages passed away. Where are
ye, inhabitants of this desolate city? — ye who once sat
on the seats of this theatre, the young, the high-born,
the beautiful, and brave, who once rejoiced m your
riches anri power, and lived as if there were no grave?
Where are ye now ? Kvcn the very tf)mbH, whose open
doors arc stretching away in long ranges before the eyes
of the wondering trav.llcr, cannot reveal the mystery
of your doom : your dry bones are gone ; the robber
has invaded your graves, and your very ashes iiavc l>een
swept away to make room for the wandering Arab of
the desert.

Hut we need not stop at the days when a gay popu-
lation were crowding to this theatre. In the earliebt
periods of recorded time, long before this theatre w as

built, and long before the tragic muse was known, a
great city stood here. When Esau, having sold liis
birthright for a mess of pottage, came to his portion
among the mountains of Seir ; and Edom, growing iu
power and strength, became presumptuous and haughty,
until, in her priile, when Israel prayed a passage through
her country, Edom said mito Israel, " Thou shalt not
pass by me, lest I come out against thee with the sword."

Amid all the terrible denunciations against the land
of Idumea, " her cities and the inhabitants thereof,"
this proud city among the rocks, doubtless for its ex-
traordinary sins, was always marked as a subject of
extraordinary vengeance. " I have sworn by myself,
saith tlie Lord, that Bozrah (the strong or fortified city)
shall become a desolation, a reproach, and a waste, and
a curse, and all the cities thereof shall be perpetual
waste. Lo, 1 will make thee small among the heathen,
and despised among men. Thy terribleness hath de-
ceived thee, and the pride of thy heart, oh thou that
dwellest in the clefts of the rocks, that boldest the height
of the hill ; though thou shouldst make thy nest as high
as the eagle, 1 will bring thee down from thence, saith
the Lord." — ^leremiah xlix., 13, 1(J. " They shall call
the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be
there, and all her princes shall be nothing ; and thorns
shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in
the fortresses thereof, and it shall be a habitation for
dragons and a court for owls." — Isaiah xxxiv., 14, 1.5.

I would that the sceptic could stand as I did among
the ruins of this city among the rocks, and there open
the saci-ed book and read the words of the inspired pen-
man, written when this desolate place was one of the
greatest cities in the world. J see the scoff arrested,
his cheek pale, his lip quivering, and his heart quaking
with fear, as the rumed city cries out to him in a voice
loud and powerful as that of one risen from the dead ;
though he would not believe Moses and the prophets, he
believes the handwriting of God liimself in the desola-
tion and eternal ruin around him. ^^'e sat on the steps
of the theatre, and made our noonday meal ; our drink
was from the pure stream that rolled down at our feet.
Paul and myself were alone. We scared the partridge
before us as we ascended, and 1 broke for a moment
the stillness of the desolate city by the report of my
gun,

All around the theatre, in the sides of the mountains,
were ranges of tombs; and dii'cctly opposite they rose
in long tiers one above another. Having looked into
those around the theatre, I crossed to those ojtposite ;
and, carefully as the brief time I had would allow, ex-
amined the whole range. Though I had no small ex-
perience in exploring catacombs and tombs, these were
so different from any I had seen, that I found it difficidt
to distinguish the habitations of the living from the cham-
bers of the dead. The facades or architectural decora-
tions of the front were every whei'e handsome ; ami in
this they differed materially from the tombs in Egypt.
In the latter the doors were simply an opening in the
rock, and all the grandeur and beauty of the work with-
in ; while here the door was always imposing in its
api^aranee, and the interior was generally a simple
chamber, unpainted and unsculptured.

I say that I could not distinguish the dwellings from
the tombs, but this was not invariably the case; some
were clearly tombs, for there were pits in which the dead
liad been lai<l, and others were as clearly dwellings, being
without a place for the deposit of the dead. One of these
last particularly attracted my attention. It consisted
of one large chamber, having on one side, at the foot of
the wall, a stone bench about a foot high, and two or
three broad, in form like the divans in the East at the
present day ; at the other end were several small aiiart-
nients, hewn out of the rock, with partition walls left
between them, like stalls in a stable, and these had pro-
bably been the sleeping apartments of the different
mendjcrs of the family, the mysteries of bars and bolts,
of folding-doors and tjiird .stories, being unknown in the
days of the ancient Edomites. There were no paintings
or decorations of any kind within the chamber ; but the

TOMBS OF PETRA.

U9

rock out of which it was hewn, like the whole stony
rampart that encircled the city, was of a peculiarity and
beauty that I never saw elsewhere, being a dark ground,
with veins of white, blue, red, purple, and sonietinies
scarlet and light orange, running through it in rainbow-
streaks ; and within the chambers, where there had been
no exposure to the action of the elements, the fresh-
ness and beauty of the colours in which these wavjng
lines were drawn, gave an effect hardly inferior to that
of the paintings in the tombs of the kings at Thebes.
From its high and commanding position, and the unusual
finish of the work, this house, if so it may be called, had
no doubt been the residence of one who liad strutted his
liour of brief existence among the wealthy citizens of
Petra. In front was a large table of rock, forming a
sort of court for the excavated dwelling, where probably,
year after year, in this beautiful climate, the Edoniite
of old sat under the gathering shades of evening, some-
times looking down upon the congregated thousands
and the stirring scenes in the theatre beneath, or be-
yond upon the palaces and dwellings in the area of the
then populous city.

Farther on in the same range, though, in consequence
of the steps of ihe streets being broken, we were obliged
to go down and ascend again before we could reach it,
was another temple, like the first, cut out of the solid
rock, and, like the fii-st, too, having for its principal or-
nament a largo urn, shattered and bruised by musket
balls ; for the ignorant Arab, believing that gold is con-
cealed m it, day after day, as he passes, levels at it his
murderous gun, in the vain hoi)e to break the vessel
and scatter a golden shower on the gi-ound.

But it would be unprofitable to dwell upon details. In
the exceeding interest of the scene ai-ound me, I hur-
ried from place to place, utterly insensible to physical
fatigue ; and being entirely alone, and having a full and
undisturbed range of the ruins, I clambered up broken
staircases and among the ruins of streets ; and, looking
into one excavation, passed on to another and another,
and made the whole circuit of the desolate city. There, on
the spot, every thing had an interest which I cannot give
in description ; and if the i-eader has followed me so far,
I have too much regard for him to drag him about after
me as I did Paul. I am warned of the consequences by
what occurred with that excellent and patient follower ;
for before the day was over, he was completely worn
out with fatigue.

The shades of evening were gathering around us as
we stood for the last time on the steps of the theatre.
Perfect as has been the fulfilment of the prophecy in
regard to this desolate city, in no one particular has its
truth been more awfully verified than in the complete
destruction of its inhabitants ; in the extermination of
the race of the Edomites. In the same day, and by the
voice of the same prophets, came the separate denun-
ciations against the descendants of Israel and Edom,
declaring against both a complete change in their tem-
poral condition ; and while the Jews have been dispersed
in every country under heaven, and are still, in every
land, a separate and unmixed people, " the Edomites
have been cut off for ever, and there is not any remain-
ing of the house of Esau."

" Wisdom has departed from Teman, and understand-
ing out of the mount of Esau ;" and the miserable Arab
who now roams over the land cannot appreciate or un-
derstand the works of its ancient inhabitants. In the
summer he cultivates the few valleys in which seed will
grow, and in the winter mivkes his habitation in the
tombs ; and, stimulated by vague and exaggerated tra-
ditionary notions of the greatness and wealth of the
people who have gone before him, his barbarous hand
is raised agamst the remaining monuments of their arts ;
and as he breaks to atoms the sculptured stone, he ex-
pects to gather up their long-hidden treasures. I could
have lingered for days on the steps of that theatre, for
I never was at a place where such a ci'owd of associations

I pressed upon the mind. But the sheik was hui-rying
me away. From the first he had told me that I must
not pass a night withia the city ; and begging me not to
I

tempt my fortune too ra-shly, Jic was perpetually urging
me to make my retreat while there was yet time. Ho
siiid that, if the Arabs at the other end of the great
entrance heard of a stranger being there, they would
be down upon mo to a man, and, not content with ex-
torting money, would certainly prevent my visiting the
tomb of .\aron. He had touched the right chord ; and
considering that weeks or months could not impress the
scene more strongly on my mind, and that 1 was no
artist, and could not carry away on pa])er the plans and
models of ancient art, I mounted my horse from the
very .steps of the theatre, and followed the sheik in his
pi'ogress up the valley. Turning back from the theatre,
the whole area of the city burst upon the sight at once,
filled with crumbling masses of rock and stone, the
ruined habitations of a people long since perished from
the face of the earth, and encompassed on every side
by high ranges of mountains ; and the sides of these
were cut smooth, even to the summit, hundreds of feet
above my head as 1 rode past, and tilled with long-con-
tinued ranges of open doors, the entrances to dwellings
and tombs, of which the small coimecting staii'cases were
not visible at a distance, and many of the tenements
seemed utterly inaccessible.

Evei-y moment the sheik was becoming more and
more impatient ; and, spurring my horse, I followed
him on a gallop among the ruins. We ascended the
valley, and rising to the summit of the rocky rampart,
it was almost dark when we found ourselves o])j)osite
a range of tombs in the suburbs of the city. Hero we
dismounted ; and selecting from among them one which,
from its finish and dimensions, must have been the last
abode of some wealthy Edoniite, we prepared to pa.ss
the night within its walls. I was completely worn out,
when I threw myself on the rocky Hoor of the tomb.
I had just completed one of the most interesting days
ill my life ; for the singular character of the city, and
the uncommon beauty of its ruins, its great antiquity,
the prophetic denunciations of whose truth it was the
witness, its loss for more than a thousand years to the
civilised wox'ld, its very existence being known only to
the wandering Arab, the difficulty of reaching it, and the
hurried and dangerous manner in which I had reached
it, gave a thrilling and almost fearful interest to the time
and place, of which I feel it utterly impossible to convey
any idea.

In the morning Paul and I had determined, when
our companions should be asleep, to ascend Mount Ilor
by moonlight ; but now we thought only of rest ; and
seldom has the pampered tenant of a palace lain down
with greater satisfaction upon his canopied bed, than I
did upon the stony floor of this tomb in Petra. In the
front part of it was a large chamber, about twenty-iivc
feet square and ten feet high ; and behind this was an-
other of smaller dimensions, furnished \\ itli receptacles
for the dead, not arranged after the manner of shelves
extending along the wall, as in the catacombs I had seen
in Italy and Egypt, but cut lengthwise in the rock like
ovens, so as to admit the insertion of the body with the
feet foremost.

We built a fire in the outer chamber, thus lighting
up the innermost recesses of the tombs ; and after our
evening meal, while sipping coffee and smoking pipes,
the sheik congratulated me upon my extreme good
fortune in having seen Petra without any annoyance
fi-om the Bedouins ; adding, as usual, that it was a
happy day for me when I saw his face at Cairo. He
told me that he had never been to Wady Moussa with-
out seeing at least thirty or forty Ai'abs, and sometimes
300 or 400; that when Abdel" Hag (M. Linant) and
M. Laborde visited Petra the first time, they were
driven out by the Bedouins after remaining only five
hours, and were chased down into the valley, M. Linant
changing his dromedary every three hours on his way
back to Akaba ; that there he remained, pretending to
be sick, for twenty -four days, every day feasting half the
tribe : and during that time sendiug to Cairo for money,
dresses, swords, guns, pistols, animunitlon, &c., which
he distributed among them so lavishly that the whole

70

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETRiEA.

tribe escorted him in triumph to Petra. This is so dif-
ferent from ."M. Laborde's account of liis visit, that it
cannot be true. I asked him about the visit of Messrs
Legh and Banks, and Captains Irby and Mangles: and
drawing close to me, so as not to be overheard by tlie
rest, lie told me that lie remembered their visit well :
that they came from Kerek with three slieiks and 300
or 4lt0 mon, and that the Bedouins of Wady Moussa
turned out against them more than 2000 strong. His
uncle was then the sheik, and he liimstlf a young man :
and if his account is true, which cannot however be, as
it is entirely diHerent from theirs, he began the life of
a knave so young, tliat tliough lie liad no great field for
exercise, he ought then to have been something of a
proficient ; he said, that while they were negotiating and
parleying, one of the strange Arabs sli]>])ed into liis
hands a pui-se with 100 pieces of gold, which he showed
to liis uncle, and pro])osi(l to him that they should use
their influence to procure theadmission of the strangers,
anil divide the money between them ; and so wrought
upon the old man tliat he procured their entrance, tell-
ing the tribe that one of the strangers was sick, and, if
they did not admit them into Wady Moussa, he would
take them to bis tent ; and, added the sheik, liis eyes
sjiarklinij with low cunning, my uncle and I ate the
whole of that gold without any one of the tribe knowing
any thine about it.

One piece of niformation he gave me, which I thought
very likely to be true ; that the road to Petra, and
thence through Idumea in any direction, never could
be pursued with assurance of safety, or become a fre-
quented route, because the Bedouins would always be
lying in wait for travellers, to e.xact tribute or presents ;
and althniieh a little might sometimes content them, at
others their demands would be exorbitant, and fiuarrels
and bad consequences to the traveller would be almost
sure to follow ; and he added, in reference to our visit,
that as .soon as the Arabs should hear of a stranger
having been at Petra, thev would be down in swarms,
and perhaps even now would follow us into the valley.
I was s;itisfied that I had made a fort tmate escape, not,
perhaps, from personal danger, but from grinding exac-
tions, if not from robbery ; and, congratulating myself
upon my good fortune .so far, I began to feel my way
for what I now regarded as important as before I had
thought the journey to Petra, namely, a visit to the
tomb of Aaron.

My companions opposed my going to it, saying that
no Christian had ever done so ; and that none but
Mnssulmans went there, and they only to sacrifice a
filieep upon the tomb. 1 told them" that I also designed
to sacrifice, and that, like tliem, we regarded Aaron as
a prophet ; that my visit to Petra was nothing unless I
made the .sacrifice; and that my conscience would not
be at ease unless I performed it according to my vow.
This notice of my pious purpose smoothed ."^omc of the
difficulties, as the Arabs knew that after the sacrifice
the sheep must be eaten. The sheik was much more
hberal or more indiflerent than the rest, and my desire
w.os finally assented to ; although, in winding up a long
discussion about the pedigree of Aaron, one of them
helil out to the last that .Aaron was a Mussulman, and
would not believe that ho lived J>cfore Mahommed. He
had an indefinite idea that Mahommed was the greatest
mail that ever lived, and in his mind this was not con-
aistent with the idea of any one having lived before him.

.My plan-s for the morrow being all arranged, the
Be<iouitiH utretched themselves out in the outer cham-
ber, while I went within ; and seeking out a tomb as far
h.ick as I could find, I crawled in, feet first, and found
niy-elf very much in the condition of a man buried alive.
But never did a man go to his tomb with so much satis-
faction as I felt. I was vcr)' tired ; the niglit was cold,
and here I was completely sheltered. I liad just room
enough to turn round ; and the worthy old Edomitc for
■whom the tomb was made, never slept in it more quietly
than I di<l. Little did he imagine that his bones would
one d.iy be scattered to the winds, and a straggling
American and a horde of Bedouins, born and living

thousands of miles from each other, would be sleeping
quietly in his tomb, alike ignorant and careless of him
for whom it was built.

CHAPTER XXII.

A bold Endeavour. — ITnexpccted Obstacles. — Disadvantage of a
Dress. — The Dcid Sea. — A New Project. — The Tomb of Aarmi.
— An Alarm. — Descent of tlic Mountain. — An awkward Meeting.
—Poetic Licence— All's Well tliat ends Well.— UnexpectcdDig-
nities. — Arab Notions of Travel.

A MAN rising from a tomb with all his clothes on does
not require much time for the arrangement of his toilet.
In less than half an hour we had breakfasted, and were
again on our way. Forgetting all that had engi'ossed
my thoughts and feelings the day before, I now fixed
my eyes upon the tomb of Aaron, on the summit of
Mount Hor. The mouniain was high, towering above
all the rest, bare and rugged to its very summit, with-
out a tree or even a bush growing on its sterile side ;
and our road lay directly along its base. The Bedouins
again began to show an unwillingness to allow my visit
to the tomb ; and the sheik himself told me that it would
take half the day, and perhaps be the means of bringing
upon me some of the horde I had escaped. 1 saw that
they were disposed to prevent me from accomplishing
my object ; and 1 felt sure that, if we met any strange
Arabs, my purpose would certainly be defeated. 1 sus-
pected them of stratagem, and began to think of resort-
ing to stratagem for myself. They remembered the
sheep, however, and told me that the sacrifice could aa
well be performed at the base as on the summit of the
mountain ; but this, of course, would not siitisfy my
conscience.

With my eyes constantly fixed on the top of the
mountain, I had thought for some time that it would
not be impracticable to ascend from the side on which
I was. Paul and I examined the localities as carefully
as a couple of engineers seeking an assailable place to
scale the wall of a fortified city ; and afraid to wait till
they had matured some plan of opposing me, I deter-
mined to take them by surjirise ; and throwing myself
from my horse, and telling Paul to say we would climb
the mountain here, and meet them on the other side, I
was almost out of hearing before they had recovered
from their astonishment. Paul followed me, and the
sheik and his men stood for some time without moving,
irresolute what to do ; and it was not until we had ad-
vanced considerably on the mountain, that we saw the
caravan again slowly moving along its base. None of
them offered to accompany us, though we should have
been glad to have one or two with us on our expedition.

For some distance we found the ascent suflieiently
smooth and easy — much more so than that of Mount
.Sinai — and, so far as we could sec before us, it was
likely to continue the same all the way up. Wo were
railing at the sheik for wanting to carry us round to tho
other side, and congratulating ourselves upon having
attempted it here, when we came to a yawning and pre-
cipitous chasm, opening its horrid jaws almost from tho
very base of the momitain. Fiom the distance at which
we had marked out our route, the inequalities of siir-
face could not be distinguished, but here it was quite
another thing. We stood on the brink of the chasm,
and looked at each other in blank amazement ; and at
a long distance, as they wound along the base of the
mountain, I thought I could see a quiet smile of deri-
sion lighting uj) the grim visages of my Bedouin cinn-
panions. Wo stood ui)on the edge of the chasm, looking
down into its deep abyss, like the sjiirits of the dep.-irted
lingcrmg on the shores of tho Styx, vainly wishing for
a ferryman to carry us over, and our case seemed per-
fectly hopeless without some such aid. But the days
when genii and sjiirits lent their kind assistance to tho
sons of men are gone ; if a man finds himself in a ditch,
lie must get out of it as well as he can, and so it was
with us on the bnnk of this cha.sni. Ba<l, however, as
was our prospect in looking forward, we had not yet
begun to look back ; and aa soon aa we saw that thera

ASCENT OF MOUNT IIOR.

71

was no possibility of getting over it, we began to descend ;
and gi'oping, sliding, jumping, and holding on with hands
and feet, we reached the bottom of the gully ; and, after
another hard half hour's toil, were resting our wearied
limbs upon the opposite brink, at about the same eleva-
tion as that of the place from which we had started.

This success encouraged us ; and without caring or
thinking how we should come down again, we felt only
the sj)irit of the seaman's cry to the trembling sailor
boy, " Look aloft, you lubber ;" and looking aloft, we
saw tlirough a small opening before us, though still at
a great distance, the white dome that covered the tomb
of the fii'st high-priest of Israel. Again with stout
hearts we resumed our ascent ; but, as we might rea-
sonably have supposed, that which we had passed was
not the only chasm in the mountains. What had ap-
peared to us slight inequalities of surface, we found
great fissures and openings, presenting themselves
before us in quick succession ; not, indeed, as absolute
and insurmountable barriers to fai-ther progress, but
attbrding us only the encouragement of a bare possi-
bility of crossing them. The whole mountain, from its
base to its summit, was rocky and naked, aftbrding not
a tree or bush to assist us ; and all that we had to hold
on by were the rough and broken corners of the porous
SJindstone rocks, which crumbled in our hands and
under our feet, and more than once put us in danger
of our lives. Sevei"al times, after despei-ate exertion,
we sat down perfectly discouraged at seeing another and
another chasm before us, and more than once we were
on the point of giving up the attempt, thinking it im-
possible to advance any farther ; but we had come so
far, and taken so little notice of our road, that it was
almost as impossible to return ; and a distant and acci-
dental glimpse of the whitened dome would revive our
coui-agc, and stimulate us to another effort. Several
times I mounted on Paul's shoulders, and with his help
reached the top of a precipitous or overhanging rock,
where, lying down with my face over the brink, I took
up the pistols, swords, &c., and then helped liim up in
turn ; sometimes, again, he was the climber, and my
shoulders were the stepping-stone ; and in tlie rough
grasps that we gave each other, neither thought of the re-
lation of master and servant. On the sides of that rug-
ged mountain, so desolate, so completely removed from
the world, whose difficult ascent had been attempted by
few human footsteps since the days when " Moses and
Aaron went up in sight of all the congregation," the
master and the man lay on the same rock, encounter-
ing the Fame fatigues and dangei-s, and inspired by the
same hopes and fears. My dress was particularly bad
for the occasion ; for, besides the encumbrance of pistols
and a sword, my long silk gown and large sleeves were
a great annoyance, as I wanted every moment a long
reach of the arm, and full play of the legs ; even our
light Turkish slippers were impediments in our despe-
rate scramble, and we were obliged to pull them off, for
the better hold that could be taken with the naked feet.

It will be remembered that we were ascending on
the eastern side of the mountain ; and in one of our
pauses to breathe, when about half way up, we looked
back upon the high rampart of rocks that enclosed the
city of I'etra ; and on the outside of the rock we saw
the facade of a beautiful temple, resembling in its pro-
minent features, but seeming larger and more beauti-
ful than, the Khasne of Pharaoh, opposite the principal
entrance of the city. I have no doubt that a visit to
that temple would have abundantly repaid me for the
day 1 should have lost ; for besides its architectural
beautv, it would have been curious to examine, and, if
possible, discover why it was constructed, standing alone
outside of the city, and, as it appeared, apart from every
thing connected with the habitations of the Ednmites.
But as yet we had work enough before us. Disencum-
bering ourselves of all our useless trappings, shoes,
pistols, swords, tobacco-pouch, and water-sack, which
we tied together in a sash and the roll of a turban, by
dint of climbing, pushing, and lifting each other, after
the most arduous upward scramble 1 ever accomplishedj

we attained the bald and hoary summit of the moun-
tain ; and bcfoi-e we had time to look around, at iho
extreme end of the desolate valley of El Ghor, our at-
tention was instantly attracted and engrossed by one
of the most interesting objects in the world, and Paul
and I exclaimed at the sjime moment, " The Dead Sea !"
Lying between the barren mountains of Arabia and
Judea, presenting to us from that height no more than
a small, calm, and silvery surface, was that mysterious
sea which rolled its dark watei-s over the guilty cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah ; over whose surface, accord-
ing to the superstition of the Arabs, no bird can fly,
and in whose waters no fish can swim ; constantly re-
ceiving in its greedy bosom the whole body of tlio
Jordan, but, unlike all other waters, sending forth no
tribute to the ocean. A new idea entert-d my mind.
I would follow the desert valley of El Ghor to the
shores of the Dead Sea, along whose savage bordei-s 1
would coast to the ruined Jericiio and llie hallowed
Jordan, and search in its deadly waters for the ruins
of the doomed and blasted cities.

If I had never stood on the top of Mount Sinai, I
should say that nothing could exceed the desolation of
the view from the summit of Mount llor, its most
striking objects being the dreary and ruggi-d niouniains
of Seir, bare and naked of trees and verdure, and heav-
ing their lofty summits to the skies, as if in a vain and
fruitless effort to excel the mighty pile, on the top of
which the high-priest of Israel was buried. licfore nje
was a land of barrenness and ruin, a land accursed by
God, and against which the prophets had set their faces ;
the land of which it is thus written in the Book of Life
— " Moreover, the word of the Lord canie unto nie, .say-
ing, Son of man, set thy face against Mount Seir, and
prophesy against it, and say unto it. Thus saith the
Lord God, Behold, oh Mount Seir, I am against thee,
and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I
will make thee most desolate. 1 will lay tliy cities
waste, and thou shalt be desolate ; and thou slialt know
that I am the Lord. Because thou hast had a per-
petual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the chddren
of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their
calamity, in the time that their inifjuity had an end :
therefore, as I live, saith the L<n'd God, I will prepare
thee unto blood, and blood shall ])ursue thee : sith thou
hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee.
Thus will I make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut
ofl' from it him that passetli out and him that rcturncth.
And I will fill his mountains with his slain men : in thy
hills, and in thy valleys, and in all thy rivei*s, shall
they fall that are slain with the sword. I will make
thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not re-
turn : and ye shall know that 1 am the Lord." — E/.e-
kiel, XXXV.

The Bible account of the death of Aaron is — " And
the children of Israel, even the whole congregation,
journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto Mount llor.
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in Mount
Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron
shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not
enter into the land which I have given unto the chil-
dren of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at
the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar his
son, and bring them up unto Mount llor ; and strip
Aaron of his garments and put them uixin Eleazar his
son : and Aaron shall be gathered unto his ]ieo|)le, and
shall die there. And Moses did as the Lord com-
manded : and they went up unto Mount llor in the
sight of all the congregation. And Moses stripped
Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his
son; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount:
and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount.
And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was
dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the
house of Israel." — Numbers, xx.

On the very " top of the mount," reverenced alike by
Mussulmans and Christians, is the tomb of Aaron. The
building is about thirty feet square, containing a single
chamber ; ia front of the door is a tombstone, in form

TRAVELS IN ARABIA TETR.T.A.

like the oUoof; slkbe in our churcln'anls but larger and
highor; the top rather largi^r thau the bottom, ami
covertni with a ragvrevi i^iU of fadeil red cotton in shn?ds
and jxatches. At its head stixxl a high round stone, on
which the Mussulman oflei"s his sacrifices. The stone
was b'aoktut-d w ith smoke ; stains of blood and frasr-
inoiits of burnt brush were still about it ; all was ready
but the victim ; and when I saw- tlie ivality of the pre-
parations, 1 was very well satisfied to have avoided the
necessity of confonnini; to the Mussuhnan custom. A
few ostrich egjrs the usual ornaments of a mosi|ue, weiv
suspended fr\>m the ceiling, and the rvst of the chamber
was j^^rfeclly bare. After going out, and from the very
top of the tomb surveying again and again the desolate
and dreary scene that prest-nte^l itself on every side,
alwaj-s terminating with the distant view of the Dead
Sea, 1 returned within : and examining once more the
tomb and the altar, walked carefully around the cham-
ber. There was no light except what came from the
door ; and in groping in the extreme corner on one side,
my foot descended into an aperture in the floor. I put
it down carefully, and found a step, then another, and
another, evidently a staircase leading to a chamber

much less difficulty in getting down than we did. In
short, after an ascent the most toils<nne, and a dt^cent
the most hair-brainetl and j>erilous it was ever my for-
tune to accomplish, in about half an hour we wex-e at
the base of the moimtain, but still hurrying on to join
our escort.

We had only to crtiss a little valley to reach the iv-
guhir camel track, when we si\w fixnn behind a slightly
elevated range of iveks the head and long neck of a
di\>medary ; a Iknlouin was on his b;ick, but, riding
sidewise, did not see us. .-Vnother cauje, and another,
and another ; then two or three, and, finally, half a
dozen at a time, the blackest, grimmest, and ugliest
vagabonds I had ever yet seen. A moment befoi\? Paul
and 1 had both complainetl of fatigue, but it is astonish-
ing how the siglit of these honest men revived us ; any
one seeing the itianner in which we scouivd along the
side of the mountain, would have thought that all our
consciousness was in our legs. The course we were
pursuing when we first saw them would have brought
us on the regular camel-track a little in advance of them,
but iu)w our feet seemed to cling to the sides of the
niouirtain. We were in a humour for almost calling on

below. I went dow n till my head was on the level of the rocks to fall uj>on us and cover us ; and if thei-e had

the floor, but could see nothing ; all was dark, and I
called to Paul to strike a light. Most pn>vokingly, he
had no materials with him. He generally carrie«.i a flint
and steel for lighting his pipe with ; but now, when I
most wanted it, he had none. I went back to the stair-
case, and, descending to the bottom of the steps, at-

been a good dodging-place, 1 an» afniid 1 should he'.-e
have to say that we had taken advantage of it until the
very unwelcome c;u-avan passetl by ; but the whole sur-
face of the country, whether on mountain side or in
valley's depth, was bare and naked as a floor; there
was not a bush to obstruct the view ; and soon we stood

tempted to make out what the place might be ; but it j revealed to these unpleasant witnesses of our agility.

was utterly impossible. I could not see even the steps
on which I sio^. 1 again came out, and made Paul
search in all his pockets for the steel and flint. My
euri>>sitv increased with the difticulty of gratifying it ;
a ::le while, when the thing seemed to be utterlv

They all shouted to us at ouce ; and we retiu-ned the
salute, looking at them over our shoulders, but pushing
on as fast as we could walk. In civilised society, our
cinirse of proceeding would have been cousidereil a de-
cided cut ; but the unmannerlv savages did not know

i: ^ - , with this hole unexplored, Petra, Mount when they received a civil cut, and were bent on culti-
Hor, and the Dead Sea, appeared to lose half their inte- j vating our acquaintance. With a loud shout, slipping
rest- I ran up and down the steps, inside and out, | off their camels and whipping up their dromedai-ies,

they left the track, and dashed across the valley to
intercept us. I told Paul that it was all over, and now
we must brazen it out ; and we liad just time to turn
aniuud and reconnoitre for a moment, before we were
almost trodden under foot by their dromedaries.

With the accounts that we had read and heanl of
these Bedouins, it was not a pleasant thing to fall into
their hands alone ; and without the protection of the
sheik, we had i-eason to apprehend bad treatment. A\'o
were on a rising ground ; ;uid as they came bounding
towards us, I had time to ix^mark that there was not a
gun or pistol among them ; but every one, old and
voung, big and little, carried an enormous sword slung
over his back, the hilt coming up towards the ieft
shoulder, and in his hand a large club, with a kuot at
i the end as large as a doubled fist. Though 1 had no
! idea of making any resistance, it was a satisfaction to
feel that they miglit have some xvspect for our fire-
arms ; ua even a Bedouin's logic can teach him, that
though a grm or pistol can kill but one, no man in a
crowd can tell but that he may be that one. Our
I annourv-, however, was not in the best condition for
' immediate use. I h.id fxtvd one of my pistols in t!ie
:ub of .-Varon, and lost the flint of the other ; and Paul
.id burst the priming cap on one of his barrels, and
the other was charged with bird-shot.

It seemcil that then? was nothing hostile in their inten-
tions ; for though they came upon us with a wild and
clamorous shout, their dark eyes appeared to sparkle
with delight as they sho«.>k us by the hand, and their
tumultuous greeting, to compare small thing?* with ^reat,
rpmindcl me of the wild welcome which the Arabs of
_ - 1' to the litter of the Queen of England, w hen
,' the I)iamond of the Desert on the shores
ot the Dead Sea. Nevertheless, I looked suspiciou.-ly
(i(xin ail their demonstrations of good will ; and though
I rvtumed all their greetings, even to the kiss on their
black faces, I would rather have been looking at them
through the bars of an iron grating. But Paul behaved
tike a hero, although be was a supreme coward, and

abased Paul, and struck stones together in the hopes

r' ■ a spark ; but all to no purpose. I was in an '

r> . .-spair, when I found myself grasping convul- |

sivi..\ tiio handle of my pistol. .\ light broke suddenly i
np»->n Tr!r». A jv!>> of drv- brush and cinton rags lay at j
t ar : I fired my pistol into it, I

•;i _ , mass was in a blaze. Each

seized a burning brand, and we descended. .At the foot
of the steps was a narrow chamber, at tlie other end an
iron grating, opening in the middle, and behind the
grating a tomb cut in the naked rock, guarded and re-
verenced as the tomb of .Aaron. 1 tore aside the rusty
g: in my arm up to the shoulders,

t --"t. The rocks and mountains

V of my pistol, like peals of

c: . ...■, with the burning brand

in one nand, 1 was thrusting the other thrv>ugh the
grating, the dt-nf. r.ii- • r»>verberalions seemed to rebuke
roe for an act .re, and I rusheil up the steps

like a trnilty auu .• .n -stricken criminal. Suddenly I
heard from the foot of the mountain a quick and irre-
gi ' ' ioh again resounded in

!■ lina. It wa« far fi>^ni

II
l:
>i
I

: liie
;:..;_ .we

harried fr -d down tain

oo the opi . "iiii .1 ^;--..-.i and ree^.i— u. ra that

only fear < .If there was room for question

between a -cmn i^ie or a jump, we gave the jump;
and when we coui<I not junip, our sho*-* were nff in a I
moment ; one
and gave th« e-
ing DOthinz to --
a loss; but Pau , ^
ful leap after another, h.
saw a stream of water, .i
boast that where water

proved correct, ..

re could ; and the
; r'> water fotmd

AN AM'KWARD MEETING.

73

admitted it himself.* I knew that every thing depended
upon him ; but they had come upon us in sueli a liurry,
and so few words had passed between us, that 1 liad no
idea how he stood aft'ected. His tii"st words reassured me ;
and really, if he had passed all his life in taming Be-
douins, he could not have conducted himself more gal-
lantly or sensibly. He shook liands with one, took a
pipe from the mouth of another, kicked the dromedary of
a tliird, and patted his owner on the back , smoking, laugh-
ing, and tiilking all the time, ringing the changes upon
the Sheik El Alouin, Habecb Ettendi, and Abdel Hasis.
I knew that he was lying, from his remarkable ampli-
tude of words, and from his constantly mixing up Abdel
Hasis (myself) witii the Habeeb Ettendi, the prime
minister of the pacha ; but he was going on so smoothly
that I had not the heai-t to stop him ; and, besides, I
thought he was playing for himself as well as for me,
ami I had no right to put him in danger by interfering.
At length, all talking together, and Paul's voice rising
above the rest, in force as well as frequency, we returned
to the track, and proceeded forward in a body to find
the sheik.

Not to be too heavy on Paul for the little wanderings
of his tongue, I will barely mention such as he remem-
bered himself. Beginning with a solemn assurance that
we had not been in Wady Moussa or Petra (for this
was his cardinal point), he affirmed that I was a Turk
making a pilgrimage to the tomb of Aaron under a vow ;
and that, wlien Slieik El Alouin was at Caii'o, the
Habeeb Ettendi had taken me to the sheik's tent, and
had told him to conduct me to Djebel Haroun, or Mount
Hor, and from thence to Hebron (Khalil), and that, if
I arrived in safety, he, the Habeeb Effendi, would pay
him well for it. We went on very well for a little
while ; but by and bye the Bedouins began talking
earnestly among themselves, and a fine, wicked-looking
boy, leaning down from the hump of his bare-backed
dromedary, with sparkling eyes thrust out his hand and
whispered bucksheesh ; an old dried-up man echoed it
in a hoarse voioe directly in my ears ; and one after
another joined in, till the whole party, with their deep-
toned gutturals, were croaking the odious and ominous
demand that grated harshly on my nerves. Their black
eyes were turned upon me with a keen and eager
brightness ; the harsh cry was growing louder evei-y
moment ; and I had already congratulated myself upon
having very little about my person, and Paul was look-
ing over his shoulders, and Hourishing the Habeeb
Ettendi and the Sheik El Alouin with as loud a voice
as everj but evidently with a fainting heart ; bucksheesh,
bucksheesh, bucksheesh, was drowning every other
noise, when a sudden-turn in the road brought us upon
the sheik and his attendants. The whole party were
iu confusion ; some were descending the bare sides of
the mountains, others were coming down with their
dromedaries upon a full run ; the sheik's brother, on
my horse, was galloping along the base ; and the sheik
himself, with his long red dress streaming in the wind,
and his spear poised in the air, was dashing full speed
across the plain. All seemed to catch a glimpse of us
at the same moment, and at the same moment all stopped.
The sheik stood for a little space, as if astonished and
confounded at seeing us attended by such an escort ;
and then spurring again his fiery hoi-se, moved a few
paces towards us, and dismounting, struck his spear in
the sand, and waited to receive us. The men came in
from all quarters ; and almost at the same moment all
had gathered around the spear. The sheik seemed
more alanned than any of us, and Paul said he turned
perfectly green. He had heard the report of the pistol,
which had given him nmch uneasiness ; the men had
answered, and scattered themselves abroad in search

* Paul's explanation of his cowardice was somewhat remark-
able, and perhaps veracious. He said tliat he was by nature brave
enough, but that, when travelling in Syria, about three years
before, with Mr AVellesley— a natural son of the Duke of Welling-
ton—their party was stopped by Arabs, and their two kervashe--,
without any parley, raised their muskets and shot two of the
poor savages dead before his face ; which had such an effect upon
his nerves as to give him a horror of lead and cold steel ever since.

of us ; and now seeing us come up in the midst of such
a horde of Bedouins, he sujjposed that we had opened
an account which cr)uld only be settled with blood.

The spirit of lying seemed to have taken possession
of us. Thinking it would not be jjarticularly acceptable
to my pious friends to hear that 1 had been shooting in
the tomb of Aaron, I told Paul to say that we had shot
at a partridge. Even before s:iluting tiie strangers,
with a hurried voice and quivering lip the slieik asked
the cause of our firing ; and when Paul told liim, ac-
cording to my instructions, that the cause wiis merely a
simi)le bird, lie was evidently relieved, although, uiiai)lo
to master his emotion, he nmttered, " Cursed be tUe
partridge, and cursed the gun, and cursed the hand that
fired it." He then saluted our new companions, and
all sat down around his long spear to smoke and <lriuk
cottee. I withdrew a little apart from tlivin, ami threw
myself on the ground, and then began to sulft-r severely
from a pain which, in my constant excitement since the
cause of it occurred, I had not felt. The pistol which
I fired in the tomb had been charged by Paul with two
balls, and powder enough for a musket ; and in the
firing it recoiled with such force as to lay open the back
of my hand to the bone. While 1 was binding it uj) as
well as I could, the sheik was taking care that 1 should
not suffer from my withdrawal. I have mentioned
Paul's lying humour, and my own tendency that way ;
but the sheik cast all our doings in the shade ; and
particularly, as if it had been concerted beforehand, he
averred most solemnly, and with the most determined
look of truth imaginable, that we had not been in Wady
Moussa ; that 1 was a Turk on a pilgrimage to Mount
Hor ; that when he was in Cairo waiting for the cai-avau
of pilgrims, the pacha sent the Habeeb Ettendi to con-
duct him to the citadel, whither he went, and found me
sitting on the divan by the side of the pacha ; that the
pacha took me by the hand, told him that I was his
(the pacha's) particular friend, and that he. Sheik El
Alouin, must conduct me first to Mount Hor, and then
to Khalil or Hebron, and that he had given his head
to Mahommed Ali for my safety. Paul was constantly
moving between me and the group around the spear,
and advising me of the progress of aH'airs ; and when
I heard who I was, and of my intimacy with the j)aelia,
thinking that it was not exactly the thing for the par-
ticular friend of the Viceroy of Egypt to be sprawling
on the sand, I got up, and, for the credit of my friend,
put myself rather more upon my dignity. We remained
here half an hour, when, seeing that matters became
no worse, I took it for granted that they were better ;
and, after moving about a little, I began to arrange the
saddle of my horse ; and by and bye, as a sort of decla-
ration of independence, 1 told them that 1 would ride
on slowly, and they could follow at their convenience.
The sheik remained to settle with my new friends. They
were a caravan belonging to the El Alouin tribe, from
the tents at the mouth of the entrance to l^etra, now on
their way to Gaza ; and the sheik got rid of them by
paying them something, and assuring them that we hjid
not been in Petra.

Early in the afternoon a favourite camel was taken
sick, stumbled, and fell ; and we turned aside among
the mountains, where we were completely hidden from
tlie view of any passing Bedouins. The camel belonged
to a former iemale slave of the sheik, whom he liad
manumitted and married to " his black," and to whom
he had given a tent, and this camel as a dowry. He
had been very anxious to get away as far as possible
from Wady Moussa that night ; but a.s soon as tlie acci-
dent happened, with the expression always uppermost
in the mouth of the followers of the Prophet, "God wills
it," he began to doctor the animal. It was strange to
be brought into such inmiediate contact with the disci-
ples of fatalism. If we did not reach the point we were
aiming at, God willed it ; if it rained, God willed it ; and
I suppose that, if they had happened to lay their black
hands upon my throat, and stripped me of every thing
I possessed, they would have piously raised their eyes
to heaven, and cried, " God willed it." 1 remember

74

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETR/EA.

Mr Wolff,* the converted Jew missionary, told me an
anecdote illustrating most strikingly tlie operation of
this fatalist creed. He was in Aleppo during an earth-
quake, and saw two Turks smoking their pipes at tlie
base of a house then tottering and ready to fall, lie
cried out to tliem and warned them of their peril ; but
they turned their eyes to the impending danger, and
crying, " Allah el Allah," " God is merciful," were buried
Undt-r the ruins.

It was not moi-e than four o'clock when we pitched
our tent. The Arabs all came under the shade to talk
more at ease about our ascent of Mount Hor, and our
adventure with the liedouins of Wady Moussa; and
wishing to show them that we Ciiristians conceived
ourselves to have some rights and interests in Aaron,
I read to them, and I'aul explained, the verses in the
Bible recording his death and burial on the mountain.
They were astonished and confounded at finding any
thing about him in a book ; recortls of travel being
entirely unknown to them, and books, therefore, re-
garded as of unquestionable veracity. The unbeliever
of the previous night, liowever, was now as obstinate
as if he had come from the banks of the Zuyder Zee.
He still contended that the great high-priest of the
Jews was a true follower of the I'rophet ; and I at last
accommodated the matter by allowing that he was not
a Christian.

That evening Paul and the sheik had a long and
curious conversjition. After supper, and over their
pipes and coffee, the sheik asked him, as a brother, why
we had come to that old city, Wady Moussa, so long a
journey through the desert, spending so much money ;
and when I'aul told him it was to see the ruins, ho took
the pipe from his mouth and said, "That will do very
Well before the world ; but, between ourselves, there is
something else ;" and when Paul persisted in it, the
slieik sjiici to him, "Swear by your God that you do not
come here to search for treasure ;" and when Paul had
sworn by his God, the sheik I'ose, and, pointing to his
brother as the very acme of honesty and truth, said,
after a moment's hesitation, " Osinan, I would not be-
lieve it if that brother had sworn it. Ko," he continued ;
" the Europeans are too cunning to spend their money
in looking at old stones. 1 know there is treasure in
'Wady .Moussa ; I have dug for it, and I mean to dig
for it again ;" and then again he asked Paul whether
he iiad discovered any, and where ; telling him that he
would aid in removing it, without letting any of the rest
of the tribe knuw any thing of the matter.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Valley of El Ghor. — Prophecies against Kilom. — Tlio Sheik's
Treachery. — An Kxplosion. — I'ersonncl of the Arabs. — Amus-
ing IlctDKipcct — Mimcy Troubles. — Aspect of tho Valley. —
Death of a CameL— Tho Desert Horses.— Native Salt.

Kari.y in the morning wo continued our descent down
the moimtain. Kvery turn was presenting us with a
new view of wild, barren, and desolate scenery; and
Vet fretjuently, in litth; spots watered by the mountain
streams, we saw shrubs, and patches of green grass,
and odoriferous bushes. At about nine o'clock we were
again at the foot of the mountains of Seir, agnin moving
along the groat desert valley of Kl Ghor ; and again 1
saw, in imagination, at the extreme end of the valley,

* The Rev. Jn<icpli Wolff is now in America, and has taken
Onleri in tlic Kpisicopal Cliurch. When I left Egypt, he had set
out on hl'« l.iiiK-prcJfClcd journey to Tlmbuetoo. IIo was takrn
•ick In AhvH-inl.t, and, unable to cfintinue his pmijresH, under
ftrcat peraoniil hanUhip and eufferini;, crossed the desert to the
llol Heo, and went <P>«n to li<inibay. It la greatly to be regretted
that Mr WolDTs lic.il:h failed him. From his cAtcnsivo travels
in Aula and Africa, ani) his intimate knowlcfl^c of the languages
nnd customs of llio wild tribes that roam over their diserts, ho
was piobabl> bctl'.T()nalifl<Ml, nnd had a bi-ttcr chance of reaching
that city, than any oth> r man now living. It »ill probably be
long before the attempt is m ido by another. Mr Wolff has not,
however, ab.indoned his piirpo-*. As soon ns his health will
permit, ho intends to resume his Journey; anrl If the diflicultles
and dangers are not greater Ih.-in msn can overcome, wo may yet
bear from him in the bcurt of Africa.

that mysterious sea which I had first looked upon from
tlie summit of .Mount Hor. 1 had spoken to the sheik
before, and again 1 tried to prevail upon him to follow
the valley directly to its shores ; but he told me, as
before, that he had never travelled that road, and the
Bedouins (whom he had last night declared to be total
strangers) were deadly enemies of his tribe ; in short,
it was impossible to prevail upon him ; and, as 1 found
afterwards, it would have been physically impossible to
proceed along the mountainous borders of the sea.

We pursued the route which I had originally contem-
plated, through the land of Idumea. In regard to this
part of my journey I wish to be particularly understood.
Three different parties, at different times, and under
different circumstances, after an interval of twenty
years from its discovery by Burckhardt, had entered
the city of Petra, but not one of them had passed through
the land of Idumea. The route of the two Englishmen
and Italian before referred to was not precisely known ;
and, with the exception of these three, I was the first
traveller who had ever attempted to pass tlirough the
doomed and blighted Edoni. In very truth, the pro-
phecy of Isaiah, "None shall pass through it for ever
and ever," seemed in a state of literal fultilment. And
now, without considering that I was perhaps braving
the malediction of Heaven, but stimulated by the inte-
rest of associations connected with the denounced region,
and the excitement of travelling over <a new and un-
beaten track, I was again moving along the desert valley
of El Ghor.

In the present state of the world, it is an unusual
thing to travel a road over which hundreds have not
passed before. Europe, Asia, and even the sands of
Africa, have been overrun and trodden down by the
feet of travellers ; but in the land of Idumea, the oldest
country in tho world, the aspect of every thing is new
and strange, and the very sands you tread on havo
never been trodden by the feet of civilised human
beings. The Bedouin roams over them like tiie Indian
on our native prairies. The road along which the
stranger journeys was far better known in the days of
David and Solomon than it is now ; and when he tires
with the contemplation of barrenness and ruin, he may
take the Bible in his hand, and read what Edom was,,
and how God, by the mouth of his prophets, cursed it;
and see with his own eyes whether God's words be true.
" Also Edom shall be a desolation ; every one that goetli
by it shall be astonished and shall hiss at all the plagues
thereof. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah,
and the neighbouring cities thereof, saith the Lord, no
man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell
in it. Therefore, hear tlie counsel of the Lord that he
hath taken against Edom, and his jjurposcs that he
hath pur[)osed against the inhabitants of Teman; surely
the least of the Hock shall draw them out; surely ho
shall make their habitations desolate with tliein. The
earth is moved at the noise of their fall, at the cry, the
noise thereof was heard in the Red Sea." — Jeremiah,

xlix. And again " Thus saith the Lord God : Because

that Edom hath dealt against the house of Judali by
taking vengeance, and hath greatly ofl'ended, and re-
venged himself upon them ; therefore, thus sjiitli tiio
Lord God, I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom,
and will cut oR" man and beast from it ; and 1 will make
it desolate from Tenian." — Ezekiel, xxv. "Edom shall
be a desolate wilderness." — Joel, iii. 19. "Forthreo
transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn
away the punishment thereof." — Amos, i. II. "Thus
saith tho Lord God concerning Edom: Behold, I havo
made thee small among the heathen: thou art greatly
despised. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thoe,
thou that dwellest in tho clefts of the rock, whose habi-
tation is high ; that saith in his heart. Who shall bring
me down to the ground J Though thou exalt thyself as
tho eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the btars,
thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. .Shall 1
not in that day, saith the Lord, even destroy tho wise
men out of Edom, and understanding out of the Alount
of Esau ? And thy mighty men, oh Teman, shall ba

TREACHERY OF THE SHEIK.

