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 THE CLASSIC 
 MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 JOHN BANCROFT DEVINS 
 
 Author of 
 " An Observer in the Philippines " 
 
 For wheresoe'er I turn my ravished eyes 
 Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise. 
 Poetic fields encompass me around, 
 And still I seem to tread on classic ground. 
 
 Addison 
 
 One seeing is better than a thousand people 
 telling you of It. Chinese Proverb 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 
 150 NASSAU STREET : : : NEW YORK
 
 
 Copyright, 1910 
 By American Tract Society
 
 
 TO 
 
 MY WIFE 
 
 THE NOBLEST OF WOMEN 
 THE BEST OF COMRADES 
 THE TRUEST OF FRIENDS 
 
 THIS STORY OF OUR CRUISE TOGETHER IN MEDITERRANEAN 
 WATERS IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 

 
 FOREWORD 
 
 ONE winter morning, after the roar of New York 
 had sunk to silence and the city's gigantic up- 
 lift of structures had dwindled to a ragged line in the 
 hush behind us, and our ship had begun to dip her 
 bows with an easy swing as if glad to find herself once 
 more in Ocean's freedom, I strolled below in search of 
 any mail that might have come aboard. In a long 
 narrow passage I saw a man, robust and bearded, com- 
 ing along with a chatting group about him and bear- 
 ing an armful of letters and papers. As the party 
 passed me he turned and said with quiet courtesy, 
 "Good morning, sir." There were several hundred 
 persons aboard bound for a cruise through the Medi- 
 terranean together, but scarcely a face was known to 
 me. I found myself wondering who this gentleman 
 might be. 
 
 I slept most of the time during the next day or two ; 
 but at length I got my sea-legs and went down to an 
 evening entertainment. In the center of the crowded 
 dining-saloon, conducting the program, was the man 
 who greeted me in the passage with his arms full of 
 mail. I chanced to drop into a seat beside a little 
 lady who proved to be a genial conversationalist. She
 
 6 FOREWORD 
 
 identified him for me. I now present him to the readers 
 of this book as ''the man who greeted me in the passage 
 with his arms full of mail/' For so I first knew the 
 author, and I know of no fitter characterization. 
 
 I came to know Dr. Devins in many other relations 
 while the good ship A tribic hore us to many lands; 
 since returning to America I have learned more of his 
 vigorous, beneficent life. All is summed up in that first 
 glimpse of him. He is ever brotherly and busy. I 
 might tell how many thousands of children go each 
 summer from the tenements of New York into the 
 health and gladness which childhood finds in the 
 country because this Editor of T7ie Nczv York Ob- 
 server has a big brother's interest in their little lives, 
 and busies himself managing the affairs of The Trib- 
 une Fresh Air Fund. But this would only be one of 
 the many practical activities which engage the hand 
 that wrote these pages. He is no recluse, no easy-go- 
 ing bookmaker, no unconcerned traveler roaming the 
 world for pleasure only. He has traveled the world 
 over, knows public men and rulers, has studied the 
 life of peoples speaking many tongues, always as a 
 lover of liis kind. 
 
 One may venture to say that it is this attitude of 
 mind which is likely to receive through the medium of 
 intelligent observation the truest impressions of the 
 classic Mediterranean. The detached mind which 
 views the marvels of bygone life on those shores with 
 no deep sense of Innnan brotherhood and no enthu-
 
 FOREWORD 7 
 
 siasm for meeting human need may have a technical 
 skill in judging these things which is of high worth. 
 But after all, everything there seen has its deepest sig- 
 nificance when viewed as expressing life and longing, 
 the needs and resources of men akin to ourselves by ties 
 that unite us across oceans and centuries. The teem- 
 ing life found there now is profoundly human, and its 
 sordid, pathetic calmness of decay only interprets and 
 deepens the wonder of that vast array of ancient 
 achievement to which the remains there found bear 
 witness. 
 
 Renan, man of letters and critic that he was, per- 
 ceived this when he journeyed through Mediterranean 
 countries. '"Would you believe it ?'' he writes, '"I 
 am completely changed. I am no longer French ; I 
 am no longer critic ; I am unworthy of the role ; 
 I have no longer any opinions ; I know not what to 
 say about all this." Then his genius flames out in a 
 splendid passage, showing that all there seen is a part 
 of the life of the people, an expression of deepest hu- 
 man interests — "interests which are as real as any 
 other of the needs of nature. ' ' 
 
 And Thackeray closes an account of a scene ob- 
 served by him amid Mediterranean people with these 
 words: "The Maker has linked together the whole 
 race of man with the chain of love. I like to think 
 that there is no man but has had kindly feelings for 
 some other, and he for his neighbor, until we bind 
 together the whole family of Adam."
 
 8 FOREWORD 
 
 I believe that the reader of this book will find in it 
 the strong human feeling, the sense of the needs of 
 men and of brotherhood wide as humanity. These 
 will be the workman's marks of "the man who greeted 
 me in the passage with his arms full of mail." 
 
 William Allen Knight. 
 
 Brighton Parsonage, Boston, Mass., 
 September 26, I91O.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE Call of the Orient once heard is never for- 
 gotten ; once heeded, it is ever insistent for an- 
 other and yet another response. To satisfy this cry 
 from the East a world-trip was undertaken some years 
 ago. Two months of the twelve were spent in the 
 countries bordering upon the Mediterranean, mostly 
 in Egypt and the Holy Land. It was a personally 
 conducted party, but which of the two members was 
 the conductor has never been satisfactorily settled: 
 each insists that the other was. One regret was ever 
 present: it seemed supremely selfish to see so many 
 strange and interesting sights, to have so many unusual 
 and delightful experiences, and to enjoy to the full 
 every passing moment just for themselves alone. A 
 decision, if not a vow, was registered that if ever 
 ao-ain an occasion offered to visit the lands made for- 
 ever sacred by the earthly presence of the Master of 
 men, that privilege should be shared by as many 
 friends as could be induced to go by their simple 
 story of what they had seen and enjoyed. 
 
 Quite unexpectedly their day-dreams in Egypt and 
 Palestine have been realized. The classic Mediterra- 
 nean has been revisited and old acquaintances renewed 
 and new friendships formed under circumstances of 
 
 9
 
 10 PREFACE 
 
 special interest. For two months or more, in a party 
 containing many clergymen. Bible teachers and stu- 
 dents and educators, the study of the peoples border- 
 ing upon the Great Sea, with their histories, customs, 
 religions and present-day achievements, was carried 
 on in a methodical manner with the aid of approved 
 scholars, the best literature available, and, what was 
 best of all. it was done in the countries themselves. 
 Surely the Chinese proverb has been verified: "One 
 seeing is better than a thousand people telling you of 
 it,'" and the seeing was accomplished with the least 
 possible fatigue ! The memory of those happy weeks 
 will never perish. And then, separating themselves 
 from the larger party, three members traveled for 
 weeks entirely at leisure. Cathedrals and libraries 
 and museums yielded their best, and friends added 
 charm to the saunterings of the travelers as, care free, 
 they journeyed from city to city where fancy dictated 
 or reason impelled, or halted in fascinating towns and 
 suburbs in Southern Europe, and read and rested and 
 dreamed of those who had lived and loved amid the 
 historic surroundings so delightful and satisfying. 
 
 And now that the journey is ended how may one 
 properly present the facts gained and the impressions 
 received without making a new guide-book on the one 
 hand, or, on the other, a diary of experiences, inter- 
 esting chiefly to those who were his associates on the 
 journey? How can one volume contain it all? 
 
 John Bancroft Dkvins.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I. The Classic Mediterranean— Its Ro- 
 mance AND History 15 
 
 What Robert Browning Saw at Gibraltar— Thackeray's Ex- 
 periences on the Sea— The Human Race at School— A Prayer for 
 Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 Chapter II. Madeira and the Azores 22 
 
 Entering the Harbor of Funchal — Travel by Sledge and To- 
 boggan — Gambling in the Casino — Beautiful Gardens in Ponta 
 Delgada. 
 
 Chapter III. Gibraltar and Tangier 34 
 
 The Great Rock with a Noble History — Its Value to Great 
 Britain — A Representative City of Morocco — France in Northern 
 Africa. 
 
 Chapter IV. Granada and the Alhambra 43 
 
 The Last Stronghold of the Moors in Europe — Fascination of 
 the Alhambra — Splendid in Its Ruins — Seville and Cadiz. 
 
 Chapter V. Algiers and Malta 56 
 
 An Arab Proverb to Describe a City — Algerians Through 
 American Eyes — England's Eye in the Mediterranean Sea — St. 
 Paul's Bay. 
 
 Chapter VI. Greece in Song and Story 67 
 
 History and Poetry Attest Noble Deeds — Famous Ruins in 
 Athens — An Interview with King George — E.xcavations at 
 Corinth. 
 
 Chapter VII. Constantinople Old and New 85 
 
 The City on the Bosphorus Founded by the Greeks — The Seat 
 of Moslem Rule — The Bible House, and the Mosque of St. Sophia. 
 
 Chapter VIII. Under the New Constitution 95 
 
 The Young Turks in Control — Liberty Undergoing a Severe 
 Test — America's Influence in the Empire— A Chat with an Am- 
 bassador. 
 
 11
 
 12 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter IX. Cross and Crescent in Conflict 109 
 
 Missionary Influence Extended — The Gospel in Many Tongues 
 — The Moslems Alert and Aggressive — The Struggle to be Con- 
 tinued. 
 
 Chapter X. Smyrna and Ephesus 121 
 
 Education and Missions— Polycarp's Confession and Tomb — 
 How Brigands Ply Their Vocation — John's Letter to Smyrna — 
 PauTs Prayer. 
 
 Chapter XL Beirut, Damascus and Baalbec 133 
 
 The American Press and the American College —Message of 
 a Veteran Missionary — Damascus and the Temple Ruins at Baal- 
 bec. 
 
 Chapter XII. Higher Education in Turkey 148 
 
 Colleges Founded by Missionaries and Backed by American 
 Gold — Instruction, Not Conversion, the Aim of Some Institutions. 
 
 Chapter XIII. Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee.. 162 
 
 The Boyhood Home of Jesus — A Part of Palestine Replete 
 with Bible History — Sites of Capernaum and Bethsaida. 
 
 Chapter XIV. Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley 177 
 
 Through the Plain of Sharon — Interesting Days in the Holy 
 City— Bethlehem, and the Mount of Olives -On the Way to Jericho. 
 
 Chapter XV. Egypt and the Nile 200 
 
 The Gift of the River — Tribute to Turkey and Under the Con- 
 trol of England— A Holy War Suggested — The Suez Canal. 
 
 Chapter XVI. Italy: People, Art and Religion... 219 
 
 Naples and Vesuvius — Messina and the Disaster — Rome: 
 Churches, and Ruins — Florence : Art and Romance Pisa and Its 
 Leaning Tower — Venice, a City 'n the Sea. 
 
 Chapter XVII. The Cruise of the Arabic 245 
 
 Three Continents and Many Countries Visited— Excursions in 
 Spain, Greece, the Holy Land, Egypt and Italy Lasting Friend- 
 ships formed. 
 
 Home Thoughts from Europe 256
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mediterranean, Bird's-eye View of the .... Frontispiece 
 
 Palermo, Sicily, View of 1^ 
 
 Jaffa Harbor J^ 
 
 Funchal, Madeira ^^ 
 
 Funchal, Toboggan Slide ^ 
 
 Ponta Delgada, A Garden in f^ 
 
 Azore Islands, Native Costume j^ 
 
 Gibraltar, Rock of 5c 
 
 Granada, The Generaliffe Near the Alhambra 45 
 
 Granada, The Alhambra ^7 
 
 Granada, Street Scene in 49 
 
 Seville, Garden of the Alcazar 52 
 
 Seville Cathedral, Tomb of Columbus 53 
 
 Seville, Cathedral and Giralda 54 
 
 Algiers, A Mosque in 59 
 
 Algiers, Women in Street Costume 59 
 
 Algiers, Plaster Cast of Geronimo 59 
 
 Malta Harbor 59 
 
 Malta, St. Paul's Bay 59 
 
 Greece, The King and Queen of 69 
 
 Athens, The Acropolis "^ 
 
 Athens, The Caryatides 69 
 
 Athens, The Stadium 69 
 
 Athens, Mars' Hill, Where Paul Preached 69 
 
 Acro-Corinth °^ 
 
 Corinth, Remains of a Christian Church at 83 
 
 Constantinople and the Bosphorus 87 
 
 Constantinople, The Bible House 91 
 
 Constantinople, Mosque of St. Sophia 93 
 
 Constantinople, The Imperial Palace 97 
 
 Smyrna, American Collegiate Institute 124 
 
 Smyrna, At Tomb of Polycarp 126 
 
 Ephesus, Gateway of St. John's Church 130 
 
 13
 
 14 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Beirut, Place de Canon 137 
 
 Beirut. Rev. Dr. H. H. Jessup 140 
 
 Constantinople, Robert College 151 
 
 Beirut, Syrian Protestant College 154 
 
 Beirut, Rev. Dr. Howard S. Bliss 155 
 
 Nazareth, The Village and Fountain of Mary 164 
 
 Galilee, Tiberias and the Sea of 174 
 
 Jerusalem, David Street 181 
 
 Jerusalem, Russian Pilgrims 182 
 
 Jerusalem, A Band of Lepers 185 
 
 Good Samaritan Inn 186 
 
 Jerusalem, Church of the Holy Sepulcher 188 
 
 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity 192 
 
 Jerusalem, Gethsemane and Its Keeper 195 
 
 Jerusalem, Damascus Gate 197 
 
 Nile, Sailing on the 202 
 
 Cairo, An Egj^ptian Woman 204 
 
 Pyramids, Climbing the 209 
 
 Sphinx and the Pyramids, The 214 
 
 Cairo, Seti I. in the Museum of 216 
 
 Naples and Vesuvius, Bay of 222 
 
 Naples, Street Scene in 224 
 
 Sicily, A Sicilian Cart 225 
 
 Messina Before the Earthquake 226 
 
 Messina, Ruins of 227 
 
 Messina, The New 228 
 
 Rome, The Appian Way 229 
 
 Rome, St. Peter's 230 
 
 Florence, The Campanile 234 
 
 Florence on Holy Saturday 237 
 
 Fiesole, Near Florence 238 
 
 Pisa, Leaning Tower and Cathedral 239 
 
 Venice, Bridge of Sighs 242 
 
 Venice, The Winged Lion of Cover and 243 
 
 Venice, On the Grand Canal 244 
 
 Arabic Party, Some Members of the 247 
 
 Leonard, Rev. Dr. Joel 250 
 
 Lord Bishop of Ontario, The 250
 
 THE 
 
 CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 ITS ROMANCE AND HISTORY 
 
 Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the northwest died away; 
 
 Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; 
 
 B'"--h 'inid burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; 
 
 In the dimmest northeast distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray: 
 
 "Here and here did England help me— how can I help England ? " say. 
 
 Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray. 
 
 While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. 
 
 —Robert Browning. 
 
 rr^O be known as the school of the human race is 
 -*- an honor possible for only one place on earth. 
 Dr. J. S. Howson, an English scholar of renown, 
 has given this distinction to the Mediterranean Sea. 
 Another Englishman, Dr. Samuel Johnson, declares 
 that the grand object of traveling is to see the shores 
 of the Meditei'ranean, on which have rested the four 
 great empires of the world : the Assyrian, the Persian, 
 the Grecian and the Roman. He maintains that all 
 of our religion, nearly all of our law, the majority of 
 our arts, almost all that sets us above savages, have 
 come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean. 
 
 "Come and make one of my family party ; in all 
 your life you will never, probably, have a chance 
 
 15
 
 16 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 again to see so much in so short a time. Consider — 
 it is as easy as a journey to Paris and Baden." 
 
 With such an invitation William Makepeace 
 Thackeray tells us in his delightful travel story under 
 the title of "The Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to 
 Grand Cairo," how he joined an excursion to Mediter- 
 ranean ports in the fall of 1844. In thirty-six hours 
 after accepting the invitation he was ready for his 
 journey, which occupied two months. His experi- 
 ences along the coast of Spain, at Lisbon and Cadiz, 
 and in the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. Algiers. 
 Malta, Athens, Constantinople, Smyrna, Jaffa, Jeru- 
 salem, Alexandria and Cairo, lose nothing from the 
 fact that they were recorded some seventy years ago. 
 Many of them could not be duplicated at the present 
 time; a few of them it would be better not to repeat. 
 
 And what is the Sea over which the great English 
 writer sailed so pleasantly in the Forties of the last 
 century, and of which so many of his admirers have 
 delightful memories in the o})ening decades of the 
 present century? '"The Sea within the Land" is the 
 literal meaning of the word Mediterranean. To the 
 Hebrews it was ''The Great Sea" ; the Romans called 
 it "Our Sea." The prayer of Wordsworth, expressed 
 in a sonnet when Sir Walter Scott went from Abbots- 
 ford to Naples, gives it another name : 
 
 "Be true. 
 Ye winds of ocean and the Midland Sea, 
 Wafting your charge to safe Parthenope."
 
 A PICTURE WITHIN A FRAME 
 
 17 
 
 A modem poet has described the Mediterranean 
 thus: 
 
 ' ' O thou great heartless Sea ! without a tide 
 To bless thee with its changing. '' ' 
 
 One may regard the Mediterranean as Dr. Howson 
 did, "as a picture within a frame," or he may think 
 
 VIEW OF THE SEA AT PALERMO 
 
 of it as sleeping "through silent centuries in the 
 embrace of three continents."" Studying it either as a 
 geographer or historian, he will be well repaid for his 
 efforts. He may people it again with the gods and 
 goddesses of mythology, or see its waves reddening 
 with the terrors of piracy; he will find literature in 
 abundance to reward his search. He may hear again
 
 18 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 the swish of galley oars, and behold the crash of ships 
 as Carthage and Greece and Rome measure their 
 strength for the possession of the Sea and its borders ; 
 he may follow the fleets of England and France as 
 they meet in death-conflict on the eastern shore of the 
 Sea and hear the wail of the Corsican when he learns 
 that his ships have fallen under Nelson's terrible 
 scourge. Or. turning from mythology and history and 
 bloodshed, he may think of the Mediterranean as the 
 highway between Boston and Constantinople, or Lon- 
 don and Bombay, or New York and Shanghai, over 
 which the commerce of nations is carried, and upon 
 which a considerable part of the population of Western 
 Asia and Southern Europe travels on its way to the 
 Americas. 
 
 The water of the Mediterranean is very much saltier 
 than either the Atlantic on the west or the Black Sea 
 on the east. It is said that the rainfall over the 
 Mediterranean drainage is thirty inches a year, while 
 the evaporation over the area of the Sea is practically 
 five feet, the evaporation being twice as great as the 
 precipitation. Were there no provision for making 
 good this deficiency, the level of the Mediterranean 
 would sink until its surface was so far contracted as to 
 lose no more by evaporation than would be supplied 
 l)y rain. This condition would probably not be 
 fulfilled befoi'c all of the /Egean and Adriatic and the 
 whole of the western basin west of the island of Sar- 
 dinia were laid dry, and what is now the Mediterra-
 
 EARLY RULERS OF THE SEA 
 
 19 
 
 nean would be reduced to two ' ' Dead Seas, ' one 
 between Sardinia and Naples and the other between 
 Africa and the mouth of the Adriatic. 
 
 That the level and the salinity of the Mediterranean 
 remain constant is due to the supply of water which 
 enters at the Straits of Gibraltar. Here there are two 
 
 JAFFA HARBOR 
 
 currents, the upper one going from the Atlantic and 
 the under one flowing into the ocean. Both are 
 affected by tidal influence, but, after allowing that, 
 there is still a balance of inflow in the upper and of 
 outflow in the under current. 
 
 But a body of water is not entitled to be termed 
 great simply because of its extent or its physical peculi- 
 arities, and the Mediterranean has many other claims
 
 20 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 to fame. One has only to recall the legends of 
 mythology or the tales of Greece and Carthage and 
 Rome and the piracies which have made the history 
 of the Sea memorable, the conflicts of Moors and 
 Christians, and the numerous crusades sailing from 
 Europe to wrest the holy places from the infidels, to 
 know how much of the world's history has been made 
 on and about the Mediterranean. To mention the 
 peoples that have made the Sea famous, one must 
 begin with the Phoenicians on the eastern coast, and 
 think of them as its rulers : 
 
 "First of the throng, with enterprising brow, 
 The keen Phoenician steers his shadowy prow ; 
 To him. sole hierarch of the secret main, 
 Had hoary Neptune shown his ancient reign. 
 And told of realms and islands of the blest 
 Beyond the fabled Pillars of the West; 
 The Tyrian mother with her boy would stand 
 On the wet margin of the shell-strewn sand. 
 Point his ancestral birthright, bid him roam 
 O'er its wide plains, and call its waves his home; 
 Till Ocean loved him like a foster child. 
 And Commerce on the bold adventurer smiled, 
 As oft she saw his daring sail unfurl 
 To found a Carthage or explore a world." 
 
 During the last half-centuiy the Mediterranean has 
 carried the wealth of the Indies westward, and in 
 return has taken on its way through the Suez Canal to 
 India and China and Japan and Australia the best 
 that Europe and America could produce for those
 
 THE SCHOOL OF THE HUMAN RACE 21 
 
 countries. During the last decade the modern cru- 
 sader has taken the place of the armored knight of the 
 Middle Ages, and shiploads of the best people of 
 the Occident have gone to the classic shores of Italy 
 and Greece, to Turkey and the Holy Land and Egypt, 
 while other shiploads from Southern Italy and South- 
 ern Spain have sailed westward to find their home in 
 the land unknown when the Moors left Granada. 
 
 On the shores of the Mediterranean, as Principal 
 Howson has pointed out, the Greek and Latin lan- 
 guages, which have ever since been educators of the 
 highest human intellects, were formed and perfected. 
 These waters carried the ship of Jonah from Joppa, 
 and floated down from Tyre King Hiram's beams of 
 cedarwood. By the seaside on one of these shores St. 
 Peter prayed ; on one of these islands St. Paul was 
 wrecked. Across this Sea Ignatius sailed to his mar- 
 tyrdom at Rome ; at Hippo, on the Carthaginian shore, 
 Augustine wrote those volumes which have instructed 
 the Christian centuries. That which gives to school 
 its dignity is that it is a little world which prepares 
 for the great world ; and that which is the dignity and 
 glory of the Mediterranean is, not merely that it is a 
 majestic expanse of water, but that it was ordained to 
 be the school of the human race.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 MADEIRA AND THE AZORES 
 
 Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean— roll ! 
 
 Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
 
 Man marks the earth with ruin— his control 
 
 Stops with the shore ; upon the watery plain 
 
 The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
 
 A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
 
 When for a moment, like a drop of rain. 
 
 He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan. 
 
 Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined and unknown. 
 
 — Lord Byron. 
 
 IF one enters the Mediterranean from the west he 
 may vary his route somewhat by stopping at the 
 Azores or Madeira and getting a glimpse of semi- 
 tropical life; if he prolongs his stay in one of these 
 archipelagoes, or better yet plans to visit them both. 
 and includes also the Canaries, he will have a series of 
 experiences which will prove novel and entertaining. 
 A tour around the several islands proves that each has 
 its own charms, customs and individuality. The three 
 archipelagoes are so many tiny worlds, blessed with a 
 mild and benignant climate; most of the islands form- 
 ing them are still remote from the prosaic, i)rogressive 
 life of England or America, and each one of them 
 possesses new and interesting features which arrest and 
 
 hold the attention of every traveler. 
 
 22
 
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 Ed 
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 24 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 One may visit with safety the islands at any time of 
 the year, for when blizzards rage in America and the 
 valleys of Europe are deep in snow and ice, the preci- 
 pices of Madeira, the forests of La Palma. the moun- 
 tain-peaks of Teneriffe and the irrigated valleys of 
 Grand Canary are bathed in sunshine ; and when the 
 heat of summer annoys and oppresses Americans and 
 Europeans alike, the mountain summits of the archi- 
 pelagoes are at their best. They stand for months 
 together above the clouds in a world of their own, 
 where the exhilarating atmosphere allows of constant 
 exercise under most favorable conditions. 
 
 Madeira, the largest of the five islands in the group 
 bearing its name, is about thirty -three miles long and 
 one-third as broad, with a population of one hundred 
 and fifty thousand people. It has been called "a 
 neglected paradise," partly because it is off the travel 
 line, but recently it has come into prominence through 
 the Mediterranean tours, and on an average a half- 
 dozen ships a day enter the harbor. Funchal is on 
 the southern side of Madeira, and as the ship sails 
 along the coast for some thirty miles, vineyards, 
 meadow- lands and gardens are seen, adding to the 
 beauty of the landscape. Now and then a waterfall, 
 apparently five hundred to one thousand feet in 
 height, adds to the semi-tropical picture. 
 
 Madeira is a province of Portugal and is entitled to 
 send deputies to the Cortes at Lisbon. The adminis- 
 tration is in the hands of a Civil Governor, appointed
 
 ROMANCE OF COLUMBUS 25 
 
 by the Crown, a military officer and his troops and 
 four chief judges, while minor cases are tried by 
 magistrates selected by the people. Many of the 
 Madeirans hope that America, now that it has the 
 Philippines, much farther from the western coast than 
 Madeira is from the eastern coast, will add their 
 islands also; it is needless to add that there is no 
 immediate prospect of a fulfilment of their dreams. 
 
 American travelers are interested in the story that 
 Columbus followed a maiden whom he saw at school in 
 Portugal to her home in Madeira, where they were 
 married in 1473. The father of Meninea Perestrella, 
 the maiden from Funchal, was a mariner, and it is 
 said that Columbus obtained his first taste for a sea- 
 faring life by studying his charts and by going with 
 him on trading expeditions. A Biscayan vessel 
 drifted into Funchal and its survivors were cared for 
 by Columbus, but they were so far famished that they 
 did not live long. The pilot bequeathed to Columbus 
 his charts and papers, from which the discoverer of 
 America obtained his first ideas of the existence of 
 unknown lands to the west of Spain. A tablet, bear- 
 ing the name of the great navigator, may be found on 
 a house near the cathedral. 
 
 Eight days out the cruising steamer for Medi- 
 terranean ports makes her first stop, entering the 
 beautiful harbor of Funchal, and finds the flag of the 
 Lisbon Government floating over the public buildings. 
 Looking from the ship's deck one sees the dazzling
 
 26 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 wliite walls of Funchal surrounded by vivid green. 
 Some one first coined the epigram which is repeated 
 often by those who visit Madeira: '"a diamond set in 
 emeralds." A dozen boats, each with two boys 
 stripped to the waist, come alongside the steamer, and 
 the boys urge tourists to throw silver coins into the 
 water that they may dive for them. New travelers 
 gratify their desire to see the urchins disappear; some- 
 times two dive from different boats. What happens 
 when they are out of sight no one knows, but there is 
 no appearance of bloodshed when they reappear, and 
 in every case the coin is secured before it touches the 
 bottom of the harbor. 
 
 In the center of Funchal is the Governor's Palace, 
 and over the door of the courtyard is the date of 
 its completion — 1{J38. The building is a huge pile 
 of masonry without a window on the inner walls. 
 The outer walls are bare plaster and stained by their 
 nearly three centuries of existence. The Public Gar- 
 dens near the Governor's Palace are extremely beau- 
 tiful, and the trees are projierly labelled for those who 
 can read botanical Latin. 
 
 Travel in Madeira is not without its interesting 
 features, although there is neither trolley nor elevated 
 roads nor subway trains; now and tlu'ii an automobile 
 is seen, but not greatly patronized, as visitors prefer 
 the wicker sledges or cari'os which aic drawn by teams 
 of oxen. The Ixillocks. with thcii" Inun horns throuii-h 
 whicli l(.ifli( r tliougs are thrust, have the iiovt'l experi-
 
 COASTING ON COBBLE-STONES 
 
 27 
 
 ence of having two drivers — one pulling and one 
 
 prodding. Now and then one of the drivers stops to 
 grease the runners of the sledges that glide over the tops 
 of the cobbles, w^hich glisten like street-car rails. Other 
 forms of travel in 
 Madeira are ham- 
 mocks swung by a 
 pole to the shoul- 
 ders of the carriers, 
 tram-cars drawn by 
 three horses each, 
 a funicular railway 
 which carries one 
 up the mountain- 
 side, and finally a 
 journe}'^ down two 
 miles from the top 
 of the mountain in 
 sledges piloted by 
 natives who push or 
 ride according to 
 the condition of the 
 road at various 
 places. 
 
 The conductors of these peculiar vehicles seem ex- 
 hausted every time they pass a wine shop, and while 
 not able to speak the language of their passengers, 
 they make it very plain that nothing but a glass of 
 wine for each attendant will enable the party to reach 
 
 TOBOGGAN SLIDE, FUNCHAL
 
 S8 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 the bottom of the hill in safet}'. One gets plenty of 
 thrills coasting down the hill, especially when the way 
 crooks in and out between vineyard walls, or he sud- 
 denly emerges from a gorge and finds himself over- 
 looking miles of land and sea. The average speed of 
 the descent is twenty miles an hour, but in places the 
 sledges go down so rapidly that even the conductors 
 cannot keep pace, and. looking behind, one sees them 
 standing on the runners. When the end of the 
 journey is reached and the men have received their 
 money, one of them puts the sledge on his head and 
 carries it up the steep incline down which it has just 
 come. As many of these sledges seat three persons, 
 one can form an opinion of the weight, and of the 
 difficulty which the bearers have in climbing certain 
 parts of the hill. For this labor the sledge-men 
 receive from the company twenty cents a day; it is 
 little wonder that they seek gratuities from generous 
 passengers ! 
 
 An interesting street in Funchal runs along the 
 shore of the bay to the ancient fortress four centuries 
 old. and now dismantled, which is carved out of solid 
 rock. The fortress, standing on a crag, is connected 
 with the shore by a long breakwater, and its dungeons. 
 with their iiiiw littcn stories, are visited with a bit of 
 iioi'i-or. Above the two hundred .•iiid fif'tv iV'ct of 
 perpendicular rock is the Casino, or Strangers' ("lub. 
 as it is called. 
 
 A ball ill honor of the various cruises which stop at
 
 PECULIAR BANKING SYSTEM 29 
 
 Funchal is given at the Casino, which becomes a 
 veritable fairyland when illuminated at night. Ex- 
 perienced travelers declare that nothing more brilliant 
 or more fascinating can be seen on the journey. 
 Thousands of fairy lamps — many thousands of them — 
 small glasses containing olive oil and a little taper 
 which floats on the oil, are hung on the trees. With 
 their varied hues and artistic arrangement they pre- 
 sent a picture which does not soon fade from memory. 
 So near the Casino do the ships anchor that the few 
 people who do not attend the entertainments can see 
 the illumination from the decks. The ladies in the 
 ballroom surpass in brilliancy the decorations about 
 the grounds. This does not mean that every lady is 
 equally well dressed, but that is a delicate subject for 
 a masculine mind to dwell upon. It is fair to add, 
 however, that overdressing or other eccentricity in 
 gowns is exceedingly rare ; so rare, in fact, that those 
 guilty of the excess are especially noticeable. 
 
 In the room adjoining the ballroom are two tables, 
 around which people sit and on which money is 
 scattered from time to time. Midway on the tables is 
 a depression with a wheel attached, which one of the 
 men, apparently the president of a bank in Funchal, 
 judging by the term used, whirls and then slips a 
 marble into the depression. When its momentum 
 ceases the marble drops into the center of the depres- 
 sion, and the banker calls out some number like 
 "seven" or "twenty-seven." Then he thrusts out
 
 30 
 
 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 a miniature garden rake and pulls all of the money 
 toward him ; once in a while he leaves a quarter or a 
 half-dollar or a corresponding piece of money on the 
 table and pushes back other quarters or half-dollars 
 toward one or another of his depositors. It seems to a 
 casual observer that his deposits exceed his disburse- 
 ments; probably this is true in American as well as 
 
 A GARDEN IN PONTA DKLGADA 
 
 Madeiran banks; or they could not pay a satisfactory 
 interest to their customers. 
 
 The native needlework in Funchal is exceptionally 
 fine, and ladies from the ships carry away some dainty 
 creation showing the deft skill of the workers. Among 
 the points of interest in and about the city are the 
 Cathedral and the Church of Nossa Senh(n-a do Monie 
 (Our Lady of the Mount), the latter almost two thou-
 
 EASE AND IDLENESS POPULAR 31 
 
 sand feet above the city, and undoubtedly the most 
 beautiful spot around Funchal, if any locality may be 
 thus singled out in a region of such abounding beauty 
 and sub-tropical luxuriance. The ' ' Praza. ' ' or Public 
 Gardens, and the private gardens along the Rue Bella 
 Vista and in the suburbs, invite a visit, while many 
 excursions in and around the city can be taken in an 
 automobile or on ox-sledges. 
 
 The rooms of the Methodist Episcopal Mission 
 are near the Public Gardens. Bishop Hartzell person- 
 ally assumed the financial responsibility of superin- 
 tending and enlarging the work, in 1898, which the 
 Rev. and Mrs. William G. Smart, and those associated 
 with them, had been carrying forward for nearly 
 twenty years. That work includes a Home in Funchal 
 for missionaries of all churches and other Christian 
 people, mission work among the Portuguese of the 
 island, a Sailors' Rest on the shore, and religious 
 work on ships in the harbor. Mr. and Mrs. Smart 
 are aided by the Rev. G. B. Nind and his wife and 
 other assistants, American and Portuguese. The 
 British and Foreign Sailors' Society of London and 
 the American Seamen's Friend Society of New York 
 approve this work and contribute annually to aid 
 these faithful laborers among the sailors who enter 
 this wonderful harbor in the East. 
 
 Life in Funchal for the rich is one of ease and idle- 
 ness. The residents, who for the most part live in 
 their "quintas," closed-in gardens in the mountains,
 
 32 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 travel in bullock-carts and hammocks to and from the 
 city. Those who can afford to take their breakfast in 
 bed rise at eleven, stroll in the gardens, and in the 
 afternoons ride into town and play cards. In the Cas- 
 ino there is a daily concert and a nightly ball. 
 
 Americans who fall under the sway of the "quinta" 
 life declare that it is ideal — a lotus-eating dalliance in 
 a Garden of Eden. 
 
 When Colonel Roosevelt started for Africa on his 
 hunting expedition in 1909, the first stop was at Ponta 
 Dek^ada on St. Michael's Island in the Azores. 
 This island is the largest and most attractive in the 
 archipelago. Bicycles and motor-cars are used here 
 more than on some other islands. The nature of the 
 climate — neither winter nor summer — has led to a 
 curious method of storing maize, which is left in the 
 cob and hung to a pyramidal structure of laths ; such 
 an erection is found in the yard of nearly every cot- 
 tage passed along the road. 
 
 What greatly impresses the visitor at every island, 
 and especially at Ponta Delgada, are the gardens 
 attached to the imposing palaces of the nobility. 
 One of these gardens contains a collection of several 
 thousand different species of trees and is most admi- 
 rably laid out. In the adjoining gardens are palms 
 which have attained unusual dimensions. One garden 
 near the pier is chiefly admirable for its most lovely 
 arrangement of rockeries and tree-ferns. 
 
 Many of the women of the Azores wear a falling
 
 CAPOTE E CAPELLO 
 
 33 
 
 cloak of black or dark blue material which completely 
 conceals the figure, surmounted by a monstrous hood, 
 both fashioned on 
 vigorous and defi- 
 nite lines, as is 
 usually the case 
 with any local cos- 
 tume ; the hood is 
 puffed out by strips 
 of whalebone in 
 such a way that the 
 face of the wearer is 
 scarcely visible to 
 the passer-by. This 
 cloak is called the 
 capote e capello. 
 and is said to be of 
 remote Flemish or 
 Algarve origin and 
 is jealously retained 
 by what may be 
 described as the 
 Azorean m i d d 1 e 
 
 class. The people of the Azores are quiet, honest and 
 industrious. 
 
 NATIVE COSTUME, AZORE ISLANDS
 
 CHAPTER III 
 GIBRALTAR AND TANGIER 
 
 Seven weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm 
 
 Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more 
 
 We ride in still water and the calm 
 
 Of a sweet evening, screened by either shore 
 
 Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o'er. 
 
 Our exile is accomplished. Once again 
 
 We look on Europe, mistress as of yore 
 
 Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men. 
 
 Ay, this is the famed rock which Hercules 
 
 And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door 
 
 England stands sentry. God ! to hear the shrill 
 
 Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze. 
 