75

dismayed, to the end that every one of fhc Mount of
Esau may be cut ofl" by slaughter." — Obadiah, i.

All that day the sheik was particularly disagreeable.
He was constantly talking of tlie favourable circum-
stances under which I had seen Petra, ttie bad chai'acter
of the Bedouins, his devotion to me, and the generosity
of M. Laborde and Abdol Hag. Ever since we started,
one of his standing subjects of convei-sation with I'aul
had been what lie expected from me ; and to-day he
pressed liim particularly, to learn how much money I
had brought with mo. In tiie evening he came to my
tent. He was in the habit of coming in every evening ;
and though I did not like iiim, I was in the iiabit of
talking with him ; and, according to the Arab custom,
I always asked him to take a share of my meal. In
gonei-al, ai)pcase the stomach, and you gain the heart
of the Arab; but the viscera of my sheik were of im-
penetrable toughness. They produced none of that
delicious repose, that " peace on earth, and good-will
towards all men" spirit, which comes over an lionest
man after diimer. " A child might play with me,"
said the good-hearted son of Krin, as he threw himself
back in his chair after dinner; but it was not so with
niy sheik. While he was eating my bread, he was
plotting against me. I had smoked my pipe, and was
lying on my mat reading, while a long conversation
was going on between him and Paul, and my suspicions
•were aroused ; ft>r, on the part of the sheilc, it was
carried on in a low whisper. Though ho knew I could
not understand a word, he had the indefinite fear that
indicates a guilty intention ; and, as I looked up oc-
casionally from my book, I saw his keen and cunning
eyes turned towards me, and withdrawn as soon as they
met mine. He remained there more than an hour,
conversing in the same low whisper — I, meanwhile,
watching his looks from time to time ; and when he had
gone, I asked what it all meant. At first Paid hesi-
tated, but finally said, that it was the old story about
Abdel Hag's generosity, and what he expected from
me ; for himself, the sheik expected at least "250 dollars ;
his brother would not expect so much ; but that he was
on an entirely different footing from the men ; and he
had concluded, by attempting to bribe Paul, to find out
how much money I had with me, and how nmch I in-
tended to give him ; and, in going out, had slipped a
couple of pieces into Paul's hand as an earnest. I have
not troubled the I'eader with the many petty difficulties
I had with the sheik, nor the many little circumstances
that were constantly occurring to irritate me against
him. 1 had been several times worked up to such a
pitch that it was difficult to keep within the bounds of
prudence ; and I now broke through all restraints.
From the beginning he had been exaggerating the dan-
ger of the road, and making a parade of devotion and the
value of his services ; and only the last night 1 had been
driven out of my tent by four enormous fires which he
had built at the four corners, as he said, for the men to
sleep by and keep guard. I could hardly restrain my-
self then ; but merely telling him that I would rather
be robbed than roasted, I reserved myself for a better
moment. The fact is, from the beginning I had been
completely mistaken in my opinion touching the cha-
racter of the chief of a powerful tribe of Bedouins. I
had imagined him like the chief of a tribe of our own
Indians, wild, savage, and lawless, but generous and true
when he had once offered his protection ; one who might
rob or even murder, but who would never descend to
the meanness of trickery and falsehood.

I had been smotliering my feelings of contempt
through the whole journey ; but now 1 had seen Petra
and Mount Ilor, and it was a relief to have something
to justify me in my own eyes in breaking through all
restraint. I had caught him in the very act of base-
ness and villany, corrupting the faith of my servant ;
bribing under my own eyes, and while eating my bread,
the only man on whom I could rely at all ; and the
proof of his treason, the accursed gold, was before me.
With a loud voice I called him back to the tent, and
charged him with his baseness, reproaching hira that I

had come into the desert upon the faith of his promises,
and he iiad endeavoured to corrupt my servant before
my eyes ; I told him that he was false and faithless ; that
I had before distrusted him, but that I now despised
him, and would not give him a para till we got to He-
bron, nor would 1 tell him how much I would give him
then ; but that, if lie would take himself off and leave
me alone in the desert, I would pay him the price of his
camels ; I assureil him that, bad as he represented them,
I did not believe there was a worse Arab in all his tribe
than himself; and, finally, throwing open my trunk, I
toUl him I did not fear him or all his tribe ; that 1 had
there a certain sum of money, which should belong to
the man who should conduct me to Hebron, whoever
he might be, and clothes which would not suit an Arab's
back ; that 1 knew I w;is in his jjower ; but that, if they
killed me, they could not got more than they ccudd
without it; and added, turning my pistols in my belt,
that they should not got it while I could defend it. All
this, passing through an interpreter, had given me timo
to cool ; and before coming to my grand climax, though
still highly indignant, I was able to observe the effect
of my words. At the first glance I saw I had the van-
tage ground, and thatthe consciousness of being detected
in his baseness sealed his lips. I am inclined to think
that he would liave been disgraced in the eyes of his
tribe if they had been acquainted with the circum-
stances ; for instead of resenting my passionate lan-
guage, he earnestly begged me to lower my voice, aiul
frequently looked out of the tent to see if any of his
companions were near. Keep cool, is a good maxim,
generally, in a man's walk througli life, and it is par-
ticularly useful with the Bedouins in the desert ; but
there are times when it is good to be in a passion, and
this was one of them. Without attempting to resent
what I said, even by word or look, he came up to me,
kissed my hand, and swore that he would never mention
the subject of bucksheesh again until we got to Hebron,
and he did not. I retained my command over him
through the whole journey, while he was constantly at
my side, taking my horse, holding my stirrup, and in
every way trying to make himself useful. I am not sure,
however, but that in his new character of a sycophant
he was worse than before. A sycophant in civilised life,
where the usages of society admit and perhaps demand
a certain degi-ee of unmeant civility, is the most con-
temptible thing that crawls; but in a wild Arab it was
intolerable. I really despised him, and made no secret
of it; and sometimes, rash and imprudent as was the
bare tliouglit, it was with difficulty that I could keep
from giving him my foot. After he had gone out, Paul
sewed twenty gold pieces in the collar of my jacket,
and I left the rest of my money open in my trunk.

I have frequently been astonished at the entire ab-
sence of apprehension which accompanied me during
the whole of tliis journey. I fortunately observed, at
the very first, an intention of exaggerating its danger;
and this and other little things carried me into the other
extreme, to such a degree, that perhaps my eyes were
closed against the real dangers. Among all the pictures
and descriptions of robbers and bandits that I have
seen, I liave never met with any thing so unprepossess-
ing as a party of desert Arabs coming down upon the
traveller on their dromedaries ; but one soon gets over
the effect of their dark and scowling visages ; and after
becoming acquainted with their weapons and bodily
strength, a man of ordinary vigour, well armed, feels
no little confidence in himself among them. They are
small in stature, under our middle size, and tliin almost
to emaciation. Indeed, the same degree of sparene.ss
in Europeans would be deemed the effect of illness or
starvation ; but with them it seems to be a mere drying
up of the fluids, or, as it were, an attraction between
skin and bone, which prevents flesh from insinuating
itself between. Their breast-bones stand out very pro-
minently ; their ribs are as distinctly perceptible as the
bars of a gridiron, and their empty stomachs seem drawn
up till they touch the back bone ; and their weapons,
though ugly enough, are far from beuig fonnidable.

7«

TRAVELS IN ARABIA PETR^A.

The sheik was the only one of our party who carried
pistols, and I do not believe they could have been dis-
charged without picking tlie flints once or twice ; the
rest had swords and matchlock guns ; the latter, of
course, not to be fired without first strildng a light,
which is not the work of a juonient ; and although these
inconvenient implements do well enough for contests
wltii their brother Bedouins, the odds are very much
aiainst them when they have to do with a well-armed
J'rank ; two pairs of good pistols and a doulile-barrelled
gun would have been a match for all our matchlock
muskets. Besides all this, one naturally feels a confi-
dence in himself after being some time left to his own
resources ; a develo]*ement of capacities and energies
wliich he is entirely unconscious of possessing, until he
is placed in a situation to call them out. A man nmst
have been in the desert alone, and beyond the reach of
lielp, where his voice can never reach the ears of his
distant friends, with a strong and overwhehning sense
that every thing depends upon himself, his own coolness
and discretion ; and such is the elasticity of the human
character, that his spirit, instead of sinking and quailing
as it would once have done under difficulties and dan-
gers incomparably less, rises with the occasion ; and as
he draws liis sash or tightens his sword-belt, hestretches
liiniself to his full length, and is pBej)ared and ready for
any emergency that may befall him. Indeed, now that
1 have returned to the peaceful occupations of civilised
life, 1 often look back with a s|)ccies of mirthful feeling
upon my journey in the desert as a strange and amusing
episode in my life ; and when laying my head on my quiet
pillow, I can hardly believe that, but a few months ago,
I never slept without first placing my pistols carefully
by my side, and never woke without putting forth my
hand to ascertain tiiat they wci'c near, and ready for
instant use.

I had scarcely mounted tlie ne.\t morning before one
of the nu-n came up to me, and, telling mc that lie
intended to return home, asked for his bucksheesh. I
looked at the sheik, who was still sitting on the ground,
enjoying a last sip of coffee, and apparently taking no
notice of us, and it immediately occuri'ed to me that this
was anotiier scheme of his to find out how much I in-
tended to give. The idea had no sooner occurred to
me than I determined to sustain the tone I had assumed
the night before ; and I therefore told the fellow that I
should not pay any one a piastre until I arrived at He-
bron. Tills occasioned a great clamour; the slieik still
remained silent, but all the others took up the matter, and
I do not know how far it would have gone if I had per-
sisted. I was the only one mounted ; and having given
my answer, 1 turned my horse's head, and moved on a
few paces, looking over my shoulder, liowever, to watch
tiie effect ; and when I saw them still standing, as if spell-
bound, in the unhnished act, one of mounting a drome-
dary, another of arranging the baggage, and all appar-
ently undecideil w hat to do, I reflected that no good could
come from the dclihenitions of such men, and began to
repent somewliat of the high tone I had assumed. I only
wanterl a good excuse to retrace my steps ; and after a
moment's reflection, I laid hold of something plausible
enough for iinniediate use. The man wlio wanted to re-
turn was rather a favourite with mc — the same who had
carried ineoii liis slioulders ujithe stream in the entrance
of Petra — ami, returning suddenly, as if tin; thing had
just occurred to me, I called him to me, and told him
that, although I would not pay him for accompanying
me on my journev, as it was not yet ended, still, for his
extra Rorvices in f'etra, I would not let him go destitute ;
that I loved him — by whiih I meant that I liked him,
an expression that would have been entirely too cold
f'lr '• the land of the l''„if«t and the clime of the sun," or,
a-s I should rather say, for the extravagant and inflated
style of the Arabs — that if the same thing had happened
with any of the others, I would not have given him a
para ; and now he must understand that I only paid him
for his services in Petra. This seemed natural enough
to the other Bedouins, for they all knew that this man
and I had returned from the defile the best friends in

the world, calling each other brother, &c. ; and in the
end, the whole affair turned out rather fortunately ; for
unilerstanding me literally that I paid only for the day
in Petra, although not understanding the rule of three
as established in thebooksof arithmetic, they worked out
the problem after their own fashion, " If one day gives
so much, what will so many days give?" and were ex-
ceedingly satisfied with the result. Indeed, I believe
I might at any time have stopped their mouths, and
relieved myself from much annoyance, by promising
them an extravagant sum on my arrival at Hebron ; but
this I would not do. I had not, from the first, held out
to them any extravagant expectations, nor would I do
so then ; perhaps, after all, not so much from a stern
sense of principle, as from having conceived a feeling of
strong though smothered indignation and contempt for
the sheik. Indeed, I should not have considered it safe
to tell him what I intended to give him ; for I soon saw
that the amount estimated by Mr Gliddon and myself
was very far from being sufficient to satisfy his own and
his men's extravagant expectations. My apparent in-
difference perplexed the sheik, and he was sorely con-
founded by my valiant declaration, " There is my trunk ;
all that is in it is yours when we arrive at Hebron ; rob
me or kill me, and you get no more ;" and though he
could not conceal his eagerness and rapacity, he felt
himself trammelled ; and my plan was to prolong his
indecision, and postpone our denouement until our
arrival at Hebron. Still, it was very unpleasant to be
travelling upon these terms with my protectors, and I
was exceedingly glad when the journey was over.

We were again journeying along the valley in an
oblique direction. In the afternoon we fell in with a
caravan for Gaza. It maybe that I wronged the sheik ;
but I had the idea that, wlu'iiever wc saw strangers, his
deep and hurried manner of pronouncing El Arab, his
fixing himself in his saddl<>, poising his spear, and get-
ting the caravan in order, frequently accompanying
these movements with the cautioning words not to be
afraid, that he would fight for me till death, were in-
tended altogether for effect upon me. Wliether he
had any influence or not with the caravan for Gaza, I
cannot say ; but I know that I would have been glad to
leave the wandering tribes of the land of Idumea, and
go with my new companiims to the ancient city of the
Philistines, ^^'hile we moved along together, Paul and
myself got upon excellent terms with them, and con-
sulted for a good while about asking them to take us
under their escort. I have no doubt they would have
done it willingly, for they were a fine, manly set of fel-
lows ; but we were deterred by the fear of involving
them in a quarrel, if not a fight, with our own men.

The valley continued the .Kaine as before, jiresenting
sandy hillocks, thorn-bushes, gullies, the dry beds of
streams, and furnishing ail tlu; way incontestible evi-
dence that it had once been covered with the waters of
a river. To one travelling along that dreary road as a
geologist, every step opens a new page in the great hook
of Nature ; carrying him back to the time when all was
ch.aos, and darkness covered the face of the earth ; the
impressions it conveys arc of a confused mass of matter
settling into " form and substance," the earth covered
with a mighty flchige, the waters retiring, and leaving
bare the mountains above him, and a rolling river at
his feet ; and, by the regular o])eratio)i of natural causes,
the river contracting and disaiijiearing, and for thou-
sands of years leaving its channel-bed dry. And again,
he who in the wonders around him seeks the evidences
of events recorded in the sacred volume, iiere finds them
in the abundant tokens that the shower of lire and
brimstone which descended upon the guilty cities of
.Sodom and ( Gomorrah stopj)eil the course of the Jordan,
and formed it into a pestilential lake, and left the dry
bed of a river in the desolate valley in which he is jour-
neying, 'i'his valley is part of the once jxipulous land
of Idumea ; in the days of Solomon, the great travelled
highway by which he received the gold of Ophir for the
temple ; and by which, in the days of imperial Rome,
tlie wealth of India was brought to her doora.

DEATH OF A CAMEL— DESERT HORSES.

77

About the middle of the day, as usual, the sheik rode
ahead, and, striking his spear iu the sand, he had cofl'ce
prepared before we came up. While we were sittinjj
around the spear, two of our camels so far forgot the
calm dignity of their nature, and their staid, quiet
habits, as to get into a fight ; and one of them, finding
himself likely to come off second best, took to his iieels,
and the other after hiui; they were baggage camels,
one being charged with my boxes of provisions and
housekeeping apparatus, and his movements indicated
death to crockery. I will not go into particulars, for
eggs, rice, maccaroni,and lamp-oil, make a bad mixture ;
and althoujrh the race and fijrht between the loaded
camels were rather ludicrous, the consequence was by
no means a pleasant thing in the desert.

The next morning we had another aunel scene, for
one of the combatjiuts was stretched upon the sand, his
bed of death. The Bedouins had examined him, and,
satisfied that the hand of death was upon him, they left
him to breathe his last alone. The camel is to the Arab
a treasure above all price. He is the only animal by
nature and constitution framed for the desert, for he
alone can travel sevez'al days without eating or drink-
ing. Every part of him is useful ; his milk is their
drink, his Hesh their food, and his hair supplies mate-
rials for their rude gai"ments and tents. Besides this,
the creatui-e is domesticated with the Bedouin ; grows
up in his tent, feeds from his hand, kneels down to I'e-
ceive his burden, and rises as if glad to carry liis master ;
and, in short, is so much a part of a Bedouin's family,
that often, in speaking of himself, the Bedouin will say
that he has so many wives, so many children, and so many
camels. All these things considered, when this morning
they knew that the camel must die, I expected, in
a rough way, something like Sterne's picture of the old
man and his ass. But I saw nothing of the kind ; they
left him in the last stages of his struggle with the great
enemy with as mucli indifference, 1 was going to say,
as if he had been a brute ; and he was a brute ; but it
was almost worth a passing tear to leave even a brute
to die alone in the desert — one that we knew, that had
travelled with us, and formed part of our little world ;
but the only lament the sheik made was, that they had
lost twenty dollars, and we left him to die in the sand.
I could almost have remained myself to close his eyes.
The vultures were already hovering over him, and once
I went back and drove them away ; but I have no doubt
that before the poor beast was dead, the hoiTid bu'ds
had picked out his eyes, and thrust their murderous
beaks into his brain.

It was, as usual, a fine day. Since we left Akaba we
had a continued succession of the most delightful weather
I had ever experienced. I was, no doubt, peculiarly
susceptible to the influence of weather. With a nuilady
constantly hanging about me, if I drooped, a bright sun
and an unclouded sky could at any time revive me ;
and more than once, when I have risen flushed and
feverish, and but little refreshed with sleep, the clear
pure air of the morning has given me a new life. From
dragging one leg slowly after the other, I have fairly
jumped into the saddle, and my noble Arabian, in such
cases, always completed what the fresh air of the morn-
uig had begun. Indeed, I felt then that I could not be
too thankful for those two things, uucommouly fiue
weather and an uncommonly fine horse ; and I con-
sidered that it was almost solely those two that sus-
tained me on that journey. It is part of the historical
account of the Bedouins' horses, that the mares are
never sold. My sheik would have sold his soul for a
price ; and as soon as he saw that I was pleased with
ray mare, he wanted to sell her to me ; and it was sin-
gular and amusing, in chaffering for this animal, to
mark how one of the habits of bargain-making peculiar
to the horse-jockey with us, existed in full force among
the Arabs. He said that he did not want to sell her ;
that at Cairo he had been offered two hundred and fifty
dollars, a new dress, and arms complete, and he would
not sell her ; but if / wanted her, there being nothing
he would not do for me, &c., I might have her.

The sheik's was an extraordinary anim.al. The saddle
had not been off her back for thirty days ; and the slieik,
himself a most restless creature, would dash off sud-
denly a dozen times a-day, on a full run across the val-
ley, up the sides of a mountain, round and round our
caravan, with his long spear j)oisfd in the air, and his
dress streaming in tlio wind ; and when he returned
and brought her to a walk at my side, the beautiful
animal would snort and paw the ground, as if proud of
what she had done, and anxious for another course. I
could almost imagine I siiw the aneiont war-horse of
Idumea, so finely descril)ed by Job: — " his neck clothed
with thunder. Canst thou make him afraid as a grass-
hopper { the glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth
in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength ; he gocth
on to meet the armed men. He moeketh at fear, and
is not affrighted ; neither turnutli he back from tlie
sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering
spear and the shield. He swalloweth the ground witli
fierceness and rage ; neither believeth he that it is the
sound of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets,
ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder
of the captains, and the shouting."

Nothing showed the hardiness of these horses more
than their drinking. Several times we came to depo-
sites of rain water left in the hollow of a rock, so foul
and dirty that I would not have given it to a dog ; and
while their sides were white with foam, the sheik would
take the bits out of their mouths, and sit down with
the bridle in his hands, and let tliem drink their fill ;
and I could not help thinking that ai'cgular-bred Eng-
lish groom, accustomed to insinuate a wet sponge in tiie
mouth of a heated horse, would have been amazed and
horrified at such a barbarian usage. These two horses
were twelve and twenty years old respectively ; and the
former was more like a colt in playfulness and spirit,
and the other like a horse of ten with us ; and the sheik
told me that he could count upon the services of both
until they were thirty-five. Among all the recommen-
dations of the Arabian horse, I know none greater than
this : I have known a man, from long habit, conceive a
liking for a vicious jade that no one else would mount ;
and one can imagine how warm must be the feeling,
when, year after year, the best of his race is the com-
panion of the wandering Arab, and the same animal
may bear him from the time when he can first poise a
spear until his aged frame can scarcely sustain itself hi
the saddle.

Before leaving the valley, we found iu one of the
gullies a large stone veined in that peculiar manner
which I had noticed at Petra ; it had been washed
down from the mountains of Wady Moussa, and the
Arab told me that stone of the same kind was found
nowhere else. Towards evening we had crossed the
valley, and were at the foot of the mountains of Judea,
in the dii'ection of the southern extremity of the Dead
Sea. That evening, I remember, I notictd a circum-
stance which called to my mind the wonderful accounts
handed down to us by Strabo and other ancient histo-
rians, of large cities built of .salt having stood at the
soutiiern extremity of the Dead Sea and the valley
beyond. In the escapade of our runaway camels,
bringing about the catastrophe which one of them had
since expiated with his life, they had mingled together
in horrible confusion, contrary to all the rules of art,
so many discordant ingredients, tliat a great portion of
my larder was spoiled ; and, among other things, salt,
almost as necessary to man as bread, had completely
lost its savoui". But the Bedouins, habituated to want-
ing almost every thing, knew where to find all that their
barren country could give ; and one of them leaving the
tents for a few moments, returned with a small quantity
that he had picked up for immediate use, being a cake
or encrustation about as large as the head of a barrel ;
and I afterwards saw regular strata of it, and in large
quantities, in the sides of the mountams.

■

78

TRAA'ELS IN ARABIA PETRiEA.

CHAPTER XXIV.
TlieUoad toCaza.— Inknown lluins.— A Jlisad venture.— Pasto-
ral Hcdiiiiiiis.— A l'K>»cr of tlie Wilderness.— TUo Ravages of
War.— Testimony of itu ICjewitness.

W'e starteil at si.K o'clock the next day, the morning
l-atlicr cool, tliough clear and bracing ; we were again
nnuiiig the mountains, ami at about eleven, a track
scarcely distinguishable to my eye, turned oH' to Gaza.
To a traveller lron> such a country as ours, few of the
little every-day wonders he is constantly noticing strike
him more foivibly than the character of the great
l)ublic roads in the Kast. He makes allowance for the
natural wildness of the country, the impossibility of
using wlieei-carriages on the mountains, or horses in
the desei-t as beasts of burden, but still he is surprised
and disjippointed. Here, for instance, was a road lead-
ing to the ancient city of Gaza, a regular c.iravan route
for 4000 years, and yet so perfect in the wildne.ss of
nature, so undistinguishable in its appearance from
other portions of the wilderness around, that a stranger
■wovild have pjujsed the little opening in the rocks jiro-
bably without noticing it, and certainly without ima-
gining that the wild track, of which it formed the
entrance, would conduct him to the birthplace and
ancient ca|>ital of David, and the lioly city of Jerusalem.
The solitary trail of the Indian over our i)rairies and
forests is more perfectly marked as a i-oad than cither
of the great routes to Gaza or Jerusalem, and yet, near
tlie spot wiiere these two roads diverge, are the ruins
of an ancient city.

Little, if any thing, has been known in modern days
concerning the existence and distinguishing features
of this rOad ; and it is completely a terra incognita to
mofiern travellers. All the knowledge possessed of it
is that derived from the records of ancient history ; and
from these we learn that in the time of David and
Solomon, and the later days of tlio Roman empire, a
great y>ublie road existed from Jerusalem to Akaba,
the ancient Elotli or Ezion-geber ; that several cities
existed upon it between these terminating points, and
that their ruins should still be visible. Believing that
I am the first traveller who has ever seen those ruins,
none can regret more than myself my inability to add
to the scanty stock of knowledge already in jwssession
of geogi-aphers. H my health had permitted, I might
have investigated and explored, noted observations, and
treasured up facts and circumstances, to place them in
the hands of wiser men for their conclusions ; but I
was not eijual to the task. The ruins which 1 saw were
n confused and shapeless mass, and I rode .among them
without dismounting ; there were no columns, no blocks
ol marble, or large stones which indicated any archi-
tectural grcatne.s.s, and the appearance of the ruins
would answer the histoi'ical description of a third or
fourih-nite city.

About three lionrs farther on, and half a mile from
our path, or> the right, was a ((uadrangtilar arch with
a dome; and near it was a low stone building, also
ni-clied, which might iiave been a small tem|)le. 'I'he
lledouins, aa usual, referred it to the times of the
Christians. For about a mile, in different places on
each side of u.s, were mounds of crumbling ruins ; and
directly on the caravan-track we came to a little eh.'va-
tion, « here were two remarkable wells, of the very best
Iloinan workmanship, about fifty fi^et deep, lined with
large hard stones, .is firm and perfect as on the day in
which they were laid. The uppeniiost layer, round
the top of the well, which w.is on a level with the jiave-
ment, was of marble, and had many grooves cut in it,
nppaiXMilly worn by the long-continued use of ropes in
drawing water. Around each of the wells were circular
rangea of columns, which, when the city existed, and
the inhabitanta came there to drink, might and probably
did support a roof oiinilar to those now seen over the
fountains in Constantinople. No remains of such roof,
however, are existing; and the columns arc broken,
several of them standing not more than three or four
feet high, and the tops scooped out to serve as troughs

for thirsty camels. On the other side, a little in the
rear of the wells, is a hill overlooking the scattered
ruins below, which may, some hundred yeai-s ago, have
been the .Aero]>oiis of the city. A strong wall seems
to have extended around the whole summit level of the
hill. I remember that I rode up to the summit, wind-
ing around the hill, and leaped my horse over the broken
wall ; but there was nothing to reward me for the exer-
tion of the undertaking. The enclosure formed by the
wall was filled with rums, but I could give form or fea-
ture to none of them ; here, too, I rode among them
without dismounting ; and from here 1 could see the
whole extent of the ruins below. As in the ruined city
I iiad just passed, there was not a solitary inhabitant,
and not a living being was to be seen but my companions
watering their camels at the ancient wells. This, no
doubt, was another of the Roman cities ; and although
it was probably never celebrated for architectural or
monumental beauty, it must have contained a large
population.

We were now coming into another country, and
leaving the desert behind us; a scanty verdure w.as
beginning to cover the mountains ; but the smiling
pros|)uct before me was for a moment overclouded by
an unfortunate accident. Paul had lent his dromedary
to one of the men ; and riding carelessly on a baggage
camel, in ascending a rou^h hill the girths of the saddle
gave way, and Paul, boxes, and baggage, all came down
together, the unlucky dragoman com])letely buried
under the burden. I wixs the first at his side ; and
when I raised him up he was senseless. I untied his
sash, and tore open his clothes. The Bedouins gathered
around, all talking together, pulling and hauling, and
one of them drew his sword, and was bending over my
prostrate interpreter, with its point but a few inches
from his throat. Poor Paul ! with his mortal antipathy
to cold steel, if he could have opened his eyes <at that
moment, and seen the fiery orbs of the Bedouins, and
the ])oint of a sharp sword apparently just ready to bo
plunged into his body, he would have uttered one groan
and given up the ghost. It w:is a startling movement
to me; and for a moment I thought they were going
to cmiiloy in his behalf that mercy which is sometimes
shown to a dying brute, that of killing him to put him
out of misery. 1 i)re.ssed forward to shield him with
my own body ; and in the confusion of the moment, and
my inability to understand what they meant, the selfish
feeling came over me of the entire and absolute help-
lessness of n^y o\vm condition if Paul should die. But
Paul was too good a Catholic to die out of the pale of
the church ; he could never have rested quietly in his
grave, unless he had been laid there amid the wafting
of incense and the chanting of priests. '• The safety of
the patient often consists in tlie (juarrels of the jjliysi-
cians," says Sancho Panza, or some other equally great
authority, and perhaps this siived Paul ; the ."Vrabs
wanted to cut open his clothes and bleed him ; but I,
not liking the looks of their lancets, would not suffer
it; and, between us both, Paul was let alone and came
to himself. But it was a trying moment, while I was
kneeling on the sand supporting his senseless head upon
my knee. No parent could have waited with more
anxiety the return to life of an only child, or lover
watched the beautiful face of his adored and swooning
mistress with more earnestness than 1 did the ghastly
and grisled face of my faithful follower; and when he
first o])en(;d his eyes, and stared wildly at me, the bright-
est emanations from the face of beauty could not at that
moment have kindled warmer emotions in my heart.
I never tlumght 1 should look on his ugly face with so
much i)leaKure. 1 jiut him on my horse, and took his
dromedary ; and in lialf an hour we came to a Bedouin
encampment, in one of the most singular and interesting
spots 1 ever .saw.

Wc should have gone on two hours longer, but Paul's
accident made it necessary to stop as soon as wc found
a luojier place ; and I should have regretted exceedingly
to i)ass by this without a halt. There was something
interesting even in our manner of approaching it. We

PASTORAL BEDOUINS— A FLOWER OF THE WILDERNESS.

79

were climbin<^ up the side of a mountain, and we saw
on a little point on the very sununit the figure of an
Arab, with his face towards the tomb of the proplu't,
kneeling and prostrating himself in evening prayer. He
had finished his devotions, and wiis sitting upon the rock
when we ai)proached, and found that he had lite-
rally been praying on his house top, for liis habitation
was in the rock beneath. Like almost every old man
one meets in the East, he looked exactly the patriarch
of tlie imagination, and precisely as we would paint
Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. He rose as we approached,
and gave us the usual Bedouin invitation to stop and
pass the night with him ; and, leading us a few paces
to the brink of the mountain, he showed us in the valley
below the village of his tribe.

The valley began at the foot of the elevation on
which we stood, and lay between ranges of broken and
overhansrins rocks, a smooth and beautiful table of
green, for perhaps a quarter of a mile, and beyond that
distiince broke off and expanded into an extensive
meadow. The whole of this valley, down to the meadow,
was filled with flocks of sheep and goats ; and for the
first time since I left the banks of the Nile, I saw a
herd of cows. I did not think I should ever be guilty
of a sentiment at beholding a cow, but so it was ; afti'r
my long journey in the desert, my feelings were actually
excited to tenderness by the sight of these old ac<j^uaiut-
auces.

But where were the dwellings of the pastors, the
tents in which dwelt the shei)lierds of these flocks and
herds ? In EgA'pt 1 had seen the Arabs living in tombs,
and among the ruins of temples ; in the desert I have
Been them dwelling in tents ; but I had never yet seen
thera making their habitations in the rude crevices of
the rocks. Such, however, were their habitations here.
The rocks in many places were overhanging ; in othei-s
there were chasms or fissures ; and wherever there was
any thing that could afford a partial protection from
the weather on one side, a low, rough, circular wall of
stone was built in front of it, and formed the abode of
a large family. Within the small enclosure in front,
the women were sitting winnowing or grinding grain,
or rather pounding and rubbing it between two stones,
in the same primitive manner practised of old, in the
days of the patriarchs. We descended and pitched our
tents in the middle of the valley ; and my first business
was to make some hot tea for Paul, roll him up in
blankets and coverlets, and thus repeat the sweating
operation that had done him so much good before. He
was badly hurt, and very m.uch frightened. The boxes
had fiiUen upon him, and the butt of a heavy gun, which
lie held in his left hand, had struck with all the mo-
mentum of its fall against his breast. He thought his
ribs were all broken ; and when I persuaded him that
they were as good as ever, he was sure there was
some inward bruise, that would be followed by mortifi-
cation ; and until we separated, especially when we had
any hard work before us, he continued to complain of
his hurts by this unlucky misadventure.

Having disposed of I'aul, I strode out to examine
more particularly the strange and interesting scene in
the midst of which we were. The habitations in the
crevices of the rocks, bad as they would be considered
any where else, I found much more comfortable than
most of the huts of the Egyptians on the banks of the
Nile, or the rude tents of the Bedouins. It was not
sheer poverty that drove these shepherds to take shelter
in the rocks, for they were a tribe more than 3U0 strong,
and had flocks and herds such as are seldom seen among
the Bedouins ; and they were far better clad, and had
the appearance of being better fed, than my worthy com-
panions. Indeed, they were a different race from
mine ; and here, on the borders of the desert, I was
again strjick with what had so forcibly impressed me
in crossing the borders of Ethiopia, the strong and
marked difference of races in the East. The Bedouins
among whom we were encamped were taller, stouter, and
had longer faces than the El Alouins ; and sometimes I

thought I

saw in them strong marks of the Jewish

physiognomy. Above all, they were whiter ; and this,
with the circumstance of the women being less particu-
lar in keeping their faces covered, enabled me to pass
an hour before dark with much satisfaction. The change
from the swarthy and bearded visages of my travelling
companions to the couiparatively fair and feminine
countenances of these pastoral women, was striking and
agreeable, and they looked more like home than any
thing I had seen for a long time, except the cows. I
cannot help thinking what a delight it would have been
to meet, in that distant land, one of those beanliful
fairies, lovely in all the bewitching attractions of frocks,
shoes, stockings, clean faces, &.C., of whom I now meet
dozens every day, with the calm indilference of a stoic,
since, even in spite of bare feet and dirty faces, "my
heart warmed towards the women of the desert. 1
could have taken them all to my arms ; but there wjia
one among them who might be accounted beautiful
even among the beautiful women of my own distant
home. She was tall, and fairer than the most of her
tribe ; and with the shepherd's crook in her hand, she
was driving her flock of goats up the valley to the little
enclosure before the door of her rocky dwelling. There
was no colour in her cheek, but there was gentleness
in her eye, and delicacy in every featui-e ; and, moving
amoug us, she would be cherished and cared for as a
tender plant, and served with all resjiect and love ; but
here she was a servant; her days were spent in guard-
ing her flock, and at night her tender limbs were
stretched upon the rude floor of her rocky dwelling. I
thought of her much, and she made a deep impression
upon me ; but I was prevented from attempting to
excite a correspondent feeling in her gentle bosom by
the crushed state of Paul's ribs, and my own inability
to speak her language.

In the evening the men and women, or, to speak more
pastorally, the shepherds and shepherdesses, came up
one after another, with their crooks in their hands and
their well-trained dogs, driving before them their seve-
ral flocks. Some entered the little enclosures before
their rude habitations ; but many, destitute even of
this miserable shelter, slept outside in the open valley,
with their flocks around them, and their dogs by their
side, presenting the same pastoral scenes which I had
so often looked upon amcnig the mountains of Greece;
but unhappily, here, as there, the shepherds and shep-
herdesses do not in the least resemble the Chioes and
Phillises of poetic dreams. In the evening we seated
ourselves round a large bowl of cracked corn and milk,
so thick as to be taken with the hands, unaided by a
spoon or ladle, followed by a smoking marmite of stewed
kid ; and after this exercise of hos|)itality to the stran-
gers, some withdrew to their rocky dwellings, others
laid themselves down around the fire, and I retired to
my tent. All niglit I heard from every part of the
valley the lowing of cattle, the bleating of lambs and
goats, and the loud barking of the watch -dog.

Early in the morning, while the stars were yet in
the sky, I was up and out of my tent. The lli)cks were
still quiet, and the shepherds and shepherdesses were
still sleeping with the bare earth for their bed, and the
canopy of heaven their only covering. One after the
other they awt>ke ; and as the day was breaking, they
were milking the cows and goats, and at broad day-
light they were again moving, with their crooks and
dogs, to the pasture-ground at the foot of the valley.

Wesetofl'at an early hour, Paul again on my horse,
and I on his dromedary ; the patriarchal figure vWio
had welcomed being the last to speed me on my way.
At every step we were now j)utting the desert behind
us, and advancing into a better country. We had spent
our last night in the wilderness, and were now ap-
proaching the Holy Land ; and no jjilgrim ever ap-
proached its borders with a more joyous and thankful
heart than muie.

At nine o'clock we came to another field of ruins,
where the relics of an Arab village were mingled with
those of a Roman city. The hands of the different
builders and residents were visible among them ; two

80

TRAVELS IN ARABIA TETRiEA.

square buildings of large Roman stone were still stand-
ing like towers, wliilf all the rest had fallen to pieces,
and the stones which once formed the foundations of
j)alaces were now worked up into fences around lioles in
the rocks, the burrowing-places of the niiserable Arabs.

And here, too, we s;iw tlie tokens of man's inhu-
manity to man ; the thunder of war had been levelled
against the wretched village, the habitations were in
ruins, and the inhabitants wlu)m the sword had sjiared
were driven out and scattered no one knew whither.
On the borders of the Holy Laud we saw that ILira-
liini I'acha, the great EKyi)tian soldier, whoso terrible
•war-cry had been heard on the jilains of Kgypt and
among the mountains of Greece, in the deserts of Syria
and under tlie walls of Constantinople, was ruling the
coni|uered country with the s;ime rod of iron which his
father swayed in Egypt. He had lately been to this
frontier village with the brand of war, and burning and
desolation had marked his path.

Soon after, we came to an inhabited village, the first
since we left Cairo. Like the ruined and deserted vil-
lage we had left, it was a mingled exhiljition of ancient
greatness and modern poverty ; and jirobably it was a
cuntinuation of the same ruined Roman city. A large
fortress, funning part of a battlement, in good preser-
vation, and fragments of a wall, formed the nucleus of
a village, around which the inhabitants had built them-
selves liuts. The rude artizans of the present day knew
nothing of the works which their predecessors had built ;
and the only care they had for them was to pull them
down, and with the fragments to build for themselves
rude hovels and enclosures ; and the sculptured stones
which once formed the ornaments of Roman palaces,
were now worked up into fences around holes in the
gi-iiund, the poor dwellings of the miserable Arabs.

The stranger from a more favoured land, in looking
at tlie tenants of these wretched habitations, cannot
]k'1|) thanking his God that his lot is not like theirs.
W'lun I rode through, the whole population had crawled
out of tlK'ir holes and hiding-places, and were basking
in the warmth of a summer's sun ; and I could not help
seeing the kindly hand of a benefactor in giving to them
what he has denied to us, a climate where, for the
greater part of the year, they may spend their whole
days in the open air, and even at night hardly need the
Bhelter of a roof. This is probably the last of the cities
which once stood on the great Roman road from Jeru-
salem to Akaba. While riding among the ruins, and
stojiping for a moment to talk with some of the Arabs,
I saw on tli(; left, in the side of a mountain, an open
door like those of the tombs in Egypt ; a simple orifice,
without any ornament or sculpture. A woman was
coming out with a child in her arms, a palpable indica-
tion that here, too, the abodes of the dead were used as
habitations by the living. In Paul's <lisabled state I
could ask no questions, and I did not stop to explore.

I cannot leave this interesting region without again
expressing my regret at being able to add so little to
the stock of useful know ledge. I can only testify to the
existence of the ruins of cities which have been known
only in the books of historians, and I can bear witnt ss
to the desolation that reigns in Edom. I can do more,
not with the spirit of .scoffing at jirojiheey, but of one
who, in the strong evidence of the fiilfilinent of predic-
tions uttered by the voice of inspiration, has seen and
felt the evidences of the sure foundation of the Chris-
tian faith ; and having regard to what I have already
said in reference to the intfriiretation of the prophecy,
'• None shall pa-ss through it for ever and ever," I can
say that I liavc passed tfiroiiflh the land of Idumca.
My route was not open to the olijection made to that of
Hiirckhardt, the traveller who came nearest to passing
through the land ; for he entered from Damascus, on
the cast aide of the Dead .Sea, and struck the borders of
P^dom at such a point that literally he cannot be said to
have passed through it. My route, therefore, is nf)t
open to the critical objections made to his ; and beyond
all peradventure I did pass directly through the land of
Idumea IcngthwUe^ and crossing its uortlieru and

southern border ; and unless the two Englishmen and
Italian before referred to passed on this -same route, I
am the only pei-son, except the wandering Arabs, who
ever did pass through the doomed and forbidden Edom,
behohlini; with his own eyes the fearful fultilnient of the
terrible denunciations of an offended God. And though
I did pass through and yet was not cut off, God forbid
that I should count the prophecy a lie. No ; even
though I had been a confirmed sceptic, I had seen
enough in wandering with the ISible in my hand in that
unpeopled desert to tear up the very foundations of
unbelief, and scatter its fragments to the winds. In my
judgment, the words of the prophet are abundantly
fulfilled in the destruction and desolation of the ancient
Edom, and the complete and eternal breaking up of a
great public highway ; and it is neither necessary nor
useful to extend the denunciation against a passing
traveller.*

CHAPTER XXV.

Approach to ITcbron. — A Sick Governor. — A Prescription r.t Ran-
dom.— Hospit:ility of tlic .lews.— rinule with the Jleilouins.— A
Storm. — A Calm after fho Storm. — Venality of the Arabs. —
Hebron.— A Coptic Christian. — Story of the Rabbi.— I'rofes-
Bional Employment.

I HAD followed the wandering path of the children of
Israel from the land of Egypt and the house of bondage,
to the borders of the promised land ; had tracked them
in their miraculous passage across the Red Sea to the
mountains of Sinai, through " the great and terrible
wilderness that leadeth to Kadesh Barnea ;" and among
the stony mountains through which I was now journey-
ing must have been the Kadesh, in the wilderness of
Paran, from which Moses sent the ten chosen men to
spy out the land of Canaan, who went " unto the brook
of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one
cluster of grapes, and bare it between two uponastaff;
and though they brought of the pomegranates and figs,
and said that surely the land flowed with milk and honey,
and these were the fruits thereof, yet brought up such
an evil report of the land that it ate up the inhabitants
thereof, and of the sons of Aiiak, the giants that dwelt
therein, that the heai-ts of the Israelites sank within
them ; they murmured against Moses ; and for their
murmurings they were sent back into the wilderness ;
and their carcasses, from twenty years old and upward,
were doomed to fall in the wilderness, and the children
of the murmurers to wander forty years before they
should enter the land of jiromise." — Numbers, xiii. 'I'A.
I followed in the track of the spies ; and though I saw-
not the Vale of ICshcol with its grapes and pomegra-
nates, neither did 1 sec the sons of Anak, the giants of
the land. Indeed, the men of Anak could not have made

♦ Keith's celebrated treatise on the Prophecies has passed through
fourteen editions, differing in some few particulars. In the sixth
edition he siys that Sir Frederick llenniker, in his notes dated
from Mount Sinai, states that Sectzen, on a vessel of paper pasted
ag.iinst the w:ill, notities his having penetrated the country in a
direct line between the Dead Sea and Jlount Sinai (through
Idumca), a route Hcivr lufoye accomjilishal. In a note to thesiimo
edition, the learned divine says-" Not even the cases of two
individu.ils, Seelzen and Hiirckhardt, can be stated as at all op-
posed to the litcr.'vl interpretation of the prophecies. Scetzen did
indeed pass through Idumea, and Hurckhardt traversed a consi-
derable part of it ; hut the former met his death not long after
the completion of his journey through Idumea (he died at Akaba,
supposed to have been poisoned) ; the latter never rtcoTcred from
the elTects of the hardships and privations which he suffered
there ; and without even commencing the exclusive design which
he had in view, namely, to explore the interior of Africa, to
which all his journeyings in Asia were merely intended as pre-
paratory, he died at Cairo. Neither of them lived to return to
Kuropc. • / trill cut off from Mount Seir him that ]KH$cth out nnd
him that rrtumcth."' In the edition which I saw on the Nile,
and which tirst turned my attention to the route through Idumca,
I have no recollection of having seen any reference to Sectzen.
It may have been there, however, without my particularly no-
ticing it ; as, when I read it, I hiid but little expectation of being
able myself to undertake tbo route.

A SICK GOVERNOR.

81

mc turn back from the land of promise. I was so heartily
tired of tb.e desert and my Bedouin conii)anions, tiiat I
would have thrown myself into the arms of the giants
themselves for relief. And though the mountains were
as yet stony and barren, they were so green and beauti-
ful by comparison with the desert I had left, that the
conviction even of much greater dangers than I had
j-et encountered could hardly have driven me back.
The Bedouins and the I'cllahs about Hebron arc
regarded as the worst, most turbulent, and desperate
Arabs under the government of the pacha ; but as I
met little parties of them coming out towards the fron-
tier, they looked, if such a character can be conceived
of Arabs, like quiet, respectable, orderly citizens, when
compared with my wild protectors ; and they greeted
us kindly and cordially as we passed them, and seemed
to welcome us once more to the abodes of men.

As we approached Hebron, the sheik became more
and more civil and obsequious ; and before we came in
sight of the city, he seemed to have some misgivings
about entering it, and asked me to secure protection
from the governor for that night for himself and men,
which I did not hesitate to promise. I was glad to be
approaching again a place under the established govern-
ment of the pacha, where, capricious and despotic as
was the exercise of power, I was sure of protection
against the exactions of my Bedouins ; and the reader
may judge of the different degrees of security existing
in these regions, from being told that I looked to the
protection of a Turk as a guarantee against the rapa-
city of an Arab. After clambering over a rocky moun-
tain, we came down into a valley, bounded on all sides,
and apparently shut in by stony mountains. We fol-
lowed the valley for more than an hour, finding the
land good and well cultivated, with abundance of grapes,
vines, and olives, as in the day when the spies sent by
Moses entered it ; and I can only wonder that, to a
hardy and warlike people like the Israelites, after a
long journey in the desert, the rich pi-oducts of Hebron
did not present more powerful considerations than the
enmity of the men of Anak. We turned a point of the
mountain to the left ; and at the extreme end of the
valley, on the side of a hill, bounding it, stands the little
city of Hcbix)n, the ancient capital of the kingdom of
David. But it bears no traces of the glory of its Jewish
king. Thunder and hghtning, and earthquakes, wars,
pestilence, and famine, have passed over it ; and a small
town of white houses, compactly built on the side of the
mountain, a mosque and two minarets, are all that mark
the ancient city of Hebron.

As soon as we came in sight of the city, the sheik dis-
mounted ; and arranging his saddle, made Paul take
back his dromedary and give me my horse ; and placing
me on his right hand, and drawing up the caravan with
the order and precision of a troop of " regulars," we
made a dashing entry. It was on Friday, the Mussul-
man's Sabbath ; and several hundred women, in long
white dresses, were sitting among the tombs of the
Turkish burying-ground, outside the walls. V/e passed
this burying-ground and a large square fountain con-
nected with the ancient city, being regarded at this day
as one of the works of Solomon ; and leavuig the bag-
gage camels at the gate, with our horses and drome-
daries on full gallop, we dashed through the narrow
streets up to the door of the citadel, and, in no very
modest tone, demanded an audience of the governor.
The Turks and Arabs are proverbial for the indiffe-
rence with which they look upon every thing ; and
though I knew that a stranger coming from the desert
was a rare object, and ought to excite some attention,
I was amused and somewhat surprised at the extraor-
dinary sensation our appearance created. Men stopped
in the midst of their business ; the lazy groups in the
cafes sprang up, and workmen threw down their tools
to run out and stare at us. I was surprised at this ;
but I afterwards learned that, since the pacha had dis-
armed all Syria, and his subjects in that part of his
dominions wore arms only by stealth, it was a strange
and startling occurrence to see a party of lawless Be-

douins coming in from the desert, armed to the teeth,
and riding boldly up to the gates of the citadel.