 And, at the summons of the rock guns' roar. 
 
 To see her red-coats marching from the hill ! 
 
 —Wilfred Scawen Blunt. 
 
 STANDING at the western entrance to the Mediter- 
 ranean, Gibraltar, the world-famed promontory, 
 has well been termed "unique in position, in pictu- 
 resqueness and in history." Another triple title which 
 it bears is ''a fortress, a colony and a prison." Gi- 
 l)raltar is not large geographicall}' — perhaps two miles 
 in extent north and south, and less than a mile east 
 and west. It has three sunmiits, two of them being 
 about fourteen lumdred feet high — about the same 
 altitude, by the way, as Sai'anac Lake in the Adiron- 
 dacks. Appearing in the distance like a crouching 
 lion, Gibraltar advertises by its physical appearance 
 
 34
 
 THE PRIZE OF WAR FOR CENTURIES 35 
 
 that it is the property of Great Britain. Rising 
 abruptly out of the sea, a few miles from the strait 
 bearing its name, the Rock forms an interesting pic- 
 ture with the Sierra Nevadas in the background. 
 
 The history of Gibraltar dates back to the Phoeni- 
 cians; later it was in the hands of the Romans, the 
 
 ROCK OF GIBRALTAR 
 
 Goths and Vandals and Moors succeeding in holding 
 it. Ferdinand IV, after fourteen sieges, captured 
 Gibraltar in 1309, but it was lost again after twenty- 
 two years and not regained by Spain until 1462, when 
 the Moors were in temporary possession. It was said 
 that Queen Isabella took her seat outside the fortress, 
 vowing that she would not leave it until the Spanish 
 flag should float over the citadel. The gallant Moor-
 
 36 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 ish Governor saved her Majesty from death by politely 
 raising the Spanish flag for a moment. 
 
 For eight centuries the Rock of Gibraltar was the 
 prize of war between Spaniard and Moor. Its very 
 name under British rule attests the story of the Moor- 
 ish invasion, Gibraltar being merely Gebel-al-Tarik, 
 the Mountain of Tarik the Moor, who first took 
 possession of it, and planted the Crescent on this one 
 of the Pillars of Hercules. Ten times the Cross and 
 Crescent floated alternately from its highest peak ; 
 never was Christian or Moor in undisputed possession 
 of what both considered the pearl of great price until 
 1598, when the Moor departed for the last time from 
 Spanish soil. For more than a century after that date 
 Spain was master of the situation, but she had soon 
 after that to meet a foe, like herself, bearing the Cross 
 as one of its chief banners. In order to determine 
 which of the two claimants for the throne of Spain 
 should be seated, half of Europe became involved in 
 tile War of the Spanish Succession. In this contest 
 England took a hand and sent a squadron into the 
 Mediterranean. Accoinplishinu' little from his cruise, 
 Admiral George Rooke decided to capture at least 
 enough territory for a landing-place for the Austrian 
 pretender to the Spanish throne, whom England was 
 supporting. Not long afterward the Archduke was 
 received at Gil)raltar as the lawful sovereign of Spain 
 and proclaimed King by the title of Charles HI. 
 Failing finally to receive the throne, he could not
 
 THE GREAT SIEGE 87 
 
 retain Gibraltar, and having secured the Rock as one 
 of the accidents of war, Enghxnd decided to keep it. 
 
 In 1775, when Great Britain was having some slight 
 controversy with her colonies across the Atlantic, she 
 placed George A. Elliott in command of the fortress 
 of Gibraltar. At that time Lieutenant-General, he 
 was entrusted with a charge which stirred his Scotch 
 nature to its foundations; with his "heart of oak and 
 frame of iron'' he faced the combined enemy from 
 Spain and France, endured sieges, repulsed invaders 
 and became Lord Heathfield, Baron Gibraltar. The 
 Great Siege began on June 21, 1779, when Spain 
 severed all communication with Gibraltar. 
 
 The plan of Spain in her latest and last attempt to 
 recapture Gibraltar was to cut off all the supplies 
 from the garrison both by land and sea ; a blockade 
 sounds less barbarous than starvation, and then the 
 latter is not necessary, for surrender is always possible. 
 With a force of ten thousand men in a few weeks 
 Spain had drawn a line across the Neutral Ground 
 which separates the Rock from the mainland. Access 
 to the garrison from the land was now impossible; 
 only the sea needed guarding. A large Spanish fleet 
 in the bay undertook that task, but it was unable to 
 make the blockade absolute. Meat became so scarce 
 that the hind quarter of an Algerian sheep, with the 
 head and tail, was sold for seven pounds and ten 
 shillings, and an English milch cow for fifty guineas. 
 Bread was needed as well as meat, and biscuit crumbs
 
 38 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 sold for a shilling a pound. Flour formerly used to 
 powder the hair of soldiers when mounting guard was 
 now turned into food. 
 
 The rations of the soldiers were reduced, the Gov- 
 ernor sharing in the privations and returning a present 
 of fruit, vegetables and game sent by the commander 
 of the besieging forces. His letter reveals the stuff of 
 which he was made. While acknowledging politely 
 the courtesy, "Old Elliott," as he was familiarly 
 called, begged the commander not to repeat it, as he 
 had a fixed resolution "never to receive or procure by 
 any means whatever any provisions or other commod- 
 ity for his own private use." He added a sentence 
 which doubtless led the Spanish officer to realize that 
 he had as the leader of the English forces a foeman 
 worthy of his steel. "I make it a point of honor," 
 he said, "to partake both of plenty and scarcity in 
 common with the lowest of my brave fellow-soldiers." 
 For eight days at one time he lived on four ounces of 
 rice a day. His food was mainly vegetables and his 
 drink water. He neither ate animal food nor drank 
 wine. He never slept more than four hours at a time, 
 so that he was up earlier and later than other men. 
 Severe exercise with short diet became habitual to the 
 brave men who followed the example of the Governor. 
 
 On September \% 178^. there sailed into the Bay 
 of Gibraltar thirty-nine ships from Spain and France, 
 raisinii' the iiuinlHr in service to fiftv-nine battleships 
 and many smaller vessels: a laiKHorce of forty thou-
 
 RED-HOT CANNON BALLS 39 
 
 sand men supported the fleet. What a combination 
 to attack ninety-six pieces of artillery and seven thou- 
 sand soldiers and sailors! Believing that his ships 
 were shot-proof and shell-proof the Spanish Admiral 
 was not careful about keeping at long range, but 
 advanced near shore ready to land his men as soon as 
 the fortress guns had been silenced. 
 
 Soon four hundred guns were firing upon the town. 
 The English replied, but without much effect. One 
 resource remained, and this Elliott tried — the use 
 of hot shot. Upward of one hundred balls were 
 heated in an hour and a quarter and rolled into the 
 cannon's mouth and almost instantly hurled at the 
 ships of the fleet ; and this was kept up during the 
 day. The French engineer had foreseen this emer- 
 gency, and kept the pumps pouring water into the 
 layers of sand where the balls lay harmless. Late in 
 the afternoon the Admiral's ship was seen to be on 
 fire. This was the beginning of the end. As night 
 drew on the fires began to spread, and powder maga- 
 zines were flooded to prevent explosions. By mid- 
 night nine of the ten battleships were in flames. 
 When it was found that the ships could not be saved, 
 consternation seized the crews and disorder prevailed 
 as sailors and gunners threw themselves into the sea, 
 preferring death by drowning to being burned alive. 
 
 While the day was won by the English, the battle 
 was not ended yet. The men who had caused the 
 defeat of the enemy were men as well as soldiers, and
 
 40 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 at imminent peril they clambered aboard the burning 
 ships and rescued officers and men alike and drew 
 hundreds of Spaniards into their boats from the sea. 
 The victory was won. but peace was not assured until 
 months afterward, when a British frigate sailed 
 through the Straits of Gibraltar bearing the word that 
 America had won her independence, and that Eng- 
 land. France and Spain had signed a treaty of peace — 
 but Enghmd kept the Rock ! 
 
 To-day as one walks through the streets of Gibral- 
 tar, or rides over the waters of the bay, he wonders 
 whether the Great Siege could really have taken place 
 there. He wonders also whether with the new 
 methods of warfare even the Imndred-ton guns on the 
 summit and concealed by shrubbery could protect the 
 garrison if another great military Power or a union of 
 Powers should really decide to try to take it from 
 Great Britain. Whether or not the Rock should be 
 maintained as a British fortress may be an academic 
 question, but woe to that nation which attempts to rob 
 England of this fortress and the splendid harbor which 
 is said to have cost twenty million dollars! 
 
 When Gibraltar is reached by travelers, bargain- 
 hunting begins in earnest. All the ladies, and some 
 gentlemen, know what ought to be secured, and appar- 
 ently the shopkeepers also know what the visitors 
 want, and still more to the point, the guides and the 
 cab-drivers surmise their need and where they can best 
 be satisfied. Why one lace or shawl or brass shop —
 
 BARGAINING IN EARNEST 41 
 
 and, in the case of men, tobacco or wine shop — should 
 be preferred to a score of others is best known to the 
 thoughtful and confiding guide on foot or on the cab- 
 box. In every case the choice is said to be in the in- 
 terest of the customer, with such explanations as these : 
 
 ' ' These goods are better than any others in town. ' ' 
 "You get the best value for your money at this 
 shop.'' ""This man pays lower rent than his rivals, 
 therefore he is able to take a smaller profit than 
 they.'' ""This man is master and servant, and he is 
 personally interested in being advertised by his well- 
 pleased customers, who will recommend him to their 
 friends who will come here next year." 
 
 The closing of the gates of the city at sundown is a 
 formidable affair. An ofiicer an^^ two red-coats, the 
 former bearing the keys to the gates and the latter 
 guarding them, perform this mission. Spanish cabs 
 are not allowed to enter the main part of the city; 
 they are all of one pattern both in style and color, so 
 as to be easily recognized should their owners dare to 
 break the rules, and they are obliged to be outside the 
 gates before half-past six under penalty of a heavy 
 fine. A stream of people, suggesting a street leading 
 to a subway station in New York or Boston after the 
 shops are closed, is passed as one drives out across the 
 Neutral Ground to the Spanish territory from which 
 he gets the eastern view of the Rock which Spanish 
 soldiers once scaled in their endeavor to dislodge the 
 English garrison.
 
 42 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Three hours across the sea from Gibraltar, on the 
 African coast, lies Tangier, the representative city of 
 Morocco, which is an empire in common with other 
 parts of Northern Africa and follows the course of 
 history in which Phoenicians, Romans, Goths ?nd 
 Moslems have played their parts. To-day, with Eng- 
 land dominating Egypt and the Soudan, France is 
 having the upper hand in Morocco. Germany does 
 not like this arrangement, and there may be a change 
 in the not distant future. 
 
 The markets of Tangier form the center of life for 
 the town. They are little more than great bare open 
 places covered with stones and lined with bazaars. 
 Thousands of people, shrouded figures, sell herbs and 
 eggs and everything else that is eatable, from dates to 
 mutton. It is a picturesque sight, with the sun 
 trickling through the palm-leaf mats overhead on the 
 piles of yellow melons, and with throngs of camels 
 busy with their grain, and dancing men and snake- 
 charmers and story-tellers clamoring on every side.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA 
 
 And there the Alhambra still recalls 
 
 Aladdin's palace of delight : 
 "Allah il Allah !" through its halls 
 Whispers the fountain as it falls. 
 The Darro darts beneath its walls. 
 
 The hills with snow are white. 
 
 Ah, yes ; the hills are white with snow. 
 And cold with blasts that bite and freeze ; 
 
 But in the happy vale below 
 
 The orange and pomegranate grow. 
 
 And wafts of air toss to and fro 
 The blossoming almond-trees. 
 —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in "Castles in Spain." 
 
 THE traveler in the Mediterranean who wishes to 
 visit Granada in Spain and study at first hand 
 the palace and fortress constructed by the Moors, and 
 immortalized by Washington Irving, may do so from 
 Gibraltar. It is a ride of ten hours, and one may go 
 and return directly, or include Cadiz and Seville in 
 the journey. In either case he stops at Bobadilla for 
 luncheon and traverses the La Vega de Granada in the 
 afternoon, the train crossing viaducts and rushing 
 through tunnels, furnishing views of rivers and moun- 
 tains which cause constant exclamations of delight and 
 surprise. One who has thought of the country as 
 poverty-stricken, gains here an idea of the possibilities 
 
 43
 
 44 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 of Spain as he passes fertile farms and extensive olive- 
 groves. Since it is possible to accomplish so much 
 with the antiquated methods of farming which are 
 everywhere apparent, what would not the substitution 
 of modern farming do for Spain ! 
 
 An hour or more from the place where the Spaniards 
 expelled the Moors from Southern Europe a long 
 stretch of the Sierra Nevadas. or "the Snow Moun- 
 tains," is seen. The afternoon glow rests on the 
 mountain-peaks, and the remark is frequently heard, 
 ''This view is worth the entire cost of our journey.''' 
 
 As in the Moorish States, the downfall of Granada 
 was caused by internal factions, and finally the Catho- 
 lic kings used these dissensions to further the great 
 aim of their lives — the expulsion of the last Moor 
 from Spanish soil. They entered Granada on Janu- 
 ary ^, 1492, the year of the discovery of America. 
 The vniheroic end of Boabdil, the last of the Moorish 
 kings, has been enshrined in legend. As he was cross- 
 ing the Sierra Nevadas he turned on the spot now 
 called "El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro"* for a last look 
 at the fair city which he had lost. Tears filled his 
 eyes as he gazed, but his stern and resolute mother, 
 Aisha, taunted him with the words: "Weep not like a 
 woman for what you could not defend like a man."' 
 
 The taking of Granada by the Christians was the 
 subject of great rejoicing throughout Christendom, 
 aiid a special Te JJcinn was sung at St. Paul's, Lon- 
 tlou. by the order of Heiny VII.
 
 THE GENERALIFFE NEAR THE ALHAMBRA
 
 46 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 "There was crying in Granada when the sun was 
 
 going down ; 
 Some calling on the Trinity, some calling on Mahoun. 
 Here passed away the Koran, therein the Cross was 
 
 borne, 
 And here was heard the Christian bell, and there the 
 
 Moorish horn." 
 
 The city of Granada, which is the capital of the 
 province of that name, as it was of the Moorisli king- 
 dom, contains sixty or seventy thousand people and is 
 for the most part level. The one exception is the hill 
 upon which stands the Alhambra. From the sunnnit 
 of this hill one may see for many miles in every direc- 
 tion. Here it was that the army of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella triumphed over the Moslems. In Granada 
 Columbus received the commission which enabled him 
 to start on his voyage of discovery resulting in the 
 finding of the new continent. If the Alhambra were 
 not in Granada, one would wish to visit the citv to 
 see the famous Cathedral, in the Royal Ch;iptl of 
 which lie the remains of Ferdinand and Isabella. 
 The Carthusian Convent, built by the monks in the 
 sixteenth century, is also worthy of a visit. 
 
 Granada is a city of antiquity, but that ])art of it 
 through which one drives from the station to the 
 Alhambra is modern. Manv of the huildiiius have 
 been erected within tlu' last one or two decades, and a 
 new hotel, oni' of the best in S[)aiii. was opened in 
 1910 with every modern convenience, including lifts
 
 THE FASCINATING ALHAMBRA 
 
 47 
 
 similar to the elevators used in private houses in New 
 York. The city is situated at the base of two moun- 
 tain spurs, which ascend gradually from west to east 
 toward the Cerra del Sol. Some travelers speak of 
 the city as it is now as a '"living ruin'' ; some people 
 
 THE ALHAMBRA 
 
 see only slums in a great city. It is ever true that 
 men, as a class, see what they are looking for ! 
 
 "Two men looked out through prison bars; 
 One man saw mud, the other stars. ' ' 
 
 But men go to Granada to see the Alhambra, which 
 "charms, fascinates, interests and repays every trav- 
 eler who visits that part of Andalusia." The Moors 
 began to build the Alhambra in 1248; the Arabic
 
 48 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 word which gives the name to this combination of 
 fortified castle, palace and summer resort signifies 
 "red," the color of the bricks that form its exterior. 
 The plot on which the group of buildings is placed 
 covers twenty-six acres. The palace occupies only a 
 part of the fortress which crowns the crest of a lofty 
 hill overlooking the city and forming a spur of the 
 Sierra Nevadas. As Washington Irving is respon- 
 sible, by his visit to Spain more than eighty years 
 ago, for that of many thousands of his countrymen, 
 may we stand with him for a moment and see the 
 Alhambra through his eyes? 
 
 "I picture to myself," says the genial Knicker- 
 bocker, "the scene when this palace was filled with the 
 conquering host — that mixture of mitered prelate and 
 shorn monk and steel-clad knight and silken courtier; 
 when crosses and crosiers and religious standards were 
 mingled with proud armorial ensigns and the banners 
 of the haughty chiefs of Spain, and flaunted in triumph 
 through these Moslem halls, I picture to myself 
 Columbus, the future discoverer of the world, taking 
 his stand in a remote corner, the humble and neglected 
 spectator of tlie pageant, I see in imagination the 
 Catholic sovereigns prostrating themselves before the 
 altar and pouring forth thanks for their victory, while 
 the vaults resound with sacred minstrelsy and the 
 deep-toned Tc Dcinii. , , . The transient illusion is 
 over; the pageant melts from the fancy; monarch, 
 priest and warrior return into oblivion with the poor
 
 THE GARDEN OF ALLAH 
 
 49 
 
 Moslems over whom they exulted. The hall of their 
 triumph is waste and desolate. The bat flits about its 
 twilight vaults, and 
 the owl hoots from 
 the neighboring 
 tower of Comares. ' ' 
 After a ride to 
 the old Monastery 
 on the mountain- 
 side and through 
 old Granada, one 
 may make a careful 
 inspection of the 
 splendid Cathedral 
 built by Ferdinand 
 and Isabella to 
 commemorate the 
 expulsion of the 
 Moors from Spain. 
 He niay walk 
 through the grounds 
 of the Generaliffe, 
 the summer palace 
 of the last Moorish 
 king and the home 
 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella. This beautiful structure, 
 overlooking the city and the Alhambra, with its 
 spacious grounds, is owned by an Italian gentleman, 
 a descendant of Queen Isabella. The place is, as its 
 
 STREET SCENE IN GRANADA
 
 50 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 name indicates, a veritable "Garden of Allah.'" 
 Cypress-trees and orange-trees line the walks between 
 which reposes a fountain in the midst of a miniature 
 lake. 
 
 If one's thoughts wander from the Moors who erected 
 this wonderful group of buildings, and the Christians 
 who later occupied them, to Washington Irving who 
 has recreated them, it must be charged to the power of 
 the immortal genius who gave the English-speaking 
 world "The Alhambra. "" Americans are as anxious 
 to step in the room which he occupied when he was 
 repeopling these halls and courts as if they were real 
 hero -worshipers — as perhaps some of them are. The 
 courts and baths and halls, and the church, formerly 
 a mosque, with their architecture and color wholly 
 Moorish, with here and there a dash of Spanish, 
 mainly used in restoration — may one share his inabil- 
 ity to do justice to the occasion with another Ameri- 
 can traveler? 
 
 "This morning," says Mr. Longfellow, "I visited 
 the Alhambru, an enchanted palace, whose exquisite 
 beauty baffles the power of language to describe. Its 
 outlines may be drawn, its halls and galleries, its 
 courtyards and its fountains numbered ; but what 
 skilful linnier shall portray in words its curious archi- 
 tecture, its grotes(jue ornaments, the (juaint devices, 
 the rich tracery of the walls, the ceilings inlaid with 
 ])('ai-l and tortoise-shell? What language shall paint 
 the magic hues of liglil and shade, the shimmer of the
 
 THE COURT OF LIONS 51 
 
 sunbeam as it falls upon the marble pavement, and 
 the brilliant panels inlaid with many-colored stones?" 
 
 A single court may be described at a venture, how- 
 ever, as a faint illustration of what one may see in this 
 truly enchanted palace, begun perhaps a thousand 
 years ago. The Court of Lions, one of the most strik- 
 ing features of the palace, gets its name from the fact 
 that twelve stone lions bear the large fountain basin in 
 the center. The designer of this court was the Moor 
 Aben Cencid. It was begun in 1377, in the reign of 
 Mohammed V. The court, which is ninety-two feet 
 long and fifty-two feet broad, is surrounded by an 
 arcade with stilted arches. At each end the arcade 
 juts out in the form of a graceful pavilion, sur- 
 mounted by a charming wooden roof in the form 
 appropriately known as the " half -orange. '' There 
 are in all one hundred and twenty-four columns, stand- 
 ing either singly or in pairs or in groups of three (at 
 the corners). The walls they bear are only of wood 
 and plaster, but the exquisite fretwork decoration in 
 the latter looks as if carved in ivory. The court 
 originally contained half a dozen orange-trees, but it 
 is now floored with slabs of marble, while the arcades 
 are paved with blue and white tiles. 
 
 "Unhappy he who lost all this!" was the sage 
 exclamation of Charles V. when looking upon the 
 Alhambra in 1526. 
 
 Seville, on the banks of the Guadalquiver. is one of 
 the most charming cities in Spain. Its dry, salubrious
 
 52 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 climate has been compared to that of Cairo, and there 
 is never a day in the year when the sun does not shine. 
 Seville is remarkable for its abundant remains of the 
 wealth and power of the Mohammedans, who ruled 
 in the city for nearly 550 years. It has given birth 
 
 GARDEN OF THE ALCAZAK, SEVILLE 
 
 to three Roman Emperors, Hadrian, Trajan and 
 Theodosius; to the innnortal Magellan, and to two 
 great painters, Murillo and Velasquez. The Alcazar, 
 or House of Caesar, was the residence of the Moorish 
 and Catholic kings, and is one of the most interesting 
 and remarkable buildings in Seville. The gem in this 
 glorious building is the "Hall of Ambassadors,"
 
 SEVILLE CATHEDRAL 
 
 53 
 
 literally from marble floor to crystal and mother-of- 
 pearl-lined roof one blaze of iris hues. The garden 
 is most beautiful. The walls, fountains and kiosks 
 are of Moorish origin, and every sovereign from Csesar 
 downward has left his mark in this delightful spot. 
 The Cathedral is one of the most magnificent in 
 
 TOMB OF COLUMBUS IN THE SKVILLE CATHEDRAL 
 
 Europe. It is Gothic in style, constructed of white 
 granite and supported by sixty-eight immense col- 
 umns. Among the paintings of Murillo and other 
 artists in the Cathedral is the celebrated picture of 
 Saint Anthony looking up at a company of angels in 
 one of his dreams. The saint was cut from the pic- 
 ture some years ago and sold in New York for a high 
 price. When the theft was discovered the purchaser
 
 54 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 sent it back as a present to the Cathedral authorities, 
 and it was replaced in the canvas where it may be 
 seen. At the end of the center aisle of the Cathedral 
 is the R03 al Chapel where the Royal Family formerly 
 worshiped and where lie the remains of the conqueror 
 of Spain. Ferdinand III., and his wife Beatrice. At 
 
 SEVILLE CATHEDRAL 
 
 one side of the center aisle is the great sarcophagus 
 containing the body of Colund)us which was taken 
 from Havana at the end of tlie Spanish-Anu'i-ican 
 War. 
 
 Americans feel at lioiiK- wlicn lU'aiiiig the Cathe- 
 di'al. for attached to it is an iniuiense tower known as 
 "La Ciralda.'' wliieli Staiifoi-d White copied when 
 di'.iwiiig liis plans foi- tin- Madison S(|iiar(' (i;irdeii in
 
 WHERE JONAH PLANNED TO GO 55 
 
 New York. From the top of the tower one can see 
 the entire city and the river upon which it lies. In 
 the belfry are twenty-four bells which require forty- 
 two persons to ring them. But it is seldom that they 
 are all rung at once. Erected in 1196 by the Moors 
 as an observatory — the first in Europe — the fate of 
 the Giralda was not a little characteristic : after the 
 expulsion of the Moors it was turned into a bell tower, 
 the Spaniards being ignorant of its real purpose. 
 
 Cadiz is built at the extremity of a long and narrow 
 peninsula. Its shape has been compared to that of a 
 frying-pan. The city is surrounded by massive walls. 
 Its houses are overhung by picturesque balconies, and 
 many of the streets are so narrow that friends can 
 shake hands over the carriages that are picking their 
 way with difficulty underneath. The Convent of the 
 Capuchin Friars has above the main altar of the 
 church the last picture which Murillo painted, repre- 
 senting the Marriage of Santa Catalina. After he 
 had placed the picture the artist climbed a small 
 ladder to apply the last touches to his great work. 
 One foot slipped and he fell, dying soon after from 
 the injuries received. 
 
 Cadiz is said to be the Tarshish of Scripture, and if 
 so, it was for this city that Jonah started when he paid 
 his fare at Jaffa. Ten miles from the landing-place 
 is the old town of La Rabida, the temporary stopping- 
 place of Christopher Columbus while waiting for his 
 commission in 1492.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 ALGIERS AND MALTA 
 
 Now, one morn, land appeared— a speck 
 
 Dim, trembling, betwixt sea and sky. 
 
 "Avoid it !" cried our pilot, "check 
 
 The shout— restrain the eager eye !" 
 
 But the heaving sea was black behind 
 
 For many a night and many a day. 
 
 And land, but though a rock, drew nigh ; 
 
 So we broke the cedar poles away. 
 
 Let the purple awning flap in the wind. 
 
 And a statue bright was on every deck ! 
 
 We shouted, every man of us. 
 
 And steered right into the harbor thus. 
 
 With pomp and paean glorious. 
 
 —Robert Browning. 
 
 THE Arab proverb may not be strictly true that 
 "Algiers is a diamond set in an emerald frame,'" 
 but what is a cruise without poetry, and what form of 
 poetry could surpass this proverb? The palms and 
 vineyards and orange-groves that abound around this, 
 the largest city in the province of Algeria, make it a 
 veritable ' ' Garden of the Gods. ' ' 
 
 A carriage-drive of three hours around the city, 
 with occasional stops at palaces and gardens and 
 museums, through narrow streets and out on the hill- 
 side, with its beautiful view of the Mediterranean, is 
 one not soon to be forgotten. A visit to one of the 
 leading nios(|ues and a stroll through the Arab quar- 
 
 56
 
 THE INHABITANTS OF ALGIERS 57 
 
 ter, through alleys so narrow that when a donkey and 
 a man met each other the more gentle of the two 
 would back down to the nearest doorway and let the 
 other pass, is a novel experience. The streets and 
 shops are full of men and boys, and an occasional 
 woman closely veiled is seen, but the city is predomi- 
 nated, so far as the streets are concerned, by men. 
 
 In his ''Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel,'' S. G. 
 Bayne has given this view of the inhabitants of 
 Algiers, in most of which sentiments all travelers can 
 heartily concur: "This people is made up of many 
 breeds. We saw thin, bandy-legged Arabs; fat, 
 burly Turks ; ramrod-like Bedouins ; Kalougis with a 
 complexion suggesting sole leather; Greeks with frilled 
 petticoats ; Romans, of course, with the toga ; Kabeles 
 with black hair and wearing a robe with a big gasbag ; 
 Moors with the duke's nose and spindle shanks; Mo- 
 hammedans carrying bannocks with holes in them ; 
 and dragomen with 'bakshish' stamped on every de- 
 partment of their anatomy. But beneath the furtive 
 glance and in the wicked eyes you see the cutthroat 
 still lurking, awaiting the first opportunity to embark 
 again in the trade that is close to their hearts, although 
 the only active pirates here now are car-drivers. 
 Every breed has its own outlandish costume, with a 
 large range of startling colors in robes, turbans and 
 slippers, but their shanks are bare, thin and brick red. 
 an easy mark for flies. A considerable percentage of 
 their time is devoted to stamping their feet to shake
 
 58 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 off these pests, which somehow do not seem to know 
 they are not wanted and keep the hizy rascals busy, 
 thus preventing them from devoting the entire day to 
 sleep and the worship of Allah. To round out the 
 picture we must not forget the French Zouave Regi- 
 ment — fine-looking men, with their elaborately frogged 
 jackets, and trousers like big red bags, large enough 
 to make balloons if filled with gas, and the whole 
 topped off with a scarlet 'swagger' fez with a tassel 
 hanging down to the waist. " 
 
 When the Romans conquered Algeria the country, 
 according to Pliny, was a valuable possession. In the 
 fifth century of the Christian era the Vandals secured 
 the country and the Arabs two hundred years later. 
 For five centuries the princes of Arab blood made 
 the northwestern coast of Africa the dread of every 
 Mediterranean vessel. It is neither poetry nor prov- 
 erb, but actual truth expressed in sinn)le prose, to say 
 that these pirates were ' ' friends to the sea and enemies 
 to all that sailed thereon.'' Spain tried her hand. 
 She paid a dear price for her temerity. France sent a 
 fleet, but the chivalry of the empire followed the fate 
 of Spain's brave men and the Knights of Malta who 
 assisted them. The Algerians swept the coast of 
 France with fire and sword, and Louis XIV. laid Al- 
 giers in ashes, but still piracy did not cease. 
 
 It remained for an American to stop the scourge of 
 the Mediterranean. In June, 1815, Commodore De- 
 catur forced the Dey at Algiers to release all Ameri-
 
 60 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 cans held in slavery. It had been customary to 
 demand a ransom of $3,000 for captured Americans. 
 As late as 1812 the United States paid $22,000 in 
 tribute in a single year. When Commodore Decatur 
 appeared in the harbor with the American fleet the 
 Dey. realizing that the city was in danger of destruc- 
 tion, promised to make an exception in the case of 
 America and not exact further tribute, but the wily 
 Algerian asked as a special favor that in order not to 
 lose prestige with other nations he might receive an 
 annual gift of some powder. To this request the 
 Commodore re})lied : 
 
 ••If the Dey takes the powder he must take the V)alls. 
 
 too. " ' 
 
 This was getting too much for his bargain, and 
 American ])owder has not been exacted since that time. 
 
 In the following year, 1816, the English Parliament 
 took steps to make the African States recognize the 
 law of nations, and 12,000 Christian slaves were 
 released. Not long after that Algeria became a 
 French colony. It now boasts of a })opulation of 
 about 5.000.000 people, about 150.000 of whom live 
 in Aliriers and its suburbs, and two-thirds of this 
 number are Europeans. When one reaches the harbor 
 he sees the mole of tlie penon. which was formerly a 
 Spanish fort connected with the mainland by a stone 
 breakwater, which it is said it took 30.000 Christian 
 slaves three years to build. 
 
 The palace of Mustajjlia Pasha is a fine exami)le of
 
 NOVEL FORM OF MARTYRDOM 61 
 
 Moorish architecture, and is now used as a public 
 library and museum. In it one sees many fine speci- 
 mens of tiles and tapestries and statues recovered from 
 ruined cities. One of the most attractive objects of 
 interest is a plaster cast of the Christian martyr Geron- 
 imo writhinji' in death. Writers tell us that he was 
 put alive into a block of concrete, which was afterward 
 built into a wall of a fort. Fifty years later a Span- 
 ish writer named Haedo described the martyrdom in a 
 book on Algeria, and while he located the exact place 
 where the concrete block could be found, the story was 
 believed to have little or no foundation. In 18.53, 
 when the walls of this particular fort were torn down, 
 the block was found in the exact spot mentioned, and 
 contained a perfect mold of the martyr's face and 
 figure, showing even the cords with which his hands 
 and feet had been bound. By filling the cavity with 
 plaster-of- Paris the model was prepared which is now 
 shown in the museum. 
 
 It is of interest to recall that Africa and not Rome 
 gave rise to the development of Western Christianity. 
 TertuUian, in the second century, Cyprian in the third, 
 and Augustine in the fourth, among the stalwart 
 leaders of the early Church, all belonged to Northern 
 Africa, and the oldest Latin translation of the Bible, 
 upon which Jerome founded his Vulgate Version, was 
 made in Africa. The theology which claims Ter- 
 tuUian as its father and Augustine as its crowning 
 glory was born on the southern and not the northern
 
 62 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 shore of the Mediterranean. At the Council of 
 Carthage, A. D. 253, Millman tells us that ''there 
 were no fewer than eighty-seven bishops present and 
 an equal number of presbyters, and that there were 
 580 sees between Cj^rene and the Atlantic." 
 
 Speaking of sees, one is reminded of Bishop Potter's 
 answer to the young lady who was walking with the 
 genial ecclesiastic one Sunday morning at Long 
 Branch. Looking out upon the ocean with a longing 
 glance and wishing at the same time to get spiritual 
 advice upon the problem distressing her soul, she 
 turned to the bishop and said appealingly ; 
 
 ''Bishop, is it wrong to take an ocean bath on Sun- 
 day?'' 
 
 The bishop, remembering that he was in New Jersey 
 and not in New York, replied with dignity : 
 
 "My dear child, this is not my see." 
 
 While the new town of Algiers is interesting, it 
 resembles Marseilles or Liverpool more than a town on 
 African soil. The Erench are rapidly transferring 
 the town from Moorish into European style. 
 
 It will take a long time, however, to replace the 
 crowded city with one of modern buildings. If the 
 new part is interesting, the old part is uni(|ue. One 
 must not be too fastidious, however, as he picks his way 
 through the narrow streets, perhaps brushing a wall 
 on one or i)oth sides with his elbows. It is said 
 that the dirt which chokes the sides of these alleys is 
 to the dirt of Italy as the dirt of Italy is lo llu- dirt of
 
 NOT FASTIDIOUS IN A MARKET 63 
 
 Whitecliapel ; but so fascinating are the old shops 
 with their brass work and embroidery that ladies es- 
 pecially forget their fear of typhoid fever and similar 
 diseases while they stand bargaining for rare examples 
 of Algerian work. 
 
 The mosques of Algiers are extremely interesting, 
 and entering them one sees the great care taken by the 
 worshipers to appear clean and tidy in their sacred 
 edifice. The walls are devoid of pictures and statues, 
 in striking contrast to the cathedrals in Spain. Cheap 
 rug's lie on the floor which no infidel foot can rest 
 upon until it is covered with a sacred slipper. In the 
 back of the mosque there is a fountain, and before 
 going over the sacred rugs the worshipers bathe their 
 faces, arms, necks and chests, and then wash their 
 feet, waiting for the flesh to dry without the use of 
 towels. Then they pick up their sandals and outer 
 garments, and walking leisurely to one of the pillars, 
 they bow, touching the floor three times with their 
 foreheads, entirely oblivious of the curious. The 
 effect is impressive in the extreme. Every man seems 
 to be in the actual presence of his Maker, and a non- 
 Moslem feels out of place amid such devotion. 
 
 Malta has been termed "England's eye in the Med- 
 iterranean," and one feels as his ship threads her way 
 through the narrow entrance in the harbor and tui-n- 
 ing around backs up alongside the splendid break- 
 water in full view of the overshadowing guns, that 
 the appellation is well deserved. Great Britain is
 
 64 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 justly proud of her Mediterranean Squadron, which 
 can reach the harbor of Alexandria or Piraeus or enter 
 the Dardanelles at short notice, if "moral pressure" is 
 needed at any place. 
 
 The main street of Valetta, the principal city of the 
 island, is lined with fine houses, having little stone- 
 covered balconies which lend a peculiar character to 
 the buildings. The principal places of interest, aside 
 from the Government Palace and the Church of St. 
 John, are the Opera House and the Union Club. On 
 the church the Knights lavished their riches. 
 
 The Church of St. John, as the Cathedral is called, 
 is constantly thronged with visitors. This famous 
 edifice was begun in 1573, but its special interest cen- 
 ters about the Knights of Malta, the marble slabs in 
 the nave of the church, placed among the mosaics in 
 the floor, being memorials of the knights and nobles 
 v,'ho are buried underneath the coats-of-arms, musical 
 instruments, a^igels, crowns, palms, skeletons and other 
 singular devices. These were walked on by the curi- 
 ous and thoughtless on their way to see the splendid 
 marble statue in a single piece of "John Baptizing 
 Jesus," back of the high altar or cross, the nave to 
 the chapel at the left containing the great painting of 
 the "Beheading of St. John," by Caravaggio. In 
 the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament there is a silver 
 railing, preserved from the rapacity of Napoleon's 
 soldiers by a })riest, who painted it black. In this 
 chapel also, underneath the altar, are the ancient keys
 
 MEMORIES OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 65 
 
 of Jerusalem, Acre and Rhodes, the former residences 
 of the Knights before they came to Malta. The Tap- 
 estry Room and the Armory Hall in the Government 
 Palace and a peculiar chapel known as the Chapel of 
 Bones, especially attract visitors. It is said that there 
 are two thousand skulls arranged on the walls and 
 ceiling of this underground structure, not to speak of 
 legs and arms innumerable. 
 
 When one is approaching Malta he should refresh 
 his memory on the experiences of Paul, and read again 
 the story of his shipwreck on the way from Jerusalem 
 to Rome. Standing on the shore of St. Paul's Bay a 
 few miles from Valetta one recalls that after the damage 
 wrought by Euroclydon, when the ship which bore 
 Paul toward Rome '"could not bear up into the 
 wind," in the expressive English of the Authorized 
 Version, they "let her drive." He sees again with 
 Luke the vision of the angel who assured Paul that 
 Italy and not Malta was his final destination, but that 
 a temporary stop must be made at Malta. He remem- 
 bers also that two hundred and seventy-six passengers 
 and members of the crew escaped to shore under PauPs 
 direction, some by swimming and some on boards and 
 some on broken pieces of the ship. The story of 
 PauPs kindly reception by the people of Malta, though 
 they were "barbarous people," and his apparently 
 miraculous escape from the viper which fastened on 
 his hand, and his remaining on the island three 
 months until the party was picked up by a ship from
 
 66 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Alexandria on its way to Sicily and Italy — all this 
 and more is in the mind and on the lips of every Chris- 
 tian who visits this memorable place. 
 
 St. Paul's Tower and the Chapel erected near it, 
 with crude paintings and frescoes illustrating the fa- 
 mous shipwreck, may be seen at this day, A great 
 statue of Paul was erected by the Maltese on Selmoon 
 Island about fifty years ago, and on February 10, the 
 alleged date of the disaster, a great festival is held. 
 At Citta Vecchia, the ancient capital of Malta, one 
 may see the Cathedral of St. Paul, built on the sup- 
 posed site of the residence of Publius, "the chief man 
 of the island, who received us and lodged us three 
 days courteously," according to Luke, and whose 
 father lay ill of fever, whom Paul healed.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 GREECE IN SONG AND STORY 
 
 The Isles of Greece ! the Isles of Greece ! 
 
 Where burning Sappho loved and sung. 
 Where grew the arts of war and peace. 
 
 Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung ! 
 Eternal summer gilds them yet. 
 But all, except their sun, is set. 
 
 The mountains look on Marathon, 
 
 And Marathon looks on the sea. 
 And musing there an hour alone, 
 
 I dreamed that Greece might still be free ; 
 For, standing on the Persians' grave, 
 I could not deem myself a slave. 
 
 -Lord Byron in "The Isles of Greece." 
 
 \ S one sa' ^rom Malta for Greece he finds him- 
 -^^- self on t.. . ser-ond day in the ^^gean Sea, passing 
 here and there a Gr'^k island, and, before the ship 
 turns into the harboi .i^ Piraeus, the seaport of Athens, 
 he sees the Straits of Salamis and, further away, the 
 Eleusis, where nearly twenty-four centuries ago, in 480 
 B. C, Persia was defeated. It is with keen interest 
 that one looks for the Acropolis in Athens, the capital 
 of Greece, and mistakes one of the loftier heights for 
 the hilltop, crowned by one of the greatest buildings 
 in history, Hymettus, Pentelicus, Parnes, iEgina 
 and Salamis are each in turn picked out as the Acrop- 
 olis, which one finds later is partly obscured by the 
 
 67
 
 68 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 buildings in Piraeus and the hundreds of masts in the 
 harbor. 
 
 Having landed in one of the small boats which 
 crowd around the vessel, one does not wish to hurry 
 away from the harbor around which so much of Gre- 
 cian history centers. Salamis, not far away, shares 
 with Piraeus in the traditions attached to the destruc- 
 tion of the Persian fleet of Xerxes. It was from Piraeus 
 that the splendid Sicilian expedition started "with flags 
 flying, paeans sounding, and libations pouring." And 
 it was to this port that the solitary survivor of that ill- 
 fated campaign came back to tell the sorry tale of 
 annihilation. While the large ships for the most part 
 anchor outside the breakwater at Piraeus, they are 
 sufficiently near for the traveler to see the Acropolis, 
 a small hill rising two or three hundred feet above 
 the city of Athens, five miles distant. Piraeus is 
 connected with Athens by an electric railway, and 
 also by a steam railway ruiming through Corinth to 
 Patras. 
 
 The carriage ride from Pineusto Athens is an inter- 
 esting one, chiefly because the Acropolis, crowned by 
 the Parthenon, is in view practically all of the dis- 
 tance. The newer road running along the beach of 
 New Phalerum is lined with pepper-trees. Soon the 
 carriage passes under the shadow of the Acropolis and 
 enters the busy Place de la Constitution in llie heart 
 of Athens. Or taking the electric train at Pinvns. a 
 brief ride brings the traveler to the Theseum Station,
 
 
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 70 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 and in a few minutes he is revelling in ruins antedat- 
 ing the Christian era. 
 
 The city of Athens is built in a valley bare and un- 
 attractive. The rivers Cephissus and Ilissus, which 
 made the plain fertile in the palmy days of Greece, 
 have left their story in the rocky courses, mainly dry, 
 however. During the centuries the city has moved 
 from the south and west, where it was in ante-Christian 
 days, to the north where the present town lies. Like 
 every city, Athens has its tenement district, its busi- 
 ness quarter and its residential section. The popula- 
 tion is mainly Greek, though Turkish blood mingles 
 with that which marks its descent from Pericles and 
 his contemporaries. Greece, in common with other 
 Mediterranean countries, has contributed largely to 
 the growth of America, but in the return of many of 
 its people, after a few years of absence, it has profited 
 by their experiences and economies in the new world. 
 
 Athens presents a clean appearance to the visitor. 
 The streets are not littered; the houses are built of 
 stone and many of them are covered with vines, while 
 flowers fill the gardens. One can linger in Athens for 
 days, strolling through the modern town, but the mar- 
 velous monuments of antiquity naturally form the 
 principal attraction, and their beauty is as great as 
 their extent and fame. 
 
 The Acropolis is the center of interest, for assembled 
 here are the most glorious monuments of the ancient 
 city, and their remains still stand a wonder of all
 
 THE WONDER OF THE AGES 71 
 
 time. Two of the finest and best preserved monu- 
 ments, of the period immediately preceding the Chris- 
 tian era, are the Temple of Theseus and Jupiter Olym- 
 pus. Other buildings of importance are the Parthenon, 
 the Temple of Victory, the Erechtheum, the Theater 
 of Bacchus and the Porch of Hadrian, while Mars' 
 Hill, without a building of any kind, shares with the 
 Christian visitor the honor shown to the Acropolis 
 with all its famous structures. 
 
 Having reached the base of the Acropolis, one gains 
 the summit by passing through the Propylaea, perhaps 
 the most important secular work in ancient Athens. 
 The staircase of marble, seventy feet in width, was 
 built by Pericles four hundred years before the Chris- 
 tian era. Along the steps were arranged statues of 
 wonderful beauty by famous sculptors. Triumphal 
 processions ascended this stairway to present offerings 
 to the gods and to offer sacrifices to Athena. 
 
 Passing through the Propylaea, once the great en- 
 trance hall and gateway to the Acropolis, one sees on 
 the right a small building with four graceful Ionic 
 columns in front, known as the Temple of the Wing- 
 less Victory, erected in honor of Nike, the goddess of 
 victory. The citizens placed in the temple a statue of 
 the goddess with a palm in her hand and holding a 
 wreath of laiu-el. They omitted from the goddess the 
 customary wings, believing that without wings victory 
 would never depart from Athens. 
 
 At the left of the Parthenon stands the Erechtheum,
 
 72 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 named after the Attic hero, Erechtheus, which once 
 contained the seated figure of the Goddess Athena. 
 Six hirge statues of women upholding the cornice of 
 the porch are the Caryatides, possibly the attendants 
 of Athena Polias — four in front and one at each 
 side. One of the figures is a terra-cotta cast of the 
 original, which is now in the British Museum, having 
 been carried to England by Lord Elgin. The marble 
 columns on the other side of the Erechtheum are con- 
 sidered by many the best examples of the Ionic style of 
 architecture. 
 
 It is the Parthenon which takes travelers to Athens ; 
 representations of the Parthenon in pictures and prints 
 and sculptured miniatures, travelers take away from 
 Athens. It is ever true, as an American poet has said : 
 
 ' ' Earth proudly wears the Parthenon 
 As the best gem upon her throne. ' ' 
 
 Even in its ruins the Parthenon is majestic. Two 
 architects, Ictinus and Calycrites, designed this beauti- 
 ful structure. The date of its beginning is thought to 
 have been about 454 B. C, and it was dedicated to 
 Athena in 438 B. C. The harmony of its proportions 
 attracts the eye of builders and the lovers of beauty. 
 With eight columns at the ends and seventeen at the 
 sides, its symmetry is practically perfect. It is said 
 that there are no straight lines in the Parthenon, even 
 in the sub-structure, and that one of the charms of the 
 building lies in the subtleness of tli^' curves-. The
 
 THE GLORY OF THE PARTHENON 73 
 
 steps rise in a gentle billow from end to end, the col- 
 unnis bulge infinitesimally in the middle — everywhere 
 the eye rests on the exquisite beauty of a delicate 
 curve. The crowning charm of the Parthenon of old 
 was the sculpture which completed and decorated it. 
 This was put in the gables or pediments and around 
 the outsides at intervals on the frieze or space above 
 the architrave. Color was used freely for details 
 everywhere and traces of it still exist. The back- 
 ground of the frieze was probably dark blue, as also 
 were the panels of the ceilings. The carved marble 
 frieze which, over five hundred feet in length, extended 
 around the building was the work of Phidias and has 
 no rival. 
 
 The crowning glory of the Parthenon, as it stood 
 more than twenty-three centuries ago, was the colossal 
 statue of Athena Parthenos, Athena the Virgin, forty 
 feet in height, made under the direction of Phidias. 
 The Caryatides were eight feet in height, while the 
 statue of Athena was equal to five of these gigantic 
 women placed one above the other. Pausanias, the 
 Greek historian, thus describes the statue: '"The 
 image itself is made of ivory and gold. Its helmet 
 was surmounted in the middle by the figure of a sphinx 
 and on either side of the helmet are griffins, wrought in 
 relief. The image of Athena stands upright, clad in 
 a garment which reaches to her feet ; on her breast is 
 the head of Medusa, wrought in ivor3^ She holds a 
 Victory about four cubits high in one hand and in the
 
 74 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 other hand a sphere, and at her feet lies a shield and 
 near the sphere a serpent." The Victory to which 
 reference is made is an image of the goddess of vic- 
 tory. The Parthenon contains also a treasury in 
 which were deposited the spoils which the Athenians 
 captured from their enemies. The Romans, under 
 Nero, in turn took rare paintings, valuable ornaments 
 and costly bronzes from the Parthenon, while Goths, 
 Normans, Franks, Venetians and Vandals plundered 
 the city, stripping the decorations of gold and silver 
 from columns and walls. The Turks literally took 
 shiploads of marble and bronzes to Constantinople, 
 while England enriched the British Museum with 
 many choice marbles from the Acropolis in order to 
 preserve them. Lord Elgin said. Built as a temple of 
 idolatry, the Parthenon became, under the Romans, 
 a Catholic cathedral, under the Greeks a Christian 
 church, and under the Sultan a Mohammedan mosque. 
 Almost directly in front of the Acropolis stands a 
 rock elevation of greater interest to the Christian 
 traveler than all the storied buildings of Classic 
 Greece, for on the Areopagus, or Mars' Hill, the great 
 Apostle Paul gave an address, teaching the fatherhood 
 of God and the brotherhood of man, which has no 
 peer in literature. In Corinth, later, as he himself 
 says, he determined to know nothing among the Co- 
 rinthians except Jesus Christ and Him crucified; in 
 Athens also he preached the resurrection of the dead, 
 though some mocked and others delayed ; for nineteen
 
 THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD 75 
 
 centuries his sermon on Mars' Hill has been the 
 inspiration of the Church and his example has been 
 followed by countless preachers, who have tried, like 
 Paul, to win men to Christ, rather than force them to 
 accept this or that doctrine of men. It was a real 
 inspiration to stand with a few friends on Mars' Hill 
 and think over again the message to the men of 
 Athens, and hear the messenger from Jerusalem declare 
 that he came to speak to them of the unknown God, to 
 whom, not knowing, they had devoted an altar. 
 
 From Mars' Hill to the Stadium, where the Olympic 
 games are held, is a short drive, and many monuments 
 of minor interest are passed. In the Stadium one 
 sees where the Americans won many medals over their 
 competitors from other countries. 
 
 An eventful forenoon in Athens was ending with a 
 carriage drive from the Acropolis and Mars' Hill 
 to the Burial Ground when a friend remarked : 
 
 "That is the Royal Palace, but apparently no one 
 is received there, for the parties did not stop yesterday 
 when you were in Corinth." By this time the palace, 
 an imposing structure of Pentelic marble, with an 
 Ionic colonnade, was reached. 
 
 "Yesterday is gone; let us see what to-day will 
 bring forth." 
 
 The sentry saluted the Americans and the door- 
 keeper bade them welcome. The members of the 
 party were shown through the public rooms and then 
 taken up the broad stairway to the second floor, pass-
 
 76 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 ing on the way a beautiful painting of ••Prometheus 
 Bound" above the landing, and at the top of the stair- 
 way a statue of Penelope with her ball of yarn and her 
 distaff, both of which were pointed out with no little 
 
 pride. 
 
 "Would it be possible to see His Majesty for a 
 moment?'' asked the writer. The faca of the faithful 
 attendant flushed as he replied : 
 
 "No ! no ! That is impossible." 
 
 "Perhaps you would carry a letter to His Majesty's 
 aide. ' ' After some hesitation, but with the air of one 
 who apparently thought that no harm could be done, 
 since he had given no promise of an audience with the 
 King, he directed the party to accompany him to the 
 public reception-room. There the request was re- 
 peated in Greek, and the military aide read the letter. 
 A cordial smile augured well for the errand in ques- 
 tion, but many diplomatic objections suggested them- 
 selves when the official learned that the audience must 
 take place if at all within the next hour. His Maj- 
 esty was in conference with the Minister of War at the 
 time and could not be disturbed. At what hotel 
 were the visitors stopping, that an answer might be 
 sent to them? Leaving Greece in two hours, and the 
 King was so busy! 
 
 After some delay the interview was arranged. 
 ••Come this way, please." 
 
 It was the military aide who was speaking. The 
 Americans started toward the door.
 
 WITH THE KING OF GREECE 77 
 
 "No, only one — you. You only, and you can 
 have one minute only with His Majesty.'" 
 
 One minute for an interview with the King of 
 Greece ! It would take far more than that time to be 
 presented formally and to retire gracefully. One min- 
 ute ! It would take more time than that to don and 
 doff the robe of presentation. What could be said in 
 a minute .f* What topics would it be safe to discuss.'* 
 What subjects ought to be avoided.'* Suppose a break 
 were made, what would be the penalty.'' — and no one 
 of his nationality, except the friends in the reception- 
 room, knowing where he was, so suddenly and so un- 
 premeditatingly had the suggestion for an interview 
 been made. These and a dozen other questions served 
 to occupy the time between the public hall and the 
 King's apartments, less than a dozen steps away. 
 
 Alas for human worries ! There was no robe of 
 presentation. There was no formal presentation — in 
 fact, there was no presentation of any kind. The 
 King came to the door of his room and extended his 
 hand to greet the visitor as if he had been a business 
 man rising from his desk to greet an old-time friend. 
 
 "I have a letter''' — the sentence was never ended. 
 
 ' ' I have read your letter, and I am very glad to wel- 
 come you to the palace and to Athens. ' '' 
 
 "May I present the other members of the party.''" 
 
 "If you wish." The dozen steps were retraced 
 quickly, for there was no Hermes to send. The ruler 
 of Greece and an unknown American were alonCo No
 
 78 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 perplexing questions disturbed the thoughts through 
 the passage. When the second presentation was made 
 even more cordiality was shown than at first, a hearty 
 greeting and a royal welcome both being accorded. 
 Not much time was allowed for the visitors to ask ques- 
 tions. The King was the interviewer: 
 
 "When did you reach Greece?" 
 
 *'How long are you to stay?" 
 
 "How do you like this country?" 
 
 "According to press dispatches our climate differs 
 from that of America; do you find it so? You have 
 blizzards and storms of various kinds; we have none 
 in Athens." 
 
 "You have seen the Acropolis?" 
 
 "How do you like the Stadium?" 
 
 In the conversation about the relation of Greece and 
 America and the good-will which exists between the 
 two countries, the King spoke enthusiastically of the 
 administration of President Taft. 
 
 From politics in America, upon which the King 
 was well informed, to politics in Europe the conver- , 
 sation drifted, and finally the serious situation between 
 Turkey and Greece over the Cretan delegates was 
 broached. 
 
 "You may rest assured that there will be no war 
 between Greece and Turkey." 
 
 With that momentous question settled by one of the 
 two monarchs most directly interested, the conversation 
 drifted to lighter affairs. The beautiful portraits
 
 ON THE SIDE OF PEACE 79 
 
 over the King's table were admired and His Majesty 
 was asked whom they represented. 
 
 "The central one," he said with a smile, "is that of 
 my wife, the Queen of Greece, taken, however, some 
 years ago. The pictures on the right and left below 
 the Queen are those of my father and mother, the 
 former taken when my father was well advanced in 
 years." Speaking of his wife and mother, the King 
 turned to one of the members of the party and made a 
 remark wholly unexpected from so august a person : 
 "What a pretty hat you have." The color of the 
 bright velvet and the blushing cheeks of the lady 
 blended perfectly, but no response was forthcoming. 
 What answer could one make to such a remark from 
 the King.? It is safe to conclude, however, that that 
 particular piece of velvet will be carefully preserved 
 and handed down as an heirloom. 
 
 After a few questions about the visit of the Ameri- 
 cans to Athens and their further journey through the 
 Orient, the work of the American School in Athens, 
 with its excavations in Corinth and Athens, was dis- 
 cussed with extreme cordiality on the part of the 
 King. He was enthusiastic over the work of Dr. Hill, 
 the director in charge of the excavations. 
 
 It is no longer a surprise that the King of Greece 
 holds the love of his people in his great heart, and 
 though far more conservative than many of the leaders 
 of his people, they will restrain their bitter enmity, 
 even against their strongest foe, or follow the stand-
 
 80 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 ards of their beloved King against Turkey at the first 
 call to arms. Happy is it for Europe and for the 
 world in general, as well as for Greece and Turkey in 
 particular, that the monarch of this impulsive nation 
 carries himself and leads his people with such modera- 
 tion and even restraint. 
 
 It being impossible to visit all the cities of Greece, 
 Corinth was chosen. 
 
 Queen of the double sea. beloved of him 
 
 Who shakes the world's foundations, thou hast seen 
 
 Glory in all her beauty, all her forms ; 
 
 Seen her walk back with Theseus when he left 
 
 The bones of Sciron bleaching to the wind. 
 
 Above the ocean's roar and cormorant's flight, 
 
 So high that vastest billows from above 
 
 Show but like herbage waving in the mead ; 
 
 Seen generations throng thy Isthmian games, 
 
 And pass away ; the beautiful, the brave, 
 
 And them who sang their praises — 
 
 To give the inertest masses of our earth 
 Her loveliest forms, was thine ; to fix the gods 
 Within thy walls, and hang their ti-ipods round 
 With fruits and foliage knowing not decay. 
 
 — Walter Savage Landok. in '"To Cokinth." 
 
 The ride of sixty miles from Athens to Corinth 
 takes one through the town of Megara, which has 
 become world-renowned for its excellence in rh}i:hmic 
 motion. While all over Greece at Easter-time the 
 people indulge themselves in dancing the Choral dance 
 — men by themseh^es and women by themselves — the
 
 A DAY IN CORINTH 
 
 81 
 
 women at Megara excel. The people look forward to 
 this festival as the peasants of Oberamniergau look 
 forward to the Passion Play. At Megara one can see 
 in the east the island of Salamis, while behind and 
 above it is Hymettus. It will be remembered that 
 both Athens and Megara desired to secure possession 
 
 ACRO-CORINTH 
 
 of Salamis ; Megara secured it, but when Solon by his 
 warlike elegies aroused the martial spirit of Athens, 
 Salamis in the sixth century became a part of Athens. 
 The train stops not at the Corinth of Paul's time 
 but at a new city of that name, where a few thousand 
 people live on the Gulf of Corinth. The old city in 
 ruins is three or four miles from the station, and there 
 one sees the notable work of the American School of 
 Classical Studies at Athens. In "Greece Through
 
 82 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 the Stereoscope'' Dr. Rufus G. Richardson, for ten 
 years director of that School, tells of his breaking 
 ground at Corinth in 1896 when there was practically 
 no monument of the ancient city above the ground 
 except the venerable Temple ruins pretty well in the 
 background and standing on a hill. Following the 
 description of the principal buildings left by Pausa- 
 nias, he tells how they tried to find a starting-point. 
 The Temple ruin, the only conspicuous landmark of 
 the ancient city, stood like a sphinx defying the for- 
 eigners to read its riddle. 
 
 "By patience, perseverance and hope we reached 
 it, ' ' continued Dr. Richardson. ' ' We dug over twenty 
 trenches, some of them several hundred feet long, of 
 different depths "and in different directions, but all of 
 them starting with the breadth of fifteen feet. They 
 were uniformly carried down to hardpan. We worked 
 with a hundred or more laborers and kept on the whole 
 near to the Temple, which was evidently important. It 
 was getting near the end of our three months' cam- 
 paign, about the first of June, when we discovered, well 
 buried, under nearly twenty feet of earth, an old Greek 
 theater, on the ruins of which had been built a Roman 
 one. It was one of the most exciting moments of my 
 life when I saw at the bottom of a trench, eighteen feet 
 deep, the much- worn stone block of a flight of steps. 
 There was no more doubt that we had the Temple of 
 Apollo. I should have been well contented with our 
 first campaign if we had simply found the theater; but
 
 TESTIMONY OF PAUL 
 
 83 
 
 we had done ever so much more. We had hit the bulPs- 
 eye and settled the whole topography of Corinth. ' ' 
 
 In the eighteenth chapter of Acts Luke says that 
 Paul reasoned every Sabbath at Corinth while he was 
 in the city and persuaded the Jews and Greeks, and 
 
 REMAINS OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT CORINTH 
 
 when Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia '"Paul 
 was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that 
 Jesus was Christ. And when they opposed themselves 
 and blasphemed, he shook his raiment and said unto 
 them, Your blood be upon your own heads ; I am 
 clean; from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles."' 
 In the Museum a tablet is shown which bears an in- 
 scription indicating that it was from a Hebrew syna- 
 gogue, possibly the one in which Paul had preached.
 
 84 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Paul had a hard time in Corinth, but here, as else- 
 where, he was sustained by a vision of the Lord that 
 no harm could come to him. What comforting words 
 these must have been : ' ' Be not afraid, but speak and 
 hold not thy peace, for I am with thee and no man 
 shall set on thee to hurt thee, for I have much people 
 in this city."" 
 
 As the traveler drives from Acro-Corinth back to 
 the new city to take the train for Athens, he is grate- 
 ful for the splendid service which the great Apostle 
 rendered to the cause of Christ, and grateful too that 
 he may have a share in extending His Church, and 
 that he may experience the same assurance that came 
 to Paul if he also is true to Him. He feels that he 
 has been very close to one who was very near and dear 
 to the Master, and he hears anew the exhortation of 
 Paul, "Follow me as I follow Christ."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 CONSTANTINOPLE OLD AND NEW 
 
 Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle 
 Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime. 
 Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle. 
 Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime ? 
 Know ye the land of the cedar and vine. 
 Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine : 
 Where the light wings of zephyr, oppressed with perfume. 
 Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in her bloom : 
 Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit. 
 And the voice of the nightingale never is mute : 
 Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky. 
 In color though varied, in beauty may vie. 
 And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye ; 
 Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine. 
 And all, save the spirit of man, is divine ? 
 'Tis the clime of the East ; 'tis the land of the Sun- 
 Can He smile on such deeds as His children have done? 
 Oh ! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell 
 Are the hearts which they bear and the tales which they tell. 
 
 —Lord Byron. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE, which lies in the same hxti- 
 tude as New York, Rome and Peking, sits "at the 
 meeting of two seas and two continents like a diamond 
 between sapphires and emeralds. ' ' There are three sec- 
 tions to the city, Galata and Pera north of the Golden 
 Horn, which is mainly European ; Stamboul, the old 
 city, which is chiefly Turkish; and Scutari, on the 
 Asiatic side, which is also Turkish. The population 
 is about a million and a half — half Turks, a quarter 
 
 85
 
 86 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Greeks, and the rest Armenians, Jews and other Eastern 
 peoples. The city may be reached by express trains 
 from Paris, and by ships from the Black Sea or the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 Approaching the capital from the south through the 
 Dardanelles, the ancient Hellespont, the traveler learns 
 that there the unhappy Helle died, giving this stream 
 its ancient name. There also is where Hero's Tower 
 stood when Leander swam across the mile of swiftly 
 flowino- current to meet his beloved Hero, the Priestess 
 of Venus. Such a thing would be impossible now, for 
 Turkey's sentries would check the ardor of the lovesick 
 swain. In view of the care which is taken of ladies 
 traveling without escort, the suggestion occurs that 
 Hero ought to have had a chaperon, as the unattached 
 ladies of modern cruises have. 
 
 As one goes up the Sea of Marmora and looks ahead 
 at the city commanding one of the finest sites in the 
 world, he thinks of the lines : 
 
 "the dark blue water 
 That swiftly glides and gently swells 
 Between the winding Dardanelles." 
 
 The sail is thoroughly enjoyed by the people on 
 board, who, with note-books and cameras and by 
 personal interviews, secure impressions which will long 
 remain among the special memories of the trip. Con- 
 stantinople is reached as the sun is sinking over the 
 European part of the city. Friends from Robert
 
 WHAT ONE MAY SEE IN THE CITY 87 
 
 College and the American School for Girls, on op- 
 posite sides of the Bosphorus — the term being equiv- 
 alent to Oxford — entertain visitors with stories of 
 the wonderful work accomplished by these two insti- 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE BOSPHORUS 
 
 tutions, and regale them with facts about the early his- 
 tory of this interesting city. 
 
 The principal sights of Constantinople are the ba- 
 zaars, mosques, tombs, the Seraglio, the offices of the 
 Sublime Porte, the Museum of the Janissaries and the 
 Cemetery of Scutari. The most important Mosques 
 are those of St. Sophia. Suliman, Ahmed Mohammed 
 II. and Eyoub. The famous bazaars are most char- 
 acteristic of Oriental life. The numberless little shops
 
 88 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 form a great arch-covered labyrinth of streets, pas- 
 sages and crossways, and display a curious and interest- 
 ing collection of merchandise, gold and silversmith's 
 work, jewels and precious stones, arms and armor, 
 fabrics of every kind, embroideries, spices — every 
 article of Oriental and Occidental production that it is 
 possible to think of. Another great attraction is the 
 famous Imperial Ottoman Museum, one of the most 
 valuable museums in the world. 
 
 Constantinoj)le was started on the present site of 
 Scutari, seven centuries before the Christian era, by 
 Dorian Greeks, and was known for a thousand years 
 as Chalcedon. Not long after its foundation, other 
 Greeks from Megara, in 687 B. C, founded Byzantium 
 on the triangle which the Golden Horn forms with the 
 junction of the Bosphorus, and Byzantium it remained 
 until Constantine built a town which he called New 
 Rome. At the end of the sixth century B. C. Byzan- 
 tium became subject to Persia and was burned in the 
 revolt which took place in the following century. After 
 the battle of Plataea, in 479 B. C, Pausanias recovered 
 the city for Greece. A little more than a century later 
 the Athenians, persuaded by the eloquence of Demos- 
 thenes, sent help to Byzantium which aided the city in 
 repelling its besieger. Philip of Macedon. 
 
 Constantinople, as the city was soon called in honor 
 of the new founder, was dedicated May 11, J3'30 A.D., 
 as the capital of a Christian empire. When Con- 
 stantino chose Rvzantium for his new capital he taxed
 
 RICHES THRUST UPON ONE 89 
 
 the world to build up and adorn the city, and Rome 
 herself gave her treasures to those of other cities for 
 this purpose. The city built on European soil and 
 looking over into Asia has been an object of strife for 
 fifteen centuries. Greeks, Persians, Huns, Goths, Arabs, 
 Turks, Franks, Crusaders and Bulgarians have in turn 
 sought this prize. The successive emperors, each in turn, 
 had to defend his capital as well as govern the empire. 
 
 Until its capture by the Moslems in 1453 it was the 
 treasure house of Greek learning. It had suffered much 
 from the pillage of the Latins in the thirteenth century, 
 but so much wealth was divided at the Ottomans' con- 
 quest two centuries later that a proverb was coined ; 
 when a Turk became rich suddenly it would be said of 
 him : "He has been at the sack of Constantinople.'" 
 
 Stamboul. on the north shore of the strait, is occupied 
 principally by Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Jews. 
 In this quarter of the city also are the most celebrated 
 mosques and the great bazaars, to both of which tourists 
 go to see and to learn. Most of the mosques have four 
 minarets, but the Mosque of Ahmed has six, the story 
 beins: that the sultan who erected it built five minarets, 
 but learning that the mosque at Mecca had five and 
 that no other could have that number, he cut the knot 
 by adding a sixth minaret, which at least made it dif- 
 ferent from the sacred mosque at Mecca. A yellow 
 building on the Scutari side of the Bosphorus is pointed 
 out as the Military Hospital where Florence Nightin- 
 gale nursed the soldiers during the Crimean War.
 
 90 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 An inleb of the Bosphorus at the left is called the 
 Golden Horn, possibly on account of its shape, though 
 some think that here the treasures of the city were taken 
 across to Stamboul. Over this inlet, about a third of 
 a mile in width, are two bridges across which streams 
 of people pass. Galata contains the business section 
 of the city, while in Pera, on the heights above Galata, 
 are the hotels, modern stores and the several embassies 
 and consulates. The British Embassy covers more 
 space than that owned by the United States, having a 
 chapel in its enclosure, but the house of the American 
 Ambassador has a superior location and is beautifully 
 furnished. The Germans also have a fine site for their 
 Ambassador, but the other countries are not so well 
 represented. 
 
 Our first visit in Constantinople was not to the ba- 
 zaars or the mosques, nor yet to the American Embassy, 
 for we wished first to see that in the Turkish Empire 
 which counted for most not only in that empire but 
 throughout the civilized world. Therefore we inquired 
 our way to the Bible House and the offices of the Bible 
 Society and the American Board, where Dr. Bowen 
 and Dr. Barnum and Dr. Peet told us of the progress 
 which was being made throughout the empire by the 
 work of the Bible colporters and the missionaries of 
 these two great societies. All of these men, as well as 
 others, were extremely hopeful, and with reason appar- 
 ently, that greater successes awaited the heralds of the 
 Cross in view of the new order resulting from the
 
 BIBLE HOUSE PEOPLE HOPEFUL 91 
 
 change of Sultans. Little was said by them concerning 
 the secular benefits, but they talked freely of the great 
 improvement in matters touching religious work, both 
 in Constantinople and throughout the country. 
 
 THE BIBLE HOUSE, CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 From the Bible House, with its delightful glimpse 
 of American life and its cheerful outlook, we drove to 
 the Mosque of St. Sophia, built by Justinian, the Em- 
 peror, in the sixth century, when, as Emperor of the 
 Eastern Roman Empire, he decided to erect in Con- 
 stantinople a church that should surpass any Christian 
 structure then existing or any one that might thereafter 
 be erected. The church was dedicated in December,
 
 m THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 537 A. D., less than six years after the foundations 
 were laid. At its completion Justinian exclaimed: "I 
 have surpassed thee, O Solomon ! ' ' 
 
 Over the central door, called the Royal Gate, is a 
 long brass plate on which are engraved a dove and a 
 throne, supporting an open book, on the open pages of 
 which may be read these words : 
 
 ' ' The Lord said : I am the door of the sheep ; by me 
 if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in 
 and go out and find pasture." 
 
 The weight of the dome and the semi-domes of the 
 mosque rest on eight great piers. On either side of 
 the nave, which is practically a double square, two 
 hundred and fifty feet east and west and one hundred 
 and ten north and south, are four verde antique mon- 
 oliths, quarried in Thessaly and presented to the Em- 
 peror Justinian by the Prefect Constantine of Ephesus. 
 In each of the four corners are two porphyry columns, 
 eight in all, quarried in Egypt, which once formed 
 part of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek or Palmyra. 
 They were carried to Rome by Aurelian to adorn a 
 temple there, and having come into the possession of a 
 patrician lady. Marcia, they were presented by her to 
 Justinian for the salvation of her soul. The vaulted 
 roofs of the aisles are supported independently of the 
 nave columns by twenty-four smaller colunuis of green 
 marble. The floor of the church is of marble. 
 
 While there are in and about Constantinople at least 
 one hundred mosques, all are copies. \\\o\v or less modi-
 
 THE MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA 
 
 93 
 
 fied, of St. Sophia. The majority of the people are 
 Mohammedans, but the Greeks have their Patriarch, 
 the Bulgarians their Exarch, and the Armenians — 
 Gregorian and Catholic — the Jews and the Protestants. 
 
 MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 all have their representatives ; and to all religious free- 
 dom is now freely granted. 
 
 Special permission may be secured to visit the Im- 
 perial Treasury, in which may be seen a throne of 
 beaten gold and inlaid work adorned with thousands 
 of precious stones captured in 1514 by the Sultan Selim 
 I. from Ismael, the Shah of Persia; a divan of Turkish 
 work, inlaid and encrusted with precious wood and 
 stone, over which hangs the great emerald ; the chain
 
 94 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 armor of Sultan Murad IV. worn at the capture of 
 Bagdad in 1638; a golden tankard studded with more 
 than two thousand flat diamonds ; a brass bowl inlaid 
 with silver of Arabic work ; Roman, Byzantine, Arabic 
 and Turkish coins ; precious stones and ancient arms ; 
 a collection of the state robes of the Sultan ; emeralds 
 as large as the palm of one's hand ; garments plated 
 with table diamonds — but why enumerate? A ques- 
 tion which finds expression on many lips is this : 
 
 "Why, with these evidences of untold wealth in its 
 treasury, should Turkey have a national debt?" 
 
 A chapter on Constantinople which made no refer- 
 ence to the dogs of the city would seem to have been 
 written on the shores of the Hudson and not on the 
 banks of the Bosphorus. An American, who has spent 
 a good deal of time in Constantinople, was asked how 
 many dogs there were in the city. Perhaps he spoke 
 in round numbers, but his answer was : ' ' About a mil- 
 lion." This expression he modified somewhat by say- 
 ing that in a city whose human population was un- 
 known one could scarcely be expected to say how many 
 dogs it contained. Probably in no other city in the 
 world have there been such hordes of ownerless dogs, 
 indolent dogs and in some parts of the city troublesome 
 dogs as in Constantinople.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION 
 
 Liberty, like day. 
 Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heaven 
 Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. 
 
 —William Cowper. 
 
 "'l^T'ERE the missionaries connected with the 
 ▼ ▼ recent change in the Government?"" a mis- 
 sionary in Constantinople was asked. 
 
 "Some enthusiastic persons have expressed their be- 
 lief that the great change in Turkey which startled 
 the world on July 24, 1908, was largely due to the 
 work and influence of American missionaries," was the 
 reply. '"No missionary, however, will claim so much 
 as this without important limitation and reservation. 
 The leaders in the movement which culminated that 
 day, Nyazi Enver and his companions, were never in 
 any way directly under missionary influence. The 
 same may be said of all the members of the present 
 Cabinet. The forces that pushed them forward were 
 European civilization and education, and the firm and 
 fierce purpose to lift their country out of the quick- 
 sands in which the now deposed and discredited Gov- 
 ernment was sinking her." 
 