The janizary at the door told us that the governor
was sick and asleep, and could not be disturbed. Ho
was, however, a bluii<luring fellow ; and after a few
moments' parley, without giving his m;istcr any notice,
he had us all standing over the sleeping invalid. The
noise of our entering and the clang of our weapons
roused him ; and staring round for a moment, leaning
on his elbow, he fi.\ed his eyes on the sheik, and with
a voice the like of which can only issue from the bot-
tom of a Turk's throat, thundered out, " Who arc you !"
The sheik was for a moment confounded, and made no
answer. " Who are you ?" reiterated the governor, in
a voice even louder than before. " I am Ibrahim
Pacha's man," said the sheik. " I know that," answered
the governor ; " none but Ibrahim Pacha's men dare
come here ; but have you no name \" " Sheik El
Alouin," said the Arab, with the pride of a chief of
Bedouins, and looking for a moment as if he stood in
the desert at the head of his lawless tribe. " I con-
ducted the pacha's caravan to Akaba ;" and pointing
to me, " I have conducted safe through all the bad Arabs
Abdel Hasis, the friend of the pacha ;" and then the
governor, like a wild animal baulked in his spring,
turned his eyes from the sheik to me, as for the first
time sensible of my presence. I showed him my fir-
man, and told him that I did not mean to give him
much trouble ; that all I wanted was that he would
send me on immediately to Bethlehem.

I had no wish to stop at Hebron, though the first
city in the Holy Land, and hallowed by high and holy
associations. The glory of the house of David had for
ever departed. I was anxious to put an outpost be-
tween myself and the desert ; and I had an indefinable
longing to sleep my first night in the Holy Land in the
city where our Saviour was born. But the governor
positively refused to let me go that afternoon ; he said
that it was a bad road, and that a Jew had been robbed
a few days before on his way to Bethlehem ; and again
lying down, he silenced ail objections with the eternal
but hateful word, " Bokhara, bokhara" — " to-morrow,
to-morrow." Seeing there was no help for me, I made
the best of it, and asked him to furnish me with a place
to lodge in that night. He immediately gave orders to
the janizary ; and as I was rising to leave, asked mo
if I could not give him some medicine. I had some
expectation and some fear of this, and would have
avoided it if I could. I had often drugged and physicked
a common Arab, but had never been called upon to
prescribe for such pure poi-celain of the earth as a
governor. Nevertheless, I ventured my unskilful hand
upon him ; and having with all due gimvity asked his
sj-mptoms, and felt his pulse, and made him stick out
his tongue till he could hardly get it back again, I
looked down his throat, and into his eyes, and covering
him up, told him, with as much solemnity as if I was
licensed to kill secundum artem, that I would send him
.some medicine, with the necessary directions for taking
it. I was quite equal to the governor's case, for I saw
that he had merely half killed himself with eating, and
wanted clearing out, and I had with me emetics and
cathartics that I well knew were capable of clearing out
a whole regiment. In the course of the evening he
.sent his janizary to me ; and, expecting to be off before
daylight, I gave him a double emetic, with very precise
directions for its use ; and I afterwards learned that,
during its operation, his wrath had waxed wann against
me, but in the morning he was so much better thai he
was ready to do me any kindness.

This over, I followed the janizary, who conducted
me around outside the walls and through the burying-
ground, where the women were scattered in groups
among the tombs, to a distant and separate quarter of
the city. I had no idea where he was taking me ; but
I had not advanced a horse's length in the narrow
streets before their peculiar costume and physiogno-
mies told me that I was among the unhappy remnant
of a fallcu people, the persecuted and despised Israel*

I

82

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

ites. They were removed from tlie Turkish quarter,
as if tlicslij;iitcst contiii-t with this once- favoured peojile
Would coutaminate tlie bigoted follower of the prophet.
The governor, in the haughty spirit of a Turk, pro-
bably thought that the house of a Jew was a fit place
for the rej)ose of a Christian ; and following the janizary
through a low i-ange of narrow, dark, and filtliy lanes,
mountings, and turnings, of which it is inipt)ssiblc to
give any idea, with the whole Jewish population turning
out to review us, and the sheik and all his attendants
with their long swords clattering at my heels, 1 was
conducted to the house of the chief llabbi of Hebron.

If I iiad had my choice, these were the verypei-sons
1 would have selected for my first acquaintances iu the
Holy Land. The descendants of Israel were fit per-
sons to welcome a stranger to the ancient city of their
fatlu'i-s ; and if they hail been then sitting under the
shadow of the throne of David, they could not have
given me a warmer reception. It may be that, stand-
ing in the same relation to the Turks, alike the victims
of pei-secution and contempt, they forgot the great cause
which had torn us apart and made us a separate people,
and felt only a sympathy for the object of mutual
»>pj)ression. liut wliatever was the cause, I shall never
forget the kindness with which, as a stranger and
Christian, I was received by the Jews in the capital of
their ancient kingdom ; and I look to my recejjtion here,
and by the monks of Mount Sinai, as among the few
bright sjwts in my long and di-eary pilgrimage through
the desert.

I had seen enough of the desert, and of the wild
spirit of freedom which men talk of without knowing,
to make me cling more fondly than over even to the
lowest grade of civilisation ; and I could have sat down
that night, provided it was under a roof, with the
fiercest Mussulman, as in a fannly cii-ele. Judge, then,
of my sati^ifaction at being welcomed from the desert
by the friendly and hospitable Israelites. Returned
once more to the occupation of our busy, money-njaking
life, floating again upon the stream of business, and
carried away by the cares and anxieties which agitate
every portion of our stirring community, it is refresh-
ing to turn to the few brief moments wliei; far other
thoughts occu]>ied my mind ; and my speculating,
scheming friends and fellow-citizens would have smiled
to see me that night, with a Syrian dross and long
beard, sitting cross-legged on a divan, with the chief
rabbi of the Jews at Hebron, and half the synagogue
around us, talking of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as of
ohl and mutual friends.

With the fow moments of daylight that Tonained,
my Jewish friends conducted me around their miserable
quarter. They had few lions to show me, but they
took me to their synagogue, in which an old white-
bearded Israelite w;u> teaching soiue ])rattliiig children
to read the laws of Moses in the language of their
fatliers ; and when the sun was setting in the west, and
the .Muezzin from the top of the minaret was calling
the sons of the faithful to evening i)rayers, the old
rabbi and myself, a Jew and a (,'hristian, were sitting
on tlie roof of the little synagogue, looking out as by
Btealth upon the sacred mostjue containing the hallowed
a.slic3 of their patriarch fathers. The Turk guards the
door, and the Jew and the ChristLin arc not permitted
to enter ; and the old rabbi wjus pointing to the diffe-
rent parts of the mosque, where, as he told me, under
tombs adorned with cirpets of silk and gold, rested the
inort;il remains of Abraham, Isjiac, and Jacob.

IJut to return to my Jiedouin companions. The
Bheik and his whole suite h.ad been following close at
my heels, through the narrow lanes and streets, up to
the very dooi-« of the synagogue ; and their sw.irthy
figures, their clattering swords, and grim visjiges, pro-
vented my seping the face of many a Hebrew maiden.
1 expected a scene with them at parting, and 1 w;us not
disappointed. Ueturning to the rabbi's, they followed
me into the room, and, after a few preliminaries, I
counted out the price of the camels, and laid down a
buckslieesli fur each separately. Not one of them

touched it, but all looked at the money and at mc alter-
nately, without speaking a word (it wiis about ten times
as much as I would have had to pay for the same ser-
vices any where else) ; and the sheik seemed uncertain
what to do. The janizary, however, whose presence I
had almost forgotten, put himself forward as an actor
in the scene ; and half drawing his sword, and rattling
it back into its scabbard, swore that it was a vile ex-
tortion ;. that the governor ought to know it ; and that
the firman of the pacha ought to protect a stranger.
This brought the sheik to a decision ; and taking up
his own i)ortion, and directing the rest to do the same,
he expressed himself satisfied, and, without moving
from his place, betook himself to smoking. It was
evident, however, that he was not altogether content ;
and the janizary leaving us soon after, hardly had the
rattling of his steel scabbard died away along the nar-
row passage, when they all turned upon me, and gave
voice to their dissatisfaction. 1 told them that I had
paid them an enormous price, much more than the
sheik had spoken of at Cairo ; that 1 had brought with
me more money than he had given nie to understand
would be necessary, and that it was all gone ; that it
was impossible to give them any more, for I had it not
to give. In fact, I had paid them extravagantly, but
far below their extravagant expectations. One would
not have come for 200 dollars, another for 100, &c. ;
and from the noise and clamour which they made here,
I am well satisfied that, if the denouement had taken
l>lace in the desert, they would have searched for them-
selves whether there was not something left in tho
bottom of my trunk ; and from what happened after-
wards, 1 am very sure that they would have strijiped
me of my Turkish plumage ; but now I was perfectly
siife. I considered a Turkish governor good protection
against the rajiacity of a Bedouin Arab. I did not even
fear their future vengeance, for I knew that they did
not dare set their feet outside of any gate iu Hebron,
except that which opened to their own tents in the
desert ; they seemed to think that they had let me slip
through their fingers ; and when they pushed me to
desperation, I told them that I did not care whether
they were f^atisficd or not. As I rose, tho sheik fell ;
and when 1 began working myself into a passion at his
exorbitant demand, he fell to begging a dollar or two,
in such moving terms that 1 could not resist. I con-
timied yielding to his petty extortions, until, having
ascertained the cxi)ense, I found that I had not a
dollar more than enough to carry mc to Jerusalem ;
and at this moment he consummated his impudence by
begging my dress from off my back. The dress was of
no great value ; it had not cost much when new, and
was travel-worn and frayed with hard usage ; but it
had a value in my eyes from the mere eircunistance of
having been worn upon this journey. I had given him
nearly all my tent equipage, arms, amnmnition, &c.,
and I had borne with all his twopenny extortions ; but
he urged and insisted, and begged and entreated, with
so much pertinacit.y, that my patience was exhausted,
and 1 told him that 1 had Ixjrnc with him iong enough,
and that he and his whole tribe might go to tho d — 1.
This was not very courteous or dignified between
treaty-niakiiig powers ; but considering that the im-
mediate suliject of negotiation was an old silk dress,
and the parties were a single individual and a horde of
liedouins, it may perhaps be allowed to pji-ss. All the
nice web of diplomacy was now broken ; and all spring-
ing at the same moment to our feet, the whole group
stood fronting me, glaring upon mc like so many wild
bciists. Now the long-smothered passion broke out ; and
wild and clamorous as the Arabs always were, 1 had
never seen them so i)erfectly furious. They raved like so
many bedlamites ; and the sheik, with torrents of voci-
feration and reproach, drew from his bosjnn the money
he had acccjited as his portion, dashed it on the floor,
and, swearing that no Irank should ever pass through
his country again, poured out upon me a volley of
bitter eur-ses, and, grinding his teeth with rage and
disappointment, rushed ottt of the room. I did not

FINALE WITH THE BEDOUINS— A STORM.

83

then linow what he was saying ; but I could judge,
from tlie ahiiost diabolical expression of his face, that
he was not paj'ing nie very handsome compliments ;
and I felt a convulsive movement about the extreme end
of my foot, and had advanced a step to help him down
stairs, but his troop followed him close ; and 1 do not
know how it is, but when one looks long at the ugly
figure of a Bedouin, he is apt to forego a purpose of
vengeance. There is something particularly truculent
and pacifying in their aspect.

A moment after he had gone, I was exceedingly soiTy
for what had happened, particularly on account of his
ojith that no European should ever pass through his
country. 1 felt unhappy in the idea that, when I ex-
pected to be the pioneer m opening a new and interest-
ing route, I had become the means of more efieclually
closing it. \\'ith a heavy heart, I told Paul that I umst
iiave another interview ; that the old dress must go,
and any thing else 1 had ; and, in short, that 1 must have
j)eace upon any terms. To dispose of this business
without mixing it with other things: in about an hour
the sheik returned with his brother, and, walking up
to me and kbising my hand, told me that he had just
heard of a robbery on the road to Jerusalem, and came
to tell me of it ; and looking me in the face, added that,
when he had got back to his tent, he felt unhappy at
having left me in anger; that he had been so used to
sitting with me, that he could not remahi away, &c. &c.
I was not to be outdone ; and looking him back again
in the face, 1 introduced him to ray Jewish companions
as my dearest friend, the chief of the tribe of El Alouins,
who had pi'otected me with his life through the dangers
of the desert, and to whose bold arm they were in-
debted for the privilege they then enjoyed of seeing
my face. The sheik looked at me as if he thought me
in earnest, and himself entitled to all that I had said ;
and, satisfied so far, he sat down and smoked his pipe,
and at parting disclosed the object of his visit, by ask-
ing me for a letter of recommendation to the consul at
Cairo, and to the friends of whom I had before spoken
as intending to follow me to Petra. Glad to patch up
a peace, I told him to come to me early the next morn-
ing, and I would settle every thing to his satisfaction.
Before I was awake, he was shaking me by the shoulder.
1 jumped up, and roused Paul ; and now wishing to re-
deem my ungraciousness of the day before, I may say
litei-ally that " I parted my raiment among them," and
gave away pretty much every thing I had except my
European clothes, completing my present with a double-
barrelled gun, rather given to bursting, which I gave
the sheik's brother. The sheik had changed his tone
altogether, and now told me that he loved me as a
brother ; and, pointing to the brother at his side, that
he loved me as well as him ; and with great warmth
assured me, that if I would turn Mussulman, and come
and live with him in his tents in the wilderness, he
would give me for wives four of the most beautiful
girls of his tribe. He did not confine his offers to me,
but told me that he would receive, guard, and protect
any of my friends as if they were of liLs own blood ;
and warming with his own generosity, or perhaps really
feeling a certain degree of kindness, he asked me for
some symbol or sign which should be perpetual between
us. 1 had just sealed a letter for Mr Gliddon, and a
stick of sealing-wax and a lighted lamp were on the
low table before me. I made a huge plaster with the
sealing-wax on a sheet of coarse brown i>aper, and,
stamping it with the stock of my pistol, chased and
carved in the Turkish fashion, I gave him a seal with
such a device as would have puzzled the professors of
heraldry, telling him that, when any one came to him
with this seal, he might know he was a friend of mine ;
and I added, that I would never send any one without
plenty of money ; so that any one who visits the Sheik
El Alouin with my recommendation, must expect to
make up for my deficiencies. This over, we bade each
other farewell, the sheik and the whole of his swarthy
companions kissing me on both sides of ray face. I
looked after them as long as they continued in sight,

listened till I heard the last clattering of their armour,
and I never saw nor do I ever wish to see them again.
1 am sorry to entertain such a feeling towards any who
have been the companions of my wanderings, and I
hardly know another instance, from the English noble-
man down to a nniletcer or boatman, at parting with
whom 1 have not felt a cert;iin degree of regret. But
when I parted with the Bedouin chief, though he kissed
me on both cheeks, though lie gave me his signet and
has mine in return, and though four Arabian girls are
ready for nie whenever I choose to put my trust in
IMohammed and Sheik El Alouin, it was delightful to
think that I should never see his face again.

One by one 1 had seen the many illusions of ray
waking dreams fade away ; the gorgeous pictures of
oriental scenes melt into nothing ; but 1 had still clung
to the primitive simplicity and purity of the children of
the desert, their temperance and abstinence, their con-
tented poverty and contempt fur luxuries, as approach-
ing the true nobility of man's nature, and sus-taining
the poetry of tlie " land of the East." But my last
di-eam was broken ; and 1 never saw among the wan-
derers of the desert any traits of chai-acter or any habits
of life which did not make rae prize and value more the
privileges of civilisation. I had been more than a
month alone with the Bedouins ; and to say nothing of
their manners, excluding women from all companion-
ship ; dipping their fingers up to the knuckles in the
same dish ; eating sheeps' insides, and sleeping under
tents crawling with vermin engendered by their filthy
habits, their temperance and frugality are from neces-
sity, not from clioice ; for in their nature they are
gluttonous, and will eat at anytime till they are goiged
of whatever they can get, and then lie down and sleep
like brutes. 1 have sometimes amused myself with
trying the variety of their appetites, and I never knew
them refuse any thing that could be eaten. Their
stomach was literally their god, and the only chance of
doing any thing with them was by first making to it a
grateful offering ; instead of scorning luxuries, they
would eat sugar as boys do sugar-candy ; and I am very
sure, if they could liave got poundcake, they would never
have eaten their own coarse bread.

One might expect to find these cliildren of Nature
free from the reproach of civilised life, the love of gold.
But, fellow-citizens and fellow-worshii)|>ers tf Mannnon,
hold up your heads ; this reproach must not be con-
fined to you. It would have been a pleasing thing to
me to find among the Arabs of the desert a slight simi-
larity of taste and pursuits with the denizens of my
native city ; and in the early developements of a thirst
for acquisition, I would have hailed the embryo spirit
which might one day lead to stock and exchange boards,
and laying out city lots around the base of Mount .Sinai
or the excavated city of Petra. But the savage was
already far beyond the civilised man in his appetite for
gold ; and though brought up in a school of hungry and
thirsty disciples, and knowing many in my native city
who regard it as the one thing needful, I blush iuc
myself, for my city, and for them, when I say tlial I
never saw one among them who could be compared
with the Bedouin ; I never saw any thing like tlie expres-
sion of face with which a Bedouin looks upon silver or
gold, ^\'hen he asks for buckslieesh, and receives the
ghttering metal, his eyes sparkle with wild delight, his
fingers clutch it with eager rapacity, and he skulks
away like the raiser, to count it over alone, and hide it
from ail other eyes.

Hebron, one of the oldest cities of Canaan, is now a
small Arab town, containing seven or eight hundred
Arab families. The present inhabitants are the wildest,
most hiwless, and desperate people in the Holy Land ;
and it is a singular fact, tliat they sustain now the same
mutinous character with the rebels of ancient days, who
aiTTied with David against Saul, and with Absalom
against David. In the late desperate revolution against
Mohammed Ali, they were foremost in the strife, the
first to draw the sword, and the last to return it to its
scabbard. A petty Turk now wields the eceptre of the

84

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

son of Jesse, and a small remnant of a despised and
pi-rsecuted pco]>le still hover round the graves of their
fatherfi ; andtiiough dejjraded and trampled under foot,
from the very dust in whieh they lie are still looking to
the rettcn-ation of their temponil kingdom.

Aeeompanied by my Jewish friends, I visited the few
spots which tradition marks as connected with scenes
of Bible liistory. Passing through the bazaars at the
extreme end, and descending a few steps, we entered a
vault containing a large monument, intended in memory
of Abner, the greatest captain of his age, the favoured
and for a long time trusted ofHccr of David, who, as the
Jews told me, was killed in battle near Hebron, and his
body brought here and buried. The great mos<iue, the
walls of which, the Jews s;iy, arc built with the ruins of
the temple of Solomon, according to the belief of the
Mussulmans and the better authority of the Jews,
covers the site of the Cave of Maehpelah, which Abi-a-
liani bought from Ephron the llittite ; and within its
sacred precincts arc the supposed tombs of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. The doors were guarded with jea-
lous care by the bigoted Mussulmans ; and when, with
my Jewish companion, I stopped for a moment to look
up at the long marble staircase leading to the tomb of
Abraham, a Turk came out from the bazaars, and, with
furious gesticulations, gathered a crowd around us ; and
a Jew and a Christian were driven with contempt from
the sepulchre of the patriarch whom they both revered.
A special lirman from the pacha, or perhaps a large
bribe to the governor, might have procui'cd me a pri-
vate admission ; but death or the Koran would have
been the penalty required by the bigoted people of
Hebron.

On a rising ground a little beyond the mosque, is a
large fountain or reservoir, supported by marble pillars,
where my companions told me that Sarah had washed
the clothes of Abraham and Isaac. Leaving this, I
went once more to the two pools outside the walls, and
after examining them as the so-called works of Solomon,
I had seen all a stranger could see in Hebron.

I cannot leave this place, however, without a word
or two more. I had spent a long evening with my
Jewish friends. The old rabbi talked to nie of their
prospects and condition, and told me how he had left
his country in f^urope many years before, and come
with his wife and children to l.ay their bones in the
Holy Land. He was now eighty years old; and for
thirty years, he said, he had lived with the sword sus-
pended over his head — had been reviled, buffetted, and
spit upon ; and though sometimes enjoying a respite
from persecution, he never knew at what moment the
bloodhounds might not be let loose upon him ; that,
since the country had been wrested from the sultan by
the Pacha of Egypt, they liad been comparatively safe
and tranc|uil ; though some idea may be formed of this
comparative .security from the fact, that during the
revolution two years before, when Ibrahim Pacha, after
liaving been pent up several months in Jerusalem, burst
out like a roaring lion, the first place upon which his
wrath descended was the unhapjiy Hebron ; and while
their guilty brethren were sometimes sjiarcd, the un-
ha|)py Jews, never offending but always suffering, re-
ceived the full weight of .\rab vengeance. Their houses
were ransacked and plundered ; their gold and silver,
and all things valuable, carried away ; and their wives
and daughters violated before their eyes by a brutal
eoldiery.

During the evening a fine portly man, in the flowing
.Syrian dress, came to pay me a visit. His com])lexion
proclaimed him of Coptic origin, a descendant of the
ancient lords of Egypt ; his inkhorn in his sash told me
that he was a writer, and his cordial salutation that he
was a Christian. Living aniong Turks, Anibs, and
Jews, he greeted me as if it were a rJire thing to meet
a profes-sor of the same faith, and a believer in the saino
Go<l and .'^aviour. He regretted that he had been away
when I arrived, and said that he ought by right to have
had me at his house, as he was the only Christian in
Hebron; and he, even where proselytes were wauted,

would pcrliaps not have passed muster according to
the strict canons of a Catholic church. My Christian
friend, however, was more of a Jew than any of the
descendants of Israel around me ; for amid professions
of friendship and offers of service, he was not forgetting
his own interests. The European and American go-
vernments had been appointing consular agents in many
of the cities of SjTia, and this office, under the govern-
ment of the present pacha, exempted the holder from
certain taxes and impositions, to which the fellahs and
rayahs were sul)ject. America is known in the Holy
Land by her missionaries, by the great ship (the Dela-
ware) which a year befoi-e touched at the seaport towns,
and by the respect and character which she confers on
her consular agents. ]\Iy Coptic Christian knew her
on the last account, and told me, in confidence, that he
thought America had need of a consular agent in He-
bron, to protect her citizens travelling in that region,
I was the first American traveller who had ever been
there, and years may roll by before another follows
me ; but I fully concurred with him in the necessity of
such an officer: and when he suggested that there was
no better man than himself to hold it, I concurred with
him agiiin. Little did I think when, years before, I
was seeking to climb the slippery rungs of the political
ladder, that my political influence would ever be sought
for the office of consul in the ancient capital of David ;
but so it was ; and without questioning him too closely
about his faith in the principles and usages of the demo-
cratic party, the virtue of regular nominations, &c.,
taking his name written in Arabic, and giving him my
card that he might know the name of his political bene-
factor, I promised to speak to the consul at Beyroot in
his favour ; and he left me with as much confidence as
if he had his commission already in his pocket.

A more interesting business followed with the old
rabbi, probably induced by what had just passed
between the Christian and myself. He told me th.at
he had lately had occasion to regret exceedingly the
loss of a paper, which would now be of great use to
him ; that he was a Jew of Venice (I can vouch for
it that he was no Sliylock), and thirty years before
had left his native city and come to Hebron with a
regular passport ; that for many years a European
passport was no protection, and, indeed, it had been
rather an object with him to lay aside the Euro]>can
character, and identify himself with the Asiatics ; that,
in consequence, he had been careless of his p.a.sspoi-t,
and had lost it; but that now, since the conquest of
Mohammed .\li and the government of Ibnahim Pacha,
a European passport was respected, and saved its
holder and his f;unily from Turkish impositions. He
mourned bitterly over his loss, not, as ho said, for
himself, for his days wore almost ended, and the storms
of life could not break over his head more heavily
than they had already done ; but he mourned for his
children and gran<lchildren, whom his carelessness had
deprived of the evidence of his birthright and the pro-
tection of their country. I was interested in the old
man's story, and particularly in his unobtrusive manner
of telling it ; and drawing upon the reminiscences of
my legal knowledge, I told him that the loss of his
pas.sport had not deprived him of his right to the pro-
tection of his country, and that, if he could establish
the fact of his being a native of Venice, he might still
sit down under the wings of the double-headed eagle of
Austria. I afterwards went more into detail. Learning
that there were in Hebron some of liis very old ac-
quaintances who could testify to the fact of his nativity,
I told him to bring them to me, and I would take their
affidavits, anil, on my arrival at Beyroot, would repre-
sent the matter to the Austrian consul there ; and I
thought that with such evidence the consul would not
refuse him another passport. He thanked me very
warmly, and the next morning early, while I was wait-
ing, all ready for my departure, he brought in his
witnesses. It would liave been difficult for the old man
to produce deponents who could swear positively to his
nativity ; but of those whom he brought any one could

PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT— AN ARNAOUT.

05

look back farther than it is usually allowed to man.
They were all over sixty, and their long white beards
gave them a venerable appearance, which made me
attach more importance to the proceedings than I in-
tended. These hoary-headed men, I thought, could not
speak with lying lips ; and taking my place in the middle
of the floor, the witnesses seated themselves before
me, and I prepared, with business-like formality, to
examine them, and reduce their examination to writing.
Since I left home I had rarely thought of any thing
connected with my professional jiursuits, and I could not
but smile as I found myself seated in the middle of a
floor, surrounded by a crowd of Israelites in the old
city of Hebron, for the first time in more than eighteen
months resuming the path of my daily walks at home.
I placed the scribe before me, and with a little of the
keenness of the hunter returning to a track for some
time lost, I examined the witnesses severally, and dic-
tated in good set form the several I'equisite affidavits ;
and then reading them over distinctly, like a conmiis-
sioner authorised to take acknowledgments under the
act, &c., I swore the white-bearded old men upon the
table of their law, a Hebrew copy of the Old Testa-
ment. I then dictated an affidavit for the i"abbi himself,
and was about administering the oath as before, when
the old man rose, and taking the paper in his hand,
and telling me to follow him, led the way through a
range of narrow lanes and streets, and a crowd" of peo-
ple, to the little synagogue, where, opening the holy of
holies, and laying his hand upon the sacred scroll, he read
over the affidavit and solemnly swore to its truth. It did
not need this additional act of solemnity to convince
me of his truth ; and when he gave me back the paper,
and I saw the earnestness and deep interest depicted
in the faces of the crowd that had followed us, I again
resolved that I would use my best exertions to gladden
once more the old man's heart before he died. I added
to the several affidavits a brief statement of the cir-
cumstances under which they had been taken, and
putting the paper in my pocket, returned to the house
of the rabbi ; and I may as well mention here, that at
Beyroot I called upon the Austrian consul, and before
I left had the satisfaction of receiving from him the
assurance that the passport should be made out forth-
with, and delivered to the agent whom the old rabbi
had named to me.

I had n thing now to detain me in Hebron ; my
mules and a kervash provided by the governor were
waiting for me, and I bade farewell to my Jewish
friends. I could not offer to pay the old rabbi with
money for his hospitality, and would have satisfied
my conscience by a compliment to the servants ; but
the son of the good old man, himself more than sixty,
told Paul that they would all feel hurt if I urged it. I
did not urge it ; and the thought passed rapidly through
my mind, that while yesterday the children of the
desert would have stripped me of my last farthing, to-
day a Jew would not take from me a para. I passed
through the dark and narrow lanes of the Jewish
quarter, the inhabitants being all arranged before
their houses ; and all along, even from the lips of
maidens, a farewell salutation fell upon my ears. They
did not know what I had done, or what I proposed
to do ; but they knew that I intended a kindness to a
father of their tribe, and they thanked me as if that
kindness were already done. With the last of their
kind greetings still imgering on my ears, 1 emerged
from the Jewish quarter ; and it was with a warm feel-
ing of thankfulness I felt, that if yesterday I had had
an Arab's curse, to-day I had a Jewish blessing.

CHAPTER XXVI.

An Amaout.— The Poolsof Solomon.— Bethlehem.— The Empress
Helena.— A Clerical Exquisite.- Miraculous Localities.— A
Boon Companion.— The Soldier's Sleep.— The Birthplace of
Christ.— Worship in the Grotto.— Moslem Fidelity.

I HAD given away all my superfluous baggage, and com-
menced my journey in the Holy Land with three mules,

one for myself, another for Paul, and the third for my
baggage. The muleteer, who was an uncommonly
thriving-looking, well-dressed man, rode ujjon a donkey,
and had an assistant, who accompanied on foot ; but by
far the most important person of our party was our
kervash. He was a wild Arnaout, of a race that had
for centuries furnished the bravest, fiercest, and most
terrible soldiers in the army of the sultan ; and he
himself was one of the wildest of that wild tribe. He
was now about forty, and had been a warrior from his
youth upward, and battles and bloodslu'<l were familiar
to him as his food ; he had fought under Ibrahim Pacha
in his bloody camjiaign in Greece, and his rebellious
war against the sultan ; and having been wouudeil in
the great battle in which the Egyptian soldiers defeated
the grand vizier with the flower of the sultan's army,
he had been removed from the regular service, and
placed in an honourable position near the governor of
Hebron. He was above the nuddle height, armed like
the bristling porcupine, with pistols, a Dama.scus sabre,
and a Turkish gun slung over his back, all which ho
carried as lightly and easily as a sportsman does his
fowling-piece. His face was red, a burnt or baked red ;
his mustaches seemed to curl spontaneously, as if in
contempt of dangers ; and he rode his high-mettled
horse as if he were himself a part of the noble animal.
Altogether, he was the boldest, most dashing, and
martial-looking figure I ever saw : and had a frankness
and openness in his countenance which, after the dark
and sinister looks of my Bedouins, made me take to
him the moment I saw him. I do not think I made as
favourable an impression upon him at first ; for almost
the first words he spoke to Paul after starting were to
express his astonishment at my not drinking wine. The
janizary must have told him this as he .sat by me at
supper, though I did not think he was watching me so
closely. I soon succeeded, however, in establishing
myself on a good footing with my kervash, and learned
that his reading of the Koran did not forbid the wine-
cup to the followers of the prophet. He admitted that
the sultan, as being of the blood of the prophet, and
the vicegerent of God upon earth, ought not to taste it;
but as to the Pacha of Egypt, he drank good wine
whenever he could get it, and this gave his subjects a
right to drink as often as they pleased.

We were interrupted by an Arab, who told us that a
party of soldiers had just caught two robbers. The
kervash pricked up his ears at this, and telling us that
he would meet us at a place some distance farther on,
he drove his heavy stirrups into his horse's sides, and,
dashing up the hill at full gallop, was out of sight in an
instant. I did not think it exactly the thing to leave us
the first moment we heard of robbers ; but I saw that
his fiery impatience to be present at a scene could not
be controlled ; and I felt well assured, that if danger
should arrive, we would soon find him at our side. Soon
after we found him waiting with the party he had sought;
the two robbers chained together, and, probably, long
before this, they have expiated their crime with their
lives. He told us that from Hebron to Jerusalem was
the most unsafe I'oad in the Holy Land ; and that
Ibrahim Pacha, who hated the Arabs in tliat vicinity,
was determined to clear it of rebels and robbers, if he
cut off every man in the country.

About half an hour from Hebmn we came to a valley,
supposed to be the Vale of Eshcol, where the spies sent
out by Moses found the grapes so heavy, that to carry
one bunch it was necessary to suspend it on a pole. On
the right we passed a ruined wall, by some called the
Cave of Machpelah, or sepulchre of the patriarchs, but
which the Jews at Hebron had called the House of
Abraham.

We were on our way to Bethlehem. I had hired my
mules for Jerusalem, expecting merely to stop at Beth-
lehem and push on to Jerusalem that night. The road
betwee#these oldest of cities was simply a mule-path
over rocky mountains, descending occasionally into rich
valleys. We had already, on this our first journey in
the Holy Land, found that the character given of it in

■

8C

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

the Bible is true at this day ; and that the Land of
Promise is not like tlie land of Egypt, watered by the
dews of liea\en, but by copious and abundant rains.
Indeed, the rain was faliini,' in torrents ; our clothes
were already drijiping wet, but we did not mind it, for
we were too full of thankfulness that continued sunsliine
and clear and unclouded skies had been our portion,
wlicn we most needed them, in the desert.

The heavy Cill of rain made the track slippery and
precarious ; and it was four hours before we readied
the celebrated reservoirs, known to modern travellers
under the name of the Pools of Solomon. These large,
strong, noble structures, in a land where every work of
art lias been hurried to destruction, remain now almost
as perfect as when they were built. There arc three
of them, about -ifiO, 600, and CGO feet in length, and
2!10 in breadth, and of ditt'erent altitudes, the water
from the first running into tiie second, and from the
second into the third. At about a hundred yards'
distance is the spring which supplies the reservoirs,
as the monks say, the sealed fountain referred to
in Canticles, iv. 1"2. The water from those reservoirs
is conveyed to Jerusalem by a small aqueduct, a round
earthen pipe about ten inches in diameter, which follows
all the sinuosities of the ground, being sometimes above
the surface, and sometimes undei'. It is easily broken ;
and while I was in Jerusalem, an accident happened
whieh entirely cut off the water from the pools.

There is every reason to believe that these pools have
existed from the date assigned to them ; and that this
was the site of oneof King Solomon's houses of pleasure,
where he made himself " gardens, and orchards, and
pools of water." The rain here ceased for a few mo-
ments, and enabled me to view them at my leisure ; and
as I walked along tho bank, or stood on the mai'gin, or
descended the steps to the water's edge, it seemed
almost the wild suggestion of a dream, to imagine that
the wisest of men had looked into the same pool, had
strolled along the same bank, and stood on the very
Bame steps. It was like annihilating all the intervals
of time and space. Solomon and all his glory are de-
parted, and little could even his wisdom have foreseen,
that long after he should be laid in the dust, and his
kingdom had passed into the hands of strangers, a
traveller from a land he never dreamed of would be
looking upon his works, and murmuring to liimself the
■words of the preacher, " Vanity of vanities, all is
vanity."^

A little to the right of the pools, towards the region
of the Dead Sea, is a very large grotto, supported by
great pillars of the natural rock, perfectly dry, without
petrifaction or stalactites; it isa pei-fcct labyrinth within,
and, as in many of the ancient catacombs, a man might
easily lose himself for ever in its windings. It lies in
the mountainous wilderness of Engaddi, and is supposed
to he the Cave of Adullam, where David received the
Tniitinous and discontented spiritsof his days, and where,
when Saul wa.s in jiursuit of him, he cut off the skirts
of Ilia garment, and suffered him to go away unharmed.

In an hour more we came in sight of IJethlchem,
seated on an elevation, a confused and irregular pile of
white buildings. The star of the east no longer hovers
over it to mark tlie spot where the Saviour was born ;
and the mosque and the minaret proclaim the birthplace
of Christ under the dominion of a people who reject
and despise him.

Heaps of ruins and houses blaekcned with smoke
show that tl»e hand f>f war has been there. Ibrahim
Pacha, on liis sortie from Jerusalem, and on his way
to Hebron, had ling^ered on his path of destruction long
rnough to lay in ruins half the little city of LJethlehem.
It is a singular fact, and exhibits a liberality elsewheiHj
unknown in tlie history of th(^ Tiu'ks or the Mussulman
religion, that the height of his indignation fell upon the
Araljs. He spared the Christians for areason that never
before operated with a Turk — because they had not of-
fended. He did, too, another liberal thing ; saying that
Christians and Mussulmans could not live together in
unity, he drove out from Bethlehem the Arabs whom

tlie sword had spared, and left the place consecrated by
the birth of Christ in the exclusive possession of his
followers. True, he stained this act of clemency or
policy by arbitrarily taking away tliirty Christian boys,
whom he sent to work at the factories in Cairo ; and
the simple-hearted parents, hearing that I had come
from that city, asked nie if I had swn their children.

It is a happy thing for the traveller in the Holy Land,
that in almost all the principal places there is a Chris-
tian convent, whose doors are always open to him ; and
one of the largest and finest of these is in Bethlehem.
Hiding through the wludc extent of the little town,
greeted by Christians, who, however, with their white
turbans and fierce mustaches and beards, had in my
eyes a most unchristian appearance, and stopping for a
moment on the high plain in front, overlooking the val-
ley, and tho sides of the hill all cultivated in terraces,
we dismounted at the door of the convent.

Beginning my tour in the Holy Land at the birth-
place of our Saviour, and about to follow him in his
wanderings through Jude.a, Samaria, and Galilee, over
the ground consecrated by his preaching, his sufferings,
and miracles, to his crucifixion on Calvary, I mustpi-e-
pai-e my readers for a disappointment which I experi-
enced myself. The immediate followers of our Saviour,
who personally knew the localities which are now
guarded and reverenced as holy places, engrossed by
the more important business of their Master's mission,
never marked these places for the knowledge of their
descendants. Neglected for several centuries, many of
them were probably entirely unknown, when a new
spirit arose in the East, and the minds of the Christians
were inflamed with a passion for collecting holy relics,
and for making pilgrimages to the places consecrated
by the acts and sufferings of our Redeemer and his dis-
ciples ; and the Empress Helena, the mother of Con-
stantino, the first Christian empress, came as a crusader
into the Holy Land, to search for and determine the
then unknown localities. And the traveller is often
astonished that with so little to guide her, she was so
successful ; for she not only found all the holy places
mentioned in the Bible, but many more ; and the piety
of Christians will never forget that it was through her
indefatigable exertions the true cross was drawn from
the bottom of a dark pit, and is now scattered in pieces
all over the world, to gladden the hearts of believers.
It may be that tho earnest piety of the empress some-
times deceived her ; but then she always covered a
doubtful place with a handsomer monument, upon nmch
the same principle that a jockey praises a bad horse
and says nothing of a good one, loecause the bad one
wants praising and the good one can speak for liimself.
Besides, the worthy empress seemed to think that a
little marble could not hurt a holy place, and a good
deal might help to make holy what was not so without
it ; and so think most of the Christian pilgrims, for I
have observed that they always kiss with more devotion
the polished marble than the rude stone.

But the Christian who goes animated by the fresh, T
may almost say virgin feeling, awakened by the perusal
of his Bible, expecting to see in Bethlehem the stable in
which our Saviour was born, and the manger in which
he was cradled, or in Jerusalem the tomb hewu out of
the rock wherein his crucified body was buried, will feel
another added to the many grievous disappointments of
a traveller, when he finds these liallowcd objects, or at
least what are pointed out as those, covered and enclosed
with party-coloured marble, and bedecked with gaudy
and inappropriate ornaments, as if intentionally and
impiously to destroy all resemblance to the descriptions
given in the sacred book.

I had intended going on to Jerusalem that afternoon ;
but file rain had retarded me so much, that ns Hor)n as
I saw the interior of the convent, I determined to
remain all night. My muleteer insisted upon jiroceed-
ing, as I had arranged with him when I engaged him ;
but my kcrvash silenced liim by a rap over the back
with the Hat of his sword, and he went off on his donkey
alone, leaving behind him hia compauion and his mules.

MIRACULOUS LOCALITIES— A BOON COMPANION.

87

Entering by the small door of the convent, I heard in
the distance the loud pealing of an organ and the
solemn chant of the monks ; the sound transported me
at once to scenes that were familiar and almost home-
like, the churches and cathedrals in Italy ; and the
appeai"ance of one of the brothers, in the long brown
liabit of the Capuchins, with liis shaved head and sjin-
diils on his feet, made mo feel for the moment as if 1
■were in Europe. The monks were then at prayers ;
and following him through the great churcli, down a
mai'ble staircase, and along a subterranean corridor, in
five minutes after mv ai-rival in Bethlehem I was
standing on the spot where the Saviour of mankind was
born.

The superior was a young man, not more than thirty,
with a face and figure of uncommon beauty ; tliough not
unhealthy, his face was thin and pale, and his high,
projecting forehead indicated more than talent. Genius
flashed from his eyes, though, so far as I could judge
from his conversation, he did not sustain the character
his features and expression promised. He was not
insensible to the advantages of his personal appearance.
The rope around his waist, with the cross dangling at
the end, was laid as neatly as a soldier's sword-belt ;
the top of his head was shaved, his beard combed, and
the folds of his long coarse dress, his cowl, and the
sandals on his feet, all were arranged with a precision
that, under otlier circumstances, would have made him
a Brummel. There was something, too, in the display
of a small hand and long taper fingers that savoured
more of the exquisite than of the recluse ; but I ought
not to liave noted him too critically, for lie was young,
handsome, and gentlemanly, and fit for better things
than the dronish life of a convent. I am inclined to
believe, too, that he sometimes thought of other things
than his breviary and his missal ; at all events, he was
not particularly familiar with Bible history ; for in
answer to his question as to the route by which I had
come, I told him that I had passed through the land of
Idumea ; and when I expected to see him open his eyes
with wonder, I found that he did not know where the
land of Idumea was. I remember that he got down a
huge volume in Latin, written by saint somebody, and
we pored over it together until our attention was drawn
oft' by something else, and we forgot what we were look-
ing for.

The walls of the convent contain all that is most
interesting in Bethlehem ; but outside the w alls also are
places consecrated in Bible history, and which the
pilgrim to Bethlehem, in spite of doubts and confusion,
will look upon with exceeding interest. Standing on
the high table of ground in front of the convent, one of
the monks pointed out the fountain where, when David
was thirsting, his young men procured him water ; and
in the rear of the convent is a beautiful valley, having
ill the midst of it a ruined village, marking the place
■where the shepherds were watching their flocks at
night when the angel came down and announced to
them the birth of the Saviour. The scene was as pas-
toral as it had been 1800 years before ; the sun was
going down, the shepherds were gathering tlieir flocks
together, and one could almost imagine that, with the
approach of evening, they were preparing to receive
another visitor from on high. In the distance beyond
the valley is a long range of mountains enclosing the
Dejid Sea, and among them was the wilderness of En-
gaddi ; and the monk pointed out a small opening as
leading to the shores of the sea, at the precise spot
where Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt.

Mixed with these references to Bible history were
idle legends of later days, connected with places to
which the monk conducted me with as much solemnity
as he had displayed when indicating the holy places of
Scripture. In a grotto cut out of the rock is a chapel
dedicated to the Virgin ; and he told me that the mother
of Christ had here concealed herself from Herod, and
nursed the infant Jesus forty days, before she escaped
into Egypt. Near this is another grotto, in which the
Virgin, going to visit a neighbour with the child in her

arras, took refuge from a shower, and her milk over-
flowed ; and now, said the monk, there is a fuilh among
all people, Turks, Greeks, and Armenians, that if a
woman to whom Nature has denied the power of nurs-
ing her child, comes to tliis grotto and prays before the
altar, the fountain of life will be opened to her. Nor
was the virtue of the place confined to those who should
resort to it in person ; for the monks iiad prayed for
and had obtained a delegation of the Virgin's power,
and a small portion of powder from the porous rock,
swallowed in a little water, would be equally efficacious
to women having faith. A huge chamber had been cut
away in the back of the grotto by pilgrims, who liad
taken with them to their distant homes some of this
beautiful provision for a want of nature, and Paul and
myself each took a pilgrim's share.

It was dark when I returned to the convent, followed
by my wild Arnaout, whom, by the way, I have ne-
glected for some time. I had told him on my arrival
that I should not need his escort any farther ; but he
swore that he had his orders, and would not leave me
until he saw me safe within the walls of Jerusalem ;
and so far he had been as good as his word ; for, wher-
ever I went, he was close at my heels, following with
invincible gravity, but never intruding, and the conti-
nual rattling of his steel scabbard being the only inti-
mation I had of his presence. He was now following
me through the stone court of the convent, into the
room fitted up for the reception of pilgrims and travel-
lers. I liked him, and 1 liked to hear the claulcing of
his sword at my heels ; I would have staked my life
upon his faith ; and such confidence did he inspire by
his bold, frank bearing, his manly, muscular figure,
and his excellent weapons, that with a dozen such I
would not have feared a whole tribe of Bedouins. In
another country and a former age he would have been
the beau ideal of a dashing cavalier, and an unflinching
companion at the winecup or in the battle-field. I bore
in mind our conversation in the morning about wine,,
and was determined that my liberal expounder of the
Koran should not suffer from my abstinence. The
superior, apologising for the want of animal food, had
told me to call for any thing in the convent, and I used
the privilege for the benefit of my thirsty Mussulman.
The first thing I called for was wine ; and while supper
was preparing, we were tasting its quality. He w-as no
stickler for trifles, and accepted, without any difficulty,
my apology for not being able to pledge him in full
bumpers ; and although most of this time Paul was
away, and we could not exchange a word, the more he
drank the better I liked him. It was so long since I
had had with me a companion I liked, that I " cottoned"
to him more and more, and resolved to make the most
of him. I had a plate for him at table by the side of
me ; and when Paul, who did not altogether enter into
my feelings, asked him if he would not rather eat alone,
on the floor, he half drew his sword, and driving it back
into its scabbard, swore that he would eat with me .if
it was on the top of a minaret. We sat down to table,
and I did the honours with an unsparing hand. He
attempted for a moment the use of the knife and fork,
but threw them down in disgust, and trusted to the
means with which nature had provided him. The wine
he knew how to manage, and for the rest he trusted to
me ; and I gave him bread, olives, fish, milk, honey,
sugar, figs, grapes, dates, &c. &c., about as last as I
could hand them over, one after the other, all together,
pellmell, and with such an utter contempt of all rules
of science as would have made a Frenchman go mad.
Paul by this time entered into the spirit of the thing;
and when my bold guest held up for a moment, he
stood by with a raw egg, the shell broken, and turning
back his head, poured it down his throat. I followed
with a plate of brown sugar, into which he thrust his
hand to the knuckles, sent down a huge mouthful to
sweeten the egg, and, nearly kicking over the table
with an ejaculation about equivalent to our emphatic
" enough," threw himself upon the divan. I wound
him up with coffee and pipes ; and w hen the superior

88

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

came to me in the evening, to the scandal of the holy
brotherhood, my wild companion was lying asleep, as
drunk as a lord, ujjon the divan.

Several of the monks came in to sec me, and all
loved to talk of the world they had left. They were
all Italians; and in the dreariness and desolation of
Judea, in spite of monastic vows, their hearts tui-ned
to the sunny skies of their beautiful native land. They
left me at an early hour ; and I trust the reader will
forgive me, if, in tlie holy city of Bethlehem, I forgot
for a moment the high and holy associations connected
with the place, in the sense of enjoyment awakened by
the extraordinary luxury of a pair of slieets, a lu.xury
I had not known since my last night in Cairo.