 "What of the future.^" 
 
 95
 
 96 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 "If Americans long resident in Turkey are not as 
 optimistic as some think they ought to be regarding 
 the speedy establishment of Constitutional Government 
 in Turkey, it is because the leaders have had their 
 training in southern and central rather than in northern 
 Europe, and among Latin rather than Anglo-Saxon 
 peoples. There is danger that these young men will 
 tire under the stress and strain of the tremendous task 
 which they have undertaken. They have made a be- 
 ginning, a good beginning. They cherish noble aims 
 and purposes and they should have our utmost sym- 
 pathy. The Mohammedans who are out of sympathy 
 with the new regime greatly outnumber those who really 
 desire equality and fraternity to prevail. The Arabs 
 on one side and the Albanians on the other have little 
 love for Turks. The Christian races do not easily 
 forget — who could expect they would? — the centuries 
 of Ottoman oppression under which they and their 
 fathers have groaned. Who can be surprised if they 
 are not anxious suddenly to become Ottomans, unless 
 it be under cover of a desire, and perhaps a purpose 
 by and by, to realize national ambitions long crushed 
 down under the heel of the Ottomans.?"" 
 
 "Does this mean that the missionaries claim no credit 
 for the improvement of affairs in Turkey.?" 
 
 "Thank God evidence is not lacking that efforts put 
 forth by American missionaries during the last three- 
 quarters of a century to instil into the minds of the 
 youth of Turkey the principles on which rests the better
 
 SEED IN FRUITFUL SOIL 
 
 97 
 
 civilization of the remoter West, the effort to form true, 
 unselfish Christian characters, has not been in vain. 
 The results are not conspicuously on the surface of the 
 present movements. Leaven is not found on the sur- 
 face of the meal. We believe, at least we hope, that 
 the coming years will show, in social, in educational. 
 
 THE IMPERIAL PALACE, CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 in business, in political movements and events in this 
 country, that those men and women who have, at the 
 call of God, as they believed, consecrated their lives to 
 Christian service in behalf of these ancient races have 
 scattered seed in fruitful soil, the 'fruit whereof shall 
 shake like Lebanon,' and that they have helped to usher 
 in a day not as much of material as of moral and 
 spiritual progress for all races." 
 
 "Have the Young Turks a goal in prospect, or are 
 they simply drifting?"
 
 98 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 This is a question frequently asked by visitors to the 
 Turkish Empire. In reply to such an inquiry an 
 American resident said with emphasis: 
 
 "They certainly have a goal, but like other people 
 with new and pressing problems thrust suddenly upon 
 them, it will not be surprising if for a time they seem 
 to wander. You must remember, however, that many 
 of those now in power have been exiles in Europe, some 
 of them in Paris, and that they are accustomed to the 
 best forms of government in Europe ; they are by no 
 means novices in government. Naturally they make 
 mistakes, but in the opinion of many a similar charge 
 could be brought against the governing bodies of other 
 nations, America always excepted. Taken as a whole, 
 the outlook for the city, for the nation, and for Chris- 
 tianity is most encouraging." 
 
 "When a man can leave home in the morning with 
 the probability that he will return at night." said an 
 American official, not now living in Turkey, "long 
 strides have been taken toward better conditions in the 
 empire. Under the former regime it was impossible 
 for one to know that he would ever return. Tliere was 
 a constant dread of impending danger that stifled hope 
 and prevented men from doing their best for their 
 families or their Government." 
 
 The New Constitution ; the deposition of the old 
 Sultan; the opening of Parliament, in which Moslems, 
 Jews and Christians fraternize — all of this and more 
 taking place in Constantinople means much to every
 
 LIBERTY FOR MAN AND BEAST 99 
 
 part of the empire, much more, in fact, than the people 
 of some of the remote sections realize. Many of the 
 Tm-ks outside of the capital have exhibited a frame of 
 mind concerning the newly given liberty indicated by 
 the actions of a donkey boy in Beirut. His animal 
 stood across the narrow sidewalk as a lady and gentle- 
 man approached. The street being muddy the gentle- 
 man said : 
 
 "Will you lead your donkey into the street so that 
 the lady can pass?" 
 
 "Let the lady walk in the street. Donkey has lib- 
 erty as well as the lady ; donkey has a right now to 
 stand on the sidewalk." And out into the mud in the 
 street the lady went. 
 
 "Pay the toll?" said a woman crossing a bridge. 
 "Why should I pay the toll if we have liberty now?" 
 
 "Is this what you call liberty?" said an Albanian 
 when the Young Turks condemned him to death for 
 killing a Christian. 
 
 A small boy threw a stone at a foreigner driving a 
 motor car. The foreigner rebuked him and received 
 this reply : 
 
 "It is liberty now." 
 
 The foreigner gave him a box on the ear. 
 
 "All right," said the impartial youngster; "you 
 also have liberty. ' ' 
 
 A Bible colporter in the interior was asked by an 
 official if he had a permit to sell Bibles in that prov- 
 ince. Formerly such an inquiry would have caused
 
 100 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 great consternation, and if it could not be answered 
 satisfactorily it would have meant the imprisonment 
 and punishment of the colporter. Not so now. The 
 colporter smiled and said pleasantly: 
 
 "Apparently you have not heard of the New Con- 
 stitution.''' This ended the inquiry and no arrest 
 followed. 
 
 Many stories are told, now that there is no danger 
 of the prison awaiting those who tell them, that sur- 
 prise the travelers in Turkey. It is difficult to realize 
 that in the twentieth century fundamental principles of 
 truth and justice were utterly lacking. Dr. Henry O. 
 Dwight, now in the office of the American Bible Society 
 in New York, was for many years in the Bible House 
 in Constantinople. In his timely and interesting vol- 
 ume, "Constantinople and Its Problems,"' Dr. Dwight 
 gives many illustrations from his experiences which are 
 better understood in Constantinople than they would 
 be in America. One must suffice : 
 
 "Ahmed Bey was a handsome young Mohammedan 
 from a city in Bulgaria, and an officer in the Turkish 
 Navy. He came to me in great distress. A certain 
 Turkish Admiral, of some importance as far as influence 
 goes, had a daughter of comparative youth only, and 
 afflicted like Leah with some trouble of the eyes which 
 made her helpless much of the time, with injury to her 
 prospects of matrimony. The Admiral had unhap- 
 pily seen the young officer and wished to marry him to 
 his daut^hter. When the officer declined the offer
 
 THE OLD SULTAN 101 
 
 with thanks, the Admiral, Laban-like, said that marry 
 her he must; otherwise he would order the young 
 man to the naval station at Bussora, on the Persian 
 Gulf, for three years. To be sent to Bussora is like 
 being sent to Cuba in yellow -fever time. 
 
 "The young man came to me asking, 'Must I marry 
 this sore-eyed girl?' I could not help him. The or- 
 der for his exile to Bussora was actually issued, and 
 only overruled by the appeal at my suggestion of the 
 weeping mother of my friend to a Pasha of high rank 
 who was a native of the same city in Bulgaria as 
 Ahmed Bey, and who had access to the ear of the 
 Sultan." 
 
 It is not to be expected that the habits of a genera- 
 tion will be changed at once. The Sultan yielded to 
 the demand of the Young Tiu-ks for a Constitution, 
 and to their great surprise gave it without a word of 
 argument; they were dealing with a man who had 
 granted similar favors, with a smile, even as he did 
 this one ; in this case expressing pleasure that the re- 
 quest had come from his people through Galib Pasha, 
 master of ceremonies. In 1877 he had granted a Con- 
 stitution, but it was short-lived. Doubtless the Sultan 
 expected that the one given in 1908 would also prove a 
 toy which would soon be cast aside, or a weapon which 
 would injure those who were unaccustomed to handle 
 it. Alas for the Sultan, he was dealing this time with 
 men who had learned in Europe and America, and not 
 a few of them in the college on the banks above the
 
 102 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Bosphorus, what Constitutional liberty means. The 
 massacres at Adana still suggest awful possibilities, 
 but it is not believed that such an outrage can occur 
 again while the Young Turks are in power. The new 
 Sultan, the brother of Abdul Hamid, reigns as Mo- 
 hammed V. 
 
 The Ambassadors and Ministers from European 
 and Asiatic capitals and from Washington are in the 
 main ardent believers in the purposes and achievements 
 of the Young Turks, It is not too much to believe 
 that their leaders have takeii advice from some of the 
 foreign diplomats resident in Constantinople, There 
 are friendly interviews and dinner conversations which 
 are never dignified by the terms "diplomatic relations"' 
 which often mean more for the peace of nations than 
 a formal agreement. 
 
 America has been fortunate in the selection of the 
 men sent to Turkey as Minister and Ambassador, 
 Mr. Oscar S, Straus has had an unusual experience, 
 having been appointed by President Cleveland, it is 
 said, at the request of Henry Ward Beecher, President 
 I'aft selected his Cabinet associate for Japan, but Mr. 
 Straus was unable to go to Tokio, and failing to secure 
 him for the Far Orient, the President urged him to give 
 the new administration the benefit of a wide business 
 experience and recognized diplomatic ability extending 
 over a quarter of a century, and return to his post in 
 the Near Orient. 
 
 The rights of men interested in the investment of
 
 THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 103 
 
 capital in Turkey for financial or educational purposes 
 are safe in the hands of a man who cares personally for 
 great financial interests at home ; the poorest American 
 that lands in the dominion finds the same sympathetic 
 heart that beat in behalf of laboring men when the 
 present Ambassador was a young lawyer. President 
 Taft knew his man when he urged, even insistently, 
 that Mr. Straus should become the Ambassador to 
 Turkey in this its time of change and reorganization, 
 when special knowledge and rare tact and limitless 
 patience are needed. In these qualities and in many 
 others Mr. Straus and his charming wife excel. 
 
 Mr. Straus believes absolutely in the honesty of pur- 
 pose of those among whom he labors. Based upon an 
 experience covering nearly a quarter of a century, he 
 regards the Turkish people as polite, sincere and en- 
 tirely trustworthy. This will probably bear the same 
 qualification, if pressed for one, that he would make 
 upon the people of the United States. Many of the 
 officials in Constantinople, as well as those who are 
 representing their Government abroad, are, in the 
 opinion of the Ambassador, equal in ability to those 
 from other nations; the Prime Minister of Turkey 
 is as well versed in international law, as capable an 
 official, as honest a man, as any representative from 
 any country. His word can be relied upon absolutely. 
 And what is true of him is true also of the majority 
 of men with whom the Ambassador has to deal. 
 
 "The missionaries in Turkey were never so safe, nor
 
 104 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 their interests so well protected," said a missionary a 
 few years ago, "as when Great Britain had a Roman 
 Catholic Ambassador and America was represented by 
 a Jew.'' And apparently a similar feeling exists to- 
 day between the missionaries and the American Am- 
 bassador ; each trusts the other absolutely. 
 
 "We are very glad to have Mr. Straus with us 
 again,'' said one of the officers of the Bible Society. 
 "The change in Turkey from the administration of 
 Abdul Hamid to the rule of the Young Turks has 
 wrought wonders. We are greatly honored by having 
 as our representative one who sincerely appreciates the 
 changed condition in the em})ire and who has the in- 
 terests of his fellow-countrymen so sincerely at heart as 
 does Mr. Straus." 
 
 Entertaining in her hospitable home in the Embassy 
 a few friends from America, Mrs. Straus approved her 
 husband's statement that many of the missionaries and 
 college professors in Turkey were really statesmen. An 
 interesting incident was related attesting the high 
 esteem in which these missionaries and educators are 
 held. At a dinner-party in Washington some time 
 ago, it is said, a member of the Senate was severely 
 criticising foreign missionaries, ridiculing their ability 
 and minimizing the importance of their work. After 
 being an unwilling listener for a few minutes. Mrs. 
 Straus interrupted him with the remark that his infor- 
 mation, which he doubtless received at second-hand, 
 did not correspond with her experiences gained in Tur-
 
 DEFENDING THE MISSIONARIES 105 
 
 key and Syria ; that the missionaries whom she had 
 met, and she had seen most of them, were not ordinary 
 people, but were far above the average American in 
 education, in culture and in good judgment; while 
 there might be here and there one not so prominent 
 nor so efficient as preachers, college professors or 
 teachers in girls' schools in America, as a class they 
 were superior to similar classes whom she had known 
 in the home land. 
 
 "What are they doing that justifies their going to a 
 foreign country to try to change old-time customs and 
 ancient religions? Mention one single thing." 
 
 ''Education. The colleges and schools in Turkey 
 under the direction of American missionaries are 
 models of their kind, and the professors and teachers 
 are doing a work in that country which is worthy of 
 all praise." 
 
 "But what one missionary does in a foreign country, 
 even in the matter of education, is only a drop in the 
 bucket and is not worth while." 
 
 "The individual work of a missionary in a country 
 may not seem to be more than a 'drop,' but the com- 
 bined labors of a company of American missionaries 
 are far from being single drops. ' ' 
 
 ''What is the use after all.? What does it all 
 amount to? How is the country benefited to which 
 they go? They might better be at home attending to 
 their own affairs." 
 
 "Their achievement in the matter of education, for
 
 106 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 illustration, compels the Governments of the countries 
 where they labor to improve the public system of edu- 
 cation — they are forced to do this when they see the 
 results of the missionary schools and colleges — the 
 'drops' to which you refer/' 
 
 Better testimony to the value of the work of mis- 
 sionaries and educators could not be desired, for it was 
 based upon personal investigation and not upon mis- 
 representation, and the Senator was glad to change the 
 subject. By the way, no missionary could hope to 
 make a better plea in talking with critics of missions 
 than that presented by this friend of the missionaries. 
 
 Discussing problems, political as well as missionary, 
 in American and other countries at the present time, 
 Mr. Straus said that the millennium was not. in his 
 judgment, about to dawn immediately, but that the 
 time of its appearance is nearer than it was when Mr. 
 Roosevelt began his administration in Washington. 
 In the conversation the question of Socialism was sug- 
 gested as one of the problems likely to perplex both 
 America and European countries in the near future. 
 
 "What is Socialism, Mr. Straus?" asked a member 
 of the party. 
 
 "A pious wish," was the quick reply. 
 
 "I have studied the question of Socialism for many 
 years and heard lectures and (piestioned Socialists and 
 those who oppose Socialism, but I never had so satis- 
 factory and so succinct a definition — that will go at 
 once in my commonplace book." the in(juirer declared.
 
 TALKING IN KIDDLES 107 
 
 A story is current that is so thoroughly characteristic 
 of the Ambassador's breadth of spirit in matters relig- 
 ious as well as political that it is given here at the risk 
 of a lack of diplomacy on the part of the author. In 
 one of his earlier residences in Constantinople, word 
 reached the Embassy that Bible colporters were being 
 interfered with in the interior of the country. The 
 Ambassador secured possession of all the facts, which 
 were placed before him in the form of affidavits, and 
 then called officially, and with all the dignity due his 
 rank, upon the Minister of Foreign Affairs. When 
 received with fitting solemnity, Mr. Straus said : 
 
 "Word has just come to me that His Majesty, the 
 Sultan of Turkey, is taking steps which will lead to the 
 dissolution of the treaty between the United States and 
 His Majesty's empire." 
 
 "Such a rumor is absolutely absurd ! There is no 
 possible foundation for it. It is only a rumor and 
 should be dismissed at once as one of the idle tales 
 which spring up now and then in official circles!" was 
 the reply of the astonished official, who failed to grasp 
 the attitude of the Ambassador. 
 
 "I beg to differ with Your Excellency," said the 
 American. "I have an abundance of proof for every 
 word of the statement which I have made. At the 
 proper time I shall be willing to produce it, for it lies 
 before you on the table in this bundle of papers, which 
 bear the certified signatures of my informants. 
 
 "Pray explain your meaning; you talk in riddles.
 
 108 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 His Majesty knows nothing of the subject of the matter 
 of which you are complaining, nor do any of his rep- 
 resentatives. What do you mean ? ' ' 
 
 "Well, the country which I have the honor to repre- 
 sent has certain products and manufactures which our 
 treaty with Turkey allows us to bring into Turkish 
 ports and to distribute without molestation or inter- 
 ference of any kind throughout His Majesty's domains. 
 Among our industries, for instance, are the raising of 
 beans, the making of butter and the publication of 
 books, one of them called the Bible. In the name of 
 the Government which I have the honor to represent, 
 I demand that the distribution of the Bible, as well as 
 butter and beans and other articles produced in the 
 United States, shall not be interfered with in any part 
 of the empire. If that is not done, and more com- 
 plaints come to me, I shall report the matter to Wash- 
 ington, and it is quite probable that the challenge will 
 be met. The American people will not stand for vio- 
 lation of treaty rights. ' '
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 CROSS AND CRESCENT IN CONFLICT 
 
 Fling out the banner ! let it float. 
 Skyward and seaward, high and wide ; 
 
 The sun that Hghts its shining folds. 
 The Cross on which the Saviour died. 
 
 —George W. Doane. 
 
 AFTER looking at the picturesque minarets tower- 
 ing above St. Sophia and the other mosques in 
 Constantinople, and visiting the Bible House and the 
 colleges carried on in the city by Christian men and 
 women from America, one questions, What has Prot- 
 estant Christianity done in the Ottoman Empire? 
 What progress has been made by the splendid mission- 
 ary effort running back nearly a century? What is 
 there to show in return for the scores of noble men and 
 women who have given their lives to Turkey, and for 
 the wealth which has been expended in the translation 
 of the Bible, the education of the youth of the empire, 
 and the erection of churches and hospitals and schools? 
 Are the Moslems being reached by the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, and if so, is it changing in any form their life 
 or their religious belief? In a word, is the Cross a 
 match for the Crescent in the land where the latter 
 
 has held sway for centuries? 
 
 109
 
 110 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Questions like these put to missionaries and Bible 
 agents and educators in Turkey brought interesting 
 responses, frank but not rose-colored. The missionaries 
 cannot point like the missionaries of Korea, for exam- 
 ple, to thousands of conversions in a single year, but 
 they are in no sense discouraged. They realize the 
 difficulties of the situation, but they believe in their 
 cause and in their Leader; they believe that they are 
 possessors of that which is to revolutionize the peoples 
 of the empire. 
 
 The missionaries, moreover, do not attempt to con- 
 ceal facts nor to minimize the difficulties which con- 
 front them in Turkey, and more especially in and about 
 Constantinople. In speaking of the impress made by 
 Christianity upon men holding the Moslem faith, an 
 American missionary who has been more than half a 
 century in the Turkish Empire gave the author this 
 significant statement : 
 
 "We come now to the question which is most often 
 asked, the question which has a right to be asked, and 
 to which we are most desirous of offering a reply, 
 namely. Have American missionaries in Turkey done 
 anything for Mohammedans, and what have they done 
 and with what results? Within the three Turkey Mis- 
 sions of the Amer'caii Board the number of converts 
 from Islam, that is, the number baptized, has been less 
 than twoscore." 
 
 The avowed aim of the American Board, as explained 
 by this veteran worker, in ^^lie inception of its work in
 
 MISSIONARY INFLUENCE EXTENDED 111 
 
 Turkey, was to reach the Mohammedan popuhxtion 
 with the Gospel. It was, however, evident from the 
 outset that till Mohammedans could have a better ob- 
 ject lesson of Christian living presented to them than 
 had been given by the Eastern Churches, it would be 
 futile to invite them even seriously to inquire concern- 
 ing the truth and the claims of Christianity. Mission- 
 ary work was begun, therefore, among the adherents of 
 the Eastern Churches, especially among Armenians, 
 because they were found most accessible. 
 
 '*What about the results in figures aside from those 
 concerning the Moslems.^'' the missionary was asked. 
 This was his reply : 
 
 "The number of Protestants in the Ottoman Empire, 
 not including Egypt, is about one hundred thousand. 
 In the three Turkey Missions, not including Syria or 
 Bulgaria, there are one hundred and twenty-five Evan- 
 gelical churches, with 14,174 members, 251 places of 
 regular Sunday service, with 172 preachers, 155 mis- 
 sionaries, of whom 108 are women. 1.045 native la- 
 borers, 22,369 pupils under instruction in the seven 
 colleges, 39 high schools and 346 other schools ; and 
 native contributions last year for all purposes aggre- 
 gated $125,434. These statements, however, are 
 altogether inadequate. If taken by themselves alone 
 they are absolutely misleading. Influences that do not 
 yield themselves to statistical statement, which have 
 gone out into the life of these Christian races, have been 
 rapidly cumulative and beneficent, purifying, educative
 
 112 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 and uplifting, as the years and the decades have 
 passed/' 
 
 "How did the Moslems come to let the Christian 
 missionaries get a foothold in the empire?'' 
 
 "When those very able men, Goodell, Dwight, 
 Schauffler, Hamlin and Riggs, came to Turkey, the 
 Turks said : ' Well, these amiable lunatics cannot do us 
 any harm ; they may perhaps do the Giaours some good ; 
 they need it badly enough. ' So they protected the 
 missionaries and their converts in times of persecution 
 from the ecclesiastics. The American missionaries 
 proceeded to occupy strategic positions in the empire. 
 Through schools and the press their influence was ex- 
 tended and consolidated. Evangelical churches were 
 formed in the various centers of the Mohammedan 
 population." 
 
 ' ' How is the changed attitude of the former Sultan 
 explained .f*" 
 
 "In 1895 and 1896 they asked one another: 'Who 
 are these men who are championing the cause of the 
 seditious Armenians whom we are disciplining?' 
 
 " 'American missionaries,' was the reply. 
 
 ' ' ' Why do you not send them all out of the country? ' 
 asked the Russian Ambassador. It is a fact that an 
 edict was issued from the Palace in the winter of 1896-7 
 for the expulsion of the American missionaries. In 
 the following March one of them was forcibly taken 
 inider guard from a remote interior city to the coast of 
 Alexandretta. There, at the prompt and decisive in-
 
 MISSIONARIES IN DANGER 113 
 
 terposition of the United States Charge d' Affaires, 
 Mr. Riddle, he was taken under the protection of the 
 Stars and Stripes and is still an active member of the 
 missionary force. The Turks found in Sir Philip 
 Currie a staunch supporter of the rights of the mission- 
 aries, and aside from the non-execution of their decree, 
 they denied that it had ever been issued. From that 
 time on. the American missionaries and educators resi- 
 dent in the country were to the Turks the 'observed of 
 all observers.' " 
 
 ' ' What was the effect on the work ? ' ' 
 
 "Note the significance of the fact that under the 
 reactionary reign of Abdul Hamid. with his unscrupu- 
 lous, minute and universal system of espionage and 
 his hostility toward all missionary enterprises, the 
 missionaries not only held their own everywhere, they 
 greatly extended their work, especiall}^ in education 
 and in the maintenance of hospitals and dispensaries." 
 
 "Why was this?" 
 
 "Because the Turkish people, in the face of Palace 
 hostility, recognized the value of what the missionaries 
 offered them, and were bound to profit by it. Just 
 before the close of the reign of Abdul Aziz, after a 
 prolonged struggle, permission was obtained for the 
 circulation of the Bible with the imperial imprimatur, 
 and several other Christian books in Osmanli Turkish 
 were passed through the censorship in the early years 
 of Abdul Hamid's reign. The result was that this 
 imprimatur made it possible for Mohammedans to defy
 
 114 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 the creatures of the Palace, and buy and read Christian 
 Scriptures when they chose. They did so buy and read 
 these books by the thousand, even in the darkest years 
 of the late despotic reign." 
 
 "What about the by-products of missionary effort?" 
 
 "The purely philanthropic work, which in times of 
 distress and calamity has sometimes, for months to- 
 gether, taken almost all the time and strength of the 
 missionary force, has been profoundly impressive as 
 illustrative of practical Christianity. Leading laymen 
 of the Armenian and Greek nationalities have in recent 
 years been quick to appreciate the value of the educa- 
 tional work done by American missionaries, and have 
 established and conducted schools on our models. 
 Their priests are better educated, the social conditions 
 are imjiroved, and a higher plane of business integrity 
 is demanded. There is less of bare form and more of 
 spiritual life in the old churches than in the past." 
 
 "Does the Turk recognize the missionary as a phi- 
 lanthropist ? ' ' 
 
 "In 1896, when the Government was doing its ut- 
 most to hinder and baffle the missionaries in their relief 
 work, the people, and many Government officers also, 
 respected and admired their persistence in the work of 
 unselfish charity in the face of the overwhelming ob- 
 stacles. Under the old regime no Palace influence 
 ever led a Mohammedan to go, or to take a member of 
 his family, to be treated at a missionary dispensary or 
 cared for in a missionary hospital. Hut Mohammedans
 
 THE GOSPEL IN MANY TONGUES 115 
 
 came as much as they do now to our hospitals and dis- 
 pensaries, came by thousands, and went away grateful 
 and sympathetic. ' ' 
 
 ''How have the missionaries affected the Mohamme- 
 dans?" 
 
 "It will seem to some a rash and unsupported state- 
 ment, but I deliberately express my conviction that the 
 work of American missionaries in Turkey has had 
 greater influence, in ways the beneficent and far-reach- 
 ing results of which the future will reveal, upon the 
 Mussulman than upon the Christian population of the 
 country. ' ' 
 
 The mission work carried on by Presbyterian mission- 
 aries in Syria and that done by Reformed Church 
 workers in Arabia would doubtless differ somewhat, 
 perhaps in some particulars a great deal, from that 
 presented so frankly by the Congregational brethren 
 in Northern Turkey. 
 
 To see mission work in Constantinople at its best the 
 visitor should spend a Sunday in the city and go from 
 one meeting to another, as he may do almost without 
 intermission. He will not find many large congrega- 
 tions or Sunday-schools, but he will find many held 
 in various languages. In one he may hear "Praise 
 God from whom all blessings flow" sung in Armenian 
 to the tune of "Old Hundred," and in another, two 
 blocks away, hear a service in Greek, and still a third 
 service with a Greek preacher delivering an eloquent 
 sermon, this to be followed by a service in Turkish in
 
 116 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 the same chapel. In an old shed in the heart of the 
 city he will find another congregation of Armenians 
 with a Sunday-school following this service. The 
 Bible House and the Mission House he may see filled 
 with classes, some learning the Gospel in Greek, some 
 in Armenian and some in Turkish, with a Christian 
 Association service conducted by an Armenian. If 
 time permits, he can visit congregations far away from 
 the center of the town, one at Hasskeuy on the Golden 
 Horn and another in Scutari. English services for the 
 girls at the American College in Scutari and the boys 
 at Robert College on the Bosphorus, and still other 
 services for Greeks and Armenians along the Bospho- 
 rus, indicate that mission work is strong and varied in 
 the capital of the empire. 
 
 Two members of the Mission Station at Constanti- 
 nople, Dr. Greene and Dr. Herrick, passed the fiftieth 
 milestone of their missionary service not long ago. 
 In a retrospect of those fifty years these veterans 
 note three important changes in the conduct of the 
 work : 
 
 1. The establishment of high schools and colleges. 
 
 2. The opening of hospitals and dispensaries. 
 
 3. The phenomenal increase in the number of women 
 missionaries. 
 
 In summing vip the work of this long period Dr. 
 Herrick says optimistically : 
 
 "We. who together have given a century of service to 
 evangelistic work in the Ottoman Empire, exult in the
 
 TRACTS AND PAPERS ISSUED 117 
 
 privilege so long granted us of sharing in a work on 
 which the divine blessing has so conspicuously rested, 
 and we bid all who come after us to work with a firm 
 confidence that advance in the years to come in all de- 
 partments of our common work will be with accelerated 
 velocity, will be with a wider constituency than hereto- 
 fore, will enlist a vastly increased number of compe- 
 tent laborers, will do more than any other influence or 
 agency to contribute to the safe and permanent estab- 
 lishment of real liberty and constitutional government 
 and to the final triumph of the Kingdom of God and 
 of the Church of Christ in this land."' 
 
 The work of publishing the Bible had been begun 
 by the British and Foreign Bible Society in Turkey 
 before the American missionaries began their work, 
 and has since been carried on jointly by the British 
 and American Bible Societies, the translation being 
 done by missionaries. Schoolbooks, tracts, Sunday- 
 school helps and other religious literature are prepared 
 and printed by the Mission Press carried on by the 
 American Mission in the Bible House at Constanti- 
 nople. The Mission Press also sends out a weekly 
 family paper and a monthly illustrated paper for 
 children. The tracts which it publishes are made pos- 
 sible by money given by the Religious Tract Society 
 of London and by the American Tract Society of New 
 York. While much of the literature is intended for 
 adults, the missionaries have ever been mindful of the 
 children, and from primers, intended for the little
 
 118 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 people, they have gone on to schoolbooks for them as 
 they grew older. 
 
 The entire Bible has been translated into all the 
 principal languages of the Empire, has undergone re- 
 peated and most careful revision, has been issued in 
 many and varied editions, and sold to the extent of 
 three million volumes, reckoning Testaments and por- 
 tions. Other Christian literature, periodical and per- 
 manent, has been issued at an average of about ten 
 million pages a year. 
 
 The story of the Turkish translation of the Scriptures 
 begins two hundred and fifty years ago, when a Turkish 
 official named Ali Bey, with the advice of a Dutch 
 gentleman connected with the diplomatic service at 
 Constantinople, translated the New Testament into 
 Turkish. Whether he did this out of mere love for 
 literary work or because he thought it would benefit 
 his people to read the Bible is not clear to the mind of 
 Dr. Dwight, who tells the story. Ali Bey gave the 
 finished manuscript to his Dutch friend, who sent it to 
 the University at Leyden in the hope that it would be 
 })ublished there. It was put into the library of the 
 University as a curiosity, and lay there for one hun- 
 dred and fifty years, when a Russian nobleman runnnag- 
 ing through the treasures of the library discovered the 
 manuscript and tried to get it published for circulation 
 in Turkey. About this time the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society hud Ix-en organized. The first Turk- 
 ish version of the New Testament published for that
 
 VERSIONS OF THE TURKISH BIBLE 119 
 
 Society at Paris in 1819 was the work of a Moham- 
 medan, revised and improved by Russian and French 
 linguists. 
 
 There have been several versions of the Turkish Bible, 
 and the one in use now is the work of a committee 
 composed of missionaries of the American Board and 
 of the Church Missionary Society of England, assisted 
 by three Turkish scholars. This version is now printed 
 in three editions, one in Arabic, one in Armenian and 
 one with the Greek letters. "It is fair to claim,'' says 
 Dr. D wight, "that the missionaries have at least con- 
 vinced the people of the Eastern Church, both Greeks 
 and Armenians, that as Christians they ought to read 
 and understand the Bible instead of merely worshiping 
 it on the altar like any other relic of antiquity. This 
 success alone, by the way, is enough to justify missions 
 in Turkey." 
 
 The Bible House in Constantinople was conceived 
 by the Rev. Isaac G. Bliss, D.D., then agent at Con- 
 stantinople. He raised the money and saw the work 
 completed. The building is owned by trustees char- 
 tered by the State of New York. When the excava- 
 tions were being made for the foundations of the Bible 
 House, the contractors came upon a pile of the Byzan- 
 tine period whose roof was supported by columns 
 marked with the Greek Cross, near which were the 
 massive foundations of a small Christian Church whose 
 peculiar bricks seemed to fix the date of its construc- 
 tion at the beginning of the sixth century.
 
 120 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 This chapter must end as it began, with a question : 
 Will the Cross or the Crescent win in the conflict in 
 Turkey? This query does not imply doubt in the mind 
 of the writer so much as uncertainty regarding the 
 manner in which the subject is to be viewed in the near 
 future by Christian people in Europe and America, 
 principally in America, Forty converts from Moham- 
 medanism in eighty years of noble missionary eff'oi't in 
 Northern Turkey are more than might have been ex- 
 pected in view of all the circumstances, but that record 
 does not suggest an easy or an early victory or even a 
 final victory for the Cross. Whether or not Christian- 
 ity shall eventually win the Mohammedans seems to 
 depend very much upon whether or not Christians in 
 America think it worth while now to reinforce the 
 workers on the field with a force sufficiently strong in 
 numbers, and in training, and properly equipped to 
 ensure victory. That this is a time of crisis in Moham- 
 medan afl"airs is evident to every student of world- 
 problems. It seems to many that Moslems are more 
 alive to the situation than Christians are. This is the 
 time to sing; 
 
 "Fling out the banner! wide and high, 
 Seaward and skyward, let it shine : 
 Nor skill, nor might, nor merit ours; 
 We conquer only in that sign.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 SMYRNA AND EPHESUS 
 
 As far as the Phaeacian race excel 
 
 In guiding their swift galleys o'er the deep. 
 
 So far the women in their woven work. 
 
 A spacious garden of four acres lay, 
 
 A hedge enclosed It round, and lofty trees 
 
 Flourished in generous growth within: the pear 
 
 And the pomegranate, and the apple-tree 
 
 With its fair fruitage, and the luscious fig 
 
 And olive always green. The fruit they bear 
 
 Falls not, nor ever fails in winter-time 
 
 Nor summer, but is yielded all the year. 
 
 The ever-blowing west wind causes some 
 
 To swell and some to ripen ; pear succeeds 
 
 To pear ; to apple apple, grape to grape. 
 
 Fig ripens after fig. A fruitful field 
 
 Of vines was planted near ; in part it lay 
 
 Open and basking in the sun, which dried 
 
 The soil, and here men gathered in the grapes. 
 
 And there they trod the winepress. 
 
 — From the Odyssey. 
 
 THE Gulf of Smyrna, thirty-four miles long, is one 
 of the grandest in the JEgean Sea. The south- 
 ern shore is extremely picturesque with its mountain 
 scenery : the north shore is not so interesting, as it is 
 occupied for the most part by the vast alluvial plain 
 of the Hermus. This river at one time threatened to 
 close the approach to Smyrna altogether, but the Gov- 
 ernment diverted the river into the Agria Bay. After 
 passing the Sanjah Kole, an old Turkish fort erected 
 
 121
 
 122 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 in the seventeenth century, and recently renovated and 
 transformed into a very strong modern fortress with 
 heavy guns, a beautiful range of mountains appears. 
 On both sides, as the steamer threads her way to the 
 harbor, are the suburbs of Smyrna, forming a line of 
 summer residences, while directly in front stands the 
 city of Smyrna. 
 
 The population of Smyrna is about 350,000, of 
 whom two-fifths are Mohammedans, and nearly two- 
 thirds Greeks ; the rest is made up largely of Armenian 
 and Jewish communities and colonies fron many coun- 
 tries in Europe. The trade of Smyrna is important. 
 The principal products are corn, raisins, figs, cotton, 
 opium, drugs, tobacco, oil, wood, hides, silk, carpets, 
 emery, and antimony. 
 
 Christianity flourished early in Smyrna. Here was 
 one of the Seven Churches of Asia, to which John wrote 
 the letters given in the second and third chapters of 
 the book of the Revelation. These letters are read by 
 the majority of Christian travelers as they sail up the 
 Gulf of Smyrna, or wait on the deck for the ship's 
 papers to be passed. The following is the letter sent 
 to the one church of the Seven which has remained 
 apparently with an unbroken history since the Gospel 
 seed was sown there nineteen centuries ago : 
 
 "And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write : 
 These things saith the first and the last, which was 
 dead, and is alive : I know thy works and tribulation 
 and poverty (but thou art rich), and I know the bias-
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SMYRNA 123 
 
 phemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, 
 but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those 
 things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall 
 cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried ; 
 and ye shall have tribulation ten days ; be thou faith- 
 ful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. 
 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith 
 unto the churches ; He that overcometh shall not be 
 hurt of the second death." 
 
 In describing Smyrna in his tour of the Mediter- 
 ranean, Charles Dudley Warner wrote this character- 
 istic paragraph : 
 
 ' • One of the most ancient cities of the globe, it has 
 no appearance of antiquity ; containing all nationali- 
 ties, it has no nationality ; the second commercial city of 
 the East, it has no Chamber of Commerce, no Bourse, 
 no commercial unity ; its citizens are of no country, 
 and have no impulse of patriotism ; it is an Asiatic city 
 with a European face ; it produces nothing, it exchanges 
 everything; the children of the East are sent to its 
 schools, but it has no literary character nor any influ- 
 ence of culture ; it is hospitable to all religions, and 
 conspicuous for none ; it is the paradise of the Turks, 
 the home of luxury and of beautiful women." 
 
 Two classmates of the author's in Union Seminary 
 are missionaries in Smyrna, the Rev. Alexander Mac- 
 Lachlan, the President of the International College, 
 and the Rev. J. P. MacNaughton, the head of the evan- 
 gelistic work in the city. The former began his work
 
 IM THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 in Turkey in St. PauFs Institute in Tarsus, but in 
 1891 he went to Smyrna and started the American 
 High School in rented premises with eighteen pupils. 
 
 AMERICAN COLLEGIATE INSTFTUTE, SMYRNA 
 
 In 1903 the institution was incorporated as a college, 
 its charter being granted by the Conunonwealth of 
 Massachusetts under the corporate title of "The Trus- 
 tees of the International College, Smyrna, Turkey."
 
 EDUCATION ON A HIGH PLANE 125 
 
 The American Collegiate Institute, established by the 
 Woman's Board of Missions of Boston, does for the 
 girls of Smyrna what the International College does 
 for the boys. Its aim is to promote the highest intel- 
 lectual and moral development of all who attend. It 
 is a Christian school, aiming to make its students 
 thoroughly familiar with the teaching of Christ, so 
 that His principles may become the controlling power 
 of their lives. The motto of the Institute is, "Not to 
 be ministered unto, but to minister.'" 
 
 The following quatrain seen in the hall of the 
 Institute, while not the motto of the school, might prop- 
 erly become the principle upon which Christian men 
 and women should base their conduct : 
 
 "Life is merely froth and bubble. 
 Two things stand like stone: 
 Kindness in another's trouble, 
 Courage in your own." 
 
 It is a weary climb from the bazaars of Smyrna to 
 the Acropolis on Mount Pagus, but one loses sight of 
 weariness when his traveling companions are congenial 
 and his guide ideal. As one climbs the hill and looks 
 back upon the traditional birthplace of Homer, on the 
 bank of the river Meles, he recalls that 
 
 "Seven cities strove for Homer, dead, 
 Thi-ough which the living Homer begged his bread."" 
 
 From the heights overlooking the city one looks down 
 on the plain over which Alexander marched as he con-
 
 126 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 quered the city. Still we ascend, stopping now and 
 again to repeat history, but more especially to let the 
 horses rest. At last we left the carriage and went on 
 
 TOMB OF POLYCxVHP, SMYRNA 
 
 foot to the stadium in which Polycarp, the second 
 Bishop of Smyrna, was put to death about 166 A. D. 
 As Polycarp was a pupil of the A})ostle John, one is 
 very near the beginning of Cliristianity when he stands
 
 WHERE POLYCARP DIED 127 
 
 at the tomb of the martyr with the Stadium a stone's 
 throw away. Irensus, the disciple of Polycarp, wrote : 
 "I can also tell the very place where the blessed 
 Polycarp was accustomed to sit and discourse ; and also 
 his entrances, his walks, the complexion of his life and 
 the form of his body, and his conversation with the 
 people, and his familiar intercourse with John, as he 
 was accustomed to tell, as also his familiarity with 
 those who had seen the Lord. 
 
 It stirs one's blood to recall on the spot the dying 
 words of Polycarp, when asked by Statins Quadratus, 
 the Proconsul, to revile Christ: "Eighty and six years 
 have I served Him, and He has never done me 
 wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King that 
 saved me?" 
 
 In Smyrna one hears stories of twentieth century 
 brigandage which cause the traditional hairs to stand 
 on end. As we swung around corners on our way up 
 Mount Pagus, clinging to the sides of the carriage as the 
 wheels sunk into holes in the unpaved streets, or walked 
 up steep inclines when the horses objected to the men 
 enjoying the comfort of the ride, our American com- 
 panion, who was also for the day our guide, told of 
 many experiences in which he had been personally in- 
 terested through acquaintance or relationship with the 
 victims. 
 
 "Not long ago a relative of a missionary's family 
 was returning home in the late afternoon accompanied 
 by a servant and when within a short distance of his
 
 128 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 home the two were suddenly surrounded by a party of 
 eleven brigands. The odds were so manifestly in favor 
 of the outlaws that they were thrown off their guard 
 until the young man, drawing his revolver, fired into 
 the company, wounding two or three of his would-be 
 captors. The fire was returned and the servant was 
 severely wounded. So surprised were the bandits and 
 so calm was their intended victim that in the darkness 
 he was able to reach his father's home without bodily 
 injury or without losing the money which the bandits 
 had hoped to secure as his ransom. 
 
 "A physician, who had been kind to a brigand 
 when he was shot, received letters bearing his signature 
 demanding small sums of money, and threatening his 
 life if he did not send the money. Being obliged to 
 go out nights, he secured the services of two men to act 
 as his bodyguard, and he never went out in the eve- 
 ning without having both the men with him. As 
 the intimidating letters kept coming with greater 
 and still greater insistence, and with threats of imme- 
 diate vengeance, he entrusted the amount asked for 
 to one of his men and sent him off to give it to the 
 brigand. 
 
 "For a time the letters ceased; then new ones began 
 to come, demanding more money and threatening to 
 kill the doctor in spite of his guard if it were not sent 
 to the place designated at a given time. In view of 
 his having helped the brigand in a time of trouble, he 
 failed to understand his ingratitude, and finally sent
 
 USING A BRIGAND'S NAME 129 
 
 a friend to the mountains to meet him and seek an 
 explanation. 
 
 ""When the outlaw saw the letters he was extremely 
 indignant, and declared that he had never signed them, 
 and that some one was using his name to secure money 
 from the physician. Acting upon the advice given by 
 him, the friend ascertained from the guard who carried 
 the money the name of the man to whom he gave it, 
 and then invited the two men to the same house, neither 
 knowing that the other was to be present. Drawing a 
 revolver upon the man who had received the money, he 
 threatened to kill him if he did not explain what the 
 transaction meant. The threat did not terrify the sus- 
 pected man, and a knife was drawn and this fearful 
 future outlined: 'First, I will cut you up with this 
 knife and then I will empty the revolver into your 
 body. ' This was too much even for a brigand, and he 
 broke down and confessed that the guard and he had 
 divided the money. Going then to the other room, 
 the third degree was tried, but without success. With 
 an air of injured innocence the servant denied all com- 
 plicity in spite of every threat that was made. Then 
 the door was opened and the man was brought in who 
 had made the confession. The servant admitted his 
 guilt, was discharged, and the doctor is now free from 
 the threatening letters.'' 
 
 "Was nothing done about the blackmail.'^'" asked 
 one of the party. 
 
 ' ' ' Least done soonest mended ' was a proverb which
 
 130 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 I learned in America, and it works in Turkey as well 
 as in other countries. But here is Polycarp's tomb, 
 and I want to test the guard. ** ' 
 
 "Whose tomb is this?'' he asked. 
 
 "Joseph's," was the prompt reply of the Moham- 
 medan. 
 
 "But isn't it sometimes called Polycarp's?" 
 
 "It is Polycarp's for the Christian and Joseph's for 
 the Moslem." 
 
 The ruins at Ephesus reached from Smyrna are of in- 
 terest chiefly to Bible students, teachers, and the clergy. 
 
 * GATEWAY OF ST. JOHN S CHURCH, EPHESUS 
 
 Ephesus is forty-eight miles from Smyrna by train 
 over a well-built roadbed. It is a pleasant trip through 
 a well-tilled valley, where all the picturesque activities 
 of Oriental life may be seen on every side. The ruins
 
 ONE OF THE SEVEN WONDERS 131 
 
 are somewhat scattered, and not very impressive ; but 
 there are many evidences to show that it was one of the 
 greatest and grandest of ancient cities. The Theatre 
 where the Apostle Paul condennied the worship of the 
 goddess Diana of the Ephesians, much to the alarm of 
 Demetrius the silversmith, and the ruins of the Temple 
 of Diana itself, one of the famous structures of ancient 
 times as well as one of the "Seven Wonders of the 
 World," are the most important. 
 
 The city of Ephesus was founded by Greek colonists 
 perhaps 1000 B. C. When Alexander arrived there, 
 the Temple of Diana was being constructed on the site 
 of the Artemisium, which was burned in 334 B. C. 
 The second temple enjoyed a world-wide reputation. 
 It was feared that "the great goddess Diana should be 
 despised and her magnificence should be destroyed, 
 whom Asia and all the world worshipeth," the Ephe- 
 sians said of her, in their disci' ssion with Paul. Ephesus 
 became in the early Christian centuries the head of the 
 churches in Asia. Paul, Timothy and John belonged 
 to this church ; here, also, the Third Ecumenical Coun- 
 cil was held in 431, when Mary the mother of Jesus 
 was proclaimed the mother of God. To-day the fields 
 in the ruins belong to the inhabitants of Kirkinje, a 
 village in the hills to the east, and to those of Scala 
 Nova. As one looks about over this mass of ruins of 
 splendid buildings, all of which were in their glory in 
 Paul's day, and in some of which the great apostle 
 delivered his powerful addresses, he thinks of that scene
 
 132 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 recorded in Acts 20, where Paul gave his memorable 
 charge to the elders of Ephesus, bade them remember 
 the words of the Lord Jesus: "It is more blessed to 
 give than to receive,'' and kneeling down prayed with 
 them all. Surely, though in ruins, Ephesus is holy 
 ground !
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 BEIRUT, DAMASCUS AND BAALBEC 
 
 " I THOUGHT in Syria life was more than death ; 
 A tomb there was forsaken of its dead ; 
 But death filled not the place ; here with bowed head 
 Worships the world forever at the tread 
 Of one who lived, who liveth, and shall live— 
 Whose grave is but a footstep on the sod ; 
 Men kiss the ground where living feet have trod. 
 Here not to Death, but Life, they worship give. 
 August is death, but this one tomb is rife 
 With a more mighty presence— it is Life." 
 
 —Richard Watson Gilder. 
 
 BEIRUT occupies a considerable part of the south 
 side of St. George's Bay, on the eastern shore of 
 the Mediterranean. It is the chief commercial town 
 of Syria, the chief city of the vilayet of the same 
 name, the residence of the Vali, the seat of a Latin 
 Archbishop, a Greek Orthodox Bishop, a Maronite 
 Bishop, and the United Greek Patriarch of the East, 
 who lives in rotation at Beirut, Damascus, and Alex- 
 "andria. The town is beautifully situated on the slopes 
 of Ras Beirut and St. Dimitri, facing the sea. The 
 plain is covered with luxuriant gardens. Beyond 
 them the mountains rise rapidly, overtopped by the 
 snow-clad summits of the Sunnin and Keneiseh and 
 furrowed by several deep ravines, but cultivated to a 
 
 133
 
 134 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 considerable height. The rosy tints of the mountains 
 contrasting with the deep blue of the sea present a 
 most picturesque scene as the sun, falling into the sea, 
 casts its last beam upon the Lebanon range. 
 
 The inhabitants of Beirut are Mohammedans, Or- 
 thodox Greeks, Maronites, Greek Catholics, Jews, 
 Latins, Protestants, Syrian Catholics, Armenians, 
 Armenian Catholics, Druses, Europeans, and Ameri- 
 cans, The Mohammedan element is gradually being 
 displaced by the Christians, who are industrious and 
 seem to share the commercial enterprise of the ancient 
 Phrenicians, Many of the firms have branches in 
 France, England, and America. The bazaar is not 
 especially attractive to one who has been in Constan- 
 tinople or Cairo, European influence having deprived 
 it of many of its Oriental characteristics. Near the 
 bazaar is the chief mosque of the city, which was origi- 
 nally a church of St, John, of the Crusaders' period ; 
 the walls have been adorned by the Mohammedans 
 with rude arabesques. The roads in the suburbs and 
 environs of the city are broad and airy, with many 
 pretty villas, affording charming views, with the foli- 
 age of orange and lemon trees, sycamores, and palms 
 adding beauty to the picture. 
 
 One of the drives leads out to Dog River, past the 
 ruins of a chapel of St, George, over the spot where 
 the honored saint is said to have fought with the 
 dragon. Dog River received its name from a gigantic 
 stone dog, on a cliff in the sea, which it was ]:)elieved
 
 EDUCATION AND MISSIONS 135 
 
 barked on the approach of an enemy. An inscription 
 in Latin relates that the mountain pass was hewn out 
 of the rock by order of the Roman Emperor, Marcus 
 Antonius, the conqueror of Germany. Another in- 
 scription in Arabic says that a bridge at the mouth of 
 the river was built there by the Sultan Selim I, the 
 conqueror of Syria. Other inscriptions in Egyptian, 
 Assyrian, and Latin record invasions and expeditions, 
 some of them running back to the pre-Christian era. 
 
 To those especially interested in education or mis- 
 sions, Beirut and Tripoli and Sidon and Zahleh, in the 
 Lebanon, offer fruitful fields for observation and study. 
 Missionaries of the American Board started work in 
 Palestine in 1820. Owing to the state of the land 
 and interruptions from wars, pestilence, and massacres, 
 growth was slow at first, and the main work was con- 
 fined to Syria. In 1870 the Mission was transferred 
 to the care of the Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Presbyterian Church. The story of the efforts of 
 the missionaries to acquire a difficult language, win the 
 confidence of the people, produce an acceptable lit- 
 erature, make and distribute a new translation of the 
 Bible, to secure religious liberty and plant churches 
 and schools, and at the same time train an efficient 
 consecrated band of native workers, is told in many 
 volumes. 
 
 The methods of work are four : Evangelistic, educa- 
 tional, publication and medical. Outdoor preaching 
 is restricted by law and the customs of the land, but
 
 136 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 in churches, schools and private houses, or about the 
 tents of missionaries when touring, good audiences can 
 be secured. The people are usually friendly, and there 
 is more indifference than hostility. There are thirty- 
 four churches and ninety-seven preaching-places main- 
 tained by the Mission, with 2,800 church members, 
 averaging Sabbath congregations of more than six 
 thousand persons, and eighty-six Sabbath Schools with 
 5.800 pupils. More than $60,000 a year is given by 
 the Syrians out of their poverty toward maintaining 
 their own churches and educating their children. 
 There are at this time in the Syrian Mission thirteen 
 American clergymen, one physician and one layman, 
 twenty-six women missionaries, fourteen Syrian preach- 
 ers and 197 teachers and assistants, and 2,718 com- 
 municants. 
 
 Educational work is done by the missionaries in 
 their day schools and training schools. The Syrian 
 Protestant College while independent in government 
 is distinctively a missionary college. Theological in- 
 struction is given by members of the Beirut station to 
 students prepared to enter the ministry who are sent 
 from the various stations. 
 
 The Syrian Mission, through its press founded in 
 Malta in 1822 and moved to Beirut in 1834. has 
 served all the neighboring missions, for it has supplied 
 Bibles, educational text-books, religious reading, 
 scientific works and a standard literature in pure 
 Arabic to all using that language from Morocco to
 
 BIBLE AND TRACT AGENCIES IJiT 
 
 India. The importance of this work cannot be fully 
 grasped until one realizes that the Arabic tongue, in 
 its spoken and written forms, is the religious language 
 of one-eighth of the human race. It is not too much 
 to say that the place of the Arabic Bible in the 
 redemption of the Arabic-speaking world corresponds 
 
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 PLACE DE CANON, BEIRUT 
 
 very much to the place of the Scriptures in Greek at 
 the begimiing of the Christian era. 
 
 While generous financial support has been given by 
 the British and American Bible and Tract Societies, 
 as well as by the Presbyterian Board, still the work of 
 preparing fonts of type, of writing, translating, and 
 editing these books, has fallen on the Mission. What 
 years of labor that implies can be only inadequately 
 known from statistics. In a single year the sales of
 
 138 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 all kinds reached a total of 110,000 volumes. Nearly 
 700 distinct works in Arabic are offered to the public 
 at cheap rates in an acceptable, beautiful typography. 
 Medical work, as a pioneer method of removing 
 prejudices, and as daily representing the spirit of the 
 Great Healer, is an honored branch of activity. The 
 Mission owns and manages two hospitals — that at 
 Tripoli, cared for by Dr. Ira Harris; and that at 
 Junieh. under the direction of Dr. Mary P. Eddy. 
 These are also centers of evangelical effort and preach- 
 ing by means of Bible women, colporters, and Sunday- 
 schools. Both Dr. Harris and Dr. Eddy also travel 
 about, meeting thousands of sufferers in crowded 
 clinics. Property has recently been purchased in con- 
 nection with the work at Junieh for a refuge and sana- 
 torium for one of the most needy and pitiable classes 
 of sufferers in Syria — those afflicted with the various 
 forms of tuberculosis. Dr. Eddy is loved, well-nigh 
 worshiped, by the afflicted people who throng the hos- 
 pital of this beloved woman physician. 
 
 To mention the names of the prominent men who 
 have labored as missionaries in Beirut and the adja- 
 cent stations, and whose influence first has been as men, 
 and then as preachers, teachers, physicians, translators, 
 and, to use the words of Ambassador Straus, "states- 
 men," is to call the roll of many of the ablest men in 
 the American Church who have answered the call of 
 the Master, "Go ye into all the world and preach the 
 gospel to every creature." Eli Smith, C. V. A. Van
 
 A HALF-CENTURY OF SERVICE 139 
 
 Dyck, Williani M. Thomson, Henry H. Jessup and 
 his brother, Samuel Jessup, George E. Post, James S. 
 Dennis, D. Stuart Dodge, Daniel Bliss and his son, 
 Howard S. Bliss, all of these and scores of others have 
 been and are men of vision, of deep religious faith, 
 high mental attainments, and indefatigable energy. 
 They have been able through their personal influence 
 to bring into Syria a great deal of money, devoted 
 especially to education and the publication of the 
 Bible, and of a religious literature whose influence has 
 been felt wherever Arabic is spoken. And what is 
 true of the men is no less true of the equally noble 
 body of women who have toiled during the fourscore 
 years for the women of Asia. 
 
 In 1856 a sailing ship of three hundred tons 
 reached Asia Minor, having among its passengers the 
 Rev. Daniel Bliss, D.D., and Mrs. Bliss and the Rev. 
 Henry H. Jessup, D.D., who for fifty-four years 
 labored for the people to whom in their youth they gave 
 their lives and their best affection. Dr. Jessup passed 
 away in the spring of 1910. He had not been well 
 during the winter and had not been able to see many 
 people. Hearing that the writer was in the harbor, he 
 sent a messenger to the ship with a special invitation 
 to call. His wish was a command. The call was not 
 long, but it was precious. 
 
 Well on toward fourscore years of age, this veteran 
 of the Cross talked about the progress of the Kingdom 
 in Syria with all the fervor of youth. He did not
 
 140 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 intimate that the morning might be dawning when he 
 should follow his life-long companion who had laid 
 down her work two or three years previously, or his 
 beloved associate, Dr. Post, who passed away the year 
 before. If there was such a feeling in his mind he did 
 
 not refer to it ; not much 
 was said by him about 
 the past ; it was the fu- 
 ture which lay close to 
 his heart; the character 
 of the men who should 
 take up the work as 
 others laid it down ; his 
 solicitude that they 
 should be not only men 
 of character, but men of 
 vision, men of undaunted 
 faith in their Lord and 
 Saviour, and men who 
 accept the Bible as the 
 inspired Word of God 
 without (question or with- 
 He said that he failed to 
 understand why one should wish to go as a missionary 
 to the foreign field with an emasculated gospel. Edu- 
 cation, improved forms of living, and a thousand other 
 things have their vahu'. and men who go to a foreign 
 land avowedly to better the material life of the people 
 should have the prayers and good wishes j;nd support 
 
 REV. DR. H. H. JESSUP 
 
 out mental reservation.
 
 HEART OF A MISSIONARY 141 
 
 of Christian people ; but the work of the true mission- 
 ary comprehends all of that and more. He is not 
 oblivious to temporal conditions or the improvement of 
 the surroundings of men, but in addition to the physi- 
 cal he has a message distinctively spiritual which the 
 other man has not; and '"first things first'' should be 
 the rule for the missionary as well as the educator or 
 the physician or the carpenter. 
 
 Thus we talked on, or rather one talked, and the 
 
 other, as was befitting, sat by the bedside receiving for 
 
 himself and those who may hear the report of the 
 
 interview a special blessing. For after all, if a man 
 
 is better than sheep or goats that "nourish a blind life 
 
 within the brain," should they not have more than 
 
 creature comforts extended to them.^ This was the 
 
 burden of the interview with Dr. Jessup — an interview 
 
 it is called for courtesy's sake, but it was really the 
 
 heart expression of a man who for more than half a 
 
 century had not shunned to declare the whole counsel 
 
 of God, and who was anxious that those who shepherd 
 
 the sheep which he had gathered should feed them as 
 
 he had done ; who was anxious that those who talk 
 
 with the Moslems in the coming years shall not fail to 
 
 let them know that good as the Koran is, and noble as 
 
 are its precepts, the gospel of Jesus Christ, as taught 
 
 in the Old and New Testaments, is better and nobler 
 
 in precept, and that salvation is possible only through 
 
 Jesus Christ ; who was anxious that the Saviour who 
 
 loved him and redeemed him and called him into His
 
 142 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 blesred ministry should be the Saviour of the great 
 Moslem world. There was no lamentation about the 
 progress made in the half-century gone — there was no 
 reason for any regret; but on the other hand, there 
 was no undue exultation — there was no reason for 
 that, as the work speaks for itself. 
 
 In the charming home of President Bliss of the 
 Syrian Protestant College the other members of the 
 party which came from Boston in 1856 were met 
 again. Seldom has it occurred in missionary educa- 
 tion that the noble founder of a great institution has 
 been succeeded by a gifted son. Adjectives are select- 
 ed carefully in describing these two men. Started in 
 1866 by Daniel Bliss, the college has grown until it 
 has now more than eight hundred students, represent- 
 ing more than a dozen religious faiths and as many 
 nationalities. Building after building has been added 
 to the carefully laid-out campus on the brow of the 
 promontory, until it would be impossible in Asia and 
 difficult in Europe or America to name a more beauti- 
 ful site or to find a campus better fitted for the needs 
 of such an institution. The sea and the mountains 
 combine to add beauty to the landscape, and the sunset 
 glow which falls over the city and rests upon Mount 
 Lebanon can be found only in Syria. 
 
 But it was not the sunset of nature, entrancing as 
 the picture was, which claimed the attention of the 
 Americans that afternoon. The sunset was fascina- 
 ting, but in a few moments it deepened into twilight
 
 AN ENTHUSIASTIC EDUCATOR 143 
 
 and before one was conscious of the change it was 
 night. The real beauty of the hour was the scene in 
 the home of the President, as, surrounded by his wife 
 and chikh-en, he presented the travelers to his vener- 
 able parents who had the week previous celebrated 
 their fifty-fourth anniversary in the Holy Land. 
 
 Not long ago, when Dr. Bliss was congratulated 
 upon the success of his work in Beirut, he modestly 
 replied he had not been long enough in the Presi- 
 dency to mar the foundation which his honored father 
 had laid. The sentiment was beautiful and the ex- 
 pression expected by those who had known him in 
 student days. Now that he has been eight years the 
 head of the college, he has met and settled problems 
 to which his father was a stranger; he has added 
 courses to the curriculum and increased the teaching 
 staff and made the institution a greater force in the 
 East than it has ever been. In this development and 
 in the solution of these problems he has had the 
 co-operation and the counsel of the president emeritus, 
 who at the age of eighty-six is younger than many men 
 of half that age. The father has never allowed his in- 
 terest in the outside world to cease because he was 
 engrossed in the great problem of education, not alone 
 for the youth of Turkey but of Greece and Egypt and 
 Arabia and India and other countries. While a mis- 
 sionary in the truest sense of the word, trying and try- 
 ing efficiently to "disciple all nations," he has not 
 been oblivious to the fact that there is a great world
 
 144 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 to the west of the Mediterranean as well as to the 
 east and south of the Great Sea. 
 
 Seated beside this Nestor of higher education in the 
 Orient, the writer shrank from starting a conversation 
 which might lead him into Arabic lore or the mysteries 
 of the Koran. It was not necessary for him to begin 
 the interview. It came to him in a manner unexpected 
 and with the question for which at the moment he ha,d 
 no answer. It was this : 
 
 "Do you think that Dr. Cook reached the Pole?'' 
 The first thought suggested to the astonished writer, 
 though it was not framed in words, was : 
 
 "Who is Dr. Cook?" 
 
 The answer that was given seemed to satisfy Dr. 
 Bliss, and soon we were talking, not about the North 
 Pole nor Polar expeditions, but about the Syrian Prot- 
 estant College and its magnificent work, and about 
 "Howard" as if he were just a man, a loving friend, 
 and not as well the recognized leader of a great educa- 
 tional movement. 
 
 Damascus is ninety miles from Beirut, and is 
 r<iached by rail from Beirut and also from Haifa ; the 
 former route crosses the picturesque Anti-Lebanon 
 Mountains and the latter the plains of Esdraelon, the 
 Jordan River, and skirts the southern end of the Sea of 
 Galilee. Damascus will be connected with Mecca by 
 rail before long, and the weary pilgrimage on foot will 
 be replaced by a railway journey more or less weary, 
 according to the wealth of the pilgrim.
 
 SECRET CHARMS OF DAMASCUS 145 
 
 Damascus is the largest city in Syria, and it affords 
 the best opportunity of observing the character of the 
 natives. The chief attractions are the bazaars, the 
 mosques, the variety of costumes, the brisk and motley 
 traffic in the streets and the environs, and the mission 
 and hospital work. The history of the city runs par- 
 allel with the history of the Hebrew race at least. 
 David captured it after a bloody war. The foreign 
 policy of the northern kingdom of Damascus was 
 almost exclusively occupied with its relations to Da- 
 mascus. 
 
 Nearly every visitor from the West is impressed with 
 the secret charm about Damascus that baffles descrip- 
 tion. It is easy to understand the story current among 
 the people that when Mohammed saw the city from the 
 heights he exclaimed: "Only one Paradise is allowed 
 to man, and mine is fixed above!'' Turning his 
 horse's head the prophet pitched his tent in the desert. 
 American travelers are not Mohammedans, and they 
 make straight for the best hotels which the city affords. 
 
 One would not gather from the narrow streets of 
 Damascus that behind the walls there were houses 
 which are marvels of adornment ; that fountains play 
 in marble basins while orange-trees and tropical plants 
 add beauty and fragrance to the scene. No one fails 
 to visit the great mosque in Damascus whose history 
 is read in its various styles of architecture. On the 
 south or west the Grecian or Roman style indicates 
 that the building was at one time a heathen temple.
 
 146 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 For three hundred years it was the cathedral church, 
 and for twelve centuries the Moslems have worshiped 
 within its walls, in full view of a Greek inscription 
 which testifies to the supremacy of the One who spoke 
 to Paul on the Damascus Road: "Thy Kingdom, O 
 Christ, is an everlasting Kingdom, and Thy domin- 
 ion endureth through all generations." The "Street 
 which is called Straight," to which Ananias was 
 directed to go to find Saul of Tarsus, is still' 'Straight 
 Street," but there is not much there suggesting the 
 visit of Paul. The house of Ananias and the wall 
 where the apostle was let down in a basket are shown 
 by the guides. 
 
 Like Athens of old, there is much religion in Da- 
 mascus, but not much Gospel. The city is a hotbed 
 of contending fanatical sects. With its population of 
 Mohammedans, Jews, and Greeks, with various sub- 
 divisions, including the Druses and Kurds and Maron- 
 ites, it affords an unpromising field for missionary 
 operations. There is a Protestant church, whose mem- 
 bers are, it is said, almost wholly from the Greek 
 Church. In educational and medical work, however, 
 there has been considerable progress. The memory of 
 the terrible massacre of Christians in 1860, begun in 
 the Lebanon by the Druses and carried on in Damas- 
 cus by the Moslems, still has a deterrent effect. In 
 those days of terror foreign consulates were burned, 
 the Christian Quarter of Damascus was destroyed, and 
 six thousand Cbristians in the city and eight thousand
 
 RELIGION BUT NOT GOSPEL 147 
 
 in Syria were put to death. Finally, aroused by the 
 expressed indignation of Europe, the Turkish Govern- 
 ment attempted to interfere and stop the wholesale 
 slaughter, and a French corps of ten thousand men 
 was actually landed in Syria ; Ahmed Pasha and a few 
 ringleaders, including several Jews, were arrested and 
 beheaded. 
 
 Baalbec, a few hours' ride from Damascus, is beau- 
 tiful for situation and abounds in picturesque scenery, 
 modified by extensive meadows and winding streams. 
 It is nearly four thousand feet above the sea and con- 
 tains five thousand people, of whom one-third are 
 Christians. The origin of Baalbec runs back far be- 
 yond historical records. It is thought by some scholars 
 that the city existed before the Flood. One sugges- 
 tion is that Baalbec is the Baal Gad referred to in the 
 Book of Joshua; undoubtedly it is the sacred city 
 for worship of the God of the Sun, and was built at 
 first by the Phoenicians. Subsequently the name was 
 changed to Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, by the 
 Selucid kings, who reconstructed the Temple on the 
 site already used. Six of the fifty-eight Corinthian 
 columns remain, massive pillars seventy-five feet high 
 and seven and a half feet in diameter. Near the Tem- 
 ple of the Sun is the Temple of Jupiter, larger than 
 the Parthenon at Athens, erected in the second cen- 
 tury. An inscription at the foot of a statue when 
 translated into English reads: 
 
 "Julia, be happy."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 HIGHER EDUCATION IN TURKEY 
 
 Delightful task! to rear the tender thought. 
 To teach the young idea how to shoot. 
 To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind. 
 To breath the enlivening spirit, and to fix 
 The generous purpose in the glowing breast ! 
 
 — Thomson. 
 
 NO one can travel in Turkey, visiting the coast cities 
 or going into the interior, without realizing that 
 a force is working there, silently but powerfully, which 
 is destined to change the government, if not the relig- 
 ion, of the empire. It is not to be wondered at that 
 many Turkish officials view with suspicion, and some 
 with alarm, the efforts of men from a friendly country 
 to build up in their domain educational institutions 
 whose students are inculcated with the idea of liberty 
 as the term is used in America. American education 
 in Turkey has been from the first in the hands of mis- 
 sionaries. Not that every instructor to-day looks upon 
 himself as a missionary, or is regarded as such by the 
 educated Turks; but Robert College in Constantinople, 
 the International College in Smyrna, the Syrian Prot- 
 estant College in Beirut, and similar institutions in 
 the interior of Turkey and in Egypt, have all sprung 
 
 from missionary effort. 
 
 148
 
 BACKED BY AMERICAN GOLD 149 
 
 It is difficult for the Turks to distinguish between 
 education and missions, and for the visitor from the 
 West the line of separation, if there be one, is not 
 easily discerned. Missionaries and educators work 
 hand in hand, the former sending their bright young 
 men to the institutions under American control, and 
 the latter returning their promising graduates to swell 
 the ranks of pastors and teachers throughout the em- 
 pire. The fact of union between missionaries and 
 educators is seen in another relation. Now and then 
 when there have been delays on the part of Turkish 
 officials in granting permission to enlarge buildings, or 
 erect new ones, or to recognize the value of diplomas or 
 certificates granted to graduates of institutions whose 
 governing boards meet in Boston or New York, when 
 individual protests have not availed, the college officer 
 and the missionary have combined forces, and some- 
 times carried their case to Washington, occasionally 
 making it a subject of diplomatic inquiry. 
 
 The authorities of the American institutions are de- 
 veloping their work, enlarging their grounds, adding 
 building to building, increasing their teaching corps 
 and doubling and trebling their student bodies. The 
 educational institutions along the Syrian coast, on the 
 shores of the Bosphorus; in the interior of Turkey and 
 on the Nile, backed as they are by influential men and 
 women in America, are exerting the most potent in- 
 fluences in the Levant. Millions of dollars are in- 
 vested in Cairo, Beirut, Smyrna, Constantinople, Har-
 
 150 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 pool, and other cities, and thousands of Egyptians, 
 Syrians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Arabians and Indians 
 and men from other lands are learning in these Amer- 
 ican colleges arithmetic and grammar and civil govern- 
 ment and also the dynamic statement from the Declara- 
 tion of Independence : ' * We hold these truths to be self- 
 evident : that all men are created equal ; that they are 
 endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
 rights ; that among these are life, liberty and the pur- 
 suit of happiness,'" 
 
 The story of the founding of the colleges in Turkey, 
 and especially of Robert College on the Bosphorus, 
 reads like a romance of the East ; their development by 
 American missionaries, with the aid of money from the 
 keenest financiers in New York and Boston, is far more 
 gratifying to most Americans than it is satisfying to 
 some Turks, Holding the American principle that all 
 men have equal rights to establish religious and edu- 
 cational institutions, it was natural that the missionaries 
 should early demand the right to start schools and col- 
 leges and hospitals and dispensaries in which their 
 converts could be educated and cared for mentally 
 and physically; the spiritual not to be forgotten in 
 the development of the mind or the treatment of the 
 body. 
 
 The statesmen who established and developed the 
 colleges in the Ottoman Empire never forgot their di- 
 vine commission nor failed to remem])er their human 
 nationality. When a Russian Minister assured Cyrus
 
 FOUNDING OF ROBERT COLLEGE 15l 
 
 Hamlin, the founder of Robert College, that his master, 
 "the Czar of all the Russias, would never allow Prot- 
 estantism to set its foot in Turkey,"" Dr. Hamlin 
 quickly replied: "My Master, the Lord of Heaven and 
 earth, will never ask your master where He shall set 
 His foot!" 
 
 The missionary was a true apostle sent of God. On 
 the other hand, Dr. Hamlin, sought help from the 
 
 ROBERT COLLEGE 
 
 American Minister and from the State Department in 
 Washington as well, when getting his college start- 
 ed. Further, he secured assistance from the English 
 Ambassador, and finally he wearied the Turks by 
 his perpetual applications and institutions until the 
 Grand Vizier became so irritated that he said in vex- 
 ation :
 
 152 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 "Will this Mr, Hamlin never die and let me alone 
 on this college question V 
 
 Christopher R. Robert, a wealthy man from New 
 York, who visited Constantinople toward the close of 
 the Crimean War, became interested in Dr. Hamlin, 
 ngreed to help him secure the college v/hich he desired, 
 and when the Turkish Government hesitated to grant 
 the missionary the necessary permission, Mr. Robert 
 wrote : '"We will fight it to the end !" and Dr. Ham- 
 lin echoed the sentiment. When Mr. Seward, the 
 Secretary of State in President Lincoln's Cabinet, threw 
 his powerful influence on the side of the missionary, the 
 Turkish Government received a dispatch from its Min- 
 ister in Washington to this eff"ect: "Settle the Col- 
 lege question lest it prove a thorny question. " Still 
 nothing came from it. 
 
 No forward steps were taken in Constantinople until 
 Admiral Farragut entered the harbor on an American 
 warship. The Admiral was pressed into the service of 
 the college people, although he assured them that he 
 was not on a diplomatic mission. At every official 
 dinner at which he met a pasha, he asked this question : 
 "Why cannot the American College be built.''" He 
 entered into no argument, but took each answer as coi 
 rect and decisive; the following night he would repeat 
 the question, accept the answer as satisfactory, and ask 
 it again at the next dinner which he attended. The 
 effect was what one might expect when such a condition 
 arose. The suspicion of tlie Turkish officials grew as
 
 QUESTIONS BY THE ADMIRAL 153 
 
 the question was asked repeatedly by the distinguished 
 Admiral. Soon messengers came to Dr. Hamlin ask- 
 ing what the question meant. 
 
 "Admiral Farragut has come on a mission which he 
 thoroughly understands," was the diplomatic reply. 
 "He will answer all questions concerning the purpose 
 of his visit."' In a short time, not a firman, but an 
 imperial irade, was given to the missionary, and the 
 great institution of the present day was begun, and the 
 still greater one, made possible by the will of Mr. John 
 Stewart Kennedy of New York, was an assured fact. 
 
 Robert College has a beautiful site on the bluff over- 
 looking the Bosphorus and the city. It has an enrol- 
 ment of 454 students, of whom 255 are Greeks, 61 
 Bulgarians, 66 Armenians, 33 Turks, 19 Israelites, and 
 one and two each of ten other nationalities. Mr. Ken- 
 nedy, who was at his death in 1909 president of the 
 Board of Trustees of the College, left it by far the 
 largest bequest which it or any other missionary col- 
 lege had ever received. By means of this gift several 
 needed buildings, for which President C. F. Gates has 
 been pleading, will be erected; the faculty will be en- 
 larged, and a bright era awaits the institution planted 
 by the indomitable faith and perseverance of the Amer- 
 ican missionary and the American financier. 
 