Tempted as I was to yield myself at once to the en-
joyment, I paused a while to look at the sleeping figure
of my kervash. He lay extended at full length on his
back, with his arms folded across his breast, his right
hand clutching the hilt of his sword, and his left tiie
handle of a pistol ; his broad chest rose and fell with
his long and heavy respirations ; and he slept like a
man who expected to be roused by a cry to battle. His
youth and manhood had been spent in scenes of violence ;
his hands were red with blood ; murder and rapine had
been familiar to him ; and when his blood was up in
battle, the shrieks and groans of the dying were music
in his ears ; yet he slept, and his sleep was calm and
sound as that of childhood. I stood over liim with the
candle in my hand, and flashed the light across his face ;
his rugged features contracted, and his sword rattled in
his convulsive grasp. I blew out the light, and jumped
into bed. Once during the night I was awakened by
his noise ; by the dim light of a small lamp that hung
from the ceiling, I saw him stumble to the table, seize
a huge jar of water, and apply it to his lips ; I saw him
throw back his head, and heard his long, regular, and
continued swallows ; and when he had finished the jar,
he drew a long breath, went to the window, came to my
•bedside, looked at me for a moment, probably thinking
what a deal of useless trouble I took in pulling ofi' my
clothes ; and, throwing himself upon the divan, in a few
moments he was again asleep.

In the morning, immediately after breakfast, one
of the monks came to conduct me through the convent.
The building covered a great extent of ground ; and for
strength and solidity, as well as size, resembled a for-
tress. It was built by the Empress Helena, over the
spot consecrated as the birthplace of our Saviour, and
■was intended, so far as human handiwork could do so,
to honour and reverence the holy spot. The insufficient
means of the pious empress, however, or some other
cause, prevented its being finished according to the
plan she had designed ; and the charity of subsequent
Christians has barely sufficed to keep it from falling to
ruin. The great church would have been a magnifi-
cent building if finished according to her plan ; but now,
in its incomplete state, it is a melanchcply monument of
defeated ambition. On each side is a range of noble
columns, supporting a frieze of wood, which the monk
told me was cedar from Lebanon, and still remaining
almost as sound as the solid stone. The whole building
is divided among the Catholics, Greeks, and Armenians,
the three great bodies who represent, or rather misre-
present, Christianity in the East. Each has its limits,
beyond which the others must not pass ; and again there
are certain parts which arc common to all. The Turkish
government exercises a control over it ; and taking ad-
vantage of the dissensions between these diff-rent pro-
fessors, sells the privileges to the liighest bidder. In
the great church the Greeks, happening to have been
the richest, are the largest proprietors, to the great
scandal of the Catholics, wiio hate the Greeks with a
most orthodox virulence.

The Grotto of the Nativity is under the floor of the
church ; the Greeks liaving an entrance dir<-ctly by its
side, and the Catholics by a longer and more distant
passage. I descended by the latter. My .\maout was
close at my heels, grave and sober as if he had never
koowQ the taste of wine, and following with a respect that

might have satisfied the most bigoted Christian. Indeed,
it was a thing to be noted, with what respect and reve-
rence this wild and lawless Mussulman regarded the
holy places, consecrated by a religion he believed false,
and the worship of a people he despised. Nevertheless,
Paul was scandalised at the eyes of an unbeliever being
permitted to see the holy places, and stopped at the
top of the staircase, to urge upon me the propriety of
making him stay behind. The kervash seemed to under-
stand what he was saying, and to intimate by his looks
that it would not be an easy matter to turn him back.
I did not think, however, that th.e feet of a Mussulman
would bo in themselves a profanation, and the monk
making no objection, I silenced Paul's.

Passing through the chapel of the Catholic convent,
where the monks were teaching the children of the
Arab Christians the principles of the Catholic faith, I
was conducted to the room of the superior, where,
among other relics which I now forget, he showed me
the withered hand of an infant, preserved among the
treasures of the convent as having belonged to one of
the innocents ma.ssaered by the order of Ilerod. Near
the door of the chapel we descended a flight of stone
steps, and then a second, until we came to an excava-
tion in the solid rock ; and following a passage to the
right, came to a little chapel, with an altar, dedicated to
Joseph the husband of Mary. At the end of this passage
was a large chamber, called the school of St Jerome,
where that great Catholic saint wrote his version of the
Bible, the celebrated Vulgate. Passing out through the
door of this chamber, on the right is the tomb of the
saint ; and directly opposite are the tombs of Santa
Paula, and another whose name I have forgotten — very
good ladies, no doubt ; but who they were, or why they
were buried in that holy place, I did not understand ;
although they must have died in the odour of sanctity,
as their bodies have since been removed to the papal
city. Returning into the first passage, and advancing
a few steps, on the left is an altar over the pit into which
the bodies of the murdered innocents were thrown.
Under the altar is a recess with an iron grating, opening
into the pit, or rather vault below. By the light of a
torch I gazed long and earnestly within, but could see no-
thing that gave confirmation to the story. Over the altar
was a rude painting, representing the massacred infants
held up by their heels, with their throats cut, and their
bowels gushing out ; the anguish of the mothers, and
all the necessary and fearful accompaniments of such a
scene. A few paces farther is an altar, over the spot
where Joseph sat during the birth of the divine infant,
meditating upon the great event ; and farther on, to the
left, is the entrance to the Grotto of the Nativity.

It was the hour assigned for the use of the Armenians,
and the monks were all there chanting the praises of
the Redeemer. The chamber of the grotto is thirty-
seven feet long and eleven wide, with a marble floor
and walls, the latter adorned with tapestry and paintings.
Directly in front of the door by which we entered, at
the other end of the Grotto, is a semicircular recess,
lined and floored with small blocks of marble; and in
the centre a single star, with the inscription, " Hie natus
est Jesus Cliristus de Virga" — here Christ was born of
the Virgin. The star in the east which went before the
wise men, says the tradition, rested over this spot ; and
fourteen lamps, the gifts of Christian ])rinces, burning
night and day, constantly illumine the birth-place of
salvation to a ruined world. On the right, descending
two steps, is a chamber paved and lined with marble,
having at one end a block polished and hollowed out ;
and this is the manger in which our Saviour was laid.
Over the altar is a picture representing a stable with
horses and cattle, and behind a little iron wickerwork
are five lamps constantly burning. Directly opposite is
the altar of the magi, where the three kings sat when
they came to offer j)resents to the Son of God. Over
it is a picture representing them in the act of making
their offerings ; and one of the kings is represented as
an Ethiopian.

All this has but little conformity with the rude Bceno

THE TOMB OF RACHEL— JERUSALEM.

80

of the stable and the man2;er as described in the Bible ;
and in all probability, most of the holy places pointed out
in Bethlehem, and adorned and transformed by the false
but well-meanino; piety of Christians, have no better claim
to authenticity tiian the credulity of a weak and pious
old woman. But amid all the doubts that present them-
selves when we stop to ponder and reflect, it is sufficient
for our enjoyment of these scenes to know that we are
in " Bethlehem of Judea," consecrated by the greatest
event in the history of the world, the birtli of the Son
of God. We know that, within the atmosphere we
breathe, Christ first appearetl on earth ; that one of
the stars of heaven left its place among the constellations,
and hovered over the spot on which we stand ; that
the kintp of the earth came here to offer gifts to the
lioly child ; and beholding multitudes of pilgrims from
far-distant lands constantly prostrating themselves be-
fore the altar, in the earnestness and sincerity of im-
doubtmg faith, we give ourselves up to the illusion, if
illusion it be, and are ready to believe that we are indeed
standing where Christ was born.

My Ai'naout behaved remarkably well, though once
he broke the stillness of the grotto by an involuntary
exclamation ; his loud harsh voice, and the rattling of
his armour, startled for a moment the monks and pray-
ing pilgrims. On coming out, 1 told him that the Chris-
tians were much more liberal than the Mussulmans ;

as he picked up some little stones as much like beang
as any thing else ; " and see too," said he, " how barren
the country is 1"' In about an hour we came to the
Greek monastery of St Elias ; a large stone building,
standing on an eminence, and commanding a fine view
of Bethlehem. St«)i)i)ing to water my horse at a foun-
tain in front of the monastery, 1 turned to take a last
look at Bethlehem ; and my lioi-sc moving a few paces,
when I turned again I saw in full view the holy city of
Jerusalem. I did not expect it, and was startled by its
proximity. It looked so small, and yet lay spread out
before me so distinctly, that it seemed as if 1 ought to
perceive the inhabitants moving through the streets,
and hear their voices hunmiing in my ears. I saw that
it was wailed all around, and that it stood alone in an
extensive waste of mountains, without suburbs, or even
a solitary habitation beyond its walls. There were no
domes, steeples, or turrets, to break the monotony of its
aspect, and even the mosques and minarets made no
show. It would have been a relief, and afforded some-
thing to excite the feelings, to behold it in ruins, or
dreary and desolate like Petra, or with the banner of
the Prophet, the blood-red Mussulman flag, waving
high above its walls. But all was tame and vacant.
There was nothing in its appearance that afforded me
a sensation ; it did not even inspire me with melan-
choly ; and I probably convict myself when I say that

for we had permitted him to see all the holy places in the only image it presented to my mind was that of a

tb.e church, while I had been violently driven from the
door of the mosque in Hebron. He railed at the igno-
rance and prejudices of his countrymen, and swore, if
I would go back to Hebron, he would carry me thi-ough
the mosque on the point of his sword. I did not much
relish this method of entering a mosque, but took it, as
it was meant, for a warm expression of his willingness
to serve me ; and we returned to the apartment of the
superior to bid him farewell. The supeiior accompanied
us to the door of the convent ; and, without meaning
to be scandalous, or insinuate that there was any thing
VTong in it, although he was a young and handsome
man, I left him talking with a woman.

CHAPTER XXVIL

The Tomb of Rachel.— First View of Jerusalem.— Fallinij among
Th ieve<i.— Potent Sway of the pacha.— A Turkish Dignitary.—
A Missionary. — Easter in Jerusalem. — A. Little Congregation.

Giving a last look to the Valley of the Shepherds, we

were soon on the mountain's side ; and very soon all ' from the walls, my attention was diverted from the city

the interest with which I had regarded Bethlehem was [ by the sudden appearance of our muleteer, who had left

city larger and in better condition than the usual smaller
class of those within the Turkish dominion. I was
obliged to rouse myself by recalling to mind the long
train of extraordinary incidents of which that little city
had been the theatre, and which made it, in the eyes of
the Christian at least, the most hallowed spot on earth.
One thing only particularly struck me — its exceeding
stillness. It was about mid-day ; but there was no throng
of people entering or departing from its gates, no move-
ment of living creatures to be seen beneath its walls.
All was as quiet as if the inhabitants were, like the
Spaniards, taking their noonday sleep. We passed the
Pools of Hezekiah, and came in sight of the Mount of
Olives ; and now, for the first signs of life, we saw
streaming from the gate a long procession of men,
women, and children, on dromedaries, camels, and
horses, and on foot ; pilgrims who had visited Calvary
and the holy sepulchre, and were now bending their
steps towards Bethlehem.

At every moment the approach was gaining interest ;
but in a few minutes, while yet about an hour distant

lost, in the more absorbing feeling with which I looked
forward to Jerusalem. My muleteer had gone on the
night before ; my Arnaout knew nothing of the holy
places on the road, and we took with us a Christian boy
to point them out. The first was the tomb of Rachel,
a large building, with a whitened dome, and having
within it a high oblong monument, built of brick, and
stuccoed over. I dismounted and walked round the
tomb, inside and out, and again resumed my journey.
All that we know in regard to this tomb is, that Rachel
died when journeying with Jacob from Sychem to He-
bron, and that Jacob buried her near Bethlehem ; and
whether it be her tomb or not, I could not but remark
that, while youth and beauty have faded away, and
the queens of the East have died and been forgotten,
and Zenobia and Cleopatra sleep in unknown graves,
year after year thousands of pilgrims are thronging
to the supposed last resting-place of a poor Hebrew
woman.

The boy next conducted us to a stony field, by which,
as he said, the Virgin once passed and asked for beans ;
the owner of the field told her there were none ; and,

us the day before in a pet, and gone on before us to
Jerusalem. He was sitting on the ground alone, so
wan and wo-begone, so changed from the spruce and
well-dressed muleteer who had accompanied us from
Hebron, that I scarcely recognised him. Every article
of his former dress was gone, from his gay turban to
his long boots ; and in their stead he displayed an old
yellow striped shawl, doing duty as a turban, and a ragged
Bedouin gown. Late in the afternoon, while hurrying
on to get in before the gates should be closed, he was
hailed by four Arabs ; and when he attempted to escape
by pushing his donkey, he was brought to by a musket-
ball passing through the folds of his dress and grazing
his side. A hole in his coat, however, did not save it ;
and according to the Arab mode of robbery, they
stripped him to his skin, and left him stark naked in
the road. From his manner of telling the story, I am
inclined to think that the poor fellow had not conducted
himself very valiantly ; for though he did not regard
the scratch on his side or the risk he had run of his
life, he mourned bitterly over the loss of his garments.
\rrived in the Holy Land, I had thought danger of all

to punish him for his falsehood and lack of charity, the j kinds at an end ; and I could not help recognising the

beans wex-e all changed into stones, and the country
had remained barren ever since. Paul had been twice
to Bethlehem without seeing this field ; and he imme-
diately dismounted and joined the boy in searching for
the holy petrifiictions. " It was wonderful," said Paul,

singular good fortune which had accompanied me thus
far, and congratulating myself upon the accident which
had detained me at Bethlehem.

We were soon approaching the walls of Jerusalem,
and seemed to be almost at their foot ; but we were ou

90

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

one of the mountains that encompass the city, and the
deep Valley of Jtliosliapliat was yet between us and the

lioly city the sacred burying-ground of tlie Jews, tlie

" gathering-place of nations." Crossing this valley,
we descended on the Qther side, and in a few moments
■were on one of the seven hills on which tlie city is built,
and entering at the Bethlehem gate. It was guarded
by a Turkish soldier, and half a dozen more lay basking
in the sun outside, who raised their heads as I ap-
proached, their long mustaches curling as they looked
at uie ; and though they pave me uo greeting, they let
me pass without any molestation. On the right was
the citadel ; a soldier was on the walls, and a small red
flag, the standard of Mohammed, was drooping against
its staff. In front was an open place, irregular, and
apparently formed by clearing away the ruins of fallen
liouses. As in all Turkish cities, the stillness was un-
broken ; tliere was no rattling of wheels over the pave-
ments, nor even the tramp of liorses.

We wound around the walls, and dismounted at the
only asylum for strangers, the Latin Convent. I pre-
sented myself to the superior ; and after receiving
from him a kind and cordial welcome, with the usual
apologies for meagre fare on account of its being Lent,
went to the room assigned me ; and had just sat down
to dinner, when my poor muleteer entered in greater
distress than ever.

Afraid of the very thing that happened, he had
started immediately on his return to Hebron, and at tlie
gate his mules were seized by a soldier for the use of
the government. It was in a spirit of perfect wretcli-
edness that the poor fellow, still smarting under the
loss of his clothes, almost threw himself at my feet, and
begged me to intercede for him. I was, of course,
anxious to help him if I could, and immediately rose to
go with him ; but Paul told me to remain quiet, and he
would settle the matter in five minutes. Paul was a
great admirer of the pacha. \Vherevcr his government
was established, he had made it safe for the traveller ;
and Paul's courage always rose and fell according to the
subdued or unsubdued state of the population. In the
city of Jerusalem the wind could scarcely blow without
the leave of Ibrahim Pacha ; and Paul had mounted on
stilts almost as soon as we crossed the threshold of the
gate. He had already been at his old tricks of pushing
the unresisting Arabs about, and kicking them out of
the way, as in the miserable villages on the Nile ; and,
strong in the omnipotence of the firman, he now hunicd
to the gate ; but he came back faster than he went.
I have no doubt that he was very presuming and impu-
dent, and richly deserved more than he got ; but at all
events lie returned on a full run, and in a towering
passion. The soldier had given him the usual Mussul-
man abuse, showering upon him the accustomed " dog"
and " Christian ;" and, moreover, liad driven him to the
verge of ni.-tdaess by calling him a " Jew," and threat-
ening to whip both him and his master. Paul ran away
from what I am inclined to believe would have been his
share, as the Arabs had taken part against him ; and,
burning with the indignity of being called a Jew, begged
>ne to seek redress of the governor. I was roused my-
self, not uo much by the particular insult to Paul, as by
the general intfotion of the thing, and the disconsolate
figure of my poor muleteer ; and leaving my unfinished
ni'.al, with my firman in my hand, and Paul and the
muleteer at my heels, I started for the palace of the
governor.

Old things and new are strangely blended in Jeru-
B.ilem ; and the residence of the Turkish governor is in
the large building which to this day bears the n.arao of
Pontius Pilate. Paul told me its history as we were
a.scending the steps ; ami it passed through my mind
as a Rtraiiixe thing, that almost the first mouKiit after
entering the city, I was making a complaint, perhajis in
tlie same hall where the Jews h.ad complained of Christ
before Pontius Pilate, having with me a follower of that
Christ whom the Jews reviled and buffeted, buraing
under the indignity of being calh'd a Jew.

The governor, as ia the custom of governors in the

East, and probably as Pontius Pilate did in tfie time of
our Saviour, sxit in a large room, re.idy to receive
every body who had any complaint to make ; his divan
wasa raised platform, on an iron camp-bedstead, covered
with rich Turkey rugs, and over them a splendid lion-
skin. His face was noble, and his long black beard the
finest I ever saw ; a pair of large pistols and a Damascus
sabre were lying by his side, and a rich fur cloak, thrown
back over his sliouklers, displayed a form tliat might
have served as a model for a Hercules. Altogether, ho
reminded meof Richard in liistent on the plains of Acre.
At the moment of my entry, he was bi'eatliing on a
brilliant diamond, and I noticed on his finger an un-
commonly beautiful emerald. He received me with
great politeness ; and when I handed him the pacha's
tirman, with a delicacy and courtesy I never s.iw sur-
p.assed, lie returned it to me unopened and unread,
telling me that my dress and appearance were sufficient
recommendation to the best services in his power. If
the reader would know what dress and appearance are
a sufticient recommendation to the best offices of a
Tui'kish governor, I will merely mention that, having
thrown orf, or rather having been stripped of, most of
my Turkish dress at Hebron, I stood before the governor
in a red taiboueh, with a long black silk tassel, a blue
roundabout jacket buttoned up to the throat, grey pan-
taloons, boots gi)lashed with mud, a red sash, a pair of
large Turkish pistols, sword, and my Nubian club in my
hand ; and the only decided mark of aristocracy about
me was my beard, which, though not so long as the
governor's, far exceeded it in brilliancy of complexion.

The few moments I had had for observation, and
the courteous demeanour of the governor, disarmed
me of my anger ; and coffee and the fii-st pipe over, I
stated my grievances very dLspassionately. Paul's wrath
was still dominant, and I have no doubt he represented
the conduct of the soldier as much worse than it was ;
for the governor, turning to me without any further
inquiries, asked if he should have him bastinadoed. This
summary justice startled even Paul ; and feeling a little
ashamed of my own precipitation, I wasnowmoreanxious
to prevent punishment than I had before been to pro-
cure it ; and begged him to spare the soldier, and merely
order him to release the mules. Without another word
he called a janizary, and requesting me to wait, ordered
liim to accompany Paul to the gate where the scene took
j)lace ; and when Paul returned, the muleteer, with a
thankful heart, was already on his way to Hebron. I
had the satisfaction of learning, too, that the officers
were on the track of the robbers who had stripped him,
and before morning the governor expected to have them
in custody.

Several times afterwards I called upon the governor,
and was always treated with the same politeness. Once,
when I was walking alone outside the walls, I met him
sitting on the grass, with his janizaries and slaves stand-
ing up around him ; and the whole Turkisli population
being out wandering among the tombs, he procured for
me a respect and consideration which I think were
useful to me afterwards, hy calling me to a scat beside
him, and giving me the pipe from his own mouth. Some
months afterwards, at Genoa, I saw a brief article in an
Italian paper, referring to a previous article, giving an
account of a then late revolution there, in which tho
governor was on the point of falling into the hands of
the insurgents. I have never seen any account of tho
particulars of this revolution, and do not know wliothcr
he is now living or di-ad. In the East, life hangs by so
brittleathread.that whrii you part from a man in power,
in all probability you will never see him again. I can
only hope that the CJovernor of Jerusalem still lives,
and that his condition iu life is as happy as when I saw
him.

It was Saturday afternoon when I arrived at Jeru-
salem. I had a letter of introduction to Mr Thompson,
an American missionary, and the first thing I did was
to look for him. One of the monks of the convent gave
me the direction to the American priest, not knowing
hia name ; and instead of Mr Thompson, I found Mr

JERUSALEM— riTUECn OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.

91

Wliiting:, wlio liaJ been there about a year in liis place.
Like the governor, ^Ir ^^lllting did not want any cre-
dentials ; but here, being among judges, it was not my
dress and appe.irance that recommended me. I was
an American, and at that distance from home tlie name
of countryman was enough. In the city of Jerusalem
such a meeting was to him a rare and most welcome
incident ; while to me, who had so long been debarred
all conversation except with Paul and the Arabs, it was
a pleasure which few can ever know, to sit down with
a compatriot, and once more, in my native tongue, hold
converse of my native land.

Each of us soon learned to look upon the other as a
friend ; for we found that an old friend and schoolmate
of mine had been also a friend and schoolmate of his
own. He would have had me stay at his house ; but I
returned to the convent, and with my thoughts faraway,
and full of the home of which we had been talking, 1
slept for the first night in the city of Jerusalem.

The first and most interesting object within the walls
of the holy city, the spot to which every pilgrim first
directs his steps, is tlie Holy Sepulchre. The traveller
who has never read the descriptions of those who have
preceded him in a pilgrimage through the Holy Land,
finds his expectations strangely disappointed, when,
api)roaching this hallowed tomb, he sees around him the
tottering houses of a ruined city, and is conducted to
the door of a gigantic cliurch.

This edifice is another, and perhaps the principal,
monument of tlie Empress Helena's piety. What au-
thority she had for fixing here the site of the Redeemer's
burial-place, I will not stop to inquire. Doubtless she
had her reasons ; and there is more pleasure in believing,
than in raising doubts wiiich cannot be confirmed. In
the front of the church is a large courtyard, filled with
dealers in beads, crucifixes, and relics ; among the most
conspicuous of whom are the Christians of Bethlehem,
■with figures of the Saviour, the Virgin, and a host of
saints, carved from mother-of-pearl, in all kinds of fan-
tastic shapes. It was precisely tlie time at which I had
■wished and expected to be in Jerusalem — the season
of Easter — and thousands of pilgrims, from every part
of the Eastern world, had already arrived for the great
ceremonies of the holy week. The court was thronged
V ith them, crowded together, so that it was almost im-
possible to move, and waiting, like myself, till the door
of the church should be opened.

The Holy Sepulchre,as in the days when all the chi-
valry of Europe armed to wrest it from them, is still in
the hands of the infidels ; and it would have made the
sword of an old crusader leap from its scabbard to
behold a haughty Turk, with the air of a lord and
master, standing sentinel at the door, and with his long
mace beating and driving back the crowd of struggling
Christians. As soon as the door was opened, a rush
was made for entrance ; and as I was in the front rank,
before the impetus ceased, amid a perfect stoi-m of
pushing, yelling, and shouting, I was carried almost
headlong into the body of the church. The press con-
tinued behind, hurrying me along, and kicking off my
shoes ; and in a state of desperate excitement both of
mind and body, utterly unsuited to the place and time,
1 found myself standing over the so-called tomb of
Christ ; where, to enhance the incongruity of the scene,
at the head of the sepulchre stood a long-bearded monk,
■with a plate in his hand, reccivhig the paras of the
pilgrims. My dress marked me as a different person
from the miserable, beggarly crowd before me ; and
expecting a better contribution from me, at the tomb
of him who liad pronounced that all men are equal in
the sight of God, with an expression of contempt like
the " canaille" of a Frenchman, and with kicks, cuffs,
and blows, he drove back those before me, and gave
me a place at the head of the sepulchre. My feelings
were painfully disturbed, as well by the manner of my
entrance as by the Irreverent demeanour of the monk ;
and disappointed, disgusted, and sick at heart, while
hundreds were still struggling for admission, I turned
away and left the church. A wnrmer imagination than

mine could perhaps have seen, in a white marble sar-
cophagus, " the sepulchre hewn out of a I'ock," and in
the fierce struggling of these barefooted pilgrims the
devotion of sincere and earnest piety, burning to do
homage in the holiest of places ; but 1 could not.

It was refreshing to turn from this painful exhibition
of a deformed and degraded (.'hristianity to a simpler
and purer scene. The evening before, Mr Whiting had
told me that religious exercises would be performed at
his house the next day, and I hastened from tlie church
to join in the grateful service. 1 found him sitting at
a table, with a large family Hible open before him. His
wife was present, with two little Armenian girls, whom
she was educating to assist her in her school ; and I
was not a little surprised to find that, wlien I had taken
my seat, the congregation was assembled. In fact, Mr
Whiting had only been waiting for me ; and as soon as
I came in, he commenced the service to which I liad
been so long a stranger. It was long since 1 had heard
the words of truth from the lips of a preacher ; and as
I sat with my eyes fixed upon the Garden of Gethseniane
and the Mount of Olives, I could not lielp thinking of
it as a strangely-interesting fact, that here, in the holy
city of Jerusalem, where Christ preached and died,
though thousands were calling upon his name, the only
persons who were praising him in simplicity and truth
were a missionary and his wife, and a passing traveller,
all from a far-distant land. I had, moreover, another
subject of reflection. In Greece I had been struck with
the fact that the only schools of instruction were those
established by American missionaries, and supported
by the liberality of American citizens ; that our young
republic was thus, in part, discharging the debt which
the world owes to the ancient mistress of science and
the arts, by sending forth her sons to bestow the ele-
ments of knowledge upon the descendants of Homer
and Pericles, Plato and Aristotle ; and here, on the very
spot whence the apostles had gone forth to preach the
glad tidings of salvation to a ruined world, a missionary
from the same distant land was standing as an apostle
over the grave of Christianity, a solitary labourer
striving to re-estabhsh the pure faith and worship that
were founded on this spot eighteen centuries ago.

CHAPTER XXVIIL

Church of the Iloly Sepulchre— An une.ipcctcd Discovery. —
JIdunt Calvary.— The Sepulchre.— The Valley of Jehobhaphnt.
— The Garden of Gethseniane. — I'laco of the Temple.— The
four Grc-.t Tombs.- Siloa'a Brook.

DfniNG my stay in Jerusalem, a day seldom passed in
which I did not visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
but my occupation was chiefly to observe the conduct
of the pilgrims; and if the reader will accompany me
into the interior, he will see what I was in the habit of
seeing every day.

The key of the church is kept by the governor of the
city ; the door is guarded by a Turk, and opened only
at fixed hours, and then only with the consent of the
three convents, and in the presence of their several
dragomen ; an arrangement which often causes gi-eat
and vexatious delays to such as desire admittance. This
formality was probably intended for solemnity and effect,
but its consequence is exactly the reverse ; for as soon
as the door is opened, th.e pilgrims, who have almost
always been kept waiting for some time, and have na-
turally become impatient, rush in, struggling with each
other, overturning the dragomen, and thumped by the
Turkish doorkeepei', and are driven like a herd of wild
animals into the body of the church. I do not mean
to exaggerate a picture, the lightest of whose shades is
already too dark. I describe only what I saw, and with
this assurance the reader must believe me when I say
that I frequently considered it putting life and limb in
peril to mingle in that crowd. Probably it is not always
80 ; but thei-e were at that time within the walls of
Jerusalem from ten to twenty thous;ind pilgrims, and
all had come to visit the Holy Sepulchre.

92

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

Supposins;, then, the rush to be over, and the traveller
to have recoveixii from its eftects, lie will find himself
in a large apariment, forming a sort of vestibule ; on
theleft,in a recess of the wall, is a large divan,cusliioned
and carpeted, whei-e the Turkish doorlieepcr is usually
sitting, with half a dozen of his friends, smoking the
long pipe and drinking cofTee, and always conducting
himself with great dignity and propriety. Dii-ectly in
front, surmounted by an iron railing, having at each
end tiiree enormous wax candles more than twenty feet
high, and suspended above it a number of silver lamps
of different sizes and fashions, gifts from the Catholic,
Greek, and Armenian convents, is a long fiat stone,
called the " stone of unction ;" and on this, it is said,
tiie body of our Lord was laid when taken down from
the cross, and washed and anointed in preparation
fur sepulture. This is the fii"st object that arrests the
l)ilgrinis on their entrance ; and lierc they prostrate
themselves in succession, the old and the young, women
and children, the rich man and the beggar, and all kiss
tiie sacred stone. It is a slab of polished white marble ;
and one of the monks, whom 1 questioned on the sub-
ject as he rose from his knees, after kissing it most
devoutly, told me that it wa-s not the genuine stone,
which he said was under it, the marble having been
placed there as an ornamental covering, and to protect
the hallowed relic from the abuses of the (Jreeks.

On the left is an iron circular i-ailing, in the shape
of a large parrot's cage, having within it a lamp, and
marking the spot where the women sat while tlie body
■was anointed for the tomb. In front of this is an open
area, surrounded by high square columns, supporting a
gallery above. The area is covered by a dome, impos-
ing in appearance and eflect ; and directly under, in the
centre of the area, is an oblong building, about twenty
feet long and twelve feet high, circular at the back,
but square and finished with a platform in front ;
and within this building is the holy se]iulchre.

Leaving for a moment the throng that is constantly
pressing at the door of the sepulchre, let us make the
tour of the church. Around the open space under the
dome are small chapels for the Syrians, Copts, Maron-
ites, and other sects of Christians who have not, hke the
Catholics, the Greeks and Armenians, large chapels in
the body of the church. Between two of the pillars is
a small door, opening to a dark gallery, which leads,
as the monks told me, to the tombs of Joseph and Nico-
demus, between which and that of the Saviour there is
a subterranean communication. These tombs are ex-
cavated in the rock, which here forms the floor of
tlie chamber. Without any expectation of making a
discovery, I remember that once, in ])rying about this
part of the building alone, I took the little taper that
lighted the chamber, and stepped down into the tomb ;
and I had just time to sec that one of the excavations
never could have been intended for a tomb, being not
more than tliree feet long, when 1 heard the footsteps
of pilgrim visitors, and scrambled out with such haste
that I let the taper fall, put out the light, and had to
grope my way back in the dark.

Farther on, and nearly in range of the front of the
sepulchre, ia a large opening, forming a sort of court
to the entrance of the Latin chai)el. On one side is a
gallery, containing a fine organ ; and the chapel itself
IS jieat enough, and diR'ers but little from those in the
churches of Italy. This is called the chapel of appari-
tion, where; Christ appeared to the Virgin. Within the
door, on the right, in an enclosure, completely hidden
from view, is the jiillar of flagellation, to which our
Saviour was tied when he was scourged, before being
taken into the presence of I'ontius I'ilate. A long stick
IS p.ossed through a hole in the enclosure, the handle
being outside, and the pilgrim thrusU it in till it strikes
against the pillar, when he draws it out and kisses the
I)oint. Only one half of the pillar is here ; the other
half is in one of the churches at Rome, where may also
be seen the table on which our Saviour ate his last
supper with his disciples, and the stone on which the
cock crowed wbeu I'eter denied liia master !

Going back again from the door of the chapel cf
apparition, and turning to the left, on the right is the
outside of the Greek chapel, which occupies the largest
space in the body of the church ; and on the left is a
range of chapels and doors, the first of which leads to
the prison where, they say, our Saviour was confined
before he was led to crucifixion. In front of the door
is an unintelligible machine, described as the stone on
which our Saviour was placed when put in the stocks.
I had never heard of this incident in the story of man's
redemption, nor, in all probability, has the reader ; but
the Christians in Jerusalem have a great deal more of
such knowledge than they gain from the Bible. Even
Paul knew much that is not recorded in the sacred
Volume ; for he had a book, written by a priest in
Malta, and giving many particulars in the life of our
Saviour which all the evangelists never knew, or, know-
ing, have entirely omitted.

Next is the chapel where the soldier who struck his
spear into the side of the Redeemer, as he hung upon
the cross, retired and wept over his transgression. Be-
yond this is the chapel where the Jews divided Christ's
raiment, and " cast lots for his vesture." The next is
one of the most holy places in the church, the chapel
of the cross. Descending twenty-eight broad marble
steps, the visitor comes to a large chamber eighteen
paces squai'c, dimly lighted by a few distant lamps ;
the roof is supported by four short columns with enor-
mous capitals. In front of the steps is the altar, and
on the right a scat on which the Empress Helena, ad-
vised by a dream where the true ci'oss was to be found,
sat and watched the workmen who were digging below.
Descending again fourteen steps, another chamber is
reached, darker and more dimly lighted than tlie first,
and hung with faded red tapestry ; a marble slab, hav-
ing on it a figure of the cross, covers the mouth of the
pit in which the true cross was found. The next chapel
is over the spot where our Saviour was crowned with
thorns ; and under the altar, protected by an iron
grating, is the very stone on which he sat. Then the
visitor arrives at Mount Calvary.

A narrow marble staircase of eighteen Btep>3 leads to
a chapel about fifteen feet square, paved with marble
in mosaic, and hung on all sides with silken tapestry
and lamps dimly burning ; the chapel is divided by two
short pillars, hung also w itli silk, and supporting quad-
rangular arches. At the extremity is a large altar, orna-
mented with paintings and figures ; and under the altar
a circular silver plate, with a hole in the centre, indicat-
ing the spot in which rested the step of the cross. On
each side of the hole is another, the two designating the
places where the crosses of the two thieves wei-e erected ;
and near by, on the same marble platform, is a crevice
about three feet long and three inches wide, having
brass bars over it and a covering of silk. Removing the
covering, by the aid of a lamp 1 saw beneath a fissure
in a rock ; and this, say the monks, is the rock which
was rent asunder when our Saviour, in the agonies <if
death, cried out from the cross, " My God, my God,
why hast thou forsjiken me?" Descending to the floor
of the church, underneath is an iron grating which
shows more distinctly the fissure in the rock ; and
directly opposite is a large monument over the head of
— Adam.

Tiie reader will prohalily think that all these tilings
are enough to be comprised under one roof; and hav-
ing finisiied tlie tour of the ciiurcli, I returned to the
great object of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem — the Holy
Sepulchre. Taking off tlie shoes on the marble plat-
form in front, the visitor is admitted by a low door, on
entering wliieli tlie proudest head must needs do reve-
rence. In tlie centre of tiie first chamljer is the stone
whicii was rolled away from the mouth of the sepulchre
— a squ.Tre block of marble, cut and polished ; and
tiiough the Armenians have lately succeeded in esta-
blisiiing the genuineness of the stone in their chapel on
Mount Sion (the admission by tiie other monks, how-
ever, being always accompanied Ijy tlie assertion tiiat
they stole it), yet the infatuated Gi'cek still kisses and

VALLEY OF JEIIOSnAPHAT— GARDEN OF GETHSE^LVNE.

03

adores tliis block of mai-ble as the very stone on wliicli
the angel sat when he announced to the women, " He
is not dead ; be is risen ; come see the place where the
Lord lay." Again bending the head, and lower than
before, the visitor entei-s the inner chamber, the holiest
of holy places. The sejnilchre " hewn out of the rock"
is a marble sarcophagus, somewhat resembling a com-
mon marble bathing-tub, with a lid of the same material.
Over it Jiang forty-three lamps, which burn without
ceasing night and day. The sarcophagus is six feet
one inch long, and occupies about one half of the
chamber ; and one of the monks being always present
to receive the gifts or tribute of the pilgrims, there is
only room for three or four at a time to enter. The
walls are of a greenish marble, usually called vcrd-
antique, and this is all. And it will be borne in mind
tliat ail this is in a building above ground, standing on
the floor of the church.

If I can form any judgment from my own feelings,
every man other than a blind and determined enthu-
siast, when he stands by the side of that marble sarco-
phagus, must be ready to exclaim, '•' This is not the
place where the Lord lay ;" and yet I must be wTong, for
sensible men have thought otherwise ; and Dr Richard-
son, the most cautious traveller in the Holy Land,
speiiks of it as the " Mansion of victory, where Christ
triumphed over the grave, and disarmed death of all
its terrors." The feelings of a man are to be envied
■who can so believe. I cannot imagine a higher and
holier enthusiasm ; and it would be tar more agreeable
to sustain than to dissolve such illusions ; but although
I might be deceived by ray own imagination aud the
glowing descriptions of travellers, I would at least have
the merit of not deceiving others. The sepulchre of
Christ is too holy a thing to be made the subject of
trickery and deception ; and I am persuaded that it
would be far better for the interests of Christianity that
it had remained for ever locked up in the hands of the
Turks, and all access to it been denied to Christian feet.
But I was not disposed to cavil. It was far easier,
and suited my humour far better, to take things as I
found them ; and in this spirit, under the guidance of
a monk, and accompanied by a procession of pilgruns,
I wandered through the streets of Jerusalem ; visited
the Pool of Bethesda, where David saw Bethsheba bath-
ing ; the five porches where the sick were brought to
be healed ; the house of Simon the Pharisee, where
Mary Magdalene confessed her sins ; the prison of St
Peter ; the house of Maiy the mother of Mark ; the
mansion of Dives aud the house of Lazarus (which, by
the w-ay, not to be sceptical again, did not look as if its
tenant had ever lain at its neighbour's gate, and begged
for the " ci-umbs which fell from the rich man's table") ;
and entering the Via Dolorosa, the way by which the
Saviour passed from the "judgment-hall of Pilate to
Calvary, saw the spot where the people laid hold of
Simon the Cyrene, and compelled him to bear the cross ;
three different stones on which Christ, fainting, sat
down to rest ; passed under the arch called Ecce Homo,
and looked up at the window from which the Roman
judge exclaimed to the persecuting Jews, " Behold the
man !"

But if the stranger leaves the walls of the city, his
faith is not so severely tested ; and for my own part,
disposed to indemnify myself for my unwilling scepti-
cism, the third day after my arrival at Jerusalem, on
a bright and beautiful morning, with my Nubian club
iu my hand, which soon became the terror of all the
cowardly dogs in Jerusalem, I stood on the threshold
of St Stephen's Gate. Paul was with me ; and stopping
for a moment among the tombs in the Turkish burying-
ground, we descended towards the bridge across the
brook Kedron, and the mysterious valley of Jehosha-
phat. Here I was indeed among the hallowed places of
the Bible. Here all was as nature had left it, and spared
by the desecrating hand of man ; and as I gazed upon
the vast sepulchral monuments, the tombs of Absalom,
of Zachariah, and Jehoshaphat, and the thousands and
tens of thousands of Hebrew tombstones covering the

declivity of the mountain, 1 had no doubt I was looking
upon that great gathering-place, where, three thousand
years ago, the Jew buried his dead under the shadow
of the Temple of Solomon ; and where, even at this day,
in every country whore his i-ace is known, it is the
dearest wish of his heart that his bones may be laid to
rest among those of his long-buried ancestors.

Near the bridge is a small table-rock, reverenced as
the spot wiiere Stephen the Martyr was stoned to death ;
but even here one cannot go far without finding the
handiwork of the Lady Helena. A little to the left is
the tomb of Joseph and Mary. Descending a few steps
to a large marble door, opening to a subterraneous
church, excavated from the solid rock, and thence by
a flight of fifty marble stops, each twenty feet long, we
come to the floor of the chamber. On the right, in a
large recess, is the tomb of the Virgin, having over it
an altar, and over the altar a painting representing her
death-bed, with the Son standing over her, to comfort
her and receive her blessing. This is an interesting
domestic relation in which to exhibit a mother and her
son, but rather inconsistent with the Bible account of
the Virgin Mother being present at the crucifixion of
our Lord. Indeed, it is a singular fact, that with all
the pious homage which they pay to the Son of God,
adoring him as equal with the Father in power and
goodness, and woi-shipping the very ground on which
he is supposed to have trodden, there is still among the
Christians of the East a constant tendency to look upon
him as a man of flesh. In a community like ours, go-
verned by an universal sentiment of the spiritual cha-
racter of our Saviour, it would be regarded as setting
at defiance the religious impressions of the people even
to repeat what is talked of familiarly by the people of
the East ; but at the risk of incurring this i-eproach, it
is necessary to illustrate their character, to say that I
have heard them talk of the Saviour, and of every inci-
dent in his history, as a man with whom they had been
familiar in his life ; of the Virgin nursing the " little
Jesus ;" of his stature, strength, age, the colour of his
hair, his complexion, and of every incident in his life,
real or supposed, from his ascension into heaven down
to the " washing of his linen."

At the foot of the hill on the borders of the Valley of
Jehoshaphat, beneath the Jlount of Olives, we came to
the Garden of Gethsemane. Like the great battle-grounds
where kingdoms have been lost and won, the stubborn
earth bears no traces of the scenes that have passed upon
its surface ; and a stranger might easily pass the Garden
of Gethsemane without knowing it as the place where,
on the night on which he was betrayed, the Saviour
watched with his disciples. It was enclosed by a low,
broken stone fence, and an Arab Fellah was quietly
turning up the ground with his spade. According to
my measurement, the gai'den is forty-seven paces long,
and forty-four wide. It contains eight olive-trees, which
the monks believe to have been standing in the days of
our Savioui', and to which a gentleman, in whose know-
ledge I have confidence, ascribed an age of moi-e than
eight hundred years. One of these, the largest, barked
and scarified by the knives of pilgi'ims, is reverenced
as the identical tree under which Christ was betrayed ;
and its enormous roots, growing high out of the earth,
could induce a belief of almost any degree of antiquity.
A little outside the fence of the garden is a stone, reve-
renced as marking the hallowed place where Christ,
in the agony of his spirit, prayed that the cup might
pass from him ; a little farther, where he "swate great
drops of blood ;" and a little farther is the spot to which
he returned, and found the disciples sleeping ; and no
good pilgrim ever passes from the Garden of Gethse-
mane to the Mount of Olives without doing reverence
in these holy places.

In company with a long procession of pilgrims, «ho
had been assembling in the garden, we ascended the
Mount of Olives. The mount consists of a range of four
mountains, with summits of unequal altitudes. The
iiighest rises from the Garden of Gethsemane, and is
the one fixed upon as the place of oui* Saviour's ascen-

94

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

sion. About half way up is a ruined monastery, built,
accordinfj to tlie monks, over tlie spot where Jesus sat
down and wept over the city, and uttered that prediction
which has since been so fearfully verified. The olive
still maintains its jilace on its native mountain, and now
grows spontaueously upon its top and sides, as in the
days of David and our Saviour. In a few moments we
reached the summit, the view from which embraces,
l>erhaps, more interesting objects than any other in the
world ; the Valley of Jehoshapliat, the Garden of Geth-
scniane, and the city of Jerusalem, the Plains of Jericho,
tlie Valley of the Jordan, and the Dead Sea.

Ou the top of the mountain b a miscniblo Arab vil-
lage, in the centre of which is a small octagonal building,
erected, it is said, over the spot from which our Saviour
ascended into heaven ; and the print of his foot, say the
monks, is still to be seen. This print is in the rock,
enclosed by an oblong border of marble : and pilgrilfis
may at any time be seen taking, in wax, impressions of
the holy footstep; and for this, too, they are indebted
to the research and bounty of the Empress Helena.

Descending again to the ruined monaster}', at the
place where our Saviour, more than 1800 years ago,
wept over the city and predicted its eternal ruin, 1 sat
down on a rough stone to survey and muse over the
favoured and fallen Jerusalem. The whole city lay
extended before me like a map. I could see and dis-
tinguish the streets, and the whole interior to the inner
side of the farther wall ; and oh ! how different from
the city of our Saviour's love ! Though even then but
a mere appendage of imperial Rome, it retained the
magnificent wonders of its Jewish kings, and, pre-emi-
nent even among the splendid fanes of heathen worship,
rose the proud temple of the great King Solomon.
Solomon and all his glory have departed ; centuries ago
the great temple which he built, " the glory of the whole
earth," was a heap of ruins ; in the i)rophetic words of
our Saviour, not one stone was left upon another ; and,
in the wanton spirit of triumph, a conquering general
drove his plough over its site. For years its very site
lav buried in ruins, till tlie Saracen came with his ter-
ril>ie war-cry, " The Koran or the sword ;" and the great
Mosque of Omar, the holy of holies in the eyes of all
true believers, now rears its lofty dome upon the foun-
dations of the Temple of Solomon.

From the place where I sat, the Mosque of Omar was
the only object that relieved the general dulness of tlie
city, and all the rest was dark, monotonous, and gloomy ;
no spires reared their tapering points to the skies, nor
domes nor minarets, the pride and ornament of other
Turkish cities. All was as still as deatli ; and the only
ajiparent sign of life was the straggling figure of a Mus-
bulman, with his slippers in his hand, stealing Uj) the long
courtyard to the threshold of the mosque. The Mosque
of Omar, like the great mosque at .Mecca, the birthplace
of the I'rophet, is regarded with far more veneration
than even that of St Sojihia, or any other edifice of the
Mohannncdan worship ; and to this day the Koran or
the sword is the doom of any bold intruder within its
nacred precincts. At the northern extremity of the
mosque is the Golden Gate, for many years closed, and
flanked with a tower, in which a Mussulman soldier is
constantly on guard ; for the Turks believe that, by
that gate, the Christians will one day enter and obtain
possession of the city — city of mystery and wonder, and
still t<j lie the scene of mii-acles ! " It shall be trodden
down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles l>e
fulfilled;" and the time shall come when the crescent
shall no longer glitter over its battlements, nor the
banner of the Pr'iphet wave ovt-r its walls.

Ileturning to the Valley of .Juhoshaphat, and passing
along its cjistern side, we came to the great burying-
ground of the Jews. Among its monuments are four,
unique in their appearance and construction, and known
from time immemorial as the tombs of Absalom, Jeho-
shapliat, .St James, and the prophet Zachariah. All
are cut out of the solid rock ; tin* tomb of Absalom is a
single stone, as large as an ordinary two-story house,
sud ornamented with twenty-four semi-culumns of the

Doric order, supporting a triangular pyramidal top.
The top is battered and defaced ; and" no pilgrim,
whether Jew or Christian, ever passes through the
Valley of Jehoshapliat without casting a stone at the
sepulchre of the rebellious son. No entrance to this
sepulchre has ever been discovered ; and the only way
of getting into the interior is by a hole broken for the
purpose in one of the sides.

Behind the tomb of Absalom is that of Jehoshapliat,
" the King of Judah, who walked in the ways of the
Lord." It is an excavation in the rock, the door being
its only ornament. The interior was damp, the water
trickling from the walls, and nearly filled with sand and
crumbling stones. The next is the tomb of St James,
standing out boldly in the side of the mountain, with a
handsome portico of four columns in front, an entrance
at the side, and many chambers within. After this is
the tomb of Zachariah, like that of Absalom hewn out
of the soUd rock ; and like that, too, having no known
entrance. Notwithstanding the specific names given to
these tombs, it is altogether uncertain to what age they
belong ; and it is generally considered that the style of
architecture precludes the supposition that they are the
work of Jewish builders.