 The Syrian Protestant College in Beirut was begun 
 about the same time as Robert College — in the early 
 sixties. Dr. Daniel Bliss, still active in its councils, 
 though President emeritus, and Dr. William M. Thom-
 
 154 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 son, a brother missionary, often discussed the subject 
 of Higher Education in Syria. In 1862 the two mis- 
 sionaries named were appointed a committee to raise 
 money for the institution. Dr. Bliss came to America 
 to speak at the annual meeting of the American Board, 
 and was followed on the platform by Mr. William E. 
 Dodge, who used this remarkable statement, showing 
 
 SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE, BEIRUT 
 
 the effect of the missionary's appeal: "When our 
 young brother was speaking I was so moved that there 
 was not a dry thread in my shirt.'"' After conferring 
 with his family Mr. Dodge said to one of liis sons, 
 who is now the President of the Board of Trustees of 
 the College: "Stuart, that seems to me to be a good 
 thing; we must look into it." Mr. Dodge became 
 treasurer of the Board of Trustees, and his son Stuart 
 went to Beirut to teach in the new institution. Dr. 
 Dodge has been from the first a constant adviser and
 
 DR. BLISS AND COL. ROOSEVELT 155 
 
 co-worker with Dr. Bliss and other missionaries in 
 developing the institution, which has more than eight 
 hundred and fifty students and one of the finest college 
 sites in the East. 
 
 Dr. Bliss was succeeded in the presidency by his 
 son, Dr. Howard S. Bliss, under whose administration 
 rapid progress has been 
 made. History locates 
 an incident in Beirut 
 which affects at least two 
 continents : A generation 
 aa'o two American lads 
 rode a donkey at the 
 same time through the 
 streets of Beirut. One 
 boy was the son of a 
 traveler visiting Syria, 
 and the other the son of 
 the President of the Col- 
 lege in the city. One 
 succeeded his father in 
 the presidency of the in- 
 stitution, and the other 
 
 became President of the United States. How much of 
 the success of President Bliss and President Roosevelt 
 has been due to their ability to conquer a Syrian don- 
 key may never be fully known. 
 
 The college has a faculty of seventy members, and 
 five languages are taught here : Arabic, Turkish, Eng- 
 
 REV. DR. HOWARD S. BLISS
 
 156 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 lish, French and modern Greek, while a short course in 
 Latin is offered in the School of Arts and Sciences. 
 The language of instruction in all departments is Eng- 
 lish. Turkish, being the official language of the em- 
 pire, occupies an increasingly important place in the 
 curriculum of the college. 
 
 The number of students in the college is 830, and of 
 these 472 are in the upper departments. In the student 
 body there are 174 Protestants, and 439 belong to other 
 Christian sects; 101 are Moslems. 86 Jews, 25 Druses 
 and 5 Behias. Students represent twelve or fourteen re- 
 ligions and nationalities, coming from a geographical 
 area which extends from the Ural Mountains to the 
 Soudan and from Greece and Egypt to Persia and India. 
 There are 1074 graduates occupying positions of com- 
 manding influence as civil and military officers and 
 pharmacists, physicians of military and general hospit- 
 als, lawyers, judges, teachers, preachers, editors, authors 
 and merchants. 
 
 As a result of the granting of the Constitution in 
 1908, the Moslem and Jewish students wished to be 
 excused from chapel exercises and Bible study. A 
 concession was made for the remainder of the year, 
 but the following year the parents were obliged to sign 
 a statement to the effect that students should aeree to 
 obey the letter and the spirit of all regulations, and in 
 the event of their inability to do so they should agree 
 to withdraw from college without disturbance. The 
 })urpose of the college, in the opinion of the trustees
 
 EDUCATION IN SMYRNA 157 
 
 and faculty, is to impart strength and purity of per- 
 sonal character, in the hope that the students may be 
 fitted to become leaders in a movement toward right- 
 eousness in society. They believe that this can be ac- 
 complished only through instruction in religion, and 
 therefore instruction in religion occupies an important 
 place in the intention of the college. The college is a 
 Christian institution and teaches the principles of the 
 Christian religion ; there is, however, no attempt what- 
 ever to attack the religious faith or worship of any of 
 its students ; but conformity to the rules of the college 
 regarding attendance upon exercises of worship and of 
 religious instruction is required of all. 
 
 The International College in Smyrna has a student 
 body of 330 and a staff of twenty-one members. The 
 institution is Christian but not sectarian. Its aim is 
 to afford boys and young men facilities for obtaining 
 a practical education to equip them for positions of 
 usefulness and responsibility in the commercial, edu- 
 cational and religious institutions of the land. In carry- 
 ing out the same it is assumed by President MacLach- 
 lan and his faculty that character is a first essential, 
 and that the life and teaching of Jesus Christ afford 
 the only sufficient model and inspiration for developing 
 that strength and purity of purpose which are funda- 
 mental to all true success. The curriculum, therefore, 
 contains, in addition to the languages and practical 
 sciences usually included in a collegiate training, a 
 course of Bible instruction. In this moral and relig-
 
 158 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 ious teaching, which is wholly unsectarian. the sole aim 
 is to develop in the students a strong, manly, Christian 
 character, and to do this without prejudice to the in- 
 terests of those Christian communions to which the 
 great majority of the students belong. While the 
 students are Greek Christians, Armenians and Moslems, 
 they are all obliged to attend the religious services to 
 which they are accustomed and, in addition, they are 
 all required to attend a Sunday service in the chapel. 
 
 While there are elective studies, three things are 
 compulsory — chapel exercises, Bible study, and the 
 English language classes. The Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Association has a strong branch in the college, in 
 which are banded together those students who, without 
 regard to creed or confession, acknowledge the personal 
 claims of Jesus Christ upon them for obedience and 
 service. The Association also receives into its mem- 
 bership all students who express an honest desire to 
 conform their lives to the teaching and example of 
 Jesus. 
 
 It is interesting to walk through the college build- 
 ings and see the wireless telegra})hy and Roentgen ray 
 apparatuses, which have been provided by a friend, and 
 a complete equipment for regidating and signaling 
 standard time, and to know that the railway and city 
 time are governed by the noon signal from the observa- 
 tory, which, by the way, is only partially ecjuipped for 
 meteorological re(|uirements. Every day a bulletin is 
 issued and reports are sent to the meteorological offices
 
 THE AMERICAN COLLEGE FOR GIRLS 159 
 
 in London. Washington, Cairo, Larnica in Cyprus, 
 and to the representatives of the Turkish, American 
 and British Governmsnts in Smyrna. 
 
 The American College for Girls at Scutari, on the 
 Asiatic side of the Bosphorus in Constantinople, holds 
 a strategic position of great importance in the enter- 
 prise of the education of women. It furnishes advan- 
 tages of an advanced course of study, and draws its 
 pupils from various nationalities and from wealthy and 
 influential classes. Under the inspiration of Miss Mary 
 Mills Patrick, the President, there is ardor and industry 
 in the faculty, and the atmosphere is favorable to 
 stimulation of the intellect and to refinement of char- 
 acter. Its graduates hold leading positions in society, 
 and many are instructors of others. Its influence has 
 extended not only over the capital and large cities on 
 the seaboard, but into the European provinces and 
 principalities and into Asiatic towns, attracting from 
 far those who are able to meet the expense, which is of 
 necessity much greater than in the interior. It has 
 better furnishings and off"ers a more advanced course of 
 study to pupils of various nationalities than has up to 
 the present time been possible in any other institution 
 for girls in the empire. 
 
 The American Collegiate Institute in Smyrna had 
 its beginning in 1875, when Miss Maria West taught 
 a class of girls in a room in her own house. Under 
 Miss Emily McCallum, the present principal, there are 
 more than two hundred and fifty girls in the five de-
 
 160 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 partments — kindergarten, primary, intermediate, col- 
 legiate and normal. The graduates of the institute are 
 found in many lands and are doing a noble work for 
 Christ in home, church and school. Sixty per cent, of 
 the graduates have become teachers. The board of 
 instruction has twenty-two members, and on the Board 
 of Trustees, among others, are the American mission- 
 aries resident in Smyrna. 
 
 There are many other colleges in Turkey and Har- 
 poot and Marsovan and Aintab and Tarsus, each in its 
 own field holding the place of a Yale or an Oberlin or 
 a Williams or a Mount Holyoke. There are also high 
 schools for both sexes and theological institutions, all 
 of which are aiding missionary effort. In each of them 
 Christianity controls the teaching and the conduct, and 
 efforts are made to train the students for the active 
 duties of life. 
 
 In many of the institutions in Turkey the influences 
 of the teaching seemed to an outsider to be in sympathy 
 with the Turkish Government and people ; one would 
 ex})ect the students from these schools to be better citi- 
 zens, truer in every relation of life, because of their 
 education. In some of the institutions there did not 
 seem to be the same effort to adapt the methods to the 
 need of the Turks as Turks. The curriculum seemed 
 a replica of schools in New York or Massachusetts. 
 Little attention seemingly was paid to the country in 
 which the students live or the religion of the country 
 in which the schools are located.
 
 CROSS OR CRESCENT? 161 
 
 This, however, was not true of the larger institutions, 
 whose officials and professors, while loyal to the Stars 
 and Stripes, do nothing to discredit the flag of Turkey ; 
 and while faithful adherents to the Cross of Christ, do 
 not seek to have their students forswear allegiance to 
 the Crescent of Mohammed. 
 
 If those who send money to Turkey for Christian 
 education understand exactly how it is used, they will 
 favor the method of these educators, letting the non- 
 Christian mind come into close contact with the Chris- 
 tian teachers, and sowing of the seed of Christianity, 
 letting it germinate in ground prepared by the mis- 
 sionary, believing that inspiration received in this frank 
 manner may be better than a confession of a change of 
 heart which is based neither upon thorough knowledge 
 nor honest conviction.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 NAZARETH AND GALILEE 
 
 Sweet waters, whose serene and limpid wave 
 
 Upheld the pulpit from which words were said 
 
 To outlast time; on whose banks feasts were spread 
 Which to the soul an unknown vigor gave— 
 You did obey, when storms began to rave. 
 
 The " Peace be still," and each foam-crested head 
 
 Became like solid oak beneath that tread 
 Which bore embodied love and power to save. 
 
 The mountains mirror their fair heights in thee; 
 Upon their slopes His blessed footsteps trod 
 
 Whom multitudes went to the wilds to see. 
 And to be fed with bread come down from heaven. 
 From thee went out the Spirit's mighty leaven. 
 
 For here was manifest the Son of God. 
 
 —From "A Brief Pilgrimage in the Holy Land," 
 BY Caroline Hazard. 
 
 DROPPING anchor at Haifa in the Bay of Acre, 
 the first impressions of Palestine are gained by 
 looking at Haifa and Mount Carmel, in front of which 
 the city lies. Here, in the time of the Crusaders, the 
 fortress was well known, and here it was that the 
 Knights of St. John made their last stand before 
 going to Rome and later to Malta. 
 
 Not much time was taken with inspecting the town 
 of 12.000 people, as Nazareth was the destination for 
 the carriage ride the first half-day. A prosperous Ger- 
 man colony was observed between the city proper and 
 
 162
 
 OVER HISTORICAL GROUND 163 
 
 the mountain, but it was neither of the colony nor the 
 town about which we were thinking as we crossed the 
 Kishon and started eastward. We were going through 
 the town, under the brow of Carmel, identified so 
 closely with the history of Elijah and Ahab and Jeze- 
 bel and the prophets of Baal. We were going over 
 the Plain of Esdraelon, where Barak and Gideon and 
 Saul and Josiah and the Maccabees and the Crusaders 
 and Napoleon and other men of prominence had won 
 victories or suffered defeats. Here we saw the flowers 
 which have made Palestine famous the world over, the 
 scarlet anemones, cyclamen, larkspurs, buttercups and 
 daisies, all intermingling with the green grass. Many 
 times the carriages stopped to let a lover of flowers pick 
 a bouquet of the beautiful ''lilies of the field,'" immor- 
 talized by the Galilean Peasant whose boyhood home 
 we were approaching. His immortal words concerning 
 the birds and flowers of His native province were on 
 the lips of all the travelers as they looked over the 
 plain above which they were rising, as the road wound 
 up from the sea toward the city where He increased in 
 wisdom and statinre and in favor with God and man. 
 After a ride of twenty-three miles and a climb of 
 1,100 feet, shortly after noon Nazareth was reached. 
 After luncheon the tourists started out to see the places 
 marked by the Church as those associated with the ear- 
 ly life of Jesus. The Cave of the Annunciation, the 
 Kitchen of Mary, the Carpenter Shop of Joseph, the 
 stone said to have been used as a table by Jesus and
 
 THE VILLAGE AND FOUNTAIN OF NAZAUETH
 
 REMARKABLE VIEW FROM THE HILL 165 
 
 His apostles, and the Synagogue in which the great 
 Teacher announced the program of Christianity as 
 narrated in Luke's Gospel — all of this and more was 
 shown by the guides and was more or less satisfactory 
 to various members of the party. 
 
 Nazareth is five or six miles west of Mount Tabor, 
 two miles up a valley north of the great plain of Jez- 
 reel. Owing to its poor water-supply, it is thought by 
 students that it has never been a large village, and but 
 for the matchless life of Jesus, who lived in this village, 
 it would never be visited by the hosts of travelers who 
 include it as one of the chief places in the tours. As 
 Palestine was small among the nations of the East and 
 yet was of great importance commercially as well as 
 politically, so Nazareth, although in a retired spot of 
 Palestine, was in the center of Roman worldliness and 
 paganism. Three and a half miles to the north lay 
 Sepphoris, a place of considerable importance at the 
 beginning of the Christian era. On the coast, near 
 Haifa, was Ptolemais, now Acre, a large Roman city, 
 while Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, was another cen- 
 ter of Roman worldliness. It is easy to understand 
 the designation of Nazareth in the midst of "Galilee of 
 the heathen nations," when one remembers its Roman 
 surroundings. 
 
 But there are two places visited by all of the party 
 which seemed to satisfy every one. These were the 
 Fountain of the Virgin and the outlook from the hill, 
 perhaps five hundred feet above the town. There is no
 
 166 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 record of there having been any other well in the vil- 
 lage, and it seems entirely probable that the boy Jesus 
 and His mother may have gone to [^that fountain day 
 after day with water-jars, as other children and their 
 Syrian mothers go to-day, the little boys taking hold 
 of their mothers' skirts and trudging along as if that 
 was the chief object in life. Girls and children and 
 women gather around this fountain and discuss, pre- 
 sumably, questions relating to their families, and pos- 
 sibly religion, though one not versed in the Syrian 
 language would better not dogmatize. It was a happy 
 sight, however, the passing of the two streams of women 
 and children, on the one line with empty water-pots, and 
 on the other pots filled to the brim with never a drop 
 spilling, carried gracefully on the heads of the women. 
 Many of the women were extremely pleasing in appear- 
 ance, and the memory of one of the Nazareth women, 
 carrying not water, but a heavy box on her head, will 
 long be held in grateful remembrance by one of the 
 members of the party. 
 
 Most of the tourists walked up the hill, and a hard 
 pull it was for some of them, but the writer and the 
 lady who calls him "John" rode on horseback. If 
 there be a steeper place in Palestine than the seemingly 
 perpendicular ascent from the fountain to the ruins 
 overlooking Nazareth, it has not been seen ; the couple 
 in <|uestion will walk the next time that they climb the 
 hill. The horses were sure-footed, but the riders were 
 not overconfident, as the animals stepped upon great
 
 KINDNESS OF A SYRIAN WOMAN 167 
 
 rocks or walked through defiles made for goats and not 
 for horses. 
 
 The Syrian woman, touched by the tense expression 
 on her American sister's face and seemingly forgetful 
 of her own heavy burden, walked beside the horse, and 
 whenever a particularly dangerous place appeared she 
 would lay her bronzed hand upon the hand of her new 
 friend ; frequently she would put her right hand against 
 the stranger's back with a gentle pressure that was as 
 helpful as it was reassuring. It is probably too much 
 to say that she prevented an accident, but it is not too 
 much to say that a very grateful heart beat more lov- 
 ingly for the women of Syria because of this unexpected 
 assistance from one of them in a time of real need. Be 
 it said to the honor of the Oriental that when her path 
 left that of the rider's she simply smiled, and with a 
 wave of the hand bade good-by to the Americans, and 
 did not ask for "bakshish." Had she done so, or 
 had it been possible to stop the horses at that place, 
 her helpful spirit would have been rewarded. 
 
 The hill is called Neby Sain, and rises sixteen hun- 
 dred feet above the sea ; from it one of the finest views 
 of Syria and Palestine presents itself. Looking directly 
 in front over the village at the foot of the hill rises the 
 plain of Esdraelon with mountains closing in on all 
 sides. To the west is the Carmel range running from 
 the monastery, marking the place of sacrifice made 
 memorable by Elijah and the priests of Baal clear to 
 the Mediterranean, twenty-five miles away. To the
 
 168 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 east appear the mountains of Moab with the Sea of 
 Galilee, out of sight but in the chasm just west of the 
 mountains. Turning to the north, beyond the ruins of 
 Seffurieh, the Sepphoris of Josephus, can be seen the 
 white peak of Hermon, with Safed to the left, some 
 seven hundred and fifty feet above the sea, the city 
 which the Master innnortalized as one that "'being set 
 on a hill cannot be hid." 
 
 Just as the sun was setting, the summit of the hill 
 above the town was reached. The Mediterranean and 
 also the Jordan Valley were visible, as well as Mount 
 Tabor, Mount Hermon and Mount Carmel. Here one 
 could see the Plain of Jezreel and the villages and towns 
 around it, as well as the mountains and highlands of 
 Naphtali and Bashan. In the village below, the "his- 
 toric" places may or may not be real, but from this 
 eminence one can see a dozen places about which there 
 can be no doubt, and one must believe that He who 
 loved nature, and the God of nature, must often have 
 come to this place and looked on the mountain and the 
 plain and the sea, even as we were looking upon them 
 as the twilight settled upon the little party of humble 
 believers in Jesus of Nazareth. There was no loud 
 talking; the men and women in the company were 
 thinking their own thouglits, but not expressing them. 
 It was their first contact with the Holy Land, and they 
 were near the place where the carpenter's Son grew 
 from childhood into manhood ; from one of the hills 
 in front of them they could see the place where an at-
 
 LITTLE NAZARETH CHILDREN 169 
 
 tempt had been made to kill Jesus before His time, 
 because His message did not appeal to those who had 
 known Him as a child and youth. 
 
 On the way back to the hotel a call was made at the 
 Girls' Orphanage of the Church Missionary Society 
 of England. The work was begun in 1867, and now 
 seventy orphans of Protestant, Moslem or Greek par- 
 entage and religion are fed and clothed and taught free 
 of charge, the annual expense being $35. Two objects 
 are kept in mind by those in charge of the Orphanage : 
 one is to teach the girls the saving truths of the Gospel 
 as found in Jesus Christ, and the other is to train them 
 to be useful wives and mothers. In addition to the 
 Bible the girls all learn housework ; several become 
 teachers ; others go to serve in European families ; and 
 others train as nurses in mission hospitals carried on by 
 these societies. The majority leave the Orphanage to 
 be married. The children entertained the callers with 
 songs, and the superintendent and matron and other 
 ladies explained the working of the Orphanage and re- 
 lated many incidents showing the beneficial results of 
 the work. One of the hymns which the girls sang, 
 ' ' Children of Nazareth, ' ' began as follows : 
 
 "We are little Nazareth children, 
 And our Father placed our home 
 Mid the olive-trees and vineyards. 
 Where the Saviour used to roam." 
 
 The ride from Nazareth to Tiberias on the Sea of 
 Galilee carries one down not only as far as he came up
 
 170 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 from the Mediterranean to Nazareth, but nearly seven 
 hundred and fifty feet below the level of the sea. Five 
 miles on the direct road to Tiberias is the old site of 
 Cana of Galilee ; here it was that Nathanael lived ; here 
 Jesus performed His first miracle, and in this place also 
 He healed, by a word, the son of the nobleman from 
 Capernaum who felt unworthy that Jesus should enter 
 his home. The road to Galilee is fairly good, but it 
 will need another visit from the German Emperor be- 
 fore the roads through the Holy Land can be called 
 really good. 
 
 Shortly before Tiberias is reached a ridge at the left 
 is pointed out as *" Kurn Hattin'' — the Horns of Hattin 
 — known also as the Mount of Beatitudes, for here or 
 in this neighborhood the Sermon on the Mount, as re- 
 corded in Matthew's Gospel, was probably delivered. 
 Not far away to the north is Safed, toward which Jesus 
 may have looked as he delivered his memorable sermon. 
 The city can be seen over a wide area of country. It 
 was at Hattin, on July 5, 1187, that the Crusaders 
 met the hosts of Saladin and went down in that awful 
 slaughter. 
 
 As the carriages drive on beyond the historic Mount 
 of Blessing a magnificent view of the Sea of Galilee 
 and its surroundings suddenly bursts upon the travel- 
 ers. In the foreground are the steeply sloping banks 
 leading down to the Lake. Beyond the sea rise the 
 irregular hills, bare and barren, l)ui *'rich and varied 
 in tone and tinf' as the western sun lights upon them.
 
 TIBERIAS BY THE SEA 171 
 
 To the north Hermon appears with its great snow cap, 
 and to the south Mount Tabor is seen, which is associ- 
 ated by many with the scenes of tlie Transfiguration. 
 Again the hush of nearness to holy places is felt as the 
 carriages swing around the winding road and dash 
 down the steep descent to Tiberias. The old walled 
 town of the city makes a picturesque foreground to the 
 scenery of the Lake so intimately connected with the 
 ministry of Jesus. Tiberias was built by Herod Anti- 
 pas while Jesus was living in Nazareth, and was dedi- 
 cated by him to the Emperor Tiberias. It became the 
 chief city of the Province of Galilee, and after the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem became the seat of the Jews. 
 Arabs and Turks and Crusaders figure in the succes- 
 sive captures of the city. 
 
 The modern town of Tiberias contains about six 
 thousand people, half of them Jews. It does not oc- 
 cupy so large a space as the ancient city. It is partly 
 surrounded by a wall which was nearly destroyed in 
 the great earthquake of 1837, when half the people of 
 the town perished. Perhaps a rainy day is not the 
 best time to judge the city's cleanliness, and yet then, 
 if ever, a city should be clean. Truth compels the 
 statement that it would be difficult to imagine a more 
 filthy town than Tiberias ; a word or two might be said 
 about the fleas there, but that subject is not a pleasant 
 one for some people. Drinking-water and uncooked 
 vegetables and salads were omitted by the travelers, and 
 no one suffered any ill effects from the two days spent
 
 172 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 in Tiberias, but no one of the party applied to join the 
 Scotch Mission, which is doing excellent work in edu- 
 cational and medical departments. The pastor has 
 been there only a short time, and the organized church 
 work is not extensive, but it promises to increase as the 
 years go by. Progress by means of conversions is 
 slow, the number of confessing Christians in the town, 
 it is said, being less than one hundred. The schools are 
 well patronized, but the children, when old enough to 
 enter the church, or soon after doing so, move to another 
 part of the country or leave the country altogether. 
 The Mission seems to be working against terrible odds, 
 but the workers are not discouraged, and they feel that 
 the seed sown is sure to bear fruit, if not in Tiberias, 
 in some other part of Turkey, or possibly far-away 
 America. 
 
 The success of the Hospital, under the very efficient 
 care of Dr. David Watt Torrance, is one of which the 
 Scottish Church in particular, and Medical Missions in 
 general, may well be proud. In the nine months that 
 the doctor was able to stand the climate last year there 
 were twenty-two thousand attendances, and this in ad- 
 dition to the patients in the hospital, who come from 
 all parts of Northern Palestine as well as from beyond 
 the Jordan ; every patient cured or even helped be- 
 comes a missionary to spread the good news of heal- 
 ing throughout the countries from which they come. 
 Twelve operations in the week before our visit had been 
 performed successfully; several of these were major
 
 CARING FOR THE BODY 173 
 
 operations, and in these the physician had been assisted 
 by his young son who has not yet had a college train- 
 ins-. In a sinirle day the doctor treated a hundred 
 cases for affections of the eye. Surely no better illus- 
 tration of his being a veritable disciple of the Good 
 Physician could be desired. Poor as are the patients 
 who come for treatment, Dr. Torrance was able to col- 
 lect last year about half the expenses of the Mission, 
 the balance coming from the Scotch Church. It was 
 a great pleasure to worship with this little band of 
 earnest Presb}i;erians on the shore of the Lake and to 
 experience the truth of the poet's dream : 
 
 "O Sabbath rest by Galilee ! 
 O calm of hills above, 
 Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee 
 The silence of eternity 
 Interpreted by love!" 
 
 The storm of Sunday noon cleared the atmosphere 
 and a beautiful sunset gilded the eastern shores of the 
 Lake. This was succeeded by a purple haze over- 
 spreading the Lake and the country of the Gergesenes. 
 an atmospheric condition never seen elsewhere by the 
 writer. What was true of the afterglow of the evening 
 was true also of the morning twilight. An American 
 artist who is painting a shore scene on the Lake is at 
 work every morning before sunrise in order to get the 
 tints which she can find nowhere else. 
 
 Four merry boat-loads with stalwart rowers left
 
 174 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Tiberias one morning before sunrise and were rowed to 
 the northern end of the Lake to the phice where Caper- 
 naum, the exalted city, flourished. Nothing is left 
 there now except the ruins of a city which had an op- 
 portunity greater than that given to Sodom and Go- 
 morrah, an opportunity neglected ; the result is only a 
 
 TIBERIAS AND THE SEA OF GiVLILEE 
 
 name and a pile of stone recently brought to light by 
 the followers of Him who predicted what has taken 
 place, unless repentance were made. Only one man 
 was seen in the town whore Jesus lived, the town where 
 Peter had his home and the town where mighty works 
 were done, and he was a Eranciscan in charge of the 
 property. The principal "find" so far is the syna-
 
 CAPERNAUM AND BETHSAIDA 175 
 
 gogue, believed to be the one erected by the Roman 
 centui'ion who loved the Jewish people and erected a 
 place of worship for them ; but comparatively little has 
 been done toward uncovering the ancient city. 
 
 A row of twenty minutes takes one to the site of 
 Bethsaida, but here much less has been found than at 
 Capernaum ; a broken aqueduct is the only thing worth 
 seeing. There was some question in the minds of the 
 scholars in the country — doubts raised by much read- 
 ing — as to whether Tel Hum, back of Bethsaida, was 
 Corajin or the ancient site of Capernaum. 
 
 On the way to Tiberias sails were set and the boats 
 passed rapidly the site of Magdala, the home of Mary, 
 out of whom the devils were cast and who followed the 
 Master, ministering to him of her substance. It was 
 this Mary whose name has been identified with insti- 
 tutions for a class of people wholly unlike in character 
 that gifted woman, whose habits of life were doubtless 
 as correct as those of any other Mary. 
 
 In the little time that the party had been on shore 
 at the northern end of the Lake the color of the water 
 had changed from purple to blue, and before Tiberias 
 was reached it was a beautiful green. The boatmen 
 sang their jolly songs led by a precentor; as far as one 
 could understand the men were sounding forth the 
 praises of the crew, or this or that member of the crew, 
 or the firm by which they were engaged or the party 
 which they were carrying. Once in a while when one 
 boat forged ahead of the others slightly, the singing
 
 176 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 did not cease, but the tenor of the song did not suggest 
 praise so much as something else. It is not best to be 
 ignorant, but travelers say that one loses a great deal, 
 which he never misses, if he does not know the language 
 of boatmen and dragomen in Eastern countries. 
 
 The afternoon journey consisted of a boat-ride from 
 Tiberias to Samach, a station on the railway from 
 Damascus to Haifa, and the railway ride to the Medi- 
 terranean coast, crossing the Jordan and riding through 
 the plains of Esdraelon and Jezreel and skirting the 
 northern shore of Mount Carmel. A restful night in 
 a German hotel in Haifa followed a strenuous day, and 
 breakfast was taken the next morning on the ship, which 
 steamed along the coast and landed its passengers at 
 noon at Jaffa. As the Galilee country was left behind 
 the words of the hymn sung in the Scotch Church sang 
 themselves in many a mind : 
 
 "Jesus calls us o'er the tumult 
 Of our life's wild restless sea ; 
 Day by day His sweet voice soundeth, 
 Saying, 'Christian, follow me;' 
 
 "As of old apostles heard it 
 By the Galilean Lake, 
 Turned from home and toil and kindred. 
 Leaving all for His dear sake. 
 
 ii 
 
 Jesus calls us ; by Thy mercies. 
 Saviour, may we hear Thy call, 
 
 Give our hearts to Th}^ obedience, 
 Serve and love Thee best of all. ' '
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 JERUSALEM AND THE JORDAN 
 
 Thebe is a green hill far away. 
 
 Without a city wall. 
 Where the dear Lord was crucified 
 
 Who died to save us all. 
 
 Oh, dearly, dearly has He loved. 
 
 And we must love Him too ; 
 And trust in His redeeming- blood. 
 
 And try His works to do. 
 
 —Mrs. C. F. Alexander. 
 
 "T PREFER not to leave the ship," said an earnest 
 ^ Christian worker from New York not long ago, as 
 the anchor dropped outside the mighty rocks of Jaffa. 
 Her explanation was that she was afraid contact with 
 present-day Palestine would destroy her idea of the 
 Holy Land gained from a study of the Bible. And to 
 preserve this mental picture intact she remained on the 
 ship, while the rest of the party went to Jerusalem, 
 Bethlehem, the Garden of Gethsemane. Gordon's Cal- 
 vary, the Mount of Olives, Bethany, Jericho and the 
 Dead Sea. 
 
 ■"I feared from what I had heard that I might be 
 disillusioned, but on the contrary my faith has been 
 deepened by my actually standing on the ground made 
 sacred by the feet of the blessed Saviour. ' ' The en- 
 thusiastic speaker was a charming young girl from 
 
 177
 
 178 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Philadelphia, who added in a burst of confidence : "Do 
 you know that when we hxnded my blessed mother 
 kneeled and kissed the very ground on which He 
 walked, and I am proud to say that I fell on my knees 
 beside her and did the same. I am so happy to have 
 had the privilege of visiting the Holy Land." 
 
 It is said that Jaffa is derived from the word mean- 
 ing beautiful, and this is a fitting term to apply when 
 the sea is smooth. The sea was smooth when we landed 
 at this port, which has a written history through ex- 
 isting tablets dating back to the fifteenth century 
 B.C. Classical scholars claim that the name is derived 
 from lopa, the daughter of ^^olus, Jaffa being the re- 
 puted scene of the legend of Andromeda. It is said 
 that in Pliny's time the chains were still shown with 
 which she was bound to the rock for the cruel mon- 
 ster afterward slain by Perseus. Where we landed so 
 peacefully the cedar and the pine wood sent to Solo- 
 mon by Hiram. King of Tyre, had come in floats by 
 sea for the building of the Temple, and again other 
 material for the rebuilding of the Temple under Zerub- 
 babel was brought from Lebanon to Jaffa as recorded 
 by Ezra. Here also Jonah shipped for Tarshish, or 
 Cadiz, and here Peter raised Dorcas to life and had 
 tlmt remarkable vision from the House of Simon the 
 Tinner. 
 
 By carriage it is forty miles from Jaffa to Jerusalem, 
 but the railroad distance is twelve or thirteen miles 
 jreater. One can drive to Jerusalem in eight hours or
 
 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 179 
 
 can ride in a railway carriage in a little less than four 
 hours ; this does not mean that undue haste is made by 
 carriage. The most impressive feature of the journey 
 as one leaves the port is the great number of orange- 
 groves. Other fruits — lemons, pomegranates, water- 
 melons, etc. — are found in great abundance, but it is 
 pre-eminently an orange-growing section. An orange 
 was handed to the writer which weighed twenty-three 
 ounces and had a circumference of fifteen inches. Fre- 
 quently two or three of these great oranges hang sus- 
 pended by a single stem. Hedges of prickly cactus and 
 in some cases barbed-wire fences separated the orange 
 groves or gardens. There are in the neighborhood of 
 Jaffa more than five hundred of these gardens, varying 
 in size from three and four acres to ten and twelve acres 
 each ; about one garden in five has two wells each and 
 the rest only one well each. A flourishing German 
 colony is at the north of the town and is making good 
 progress in helping to restore Palestine to its former 
 agricultural position. 
 
 From whatever part of Palestine one reaches the 
 Holy City, he must go up to it. Through the Holy 
 Land from north to south there runs a mountain range, 
 and on two of the hills, known as Mount Zion and 
 Mount Moriah, the famous city stands practically 
 twenty-five hundred feet above the level of the Medi- 
 terranean, and four thousand feet above the Dead Sea. 
 The former lies thirty-two miles to the west and the 
 latter eighteen miles to the east. In every respect save
 
 180 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 one the site is admirable. Its defect is its limited water- 
 supply; cisterns still are numerous, and without them 
 the water-supply would be practically cut off. Were 
 it not for its associations, Jerusalem would not be an 
 attractive place to visit. The barren condition of the 
 hills detracts greatly from the natural beauty of the 
 place. Cover the hills with vines and replace the for- 
 ests which doubtless crowned the hills at one time, and 
 the change would be tremendous. 
 
 The old city, including the area where the Mosque 
 of Omar stands, covers only about two hundred acres, 
 the size of a New England farm. The appearance of 
 the city is ancient, and properly so. for the walls that 
 surround it doubtless antedated the Christian era. but 
 some of them look as if they would not remain in their 
 present position much longer. The houses, like the 
 walls, especially those inside the walls, have an ancient 
 appearance also. The streets are narrow and without 
 sidewalks. David Street, which cuts the city from east 
 to west, and Christian Street, which iiins from David 
 Street to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. and the 
 street leading from the Damascus Gate on the north to 
 Zion's Gate on the south, are practically the only 
 thoroughfares that are worthy the name of street. 
 
 The stores in Jerusalem are primitive, but the mer- 
 chants manage to do a great deal of business. Some 
 are not more than ten feet wide and lift ecu feet long, 
 but the merchant packs in them an unusually large 
 quantity of wares. Camels and donkeys and their drivers
 
 A GLIMPSE OF THE HOLY CITY 181 
 
 are in the streets with their own peculiar method. 
 While the railroads are cutting up the Holy Land and 
 Egypt, it will be some time before the conservatism of 
 the people will do away with the camel trains which go 
 along the old road from Damascus to Jerusalem and on 
 
 DAVID STREET, JERUSALEM 
 
 to Egypt. It is easy to refer with a sneer to the don- 
 key as ' ' the Jerusalem nightingale, " or to speak of the 
 camel as an American lady is reported to have done : 
 "I don't like to criticise the Creator, but it does seem 
 to me that I could have attached the hind legs to their 
 bodies so as to make just as useful and much more 
 graceful creatures. And I could improve the hanging
 
 182 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 of their lower lips."" But regardless of criticism, the 
 donkey and the camel are still the popular animals of 
 the Orient, and it will be a long time before the rail- 
 road train and the automobile displace them. 
 
 Outside the city walls is the new Jerusalem, not the 
 one of which John speaks in the Apocalypse, but the 
 
 RUSSIAN IMUJUIMS 
 
 one which is restoring Jerusalem to its former popula- 
 tion, if not its old-time importance. While the old 
 city is unclean and lacks fresh air, in the new city the 
 air is pure. Around the houses, which are new, are 
 gardens and small vineyards. Here also are found the 
 Jewish colonies whose founders have a pride in their 
 settlement. Not far from the Pool of the Sultan, fa- 
 cing the Bethany road, is a colony started by a fund
 
 EDUCATION WITHOUT A PURPOSE 183 
 
 raised by Sir Moses Montefiore. Committees in Jeru- 
 salem and London working together built the houses 
 and sold them to families who are considered worthy. 
 The Greek Church has built hospices for its pilgrims 
 who throng the Holy City at Easter-time. Protestant 
 work is confined largely to the services held by the 
 Church of England and the German Church, whose 
 new edifice was opened by Emperor William, while 
 the Christian Alliance of New York and the Friends 
 carry on missions in and about the city. Schools and 
 hospitals for various classes are conducted by the 
 Protestant bodies, and by societies organized for the 
 purpose, and by a few individuals ; a mission to the 
 lepers is maintained. 
 
 A danger not wholly Oriental in its tendency was 
 illustrated in Jerusalem by an interview with two 
 young Jews who had just finished what would corre- 
 spond to a high school course in America. 
 
 ' ' What are you going to do with your education ? ' ' 
 one of the young men was asked. To the astonishment 
 of the writer the youth replied : 
 
 "We are going to leave Palestine.'" 
 
 "Why not stay here and help your people?" 
 
 "There is nothing here for an educated youth to do. 
 
 A few of the young men who pursue higher studies 
 
 elsewhere can come back as teachers, but for the most 
 
 of us there is nothing to do except to go to America." 
 
 "And what will you do when you reach America.'*" 
 
 "We have no idea. I have a cousin in Brooklyn,
 
 184 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 and my friend has a brother in Philadelphia, and we 
 will do something." 
 
 The impression produced by the young men was not 
 chiefly that they had no future in their country, which 
 is probably true. While they had been trained away 
 from their own people, they had not gone far enough 
 in their studies to be of any real service in solving the 
 problem of Palestine. Their utter helplessness with 
 the outlook before them was painful. Their cry was 
 not, "How can I help my people now?" but rather, 
 "Now that I have an education I am unfitted for any- 
 thing in this country. " And the pity of it all was 
 that apparently they were right. They were losers and 
 not gainers, so far, by what they had received from the 
 English school, and they knew it, and they blamed the 
 Government. They had decided to leave their land 
 and enter the battle with educated youths of America ; 
 if they enter that contest the issue for them is still 
 problematical. 
 
 But what of the country which they are leaving? 
 Is the fault with the Government, as so many people 
 in and out of Palestine charge, or is there just ground 
 for criticism in the charge that in Jerusalem, as in New 
 York and Philadelphia and other cities not under Turk- 
 ish control, the aim of the educator is to produce "fin- 
 ished scholars." the intellectual rather than the prac- 
 tical being ever in the mind of the educators? An 
 agr?Vultural school or college would seem peculiarly 
 fitting in Jerusalem.
 
 DR. GOTTHEIL OPTIMISTIC 
 
 185 
 
 Professor Richard Gottheil, of Columbia University, 
 New York, the director of the American School of Ar- 
 chaeology in Jerusalem, believes that the time will come 
 when Palestine will be in fact what the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures say in poetry it was at one time, "a land flowing 
 with milk and honey." The professor admits that 
 
 A BAND OF LEPERS 
 
 changes will have to come before that ideal is realized, 
 but he believes that they will come. When a friend 
 suggested that there would have to be a change in the 
 soil as well as in the government, he replied that ap- 
 pearances were often deceitful in Turkey as well as in 
 America, and that what appeared to be ordinary stone 
 on the hillsides of the Holy Land was really a fertilizer 
 in rock form. 
 
 Professor Gottheil has been giving special attention
 
 186 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 this 3^ear to the Mohammedan inscriptions, and has 
 received many courtesies from the Moslems. Incident- 
 ally he has been cataloguin<^ rare manuscripts and 
 books in the libraries and visiting various parts of the 
 country to acquaint himself with present-day conditions 
 in order to help in some way to improve them. That 
 there is needed improvement, even he with his op- 
 
 GOOD SAMARITAN INN 
 
 timism is obliged to admit. Not long ago a band 
 of men and boys stoned his carriage within twenty- 
 five miles of Jerusalem when his wife was riding: 
 with him. While the experience was mortifying as 
 well as dangerous, Di-. Gottheil liad an excuse rather 
 than censure for their act. The assailants were oflF 
 the beaten line of travel and did not meet many 
 foreigners ; when they had come more in contact with
 
 THE MOSQUE OF OMAR 187 
 
 Europeans there would be no danger of such occur- 
 rences. 
 
 The rides to Hebron and to Jericho and the Jordan 
 Valley are full of interest and attended with some risk, 
 but usually nothing of the thrill of a possible adventure 
 occurs. 
 
 It does not take long to see the places of popular 
 interest in Jerusalem, but several days can be profitably 
 occupied in studying those closely identified with Bible 
 history. While the area of the city is small, scenes 
 have been enacted there during the last thirty centuries 
 which have changed the destinies of mankind. To 
 these acres of land the leaders of the principal religions 
 of the world, Jewish, Moslem and Christian, turn for 
 their inspiration; toward these hilltops the majority 
 of the human family to-day look with a reverence and 
 a devotion which are given to no other part of the 
 earth's surface ! 
 
 Where the Mosque of Omar stands the beautiful 
 Temple of Solomon was erected, and later Herod's 
 Temple. Probably at some place on this very plateau 
 Abraham attempted to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice 
 to God. The Mosque of Omar is considered by many 
 students of architecture to be the finest building in 
 Asia. Professor Lewis would place it first among the 
 buildings of the world. Beautiful as is the structure, 
 with its colored marble pillars and impressive dome, 
 marble mosaics, tasteful decoration, stained glass win- 
 dows and magnificent rugs, the main feature of interest
 
 188 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 is the rock, directly under the dome, fifty-seven feet 
 long and forty-three broad, which marks the Altar of 
 Burnt Offerings. 
 
 Where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher stands the 
 
 N 
 
 CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHER 
 
 Romans erected a temple to Venus about 125 A. D. 
 Two hundred years later Eusebius wrote of the building 
 of the church there because it was believed to be the
 
 THE NEW CALVARY 189 
 
 place of Christ's burial. The first church was dedi- 
 cated in 336 A.D. and destroyed in 614 by the Per- 
 sians. In the eleventh century it was again destroyed 
 and rebuilt and enlarged by the Crusaders. In 1808 
 the structure was burned, but it was rebuilt two years 
 later at an expense of three million dollars. It is a 
 sad commentary upon Christianity that Turkish guards 
 hold the key to this Christian edifice, and that one of 
 their duties is to give religious freedom to the Latin. 
 Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Coptic and Abyssinian 
 Christians, each sect having its own shrine in the 
 building and each regarding the other as scarcely less 
 obnoxious than the Moslems who are at once their 
 avowed opponents and their legal protectors. 
 
 While the Church bears the name of the burial-jolace 
 of Jesus and not that of His crucifixion, it has long 
 been held by the two main branches of the Catholic 
 Church that it also marks the site of Calvary. Whether 
 or not this be true depends upon the age of the city 
 wall to the north of the Church. If this wall antedates 
 33 A.D., the Church cannot be on Calvary, because 
 that was outside the city. Experts on the age of the 
 wall in question are probably biased somewhat by their 
 religious creed, but the majority of scholars accept the 
 hill across the road from the wall and nearly opposite 
 the Damascus Gate as the probable site of the crucifix- 
 ion. Major Conder was the first real authority to press 
 the claims of this New Calvary, though Dr. Selah 
 Merrill, long the United States Consul at Jerusalem,
 
 190 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 shared the honor with the English explorer. Their 
 views were accepted by General Gordon, of Chinese and 
 African fame, who in addresses and through the press 
 argued in its favor. An enterprising photographer 
 took a view of the hill and called it "Gordon's Cal- 
 vary," and Gordon's Calvary it remains in spite 
 of its earlier advocates. The tomb in the Garden 
 near the New Calvary answers remarkably well to 
 the Gospel story of the tomb in which the body of 
 Jesus was laid and from which He rose the third 
 day. 
 
 It was neither harvest-time nor the Christmas season 
 when Bethlehem was visited, but it was not difficult to 
 people the plain toward the south, as the carriage 
 turned from the Hebron road into the one going to 
 Bethlehem, with harvesters and shepherds. Here was 
 Ruth gleaning in the fields of Boaz and finding favor 
 in the eyes of her kinsman, to whom later she gave her 
 heart as well as her hand, becoming in turn the mother 
 of Obed, the grandmother of Jesse and the great-grand- 
 mother of David. It was a far cry from Ruth the 
 Moabitess to one of the ancestors of Jesus, over whose 
 birth the angels sang above the same field where Ruth 
 had followed the reapers. 
 
 "Good tidings of great joy which shall be to all 
 people," was the announcement of the angel as he told 
 the wondering shepherds of the birth of Christ the Lord 
 in Bethlehem, and his message w.-is followed by the 
 presence of a multitude of the heavenl}' host "praising
 
 IN THE GROTTO OF THE MANGER 191 
 
 God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on 
 earth peace, good- will toward men." 
 
 ''There's a song in the air; 
 There's a star in the sky ; 
 There's a mother's deep prayer 
 And a Baby's low cry ; 
 And the star rains its fire while the beautiful sing. 
 For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King." 
 
 With such thoughts one enters Bethlehem to find 
 himself in an atmosphere suggesting neither shepherd- 
 like simplicity nor heavenly messages. The town has 
 about eight thousand people, all Christians practically, 
 but lacking a good deal of the peace and good-will 
 which was predicted by the angelic choir as the result 
 of the Saviour's birth. It is said by those who know, 
 that the people of Bethlehem have always been cele- 
 brated for their ruddy beauty and also for their fierce 
 turbulence, inclined like David to be "men of war from 
 their youth;" the frequent religious disturbances in 
 Jerusalem are said to be instigated and carried on in 
 large part by Bethlehemites. Scripture has many illus- 
 trations of similar uprisings from the days of Saul to 
 the fortifications built by Rehoboam, after the division 
 of the Kingdom, down to Chimham, mentioned in 
 Jeremiah in connection with Bethlehem as the gather- 
 ing-place of the warring faction which persisted in go- 
 ing down to Egypt against the advice of the prophet. 
 
 The principal building iii Bethlehem to-day is the 
 Church of the Nativity, with its three contiguous con-
 
 192 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 vents belonging respectively to the Latin, Greek and 
 Armenian Churches. In the Grotto of the Manger a 
 dozen Americans with their guide were learning the 
 meaning of this and that picture and star. A soldier 
 with his rifle was stationed near, and at a little distance 
 stood a Greek Christian, quite apart from the Ameri- 
 
 CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY, UETHLEIIEM 
 
 cans and near to three large candles. A slight noise 
 took the soldier across the room, and the Greek was 
 detained till we had left the Grotto. Immediately an- 
 other soldier was called. I went back to the Grotto, 
 but the guide said : 
 
 "He is not of our party; come along. " 
 
 Another call, and a Eranciscan monk entered the
 
 COMMOTION IN THE GROTTO 193 
 
 Grotto. Ill a few minutes the Greek joined us and 
 explained the cause of the commotion. The candles 
 rest on springs which rise as the candles are consumed ; 
 one of the springs became released, and it fell on the 
 arm of the Greek, and could not be touched by him or 
 the soldier, but only by the Franciscan who had charge 
 of the candles. 
 
 The Greek protested that it was accidental, and he 
 had plenty of witnesses to prove his statement. 
 
 ''What would have happened if you had been an 
 Armenian?" the Greek was asked. 
 
 ''I should have been sent to prison for desecrating 
 the holy place of the Catholics. ' ' 
 
 "And then what?" 
 
 "Who can tell?" 
 
 The Greek seemed to feel that he had fallen among 
 Christian friends, and he clung to us like a brother 
 beloved during our stay in the church. Only once did 
 he turn back, and that was when the men in a body 
 were invited to see the orange-tree which grew in the 
 time of Jerome. It was explained to the women that 
 there was no reason why they should not see the tree 
 except that they would be obliged to pass through the 
 vestment room of the monks. The tree, which con- 
 tained many oranges, is so old that the trunk has wasted 
 away until it is little more than a slab. 
 
 The Church of the Nativity is thought to be the old- 
 est monument of Christian architecture in the world. 
 It is the basilica erected by Constantine in 330 A. D.,
 
 194 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 and it is still a fine building, in spite of its extreme age. 
 It contains four rows of marble columns of the Corin- 
 thian order, each of a single stone. On some of the 
 shafts are the crests of Crusaders. A medieval font 
 bears the inscription that it was given by those ''whose 
 names are known to the Lord. ' ' The mosaics on the 
 wall date from 1169 A.D. The Chapel, or Grotto, of 
 the Nativity is a cave in the rock, twenty feet below 
 the floor of the choir ; it is thirty-three feet by eleven 
 feet, incased in Italian marble and decorated with 
 lamps, figures of saints, embroidery and various other 
 ornaments. On the east side of the Grotto is a recess 
 where a silver star on the pavement indicates the spot 
 where the Christians of Bethlehem — and for that mat- 
 ter the greater part of Christendom — believe the Sa- 
 viour was born. Around the star is the Latin inscrip- 
 tion : "Hie de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus Natus 
 Est." "Here of the Vii-gin Mary Jesus Christ was 
 born.'' Above this spot sixteen silver lamps are per- 
 petually burning; of these six belong to the Greeks 
 and five each to the Latins and Armenians. A plain 
 altar near at hand is used by the three sects on their 
 special festival days. 
 
 With the words of Phillips Brooks in our minds as a 
 prayer, we slowly retraced our steps toward Jerusalem : 
 
 ''O holy Child of Bethlehem, 
 Descend to us, we pray ; 
 Cast out our sin and enter in, 
 Be born in us to-day.
 
 IN THE GARDEN OF SADNESS 195 
 
 We hear the Christmas angels 
 The great ghid tidings tell ; 
 
 Oh, come to us, abide with us. 
 Our Lord Emmanuel ! ' ' 
 
 As one drives to Bethany and stops at the Garden of 
 
 GETHSEMANE iUNfD H'S KEEPER 
 
 Gethsemane on the western slope of Olivet there is 
 nothing to suggest the sadness and the loneliness prece-
 
 196 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 ding the Crucifixion hour; and yet they were there, and 
 the sleeping disciples and the base betrayal. The olive- 
 trees date back hundreds of years, hov/ many no one 
 knows. The Garden itself, enclosed, and cared for by 
 a Franciscan monk, is filled with flowers, including 
 quantities of rosemary, fit tokens of remembrance. 
 While the Garden is small — the one reverenced by the 
 Latin Church and English-speaking travelers as a rule 
 — there is another one farther up the hillside to which 
 Russian pilgrims and other adherents of the Greek 
 Church wend their way, and worship in the Chapel of 
 St. Mary Magdalene erected near it by the Russian 
 Emperor in 1888 in honor of his mother. It is thought 
 by many that the two gardens were in the time of Jesus 
 one, and that it was the property of a friend of the 
 Master and a favorite place of retirement for Him. 
 Farther up the mountain still is the Chapel of the 
 Paternoster, a pretty little building erected where, tra- 
 dition says, the Master taught the Prayer to His dis- 
 ciples. Around the walls of an arcade built about a 
 small garden the Lord's Prayer is inscribed in thirty- 
 two different languages. In a near-by convent Car- 
 melite sisters reside and care for the chapel. Dr. 
 Edwin S. Wallace, a former United States Consul, says 
 that prayer is made by these sisters continually in this 
 chapel, and no matter what hour of the day or night 
 one were to enter he would see the sweet, holy face of 
 one of these sisters as she kneels before the altar. 
 
 The Chapel of the Ascension and the Russian Church
 
 ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVET 197 
 
 with its sightly tower crown the Mount of Olives. 
 From the top of the tower, or from one of its landings, 
 one can look through the windows and get a good view 
 of the Dead Sea to the southeast, with the mountains of 
 Moab stretching away in the distance. Here, as at no 
 other point in Palestine, can one see so many places 
 
 DAMASCUS GATE 
 
 identified with the earthly life of the Master. If one 
 would "see Jesus" let him go to the Mount of Olives. 
 To the south a half-dozen miles lies Bethlehem, where 
 He was born. To the north, not in view it is true, but 
 just beyond those mountain ranges, He increased in 
 wisdom and favor with God and man as He grew in 
 stature and years. To the east of the tower, a thousand 
 feet below and perhaps fifteen miles away, lies the 
 Jordan River, like a thread of silver, and almost in
 
 198 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 sight are the Jordan fords, where His baptism took 
 place and where the words of divine approval were 
 spoken. 
 
 Here, in contemplation, one can understand the spirit 
 of the Galilean peasant who, in the forceful words of 
 Richard Watson Gilder, is uncertain whether Jesus was 
 human or divine; but whether manor God his own 
 course is clear as the poet pictures his mind : 
 
 "If Jesus Christ is a man — 
 And only a man — I say 
 That of all mankind I cleave to him, 
 And to him will I cleave alway. 
 
 "If Jesus Christ is a God — 
 
 And the only God — I swear 
 I will follow him through heaven and hell, 
 The earth, the sea, and the air ! ' ' 
 
 Two miles away are the ruins of the Bethany village, 
 fragrant still, for the Christian believer, with the odor 
 of the precious ointment poured from the throbbing 
 heart of love. Here, also, is the empty tomb from which 
 stepped the brother whom Mary and Martha and Jesus 
 loved. At the foot of the mountain, toward the west, 
 is Gethscmane, and yonder, just over the ra\ine, is the 
 city which He loved and over which He wept. And 
 once more, a little farther toward the west, on one or 
 the other of two hills. He cried: "My God, my God, 
 why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Well does Mr. Gilder 
 portray that scene :
 
 THE RISEN LORD 199 
 
 "Such anguish! such betrayal! Who could paint 
 That tragedy ! one human, piteous cry — 
 'Forsaken' — and black death ! If he was God, 
 'Twas for an instant only, his despair ; 
 Or was he man, and there is life beyond, 
 And soon or late the good rewarded are, 
 Then too is recompense. 
 
 "But was he man. 
 And death ends all, then was that tortured death 
 On Calvary a thing to make the pulse 
 Of memory quail and stop." 
 
 But one should not leave the Holy City with such a 
 picture in his mind, true though it be. Let Mr. Gilder 
 close the chapter with the thought of a living, helpful 
 Christ : 
 
 '*The Lord is risen indeed. 
 He is here for your love, for your need — 
 Not in the grave, nor the sky, 
 But here where men live and die. 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 "Wherever are tears and sighs, 
 Wherever are children's eyes, 
 Where man calls man his brother, 
 And loves as himself another, 
 Christ lives ! The angels said : 
 *Why seek ye the living among the dead.^" "
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 EGYPT AND THE NILE 
 
 Pygmies are pygmies still, though perched on Alps; 
 
 And pyramids are pyramids in vales. 
 
 Each man makes his own stature, builds himself ; 
 
 Virtue alone outbids the pyramids ; 
 
 Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall. 
 
 —Edward Young in "Night Thoughts." 
 
 /^NE usually enters Egypt at Alexandria or Port 
 ^^^ Said. Colonel Roosevelt sailed from Naples 
 through the Suez Canal to East Africa, and after his 
 year of hunting went down the Nile to Khartoum 
 and then to Cairo and Alexandria. The approach to 
 Alexandria from the sea is not especially impressive ; 
 there is a long low breakwater, behind which appears 
 the dusty gray line of shore, and behind that again 
 equally gray buildings. 
 
 Alexandria, founded in 331 B.C. by Alexander the 
 Great, forms a lasting memorial of Egyptian campaign. 
 In 69 A. D. Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by the 
 Alexandrians. In Trajan's reign the Jews caused san- 
 guinary riots. Marcus Aurelius attended the lectures 
 of the grammarians in this city. Napoleon arrived in 
 Alexandria. July 1, 1798, ho})ing to destroy the British 
 trade in the Mediterranean and by occupying Egypt to 
 neutralize the power of England in India. The fol- 
 
 200
 
 FROM ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO 201 
 
 lowing day Alexandria was stormed, and on July 21 
 the Battle of the Pyramids was fought in which the 
 French defeated the Mamelukes, but the victory was 
 not long-lived. The British fleet, commanded by Nel- 
 son, on August 1 defeated the French fleet fifteen miles 
 from Alexandria, destroying thirteen of their seventeen 
 vessels. Alexandria to-day is largely European. Its 
 fine streets and modern buildings suggest an English 
 town. 
 
 Christianity early found its way to Alexandria. It 
 is said that the Gospel was first preached there by St. 
 Mark. The first great persecution fell with consider- 
 able weight upon the people of this city. The decline 
 of Alexandria became rapid in proportion as Cairo, the 
 newly founded capital on the Nile, became prosperous. 
 
 Cairo is one hundred and thirty miles south from 
 Alexandria, and one finds a new phase of life on the 
 journey: Cotton, clover and sorghum fields are seen on 
 both sides of the road. Camels and donkeys and now 
 and then a horse are seen, while the industrious natives 
 are busily engaged in the fields hard at work, with the 
 water coming from the irrigation canals. The princi- 
 pal towns passed on the way are Damanhur, with some 
 twenty-two thousand inhabitants, and Tantah. with a 
 population of sixty thousand. At Tantah there are 
 large public buildings, churches, bazaars, a prison, and 
 an extensive palace of the Khedive. As the train nears 
 Cairo the Libyan Chain becomes more visible and the 
 Mosque of Mohammed Ali. with its splendid minarets.
 
 202 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 appears. The scenery becomes more pleasing ; gardens 
 and palaces come in sight. To the left lies the site of 
 the ruins of Heliopolis, and soon the guard calls : 
 
 "A.11 out for Cairo!" 
 
 The origin of the Egyptian race has been traced to 
 Libya and farther back to the Euphrates. To-day the 
 
 SAILING ON THE NILE 
 
 number of distinct elements in the population of the 
 country rivals that in America. They include the Fella- 
 heen, the tillers or peasants, who are the main strength 
 of the nation; the Copts, who are engaged in trades 
 — watchmakers, goldsmiths, embroiderers — though 
 there is a peasant class among them, especially in Upper 
 Egypt; Bedouins, the term applied to the nomadic 
 Arabs, who, while differing greatly in origin and Ian-
 
 THE GIFT OF THE NILE 203 
 
 guage, all profess Mohammedanism ; Arabs, who dwell 
 in towns and are shopkeepers, officials' servants, coach- 
 men and donkey-boys ; Nubians, who dwell for the most 
 part between Assouan and the Fourth Cataract, and are 
 physically inferior to the Egyptians, though they are 
 said to be superior to them in cleanliness and honesty ; 
 Sudan Negroes, most of whom have been brought down 
 the Nile as slaves; Turks, chiefly found in towns, as 
 Government officials, soldiers and merchants; Levan- 
 tines and Syrians, members of various Mediterranean 
 races, for the most part professing the Latin form of 
 Christianity and usually speaking Arabic and two or 
 three European languages, employed as shopkeepers, 
 clerks in the consulates and in the Government offices ; 
 Armenians and Jews, also adept in learning languages, 
 makine themselves useful in the Government service 
 and in business ; Europeans, Greeks, Italians, French, 
 Austrians, Germans and a few Russians, Belgians, 
 Scandinavians and Americans. The countries from 
 which they come send consuls to represent their in- 
 terests as well as to encourage trade with Egypt. 
 
 Egypt is peculiarly the gift of the Nile ; no other 
 country is so dependent upon a watercourse as is this 
 one. As practically no rain falls in Egypt, the coun- 
 try would cease to exist as a fertile country were it 
 not for the annual inundation of the river which is 
 caused by the heavy rains that fall from June to Sep- 
 tember on the Abyssinian tableland. The Nile begins 
 to rise at Khartoum about the middle of May and at
 
 204 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Assouan the first of June, reaching its greatest height 
 early in September. The rise is about twenty-two feet 
 at Cairo ; the average rise is sixteen feet. By means 
 
 AN EGYPTIA.\ ■WOMAN 
 
 of irrigation the supply of water is led into basins, the 
 mud allowed to settle and the water released when 
 needed. 
 
 The dam at Assouan, constructed to regulate the 
 water-supply of tlic country, is the largest structure of
 
 WHO RULES EGYPT? 205 
 
 the kind in the world, damming the water of the Nile 
 to a height of eighty-three feet, so that a regular sup- 
 ply can be furnished for the irrigation of the country 
 during the time of low water. By means of this reser- 
 voir upward of five hundred thousand acres have been 
 added to the area of land which can be cultivated. So 
 successful was the dam which was completed in 1902 
 that the Egyptian Government decided to add twenty- 
 three feet to its height, increasing its capacity two and 
 a half times, and adding nine hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand acres to the arable district in Southern Egypt. 
 
 The Khedive or King of Egypt is the head of the 
 Government, and is supposed to rule Egypt. As a 
 matter of fact, the country pays an annual tribute to 
 Turkey of $3,500,000. For nearly thirty years Great 
 Britain has been the real ruler, acting in an official 
 capacity as trustee for debts due her and France, Ger- 
 many, Russia, Austria, Italy and other European coun- 
 tries. Whether England should be in Egypt at all. 
 and if so how long, is no longer an academic question. 
 That she is there and that she will stay there is much 
 more to the point than explaining why she is there, or 
 suggesting that she should go away if she is not fulfil 
 ling her mission. That she is improving the condition 
 of the country cannot be denied ; that her purpose is 
 wholly philanthropic is denied in strong terms by many 
 Egyptians. Commerce has developed, laws are ad- 
 ministered with justice, education, conducted along 
 Western lines, has made rapid progress, and general
 
 206 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 financial improvement is admitted. But practical men 
 know that England is in Egypt to insure payment upon 
 the bonds of the Suez Canal, which her people largely 
 own. Were there no Suez Canal cutting the country, 
 England would never have had an army in Egypt, 
 
 It is idle to talk about England leaving Egypt. 
 With France having a free hand in Algiers and Ger- 
 man power allowed to increase in Africa, England is 
 pretty sure to be let alone in Egypt. There is a power, 
 however, which may cause England at least anxious 
 thought in regard to her Egyptian relations, and on 
 this power the young Egyptians are depending. Three 
 interviews which the writer had in Cairo one day show 
 something of the disturbed feelings in Egypt and how 
 the Egyptians look at English control. 
 
 Discussing the shooting of Boutros Pasha Ghali. the 
 Prime Minister of Egypt, by a young member of the 
 Nationalist Society in the winter of 1910, one of the 
 leading writers for the press in Cairo said that he was 
 well acquainted with the murderer; in fact the young 
 man had been a student of his. but the speaker asserted 
 that he had no sympathy with the criminal. 
 
 "His motive,'- he explained, "undoubtedly was to 
 aid his country, but far more than he knew he has 
 helped England and hurt Egypt. England could well 
 afford to have several murders of this kind, for then 
 she would have the excuse which is lacking; now of usinir 
 force, and in a more pronounced form than she does 
 at present. Every Egyptian official murdered by an
 
 TO EMANCIPATE EGYPT UOl 
 
 Egyptian hastens the day when England will be in 
 actual control of the country. She is playing a waiting 
 game to-day, and may for some time. She can afford 
 to wait until by some avowed act or series of acts she 
 feels compelled to do in Egypt practically what Japan 
 has done in Korea, and the nations of Europe will ap- 
 prove her assuming control of a country which cannot 
 protect its own officials. The only hope of Egypt is to 
 repress such acts as the murder of one of her leading 
 citizens, even though his sympathies are understood to 
 be English." 
 
 A young medical student was discussing the tragedy 
 and also lamenting, as the newspaper writer had done, 
 the zeal of the young man. At the same time it was 
 plain to see that he did not regret the act so much as 
 the advantage which England would take of it. The 
 student believed, he said, that Egypt would come to 
 her own, not by bloodshed but by education. When a 
 sufficient number of Egyptian youths are trained and 
 educated to manage their own country as English 
 youths are brought up to believe that the destinies of 
 Great Britain are in their hands, the power of govern- 
 ing Egypt will be transferred to Egyptians, and Eng- 
 land will lift her hand gradually and finally withdraw 
 from Egypt, confident that the lessons which she has 
 taught Egypt will be carried on by those whom she has 
 helped to train. 
 
 Quite different was the attitude of one of the younger 
 Egyptians met in the bazaar. He spoke English flu-
 
 208 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 ently and was a product of English training, not in 
 Egypt alone but in England as well. 
 
 "The Prime Minister received what he deserved. 
 Any Egyptian who will side with England must pay 
 the price of his perfidy. Any official who is false to 
 Egypt will suffer as he did. Men must not accept 
 office and become traitors to their country. The bullet 
 has been formed and the knife sharpened to kill Egypt's 
 betrayers. ' ' 
 
 "But the suggestion has been made that in this 
 course lies folly ; that England will avenge such 
 wrongs. ' ' 
 
 "England knows how far she can go with safety.'" 
 
 "And if she goes beyond that point — ?'' 
 
 "What did the American colonists do when endur- 
 ance ceased to be a virtue.? Do Egyptians not love 
 liberty as well as Americans.? Is there no heroism on 
 Mediterranean shores.? England will be driven from 
 Egypt as your fathers drove her from America. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Do you not forget our ancestry ? ' ' 
 
 "And do you not forget our allies.?'' 
 
 "And who are they.?" 
 
 "The Mohammedans in Turkey, the Mohammedans 
 in the Sudan, the Mohammedans in India. It is not 
 mere chance that Turkey receives tribute from Egypt, 
 and the Turks are Mohammedans. Matters in the 
 Sudan aie not wholly satisfactory to the people in that 
 district, and the Sudan is F>gypt. Do you not think 
 that England knows her limitations in Egypt? Do you
 
 A HOLY WAR SUGGESTED 
 
 209 
 
 think that England desires to start a Holy War? Do 
 you think she wishes to imperil her standing in India? 
 India is more to Great Britain than Egypt. Her 
 
 CLIMBING THE PYRAMIDS 
 
 wealth beyond the Red Sea is of greater value than her 
 Suez Canal bonds. She knows that, and we know it 
 too. You have seen what the Young Turks have done 
 along the Bosphorus ; within a decade you shall read
 
 210 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 what the Young Egyptians have done along the Nile. 
 We are not hurrying matters — simply giving traitors 
 an occasional warning, such as the killing of the Prime 
 Minister. In the meantime, in England and France, 
 in Turkey and India, and in Japan and America, our 
 young men are learning how to strike eflFectively when 
 the time is ripe for giving the blow which shall free 
 Egypt.- 
 
 Cairo has been styled by some one "the diamond 
 stud on the handle of the fan of the Delta.'' Situated 
 on the right bank of the Nile, some dozen miles below 
 the point where the stream divides into the Rosetta and 
 Damietta arms, the city covers an area of eleven square 
 miles, running east to the barren, reddish cliffs of the 
 Mokattam Hills, which rise 650 feet in height and form 
 the beginning of the eastern desert. The city has ex- 
 tended so much toward the west in recent years that 
 it has crossed the Nile, absorbing Bulak, which was 
 formerly a separate town, and the Island of Gezireh. 
 It is the largest city in Africa, as well as in the Arabian 
 region. It is the residence of the Khedive and of the 
 ministers and principal authorities. The population is 
 between six and seven hundred thousand, including fifty 
 thousand foreigners, the majority of whom are Greeks 
 and Italians. 
 
 As one walks through the streets of Cairo the first 
 impression is that all the world is represented there ; as 
 a matter of fact in the tourist season that statement is 
 nearly true. The street scenes afford an inexhaustible
 
 STREET SCENES IN CAIRO 211 
 
 fund of amusement and delight, illustrating the whole 
 world of Oriental fiction, and producing an indelible 
 impression on the traveler from the West. This life, 
 peculiar to Cairo, may be seen when one is driving, but 
 to see it at its best or worst one must go through the 
 Arabian or Coptic quarters, where the streets are so 
 narrow that there is scarcely room for one carriage to 
 drive, not to speak of passing another, and where the 
 balconies of the harems project so far that sometimes 
 they seem to meet. 
 
 Cairo is not a good place for a person who has nerves, 
 or who thinks he has — is it a distinction without a 
 difference? No one was killed in the streets as far as 
 the writer knows while he was in the cit}^ but at least 
 a hundred, maybe a thousand people, seemed in immi- 
 nent danger of being killed or driven insane as the car- 
 riages, donkeys and camels twisted in and out among 
 those on foot. Broadway in its busiest hours is quiet 
 compared with many of the streets of Cairo all the time, 
 for in the principal thoroughfares the rush-hour lasts 
 all day, and one literally takes his life in his hands 
 unless he takes a carriage, and then he is torn between 
 the fear that he will kill somebody or that his driver 
 will kill the team. After a day or two, however, the 
 strongest nerves either give way or become dulled, and 
 he learns that the fearful blows that he has heard from 
 the driver's whip fell not upon the quivering flesh of 
 his beasts, but about a foot above their backs. How 
 the Egyptians escape being run down he is not able to
 
 212 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 decide ; a European or an American would about as 
 soon be run down as to hear the unearthly shouts of 
 warning which are given to prevent his being injured. 
 And when you have added to these noises others caused 
 by the jingling of money at the changer's table at every 
 corner, the rattling of the vessels of the water-carriers, 
 the barking of the dogs, the moaning of the camels — 
 not to speak of the musical notes of the Egyptian 
 nightingale, as the donkeys are called — you have a 
 picture that it would be difficult to reproduce elsewhere. 
 The great official university of Mohammedanism was 
 founded in 975 and is called University El-Azhar, 
 '"The Splendid.'' The various compartments are used 
 by students from different countries, one section being 
 for those from Mecca and another for blind students. 
 There are said to be six or seven thousand students with 
 two hundred and twenty-five teachers. The curriculum 
 for the younger students consists in studying the Arabic 
 language sufficiently well to learn the Koran. The 
 method of teaching consists principally in training the 
 memory, giving little time or thought to original work. 
 The bazaars are fascinating beyond the power of a 
 man to describe, especially in the Mouski. but even a 
 man can appreciate the Persian tea and the Turkish 
 Delight which are interspersed between sales. Shawls, 
 pillow-covers, necklaces, brasses, canes, rugs, embroid- 
 eries and — but one must see the bazaars for himself, or 
 better, for herself, to understand the al)undance which 
 it is possible to procure while the check-book holds out.
 
 IN FRONT OF THE SPHINX 213 
 
 One afternoon was given to Old Cairo with its Coptic 
 Church and the oklest mosque in Egypt, and a visit to 
 the Ishmd of Rhoda, where it is said Moses was found 
 among the bulrushes. Now he is found in the upper 
 end of nearly every souvenir spoon as well as in the 
 watch-charms which the peripatetic venders display — 
 you can buy a Moses at almost any price, with or with- 
 out a bulrush. The Nileometer, dating from 716 A.D., 
 is also on this island. It is in the form of a well, six- 
 teen feet square with a column in the center inscribed 
 with Arabic measurements, and the height of the river 
 is indicated on this column. 
 
 Why people desert Alexandria and go to Cairo at 
 
 once is not simply to get into the swirl of the Oriental 
 
 life, but to feel the thrill which comes to one who looks 
 
 for the first time on the Pyramids eight miles from the 
 
 city. One may go to the Pyramids by carriage or by 
 
 trolley-car — but one should go both ways ; people who 
 
 are sentimental plan to have one of the trips at night. 
 
 that they may gaze at the great burial-places and at 
 
 one another under the spell of an Oriental moonlight. 
 
 Both of our journeys were made in the daytime, and 
 
 were especially enjoyable. Of course we rode on camels 
 
 and donkeys and had our photographs taken, and did 
 
 all that was expected of mature and dignified travelers. 
 
 Another morning was spent in the museum with the 
 
 mummies and the sarcophagi and the jewels and the 
 
 household implements dating back to the century of 
 
 the Christian era and as many more centuries before
 
 214 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 the Child Jesus with His parents came to Egypt. The 
 museum is not far from the great Nile bridge and is a 
 
 THE SPHINX AND THK PYRAMIDS 
 
 fine building in the Greco- Roman style and cost about 
 a million dollars. There is also an Arabian museum 
 well worthy of a visit.
 
 MODERN MISSION WORK 215 
 
 From Cairo one goes to Sakkara, a day's excursion, 
 or up the Nile to Luxor or Assouan, spending from 
 three to eleven days, and visiting the ruins of Karnak, 
 the Tombs of the Kings, and as many interesting places 
 along the famous river as the time at his disposal will 
 allow. 
 
 The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean with 
 the Red Sea, constructed 1859—1869 by Ferdinand 
 de Lesseps, shortens the distance between London and 
 Bombay more than five thousand miles. It pays sixteen 
 per cent, dividends upon the stock. In a single month 
 last year 368 vessels passed through the Canal, bring- 
 ing in receipts of $2,000,000. One ship paid $35,000 
 toll for its passage of one hundred miles. 
 
 Modern mission work in Egypt began with the efforts 
 of the Moravians in 1752, but it was abandoned thirty 
 years later. In 1824 the Church Missionary Society of 
 Great Britain sent out five missionaries. The success 
 which might have been expected did not result, owing 
 to persecution and failure to get additional workers, 
 and in 1862 the mission was discontinued. 
 
 Before the English banner was lowered, however, 
 another from America was raised, and throughout the 
 Nile Valley to-day, from the seaboard to the First Cat- 
 aract, and from the First Cataract to the Sobat River, 
 are stations of the American Mission, which is really 
 the Mission of the United Presbyterian Church of 
 North America. Representatives of this Mission landed 
 in Cairo in 1854. One of them came after ten years
 
 21G THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 of missionary service in Syria, where the Arabic lan- 
 guage had been used. The organization of the first 
 Presbytery in 1860 marked the beginning of the new 
 
 SETI I. Ii\ THE MUSEUM AT CAIRO 
 
 ecclesiastical organism, molded for the time out of for- 
 eign materia], but destined to become erelong predomi- 
 nantly Egyptian in its membership. Within ten years 
 every form of missionary activity — medical work ex- 
 cepted — had been started that the conditions in Egypt
 
 NO LONGER ON THE DEFENSIVE 217 
 
 called for — evangelistic, educational, colportage, native 
 church, women's work, and theological seminary. 
 