Leaving them after a cursory examination, we de-
scended the valley ; and following the now dry bed of
the Kcdron, we came to " Siloa's brook, that flowed
fast by the oracle of God," which, coming from the foot
of Mount Zion, here presents itself as a beautiful
stream, and runs winding and murmuring through the
valley. Hundreds of pilgrims were stretched on its
bank ; and a little above is the sacred pool issuing from
the rock, enclosed by stone walls, with a descent by two
flights of steps. " Go wash in the pool of Siloam," said
Christ to the man who was born blind ; and, like myself,
a number of pilgrims were now bending over the pool,
and washing in its hallowed waters. Passing by the
great tree under which the Prophet Isaiah was sawed
asunder, I turned up towards the city, and in a few
minutes was standing on Mount Zion.

CHAPTER XXIX.

The Field of niocd.— A Traveller's Compliment.— Pinpulftr Cere-
mony.— A Jtaggcd R;u>^cal. — Ostentatious Humility.— I'lido
must have a Fall. — An Ancient Uclic. — Summari'Lcgiblation.

Ai.L that is interesting about Jerusalem may be seen in
a few days. My health compelled me to remain there
more than three weeks, during which I made two ex-
cursions, one to the ancient city of Joppa, and llie other
to the Dead Sea. As soon as I could do so, however,
I visited all the jilaces, to see ^v^lich is the business of
a pilgrim to the holy city. The fourth morning after
my arrival, I went out at the Dethiehem Gate, and,
crossing the valley of the sons of IJiiimon, on the side
of the opposite mountain I came to the Aceldama, or
field of blood, the field bought with " the thirty pieces
of silver," which to this day remains a public burying-
j)lace or potter's field. A large chaniber excavated in
the rock is still the charnel-house of the poor and un-
Iionoured dead of Jerusalem. The fabulous account in,
that the earth of that field will in forty-eight hours con-
sume the flesh fi-om off the bones committed to it.

Leaving this resting-place of poveii^', and perhaps of
crime, I wandered among the tombs on the sides of the
mount.-iin — tombs ornamented with sculpture, and di-
vided into chambers, the last abodes of the great and
rich of Jerusalem ; but the beggar, rudely thrown into
the common ])it in the potter's field, and the rich man
laid by pious hands in the sculptured sepulchre of his
ancestors, are alike nothing.

Outside the Damascus Gate, and about half a milo
distant, is what is called the Sepulchre of the Kings of
Judah. This sepulchre is hewn out of the rock, and has
in front a large square excavation, theentrance to which
is under a small arch. To the left, on entering, is a
large portico, nine paces long, and four wide, with an
arcliitravc, ou which arc sculptured fruit and flowers,

SINGULAR CEREMONY— A RAGGED RASCAL.

95

much defaced ; and at the end, on the left, a hole, filled
up with stones and rubbish, barely large enough to
enable one to crawl through on hands and knees, leads
to a chamber eight paces square ; and from this cham-
ber there are three doors, two directly opposite, and one
to the right. Entering that to the right, we found our-
selves in anotlier chamber, on each of the tiiree sides
of which was a large door, with smaller ones on either
side, opening to small receptacles, in each of which were
places for three bodies. The door of this chamber, now
lying on the floor, was a curious work. It had been cut
from the solid rock, and made to turn on its hinges or
sockets witliout having ever been removed from its
place. On the right, a single door leads downi reveral
steps into a dark chamber, where we found the lid of a
sai-cophagus elegantly carved. The other doors opening
from the great cliamber lead to others inferior in size
and workmanship. On coming out of one of them, at
the very moment when 1 extinguished my light, the
hole of entrance was suddenly darkened and stopped up.
1 had left a strange Arab at the door ; and remembei*-
ing the fearful thought that had often come over me
while creeping among the tombs in Egypt, of being shut
up and entombed alive, my first impulse was to curse
my folly in coming into such a place, and leaving myself
so completely in the power of a stranger. But I was
taking the alarm too soon. It was only the Arab him-
self coming in. He, too, had his apprehensions ; and,
from my remaining so long withiu, began to fear that 1
liad crawled out some back way, and given his buck-
sheesh the slip.

Hut enough of the tombs. 1 leave the abodes of the
dead, and turn to the living ; and among the living in
Jerusalem, there are few who live better than themonks.
Cliateaubriand, in his poetical description of his pilgri-
mage to the Holy Land, gives an exceeding interest to
the character of these niouks. " Here reside," said he,
" communities of Christian monks whom nothing can
compel to forsake the tomb of Christ ; neither plunder,
nor personal ill treatment, nor menaces of death itself.
iS'ight and day they cliant their hymns around the holy
sepulchre. Driven by the cudgel and the sabre, women,
children, flocks, and herds, seek refuge in the cloisters
of these recluses. AVhat prevents the aniied oppressor
from pursuing liis prey, and overthrowing such feeble
ramparts ? the charity of the monks. They deprive
themselves of the last resources of life to ransom their
suppliants," &.c.

The first glance at the well-fed superior of the con-
vent of Jerusalem dispelled in my mind all such poetic
illusions, though the beautiful rhapsody was fully ap-
preciated by those of whom it was uttered. On my first
interview with the superior, an old monk entered the
room, who was in the convent at the time of the visit of
Chateaubriand, and both said that they had read the
accounts of several travellei-s in the Holy Land, and
none could be compared with his. I do not mean to speak
harshly of them personally, for they were my hosts, and
every Eastern ti-a-veller knows the comfort of a cell in
a convent compared with any other shelter he can find
in the Holy Land. Particularly I would not spealj
liarshly of the superior of the convent at Jerusalem,
towards whom 1 have an exceedingly kind feeling, and
with whom I was on terms of rather jocose intinuicy.
The second time 1 saw him he railed at me with much
good-natured indignation for having taken off two or
three inches of my beard, and, during the whole time
1 was in Jerusalem, I was in tlie habit of calling upon
Jiim almost every day. I owe him something, too, on
Paul's account, for he did that worthy man-of-all-work
a most especial honour.

Since our arrival at the convent, Paul had returned
to the essence of liis Catholic faith, to wit, the strict
observance of its forms. In the desert he had often
gr-mibled at being obliged to go without animal food ;
but no sooner did he come within the odour of burning
incense, than he felt the enormity of ever having enter-
tained so impious a thought, and set himself down like
a martvr to the table of the convent He was, in his

way, an epicure ; and it used to amuse me, while plac-
ing before liim the breast of a chicken, to see him turn
his eyes wistfully towards me, and choke himself upou
pulse and beans. He went through it all, howevi-r,
though with a bad grace ; and his piety was not lost
upon the superior, who sent for him a lew mornings alter
our arrival, and told him that a grand ceremony of
wa-shing the feet of the disciples was to take place iu the
chapel, and desired liim to ottVciate as one of them. It
was amusing to sec Paul's altered manner on his return.
With a dignity, and at the same time a respect, which
he seemed all at once to have acquired from his clear
understanding of liis relativeduties, heaskcdme whether
I could spai-e him the next afternoon, .stating the reason,
and the honour the superior had done him. 1 told him,
of coui-se, that 1 would not interfere with his playing
such an important part ; and as it would be a new cha-
racter for him to ajipcar in, I should like to be present
at the representation. The next day he came to me
with his coat buttoned tight across his breast, his boots
polished, and hat smoothed to a hair, and told me, with
great gravity, tliat the superior liad sent me his parti-
cular compliments, and an invitation to be present at
the ceremony ; and turning away, he remarked, with
an air of nonchalance, that a Sicilian priest, who had
just left me, and who was arranging to accompany me
to the Dead Sea, was to be one of his associates in the
ceremony.

Paul was evidently very much lifted up ; he was
constantly telling Elias, the cook of the convent, that
he wanted such and such a thing for to-morrow after-
noon ; begging me not to make any engagement for
to-morrow afternoon ; and, in due season, to-morrow
afternoon came. I entered my room a little before
the time, and found him at rehearsal, with a large tub
of water before him, j)rudently washing his feet before-
hand. I was a good deal disposed to bring down his
dignity, and told him that it was well enough to re-
hearse his part, but that he ought to leave at least one
foot unwashed, as a sort of bonus for his friend the
superior. Paul was a good deal scandalised at my
levity of manner, and got out of my reach as soon as
he could. Afterwards, however, I saw him m one of
the corridors, talking with the Sicilian with a greater
accession of dignity than ever. I saw him again iu the
chapel of the convent, standing in line with his asso-
ci.ates ; and excepting him, the Sicilian priest, and one
monk, who was put in to fill up, 1 never saw a set of
harder-looking scoundrels.

This ceremony of washing the feet of the disciples,
intended by our Saviour as a beautiful lesson of humility,
is performed from year to year, ostensibly to teach the
same lesson ; and in this case the humility of the supe-
rior was exalted shamefully at the expeuse of the dis-
ciples. Most of the twelve would have come under the
meaning, though inexplicable, term of " loafer ;" but
one, a vagrant Pole, was, beyond all peradventure, the
greatest blackguard I ever saw. A black muslin frock
coat, dirty and glossy from long use, buttoned tight
across the breast, and i-eaching down to his ankles,
and an old foxy, low-crowned hat, too big for him, and
almost covering his eyes and ears, formed his entire
dress, for he had no trousers, shoes, or sJiirt ; he was
snub-nosed, pock-marked, and sore-eyed ; wore a long
beard, and jjrobably could not remember the last time
he had washed his face ; tliink, then, of his feet. If
Paul had been dignified, he was puffed up almost to
bursting ; and the sclf-cimiplacency with which he
looked upon himself and all around him was admirable
beyond description. 15y great good fortune for my
designs against Paul, the Pole stood next, and before
him in the line of the quasi discijjles ; and it was re-
freshing to turn from the consequential and complacent
air of the one to the crestfallen look of the other ; and
to see him, the moment he caught my eye, with a sud-
denness that made me laugh, turn his head to the other
side ; but he had hardly got it there before he found
me on that side too ; and so I kept him watching and
dodging; and in a perpetual fidget. To add to his raor-

96

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

tification, the Pole seemed to take particularly to bim ;
and as ho was before hitn iii the lino, was constantly
turninrr round and speaking to him with a patronising
air; and I capped the climax of his agony by going up
in a quiet way, and asking him who was tlie gentleman
before him. 1 could sec him wince, and for a moment
1 thought of letting him alone; but he was often on
stilts, and I seldom had such an oj)portunity of pulHng
hilu down. Hesidcs, it was so ludicrous, I could not
help it. If I had had any one with me to share the
joke, it would have been exquisite. As it was, when I
saw his determination to dodge me, 1 m-glected every
thing else, and devoted myself entirely to him ; and, let
the poor fellow turn where he would, he was sure to
tind me leaning against a |>illar, with a smile on my face
and my eyes intently fixed upon liim ; occasionally I
would go up and ask him some question about his
friend before him ; and hnally, as if I could not joke
about it any more, and felt on my own account the
intlignity offered to him, I told him that, if I were he,
I would not stand it any longer; that I was ashamed
to see him with such a pack of rascals ; that they had
made a cat's-paw of him, and advised him to run for it,
saying that 1 would stand by him against a bull from
the pope. He now spoke for the first time, and told
me that he had been thinking of the same thing ; and,
by degrees, actually worked himself up to the desperate
pitch of incurring the hazard of excommunication, if
it must needs be so, and had his shoes and stockings
in his hands ready for a start, when I brought him
down again by telling him it would soon be over ; and,
although he had been most shamefully treated, that
he might cut the gentleman next to him whenever he
pleased.

After goading him as long as he could possibly bear,
I left him to observe the ceremony. At the ujipcr end
of the chapel, placed there for the occasion, was a large
chair, with a gilded frame and velvet back and cushion,
intended as the seat of the nominal disciple. Before it
was a large copper vase, filled with water, and a plen-
tiful sjirinkling of rose-leaves ; and before that, a large
red velvet cushion, on which the superior kneeled to
perform the office of lavation. 1 need not suggest how
inconsistent was this display of gold, rose-water, and
velvet, with the humble scene it was intended to rej)re-
sent ; but the tinsel and show imposed upon the eyes
for which they were intended.

One after the other the disciples came up, seated
themselves in the chair, an<l put their feet in the co]iper
vase. The superior kneeled upon the cushion, w ith both
liis hands washed the right foot, wiped it with a clean
towel, kissed it, and then held it in his hands to receive
the kisses of the monks, and of all volunteers thatoH'ercd.
Ail went on well enoui;h until it came to the turn of
I'aul's friend and foreruniu^r, th(! doughty I'ole. Tlu^re
%vas a general titter a.s he took his ]>l:iee in the chair;
and I saw the superior and tiie monk who assisted him
liold down their heads and laugh almost convulsively,
'i'he Pole seemed to be con.scious that he was creating
a sensation, and that all eyes were upon him, and sat
with his arms folded, with an ease and self-complaceucy
altogether indescribable, looking down in the vase, and
turning his foot in the superior's hands, hec^l up, toe up,
Bo as to facilitate the process ; and when the superior
had washed and kissed it, and was holding it uj) for
others to kiss, he looked about him with all the gran-
deur of a monarch in the act of coronation. Kee|)ing
liis arms folded, he fairly threw himself back into the
huge chair, looking fronj his foot to the monks, and
from the monks to his foot a};ain, as one to whom the
world had nothing more to oH'cr. It was more than a
minute before any one would venture upon the perilous
task of kissing those very suspicious toes, and the monk
who was assisting the superior had to go round and
drum them up ; though lie had already kissed it once
in the way of his particular duty, to set an example he
kissed it a second time ; and now, as if ashamed of their
backwardness, two or three rushed forward at once;
and, the ice once broken, the effect seemed electric, and

there was a greater rush to kiss his foot than there had
been to any of the others.

It was almost too hard to follow Paul after this dis-
play. I ought to have spared him, but I could not.
His mortification was in proportion to his predecessor's
pride, lie was sneaking up to the chair, when, startled
by some noise, he raised his head, and caught the eye
which, above all others, he would have avoided. A
broad laugh was on my face ; and poor Paul was so
discomfited that he stumbled, and came near pitching
headlong into the vase. I could not catch his eye again ;
he seemed to have resigned himself to the worst. I
followed him round in the procession, as he thrice made
the tour of the chapel and corridors, with a long lighted
candle in his hand ; and then we went down to tho
superior's room, where the monks, the superior, the
twelve, and myself, were entertained with coffee. As
the Pole, who had lagged behind, entered after we were
all seated, the superior, with the humour of a good
fellow, cried out, " Viva Polacea ;" all broke out into a
loud laugh, and Paul escaped in the midst of it. About
an hour afterwards I met him outside the Damascus
Gate. Even thou he would have shunned me ; but I
called him, and, to his great relief, neither then nor at
any other time referred to the washing of the feet of
the disciples.

Tho reader may remember the kindness with which
I had been received by the chief rabbi at Hebron. Hia
kindness did not end there ; a few days after my arrival,
the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, the high-priest of the
Jews in the city of their ancient kings, called upon me,
accompanied by a Gibraltar Jew who spoke English,
and who t<jld me that they had come at the request of
my friend in Hebron, to receive and welcome me in
the city of their fathers. I had already seen a great
deal of the Jews. I had seen them in the cities of
Italy, every whei-o more or less oppressed ; at Rome,
shut up every night in their nii.serable quarters as if
they were noxious beasts; in Turkey, persecuted and
oppressed ; along the shores of the Black Sea and in
the heart of Russia, looked down upon by the serfs of
that great em])ire of vassalage ; and, for the climax of
misery, I had seen them contemned and spit upon even
by the ignorant and enslaved boors of Poland. 1 ha<I
seen them scattered abroad among all nations, as it had
been foretold they would be, every where a separate
and peculiar people ; and every where, under all poverty,
wretehcdncss, and o])prcssion, waitingfor, andanxiously
expecting, the coming of a Messiah, to call together
their scattered tribes, and restore them to the kingdom
of their fathirs ; and all this the better fitted me for
the more interesting spectacle of the Jews in the holy
city. In all changes and revolutions, from the day
when the kingdom of Solomon passed into the hands of
strangers, under the Assyrian, the Roman, the Arab,
and the Turk, a remnant of that once-favoured peoj)lo
has always hovered around tin; holy city ; and now, .as
in the days of Uavid, old men may be seen at the foot
of Mount Zion, teaching tlicir children to read from
that mysterious book on which they have ever fondly
built their hopes of a temporal and eternal kingiloni.

The friends made for me by the rabbi at Hebron
were the very friends above all others whom I would
have selected for myself. While the Christians wero
prei>aring for the religious ceremonies of Easter, tho
Jews were making ready for the great feast of tho
Passover ; and one of the first offers of kindness they
made me, was an invitation to wait and partake of it
with them. The rabbi was an old man, nearly seventy,
with a long white beard, and Aaron himself need not
have been ashamed of such a representiitive. I would
have jireferred to attach myself particularly to him ;
but .as I could speak neither Arabic nor Hebrew, and
the English Jew was not willing to play second, and
serve merely as interpreter, I had but little benefit of
the old man's society.

The Jews are the best topographers in Jerusalem,
although their authority cuds where the great intcrcbt

THE SYNAGOGUE.

07

of the city begins ; for, as their fathers did before them,
they deny the name of C'luist, and linow uotliinj; of the
lioly places so anxiously sought for by the Christians.
That same morning tiiey took me to what they call a
part of the wall of Solomon's temple. It forms' part of
the southern wall of the Mosque of Omar, and is evi-
dently older than the rest, the stones being much larger,
measuring nine or ten feet long; and I s:iw that day,
as other travellei"s may still see every Friday in the
year, all the Jews in Jerusalem clothed in their best
raiment, winding through the narrow streets of their
quarter ; and under this hallowed wall, with the sacred
volume in their hands, sinijing, in the language in which
they were written, the Songs of Solomon and the Psalms
of David. White-bearded old men and sn\ooth-eheeked
boys were leaning over the same book ; and Jewish
maidens, in their long white robes, wertj standing with
their faces against the wall, and praying through cracks
and crevices. The tradition which, leads them to pray
through this wall is, that during the building of the
temple a cloud rested over it so as to prevent any en-
trance ; and Solomon stood at the door, and prayed that
the cloud might be removed, and promised that the
temple should be always open to men of every nation
desiring to offer up prayers ; whereupon the Lord re-
moved the cloud, and promised that the prayers of all
people offered up in that place should find acceptance
in his sight ; and now, as tl-.e Mussulman lords it over
the place where tlie temple stood, and the Jews are not
permitted to enter, they endeavour to insinuate their
prayers through the crevices in the wall, that thus they
may rise from the interior to the Throne of Grace.
The tradition is characteristic, and serves to illustrate
the devoted constancy with which the Israelites adliere
to the externals of their faith.

Returning to the convent, and passing through one
of the bazaiirs, we saw an Arab mounted on a bench,
and making a proclamation to the crowd around him ;
and my friend, the Gibraltar Jew, was immediately
among them, listening earnestly. Tlie subject was one
that touched his tenderest sensibilities as a dealer in
money ; for the edict proclaimed was one changing the
value of the current coin, reducing the tallahree or
dollar from twenty-one to twenty piasters, commanding
all the subjects of Mohammed Ali to take it at that
value, and concluding with the usual finale of a Turkish
proclamation, " Death to the offender." My Jew, as
he had already told me several times, was the richest
Israelite in Jerusalem, and consequently took a great
intei-est in every thing that related to money. He told
u»e that he always cultivated an intimacy with the
officer of the mint ; and by giving him an occasional
l>resent, he always got intimation of any intended change
in time to save lumself. We parted at the door of the
convent, having arranged that i should go with him
the next day to the synagogue, and afterwards dine at
his house.

CHAPTER XXX.

The Synagngiic. — Ideal Speculation. — .\ Uide in the Rain. — An
Kx-otficlai. — Joppa. — A Alomi PUenuuicaon. — Kcvcivucc for the
Grave.

About nine o'clock the next morning I was with him,
and in a few moments we were sitting in the highest
seats in the synagogue, at the foot of Mount Sion. My
old friend the rabbi was in the desk, reading to a small
remnant of the Israehtes the s;ime law which had been
read to their fathers on the same spot ever since they
came up out of the land of Egypt. And there they sat,
where their fathers had sat before them, with high,
black, square-topped caps, with shawls wound around,
crossed in front, and laid very neatly ; long gowns fas-
tened with a sash, and long beards, the feeble remnant
of a mighty people ; there was sternness in their faces,
but in their hearts a spirit of patient endurance, and a
firm and settled resolution to die and be buried under
the shadow of their fallen temple.

G

By the Jewish law tlic men and women sit apart in
the .synagogues ; and as 1 could not understand the
words of exhortation which fell from the lips of the
preacher, it was not altogether unnatural that I should
turn fron> the rough-bearded sons of Abraham to the
smooth faces of their w ives and daughtei-s. Since I left
Europe, 1 had not been in an apartment where the
women sat with their faces uncovered ; and, under
these circumstances, it is nut surprising that I saw
many a dark-eyed Jewess who a])peared well worthy of
my gaze ; and it is not a vain buast to .say, that while
singing tiie songs of Solomon, many a Hebrew maiden
turned lier bright black orbs upon ine ; for, in the first
place, on entering wc l«ad disturbed more than a hun-
dred .sitting on the steps; secondly, my original dre.ss,
half Turk, half I'raidc, attracted the eyes even of the
men ; and, thirdly, the alleged universal failing of the
sex is not wanting .among the daughters of Judah.

The service over, wc stopped a moment to look at the
synagogue, which w.is a new building, with nothing
about it that was peculiar or interesting. It had no gold
or silver ornaments ; and the sacred scroll, the table of
the Law, contained in the holy of holies, was all that
the pride of the Jew could show. My friend, however,
did not put his own light under a bushel ; for, telling me
the amount he had himself contributed to the buildujg,
he conducted me to a room built at his own expense for
a schoolroom, with a stone in the front wall recording
his name and generosity.

We then returned to his house ; and being about to
sit down to dinner with him, 1 ought to introduce him
more particularly to the reader. lie was a man about
fifty-five, born in Gibraltar to tiie sjime aliject poverty
which is the lot of most of his nation. In his youth he
had been fortunate in his little dealings, and had been
what we call an enterprising man; for he had twice
made a voyage to England, and was so successful, and
liked the country so much, that he always called himself
an Englishman. Having accumulated a little property,
or, as he expressed it, having become very rich, he
gratified the darling wish of his heart by coming to
Jerusalem, to die and be buried with his fathers in the
Valley of Jelioshaphat. But this holy purpose in regard
to his death and burial did not make him undervalue
the importance of life, and the advantages of being a
great man now. He told me that he was rich, very
rich ; that he was the richest, and in fact, the only rich,
Jew in Jerusalem. He took me through his house, aud
showed me his gold and silver ornaments, and t;dked
of his money and the uses he made of it ; that he lent
to the Latin Convent on intercut, without any security,
whenever they wanted ; but as for the Greeks — he
laughed, laid his finger on his nose, and said he had in
pledge jewels belonging to them of the value of more than
20,000 dollars. He had had his losses, too ; and while
we were enjoying the lu.xuries of his table, the leaven
of his nature broke out, and he endeavoured to sell me
a note for £1500, of the Lady Esther Stanhope, which
he offered at a discount of fifty per cent. — a bargain
which I declined, as being out of the line of my busi-
ness.

I remember once the American fever came upon me
in Athens ; when, sitting among the ruins of the Acro-
polis, upon a broken column of the Parthenon, I specu-
lated upon the growth of the city. I bought, in
imagination, a piece of ground, and laid it out in lots,
lithcigrapheil, and handsomely jiainted red, blue, and
white, like the maps of Chicago, Dunkirk, and Hinsdale ;
built up the ancient harbour of the Piraeus, and ran a
railroad to the foot of the Acropolis ; and I leaiicd my
head upon my hand, and calculated the immense in-
crease in value that must attend the building of the
king's new palace, and the erection of a royal residence
on the site of Plato's academy. 1 have since regretted
that I did not " go in" for some up-town lots in Athens ;
but I have never i-egretted not having shaved the note
of the Queen of the East, m the hands of the richest
Jew in Jerusalem.

It was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. The command

OB

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

to do no work on tlic Sabbath day is observed by every
Jew, as strictly as when tlic conunandinent was given
to liis fathers ; and to sucli an extent was it obeyed in
the house of my friend, tiiat it was not considered al-
lowable to extinguisli a lamp which had been Hghted
the niglit before, and was now burning in broad day-
light over our tabic. This extremely strict observance
of tlie law at first gave me some uneasiness about my
dinner ; but my liost, with great self-complacency, re-
lieved me from all apprehensions, by describing the
admirable contrivance lie had invented for reconciling
ajipetite and duty — an oven, heated the night before to
such a degree that the jirocess of cooking was continued
during the night, and the dishes were ready when wanted
the next day. I must not forget the Jew's family, which
consisted of a second wife, about sixteen, already the
mother of two children, and his son and son's wife, the
hu!<band twelve, and the wife ten years old. The little
gentleman was at the table, and behaved very well,
except that his father had to check him in eating sweet-
meats. The lady was ]ilayiiig on the floor with otlier
children, and 1 did with her what 1 could not have done
with a bigger's man's wife — I took her on my knee and
kissed her. .Among the Jews, matches are made by the
parents ; and immediately u])on the marriage, the wife
js brought into the household of the husband. A young
gentleman was tumbling about tlie floor wlio was en-
gaged to the daughter oi the chief rabbi. I did not ask
the age of the lady, of course ; but the gentleman bore
the heavy burden of three years. He had not yet
learned to whisper the story of his love to his blushing
mistress, for, in fact, he could not talk at all ; lie was
a great bawling boy, and cared much more for his
bread and butter than a wife ; but his prudent fatlier
had already provided hira.

On the morning of the 21st I departed for Jaffa,
the ancient Joppa. It was a bright and beautiful
morning when I left the Bethlehem Gate ; but before
1 had been an hour on my way, it began to rain, and
continued nearly the wholeday. About three hours from
Jerus;ilem we came to the village of Abougos, the chief
of the most powerful families of Fellahs in the Holy
Land. Nearly all his life he had been more or less in
arms against the govcrnnvent ; and his name was known
among all the Christians in the East as the robber of
the pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre. 1 had met and
Bjxiken with him outside of the walls of Jerusalem, and
during the rain, as I approached his village, I deter-
mined to stop and throw myself upon his hosi)itality for
the night ; but the returning sunslnne deceived me, and
I passed on, admiring the appearance of his village,
which iiad much the beet of any 1 had seen in the Holy
Land. About an hour afterwards I was repenting, under
a merciless rain, that I had not fulfilled my purpose.
Riding three hours longer, stopping from time to time
under a rocJ; or free, I was ascendmg the last range of
moimtains ; before me were the fertile plains of Sharon ;
and acrofs the plain, still at a great distance, was Ranila,
the ancient Ariniathea, the city of " Joseph tlie coun-
sellor, the good man, and just." To the right, bordering
the sea, was the range of Mount Cannel ; but the rain
wa.s pelting in my eyes so that I could see nothing of it.
1 liad been eight hours on tlie back of one of the most
stubborn mules that over persisted in having their own
way ; toiling with all my might, with blows and kicks,
but (iniling it intpossible to make him move one step
faster than ho |)lcased ; and when the tower, the
inoscjuc, and tlio minaret of ILainla, were before me, at
the other side of a level plain, and an hour's smart riding
would have canitd me there, I was conii)letely worn
out with urging the obstinate brute ; and with muttered
ihreata of future vengeance, wound my cloak around me,
and hauling my umbrell.i close down, and grinding my
teeth, I tried to think myself resigned to my fate. A
strong wind was driving the rain directly in my face,
and my mule, my cursed mule, stopped moving when
I stopped beating ; and in the very hardest of the
storm, when I would have rushed like a bird on the [
wing, turned off from tlie path, and fell quietly to brows-

ing on the gras.s. Afraid to disarrange my timbrella
and cloak, 1 .sat for a moment irresolute ; but the brute
turned bis face round, and looked at me with such per-
fect nonchalance, that I could not .stand it. 1 raised
my club for a blow ; the wind opened my cloak in front,
puffing it out like a sail ; caught under my umbrella,
and turned it inside out ; and the mule suddenly starting,
under a deluge of rain, I found myself planted in the
nuid on the plains of Sharon. An hour afterwards I
was drying my clothes in the house of our consular
agent at Kanila. There was nofire-jilace in tlto room ;
but I was hovering over a brazier of burning charcoal.
I sjient that night and all the next day in Ramhv,
although a (juarter of an hour would have been sufficient
to see all that it contained, which was simply nothing
more than is to be found in any other village. The
consul gave me a dry coverlet ; and while some of hig
friends came in to look at and welcome the stranger,
I laid myself down upon the divan and went to sleep.

The next morning I was unable to move ; the fatigue,
and particularly the rain of the preceding day, had been
too much for me, and 1 remained all the morning in an
up-stairs room, with a high ceiling and a stone floor,
lying on a rug in one corner, cold, desponding, and
miserable. In the afternoon 1 went down into the largo
room, to talk with the consular agent. But a year
before he had flourished in all the pomp and pride of
office. The arms of our country were blazoned over
his door, and the stars and stripes had protected his
dwelling ; but a change had come over him. The
Viceroy of Syria had ordered the flags of the consuls to
be taken down at Kamla, and forbidden any of his sub-
jects to hold the office except in the seaport towns. I
could not help thinking that he was perfectly right, as
it was merely allowing them the benefit of a foreign
protection, to save them and their families, with two or
three janizaries, from their duties to himself; but I
listei:ed attentively to the complaints of the poor agent.
His dignity had been touched, and his pride humbled
in the eyes of his townsmen ; for the governor had
demanded the usual duty from his sons, and had sent
his executive officers with the summary order, the duty
or the bastinado. The agent owed his a])poiiitnicnt to
Commodore I'atter.son, and talked of him and Captain
Nicholson as friends who would see justice done him if
he could communicate with them. I was afterwards
struck with a display of delicacy and a sense of pro-
priety tiiat I Ir.td not expected from him ; for although
lie charged me with many messages to Cominodoro
I'attei'son, he recpiosted me not to mention his difli-
culties in the matter ()f the agency, as he had already
made representations to the consul at Be\root, who had
laid them before Commodore Porter at Constantino]ile ;
and an ap])lication in another rjuarter would look like
distrusting their ability, or their willingness to resent
what he called an indignity oH'ered to the American
Hag. Annoyed at seeing the women dodging by, with
their faces covered, and always avoiding nic, 1 told him,
that being a Christian and holding an aiinoinlmcnt under
our government, he ought to conform to our customs,
and treat liis women more as companions ; or, at least,
to let them come into the same room, and sit at the
same table with him. He listened, but could not see
any reason in my proposition. He said it might do for
us ; for with us the wives always brought their husbands
money (the ignorant, uiiiiiformed barliai'iaii), but in
Syria (he sighed as he said it) they never added a para
to the riches of their lords.

The next nioniing I set out again for Jaffa. The
road lies through a rich plain ; and in three houi-s,
passing a large d<;tachment of Turkish soldiers en-
camjied outside, and waiting a transport to carry them
to Alexandria, I was entering the gate of the ancient
city of Joppa. Believed to have existed before tlio
deluge, the city where Noali dwelt and built his ark ;
whence Jonah cmliarked for Tar^hish, when he was
thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale ; the port
used by .Solomon to receive timber from Tyre for the
building of the temple, and by all the kings of Judah to

.AOrTA— C£rEB£!»%:X worn. TBB C&ATE.

cmmec: tilt eir-i -j • \

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WaTaufiiu. iiut uii l ^
Bt-u. E.:i:^ '-v.iiiiiiiiiiBjra ]K'

;.:id u line C'.iui::-; i.'-.u.'..; v :^;
Ct-'uvnt i,.' t tije iineEt uu ttie Hlmree ol liit
iiiuat.!-. jj,,.iiiiugli tliefiwtjiurt ul-JeruBalejn, iii ,...:.••.-:
iiu£ n.tvi,;-b iieeii bud ; aud wLbb 1 wae tiieit, tiit vreck
vi u Tiu'iasi: iuiiJ}-trf-wnj' wat H'inp on the bBaci
lisa: eiuut jmrlt; tiiui-e beiu^ a Beveit Htanu, th;
Greeiv piljri'iUi ^ehatiit vej-t ciiuBiuerud in cx^i^- d;
'J'iitsi'fc tt ii'.iiLiHir oi ii;'i.*i!"eKt ii) the modem 'j
Jufik. liB iuHLorv it CDimecr.t'd vi;.i: tiit past. 'J'nt
u-uveiita- iiiusi Kiiiiic im i:i'. s!i— ^.. auc! i-L the irrrk
iuirbouT witii tht si.ntt of ' or iniarme

Hmerbig tlit uxk viu. iiit - . -v wlioiii tke .. .

vac to be re}»eo))led; or wander tiiroujrh ihe najTow
Hta-eiie aud ask iiiniBetf, "IS'iiere is the iiouae of Tahi-
tha, vliaiB Peier *• raised iram the dead ?" or liiai of
Simoii tht taiuier, viiej-t Peitu- *• tarried macv da\'E'?" j
and lie niz-i im- a jo* ii:i.'v, but hiird.'v Icbe powerful 1
iiiiyj-efit, 111 B.: :-e. lor mai'v vears,

. i; ..r»j. T—jT.'.: nt^Hiieraie sti'unrie

t ciiamlters uf |
. . ;i:>Bjutul far the

J :','iiuli, antl the juuni^ viL Hhow lum an njianmeut ,
v^.e:-*",. viien all lieara were fiiukin^ witfair ihem lor j
;t;_' . lit rifiixed aiid touuiied the sick of the jiiague,

" r -- -p of luB BoldieTB, and

air bed of death.
„._iii:it:i '^' - hy reaBQE

■■-■ -t r7-«..>-r : ...lU events

iifc, a jiiiiieniiKii u wiih nineh

1 American cansiiijir apeut.

iinti tlje ciu'CUal mi.imer xu which iie received lue. He

"Was juol xi iiunie wiieii 1 aaTJved ; but in aft'w momeins

lie came in, and, taktnr: "buth ni\ Jiands in iim, yoimed

til xiie AuiericaB arnss on tlie wall, oi'dered the starE

Bud i5ti"i)ies to be linisied on the lop of Jiis iionse, and.

vith all the Esxi3n"ar;ariee uf the Hust, tuid me that aii

lie hud was mine. 1 i;t>c 8 r3"c»T tnind '(■ ti,i;e iiim at

-.- and be: ■.■.uful eni-

I s£v iH-eaent..

•_• • -/ . .uer. whitOi

V 1^ s:i,.i -■••t-:;.;-' ._: __ . - m the ai>-

citait uin' od«)o)i]ja, wjtb m\ eouna-ys uttth; before me,

•*jjd nr\- oomiirj-'* liauner wuving above.

Ti»e Jisreui wa? an A-iaiienian, and a strict ol«erver
of all i-he recjuisiziunt of iu£ exaciinc creed : lie \va5ri'j:
And liad nn ciiiidren : and, viiai I never before iiet-'
frtan tiie li]>6 of miui, he si^d tliat he wi:'
liaji}"'. 3 vRf t'.ir f:2"s^ AmfS'ican wht> Imti
fiini' ajtment. and n r

as 1 -r me. He iind rt.

mid recunstrunrea tiie wiitue ruad from Jufia to Jeru-
salem ; iind wQien J asked iiim wiiat reward he jiromised
iumsfiii' inr xhiE. iie jiuFwered that be had doue it for
God, the jiil^inis. aud iuB ewn lumonx. 1 i-emaiued
with liim that nirrht, aud would lucve ^one earlv the
> \- i^h me so soon,

"norm, escnrsed

3J-..

HOI i..-. ■ . ^ ■

1 slept tliai m^iit i.
fcmr jTciock, in comjii^ . •• ...^ .-. -:— ..,..-: . _ . ,
1 \WB£ a^ain entsriiig the pietiiiehem Gate. -'

Etandinr; liie munincenee of mv Axm;^: : ^

road ii-iini JerussJem xi Jafia. a mad t:-.
time wljen Jmias wei r.ihai'k j.

is now jimei'emiut^j;; ^ was st

>i>\ilinttdxi>£au2> JUid £um ^truut; Ml otaa iuaded miiu juias

* The town i£ •livSu hns BincE tean destrpvefl by nn snribguate;
Knfl ftf jri.lRlC inUabiumi&, J3,i>ait weic biiviati ia iUc juins. Has

■■■ Hiiiic ii in ■;i:a". i: was the

li twt; viif now irj Dvn,

■jnimir I

.. m-vta- i.ii -v ;i r

■av: and v :!■■.• ■ r

vent ou; ^ uitrnnion of duinjr nothin:;,

^ WBB aiwt; V ..^ . .. ..ww.;.^ euoupL to occupv me. Wj

fiEvourite aniusemeiit in tlie niomins: wae to po ont by

^ : : - ■ • v: • ■ -• - ; : '—jran

■lltjv.,

. U.V t .

.;if Gri-o- ;
m^r.f '.:•.: ■■•

.ng. J renien

_ ■, : V a vouiir '/

toml and weeping at :

break. ^ -i- ^^..-l. bar rather roui;.. • i.^. r,..-. . ut

cTT'ing about - and tlie jioor cirl. louiiin|r at bim for a

moment, burst into a flood of tt'i ' " ~

she wuP weeninr o^'er tiie toniL

Bu' . n:;- juur;,- ■ -

inr it iTfon wni i.

mure yuiei t. ;T!ed and

almost daLV v . i.iem. Tl

was a walk oi between tlii*ee anc lour miieE ; ai!
alwsT.'s connived, about half an bour before liie L'i---t
were dosed, to be sirtinir on a favourite tombstone near

St Stephen's Gale. The jr^-eat Turicish br. — ouud

is outside xbe wall, near this cate ; and : an a

fine afterniHin. tow; :ie whole 1 ui .;

iation. in aL tbuii' . . ..nr costumwi. .

seen wandering amuii£ uit ioii.iis. Few tiuu^b suriiis
a xnivuliei- in tlit East more tlian tlits. anc v.'v a?t to
us moi'e inexplicable. "We Beidoni go hv • ■•ard

except to pay the last oSeeE to a depart v . and

! for years afterwards we never find ovtrsetvcs in the
same place again without a shade trf msianciioM- -001111115
over us. JNot so in tiie Xiast; to-day tbey fani^- a iriencl,
to-morrow the ' fiowers over bis grarve, and ti«

neKT day. aiu ihev tend and water them, and

I, -week, : i ve. C)n every

.. '■ it is t ■ and »= ofn?n

ab ii'-

lun . ■ ; -

irrave is not ciouied wnin tne same lerrors. :t es ms
so dark anc" r' "''^'' as *d us, Thej" are firmer beiieverB
tlian we I ■ _ii. as we tbink, in a iake and mtal

:' ; aiit 11 .;i-.:iii tiiffl-e is a light beyond ibe .grave,

-, we cd" a bener mit'u can seldom see. it was a

," timmged with
] t would. i»er-

oi Lne immense muimuae wnu. aa_^ - aetai

fbttmc amunc the tombs, maiTy t ■ " one,

over iaie tonib of a dead bird, is dreaming ol a living
lover.

But tber* was -mut wbom I iroticed every day ; sle

was aiwa^« sitting by uie same stone, and 1 aiways

nntiKsd bsr as out uf the iirat ir come out, and one of

i:m. She was a y , ■^-

"oT!ib of n«r VOL f

;ierii-uiL er, or irom a fate worse tuan

a-jath : aii^ n. ^.-^ - •- .ior, nut as a Turk and masitrr,

: 'Ut as a iover. He iiad won ber young bean ; and she

lurgotten lie: :' and ber counrry: he liad

wish ills hi it^uH- in iiis band, and she

iuougbi nnh of tUi uui- wben she siood beside bs

cr&ve.

100

TRAVELS LN THE HOLY LAND.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Desert of St Ji.lin— A Midnight Procession.— Road to Jericho.

A Community of Women.— A Navigator of the Dead Sea.— A

Dance by Moonlight.— A rude Lodging.

In company with Mr Whiting, I started f<ir the
Desert of St John the liaptist. Pjissinjj the Pool of
Gihon, wliere Saul was anointed king by /adoc and
Nathan, we came to the Convent of tlic Holy Cross, the
great altjir of the chapel beijig erected, as the monks
pretend, over the spot where grew the tree from which
the cross was made. Moving on among hills and
valleys, on our right was a distant view of Ramah, the
country of Sanuu-l the seer ; and before us, crowning
the very to]) of a high hill, were the ruins of the palace
and the burial-place of the warlike Maccabees. The
Convent of St John is built on the spot where John the
Baptist was born. There is no doubt of this, say the
monks ; for beneath the great altar of the church is a
circular slab of marble, with an inscription almost
eHaced : " Hie natus est precursor Dei" — here the fore-
runner of the Lord was born. This convent is in a
fine situation ; a small Christian village is attached to
it ; the top commands a buautiful view of the mountains,
cultivated in terraces ; and directly in front is the great
Valley cf Turpentine, or Elah, the battle-ground of the
Israelites and I'hilistines, of David and Goliath. 'J'ak-
ing a Christian boy w itii us as guide, we entered the
valley ; and following the stream to its source, in about
two hours we came to the ])!ace where, it is said, .Saul
and the men of Israel j.itched by the valley of Elah,
and set the battle in array again.st the I'hilistines. It
was precisely the spot where the scene so graphically
recorded in Scripture might have taken place. " And
the Phili-stines stood on a mountain on the one side,
and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, and
there was a valley between them." On each side of
me was a mountain, and the brook was still running
near from which the shepherd-boy gathered the five
smooth stones. The boy who accompanied us told me
that the precise stones had never yet been found, though
the monks had often searched for them.

At the extreme end of the valley is the Desert of St
John, where was heard, for the first time, the voice of
one crying in the w ilderness, " Prepare ye the way of
the Lord ; make his paths straight." Directly in front,
at the top of the mountain bounding the valley, is an
o])en door in the rock leading to the grotto in which the
prophet lived. There is no appearance of a desert in
this place, except solitude ; and if it be merely a loca-
lity fi.\ed ujion by the monks, they could not have
selected one more inappropriate. It is one of the pret-
tit-st and best cultivated sj>ots in the Holy Land; and
sitting in the door of the grotto, with an .\rmenian pil-
grim by my side, and looking out upon the valley and
the mountains, all around terraced and cultivated to
the very summits, all still and Inautifid, I thought I
liad never seen a j>lacc better qualified to insjiire a
pious, philosophic, and happy state of mind, than this
Desert of St John. Wc returned by a different road,
m'arching on our way for the pool where Philip bap-
tised the eunuch of Queen Candace ; but after losing
ourselves once or twice, an<l fearing a threatening
shower, we returned to the city unsucces-sful.

At alwut ten o'clock that evening, the monks, under
a guard of soldiers and a crowd of pilgrims, each with
a eandli- in his hand, left .St Stephen's Gate in solemn
jiroces-siiiii. With a loud chant they cros.sed the Valley
of Jehoshapliat, wound around the foot of the Mount
of Olives to l«-tlip:i;;e and IJethany, sfiid masn in the
tomb of Laziirus, and returning, prayed and chanted
on the Mount of Olives and in the Garden of Getli.se-
mano ; and at about daylight the next morning returned
to the convent.

For several days I had been preparing for a journey
to the Dead Sea, but a mysterious influence seemed
still to hang about the borders <if tliat water ; and now,
Vihcn all the rest of the Holy Land was perfectly tran-

quil, the Fellahs were in commotion among tlio barren
mountains around it. I had waited two or three days
at the re(iucst of the governor ; but hearing of nothing
in particular to prevent me, I determined to set out.
The Sicilian priest who had ]iroposed to accompany me
could not go ; and at about eight o'clock I was sitting
on my horse alone, outside St Stephen's Gate, wait-
ing for Paul, who had gone to the governor for a letter
which he had ])romised me to the aga of Jericho.
.\ttracted by the unconmion beauty of the morning,
half the population of Jerusalem had already gathered
without the walls. Joining a party of pilgrims, 1 fol-
lowed once more the path 1 had so often trodden across
the Brook Kcdron and the Valley of Jehoshaphat ; and,
parting with them at the foot of the .Mount of Olives,
I wound around its ba.se, and fell into the road to
Jericho and the Jordan. We must have passed Beth-
page, though there is nothing to mark wliere it stood ;
and in about an hour we came to Bethany, now a ruined
Ai-ab village, though the monks still show the house
of .Martha and Mary, the tomb of Lazarus, and even
the barren fig-tree which was cui-sed by our Lord. The
tomb of Lazarus is a large excavation in the rock ; and
the sepulchral chamber is at the foot of a staircase of
ten or twelve steps.

Not far from Bethany we came to a fountain enclosed
with marble, and soon after to a valley, where, the
monks say, our Saviour, in coming from beyond the
Jordan, at the prayer of the sisters of Lazarus, reposed
with the disciples. In about two hours we were among
the mountains. The scene every moment became wilder
and more rugged ; and e.\copt in the wilderness of Sinai
and among the wastes of Idumea, I never travelled so
dreary a road as " in going down to Jericho." It is on
this desolate route that our Saviour lays the scene of
the parable of the good .'Samaritan ; and nowhere could
a more forcible illustration be given of the heartlessness
of the priest and the Levite, in •' passing by on the
other side." Ascending for some distance by the pre-
cipitous side of a yawning chasm, where a false move-
ment of my horse might have dashed me to atoms, from
the top of the Mountains of Desolation I looked to the
left upon a liigher and still wilder and more dreary
range ; and, towering above all the rest in gloomy
grandeur, its naked sides pierced with doors for the
cells of hermits, was the mountain of our Saviour's
fasting and temptation ; before me were the jilains of
Jericho, the Valley of the Jordan, the .Mountains of
Arabia, and the Dead Sea. A high, square building,
like a tower, marked the site of Jericho, and a small
stream, running between two banks of sand, was the
hallowed Jordan.

Descending the mountain, on our left, directly at the
foot, were the remains of an aqueduct and other ruins,
which, in all j)robability, were [tart of the ancient city
of Jericho. The plain commences at the foot of the
mountains ; the land is fertile, and well watered with
streams emptying into the Jordan, but for the most
part wild and uncultivated. About half way across wo
p.-ussed the edge of a stagnant pool, nearly covering a
Mussulman burying-ground ; the tombstones were
washed from their phic(.'S, and here and there the ghastly
skeletons were visible above the muddy water. In one
place, crossing astream, we met three Abyssinians, who
had come from the remotest point in the interior of
Africa where the name of Christian is known, to batlio
in the sacred Jordan. Two or three times we were
obstructed by brick fences, intended as ramparts to
protect the inhabitants and their flocks against tho
inenrsions of wolves ; and at about four o'clock wo
arrived at the ruined village of Jericho.

I have observed that travellers generally, when they
arrive at any ])lace of extraordinary interest, find tho
right glow t>{ feeling coming over them precisely at the
proper moment. I never had any difficulty in Italy ;
for there, in the useful guidebook of Madame .Starke,
beautifully interspersed with valuable information about
hotels, post-hors<-9, and the pri.;e of wa.shing linen, the
reader may find prepared for him an ai>propriatc cata-

A COMMUNITY OF WOMEN— A DANCE BY .MOON LIGHT.

ICl

lo^ne of sensations for .ilmost every possible situation [
and object, from a walk in the Colisfum by moonlight I
to a puppet-show at San Carlino in Naples ; but in a i
country like this, a man is thrown upon liis own re- j
sources ; and notwithstanding the interest attached to ;
the name of Jei-icho, 1 found it a hard matter to feel ]
' duly excited. '

Jericho was the first city in Can.ian which fell into |
the hands of the Israelites. It was lon^ the second city I
of Judea, and, according to the Jewish Talmud, con-
tained twelve thousand jiriests. It had it.s hi]>podrome I
and amphitheatre, and in its royal palace Herod the i
Tetrarch died. But the curse of Joshua seems to rest :
upon it now : " Cursed be the man before the Lord who
shall rebuild Jericho." It consists of fifty or sixty
miserable Arab houses, the walls of whicii on three
sides are of stones, piled up like the stone fences of our
farmers, most of them not so high as a man's liead, and
the front and top either entirely open or covered with
brush.

The old fortress in which I expected to sleep, I foun<l
entirely abandoned, and the apartments used as a shelter
for sheep and goats. I expected to find there the aga,
quietly smoking his pipe, and glad to receive and gossip
with a stranger ; but I had mounted to the top, and
looked out upon the extensive plains of Jericho and the
Valley of the Jordan, without meeting a single person ;
and it was not until I had gone out of the gate, and witli
the bridle in my hand was walking back into the vil-
lage, that I noticed the remarkable circumstance, so
different from the usual course of matters in Arab vil-
lages, that no tlu'ong of idlers had gathered around me.
In fact, I had passed through the village, gone to the
fortress, and come back, without seeing a man ; and
soon found that there was not a male in the village
above ten years old, except the aga, and one p.assing
Arab. It had numbered sixty men, of whom Ibrahim
Pacha had ordered a levy of twenty-four for his army.
The miserable inhabitants had decided among them-
selves upon nineteen who could best be spared ; and,
unable to supply the rest, in a spirit of desperation had
abandoned their village ; and, taking with them all the
boys above ten years old, fled to the mountaius around
the Dead Sea, where they were now in arms, ripe for
rebellion, robbery, and murder.

I found myself very much at a loss ; the aga was a
stranger there, and kuew nothing of the localities ; and
I could not find a boy old enough to conduct me to the
Well of Elisha. Some of the women knew where it
was, but they would not go with me, though I asked
them in all courtesy ; and, taking my direction from
them, and fixing my eyes on the naked top of the moun-
tain of our Saviour's temptation, in about half an hour
I reached the miraculous fountain where, at the request
of the men of Jericho, Elisha, " cast salt into the spring
and healed the water." It is enclosed in a large marble
basin, and several streams, constantly running from it,
refresh and fertilise the plains of Jericho. Riding on a
short distance farther, I came to an aqueduct and the
ruins of a Greek convent, at the base of the " exceeding
high mountain" from whose top the devil showed our
Saviour all the kingdoms of the world. The naked sides
of the mountain are studded with doors, opening to the
cells of anchorites and hermits, who there turned their
backs upon temptation, and, amid desolation and soli-
tude, passed their days in penance and prayer.

It was dark when I returned to Jericho. Before
going away, the aga had taken me to his hut, and wished
me to pass the nigiit with him ; but as two horses had
already taken their places before me, and the hut was
perfectly open, having merely a roof of branches, and
nothing at all in front, I had looked round and selected
another for my lodging-place, chiefiy from the circum-
stance of its having a small boat set up on its side before
it, so as to form a front wall.

That boat told a melancholy tale. It was the only one
that had ever floated on the "Dead Sea. About eight
months before, Mr Costigan, an Irish traveller, who had
been some years in the East, had projected a most iu-

tercsting journey, and, most unhappily fur liimself and
the interests of .science, died almost in the moment
of its successful accomplishment. Ho had purchased
his boat at Beyroot, and, with a .Maltese sailor for his
servant, in spite of many difficulties and impediments
from the Arabs, had carried it across the country on a
dromedary, and launched it on the .Sea of Galilee ; he
had explored this most interesting water, and entering
the Jordan, followed it down until he naiTowly escaped
with his life among the rocks and rapids of that ancient
but unknown river ; and then constantly obstructed by
the Arabs, even the governor of Daina.'icus refusing him
any facilities, with great difficulty he succeeded in
bringing his boat by land to the Dead Sea. In the
middle of July he had embarked with his servant to
make the tour of the sea, and eight days afterwards the
old woman in whose tent 1 lodged had found him lying
on the shore alone, gasping for breath. She had him
carried to her hut, where belay till the Rev. Mr Nicol-
aisen, the English missionary at Jerusalem, came for
him, and the second day after his arrival in Jerusalem
he died. With his dying breath he bore the same tes-
timony to the kindness of woman under the burning
sun of Syria that our countryman Lcdyard did in the
wilds of Siberia ; for while lying upon the shores of
the Dead .Sea, the Arabs gathered round him only to
gaze, and would have left him to die there if this old
woman had not prevailed upon two of her sons to carry
him to her hut.

That boat was interesting to me for another reason.
Nothing, not even the thought of visiting Petra and the
land of Idumea, affected me so strangely as the idea of
making the tour of this sea ; and notwithstaiiding the
miserable state of my health, shattered by my joiirney
in the desert, as soon as I heard, after my arrival at
Jerusalem, that there was a boat at Jericho, I began
to think of taking advantage of it. If I had succeeded
in this, I should consider my tour the most perfect and
complete ever made by any oriental traveller. I had
hunted up the oars, sail, &c. ; but on my return from
Jaffa I was compelled to abandon all thoughts of making
the attempt. Still, when I saw the boat, all my ardour
revived ; and never, in my lonely journeyings in the
East, did I wish so earnestly for the comfort and sup-
port of a friend. With a companion, or even with a
servant, who would encourage and support me, in spite
of my health I should certainly have undertaken it ;
but Paul was particularly averse to the attempt ; the
boat was barely large enough for two ; and 1 was com-
pelled to give up the thought.

That evening I saw at Jericho what I never saw
before. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and all the
women were out of doors singing and dancing. The
dance was altogether indescribable ; consisting not of
wanton movements, like those of the dancing girls in
Egypt, but merely in joining hands and moving round
in "a circle, keeping time to the music of their own
voices. I had never seen so gay and joyous a scene
among the women in the E;ist ; and though their fathers,
and brothers, and husbands, and lovers, were away
among the mountains, I did not feel disposed to judge
them harshly. It was so rare, in that unhappy country,
to see any thing like gaiety of heart, that if they had been
dancing over the graves of their husbands, I should
have been inclined to join them. And they did not shun
us as the Moslem women generally do ; they talked with
us with their faces uncovered ; and I remember a young
Arab girl, not more than sixteen, who h.ad a child in
her arms, and who told me that its father had fled to
the mountains ; and she put the child in my arms while
she joined in the dance. In fact, my situation began
to be peculiar ; the aga had gone oft' to look for some
one who would accompany me to the Dead Sea ; and
among perhaps more than a hundred women, that night
Paul, and I, and my muleteers, were the only men in
Jericho. In justice" to the poor Arab women, however,
I would remove from them any imputation of want of
feeling or hardness of heart ; for I have no doubt the
young girl who left her child in my arms loved its father

102

TRAVELS IN THE IIOLV LAND.

as warmly as if tliey were all clad in purple ami fine
raiment evci-y day.

I would liave been better satisfied, however, if tliat
nijjht tlifv liad eoa.-^ed tlieir merriment at an earlier
lii'Ur; for lonjj after 1 had lain down on my stony bed,
tlieir son;; and langli prevented my sleepini; ; and when
thi'y had retired, other noises followed : the lowing of
cattle, the bleating of sheep and goats, the stam])iiig of
lioi-ses, the crying of children, and the loud barking of
the watch-dog; and, tinally, the fierce assault of the
voracious insects that always swarm in an Arab's hut,
drove me from my bed aiul out of doors. The cool air
refreshed and revived me, and I walked by the light of
a splendid moon among the miserable huts of the village,
hunted and barked at by the watching wolf-dog, ami
jierliaps exciting the apprehensions of the unprotected
wonien.

I leaned against a high fence of brush enclosing some
of the huts, and nuise«l upon the wonderful events of
which this miserable place had been the scene, until my
eyes began to close ; wla-n, ojifiiing a place among the
bushes, 1 tlivw my cloak around ine and crawled in,
and soon ft-ll fast aslei-j). Once during the night 1 was
worried and almost dragged out of my bnrrowing-place
by lliedogs, but 1 kicked them away, and slept on. At
daylight the aga was pulling me by the slioulilei", armed
to the teeth, and ready to escort me. I shook myself
and my toilet was made ; and before the laughers, and
singers, and dancers of the previous night, had waked
from tlieir sluinbei-s, we were muuutcd and on our way
to the Jordan.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Tlie River Jorilan. — The Dcid Sc.i. — Force of Kxamplp. — Buoy-
ancv of the Dead Sea. — A Perilous .\8cent. — A Navigator of the
I)caa Sea. — Story of the Voyage. — The Convent of Santa Sabx

Moving directly from the ruined village, we soon left
the fertile plains of Jericho, and entered the barren
valley of the Jordan. It was washed and torn by the
mountain torrents, full of gullies and large saml-hills ;
and in about an hour and a half we were standing on
the banks of the river, at the most hallowed spot on the
margin of that sacred stream, where, 1800 years ago,
Jidiu baptised the Redeemer of the world; and whore,
yeai- after year, thousands of pilgrims throw themselves
into the river, with the blind belief that, by bathing in
its watei-s, they wjish away their sins. As a pious pil-
grim, it would have Ix-en my duty, perhaps, to do the
sjiiiie ; but the reader will please remember that it was
the last ihiy of .March ; that I had slept in a bush ;
that niy limbs were stiff; and that it was not yet six
o'clock in the morning, and that I had not breakfasted.
Sitting down, then, on the bank, I made my morning
nu-al, and drank as devoutly of its water as any pilgrim
wlio ever stotid by Jordan.

1 afterwards followed the river close along its bank
till It emptied into the Dead Sea, and nowhere found
any spot that, for beauty of scenery, could be compared
with this eoiisecrated bathing-plaee of the pilgrims.
The bank here is about ten or twelve feet high ; a clear,
level table of land, covered with rich grass, and large
bushes on the edge overhanging the river. Judging
Ity the eye, the river is here about tliirty paces broad ;
the current is very rr.pid, and the pilgrim, in bathing,
is obliged to hold on by the bushes, in order to pre-
vent himself being carried away. Here, it is said,
the wild beast still has his haunt ; and the traveller
sometimes, when the river is rising, may realise the
expression, " lie shall come up like a lion out of the
swelling of Jordan." Opposite, the hank is low, and
the bushes grow down to the water's edge. Immediately
below this, the river narrows to ten paces; and there
is not another spot on the lino of the Jordan which can
attract the eye of the traveller. It is a small, broken,
and muddy stream, running between banks of barren
Kind, without bloom or verdure ; and if it were not for
the associations connected with it, a man would turn
from it as the must uninteresting of rivers. In one

place I saw an .\rab wading across ; and the river there,
so far as I could juilgo, had not fallen more than two
feet. 1 followed It as closely as the cracks and gullies
would allow, cutting off none of the bonds. Fur tlio
last two or three miles it runs between perpendicular
banks of sand, from live to ten feet high, and its pure
watei-sare already corrupted by the pestiferous iiiHuenco
of the bituminous lake. On the left it stops even with
the shore ; but on the right the bank runs out to a low,
sandy point, round which a quantity of driftwood is
collected ; and here, with a gentle ripple of its waters,
the Jordan is lost in the Dead Sea.

I followed it almost to the very point, until my horse's
feet sank above his fetlocks in the wet sand. It was
the old opinion, and was c<junted among the wonders of
the lake Asphaltites, that the river passed through with-
out mingling with the waters of the lake ; aiid I'ococke
says, " 1 thought I saw the stream of a different colour ;"
but Pococke did not follow the river down to the ex-
treme point. 1 did ; and could see most distinctly the
very spot where the waters mingled. Instead of the
river keeping its way through, its current was rather
stopped at once by the denser water of the lake ; and,
in fact, for two or three miles above its month, the
Jordan is iin])regnated with the salt and bituminous
matter of the lake.

Almost at the moment of my turning from the Jordan
to the Dead Sea, notwithstanding the long-credited
accounts that no bird could fly over without dropping
dead upon its surface, I saw a flock of gulls floating
quietly on its bosom ; and when I roused them with a
stone, they Hew down the lake, skimming its surface
until they had carrie<l themselves out of sight. From
the point on which I stood, near its eastern shore, the
sea was spread out before me, motionless as a lake of
molten lead, bounded on either side by ranges of high
and barren mountains, and on its southern extremity
by the great desert valley of E\ Ghor ; constantly re-
ceiving the watei-s of the Jordan, but, unlike other
watei-s, sending no tribute to the sea. Pliny, Diodorus
Siculus, and Josephus, describe it as more than sixty
miles long ; but Mr LSanks and his companions, by ob-
servation from elevated heights, make it not more than
thirty ; and p,s the ancients were better acquainted with
it than modern geogi-aphers, it has been supfiosed that
the lake has contracted in its dimensions, and that part
of the valley of El Ghor was once covered by its waters.
Moving on slowly from the point of the Jordan, the
shores low and sandy, strewed with brush and driftwood,
and rising in a slope to the sandy plain above, I rode
along nearly the whole head of the lake with my horse's
feet in the water, and twice picked up a large piece of
bitumen, almost like common pitch, supposed to bo
thrown up from the bottom of the lake. The sand is
not bright like that of an Atlantic or Mediterranean
beach, but of a dirty, dark brown. The water is ex-
ceedingly clear and transparent, but its taste and smell
ai'e a compound of all that is bad.

It was now the last day of March, and even before
wo left the plains of the Jfirdan the sun had been
intensely hot ; without a branch or leaf to break its
force, it poured upon the dreary waste around the Dead
.Sea with a scorching and withering heat. It was on
this shore that the Knight of the Leopard encountered
the Saracen Emir ; and in the sandy jilain above is ihe
beautiful scene of the Diamond of the Desert, in the
opening of Scott's Crusaders. The general features of
the scenery along the northern shore of the Dead ."sea
are admirably described. The Diamond of the Desert
is, of course, the creation of the author's fancy ; and
the only actual error is in placing the wildernr-ss (if
Kngaddi, which Scott has confounded with the moun-
tains of (iuarantania, but which is really half way down
the borders of the sea.

It was two o'clock when my guards, having conducted
me along the head of the sea, proposed returning to
Jericho. I had already had some ditticulty with thein.
Twice disnpjioiiited in my purposed exploration of this
sea ; once in my wish, conceived on the tup of Mount

BUOYANCY OF THE DEAD SEA.

103

llor, to strike it at its soutlicrn extremity, and coast
along its borders ; and then in the still more attractive
project of exploring it in a boat. Instead of returning
to Jericho, my desire was to go down the borders of the
sea, and turn up among the mountains to the convent
of Santa Saba. At Jerusalem I could not hire hoi-ses
for this convent, because, as they said, it was a danger-
ous route ; and I took them for Jericho, lioping in some
way or other still to accomplish my object. JJy acci-
dent, an Arab from Santa Saba liad come to Jericho
during the night ; and in the morning I told the aga
and liis companion that I would not have them as my
escort at all, unless they would go with me to the con-
vent. Tliey at first objected, but afterwards promised
to go as far as I wanted them ; now they again made ob-
jections. I thought it was merely to enliancc the value
of their services ; but in a few moments they told me
they would not go any farther ; that the order of the
goverrKir was to protect me to tlie Dead Sea, and back
to Jericho. The worst of it was, that my muleteers
refused to go without the guard ; and althougli we had
a guide with us who told us there was no danger, though
we had not met a single Arab since we left Jericho, and
though we could see many miles down the lake, and
plainly distinguish the wild track up the bare side of tiie
mountain to the open country above, they were " afraid
of the bad Arabs." 1 was determined, however, not to
go back to Jericho. I had no idea of sleeping in the
bushes again ; and spurring my liorse, I told I'aul to
follow me, and tliey might do as they pleased. The aga
and his companion bade me farewell ; and, dashing over
the arid plain, were soon hidden from view by hillocks
of sand. I continued along the shore ; and after a
few moments' consultation, my Arabs quietly followed
nie.

Since early in the morning, I had had the sea con-
stantly before my eyes. While riding along the northern
shore, the general aspect was very much the same ; but
as soon as 1 turned the head, and began to move along
its side, tlie mountains evei-y moment assumed a dif-
ferent aspect, although every where wild, rugged, and
barren. At three o'clock we were approaching a place
where the mountain rises precipitously from the lake,
leaving no i-oom for a passage at its foot ; my eyes were
fixed upon the lake, my thoughts upon its mysterious
properties. The ancients believed that living bodies,
and even heavy metals, would not sink in it ; and Pliny
and Strabo have written of its extraordinary buoyancy.
Before I left Jerusalem, I had resolved not to bathe
in it, on account of my health ; and I had sustained my
resolution during the whole of my day's ride along its
shore ; but, on the point of turning up among the
mountains, 1 could resist no longer. My clothes seemed
to come off of their own accord ; and before Paul had
time to ask me what I was going to do, I was floating
on its w'aters. Paul and the Arabs followed ; and after
splashing about for a while, we lay like a parcel of
corks upon its surface.

From my own experience, I can almost corroborate
the most extravagant accounts of the ancients. I know,
in reference to my own specific gravity, that in the
Atlantic or Mediterranean I cannot float without some
little movement of the hands ; and even then my body
is almost totally submei-ged ; but here, when I threw
myself upon my back, my body was half out of water.
It was an exertion even for my lank Arabs to keep
themselves under. When I struck out in swinmiing,
it was exceedingly awkward ; for my legs were con-
stantly rising to the surface, and even above the water.
1 could have lain there and read with perfect ease. In
fact, I could have slept, and it would have been a much
easier bed than the bushes at Jericho. It was ludici-ous
to see one of the horses. As soon as his body touched
the water, he was afloat, and turned over on his side ;
he struggled with all his force to preserve his e{|uili-
brium ; but the moment he stopped moving, he turned
over ou his side again, and almost on his back, kicking
his feet out of water, and snorting with terror. The
worst of my bath was, after it was over, my skin was

covered with a thick, glutinous substance, which it
re<iuired another ablution to get rid of; and afior I had
wiped myself dry, my body burnt and smarted as if 1
had been turned round before a roasting fire. My face
and ears were encrusted with s;ilt ; my hairs stood out,
" each particular hair on end ;" and my eyes were irri-
Uited and infkuned, so that I felt the effects of it for
several days. In spite of all this, however, revived
and refreshed by my bath, I mounted my horse a new
man.

Modern science has solved all the mystery about thia
water. It has been satisfactorily analysed, and its spe-
cific gravity ascertained to be i.'211, a degree of den-
sity unknown in any other, the specific gravity of fresh
water being 1.000; and it has been found to hold in
solution the following proportions of salt to 100 grains
of water : —

Claim
Muriate of lime, - - .'{.y^O

Muriate of magnesia, - 10 246

Muriate of soda, - - 10.3G0

Sulphate of lime, - - 0.0 ")4

24.580

Except the ruined city of Petra, I never felt so
unwilling to leave any place. I was unsatJNfied. I had
a longing desire to explore every part of that unknown
water ; to spend days upon its surface ; to coast along
its shores; to sound its mysterious depths, and search
for the ruins of the guilty cities. And why not? If
we believe our Bible, that bituminous lake covers the
once fertile vale of Siddim, and the ruins of Sodom and
Gonimorah ; and why may we not see them ? Tiie ruins
of Thebes still cover for miles tlie banks of the Nile;
the pyramids stand towering as when they were built,
and no man knows their builders; and the traveller
may still trace, by " the great river, the Euphrates,"
the ruins of the Tower of Babel. Besides, that water
does not destroy ; it preserves all that it touches ; the
wood that falls into it becomes petrified by its action ;
and I can see no good reason why it should hide for
ever from man's eyes the monuments of that fearful
anger which the crimes of the guilty had so righteously
provoked.

Except to the summit of Mount Hor, I never had
so desperate a climb as up the barren mountain on the
borders of the Dead Sea. We had not found any water
fit to drink since we left the Jordan, and turned up a
little before we reached the place we had intended, the
guide telling us that here we would find a spring. We
were soon obliged to dismount ; and even our sure-
footed horses, trained as they were to climbing moun-
tains, slipped, faltered, and completely failed. Our
guide told us that he had never ascended with horses
before ; and, looking forward, the attempt seemed utterly
impossible ; but the noble animals climbed with the
intelligence of men, holding on with their fore-feet as
if they were hands, and the Arabs above pulling them
by the mane, or pushing from below. One of them, in
climbing an almost perpendicular height, fell over b:ick-
ward. I thought he was killed ; and my Arabs, irri-
tated by toil, thirst, and the danger to their horses,
sprang upon the guide, and I believe would have killed
hinj if Paul and I had not interfered. Taking oft' the
enormous saddle, we all joined above and below, and
hoisted and pushed him up almost bodily.

It was nearly dark when we reached the top of the
mountain, and I sat down for a moment to take a last
look at the Dead Sea. From this distance, its aspect
fully justified its name. It was calm, motionless, and
seemingly dead ; there was no wave or ripple ou its
surface, nor was it hurrying on, like other waters, to
pay its tribute to the ocean ; the mountains around it
were also dead ; no trees or shrubs, not a blade of grass,
grew on their naked sides ; and, as in the days of Moses,
" Brimstone and salt, it is not sown, nor beareth, nor
any grass groweth thereon."

One thing had especially attracted my attention iu

104

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

nKccndin^ tlic moiint.iiii : on attaining a partienlar point,
^ve liad ;i clear view of the whole sea, and at the extreme
end we saw distinctly what Paul and I both at once
called an island. M. Seetzen, one of the earliest modern
ti-avellers who visited this sea, imagined th:it he had
discovered a larjje island in the same direction ; and
though no one believed in its reality, I iiad then seen
no satisfactory explanation of the appearance. 1 could
not be deceived in what I saw. There never was any
thing that looked more like an island, ami I afterwards
received an explanation whicli to nu; at lejust was per-
fectly satisfactory. It comes from one who ought to
know, from the only man who ever made the tour of
that sea, and lived to tell of it ; and, relying upon the
interesting nature of the subject, 1 make no apology for
introilucing it here.

When the unhappy Costigan was found by the Arabs
on the shore of the Dead Sea, the spirit of the enterpris-
ing Irishman was fa.st fleeting away. He lived two
days after he was carried to the convent at Jerusalem,
but he never once referred to his unhappy voyage.
He hail long been a traveller in the Ea.st, and long ])re-
paring for this voyage ; had read every book that
tit?ated of the nirslerious water, and was thoroughly
prepared with all the knowledge necessary for exploring
it to advantage. Unfortunately for the interests of
science, he had always been in the habit of trusting
greatly to his memory ; and, after his death, the mis-
sionaries in JeruK;ilem found no regular diary c^r jour-
nal, but merely brief notes written on the margins of
books, so irregular and confused that thov could make
nothing of them ; and, either from indifference, or
because thev had no confidence in him, thev allowed
Costigan's servant to go without asking him any ques-
tions. I took some pains to trace out this man ; and
afterwards, while lying at Beyroot, suffering from a
malady which abrujitly ]>utan end to my travels in the
Kasf, Paul hunted him out and brought him to me.
He was a little, dried-np .Maltese sailor ; had rowed
around tiiat soii without knowing why, except that he
was p.aid for it ; and what he told nie bore the stamp of
truth, for he did not seem to think th.at he had done
any thing extraordinary. He knew as little about it as
any man could know who had been over the same
water ; and yet, after all, perhaps he knew as much as
any one else could learn. He seemed, however, to have
observed the coast and the soundings with the eye of
a sailor. They were eight days in accomplishing the
whole tour of the lake, sleeping every night on shore
except once, when, afraid of some suspicious Arabs
whom they saw on the mountains, they slept on board,
b'-yond the reach of gunshot from the land. He told
me that they iiad moved in a zigzag direction, crossing
and recrossing tlie lake several times ; that every day
tiiey wiunded, frequently with a lino of 175 braehia
(about six feet e.-xcli) ; that they foinid the bottom roeky
and of very unequal di-pth, sometimes rjinging thirty,
forty, eighty, twrnfy braehia, all within a few boats'
length ;• that sometimes the lead brought up sand, like
that of the mountains on each side ; that they failed in
finding bottom but once, and in that place there were
large bubbles all around for thirty paces, rising pro-
bably from a upring ; that in one place they found on
the bank a hot sulphur spring ; that at the southern
extremity .Mr Costigan looked for the River of Degs,
but did not find it ; that in four different places they
found ruins, and could clearly distinguish large hewn
stones, which 8<'emed to have been used for buildings;
and in one place they saw niins which Mr Costigan said
were the ruins of (Jomon^h. Now, I have no doubt
that Mr Costigan tiilked with him as they went along,

* f wonlil imitgcvt whether this Irrrfnilnrity ilocs not tend to
»liow Ihe fallary of the opinion, that the (itici of tho plain were
di-triijod bv a voK-anic cmpti'in, and Hint thu Irvkc covers the
cr it'T of anrxtinct volcano. I h.'»vo kcti the crntcrsrif Vesuvliu,
tolfat.ira, Ktnn, and .Monte H"<»<>, and all present thc^a^1c form
r.f a mountain excavated in the form of a mne, without any of
the irregularities fuunU ia the bottom of tlm sco.

and told him what he told mo ; and that ifr Costigan
had persuaded himself that he did see the ruins of the
guilty city. He may have been deceived, and prob.ibly
was; but it must have been the most intensely interest-
ing illusion that ever any man had. But of the island,
or what Paul and 1 had imagined to be such : — He said
that they too had noticed it particularly ; and when
they came towards the southern extremity of the lake,
found that it was an optical deception, caused by a
tongue of higii land, that jiut out for a long distance
from the middle of the southern extremity ; and, bein*
much higher than the valley beyond it, intercepted the
view in tlic manner we had both noticed. This tongue
of land, he said, was composed of solid salt ; tending to
confirm the assertion of Strabo, to which I referred in
my JDuriwy through Idumea, that in the great valley
south of the Dead Sea there were formerly large cities
built entirely of salt. The reader will take this for
what it is worth ; it is at least new, and it eomes from
the only man living who has explored the lake.

He told me some other particulars ; that the boat,
when empty, floated a palm higher out of the water
than on the Mediterranean ; that Costigan lay on the
water, and picked a fowl, and tried to induce him to
come in ; that it w.a.s in the month of Jidy, and from
nine to five dreadfully hot, and every night a north
wind blew, and the waves were worse than in the Gulf
of Lyons ; and in reference to their peculiar expo-
sures, and the circumstances that hurried poor Costigan
to iiis unhappy fate, he said that they had suffered
exceedingly from the heat, the first five days Costigan
taking his tuni at the oars ; that on the sixth day their
water was exhausted, and Costigan gave out ; that on
the seventh day they were obliged to drink the water
of the sea, and on the eighth they were near the head
of the lake, and he himself exhausted, and unable any
longer to pull an oar. There he made coffee from the
water of the sea ; and a favourable wind springing up,
for the first time they hoisted their sail, and in a few
hours reached the head of the lake ; that, feeble as he
was, he set off for Jericho, and, in the meantime, tho
unhappy Costigan was found by the .\rabs on the shore
a dying man, and, by the intercession of the old woman,
carried to Jericho. I ought to add, that the next time
he came to me, like Goose Gibbio, he h.ad tried whether
the money I gave him was good, and recollected a great
many things he had forgotten before.

The reader cannot feel the same interest in that sea
which I did, and therefore I will not detain him longer.
In three hours, crossing a rich and fertile country,
where flowers were blooming, and Arab shepherds
were p.isturing their flocks of siicep and goats, we had
descended the bed of a r.avine, where the Kedron pa.sses
from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, at the foot of the
mountains of Santa Saba. It was night when we ar-
rived ; and groping our way by the uncertain light of
the moon, we arrived at the door of the convent, a
lofty and gigantic structure, rising in stories or ter-
races, one above the other, against the sides of the
mountain, to its very top ; and then crowned with
turrets, that from the base where I stood, seemed, like
the tower at which the wickedness of man was con-
founcled, striving to reach to heaven.

We " knocked and it wa-s opened to lis ;" ascended
two or three flights of steps, climbed tip a ladder,
crawled through a small door, only large enough to
admit one at a time, and found ourselves in an anfo-
chambor, surrounded by more than 100 Greek pilgrims.
A monk conducted us up two or three flights of steps to
the chamber of the superior, where we took coffee. In
a few moments we followed him again up two or three
more flights of steps to a neat little room, with a divan
and a large pile of coverlets.

I thought of the bush in which I had lodged tlie
night hrt-fore, spread out a few of the coverlets, crawled
in among them, and in a few moments the Dead Sea,
and the Holy Land, and every other land and sea, were
nothing to me.

CELEBRATION OF GOOD FRIDAY

105

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Convent of Santa Saba. — A strange Picture. — Celebration of
Good Friday.— P:ilm Sunday. — A Struggle for Life.— The Grave
of a Frieud. — A Convert. — Uurial of a Missionary.

I SLF.rr till nine o'clock the next morning. The first
thing I did after breakfast was to mount to the tower
at the top of the convent. Tiiis is the larg.'st Greek
convent in the Holy Land; and I remarked that it was
in a good state of repair, and that largo and expensive
improvements were then in progress. The tower com-
manded a view of the whole convent, built in terraces,
in a sort of amphitheatre, in the side of the mountain.
All around, particularly in the mountain ujipositc, were
ranges of grottoes, formerly the residences of ancho-
rites and hermits, admirably situated for cherishing
jiious thoughts, and leading a holy life. An old white-
bearded monk, leaning on his staff, was toiling up its
sides, leading a long jjrocession of pilgrims, probably
to some very holy place ; and below me, apparently
gi'owing out of the rock, was a large palm-tree, planted,
as they say, by Santa Saba himself in the fourth cen-
tury. The cemetery is about half way down, in a vault
under an open area. The flat stone that covered the
entrance was fastened down with cement. The monk
told me that the bodies of the dead were laid on stone
benches, where lime was thrown over them ; and as
soon as decomposition had taken place, the bones were
removed, and thrown upon a pile in another part of the
cemetery.

The chapel, like all the other Greek chapels, was
full of gaudy and ridiculous ornaments and paintings ;
and, among the latter, there was one that attracted the
particular admiration and reverence of the pilgrims.
At the top of the picture sat the father, surrounded by
angels, and patriarchs, and good men ; and on his right
was a range of two-story houses, St Peter standing
l)cfore them with the keys in liis hand. Below the
father was a large, powerful man, with a huge pair of
scales in his hand, weighing sinners as they came up,
and billeting on each the weiglit of his sins ; below him
were a nimiber of naked figures, in a sitting posture,
with their arms spread out, and their legs enclosed in
long boxes extended horizontally. On the left a stream
of fire was coming down from the father, and collect-
ing in the mouth of a huge nondescript sea-monster,
while in front stood a great half-naked figure, pitching
in the sinners just as the fireman on board a steam-
boat pitches in the long sticks of wood, and the damned
were kicking about in the flames. On the right was
Elias doing battle with Antichrist ; and below was a
representation of the last day, and the graves giving
up their dead, in almost every conceivable variety of
form and situation.

In another chapel, dedicated to John of Damascus,
who fox-merly lived there, behind an iron grating in a
grotto of the rock was a large pile of skulls and bones,
the remains of 14,000 hermits who dwelt among the
mountains, and were slain by the Turks.

The superior had been waiting some time to accom-
pany me to Jerusalem. Will the reader believe it ?
This man had lived twenty years in the convent, and
liad never been to the Dead Sea ! I was so disgusted
with him that I rode on and left him ; and following
the Valley of the Kedron, meeting on the way hundreds
of Greek pilgrims, in three hours I was again in Jeru-
salem.

The next night being Good Friday, the monks of the
Latin Convent performed the ceremony of the cruci-
fixion. The doors were open at an early hour for a
short time, and then closed for the night, so that we
were obliged to be there two or three hours before the
ceremony began. Most of the pilgrims had prepared
against the tediousness of waiting bv bringing with them
their beds, mats, and coverlets ; and all around the
floor of the church, men, women, and children, were
taking an intermediate nap. The proceedings com-
menced in the chapel of the Latin Convent, where

priests, monks, pilgrims, Paul, and myself, all assembled,
every one holding in his hand a long lii^hted candle.
The superior, with his gold mitre and black velvet
cloak trimmed with gold, my friend the Sicilian priest,
and some other dignitaries of the church, were present,
very richly dresseti. (Jn a large cross was the figure
of a man, representing the Saviour, the crown of thorng
on his head, nails in iiis hands and feet, blood trickling
from them, and a gaping wound in his side. Before
setting out on the procession, the lights were extin-
guished ; and, in total darkness, a monk commenced a
sermon in Italian. After this the candles were re-
lighted, banners and crucifixes raised, and the proces-
sion moveil round the church towards Calvary. Stopping
.at the Pillar of Flagellation, at the prison where they
say Christ was confined, where the crown of thorns
was put upon his head, where his raiment was divided,
&c., and giving a chant, and an address by one of the
monks at each place, they wound round the church
until they came to the staircase leading to Calvary, and,
leaving their shoes below, mounted barefoot to the place
of crucifixion. Here they first went to an altar on the
right, where, as they have it, Christ w.is nailed to
the cross ; and laying the figure down on the floor,
although they had been bearing it aloft for more than
two hours, they now went through the ceremony of
nailing it ; and returning to the adjoining altar, passed
the foot of the cross through the marble floor, and with
the bleeding figure upon it, set it up in the hole in the
natural rock, according to the tradition, in the very
spot where, 1800 years ago, Christ was crucified. At
the foot of the cross a monk preached a sermon in
Italian, warm, earnest, and impassioned ; frequently
turning round, and with both hands extended, apostro-
phising the bleeding figure above him. In spite of my
scepticism and incredulity, and my contempt for
monkish tricks, I could not behold this scene unmoved.
Every attendant upon the crucifixion was represented ;
for the Governor of Jerusalem was present, with a
smile of scorn upon his handsome featui'es, and Turkish
and Mussulman soldiers breaking the stillness of the
scene with loud laughs of derision ; and I could almost
imagine that I heard the unbelieving Jews, with gibes
and sneers, crying out, " If he Jue the King of Israel,
let him come down from the cross !"

After the body had remained some time suspended,
two friars, personating Joseph of Arimathea and Nico-
demus, a])proached the foot of the cross ; and one of
them on the right, with a long pair of pincers, took the
crown of thorns from the head, waved it around slowly
with a theatrically mournful air, kissed it, and laid it
down on a table before him ; he then drew long spikes
from the hands and feet, and moving them around, one
by one, slowly as before, kissed them, and laid them also
on the table. I never saw any thing more afl'ccting than
this representation, bad as it was, of the bloody drama
of the crucifixion ; and as the monks drew out the long
nails fi-om the hands and feet, even the scoffing Mussul-
mans stopped their laugh of derision. I stood by the
table while they laid the body upon it, and wrapped it
in a clean linen cloth ; followed them when they carried
it down from Calvary to the stone of unction ; stood by
the head of the stone while they washed and anointed
it, and prepared it for burial, and followed it to the door
of the sepulchre. It was now near two o'clock ; the
ceremony was ended, the. Mussulman soldiers had re-
tii'ed, and Paul and I returned to the convent. We
had no lamp ; and as, hi all the Turkish cities, every
one is obliged to carry a lamp at night, and, in fact, it
is necessary for his own security, we walked through
the narrow streets of Jerusalem bearing the same long
candles with which we had figured in the procession of
the crucifixion.

On Sunday morning, being Easter, or Palm Sunday,
I visited, for the last time, the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. It was more crowded than I had ever yet
seen it. The courtyard literally swarmed with venders
of amulets, crucifixes, and holy ornaments ; and within
the church were tables of oranges, figs, dates, &c. The

106

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

Arab baker was walking about, with a large tray on bis
head, crying liis broail ; ami in oach (if tlie altars was
a sort of sliup, in whicli <M"ccks were making anil selling
clia|)lets and wreaths of palm-leaves. It was altogether
a lively image of tlie scene when Christ went into the
temple, and "cast ont them that bouglit and sold, and
overthrew the tables of the money-changei-s." The ce-
remonies of the day were in connneinoration of that on
vhich our Saviour entered into .Jerusalem, riding ii])on
an OSS, when the nuiltitude followe<l him, strewing their
garments and branches of palm-trees in bis path, and
crying, " IKisjinnali to the Son of David!" When 1
entered, the monks of the Latin Convent were celebrat-
ing grand m.-iss before tlie holy sepulchre ; and, in the
mean time, the (J reeks were getting ready for their turn.
Their chapel w:is crowded, and all along the corridors
the monks were arranging the pcnjile in proees.sion, and
distributing banners, for which the young (wrecks were
scrambling; Ji,ntl in one ]>lace .a monk, with a standard
in bis band, which had just been handed down from
above, •..ith his back against the wall, was knocking and
kicking away a crowd of young Greeks, struggling to
obtain it for the procession.

As soon as the Latins liad finished, the Arab soldiei-s,
whom I always found regular attendants at these scenes,
as if they knew what was coming wlien the Greeks
began, addressed them with loud shouts of " ^'ellali,
yd lab — come on, come on." A largo banner was sta-
tioned at the door of the sepulchre ; and the rush of the
pilgrims to prostrate themselves before it, and tc touch
it with their palm-branches, was trememlous. A tall
young Greek, with a large turban on his head, while
his left liand supported the banner, was laying about
him with his right as if he were really defending the
sepulchre itself from the bands of the infidels. The
procession a<lvanced under a loml chant, preceded by
a body of Turkish officers to clear the way ; then came
the priests, wearing their richest dres-ses, their mitres
and cajis richly ornamented with precious stones, and
carrying aloft sacred bamicrs, and one of them s[)rink-
ling holy water. Wherever he came, the rush was ter-
rible ; the Greeks became excited to a sort of plirensy
in their eagerness to catch a drop ; and one stra]iping
fellow, bursting through the rear ranks, thrust bis face
over my bhouMer, and bawled ont " Pajia, papa," in
such an agonising voice, that the " papa" aimed at hiin
a copious discharge, of which my face received the
principal benefit. When the largest banner came round,
the struggle to touch it with the palm-branches was
inconceivable. A Turkish officer had, until this time,
covered me with his body, and, by dint of shouting,
kicking, and striking furiously about him, saved me till
the procession p.aased by ; but after this the rush became
dreadful. I could feel my riba yielding under the pres-
sure, and was really alarmed when a sudden an<i mighty
surge of the struggling mass iiurried me into the stock
in trade of a merchant of d.ites and oranges. Instead
of picking up his goods, the fellow grapjiled at me ; but
I got out of his clutches as >vell a.s 1 could ; and, setting
up for myself, kickeil, thumped, and scuffled until I
made my way to the door ; and that was my last visit to
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

I had regretted that I could not stay for the great
Greek jugglery, the drawing down fire from heaven,
when every pilgrim considers himself bound to light his
taper at the siicred fiame ; and those who light first are
Considered the most fortunate and the nn)St favoured in
the sight of God. I could imagine the wild and frantic
struggling among more than 10,000 bigots and fanati38
for tlie first rays of the heavenly light ; but from what
I tuiw that day, 1 felt that it would be putting life and
limb in peril to be among them. Two years before, a
horrible catastrophe bad happened at the enactment oi
this ceremony. The air of the church had become so
Contaminated by tlie exhalations from the bodies of the
tbousanda crowded within it, that respiration became
difficult ; terror, confusion, and a rush for the door,
ensued; Ibi-ahiin I'acha was carried out senseless, over '
the heads of the people, by a strong body of his soldiei-s ; j

and between 200 and 300 jiilgrlms were trodden down
ami tianii)led to death. Their bodies were laid out
next morning in the court of the church ; and so de-
graded is the character of these Christian pilgrims, that,
as I was told by Mr Nicolaisen, the English missionary
to the Jews, who was looking among them for a servant
of his own, the friends and relatives of the slain carried
them away in triumph, as martyrs in the cause of
Christ.

My Lost visit in Jerusalem was to Mount Zion. I
believe I have not mentioned that on this hill stands
the tomb, or the supposed tomb, of David. It is covered
by a mosque ; the tomb is walled in, and, as the Arab
door-keeper toM me, even the eyes of the pacha are not
permitted to look within the holy place. Here, too, is the
coenaculuin, or chamber where our Saviour ate his last
supper with his disciples ; in the Armenian chapel is
the real stone that was rolled from the door of the se-
pulchre ; and here also is the house of Caiaphas, the
high-priest, with a tree marking the spot where the cock
crew when I'eter denied his master.

But there was one sjuit on Blount Zion far more
interesting to me than all these, or even than any thing
in Jerusalem. It was the grave of my early friend,
whom 1 had tracked in his wanderings from the Cata-
racts of the Nile, through the wilderness of Sinai, to his
last resting-place in Jerusalem. Years had rolled away
since I bade him farewell in the streets of our native
city. 1 had heard of him in the gay circles of Paris as
about to wed with one of the proudest names in France ;
again, as a wanderer in the East, and then as dead in
Palestine. IJut a few short yeare iiad passed away,
and what changes ! My old school-mates, the compa-
nions of my youth and opening manhood, where were
they ? Gone, scattered, dispersed, and dead ; one of
them was sleeping in tJie cold earth under my feet. He
had left his home, and become a wanderer in strange
lands, and had come to the Holy Land to die, and 1 was
now bending over his grave. SVhere were the friends
that slnnild have gsithered around him in the awful hour
of death ? Who cIo.sed his dying eyes? Who received
his parting words for his friends at home \ Who buried
him on Mount Zion ? Once 1 had been present there at
a scene which almost made me weep ; the burial of an
Armenian pilgrim. He was brought foi-Hiurial in the
clothesin whichhc haddied; thegr.ive was too small, and
had to be enlarged ; the priest stood at the liead of the
grave undei-JI heavy shower of rain, and, as he oflei'cd
me his snuff-box, grumbled at being obliged to wait ;
and when the grave wa^ enlarged, and the body thrown
in, and the wet dirt cast ujion it, he mumbled a short
prayer, and then ail liurried away. And this was by
the grave of my friend ; and I could not but ask myself
who liad buried him, and who had mourned over his
grave. The inscription on his tombstone afforded but
vague answers to my questions, and they were of a
piiiuful character. It ran thus : —

D. O. jr.

Ilio Jacct

C******** u*»*»***, C.X Amcrlcs.

Kcgionibiis

Lugdtml Oiilllx Cnn-iiil iryciasoKimiH t.ictiiB intrinsccus sponta

lirrorihiiM Luthcri cl Culvinl nhjoctis,

CnlholicHm rcliKioncm profcssus Rvnniielie o<irrcptiis

E vitu dvcesbit IV. DoniUi AiiK»sti, SlDCCCXX\.,ictuliii sua:

X.W.

Anik'i ni(?runt<?8po8uero

Orate ]iro eo.

He had died at the convent, and died alone. His tra-
velling companion had accidentally p^jmained at Jall'a,
liad not lieard of his sickness, and did not arrive in

Jeru.salem until poor'IJ was in his grave. It was

necessary to bo wary in my inquiries ; for the Catliolics
here are ever on the watch for souls, and with groat
ostentation had blazoned his conversion upon his tomb.
The fii-st time I inquired about him, a young monk told
me that he remembered him well as on the day of his
arrival, a fine, handsome young man, full of health and
sjiirif, and that ho innnediately commenced talking
about religion, and tlirt.e daya aflerwanU they said

PILGRIMAGE TO THE JORDAN.

107

mass, and took the sacrament together in the chapel of j
the convent. He told me tlie story so glibly, thut I was
confideut of its falsity, even without referring to its

improbability. I had known 15 well. I knew that,

like most young men with us, though entertaining the
deepest respect and reverence for iioiy things, in the
pride of youth and health lie had lived as if there was
uo grave ; and I could imagine that, sti-etched upon his
bed of death in the dreary cell of the convent, with '' no
eye to pity and no arm to save," surrounded by Catholic
monks, and probably enfeebled in mind by disease, he
liad, perhaps, laid hold of the only hoj)e of salvation
otTered him ; and when I stood over his grave, and
thought of the many thorns in his pillow in that awful
hour — the distracting thoughts of home, of the mother
whose name had been the last on his lips ; the shud-
dering consciousness that, if he died a Protestant, his
bones would be denied the rites of burial, 1 pitied, 1
grieved for, but I could not blame him. But when sus-
picion was aroused by the manner of the monk, 1 re-
solved to iiKjuire further ; and if his Uxle should prove
untrue, to tear with my own hands the libellous stone
from my friend's grave, and hurl it down Mount Zion.
I afterwards saw^ the monk who had shrived him, and
was told that the young man with whom I had con-
vei-sed was a prater and a fool ; that he himself had

never heard B speak of religion until after his

I'cturu from the Dead Sea with the hand of death upon
him ; that he had administered the sacrament to him
but three days before his death, when all hope of life
was past, and that even yet it might be a question
whether he did really renounce his faitli, for the solemn
abjuration was made in a language he but imperfectly
understood ; and he never spoke afterwards, except, in
the wildness of delirium, to murmur the name of
" m.other."

I have said that in his dying moments his feelings
were harrowed by the thought that his body would be
denied a Christain burial. ^Ir Whiting, who accom-
panied me on my first visit to his grave, told me that
the Catholics would not have allowed him a resting
place in consecrated ground ; and, leading me a short
distance to the grave of a friend and fellow missionary
who had died since he had been at Jei-usalem, described
to me what he had seen of the unchristian spirit of the
Christians of the holy city. Refused by the Latins, tl.e
friends of Dr Dodge had asked pemiission of the
Greeks to lay his body for a little while in their bury-
ing-ground ; and, negotiating with the dragoman of the
convent, they thought that permission had been granted ;
but while they were in the act of performing the funeral
service, a messenger came in to tell them that the grave
had been filled up. They protracted the service till
the delay e.xcited the attention of his unhappy widow,
and they were obliged to tell her that they had no place
where they could lay the head of her young husband.
A reluctant permission was at length granted, and they
buried him by the light of torches ; and although there
had been no graves in that part of the ground before,
the Greeks had buried all around, to prevent any ap-
plication for permission to lay by his side the body of
another heretic.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Pilfrrimage to the Jordan. — Pilgrim's Certificate. — The Tomb of
Samuel. — Departure from Jerus:ilem. — Last View of the Dead
Sea. — Village of Eiiibroot. — Depaiture from Jiide;i.— Mounts
Gerizim and EbaL — An .\jitiquc Manusciiiit. — "I'uas" in Sama-
ria.
The next day I left Jerusalem ; but before leaving it,
I was witness to another striking scene, which I shall
never forget ; the departure of the pilgrims, fifteen or
twenty thousand in number, for the Jordan. At an
early hour I was on horseback, outside St Stephen's
Gate. It was such a morning as that on which I started
for the Dead Sea, clear, bright, and beautiful ; the
streets of the city w ere deserted, and the whole popu-

lation were outside the walls, sitting under tlie shadow
of the temple, among the tombs of the Turkish bury-
ing-grcund ; the women in tiieir long white dresses,
with their faces covered, and the men in large flowing
robes, of gay and varied colours, and turbans of every
fashion, many of them green, the proud token of the
pilgrimage to Mecca, with pipes, and swords, and glit-
tering arms ; the whole Valley of Jehoshaphat was tilled
with moving beings, in every variety of gay apparel,
as if the great day of resurrection had already come,
and the tenants of the dreary tombs had burst tiie
fetters of the grave, and come forth into uew life and
beauty.

I had received an invitation from the governor to
ride in his suite ; and while waiting for him at the gate,
the terrible Abougos, with his retainei"s, came out and
beckoned me to join him. 1 followed liim over the
Brook Kedron and the Valley of Jehoslia]>hat to the
Garden of Gethsemane, where I stopped, and, giving
my horse to an Arab boy, 1 stepped over the low fence,
and, seating myseif on the jutting root of the tree
marked by the knives of pilgrims as that under wiiich
our Saviour was betrayed, looking over the heads of
the Turkish women seated on the fence below, 1 saw the
whole procession streaming from the gate, crossing tiie
Valley of Jehoshaphat, and filing along the foot of the
garden. They were on foot and on hoi-seback, on don-
keys, mules, dromedaries, and camels ; and here and
there were well-equipped caravans, with tents and
provisions for the monks of the dittercnt convents. It
would be impossible to give any idea of this strange
and extraordinary procession : here might be seen a
woman on horseback, with a child on each arm ; there
a large pannier on eacli side of a mule, with a man in
one and a woman in the other ; or a large frame on the
high back of a camel, like a diminutive ark, carrying a
whole family, with all their quilts, coverlets, cooking
utensils, &c. Among them, riding alone on a raw-boned
horse, was a beggarly Italian, in a worn and shabby
European dress, with a fowling-piece and a game-bag,
and every body made way for him ; and tliei'e was a
general laugh wherever he came. And now a body of
Turkish horsemen, with drawn scinieters in their hands,
rushed out of the gate, dashed down the valley, and up the
sides of the mountains at full gallop, clearing the way
for the governor ; and then came the governor himself,
under a salute from the fortress, on a horse of the best
blood of Arabia, riding as if he were part of the noble
animal, preceded by the music of the Turkish drum,
and bowing with a nobility and dignity of manner known
only in the East, and which 1 marked the more parti-
cularly, as he stopped opposite to me and beckoned to
me to join him. Then came the pilgrims again, and I
sat there till the last had gone by. Galloping back to the
gate, 1 turned to look at them for the last time, a living,
moving mass of thousands, thousands of miles from
their homes, bound for the sacred .Jordan, and strong
in the faith that, bathing in its hallowed watei"8, they
should wash away their sins.

In a few moments I was at the convent ; and, sending
Paul before me to the Dama-^cus Gate, 1 went to take
my leave of the superior. He told me that, though I
was an American (the only Americans he had seen
were missionaries, and he did not like them), he liked
me ; and bidding me a kind and afl'ectionate farewell,
he put into my hands a pilgrim's certificate, which
follows in these words —

FR. FRANCT.SCUS XAVEUIXJS A Mr.I,IT.\.
Ordinis minorum regiilaris ob.servantia; S. P. N. Francisci ; cus-
todial; melitcnsis lector theolo};ua; ex-defiiiito ; sacriP consre-
gationis propaganda; fiJci respnns.ilis ; missionuni ^2i>ypti ct
Cypri pra;fectus; in partibiisorientisc.mraissariusapostolious;
eacri -Montis Sinn, et sanctis--imi beimlcri U. N'. Jesu C'liri>ti
guardianus; totiiis Terrae Sanctx custom, viiitator, ct buniilia
in domino servus :

niustris-Mmo Domino **** * ***♦****, Americano libcnter
hoc presens testimonium damus, et omnibus, ac singulis hos prae-
sentes nostras Utteras lectuiis, vel iiupecturis notum, fidemque

108

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

fucimu!!, Laudatum Tlliislrissimiim Dominum Jerusalem per-
venissc. et omnia principiiliora loca. qu.T in tota Paleslina visi-
tari sok'Dt, presortim i?>m. Sepulchruin Dom. N. Jesu C'liristi,
Colvarix Moiitcm, I'r^sepiiim Uetlehcniiticuni. etc , visitassc
Kt qu(xl ita sit. attestationom manii nostra subscribimus, et
tiaiillo majori ofticii nostri munitam cxpcdiri nianiiamus,

Datis Jcrusalini.cxhoc Venerabili ConventuSonctiSalvatoris,
die 3 Aprilis, Anno Domini IH trigesimo-sexfo.

Vr. I'raufiaciis Xavcrius a Jlclita, Custos Terra- Sancta:.

Pe Mandato Rendmi in Xpto Patris.

FK. PERPETUUS A SOLERTO,
Secretarius Terra; Sanctte.

Which, being interpreted, is as follows : —

UROTHER FRANCIS XAVIER, OF MALTA,

Bmther Francis Xavier, of Malta, of the order of monies of the

regular rule of our Father Saint Francis ; theolopical reader of

the order of Malta ; expounder, missionary of the sacred con-

grot^tion for propagating the faith ; prefect of the missions of

Egypt and Cyprus ; apostolical commissary in the Eastern

world; guardian of the holy Mount Zion, and of the most holy

8f pulchre of our Lord Jesus Chri:.t ; keeper and visitor of all

the Holy Land, and humble servant in the Lord:

To the most illustrious Lord ***♦ * **♦***♦*, an American,

we Rive this present testimonial; and to all and every one who

shall read or inspect these our present letters, we do make known

and certify that this celebrated and most illustrious lord has come

through Jerusalem, and has viMte<l all the principal places which

arc accustomed to be visited in all Palestine, especially the most

Holy Sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Mount of Calvary,

the Convent at Bethlehem, &c. ; and that it is so we subscribe

this attestation with our hand, and cause it to be put forth forti-

fl<-d by the great seal of our office.

Given at Jerusalem, from this venerable convent of the Holy
Saviour, on the 3d day of April, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and thirty six.
Liruther Francis Xavier, of Malta, Guardian of the Holy Land.

7>

>

Given by command, In the private office of the Father,
FUANCI.S A HOLKHUt,
Perpetual Secretary of the Holy Laai.

Whereby the render will see, tliat whatever maybe his
fate hereafter, a pilgriinatjo to the holy eity pives a man
temporal honours, and has transfonned a republican
citizen of America into an " illustris.4imuH doniinus."

With this evidence of my pilj^nm cliaracter, I
mounted my horse for tlie last time at the door of tlie
ct-uvent. I lost my way in going to the Daina^cus Gate,

but a friendly Jew conducted me to it ; a Jew was the
first to wfleome me to the Holy Land, and a Jew wa.s
the last to speed me on my way from the holy city of
Jerusalem. Paul was waiting for me; and for half a
mile we passed mounds of ruins, the walls of the old
city having extended some distance beyond the Da-
ma.scus Gate. In about three quarter of an hour, a
little to the right, we came to what are called the
Tombs of the Judges, excavations in the rock, one of
them full of water. 1 have no satisfaction in the recol-
lection of these tombs, for there I lost my old compa-
nion, the terror of evil dogs, my Nubian club ; which,
since I bought it in Nubia, had seldom been out of my
hand. In about three hours we were mounting Djebel
Samyel, the highestmountainabout Jerusalem, crowned
with the ruins of Ramah, the birthj)lace and tomb of
Samuel the seer. A few Arab huts are around the
ruins ; and a ruined mosque, the minaret of which has
fallen, is the most prominent building on the mountain.
We entered the masque ; at the farther end was a door
locked, but with a key in it. I turned the key, and en-
tered a dark chamber. My the light from the door I
could see at the far end a dark, sombi'e-looking object,
and groped my way to the tomb of Samuel ; I kept my
hand.s on it, and walked around it ; and hearing some
of the villagers at the door, 1 tore off a piece of the pall,
as I had done from the tomb of Aaron, and hurried
out. I stopped for a moment on the top of the moun-
tain, and, looking back towards the holy city, saw for
the last time the Alosquo of Omar rising proudly over
the ruins of the Temple of Solomon, the Church of the
Holy Selpulcliro, the walls of Jerusalem, and the Dead
Sea. My fii'.st view of this latter had been from the
tomb of Aaron ; and I considered it a not uninteresting
coincidence that I was now looking upon it for the last
time from the tomb of Samuel.

In about an hour, riding over a rough road, we came
to the village of Beer, supposed to be the Beer to whio!\
Jotham ilcd " for fear of his brother Abimelech." A
ruined khan was at the entrance of the village, and
near it a large fountain, at which the women were
washing. About an hour beyond this, to the right, on
a little elevation, are the ruins of Beleel, the ancient
Bethel. It was here that the bears came out and tore
in pieces the children that mocked the bald-headed
prophet Elisha, and it was here that Jacob took " the
stones of the place for his pillow, and dreamed, and
beheld a ladder reaching to heaven, and the angels of
God ascending and descending thereon." Though sur-
rounded by stony mountains, it was prettily situated ;
I rode among the ruins without dismounting. The
place was solitary and deserted, and not a human being
appeared to dwell in it. At one end were the ruins of
a church, and near it was a large fountain in a stone
reservoir ; a single cow was drinking at the fountain,
and at the moment a boy was driving ]ia.st a flock of
goats to his village home in the nionnt.ains. He was a
Christian, and calleil nu- ( 'hristian, and liadji or pilgrim,
and gave me a wild flower, which he jjlucked from
under my horse's feet. It was a beautiful afternoon,
and all was so still and quiet that I felt strongly tem{)ted
to lie down and sleep where Jacob did ; but 1 had given
away my tent and camp equipage, and I reflected that
while I was sure of the jvitriarch's pillow of stone, I
liad but little prospect of being blessed with the promise
that softened it, " that the land on which he lay should
be given to him and his seed, and that in him all ths
families of the earth should be blessed."

In about an hour we came tothevill.age of Einbroot,
prettily situated on an eminence, and commanding on
all sides a view of fertile and well-cultivated valleys.
We were looking for Einbroot ; and as the village to
which we had come lay a little off the road, we were
not sure it w.as the pl:ice we wanted. A woman told
us it was not, a man assured us that the sheik was not
at home, and there seemed clearly a disposition to send
us on farther ; and this dctennined us to stop. Wo
rode up to the village, and inquired for the sheik ; the
villiigirs gave us eviisive answers, one saying that he

DEPARTURE FROM JUDE A— JACOB'S WELL.

105)

was away, and anotlier that he was sick ; but a little
boy, poiutiiig with his finger, told us that lie was there,
praying ; and looking up, we saw him on the top of the
house, on his knees, praying with all his might, and oc-
casionally looking over his shoulder at us. liy his not
coming to welcome me, I saw that he did not wish me
to stay ; and after my scenes with the Bedouins in the
desert, having a compai-dtive contempt for dwellers in
houses, I dismounted and sat down, determined to see
who would get tiitd first. In the mean time the vil-
lagers gathered around as spectators of our contest, and
the sheik, as if ashamed of himself, at lenjjth finished
his prayers, and came down to receive me. He tolil me
that he had no place for us, and showed me to a large
room, fifty or sixty feet sijuare, which seemed to be
the common resort and sleeping-place of all who had
no particular home. After the comforts of the convent
at Jerusalem, 1 did not like the look of things in the
beginning of my journey ; but consoling myself with
the reflection that it was only for one night, I spread
my mat in a corner, and bad just time to stroll around
the village before dark.

The houses were built of rough stone, a single story
in height, with mud roofs, many of them overgrown
with grass, and now presenting, towards sundown, the
singularly- picturesque spectacle, which I had often
noticed in Syria, of the inhabitants sitting out upon the
teixaces and roofs of their houses, or, perhaps, the
still more striking picture of a single old white-bearded,
patriarchal figure, sitting alone upon his housetop. One
of these venerable personages called me up to his side ;
and I was well rewai'ded for my trouble, and could
fully appreciate the satisfaction with which the old
man, day after day, looked out upon the beautiful and
well-cultivated valley, the terraces, and the smiling
villages on the mountain side.

Sevei-al of the villagers were following us, and among
them a fine old man, the brother of the sheUc, and for-
merly sheik himself. He told me that, since the stormy
times of Mohammed AH, he had resigned the sheikdom,
and comforted himself for the loss of station in the
arms of a young wife ; and before we parted we were
on such good tei"ms that he told me the reason of their
unwillingness to receive us ; namely, that they thought
we were officei-s of Mohammed All, sent to spy out their
condition, and ascertain the number of their men able
to bear arms ; but satisfied that we were merely tra-
vellers, and warmed by my honest disclaimer of the
imputed character, he invited me to his house, and both
he, and the sheik, and all the villagers, seemed striving
now to atone for the churlishness of their first recep-
tion.

The old man was as kind as a man could be ; in fact,
his kindness oppressed me ; for having but one room in
his house, he sent both his wives out of doors to sleep
at a neighbour's. In vain I told him not to disarrange
himself on my account ; to make no stranger of me ; to
let them stay ; and that it was nothing to me if the
whole harem of the sultan was there ; he was positive
and decided. I catechised him about his wives, and he
said tjiat he had been a poor man all his life, and could
never afford to keep more than one till lately ; and now
the companion of his youth and the sharer of his poverty
was thrust away into a corner, v.hilo with all sim])licity
and honesty he showed me the best place in the house
appropriated to his young bride. He talked as if it had
been the hardest thing in the woi-ld that he had been
obliged to content himself so long with liis first wife.
Thus it seems, that here, as with us, extravagance
comes with wealth ; and whereas with us, when a man
grows rich he adds another pair of horses to his esta-
blishment, so the honest Mussulman indulges himself
with another helpmate.

Two Turks and an Arab slept in the room with us;
and before going to bed, tliat is, before lying down on
the mud floor, and the first thing in the morning, they
turned their faces to the tomb of the Prophet, kneeled
down and prayed. In the evening one of them had
complained of a headache, and another, standing over

him and pressing his temples with the palms of his
hands, repeated a vei-se of the Koran, and the headache
went away. I asked him whether that was good for a
sore throat ; he told me that it was, but, after giving
me a verse or two, said that his remedy could only have
full effect upon true believers.

Early in the morning I set off, my host and the sheik
and half the village gathering around me to bid me fare-
well, and invoke blessings upon me. I did not know the
extent of the sacrifice my host had made for me until
at the moment of parting, when I got a glimpse of his
young wife.

We were now entering the region of Samaria, and,
though the mountains were yet stony, a beautiful
country was opening before us. We soon came into a
smiling valley full of large olive-trees, and rode for
some time in a pleasant shade. Every where we were
meeting streams of i)ure water, tempting us perpetually
to dismount after the sandy desert through which we
had been so lung travelling. We passed, too, several
villages, among which I I'emember was the village of
Cowara, beautifully situated on the side of the mountain,
overlooking a fertile valley, and all the women of the vil-
lage were in the field picking the tares from the grain.

I was now about entering one of the most interesting
counti-ies in the Holy Land, consecrated by the presence
of our Saviour in the body, and by the exercise of his
divine and miraculous powei-s. The Bible was again in
my hand, and I read there that Jesus Christ had left
" Judea and departed into Calilee; that he nmst needs
pass through Samaria, and that he came to a city of
Samaria called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground
that Jacob gave to his son Joseph." And "Jacob's
well was there, and Jesus, being weary with his journey,
sat down on the well, and it was about the sixth hour.
And there cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water ;
and Jesus saith unto her. Give me to drink." It is
with no irreverent feeling that I draw the parallel, but
I was following in the very footsteps of the Saviour ; I
too had left "Judea, and had depai-ted into Galilee ;" 1
too " must needs go through Samaria ;" and I too was
now coming to the city of Samaria called Sychar, and,
before entering the city, I would fain sit down on the
well of Jacob, where our Saviour talked with the Sama-
ritan woman.

At Cowara I took a guide to conduct me to this well.
In about two hours we were winding along the side of
Mount Gerizim, whose sunmiit was covered with the
white dome of the tomb of an Arab saint ; and passing
one well on the declivity of the mountain, going down
to the valley at its base, we came to Jacob's well, or
the Beer Samarea of the Arabs. I knew that there
was a difference of opinion as to the precise site of this
interesting monument ; but when I found myself at the
mouth of this well, 1 had no wish to look farther ; I
could feel and realise the whole scene ; I could see our
Saviour coming out from Judea, and travelling along
this valley ; I could see him, wearied with his journey,
sitting down on this well to rest, and the Samaritau
woman, as I saw them at every town in the Holy Land,
coming out for water. I coulil imagine his looking up
to Mount Gerizim, and ])redicting the ruin of the temple,
and telling her that the hour was coming when neitlier
on that mountain nor yet in Jerusalem would she wor-
ship the God of her fatliei-s. A large colunni lay across
the top of the well, and the mouth was filled up with
huge stones. I could see the water through the cre-
vices, but, even with the assistance of I'aul and the
Arabs, found it impossible to remove them. I plucked
a wild flower growing in the mouth of the well, and
passed on.

The ground which I was now treading is supposed
to be the " parcel of ground" which Jacob bought of the
sons of Hamor, the father of Shechein, for a hundred
pieces of silver, and gave to his son Joseph. Turning
the point of the mountain, we came to a rich valley,
lying between the mountains of Gerizim and Ebal.
Crossing this valley, on the sides of the mountains of
Ebal is a long range of grottoes and tombs, and a linlc

110

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

before coining to tlicm, in a larpe white building like a
sliciix's tomb, is tliescj)uk'lire ut Josepii, as it is written,
" tlie btmes also of Josopli, which tliochiUiren of Israel
brought lip with tlicni out of Egy])t, buried thoy in
Siiechcni." 1 dismounted and entered the building,
and it is not an uninteresting fact that I found there a
white-bearded Israelite, kneeling at the tomb of the
patriarch, and teaching a rosy-clieeked boy (his descen-
dant of the fourth generation) the beautiful story of
Jose[)li and his bi-etiiren.

It was late in the afternoon when I was moving u])
the valley of N'aplous. 'I'he mountains of Gerizini and
Kbal, the mountains of blessings and curses, were tower-
ing like lofty walls on either side of me ; Mount (jerizim
fertile, and Mount Ebal barren, as when God commanded
Joshua to set up the stones in Mount Kbal, and pro-
nounced on Mount Gerizini blessings upon the children
of Israel, " if tliey would iieai ken diligently unto the
Voice of the Lord, to observe and do all his command-
ments,"* and on Ebal the withering cui-ses of disobe-
dience. A biautiful stream, in two or three places
filling large reservoirs, was running through the valley,
and a shepherd sat on its bank, ])laying a reed pipe,
with liis flock feeding quietly around him. The shades
of evening were gathering fast as I approached the
town of Naplous, the Sheehem or Sychem of the Old
Testament, and the Sychar of the New. More tlian a
dozen lepei-s were sitting outride the gate, their faces
shining, pimjtled, and bloated, covere<l with sores and
pustules, their nostrils open and filled with ulcers, and
their red eyes fixed and staring ; with swollen feet they
dragged their disgusting bodies towards me, and with
hoarse voices extended their defonued and hideous
bands for charity.

We rode up the principal street; and at tlie door of
the palace I met the governor just mounting his horse,
with a large retinue of oflicers and slaves around him.
We exchanged our greetings on horseback. 1 showed
liiin my firman, and he sent a janizary to conduct me
to the house of a Samaritan, a writer to the govern-
ment, where I w;is received, fed, and lodged, better than
in any other [)!ace in tlie Holy Land, always exce]iting
the abodes of those sufl'ering martyrs, the Terra iiauta
monks.

1 had just time to visit the Samaritan synagogue.
Leaving my shoes at the door, with naked feet I entered
a small room, about fifteen feet square, with nothing
striking or interesting about it except what the Sama-
ritans say is the oldest manuscript in the world, a coi)y
of the Pentateuch, written by Abishua, the grandson
of Aaron, three yeai-s after the death of Moses, or about
3uU0 years ago. The priest was a man of forty-five,
and gave me but a poor idea of the character of the
SaniariLins, for he refused to show me the sacred scroll
unless I would pay him first. lie then brought down
an old manuscri])t, which, very much to his astonish-
ment, I told him was not the genuine record ; giving
)iim very plainly to understand that I was not to he
bamboozled in tlie matter. 1 had been advised of this
trick by the English clergyman whom I met in Jerusa-
lem ; and tlie jtriest, laughing at my detection of the
cheat, wliile some of Iiis hopeful flock wlio had followed
me joined in the laugh, brought down the other, pre-
served in a tin ca.sc. It was written in some character
I did not understand, sjiid to he the .Samaritan, tattered
and worn, and bearing the marks of extreme age ; and
though I knew nothing al)Out it, I admitted it to be the
genuine mainiscrii)t ; and they all laughed when I told
the j)riest what a rogue he was for trying to deceive
me ; and this priest they believe to be of the tribe of
Levi, of the seed of Aaron. If i liad left Naplous then,
1 should probably have repeated the words that our
Saviour apjdied to them in his day, " No good thing can
come out of Samaria ;" but I sj-ent a long evening, and
liad an interesting conversation with my host and his
brother, and in their kindness, sincerity, and honesty,
forgot the petty du{>licity of the Levite.

Much curiosity has existed in l^urope among tlie
* Uculcronumy, xxriii. I.

learned with regard to this singular people, and several
of the most eminent men of theia- day, in London and
Paris, have h.id correspondence witli them, but with-
out any satisfactory result. The desceudants of the
Israelites who remained and were not carried into
cajitivity, on the rebuilding of the second temple were
denied the privilege of sharing the labour and expense
of its reconstruction at Jerusalem ; and in mortification
and revenge, they built a temple on Mount Gerizim,
and ever since a deadly hatred has existed between
their descendants the Samaritans and the Jews. Gib-
bon, speaking of them in the time of Justinian, says,
" The Samaritans of Palestine were a motley race, an
ambiguous sect, rejected as Jews by the pagans, by the
Jews as schismatics, and by the Christians as idolaters.
The abomination of the cross had already been planted
on their Iioly mount of Gerizim, but the persecution of
Justinian oflered only the alternative of baptism or re-
bellion. They chose the latter ; under the standard of
a des])erate leader, they rose in arms and retaliated
their wrongs on the lives, the property, and the temi)lc3
of a defenceless people, 'i'he Samaritans were finally
subdued by the regular forces of the East ; 20,000
were slain, 20,000 were sold by the Arabs to the infidels
of Persia and India, and the remains of that unhappy
nation atoned for the crime of treason by the sin of
hypocrisy." About sixty families are all now remain-
ing, and these few relics of a once powerful people still
dwell in their ancient capital, at the base of Mount
Gerizim, under the shadow of their fallen temple.

The brother of my host was particularly fond of
talking about them. He was very old, and the most
deformed man I ever saw who lived to attain a great
.ige. His legs wore long, and all his limbs wei-e those
of a tall man, but he was so hump-backed that in sitting
he I'esfed upon his hump. He asked me many questions
about the Samaritans in England (of America he had
no knowledge), and seemed determined to believe that
there were many in that country, and told me that I
might say to them, wherever I found them, that there
they believed in one omnipotent and eternal God, the
five Books of Moses and a future Messiah, and the day
of the Messiah's coming to be near at hand ; that they
practised circumeision, went three times a-year up to
Miuint Gerizim, "the everlasting mountain," to worship
and ofier sacrifice, and once a-year pitched their tents
and left their virgins alone on the mount for seven
day.s, expecting that one of them would conceive and
bring forth a son, who should be the Messiah ; that
they allowed two wives, and in case of barrenness four ;
that the women were not permitted to enter the syna-
gogue, except once a-year during fast, but on no account
were they permitted to touch the sacred scroll ; and
that although the Jews and Samaritans had dealings in
the market-j)laces, &c., they hated each other now as
much as their fathers did before them.

I asked him about Jacob's well ; he said he knew the
place, and that he knew our Saviour, or Jesus Christ,
as he familiarly called him, very well ; he was Joseph
the carpenter's son, of Nazareth ; but that the story
which the Christians had about the woman at the well
was all a fiction ; that Christ did not convert her ; but
that, on the contrary, she laughed at him, and even
refused to give him water to drink.

The inlbrmation I received from these old men is
more than I have ever seen in print about this reduced
and singular peo])le, anil I give it for what it m.iy be
worth, i cannot help mentioning a little circumstance,
which serves to illustrate the proverb that boys will
be boys all the world over. While I was cxi)loring the
mysteries of the Samaritan creed, it being the season of
Easter, a fine chubby little fellow came to mc with a
couple of eggs dyed yellow, and trying them on his teeth,
just as we used to do in my boyish days (did we learn
it from them or they from us ?) gave ine a choice ;
anil, though it may seem a trifling incident to the reader,
it was not an uninteresting circumstance to me, this
celebration of my " paas" in the ancient Sycheiu, crack-
'"fi *-'n'n^ ^^'''i ♦* Samaritan boy.

RUINS OF THE PALACE OF HEROD.

Ill

CHAPTER XXXV.

Bebiiste— Ruins of the Palace (if IlcrixJ. — Mount Tabor.— Naza-
reth.—Sciiptiiral Localities.— Tiberias.— An Kngli.>li Sport.sinon.
— Uethsaida and Choiazin.—Caperuaum.—2airad.— Arrival at
Acre.

At about eight o'clock in tlie morning we left Nap-
lous ; the lepers were lying at the gate as hcfoi-e ; not
permitted to enter the walls of the city, but living apart
and perpetuating among themselves their loathsome
race. Tiie valley of Naplous was, if possible, more
beautiful by morning than by evening light, shaded by
groves of tigs, olives, almonds, and apricots in full bloom,
and bounded by lofty mnunt;iins, with a clear and beau-
tiful stream winding and murmuring through its centre.
Until I came to this place, 1 had freijuently said to my-
self that 1 would not give the estate of a wealthy gentle-
man in Geneseo for the whole kingdom of David ; but
there was a rare and extraordinary beauty here, even in
the hands of the Arab Fellahs. Men and women were
stealing among the trees, in gaily-coloured apparel,
and, instead of the turban or tarbouch, Uie men wore
a long red cap, with the tassel hanging jauntily like that
of a Neapolitan. For more than an hour we followed
the course of the stream, and nothing could be more
beautifully picturesque than the little mills on its banks ;
low, completely embosomed among trees, and with their
roofs covered with grass, and sometimes the agreeable
sound of a waterfall was the first intimation we had of
their presence. There was something exceedingly rural
and poetic in their appearance. I went down to one of
them, more than usually beautiful, hoping to be greeted
by some lovely "maid of the mill ;" but, as if it were
determined that every thing like illusion in the East
should be destroyed for my especial benefit, the sight
of one chamber, filled with sacks of gr.iin, sheep and
goats, and all kinds of filth, and a young girl sitting in
the door, with the head of an old woman in her lap,
occupied as Is constantly seen in every miserable town
in Italy, drove me away perfectly disgusted.

Leaving the valley, we turned up to the right, and,
cr<).ssing among the mountains, in two hours came in
sight of the ruins of Sebaste, the ancient Samaria,
standing upon a singularly bold and insulated mouutaui,
crowned with ruins. The capital of the ten tribes of
Israel, where Ahab built his palace of ivory ; where, in
the days of Jereboam, lier citizens sat in the lap of
luxury, saying to their masters " come and let us drink,"
destroyed by tlie Assyrians, but rebuilt and restored to
more than its original splendour by Herod, now lies in
the sUite foretold by the prophet Amos : " Her inhabi-
tants and their posterity are taken away." The ancient
Samaritans ai'e all gone, and around the ruins of their
palaces and temples are gathered the miserable huts of
the Arab Fellahs. Climbing up the precipitous ascent
of tlie hill, we came to the ruins of a church, or tower, or
something else, built by our old friend the Lady Helena,
and seen to great advantage from tlie valley below. The
Lady Helena, however, did not put together all this
stone and mortar for the picturesque alone ; it was
erected over, and in honour of, the prison where John
the Baptist was beheaded, and his grave. I knew that
this spot was guarded with jealous care by the Arabs,
and that none but Mussulmans were permitted to see
it; but this did not prevent my asking admisi^ion: and
when the lame sheik said that none could enter without
a special order from the pacha, Paul rated him soundly
for thinking we woulil be such fools as to come without
one ; and, handing him our travelling firman, the sheik
kissed the seal, and, utterly unable to determine 'for
liimself whether the order was to furnish me with
horses or admit me to mosques, said he knew he was
bound to obey that seal, and do whatever the bearer
told him, and hobbled off to get the key

Leaving our shoes at the door, in one corner of the
enclosure, we entered a small mosque with whitewashed
walls, hung with ostrich eggs, clean mats for the praying
Mussulmans, a sort of pulpit, and the usual rece.ss of
the Kebla. In tlie centre of the stoue iioor was a hole

opening to the prison below, and, going outside, and
descending a flight of step.s, we came to the prison
chamber, about eight paces square ; the door, now
broken and leaning against the wall, like tlie doors iu
the sejiulchres of the kings at Jeru.salcm, was a slab
cut from the solid stone, and turning on a pivot. On
the opi>osite side were three small holes, opening to
another chamber, which was the tomb of the Baptist.
1 looked in, but all was dark ; the .Mussulman told me
that the body only was there ; that the prophet was
beheaded at the rei|uest of tlie wife of a king, and I
forget where he s:iid the head w:is. This may bo tlie
prison where the great foreruimer of the Lord was
beheaded, at least no man can say that it is not ; and
leaving it with the best disposition to believe, I ascended
to the ruined palace of Herod, his persecutor and mur-
derer. Thirty or forty columns were still standing,
the monuments of the departed greatness of its former
tenant. On one side, towards the norlli-east, where
are the ruins of a gate, there is a double range of Ionic
columns. I counted more than sixty, and, from the
fragments 1 was constantly meeting, it would seem as
if a double colonnade had extended all around.

The palace of Herod stands on a table of land, on
the very summit of the hill, overlooking every part of
the surrounding country ; and such were the exceeding
softness and beauty of the scene, even under the wild-
ness and waste of Arab cultivation, that the city seemed
smiling in the midst of her desolation. All around was
a beautiful valley, watered by running streams, and
covered by a rich carpet of grass, sprinkled with wild
flowers of every hue, and beyond, stretched like an open
book before me, a boundary of fruitful mountains, the
vine and the olive rising in terraces to their very sum-
mits. There, day after day, the haughty Herod had sat
in his royal palace ; and looking out upon all these
beauties, his heart had become hardened with prospe-
rity ; here, among these still towering columns, the
proud monarch had made a supper " to his lords, and
high captains, and chief estates of Galilee ;" liere the
daughter of Herodias, Herod's brother's wife, " danced
before him, and the proud king promised with an oath
to give her whatever she should ask, even to the half of
his kingdom." And while the feast and dance went on,
the " head of Jolin the Baptist was brouglit in a charger,
and given to the damsel." And Herod has gone, and
Herodias, Herod's brother's wife, has gone, and "the
lords, and the high captains, and the chief estates of
Galilee," are gone ; but the ruins of the palace in which
they feasted are still here; the mountains and valleys
which beheld their revels are here ; and oh ! what a
comment upon the vanity of wordly greatness, a Fellah
was turning his plough around one of tlie columns. I
was sitting on a broken capital under a fig-tree by its
side, and I asked him what vsere tlie ruins that we saw ;
and while his o.xen were quietly cropping the grass that
grew among the fragments of the marble floor, he told
me that they were the ruins of the palace of a king — he
believed, of the Christians ; and while pilgrims from
every quarter of the world turn aside from their path
to do homage in the prison of his beheaded victim, the
Arab who was driving his plough among the columns
of his palace, knew not the name of the haughty Herod.
Even at this distance of time I look back with a feeling
of uncommon interest upon my rauible among those
ruins, talking with the ,\rab ploughman of the king who
built it, leaning against a column which perhaps had
oftiMi supported the haughty Herod, and looking out
from this scene of desolation and ruin upon the luost
beautiful country in the Holy Land.

DescendiPig from the ruined city, we continued our
way along the valley. In about an hour we came to
the village of Ueteen, standing on the side of a moun-
tain, overlooking a fertile valley : the women were in
the fields, as 1 had seeai them before, pick'ing the tares
from the wheat. Hiding along through a succession of
beautiful valleys, nearly all the way close to the banks
of a running stream, and stopping under a fine shade
of olives for our noonday mealj «c came to Sanpoor,

\12

TRAVELS IN THE IIOLV LAND.

standing on an insulated hill, commanding an extensive
view of the country, and once a strongly fortified place,
with a tower and walls, supposed to have been built
during the time of the crusades, but now totally demo-
lished and in ruins. About three yeai-s ago it was
taken, after a six months' siege, by Abdalhih Pachii,
the great soldier of the sultan ; the insurgent inhabi-
tants were put to the sword, and their houses burnt
and razed to the ground. A little beyond this, the
continued falls of rain have formed a small lake. In
an hour and a half we passed the village of Abattia;
and late in the afternoon wo fell in with a party of
Turkish travellers, one of whom was the " biggest in
the round"' of all the men I had seen in the East. His
noble horse seemed to complain of liis extraordinary
burden. At about six o'clock we had left the beautiful
country of Samaria, and were entering the little town
of Jennin, or Janeen, standing on the borders of Galilee,
at the commencement of the great plain of Jezreel.

Eiirly in the morning, leaving the village of Janeen,
we entered almost immediately the great plain of Jez-
i-eel. The holy places were now crowding upon me in
rapid succession. I was on my way to Nazareth, the
city of Joseph and JFary, wliere Christ spent nearly all
liis life ; but 1 turned off the direct road to do liomage
on Mount Tabor, recognised as the scene of our
Saviour's transfiguration. We passed two miserable
villages, looking at a distance like little mounds or ex-
crescences on the surface of the great ])lain ; and, turn-
ing to the right, around the mountains of Samaria, saw
afar off the lofty summit of Hennon, crowned with a
sheik's tomb. On the right, towards the Sea of Galilee,
was the village of Bisan, the Bethshan of the Bible,
where the Pliilistines fastened the bodies of Saul and
his three sons to the walls after they had fallen in
Mount Gilboa.*

Before us, and the most striking and imposing object
on the whole of the great plain of Lsdraelon, was .Mount
Tabor. It stands perfectly isolated; rising alone from
the plain in a rounJe<l tapering form, like a truncated
cone, to the lieight of ;5000 feet, covered with trees,
grass, and wild flowers, from the base to its summit,
and presenting the combination so rarely found in
natural .scenery of the bold and the beautiful. At twelve
o'clock we were at the miserable village of Deborah, at
the foot of the mountain, suj)posed to be the place
wliere Deborah the prophetess, who then judged Israel,
and Barak and " 10,000 men after him, descended upon
Sisera, and discomfited him and all his chariots, even
900 chai'iots of iron, and all the people that were with
him." The men and boys had all gone out to their
daily labour, and we tried to persuade a woman to
guide us to the top of the mountain, but she turned
away with contempt ; and having had some ])ractice
in climbing, we moved firound it.s sides until wo found
a regular path, and ascended nearly to the top without
dismotmting. The j>ath wound annind the mountain,
and ga\e us a view from all its difl'erent sides, every
stop presenting something new, and more and more
beautiful, until all was completely forgotten and lost in
the exceeding loveliness of the view from the summit.
Stripped of every association, and considered merely
as an elevation commanding a view of unknown valleys
and mountains, I never saw a mountain which, for
b'-auty of .scene, better rcpaiil the toil of ascending
it ; and I need not say what an interest was given to
every fratnre when we saw in the valley beneath
the largo plain of Jezreel, the great battle-ground of
nations; on the south the supposed range of Ilermon,
with whose dews the psalmist compares the " plea.sant-
ness of brethren dwelling together in unify ;" beyond,
the ruined village of Kndor, where dwelt the witch
who raised up the prophet .Samuel; and near it the
little city of Nain, where our .Saviour raised from the
dead the widow's son ; on tlio cast, the mountains of
Gilboa, "where .Saul, and his armour-bearer, and his
three sons, fell upon their swords, to save themselves

• Joshua, xvil. II ; I Samuel, xsxi. 12; Kings, Iv. IJ.

from falling into the liands of the PIn"listines ; beyond,
the Sea of Galilee, or Lake of Genesareth, the theatre
of our Saviour's miracles, where in the fourth watch of
the night he appeared to his terrified disciples, walking
on the face of the waters ; and to the north, on a lofty
eminence, high above the top of Tabor, the city of
Sapliet, supposed to be the ancient Bethnlia, alluded
to in the words " a city that is set on a hill cannot be
hid."

But if the tradition be true, we need not go beyond
the mountain itself, for it was on this high mountain
that " Jesus Christ took Peter, and James, and John
his brother, apart," and gave them a glimpse of his
glory before his death, when " his face did shine as the
sun, and his raiment was white as the light ; and a
voice out of the cloud was heard, saying, This is my
beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." I stood on
the very spot where this holy scene was enacted.
Within the walls of an old fortress is a ruined grotto,
with three altai-s built as Peter liad i)roposed, one for
Christ, one for Moses, and one for Elias ; where, once
a-year, the monks of the convent, and all the Christians
of Nazareth, ascending in solemn jjrocession, offer ado-
ration and praise to the Saviour of the world. The top
of the mountain is an oval, about half a mile long, and
encompassed by a wall built by Josephus when he was
governor of Galilee ; within this enclosure is a table of
luxuriant grass and wild flowers, sending forth such
an odour, and looking so clean and refreshing, that,
when my horse lay down and rolled in it, 1 felt the
spirit of boyhood coming over me again, and was
stri>ngly tempted to follow his example.

We descended and hurried on towards Nazareth,
Winding along the valley, an accidental turn brought
the mountain again full before me, alone, and sti-onglv
defined against the sky ; the figure of a man coulil
have been seen standing on the top as on a pedestal.
I know not whether, in the splendid effort of llaphael
that now adorns the Vatican, he had any idea of this
particular mountain ; but 1 remember that, looking
back upon it at this time, it struck me that it was ex-
actly the scene which the daring genius of the painter
might have selected for the transfiguration of the Son
of God.

In two hours and a half we were in the vale of Xas-
zera, and approaching the city of Nazareth, 'i'hc valley
is fertile, surrounded by hills, and the city stands at
the extreme end on the side of an elevation. The
houses are white, and in the place of Christ's residence,
as of his birth, the mosque with its minaret is the most
conspicuous object, and next to that the convent. A
little on this side is a Gi'cek church, built, as the Greeks
say, over the spot where the angel Gabriel appeared to
the Virgin Mary, and announced to her the birth of a
son, " of whose kingdom there should bo no end." A
little farther is a fountain, where the Virgin is said to
have been in the habit of going fur water; a j)rocession
of women, with hu-ge jars on their lu'ads, was coming
out from the city, and one of them, a Christian woman,
gave us to drink ; a comfortable-looking monk, taking
his afternoon's promenade in the suburbs, was the first
to greet us, and following him, we dismounted at the
door of the convent — one of the largest in the Holy
Land.

In the city where Josciih and Mary lived, and wlirre
our .Saviour passed thirty years fif his life, there is of
course no lack of holy places ; and as in the case of (he
Chureli of the Holy Sepulchre, jis many of these ])lace8
as possible have, with admirable economy, been brought
under one roof. The Church of the Annuneiation,
within the walls of the convent, next to the Church of
the Holy .Se]>ulchre, is the finest in the Holy Laiid.
There are two organs, and the walls ami jiillai-s are
hung with red damask. Under the priiici)ial altar is
the hou.sc of Josej»h and Mary, consisting of several
grottoes, kitchen, parlour, and bedroom. In front of
the same altar are two granite columns, designating
the spots where the angel and the Virgin stood at the
time of the annunciation. One of them is broken off

SCRIPTURAL LOCALITIES— TIBERIAS.

113

below, and the upper part hangs from the roof — the
monks say by a miracle, but othci-s by mortar ; and all
over Galilee the miraculous pillar is celebrated lor its
virtue in curing diseases. Outside the convent are the
workshop where Joseph wrought at his carpenter's
trade, and the synagogue, where Ciirist, by reading the
book of Isaiah, and applying to himself the words of the
prophet, so exaspei-ated the Jews that they rose up and
thrust him out of the city. A lamp was burning dimly
at the altar, and an Arab Christian prosti-ating himself
before it ; and, lastly, I saw the table on which, say the
monks, our Lord dined with his disciples both before
and after the resurrection — a large flat stone about
three feet high, and fifteen paces in circumference. 1
was about knocking off a piece as a memorial, when
the friar checked me, and turning round a nail in one
of the many holes in the surface, he worked otl' a little
powder, laid it carefully in a paper, and gave it me.

In my humour there was no great interest in visiting
these so-called holy places ; but here was the city in
which our Saviour had been brought up. I could walk
in the same streets where he had walked, and look out
upon the same hills and valleys ; and a man of warm
and impassioned piety might imagine that, inbreathing
the same atmosphere, he was drawing nearer to the
person of the Saviour. I wont back to the convent,
joined the monks at vespers, listened to the solenm
chant and the majestic tones of the organ, and went to
bed.

Early in the morning, changing for the first time the
horses with which I had come from Jerusalem, I took
a Christian of Nazaretii for my guide, and started for
Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee. In about an hour we
came to Cana of Galilee, where our Saviour performed
his first miracle by turning water into wine. At the
entrance of the village is a fountain, where the women
were drawing water in large jars, and near it a Greek
cimrch, built over the house of the young man at whose
wedding the miracle was performed. Here, too, are
large stone jars, being, as the monks say, the identical
vessels in which the water was changed. War, bloody
and relentless war, has swept over the little Cana of
Galilee ; fire and sword have laid waste and destroyed
the peaceful village iu which Christ met the rejoicing
wedding-party.

In about two hours, leaving Mount Hermon and
Mount Tabor on our right, we passed through the field
where the disciples plucked the corn on the Sabbath
day ; about half an hour farther on is the mountain of
the Beatitude, where Christ preached the sermon on
the mount. \^"hether the tradition be true or no, it
was just the place where, in those primitive days, or
even in the state of society which exists now in the
Holy Land, such an event might have taken place ; the
preacher standing a little distance up the hill, and the
multitude sitting down below him. Indeed, so strikingly
similar in all its details is the state of society existin.g
here now to that which existed in the time of our Sa-
viour, that I remember, when standing on the ruins of
a small church supposed to cover the precise spot where
Christ preached that compendium of goodness and
wisdom, it struck me that if I or any other man should
preach new and strange things, the people would come
out from the cities and villages to listen and dispute,
as they did under the preaching of our Lord.

Half an hour farther on we came to a large stone, on
which, tradition says, our Saviour sat when he blessed
the five loaves and two fishes, and the immense nmlti-
tude ate and were filled. These localities may be, and
probably are, mere monkish conjectures ; but one thing
we know, that our Saviour and his disciples journeyed
on this road ; that he looked upon the same scenes, and
that, in all probability, somewhere within the range of
my eye these deeds and miracles were actually per-
formed. At all events, before me, in full view, was the
hallowed Lake of Genesareth. Here we cannot be
wrong ; Christ walked upon that sea, and stilled the
raging of its waters, and preached the tidings of salva-
tion to the cities ou its banks. But where are those

II

cities now? Chorazin and Bethsaida, and thou, too,
Capernaum, that wast exalted unto heaven ! The whole
lake is spread out before me, almost from where the
Jordan enters unto where that hallowed stream p:usses
on to discharge its waters in the bituminous lake which
covers the guilty cities ; but there is no city, no habita-
tion of man — all is still and cjuiet as the grave. But I
am wrong ; towards the southern extremity of the lake
1 see the city of Tabbereeah, the miserable relic of tho
ancient Tiberias, another of the proud cities of Herod,
standing on the very shore of the sea, a mere speck in
the distance, its walls and turrets, its mosques and
minarets, telling that it is possessed by the persecutors
and oppressors of the followers of Christ.

We descended the mountains, and passing under tho
walls of the city, continued on about half an hour to a
large bath erected by Ibrahim I'acha over the hot
springs of Knnnaus, celebrated for their medicinal pro-
perties ; and finding that wc could pass the night there,
left our baggage and returned to the city. The walls
and circular towers, Moorish in their construction, gave
it an imposing ap])earance ; outside the gate was tho
tent of a harlot, that unhappy class of women notbeinfi
jiermitted, by the Mussulman law, to enter the walls ;
withhi, all was in a most ruined and desolate condition ;
a great part being entirely vacant, and, where the sjace
was occupied, the houses or huts were built far apart.

Tiberias was the third of the holy cities of the Jews ;
and here, as at Jerusalem and Hebron, the unhappy
remnant of a fallen people still hover around the graves
of their fathers, and, though degraded and trampled
under foot, are still looking for the restoration of their
temporal kingdom. There were two classes of Jews,
Eastern and European, the latter being Muscovites,
Poles, and Germans ; all had come merely to lay their
bones in the Holy Land, and were now supported by
the charity of their brethren in Europe. There were
two synagogues, and two schools or colleges ; and it was
an interesting sight to see them, old men tottering on
the verge of the gi'ave, and beardless boys studying in
the same mystei'ious book what they believed to be the
road to heaven.

I inquired for theii- rabbi, and they asked me whether
I meant the Asiatic or European. 1 told them the
greater of the two, and was conducted by a crowd to
his house. I had no diffidence in those days, and in-
vited myself to sit down and talk with him. He was an
old man, and told me that they were all poor, living
upon precarious charity ; and that their brethren in
America were so far oti" that they had forgotten the land
of their fathers. Every thing looked so comfortable in
his house, that I tried to get an iuvitation to stay all
night ; but the old rabbi was too cunning for me. It
was a fete day, but my notes are so imperfect that I
cannot make out whether it was their Sabbath. AH
were dressed in their best apparel, the women sitting
in the doors or on the terraces, their heads adorned with
large gold and silver ornaments, and their eyes spark-
ling like diamonds.

Returning, I noticed more particularly tlie ruins
beyond the southern wall. They extend for more than
a mile, and there is no doubt that this ground was
covered by the ancient city. The plain runs back
about half a mile to the foot of the mountain, and in
the sides of the mountain ax'e long ranges of tombs.
It was from one of these tombs, said our guide, that
the man possessed of devils rushed forth when our
Saviour rebuked the unclean spirits, and made them
enter into a hei'd of swine, which ran violently down a
steep place into the sea, and were drowned.

Passing the bath, 1 walked on to a point where I
could see the extreme end of the lake, forming near
the other side into the Jordan. It was a beautiful
evening, still and quiet as the most troubled spirit could
wish. The sides of the mountains were green and
verdant, but there were no trees, and no rustling of
the wind among the branches ; not a boat was upon
the lake; and, except the city of Tiberias, which,
enclosed within its walls, gave no signs of life, I was

114

TRAVELS IX THE IIOLV LAND.

the only living being on its shores ; I almost felt myself
alone in the world; and sui-ely, if ever there was a
spot where a man might be willing to live alone, it would
be there. There was no desolation, but rather beauty
in the loneliness ; and when the sun was setting, 1 was
bathing my feet in the watei-s of the hallowed lake, and
fast failing' into the belief that I could sit me down on
its banks, " the world forgetting, by the world forgot ;"
but just then I saw filing under the walls of Tiberias a
long procession of men. They were coming to the baths
of Emmaus ; and, in a few moments, I, tliat was mus-
ing as if I were alone in the world, was struggling with
naked Arabs for a place in the bathing apartment.

A large bathing-house has been built over the hot
springs by Ibrahim Pacha — a circular building, with a
(li)me like the baths at Constantinople ; and under the
dome a large marble reservoir, twenty feet in diameter,
and nearly six feet deep, into which the Arabs slipped
ott' from the sides like turtles, darkening the white
marble ind the clear water with their swarthy skins.
1 could not bear the heat, which seemed to me scalding.
A separate room, with a single bath, had been bulk
expressly for the precious body of Ibrahim Pacha ;
and as lie was not at hand to use it, I had it prepared
for myself. Hero was a theme for meralising! I had
stood on the top of the pyramids, on Mount Sinai, and
the shores of the Dead Sea ; I had been in close con-
tact with greatness in the tombs of Augustus, Aga-
memnon, and the Scipios ; but what were these coni-
pai-ed with bathing in the s;ime tub with the great bull-
dog waiTior of the East, the terrible Ibrahim Pacha 1
1 spread my rug in an adjoining chamber ; the long
window opened directly upon the Sea of Galilee ; for
more than an hour my eyes were fixed upon its calm
and silvery surface ; and the last sounds that broke
upon my ears were the murmurs of its waters.

Early in the morning we stai-ted. Stopping again
at Tiberias, the soldier at the gate told us that a Euro-
pean had arrived during the night. I hunted him out,
and found hira to be an Englishman, as I afterwards
learned, a merchant of Damascus, and a sportsman,
equij)ped with shooting-jacket, gun, dog, &c. He was
in a misei-able hovel, and, having just risen, was sitting
apart from the Arab family ; his rug and coverlet were
lying on the mud floor not yet rolled up ; and he seemed
in a most rueful mood, objuraling all travel for pleasure,
and whistling eaniestly "There's no place like home."
I knew his humour, for I had often felt it myself, and
could hardly keep from laughing. He was not more
than half dressed, and reminded me of the caricature
of an Englishman standing in his nether gai'ment, with
a piece of cloth in one hand and a pair of scissors in
the other, as not being resolved after what fashion to
have his coat cut.

" I am an English gentleman, and naked I stand here,
Muiiing ill my mind wliat rninunt I Miall wear;
For row I will wear this, and now I will wear that.
And now 1 will wear — I cannot tell wliat."

Wc spent half an hour together, and parted. He
was an old stager, and did not travel for scenery, asso-
ciations, and all that, but he could tell every place
where he had bagged a bird, from Damascus to the Sea
of Galilee.

Stopping for a moment at the only monument of
antiquity, the church of St I'eter, a long building, with
a vaulted stone roof, built, as the monks say, over the
place where the house of St Peter stood, and the
comer stone laid by our Saviour ; a burly monk was
in the confessional, and a young Christian girl pouring
into his greedy ears i)erhap3 a story of unhappy love ;
we left for the Lost time the gate* of the city, the tent
of the harlot standing there still, and commenced our
journey along the shore of the sea.

A short distance from Tiberias we crossed the point
of a mountain running down into the lake, and in about

*AI>out lix months after, this gate was swallowed up hy an
earthquake; the wall and the whole of that quarter of the city
were thrown down and demoli^thcd, and a great portion of the
Inhabitants buried imdcr the ruins.

an hour came to a small Mohammedan village, called
Magdol, supposed to be the Magdala into which our
Saviour came when he had sent away the multitude,
after feeding them with the seven loaves and two fishes.
It was along this shore that Jesus Christ began to
preach the glad tidings of salvation to a ruined world ;
1800 years ago, walking by this sea, he saw two breth-
ren, " Simon Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting
their nets into the sea, toiling all day and catching no
fish ; and he told them to thrust forth from the land ; #
and their nets brake, and their ships sank with the
multitude of fish ; and he said unto them, Follow me,
and I w ill make you fishers of men ; and they forsook
all and followed him."

A\'e were now crossing a rich valley, through which
several streams were running and emptying into the
lake ; and towards the other end, at some distance from
the sea, we camo to a small mound of crumbling bricks
and stones, almost overgrown with grass ; and this is
all that remains of the city of Bethsaida, the city of
Peter, and Andrew, and Philip. If we had diverged
a hundred yards one way or the other, I should have
passed without seeing it. A short distance off, among
the hills that border the plaui, alike in ruins, is hev
sister city Chorazin. Leaving the valley, and crossing
a rude point of the mountain, w Inch runs boldly to the
lake, the road being so narrow that we were obliged to
unload the baggage-horse, we descended to the plains
of Genes.areth, the richest and most fertile plain on the
shores of the lake, and, perhaps, for a combination of
natui-al advantages, soil, beauty of scenei'y, climate, and
temperature, exceeded by no place in the world. A
short distance across the plain we came to a little mill,
set in motion by a large, clear, and beautiful stream,
conveyed in two stone aqueducts. Four or five Arab
families lived there, in huts made with palm leaves ; tiio
men lay stretched on the gi-ound, lulled to sleep by the
murmur of the falling waters.

From here to Talhoun, the supposedsite of Capernaum,
the rich plain of Genesareth was lying a wild and luxuri-
ant waste, entirely uncultivated and neglected, except
in one place, where an Arab was ploughing a small
plot for tobacco. Approaching, the single Arab foot-
path becomes lost, and the road which our Saviour had
often followed upon his great errand of redemption was
so overgrown with long grass, bushes, and weeds, that
they rose above the back of my horse, and I found it
easier to dismount and pick my way on foot.

The ruins of Capernaum extend more than a mile
along the shore and back towards the mountain, but
they were so overgrown with grass and bushes that it
was difficult to move among them. Climbing upon a
high wall, which, though ruined itself, seemed proud of
its pre-eminence above the rest, I had a full view of the
ruins of the city, of the plains of Genesareth, and tlio
wlioie extent of the Sea of Galilee, from where the Jordan
comes down from the mountains until it passes out and
rolls on to the Dead Sea. It is about sixteen miles long,
and six wide ; at each end is the narrow valley of the
Jordan ; on the east a range of mountains, rising, not
precipitously, but rolling back from the shore, green and
verdant, but destitute of trees ; on the west are moun-
tains, in two places coming down to the lake ; and tho
rest is a rich and beantiful, but wild and uncultivated,
plain. It was by far the most imposing view I had
enjoyed, and I am not sure that in all my journeying in
the East I had a more interesting moment than when I
sat among the ruins of Capernaum, looking out upon
the Lake of Genesareth.

Travellers have often compared tliis lake with the
Lake of Geneva. I could see very little resemblance ;
it is not so large, and wants the variety of scenery of the
Lakeof Geneva, and, above all, the lofty summit of Mont
Blanc. The banks of the Lake of Geneva arc crowded
from one end to the other with villages and villas, and
its surface is covered with boats, and all the hurry and
bustle of a travelling population ; this is, in the wild-
ness of nature, all neglected and uncultivated ; and,
except the little town of Tiberias, not a habitation, not

ZAFFAD.

11.5

even an Arab's hut, is seen upon its banks, not a soli-
tary boat upon its waters. A single pelican was Hoating
at my feet, and, like myself, lie was alone. He was so
near me that I could have liit him with a stone ; ho was
the only thing I saw that had life, and he seemed looking
at me with wonder, and asking mo why I still lingered
in the desolate city. I was looking upon the theatre of
mighty miracles ; it was here that, when a great tem-
pest arose, and the ship was covered with waves, and
bis disciples cried out, " Save us, or we pei-ish," Christ
rose from his sleep, and rebuked the wind and the sea,
" and there was a great calm ;" and here too it w:us that
in the fourth watch of the night he appeared to his ter-
rified disciples, walking on the face of the sea, and crying
out to them, " It is I, be not afraid ;" and again the
wind ceased, and there was a cahn.

But this scene was not always so desolate. The shores
of this lake were once covered with cities, in which
Christ preached on the Sabbath day, healed the sick,
gave sight to tho blind, cleansed the lepers, cast out
devils, and raised the dead. Bethsaida and Choraziu I
had passed, and I was standing among the ruins of
Capernaum, the city that was exalted to heaven in our
Saviour's love ; where Christ first raised his warning
voice, saying, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is
at hand ;" and I could feel the fulfilment of his pro-
phetic Words, " Wo unto thee, Chorazin, wo unto thee,
Bethsaida ; it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and
Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And thou,
Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shall be
brought down to hell, and it shall be more tolerable for
the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee."
I am aware that lately there iias been some dispute
whether this be the site of Capernaum, but I had now
passed along the whole western shore of the lake, and,
if this be not Capernaum, my hoi"se's hoofs must have
trampled upon the city of our Saviour's love without
my knowing where that city stood.

I thought to enhance the interest of this day's journey
by making my noonday meal from the fish of the Lake
of Genesareth ; obliged to go back by tho mills, and
having on my way up seen a net di-yiug on the shore,
I had roused the sleeping Arabs, and they had promised
to throw it for me ; but when I I'eturned, I found that
like Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee, " they had
toiled all day, and had caught no fish."

Here we turned away from the consecrated lake, and
fixed our eyes on the end of my day's journey, the
towering city of Zaflad. But the interest of the day
was not yet over. Ascending for about an hour from
the shore of the lake, we came to the great caravan road
from Jerusalem to Damascus, and a little off from this
to a large khan ; and within this khan, according to
tradition, is the pit into which Joseph was thrown by
his brethren before they sold him to the Ishmaelites.
The khau, lilce all other caravanserais, is a large stone
building, enclosing a hollow square, with small chambers
around it for the accommodation of caravan travellers.
The pit is a solid piece of mason-work, like a well ; and,
when I saw it, was nearly full of water. Both Mussul-
mans and Christians reverence this as a holy place ;
near it are a Mussulman mosque and a Christian chapel ;
and few travellei's pass this way, w^hether Mussulmans
or Christians, without prostrating themselves before the
altar of Joseph the Just.

In all probability, the legend establishing this locality
lias no better foundation than most of the others in the
Holy Land ; but I cannot help remarking that I do not
attach the importance assigned by others to the circum-
stance of its distance from Hebron, at that time Jacob's
dwelling-place. We know that Joseph's brethren were
feeding their father's flock at Shechem ; and when
Joseph came thither " wandering inthe field, he inquired
after his brethren, and a man told him, They are de-
parted hence, for I heard them say, let us go to Do-
than ; and Joseph went after his brethren, and found
them in Dothan." If there be any good reason for calling
this place Dothan, to me it does not seem at all strange,
that, in the pastoral state of society which existed then,

and still exists unchanged, Jacob's sons had driven their
flocks to a pasture-ground two days farther on ; aud
affording a striking illustration of the scene supposed to
have taken place here, while we were loitering around the
khan, a caravan of merchants from Damascus came up, on
their way to Egypt ; and tho buying or selling of slaves,
white or black, being still a part of the trade between
these places, 1 have no doubt that, if I had oflered Paul
for sale, they would have bought him and carried him
to Egypt, where, perhaps, he might have risen to be ii
grand vizier. From hence we continued mounting
again, the city of Zatfad seeming to detach itself more
and more, and to rise higher and higher above sur-
rounding objects, and the atmosphere growing percep-
tibly colder ; and at four o'clock we had reached the
city.

Zaffad is tho last of the four holy cities of tho Jews.
l\Iy intercourse with the Jews in the Holy Laud liad
been so interesting, that I determined to prolong it to
the last, and having heard a favourable report of a Jew,
the English consular agent at Zaft'ad, I rode directly to
his house. He was a very poor and a very amiable
man. I went with him to the governor, showed my
firman, and demanded permission to see the grotto of
Jacob. The governor was sick, and told me that God
had sent me there expressly to cure him. Since my
successful experiment upon the governor of Hebron, I
began to think doctoring governors was my forte, and,
after feeling his pulse, and making him stick out his
tongue, upon the principle that a governor was a gover-
nor, and what was good for one was good for another,
I gave him an emetic which almost turned him inside
out, and completely cured him. One thing I cannot help
observing, not with a view of impeaching any thing that
is written, but as illustrating the state of society in the
E;ist, that if a skUful physician, by the application of
his medical science, should raise an Arab from what,
without such application, would be his bed of death, tho
ignorant people would be very likely to believe it a
miracle, and to follow him with that degree of faith
which would give credence to the saving virtue of touch-
ing the " hem of his garment."

From the palace of the governor wc ascended to tho
ruined fortress crowning the very top of the hill, and
from one of the windows of the tower I looked down
upon an extensive prospect of hills and valleys ; the
Lake of Genesareth seemedalmostatmyfeet ; the stately
and majestic Tabor was far below me, and beyond was
the great plain of Jezreel, stretching off" to the moun-
tains of Carmel and the shores of the Mediterranean.
In all my wanderings in the most i-emote places, I had
been constantly seeing what I may call the handwriting
of Napoleon. In Italy, Poland, Germany, and the burnt
and rebuilt capital of the czars, at the pjTaraids and
cataracts of the Nile, and now, on this almost inaccessible
height, tlie turrets of the fortress were battered by tho
French cannon.

We descended again to the Jews' quarter. Their
houses were on the side of the hill, overlooking a beau-
tiful valley. It was the last day of eating unleavened
bread, and the whole Jewish population, in their best
attire, wore sitting on the terraces and on the tops of
their houses, in gay, striking, and beautiful costumes,
the women with their gold and silver ornaments on
their heads and around their necks, enjoying the balmy
mildness of a Syrian sunset ; and when the shades of
evening had driven them to their houses, I heard all
around me, and for the last time in the Holy Laud,
rising in loud and solemn chants, the Songs of Solomon
and the Psalms of David.

There are about 200 families of Israelites in ZafTad ;
they come there only to lay their bones in the land of
their fathers ; have no occupation or means of liveli-
hood ; spend all their time in reading the Bible and
Talmud, and live upon the charity of their European
brethren. The agent told me that during the late revo-
lution they had been stripped of every thing ; that, as
at Hebron, they had suffered robbery, murder, and
rapine ; that the governor had allowed them to take

116

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

refuge in tlic fortrci-s, wlaic tliey remained, 3000 in
number, without :i mat to lie on or bi-ead to put in their
mouths ; many of them had died of starvation, and the
living remained beside the bodies of the dead till the
whirlwind passed'by : tliat, thinking himself save under
his foreign protection, ho hail remained below, but that
liis hat with the consular cockade had been torn off and
trampled under foot ; and his wife, a lovely young wo-
man sitting by our side, then not more than nineteen, had
been thrown down, whijiped, and he did not tell me so,
but I inferred that far worse had befallen her ; and tlie
brutal Turk wlio committed the outrage still lived, and
he met him in the streets every day.

During the evening a Christian from Nazareth came
ill, and it struck mo as an interesting circumstance that
1 was introduced to him as a brother Nazarene.

A Jew welcomed me to the fii'st of the lioly cities,
and a Jew accompanied me on my exit from the last.
Both received me into their houses, and gave me the
best that they had, ami both refused to accept a price
for their hospitality. I had u hard day's journey beiore
me. My Jewish friend had told me that it would be
necessary to make a very early stai-t to arrive at Acre
that night, but it so happened that I set olf late. We
had a ravine to cross, the worst 1 had met in Syria.
Paul and I were some distance ahead, when wo heard
the shouting of our muleteer; our baggage mule had
fallen, and caught on tlic brink of a precipice, where he
was afraid to move until we came to his help ; and this
and the exceeding roughness of the road detained us so
much, that when we readied the other side of the
ravine, my guide told me that it would be utterly im-
possible to reach Acre that day. I would have returned,
but 1 did not want to throw myself again upon the hos-
pitality of my Jew friend. I was in a bad condition for
roughing it ; but at the risk of being obliged to sleep
in some miserable Arab hut, or perhaps under the walls
of Acre, I pushed on.

For two or three houra there was no improvement in
the road ; we were obliged to dismount several times,
and could not do more than ])ick our way on a walk.
We then came to the village of liinah, situated in a fine
olive-grove. The villagers told us it would be impos-
sible to reach Acre before night, but a bribe to my
guide induced him to lead off on a brisk trot. Of every
man we met we asked the distance ; at length we came
to one who told us he thought wc might do it. I could
almost always tell beforehand the answer we should get ;
when we came to a lazy fellow, spi-awliiig on the ground
and basking in the sun, he invariably said no ; and
when we met an Arab, riding nimbly on his mule, or
striding over the ground as if Jie had something to do
and meant to do it, his answer was always yes ; and so
we were alternately cheered and discouraged. M'e
watered our horses at the stream without dismounting.
About mid-day I'aul handed me a boiled fowl, holding
on by one leg while 1 pulled at the other ; the fowl came
apart, and .so wc dinc'd on horseback without stopi)ing.
1 am not sure, but I do not think there was any thing
particularly interesting on the road ; once, riding over
!i fine, well-cultivated valley, we saw at a distance on
the right two handsome villages, and standing alone,
.something which appeared to be a large white mosque
or sheik's tomb.

At about four o'clock we came in sight of the Jledi-
terranean, the great plain of Acre, the low circular
shi>r«,' extending to Caipha and .Mount f'armel ; and
iiefore uh, at a great distance, on an extreme point in !
the sea, tile aiiritnt I'tolcmais, the St Jr-an d'Acre of I
•^{ichard and the crusaders. Still we wire not safe.
The sun was settling awny towards my distant home,
when we reached the shore of the sea. I shall never
forget my sensations at the moment when I gained that
shore ; after the Red S«'a and the Dead Sea, and the
Sea of Galilee, it s^^emed an old acquaintance, and I
spurred my horse into tlie waters to greet it. But
1 had no time to dally, for as yet I was not secure.
I joined the last of the loungers outside the walls ; the
heavy gates were sw ung to a-s I entered ; and wjieu I

pushed my jaded horse over the threshold of the gate,
1 felt as happy as the gallant leader of the crusaders
when he planted the banner of England upon the walls
of Acre. Soon in the peaceful cell of the convent, I
forgot my toil and anxiety, as well as Richard and the
holy wars. The night before I had slept by the quiet
waters of Galilee, and now the last sounds that I heard
were the rolling waves of the ^lediterrauean.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

A Ride on Donkeyback. — Caipba. — Advcnturo with a Consul.
— Mount Caraiel.— The Pl.iin of Jozrcel.— Convent of Aloliut
Carmcl. — Kindness of the Monks. — Curiosity Gratified.

I ROSE next morning much fatigued. My strength liad
been greatly imi)aired by sickness and exposure, and
I intended to give myself a day of rest, instead of which
1 committed an act of folly. The night before I left
Jerusalem, 1 had seen, at the house of my friend Mr
Whiting, the poetical jiilgrimagc of M. de Lamurtine ;
I had not time to read it through, and by chance opened
it at the chapter containing the particulars of his visit
to Caiplia ; and the glowing account which he gave of
the two sisters of the Sardinian consul had inflamed
in some degree my imagination, I had found it one
of the most annoying circumstances attendant upon
travelling in the East, that, in spite of the poetical ac-
counts of Eastern beauty, though I liad seen (icoi-gian
and Circassian women, 1 had never yet met with any
thing that to my mind was equal to the beauty of the
European and American women. I had passed Caipha,
and it was a direct retrograde movement to go there ;
but early in the morning, as I was walking on the ram-
parts of Acre, 1 looked back towards the little city,
and the beautiful creations of the poet rose before me
ill most ravishing colours. I was worn down. There
was no physician in Acre ; and, ])erliaps, to bask an
hour in the sunshine of beauty might revive and restore
me. I'aul, too, was under the weather : ever since hia
fall from the dromedary he had wanted bleeding, and
it might do him good. In short, 1 had be'en rambling
for months among ruins and old cities, working as hard
as if I were to be paid for it by the day ; I had liad
enough of these things, and one glimpse of a beautiful
girl was worth more to me at that moment than all
the ruins of the Holy Land ; but I would not admit to
myself, mneli less to Paul, that I was making tliis retro-
grade movement merely to see a coujile of pretty faces,
and I ordered horses for Caipha and Jlount Carmel.
Horses, however, wore not to be had, and we were
obliged to take donkeys, which I considered unlucky.
For the first time since I left Jeru.salem, I brushed my
tarbouch, my blue jacket, and grey pantaloons.

I started on donkeyback. Caipha is distant a ride
of about three hours and a lialf from Acre, all the way
along the shore of the sea. About half an hour from
Acre, we crossed the river Bel us in a boat. It was on
the banks of this stream that J:iijali killed the 400 pro-
phets of Baal, gathered unto Mount Carmcl y)y the
orders of Ahab. A dead level plain, fertile but uncul-
tivated, stretched back for many miles into the interior,
and in the front to the foot of Mount Cannel. We rode
close along the shore, where the sand was every mo-
ment washed and hardened by the waves. The sea
was calm, but the wrecks on the shore, of which we
counted seventeen on our way to Caipha, told us that
the elements of storm and tempest might lurk under a
fair and beautiful face ; all which was apropos to my
intendid visit. On the way I thought it necessary to
let Paul into part of my plans, and told him that I
wanted to stop at the house of the .Sardinian consul.
Paul asked me whether I liad any letter to him ; I
told him no; and by degrees disclosed to liim the
reason of my wanting to go there ; and he surprised
me by telling me that he knew the young ladies very
well ; and when I asked him how and when, he told
me that he liad assisted them in their cooking when
lie stopped there three years before with Mr Wellesley.

ADVENTURE WITH A CONSUL— MOUNT CARMEL.

ii:

Tliis was rather a damper ; but I reflected that Haidcc,
oil her beautiful little island, prepared with her own
hands the food for the shipwrecked, and revived at the
thought.

We were now approaching Caipha. The city was
walled all ai-ound ; without the walls was a Mohannncdan
burying-ground ; and the gate, like the shields of
Homer's hei-oes, was covered with a tough bull's hide.
I rode directly to the consul's house ; it was a miserable-
looking place, and on the platform direct !}• before the
door stood a most unpoetical heap of dirt and rubbish ;
but I didn't mind that ; the door was open, and 1 went
in. Tlie table was set for dinner, and I could not helj)
remarking a few rather questionable spots on tlie table-
cloth ; but I didn't mind that ; knives, forks, and plates
were a spectacle to which I had long been unaccustomed,
and my heart warmed even to the empty jilatters. 1
thought I had come at the witching moment, and 1
felt as sure of my dinner as if 1 had it already under
my jacket. The consul was sitting on a settee, and I
began the acquaintance by asking him if there was an
American consul there. He told nie no ; at which I
was very much surprised, as we had one at Jaffa, not
so much of a place as Caipha ; and I invited myself to
a seat beside the consul, and made myself agreeable.
I soon found, however, that I was not so pleasant a
fellow as I thought. The cousul answered my questions,
but his manner might be interpreted, " Don't you see
you are keeping the dinner waiting?" I didn't mind
that, however, but talked about the necessity of my
government having a consul there to entertain Ameri-
can travellers, and suggested that at Jafi'a the govern-
ment had given the appointment to the then acting
Sardinian consul ; still my friend was impenetrable. 1
tried him upon several other topics, but with no great
success. During this time the mother entered, evidently
in dishabille, and occasionally I got a glimpse of a pair
of fine black eyes peeping at me through the door. At
last, when I found that he was bent on not asking me
to dine, 1 rose suddenly, made a hundred apologies for
my haste, shook him cordially by the hand, and, with
most consummate impudence, told him that I would
call again on my return from Mount Cannel. Paul
rather crowed over me, for he had met and spoken to
the young ladies, and in the same place where he had
seen them before.

In about an hour we had reached the top of Mount
Carmel ; this celebrated mountain is the only great
promontory upon the low coast of Palestine, and it is,
beyond all comparison, the finest mountain iu the Holy
Land. The traveller at this day may realise fully the
poetical description by the inspirecl writers, of the
"excellency" of Mount Carmel. The pine, oak, olive,
and laurel, grew above a beautiful carpet of grass and
wild flowers, and from amid this luxuriance 1 looked out
upon the plains of Acre, the little city stretching out on
a low point, like a mere speck in the water, and beyond,
the mountains of Lebanon ; on the left, along the shore
of the ilediterranean to the ruins of Cesarea, the once
proud city of Herod and of Cornelius the centurion,
where Paul made Felix tremble ; in front, the dark blue
sea, on whose bosom two transports, with Egyptian
soldiers on board, were at that time stretching under
easy sail from Acre to Alexandria ; and behind^ the
great plain of Jezreel.

One word with regard to this great plain. I had
travelled around, and about, and across it ; had looked
at it from hills and mountains, and I was now on the
point of leaving it for ever. This plain, computed to
be about fifteen miles square, is the " mighty plain," as
it is called, of the ancients, and celebrated for more than
3000 years as the "great battle-ground of nations."
From "here Elijah girded up his loins, and ran before
Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel ; it was on this plain
that Bara'k went down, and 10,000 men after him, and
discomfited Sisera and all his chariots ; it was here that
Josiah, king of Judah, disguised himself, that he might
fight with Necho, king of Egypt, and fell by the an-ows
of the Egyptian archers. The AssjTian and the Per-

sian, Jews and Gentiles, crusaders and Saracens, Egyp-
tians and Turks, Arabs and Frenchmen, warrioi-s of
every nation, have iioured out their blood on the plains
of Esdraelon ; and hero, said a gentleman w hom I met
in Palestine skilled in the reading and interpretation of
the prophecies, will be fought the great final battle with
antichrist, when circumstances which are now supposed
to be rapidly develojiing themselves shall bring together
a mighty army of the followere of Christ, under the
banner of the cross, to do battle in his name, and sweep
from the earth his contemners and opposcrs.

Tlie convent on Mount Carmel is worthy of the place
where it .stands, and, like the mountain itself, is the best
in the Holy Land. The church, which is unfinished, is
intended to be a very fine building, and the interior of
the convent is really beaulilul. 1 could hardly believe
my own eyes when I saw, in rooms provided for tra-
vellers, French bedsteads with curtains, and French
dressing-tables. The rules of their order forbid tlie
Carmelite friars to eat meat ; but they set me down to
such a dinner, to say nothing of the wines of Mount
Lebanon, that, so far as regarded the eating and drink-
ing merely, I was glad I had not invited myself to dine
with my friend the consul at Caipha. From my seat at
the table I looked out upon the distant sea ; the monks
were all gathered around me, kind, good men, happy to
receive and talk with a stranger ; and it is no extrava-
gance to say, 'that, after having been buffetted about for
months, I felt at the moment that 1 could l)e almost
willing to remain with them for over. I ought not to
tell it, but the fact is, the extraordinary comfort of the
convent, and the extraordinary beauty of tlie scene,
drove away all the associations connected with this
gathering-place of the prophets. I wanted nothing but
what I saw before me. The monks told me that there
was fine shooting on the mountain. I could thi-ow my-
self into the clearest of waters, and bathe, or, with my
little boat, could glide over to Caipha or Acre. For an
invalid in search of retirement, with every beauty that
climate and natural scenery can ofier, I know no place
superior to the convent at Mount Cai'mel. It is one of
the few places I ever saw whore a man could be cheerful
and liapjij- in perfect seclusion. Books, the mountain,
the sky, and the sea, would be companions enough. It
would be the sweetest spot on earth for a veri/ young
couple to test the strength of their poetic dreams ; and
knocked about and buffetted as I had been, when the
superior told me that, in spite of the inscription over
the dooi's of their convents, " Clausura per le donna,"
I might build a house on the spot where 1 stood, and
bring whom 1 pleased there, it instantly brought to my
mind the beautiful birds of paradise of De Lamartine,
and my engagements w ith my friend the consul at Caipha.
The whole of the fraternity accompanied me down the
side of the mountain ; and I beg to except them all,
including the cook, from any thing I may have said bear-
ing harshly upon the monastic character. The recol-
lection of my engagement, however, began to hurry me.
The friars were pursy and shortwinded ; one by one
they bade me good bye ; and the cook, a most deserving
bi-other, and unnaturally lean for liis profession and
position in the convent, was the only one wlio held out
to the foot of the mountain. 1 crossed his hand with a
piece of money ; Paul kissed it ; and, after we had
started, turned his head and cried out to the holy cook,
" Orate pro mihi" — " Pray for me."

At Caipha we found the consul in the sti-eet. I do
not know whether he was expecting us or not ; but,
whether or no, I considered it my duty to'apologise for
having staid so long on the moimtain, and accompanied
him to his house. Unluckily, it was so late, that Paul
said if we stopjied we should be shut out from Acre ;
and when I looked at the sun and the distant city, I had
great misgivings, but it was only for a moment. The
sisters were now dressed up, and standing in a door as
I passed. Their dresses w ere Asiatic, consisting, from
the waist downward, of a variety of wrappers, the out-
ermost of which was silk, hiding the most beautiful
figures under a mcx'e bundle of habits. I went into tiie

ii8

TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.

room, and took a glass of lemonade with my watch in
my hand. I would not speak of her in the morning, but
now, in full dress, the interesting mother, so glowingly
described by M. de Lamartine, appeared in a costume
a great deal beyond what is usually called low in the
neck. I do not mention it as a reproach to her, for she
was an Arab woman, and it was the custom of her
country ; and as to the young ladies — M. de Lamartine
had never beeh in America.

I had intended this for a day of rest ; but I had, if
possible, a harder task than on the preceding day to
reach the city before the gates were closed. We pushed
our donkeys till they broke down, and then got oft" and
whipped them on before us. It was like the Irishman
working his passage by hauling the tow-line of the canal
boat ; if it was not for the name of the thing, we might
as well have walked ; and when I lay down that night
in my cell in the convent, I prayed that age might tem-
per enthusiasm ; that even the imagination of M. de
Lamartine might grow cool ; and that old men would
pay res^ieet to their lawful wives, and not go in ecstacies
about young girls.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Bt Jean d'Acre.— Extortions of llic Pacha.— Tjto.— Questionable
Company. — Lady lil^thcr Stanhope. — Departure from the Holy

Land.— Conclusion.

•

I snjLLL say but little of Acre, The age of chivalry is
gone for ever, but there is a green spot in every man's
memory, a feeble but undying spark of romance in every
heart ; and that man's feelings are not to be envied who
could walk on the ramparts of St Jean d'Acre without
calling up Richard and Saladin, the crusadei's and the
Saracens ; and when the interval of centuries is for-
gotten, and the imagination is revelling in the scenes of
days long passed away, his illusion rises to the vividness
of reality as he .sees dashing by him a gallant array of
Turkish horsemen, with turbans and glittering sabres,
as when they sallied forth to drive back from the walls
the chivalry of Europe. Near the city is a mount which
is still called Richard Cceur de Lion, and from which
Napoleon, pointing to the city, said to Mui-at, " The
fate of the East depends upon yonder i)etty town."
Constantinople and the Indies, a new empire in the
East, and a change in the face of the whole world ! Eight
times he led his veteran soldiers to the assault ; eleven
times he stood the desperate sallies of the Mameluke
sabres. British soldiers under Sir Sydney Smith
came to the aid of the besieged ; the ruins of a breached
wall served as a breastwork, the muzzles of British and
French muskets touched each other, and the spearheads
of theirstandards were locked together. The bravest of
his officers were killed, and the bodies of the dead sol-
diers lying around putrified under the burning sun.
Tiic pacha (Djezzar the Butcher) sat on the floor of his
palace, surn)unded by a heap of gury iieads, distributing
money to all who brought in the heads of Erenchmen ;
and he who was destined to overturn every throne in
Europe was foiled under the walls of .Acre. Three years
ago it sustained, under Abdallah Pacha, a long and
bloody siege from Ibrahim Pacha, and when it fell into
his hands, was given up to pillage and the flames. It
Las since been rcbtiilt, fortified with skill and science,
and is now almost impregnable ; full of the elite of the
y I army under Colonel Sevo (formerly aid to

y. .. Ney), now Suiiman I'acha, and constantly

stored with five years' jirovisinns. The pacha has lately
been building finchnspitals for his soldiers, and an Italian
apothecary, lici'ii«;i<l to kill secundum arteni, is let loose
u]>on the sick at the low rate of a hundred dollars per
annum.

I was 80 much pleased with the old Arab muleteer
who went with me to Mount Carmel, that I liired his
i' ' again for another journey. He was an old

I 1 from Damietta ; four of his children had been

taLeii li.i -. and he and bin old wife and three

donkeys ; . tlicm about wherever they went. He

had had two wives and sixteen children, and these wei*e
all that were left. They were all now stationed at Acre,
and when we started, two of them, not on duty at tlio
time, were with the old man at the convent, arranging
the baggage while he was taking his coflee and pipe ; they
accompanied us to the gate, received the old man's
benediction, and returned.

A short distance from the gate we met a Turkish
grandee, with his officers, slaves, and attendants. He
had formerly been a collector of taxes under Abdallah
Pacha, and would have done well as an office-holder
under a civilised government, for he had abandoned the
falling fortunes of his master in time to eUp into the
same office under his successor.

Looking back. Acre appeai-ed to much better advan-
tage than from the other side, and the mosque and
minaret of Abdallah Pacha were particularly conspi-
cuous. We rode for some distance by the side of an
aqueduct, which conveys water from the mountains
twenty miles distant to the city of Acre. In the plain
towards Acre two upright pillars, in which the water
rose and descended, formed part of the aqueduct. Our
road lay across a plain, and sevei'al times we picked
up musket balls and fragments of bombs, left there by
the French and Napoleon. We passed two palaces of
Abdallah Pacha, where the haughty Turk had revelled
with his fifty or a hundred wives in all the luxuries of
the East. The plain was very extensive, naturally rich,
but almost entirely uncultivated. Over an extent of
several miles we would, perhaps see a single Arab
turning up what on the gi-cat plain appeared to bo
merely a few yards ; and the oppressive nature of the
government is manifest from the fact that, while tho
whole of this rich plain lies open to any one who chooses
to till it, hundi'eds prefer to drag out a half-starved
existence within the walls of Acre; for the fruit of
their labour is not their own, and another will reap
where they sow ; the tax-gatherer comes and looks at
the products, and takes not a fifth, or a sixth, nor any
other fixed proportion, but as much as the pacha needs ;
and the question is not how much ho shall take, but
how little he shall leave. Taxation, or rather extortion,
for it is wrong to call it by so mild a name, from cantars
of olives down to single eggs, grinds tho Arab to tho
dust ; and yet, said the old man, even this is better than
our lot under the sultan ; even this we could bear, if
the pacha would only spare us our children.

Along this plain we passed a large house, in a garden
of oranges, lemons, almonds, and figs, with a row of cy-
press-trees along the road, formerly tho residence of
the treasurer of Abdallah Pacha. He himself had been
a great tyrant and oppressor, and had fallen into the
hands of a greater, and now wanders, with both his eyes
out, a beggar in the streets of Cairo.

In about five hours we came upon the sea, on a bold
point jirojecting out like Carmel, the white promontory
of Pliny, tho ancient Scala of the Syrians. On this
point stood an old khan, and wo sat down inider tho
shadow of the wall for our noonday lunch. From here,
too, the view was exceedingly fine. On the left were Aero
and Mount Carmel ; on the right tho Turkish city of
Sour, the ancient Tyre ; and, in front, the horizon was
darkened by the island of Cyprus. Almost at my feet
was the wreck of a schooner, driven on the rocks only
the night before, her shivered sails still flying from tho
masts, and the luckless mariners were alongside in a
small boat bringing ashore the remnant of tho cargo.
Near me, and, like me, looking out upon the movements
of the shijiwrecked sailors, and appai'cntly bemoaning
his own unhappy lot, was a long, awkward, dangling
young man, on his way to Acre ; sent by the sheik of
his village to work in Ibrahim Pacha's factory for threo
rolls of bread a-day. I asked him why he did not run
away, but where could he go? If he went to a strange
village, he would immediately be delivered up on tlio
never-failing demand for soldiers. There was no help
for him. He did not know that there were other lands,
whero men were free ; and if he had known it, tho
curse of povci'ty rested upon him, and bound him where

LADY ESTHER STANHOPE— DEPARTURE FRO^I THE HOLY LAND. 110

lie was. I had seen misery in Italy, Greece, Turkey,
Hussi.a, and gallant, but conquered and enslaved Poland,
but I saw it refined and perfected under the iron des-
potism of Mohammed Ali.

From hence the road continued, for about two hours,
over a rocky precipice overhanging the sea, and so
njirrow that .as I sat on my liorse, I could look down
the steep and naked sides into the clear water below.
In one place were the ruins of an old wall, probably,
when the city before me was in its glory, defending the
precipice. In the narrowest place wo met a caravan
of camels, and from here descended into a sandy plain,
and passing small rivulets and ruins of castles or for-
tresses, came to a fine stream, on the banks of which
were soldiers' barracks ; the horses, with their gay
accoutrements, were tied near the doors of the tents,
constantly saddled and bridled, and strains of military
music were swelling from a band among the trees.

Near this are what are called Solomon's cisterns,
supposed to have been built by King Solomon in pay-
Inent for the materials furnished by Hiram, king of
Tyre, towards the building of the temple. Circum-
stances, however, abundantly prove that these cisterns,
and the aqueduct connecting them with Tyre, have been
built since the time of Alexander the Great.

On the extreme end of a long, low, sandy isthmus,
which seems to liave crawled out as far as it could,
stands the fallen city of Tyre, seeming, at a distance, to
rest on the bosom of the sea. A Turkish soldier was
stationed at the gate. I entered under an arch, so low
that it was necessary to stoop on the back of my horse,
and passed through dark and narrow streets, sheltered
by mats stretched over the baza.ars from the scorching
lieat of a Syrian sun. A single fishing-boat was lying
in the harbour of "the crowning city, whose merchants
were princes, whose traflackers were the honourable of
the earth !"

I left the gate of TjTe between as honest a man and
as great a rogue as the sun ever shone upon. The
honest man was my old Arab, whom I kept with me in
spite of his bad donkey ; and the rogue was a limping,
sore-eyed Arab, in an old and ragged suit of regimentals,
whom I hired for two days to relieve the old man in
whipping the donkeys. He was a dismissed soldier,
turned out of Ibrahim Pacha's ai-my as of no use what-
ever, than which there could not be a stronger certifi-
cate of worthlessness. He told me, however, that he
had once been a man of property, .and, like honest
Dogberry, had had his losses ; he had been worth sixty
piasters (nearly three dolLars), with which he had come
to live in the city ; and been induced to embark in en-
terprises that had turned out unfortunately, and he had
lost his all.

On my arrival at Sidou I drove immediately to the
Arab consular agent, to consult him about paying a
visit to Lady Esther Stanhope. He told me that I must
send a note to her ladyship, requesting permission to
present myself, and wait her pleasure for an answer ;
that sometimes she was rather capricious, and that the
English consul from Beyroot had been obliged to wait
two days. The state of my health would not permit
my waiting any where upon an uncertainty. I was but
one day from Beyroot, where I looked for rest and
medical attendance ; but I did not lilce to go past, and
I made my application perhaps with more regard to
my own convenience and feelings than the respect due

to those of tlio lady. My baggage, with my writing
materials, liad not yet arrived. I had no time to lose ;
the Arab agent gave mo the best he had ; and writing
a note about as " big as a book" on a piece of coarse
Arab paper with a reed pen, and sealing it with a huge
Ai"ab wafer, I gave it to a messenger, and, tumbling
him out of the liouse, told him ho must bring mo au
answer before daylight the next morning. He pro-
b.ibly reached Lady Stanhope's residence about nine or
ten o'clock in the evening ; and I have no doubt ho
tumbled in, just as he had been tumbled out at Sidon,
and, demanding an immediate answer, he got one fortji-
with, "Her ladyship's compliments," &c. ; in short,
somewhat like that which a city lady gives from the
head of the stairs, " I'm not at home." I have since
read M. de Lamartine's account of liis visit to her lady-
ship, by which it appears that her ladyship had regard
to the phraseology of a note. Mine, as near as I can
recollect it, was as follows : — " Mr S., a young American,
on the point of leaving the Holy Land, would i-egret
exceedingly being obliged to do so without first having
paid his respects to the Lady Esther Stanhope. If the
Lady Esther Stanhope will allow him that honour, Mr
S. will present himself to-morrow, at any hour her lady-
ship will name." If the reader will compare this note
with the letter of M. de Lamartine, lie will almost
wonder that my poor messenger, demanding, too, an
immediate answer, was not kicked out of doors. My
horses were at the door, either for Beyroot or her lady-
ship's residence ; and when obliged to turn away from
the latter, I comforted myself with a good gallop to the
fonner. Her ladyship was exceedingly lucky, by tho
way, in not having received me ; for that night I broke
down at Beyroot ; my travels in the East were abruptly
terminated; and after lying ten days under the attend-
ance of an old Italian quack, with a blue frock coat and
great frog buttons, who frightened me to death every
time he approached my bedside, I got on board the first
vessel bound for sea, and sailed for Alexandria. At
Beyi'oot 1 received a letter from the friend who had
taken me on board his boat at Thebes, advising me of
the sickness of his lady, and that he had prevailed upon
the English doctor at Beyroot to accompany him to
Damascus and Baalbeck ; here, too, I heard of tho
death of Mr Lowell, a gentleman from Boston, who had
preceded me in many parts of my tour in the East ;
and who had every where left behind him such a name
that it was a pleasure for au American to follow in his
steps ; and hei-e, too, I heard of the great fire, which,
by the time it reached this distant laud, had laid tho
whole of my n.ative city in ruins. In the midst of my
troubles, however, 1 had three things that gave me
pleasure. I met here my two friends with whom I
had mounted the cataracts of the Kile, one of whom
I hope one day to see in my own country ; I received
from the Austrian consul an assurance that the pass-
port of my Jew friend at Hebron should be made out,
and delivered forthwith to his friend there. For ten
days I lay on the deck of a little Austrian schooner,
watching the movements of a pair of turtle doves ; and
on the morning of the eleventh I was again off the coast
of Egypt, and entering the harbour of Alexandi-ia.
Here I introduced myself to the reader ; and here, if
he have not fallen from me by the w ay, I take my leave
of him, with thanks for his patient courtesy.

120

NOTE.

By the arrival in America of my friend Mr Gliddou of Cairo,
of wliiiiii mention lias bccu Kveral times made in the fore-
going piiges, the author has received the followint; nutii-e of the
EKypt'"" StK-iety. The objects of the society are sufficiently
explained in the notice; and they are such as cannot fail to
recommend themselves to all who feel any interest in E^ypt, and
the liast generally. The nutlior is per.-onally ne<tuainted with
many of the members, particularly with Mr Walne, Hon. Sec,
who. besides being a gentleman of high literary and professional
attainments, h.is devoted much attention, and with great success,
to the study of hieroglyphics and Egyptian antiquities; and the
author feels great satisfaction in being pennittcd to say that any
individual, or literary or scientific institution, may, without
further introduction, corrcsixmd with Dr Walno iu relation to
any of the ubjects set forth in the notice.

NOTICE OF THE EGYPTIAN SOCIETY.

The impulse of modem discovery, has excited a general and
increasing interest respecting the antiquities of Egypt, while the
unusual facilities of access both from India and Europe, coupled
with the internal tranquillity <if the country, are more than ever
calculated to induce travellers to visit the Valley of the Nile, and
examine personally the extraordinary monuments with which
its banks abound.

Uy the munificence of his highness the viceroy, Cairo will, it
is presumed, possess, at no distant period, a museum that, in
Egyptian antiquities, may be e.\i)ccted to rival all existing col-
lections, liut the stranger visiting the capital, removed from
those conveniunces to « hich he has been accustomed in European
cities, has particularly to regret the absence of a public library of
rffcrencc, so essential to his lesearches.

The want of an institution that should at once ofTer this desi-
rable resoui-ce, serve as a iM)int of union for social intercourse,
and be a medium for obtaining additional information relative to
Egypt and the adjacent countries, has long been felt : and it is a
desire of supplying this deficiency that has suggested the forma-
tion of the Egyptian Society.

The objects of the ass«*iation are : —

First, To form a rendezvous for travellers, with the view of
associating literary and scientific men who may from time to
time visit Egypt.

Stxoml. To collect and record information relative to Egypt,
and to tho=c parts of Africa and Asia which arc connected with
or tributary to this country.

Third, To facilitate i)»carcb, by enabling travellers to avail
themselves of such information as may bo in the power of the
society to obtain, and by offering them the advant.-ige of a library
of reference containing the most valuable works on the East.
The Egj-ptian Society is open to gentlemen of all nations, and is
composed of Members, Honorary Members, and asbociate Mem-
bers.

,l/i-nifc<^x.— The Members (the number of whom is at present
limited to twenty) are the trustees of the institution, direct the
disposal of the funds, and have the general government of the
iociety. To be eligible as a Member, a gentleman must have
been at least one year an Associate Member, and be recommended
in writing by three .Mcmbem. The election must take place at
a general meeting, and be by ballot, one black ball to exclude.

^Icmbcrs pay an annual subscription of one guinea ; but thOM!
clcctc<l after the 25th March, 1837, will pay in addition an ad-
mission fee of one guinea.

The contribution of ten guineas at once constitutes a Life Mem-
ber.

Honorary itcmbtri.—iluniiTory aicmbcrs will bo elected only

from literary and scientific men, who have particularly distin-
guished themselves in relation to Egypt, or from gentlemen who
have especially promoted the objects and interests of the society.

AisociaU .1/f»i^'»-4-.— "With the exception of taking a part in the
government of the society. Associate Members enjoy the same
privileges as the Members.

To bo eligible as an Associate Member, a gentleman, if not
\isually resident in, must at least have visited Egypt, and have
passed t«o months cither in this country, or in tho.sc parts of
Africa and Asia which are immediately connected with or tribu-
tary to it. It is necessary that he be recommended in writing by
two Members : the election must take place at a general meeting,
and bo by ballot, two black balls to exclude. Associate Members
I)ay an annual subscription of one guinea. The contribution of
five guineas at once c<m6titutes a Life Associate Member.

Honorary Officers. — The President, Treasurer, Secretary, and
council of management, are annually elected from the Members.

The fumis arising from subscriptions and donations will be .ap-
plied, as far as possible, to the formation of a library, to which
the Jlembers and Associate Members can always have free access,
and to which travellers can be introduced, till such time as they
become eligible to join the society. Rooms have been opened,
the association jiossesses the nucleus of a library, and the mem-
bers have every reason to hope that, by their own exertions, and
with the assistance of those who take an interest in the institu-
tion, they will soon succeed in' forming a collection that, while
it includes many interesting volumes on the East in general, may
contain the works of all the ancient and modern authors who
have made Egypt the subject of their observations.

Alfrcu T. Wai,nk, lion. Sec.

Cairo, July 9, 183C.

Since the above was in type, the author has been favoured with
acoumiunication from the Egyptian Society, by which itnpi>ears
that the objects of the society have been duly appreciated, and
that it is now established upon a foundation calculated to render
it eminently useful to those who may visit Egypt for the purpose
of antiquarian, literary, or scientific research ; but the particular
favour which the author has to acknowledge now, is the interest-
ing information that Colonel Vyse (before referred to as engaged
in exploring the pyramids) has discovered no less than three new
chiunbers over the king's chamber in the great pyramid, which

he calls by the names of Wellington, Nelson, and Lady .

The last is remarkable as containing the following cartouche.

nosscllini, a learned Italian, now editing a second edition of
Champollion's works, who found this cartouche in one of tlio
tomb-i, reads it " Seamphis." Thfs establishex the fact that the
pyramids were not built anterior to the use of hieroglyphics, and
also that SiiphisorSaophis, was the builder, asstated by Manetho,
according to Mr Wilkinson's table, about 3120 years b. f. The
particulars of this interesting discovery, and the details connected
with the present exploring of the pyramids, will probably soon
be given to the public through Mr Wilkinson.

END OF INCIDENTS OF TJLWEL IN EGYPT, &c.

r.ni.Nr.i-p.iiii :

PniMTr.D DV W. A.NB J{. ClI.VMnERS.

pf