 The American Mission in its educational department 
 enrolled a year ago 16,771 children, while in all the 
 Government schools for a year the enrolment was 18,- 
 712. At the head of the system is the College at 
 Assiout. with 700 students. The Pressly Memorial In- 
 stitute and Luxor Girls' School minister to the higher 
 education of girls in Upper Egypt, while the Girls' 
 School of Cairo is developing into a Girls' College for 
 the elevation of womanhood in Lower Egypt. The 
 book department works in co-operation with the Bible 
 Societies of America and Great Britain, selling tens 
 of thousands of Bibles and religious books every year. 
 Two strong and well-equipped hospitals are found, one 
 at Assiout and the other at Tantah. In the former 
 more than two thousand in-patients are cared for in 
 a year, while twenty thousand are reached through a 
 clinic. With the opening of the Sudan, mission work 
 was started in 1899, which is carried on in part by 
 money and workers sent from the Church in Egypt. 
 
 In summarizing the work and growth of the Ameri- 
 can Mission in Egypt these facts are given by the Rev. 
 Charles R. Watson in his volume, "In the Valley of the 
 Nile." Its foreign missionaries (excluding wives) 
 number fifty workers. To these add thirty-seven men 
 and women, foreign workers, laboring in colleges, 
 schools or hospitals. Forty-six ordained native min- 
 isters and fifteen licentiates care for the spiritual in-
 
 218 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 terest of sixty organized congregations and a member- 
 ship of 10,000 people; there are 567 native workers. 
 Some twenty thousand men and women listen every 
 Sabbath to the preaching of the Gospel; 14,177 gather 
 for instruction in the Sabbath-schools, while the hos- 
 pitals and clinics touch with the hand of sympathy and 
 healing some 35,000 people every year. The harem 
 workers visit 5,220 women, and give them instruction 
 in their homes. Two facts may close this summary : 
 Fifty-three per cent, of the whole cost of the American 
 Mission in Egypt comes from the natives themselves, 
 and the ingathering on confession of faith in a single 
 year amounts to 904 persons. 
 
 Persecution has not been lacking in Egypt during 
 the last half-century, but to-day Christianity has won a 
 place in the Nile country which, apparently, persecu- 
 tion cannot affect. No longer on the defensive, the 
 missionaries held in Cairo in 1906 a Conference of 
 Workers among Moslems, when sixty-two representa- 
 tives from twenty-nine missionary societies in Europe 
 and America, together with an equal number of mis- 
 sionary visitors, considered the problems of Islam, and 
 how to attack those problems. No longer are indirect 
 methods approved, but to-day specialized methods and 
 specialized agents are called for direct attack. Dr. 
 Watson, in his graphic survey of the missionary move- 
 ment in Egypt in the volume just mentioned, predicts 
 that "ere the present generation pass away Christ may 
 be made known in every city and town and village and 
 hamlet of the Nile Valley, if the Church be willing."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 ITALY: PEOPLE, ART AND RELIGION 
 
 Dear Italy ! the sound of thy soft name 
 Soothes me with balm of Memory and Hope. 
 Mine, for the moment, height and sweep and slope 
 That once were mine. Supreme is still the aim 
 
 To flee the cold and gray 
 
 Of our December day. 
 And rest where the clear spirit burns with unconsuming flame. 
 
 Thou human-hearted land, whose revels hold 
 Man in communion with the antique days. 
 And summon him from prosy greed to ways 
 V/here youth is beckoning to the Age of Gold ; 
 
 How thou dost hold him near 
 
 And whisper in his ear 
 Of the lost Paradise that lies beyond the alluring haze 
 
 — Robert Underwood Johnson. 
 
 '"T ^ THEN you sit down to write a newspaper story, 
 ▼ V take your Bible and read carefully the first 
 chapter of Genesis. There you will find graphic de- 
 scription blended with careful condensation. In twenty- 
 one verses you can read the history of the Creation of 
 the World, given in full, not a detail omitted nor a 
 needless word put in. Moses was a model newspaper 
 man. Why, Devins, if I were to send you out to report 
 such an event you would fill as many pages as Moses 
 did verses.'' 
 
 The advice of the city editor, whose patience with the 
 
 219
 
 220 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 young reporter was well-nigh exhaustless. is recalled as 
 he sits down to write a chapter on Italy. Volumes of 
 poetry have been written upon the cities and the people 
 of this wonderful country, running back nearly twenty- 
 eight centuries. Libraries are filled with books rela- 
 ting to the art and the architecture, the painting and 
 the music, the romance and the history of the remark- 
 able people who have lived, or who are now living, on 
 this small promontory thrust out into the Mediterra- 
 nean. Rome, Florence, Venice — for any one of these 
 cities and others ex- President Eliot would have to add 
 several feet to his shelf to accommodate the books 
 which have been produced ; in a recent volume on 
 Florence the bibliography relating to that one city 
 contains sixty-seven titles. Italy has been called by a 
 recent author ''The Magic Land," and no other term 
 seems quite so appropriate when one thinks of the 
 modern past of Rome, of the period of Canova and 
 Thorwaldsen, of the Rome of the Hawthornes and the 
 Brownings, of the noble works of Michelangelo and 
 the galleries of the Vatican. 
 
 One scarcely needs in a single chapter on Italy more 
 than to refer to her primitive populations, the fortunes 
 of their successors, the civil w.irs and murders in royal 
 families which changed the dynasties of the nation, 
 the rise, decline and fall of the Empire of Rome, the 
 extension and power of the Papal authority on the 
 banks of the Tiber, the abolition of the temporal power 
 of the Pope, the erection of the Kingdom of Italy, the
 
 THE CITY OF FASCINATION 221 
 
 successful war against Austria led by Victor Emmanuel 
 II., resulting, with Garibaldi's unrivaled efforts, in 
 making a united Italy. The history of Italy in the 
 nineteenth century, beginning with the victory of Na- 
 poleon at Marengo and ending with the accession of 
 Victor Emmanuel III., the present King of Italy, is a 
 veritable romance. In that century, as in other cen- 
 turies, the artist and the warrior worked side by side, 
 each doing the work appointed to his hand ; the states- 
 man and the preacher lived their lives and made their 
 impressions and left their records. 
 
 "God sends His teachers unto every age, 
 To every clime and every race of men, 
 With revelations fitted to their growth 
 And shape of mind ; nor gives the realm of truth 
 Into the selfish rule of one sole race. ' ' 
 
 Naples has been called the City of Fascination. 
 Rome is admitted to be stately and impressive, Florence 
 all beauty and enchantment, Genoa picturesque, and 
 Venice a dream city, but Naples is simply — fascina- 
 tino-. Who that has been there does not sympathize 
 
 to 
 
 with Thomas Buchanan Read, who says in his lines on 
 
 Naples : 
 
 "My soul to-day 
 Is far away. 
 
 Sailing the Vesuvian Bay ; 
 My winged boat, 
 A bii-d afloat. 
 Swims round the purple peak remote."
 
 222 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Naples in the Roman period was a favorite residence 
 of the nobles. The Emperor Augustus lived there, and 
 on the hill of Posilipo Lucullus had his gardens. Some 
 of his best poetry Virgil composed with the Bay of 
 Naples in the foreground and the smoking Vesuvius in 
 
 BAY OF NAPLES AND VESUVIUS 
 
 the distance. The out-of-door life of the Neapolitans 
 is picturesque and entertaining. In the Via Rome, the 
 main artery of the traffic of Naples, which presents a 
 busy scene at all hours, one may find a motley throng, 
 especially in the evening and after dark. The Villa 
 Nationale, a fine public garden, was laid out in 1780 
 and is a fine afternoon and evening promenade. Here 
 one may see the fashionable world in carriages on the
 
 THE MUSEUM IN NAPLES 223 
 
 drive bordering upon the sea or strolling through the 
 paths of La Villa. 
 
 In buildings and monuments of historic and artistic 
 interest Naples cannot equal Rome and Florence and 
 Venice, but the treasures of Herculaneum and Pompeii 
 preserved in the Museum at Naples compensate in part 
 for this deficiency. The Museum contains more than 
 one hundred and twenty thousand specimens, the great 
 majority of which are Roman antiquities. It includes 
 many important collections, several of royal nature, 
 and especially the priceless treasures excavated at Pom- 
 peii and Herculaneum, which are without rival. In 
 one wing are busts of such Greeks and Romans as 
 iEschinus, Demosthenes, Homer and Socrates. 
 
 Just above the Museum the Via Salvator Rosa ascends 
 to the hill of St. Elmo, where one may enter the outer 
 enclosure of the castle founded in 1343 and now used 
 as a military prison. Here, also, he can enter the Car- 
 thusian Monastery of San Martino, rebuilt in the sev- 
 enteenth century. The view of the city and the bay. 
 lying more than seven hundred feet below the castle, is 
 superb. At the left is Vesuvius, beautiful in its quiet- 
 ness, but terrible in its activity. Between the volcano 
 and the bay are houses and farm gardens and villages, 
 as if Vesuvius were one hundred miles away. Turning 
 slightly to the right, one's eyes fall on Pompeii with 
 its awful history, and Pugliano, built over the buried 
 city of Herculaneum. 
 
 Farther to the right is Sorrento's long point of land
 
 224 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 reaching out into the sea, and behind it the snow-line 
 of the Apennines, and across the bay, at the right, is 
 the Island of Capri, noted chiefly for its Blue Grotto, 
 
 and the Island of 
 Ischia. an island of 
 volcanic origin, the 
 largest island near 
 Naples, with about 
 thirty thousand in- 
 habitants, most of 
 them engaged in 
 vine and fruit cul- 
 ture and fishing. 
 Near at hand lies 
 Posilipo, and nearer 
 still the great seeth- 
 ing city, with its 
 churches and mu- 
 seums and parks and 
 shops — not forget- 
 ting those where one 
 may buy real coral 
 at any price to suit 
 the customers, the 
 reality of the ar- 
 ticle not de})ending 
 altogether upon the amount charged for it, how- 
 
 STREET SCENE IN NAPLES 
 
 ever. 
 
 From Naples it is a night ride by ship or train to
 
 GREEK, SARACEN, AND NORMAN 225 
 
 Sicily, the Garden of the Mediterranean. Is it Goethe 
 who says : 
 
 "Italy without Sicily leaves no image in the soul — 
 Sicily is the key to alP'? 
 
 One may go directly from Naples to Palermo and 
 get a view of the scene of Greek colonization, Saracen 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 
 f^TT 
 
 Hi 
 
 
 
 
 y ■ --^ 
 
 ■■- - . 
 
 
 "-Ml 
 
 t , ,:^^' frj^.^ 
 
 l^*-*3^ 
 
 
 
 
 *= 
 
 ^''"i^ 
 
 ■^fm 
 
 A SICILIAN CART 
 
 dominion and Norman conquest, and also find one of 
 the most beautiful places on earth. He may ride 
 through the finely kept streets, past modern buildings, 
 out to the great Capella Palatine, built in the twelfth 
 century, a fine specimen of Arabic-Norman style, filled 
 with mosaics, and then climb the hill, three or four 
 miles, to Monreale, and visit the Norman Cathedral
 
 226 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAxN 
 
 and Cloisters with their beautiful mosaics and richly 
 ornamental columns. The Benedictine Monastery of 
 San Martino, founded by Gregory the Great in the sixth 
 century and now used as a reformatory, may also be 
 seen. The curious will also go to the catacombs, but 
 they will not wish to remain long. 
 
 From Palermo one may reach Syracuse and Catania 
 and Taormina on the eastern coast of the island and 
 come to ' ' Messina the Desolate. " " With a guide, whose 
 
 ^Ji 
 
 
 
 ^rJ 
 
 
 J^^ 
 
 MESSINA BEFORE THE EARTHQUAKE 
 
 wife and seven children and three other relatives were 
 buried in a twinkling on December 28, 1908, beneath 
 the house in which they slept, the ruins of the city were 
 carefully inspected. The effects of the earthquake and 
 the flames and the mighty tidal wave which did their 
 threefold work of destruction are all too apparent yet. 
 It was refreshing to go from the scene of desolation, 
 where more than one hundred thousand lives were lost, 
 to the new Messina, constructed for the survivors just 
 outside the old city by direct gifts from several Govern- 
 ments, and to feel that the philanthropy of the world
 
 MESSINA THE DESOLATE 
 
 227 
 
 had united in a real service of humanity. The build- 
 ings in the United States section include a church, a 
 school, a parish house and a building for higher edu- 
 cation. The houses are only one story high and are 
 
 RUINS OF MESSINA 
 
 evidently for temporary use, but they are serving their 
 purpose well. The work of the American Red Cross 
 relieved the immediate necessities of many thousands 
 of sufferers; $250,000 was appropriated for an agri- 
 cultural school, where orphan boys will be educated 
 under the direct patronage of Queen Elena.
 
 228 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 From Naples it is a ride of four or five hours to the 
 "Eternal City."" And when the journey is ended, 
 Longfellow's lines come to mind as one realizes that 
 he is in Rome : 
 
 " 'Tis the center 
 To which all gravitates. One finds no rest 
 Elsewhere than here. There may be other cities 
 That please us for a while, but Rome alone 
 Completely satisfies. It becomes to all 
 A second native land by predilection, 
 And not by accident or birth alone." 
 
 The foundation of Rome is usually dated from B.C. 
 754 or 753. but historians believe that it may properly 
 
 THE NEW iMESSINA 
 
 claim greater antiquity. Various rulers left their marks 
 in walls and temples and prisons and aqueducts and 
 streets, but it was Augustus, who spans the B.C. and 
 A. D. periods, who first entirely transformed the city. 
 To his reign of forty-two years, beginning B.C. 28, 
 belong many important buildings, such as the vestibule
 
 IN THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 229 
 
 of the Pantheon, the Forum of Augustus and the Tem- 
 ple of Mars. Streets and viUas sprang up on the Es- 
 quiline, one of the Seven Hills of Rome, which had 
 formerly been a burial-gi'ound. Augustus could well 
 boast that he found Rome brick and left it marble. 
 
 THE APPIAN WAY, ROME 
 
 It was a great pleasure in the Passion Week at Rome 
 to drive out along the Appian Way and recall the story 
 of Paul as he entered the city to which he had looked 
 with longing from his home in Asia. Christianity, 
 which gained its first convert in the City of the Caesars 
 in the middle of the first century, continued to main-
 
 230 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 tain itself against the j^olitical forces arrayed against 
 it by a declining paganism. Here, as one enters the 
 Colosseum, the lines of Heber come to mind : 
 
 "They met the tyrant's brandished steel, 
 The lion's gory mane; 
 They bowed their necks the death to feel — 
 Who follows in their train?" 
 
 ST. PETER S, ROME 
 
 The Church of St. Peter has not only the advantage 
 of position, but also in having before it a square, or, 
 as it is called, the Piazza di San Pietro, which measures
 
 THE CHURCH OF ST. PETER 231 
 
 374 by 262 yards. It is enclosed by huge colonnades. 
 Three covered passages are formed by 284 columns and 
 88 pillars of the Doric order. But now we are within 
 the church founded by the Emperor Constantine at the 
 request of Pope Sylvester I. The original church with 
 the centuries fell into disrepair , a new one was pro- 
 jected, and the present structure shows the power of 
 Pramante, Raphael and Michelangelo, the latter 
 strengthened the pillars of the dome, reduced the size 
 of the side chambers and planned porch with columns 
 and a pediment. His great work was the dome, a 
 marvel of lightness in spite of its immense size. The 
 dome, to the top of the cross on the lantern, is 437 feet 
 high, while its diameter is stated to be 138 feet, or 
 more than half the width of a city block in Fifth Ave- 
 nue, New York. It is impossible to reproduce an idea 
 of the vastness of a church whose interior area is eigh- 
 teen thousand square yards, nearly twice that of St. 
 Paul's in London. 
 
 The Vatican with its Sistine Chapel, containing the 
 works of Michelangelo and other painters, and the 
 Stanze, adorned with the magnificent works of Raphael, 
 the halls, containing Raphael's tapestry, the picture 
 gallery, the great collection of antiquities in the various 
 museums, the library, containing 250.000 volumes — 
 all of this and more one may see in the day or days 
 given to the Vatican quarter. 
 
 Other days may be devoted to the Colosseum, the 
 largest theater and one of the grandest structures in the
 
 232 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 world, completed by I'itus in AD 80, which had seats 
 for more than forty thousand spectators, and in which 
 it is said that five thousand wild animals were killed in 
 the gladiatorial combats, lasting one hundred days, 
 when the structure was opened , to several forums of 
 Augustus, Traj an and others , the Baths of Agrippa, 
 Caracalla, Diocletian and Trajan; the Catacombs, 
 which were at first the officially recognized burial-place 
 of the Christians, who gave them the Greek name 
 meaning resting-place, and the picture galleries and 
 the hundreds of Catholic churches, many of which are 
 well worthy of a visit. Nor must one fail to see the 
 Scala Santa in St. John Lateran, and recall Luther's 
 experience as he saw men, women and children paying 
 their devotions on their knees, climbing the twenty- 
 eight steps and kissing each as they ascended. While 
 there are several hundred Roman Catholic churches in 
 Rome, there is some Protestant work being done by 
 English, Scotch and American bodies, in addition to 
 the strong Waldensian Church. All of the non-Italian 
 churches, except the Methodist, minister chiefly to 
 English-speaking tourists and residents, but the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church has a strong work for Italians, 
 and because of this fact it has the special disa})proval 
 of the Pope and the Vatican The Young Men's 
 Christian Association has a good plant in Rome and is 
 doing excellent work for the young Italians. 
 
 Neither Diocletian nor Decian could finish the work 
 which Nero began ; the gospel spirit could not be
 
 THE GALLERIES OE ELORENCE 233 
 
 quenched by the horrors of martyrdom. In 313 an 
 edict of Constantine the Great proclaimed equal rights 
 for all religions. 
 
 Florence is called by the Italians "La Bella." Its 
 chief charm is that it preserves to-day, almost un- 
 changed, the aspect of the Middle Ages. Samuel Rog- 
 ers says : 
 
 ' ' Of all the fairest cities of the earth. 
 None is so fair as Florence. 'Tis a gem 
 Of purest ray ; what a light broke forth 
 When it emerged from darkness ! ' ' 
 
 Florence has its galleries and museums and 
 churches and piazzas which can be seen in a couple of 
 days, but to which as many months should be given. 
 In fact, one can imagine no more delightful city in 
 Italy to spend a vacation, winter or summer, than this 
 city on the Arno. For one contemplating such a trip 
 the outline of five days prescribed in the guide-books 
 may be followed only for suggestions, and one day for 
 each week will be sufficient, the other five being used 
 for reading Dante, Browning, the Life of Savonarola, 
 Byron, "New Italy," "Italian Days and Ways," 
 "Italian Highways and Byways," and, if possible, the 
 series of charming letters written for The Neic York 
 Observer by Mrs. Charles Augustus Stoddard, under 
 the general title of "A Lady's Letters From Abroad." 
 which for description and diction have scarcely been 
 equaled by any writer on Italy.
 
 234. THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 Around the historic Piazza deUa Signoria, where 
 Savonarola was burned, stand in perfect preservation 
 
 the famous Pah^zzo 
 Vecchio, the forum 
 of the Republic be- 
 gun in 1298, the 
 beautiful Loggia 
 dei Lanzi, erected 
 in 1376, and the 
 Uffizi Palace with 
 its celebrated por- 
 tico. The Grand 
 Duomo. or Cathe- 
 dral. 1298, with 
 Giotto's unrivaled 
 Campanile and the 
 wonderful Baptis- 
 terv. founded in 
 1100, retain much 
 of their original 
 beautv. Of Giot- 
 to's Tower in Florence, Longfellow has written : 
 
 "How many lives, made beautiful and sweet 
 By self-devotion and by self-restraint. 
 
 Whose pleasure is to run without complaint 
 On unknown errands of the Paraclete, 
 Wanting the reverence of unshodden feet, 
 Fail of the nindnis which the artists paint 
 Around the shining forehead of the saint, 
 
 THE CAMPANILE, FLORENCE
 
 THE BROWNINGS IN FLORENCE 235 
 
 And are in their completeness incomplete ! 
 
 In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's Tower, 
 The lily of Florence blossoming in stone — 
 
 A vision, a delight and a desire — 
 
 The builder's perfect and centennial flower, 
 That in the night of ages bloomed alone, 
 
 But wanting still the glory of the spire.'' 
 
 The houses of Michelangelo, Dante, Macchiavelli, 
 Galileo and other famous old Florentines exist intact, 
 while mementoes of the great Medici family abound. 
 One of the city's picturesque features is the ancient 
 Ponte Vecchio, the quaint and interesting old bridge 
 over the River Arno, since 1593 lined with goldsmiths' 
 shops. One cannot be long in Florence without think- 
 ing of the Brownings, husband and wife, and of their 
 great love for this city No one will wish to miss see- 
 ing the Protestant burial-ground and the square marble 
 sarcophagus with the initials '"E. B. B. " on one side, 
 and "June 29, 1861." on the other 
 
 While Rome is the ancient center of Italian life, 
 Florence, since the Middle Ages, has been its chief in- 
 tellectual center. It was here that the Italian language, 
 literature and art reached their prime. Florence has 
 been called the cradle of modern culture, and to speak 
 of that city is to bring to mind the author of the "Di- 
 vina Commedia," Dante, who was born here in 1265. 
 What is true of literature is also true of painting. 
 Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael at the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century were working side
 
 236 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 by side in Florence, but soon afterward transferred 
 their sphere of action to Rome. 
 
 In the Pitti Pahice, with its far-famed gallery, are 
 five hundred pictures, including six by Raphael, five 
 by Titian, and four of the highest rank by Rubens. . 
 In the Uffizi Gallery one sees the Florentine schools of 
 painting at their best. Different rooms bear the names 
 of distinguished artists: for instance, the Michelangelo 
 Room contains an early work entitled '"The Holy Fam- 
 ily," said to be the only panel picture by the master in 
 Italy. A little slab in the Piazza Signoria marks the 
 spot where Savonarola was burned. The Vatican was 
 able to stifle the voice of one of its greatest friars, but 
 his influence did not cease with the death of the re- 
 former, preacher and martyr. 
 
 An ancient ceremony was witnessed in the Piazza del 
 Duomo on Holy Saturday, called the Scoppio del Carro. 
 Four stout white oxen had drawn from its keeping- 
 place in another part of the city a car covered with 
 fireworks. The oxen were decked with flowers and 
 escorted by firemen. The procession occupied nearly 
 two hours before it reached the Cathedral, where the 
 oxen stopped and were unharnessed. A wire, stretching 
 from a wooden fixture beside the choir of the cathedral 
 and through the central door, was fastened to the car. 
 Upon this wire was placed a colombina (dove) which 
 was to set off the fireworks. The time for the Scoppio 
 drew near, the throng in the Piazza, which had been 
 growing all the morning, became as dense as the space
 
 THE BURNING OF THE CAR 
 
 237 
 
 would permit. Throngs of peasantry and mountaineers 
 minified with the citizens of Florence. 
 
 The people, especially the peasants, are convinced 
 that if the colombina sets off the fireworks without a 
 hitch the coming harvest will be a good one, but if on 
 the wire it stops or jerks backward, the harvest will be 
 
 BURNING OF THE CAR AT FLORENCE ON HOLY SATURDAY 
 
 a bad one. Hence, to avoid disturbances, the man 
 who arranges the fireworks, the wire and the dove is 
 threatened with non-payment for his services if the re- 
 sult is not a success ; in former times he would have 
 been imprisoned. It is needless to add that the result 
 was a great success when we witnessed it. 
 
 "Whatever you miss," said several friends, "do not 
 omit a trip to Fiesole. ' ' The advice was heeded, and
 
 238 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 it is passed on for the sake of all visitors to Florence 
 who read this volume. Fiesole is an ancient Etruscan 
 town, a few miles from the city, whose inhabitants are 
 largely engaged in straw-plaiting. As one sits on the 
 terrace enjoying his luncheon, or walks about the town, 
 he gets a view of Florence with the Arno flowing 
 
 FIESOLE, NEAR FLORENCE 
 
 through it and the hills and mountains beyond the city 
 to which no painting and no description can do justice. 
 Pisa maybe reached by an express train from Milan 
 or Rome or by excursion from Florence. As an Etrus- 
 can trading town and as a Roman colony, Pisa ranked 
 well among the towns of the early Christian centuries; 
 at the beginning of the eleventh century it became a 
 supreme sea-power in the western Mediterranean.
 
 THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA 2;39 
 
 The Baptistery at Pisa, built of marble, dates from 
 the twelfth century. In this building an attraction is 
 the remarkable echo which is produced. The custodian 
 has a rich musical voice, and he sounds the notes of the 
 scale in thirds and fifths, now in major and again in 
 minor tones. The echoes are heard first lightly, then 
 they increase in volume and number until all the chords 
 and tones appear in rich combination ; after a few mo- 
 ments the sound diminishes until silence reigns. 
 
 Pisa is not visited because of its rich Cathedral or 
 its beautiful Bap- 
 tistery, but thou- 
 sands of tourists and 
 Italians go to this 
 little town to see 
 its far-famed Cam- 
 panile, or leaning 
 tower, erected in 
 1174-1350. With 
 its six colonnades, 
 one above the other, 
 it is 179 feet in 
 heio'ht and fourteen 
 feet out of the per- 
 pendicular. The 
 
 fact that the upper three stories were straightened 
 by the architects to compensate for a sinking of the 
 foundations during the erecting of the tower lessens the 
 fear that every visitor has that it will fall while he is 
 
 LEANING TOWER AND CATHEDRAL, PISA
 
 240 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 looking at it. While sitting in the shadow of the 
 Cathedral, the moon outlining in detail the peculiar 
 leaning form of the Campanile, it was interesting to 
 recall the fact that Galileo made use of its oblique 
 position in his study of the laws of gravitation. 
 
 Fifty-three shiploads of earth brought from Jeru- 
 salem in the thirteenth century form the groundwork 
 of the Campo Santo which bounds the piazza on the 
 north. After visiting Pisa it is easier to understand 
 why the hills of Palestine are covered with rock in- 
 stead of soil, 
 
 Genoa, the seat of a university and an archbishop, 
 the headquarters of an army corps and one of the chief 
 seaports of Italy, has the honor of having destroyed 
 the naval supremacy of Pisa in 1284. Her activity in 
 the Crusades secured for her a busy trade with the Le- 
 vant. Her well-nigh matchless situation, her splendid 
 harbor and her past filled with glory impress the visitor 
 to-day. The native school of art never attained great 
 importance, but several of the palaces in the city possess 
 admirable family portraits painted by Rubens and 
 Van Dyck. 
 
 Milan, next to Naples the most popular town in 
 Italy, lies in the fertile plain of Lombardy, not far 
 from the chief Alpine passes. It is the financial capi- 
 tal of Italy, while in painting its only rivals are Venice 
 and Rome. It has been an important place since re- 
 mote antiquity. Founded by the Celts, it rose during 
 the Roman period to be the chief city of Northern
 
 THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN 241 
 
 Italy. In the fourth century it was often the residence 
 of the emperors, especially of Constantine the Great 
 (324-337) and Theodosius (379-395), whose edicts in 
 favor of Christianity were issued hence. 
 
 The glory of Milan, and the focus of its commercial 
 and public life, is the Piazzo del Duomo. The Cathe- 
 dral, a Gothic edifice begun in 1386, built entirely of 
 white marble, is one of the largest churches in the 
 world. It is 500 feet long, with a transept of 288 
 feet and a fa§ade of 219 feet. The roof is adorned 
 with ninety-eight turrets and the exterior with about 
 two thousand statues in marble. The aspect of the 
 whole is fairylike, especially by moonlight. 
 
 The manifold attractions of Venice, may be seen, or 
 rather glanced at. in three or four days with the aid of 
 gondolas and steamers. It is difficult to realize that 
 this city, lying back between two and three miles from 
 the mainland in the Lagoon, a shallow bay of the Ad- 
 riatic, and built on piles on 177 small islands, was 
 once the most brilliant commercial city in the world; 
 and yet such is its reputation. It is intersected by 
 more than 150 small canals, in addition to the Grand 
 Canal, which are crossed by nearly four hundred 
 bridges, mostly of stone. 
 
 The Church of St. Mark, the tutelary saint of Ven- 
 ice, whose bones were taken by Venetians from Alex- 
 andria to Venice in 829, was begun in 830. In the 
 tenth century it was burned and rebviilt, but after the 
 middle of the eleventh century it was entirely recon-
 
 242 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 structed in the Byzantine style. The church is in the 
 form of a Greek cross, crowned with five domes. The 
 building is lavishly enriched with more than 500 
 marble columns, chiefly Oriental, and with mosaics, 
 
 many of them dat- 
 ing back to the tenth 
 century. Over the 
 chief portal are four 
 horses in gilded 
 bronze, five feet in 
 height, the only 
 horses, by the way, 
 in Venice. 
 
 The slender 
 Campanile, which 
 seemed to Thomas 
 Bailey Aldrich like 
 a "falling shaft of 
 silver," actually 
 fell in 1902, after 
 standing in front of 
 St. Mark's for more 
 than a thousand 
 years; it is now 
 being built on lines as closely as possible resembling 
 the old ones. 
 
 The art of Venice bears an Oriental stamp not only 
 in the Church of St. Mark and its mosaics, but also in 
 the palaces of the (iothic period, the splendor of which 
 
 BUmOE OF SIGHS, VENICE
 
 IN A GONDOLA ON THE CANAL ^4.5 
 
 was enhanced by external decorations in gold and color. 
 The Piazza of St. Mark, without a rival in Italy, affords 
 the most striking evidence of the ancient glory of 
 Venice. It is bounded by the Church of St. Mark, the 
 so-called Procuratie, now the residence of the nine Pro- 
 curators, the chief 
 officials of the Re- 
 public, and the 
 Atrio. The ground 
 floors of these build- 
 ings are occupied 
 by cafes and shops. 
 Of course we fed 
 the pigeons in 
 Venice ; every one 
 feeds the pigeons in 
 front of the Cathe- 
 dral and has his 
 nhototjraDh taken 
 
 X ox 
 
 with the doves rest- 
 ing on his arms and 
 shoulders. Venice 
 has a museum and 
 
 picture gallery and bridges, any one of which is well 
 worthy of a visit, especially the one over the Mole, 
 facing the Bridge of Sighs between the Palace of the 
 Doges and the Criminal Prison. 
 
 And what shall be said of the ride in a gondola on 
 the Grand Canal, under a full moon and a starlit sky.? 
 
 THE WIXG^D LION OF VENICE
 
 244 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 A concert was in progress, the music being on two gon- 
 dolas locked together; from every direction gondolas 
 
 were seen slowly but 
 gradually veering 
 toward those from 
 which the music 
 came. In a few 
 moments we found 
 our gondolas in the 
 center of the small 
 fleet, all apparently 
 drifting toward a 
 common c e n t e r . 
 T h e fascinating 
 music, the bewitch- 
 ing moonlight and 
 the delightful com- 
 pany — what a com- 
 bination, and in 
 Venice too ! 
 One can understand Mrs. Browning's letters upon 
 Venice better after being in the city where she wrote 
 them. Her words are worth repeating: "The beauty 
 of the architecture, the silver trails of water up be- 
 tween all that gorgeous color .iiid carving, the en- 
 chanting silence, tlie music, the gondolas — I mix it 
 all up together and maintain tli.it nothing is like it. 
 nothing equal to it. no second Venice in the world." 
 
 ON THE GRAND CANAL
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 THE CRUISE OF THE ARABIC 
 
 And when, in other climes, we meet. 
 
 Some isle or vale enchanting. 
 Where all looks flowery, wild and sweet. 
 
 And naught but love is wanting ; 
 We think how great had been our bliss 
 
 If Heaven had but assigned us 
 To live and die in scenes like this 
 
 With some we've left behind us. 
 
 —Thomas Moore. 
 
 TRAVEL." says a Boston preacher, "is good for 
 the soul — when it is of the proper kind and 
 pursued in company with the right sort of people." 
 Such a company sailed out of New York Harbor on a 
 cold January morning on the steamship Arabic of the 
 White Star Line bound for a cruise of seventy-three 
 days in the Mediterranean. "The ripe culture of a 
 wise old world." predicted the preacher, "will be under 
 tribute to the travelers on the cruise." The prophecy 
 became history in the weeks which followed. Clergy- 
 men, college and seminary presidents and professors, 
 Sunday-school superintendents and teachers. Christian 
 Association leaders — men and women — all of these 
 classes and many more were among the passengers. It 
 was a party considerably above the average steamer 
 company in point of intelligence. 
 
 245
 
 246 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 While there was no expressed principle actuating the 
 conduct of the members of the party, the following 
 illustrates the spirit manifested : •'From each according 
 to his ability; to each according to his need."" 
 
 In addition to the round of sightseeing at every 
 landing, there were receptions, lectures, entertainments, 
 musicales, promenades and dances and concerts on board 
 the ship. Nearly every night the main saloon was filled 
 with several hundred people gathered to be instructed 
 or amused. On Sundays, morning and evening, there 
 were sermons and addresses. The writer had been in- 
 vited to serve as chairman at the entertainments and 
 lectures and to arrange for the Sunday services. The 
 Church of England service was used on Sunday morn- 
 ing, in accordance with the custom on an English ship, 
 but Methodist. Congregationalist. Presbyterian and 
 Protestant E})iscopal clergymen were heard with equal 
 pleasure; the federation, if not the unity, of Christen- 
 dom seemed near at hand. Special services were held 
 for the Roman Catholic brethren at which several ]n-iests 
 officiated during the voyage. The Lord Bishop of 
 Ontario; the Rev. William Allen Knight. D.D.,of 
 Boston; the Rev. Joel Leonard. D.D.. of Melrose, 
 Mass.; the Rev. Orville Reed. Ph.D.. of Montclair, 
 N. J.; the Rev. J. O. Knott. Ph.D.. of Covington, 
 Va. ; the Rev. E. E. Madeira, of Titusville. Penn. ; 
 the Rev. H. M. Tyndall. D.D.. of New York: the Rev. 
 George Maxwell, of California; Principal George 
 E. Fox, of New Haven, Conn., and the writer were
 
 SOME MEMBERS OF THE ARABIC PARTY
 
 9AS THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 » 
 
 among those who by sermon or lecture or address added 
 to the enjoyment or instruction of others. 
 
 The most popular speaker among the score or more 
 of clergymen on board was Dr. Knight, of Boston, the 
 author of "The Song of Our Syrian Guest" and "The 
 Love Watch." His addresses, "Over the Bow of the 
 Arabic,'' "Four Shadows on the Sea," and "Keying 
 the Mind for Palestine," will long remain a cherished 
 memory. 
 
 It is scarcely fair to describe the idiosyncrasies of 
 fellow-travelers, lest the pit that one digs should be his 
 own burial-place. The breeze which seemed gentle to 
 most passengers was doubtless a "hurricane" to the one 
 who "never crossed before." The slight roll, or the 
 occasional dip. probably suggested "turning turtle" or 
 preparing for '"Davy Jones's Locker," and historic ex- 
 periences are on record where ships have turned over or 
 gone down. There is a difference between "dialect" 
 and "derelict." but when one uses the former term in 
 referring to a water-logged vessel, he is excusable. 
 
 One wearer of the Cloth described the fin^t day out 
 the kind of young women whom he desired to meet on 
 the journey: 
 
 "They must be ideal, or I shall not seek an intro- 
 duction.'" he said. 
 
 "And your standard of ideality in a woman is — 
 what-'" suggested one who was desirous of rubbing oif 
 the TOUgh corners of what had Ix'cn authenticated as a 
 veritable "diamond. "
 
 THE FIRST DAYS ON LAND 249 
 
 "No woman is really attractive unless her face is 
 beautiful, her dressing exquisite, her form perfect, her 
 vocabulary without a flaw, and to this she must add a 
 bank account of no mean size/' 
 
 ' ' And in exchange for all this you can offer — what? ' ' 
 
 ''Absolutely nothing but myself.'' 
 
 '•You have omitted an important asset." 
 
 "What is that, pray?" 
 
 ' ' An abundance of nerve. ' ' 
 
 The better part of two days was spent at Funchal, in 
 Madeira, the first stopping-place. Glad indeed were 
 all to be on land again, especially those who had felt, 
 like Henry Ward Beecher, afraid first that they should 
 die, and then that they couldn't. The quaint sleds 
 drawn by oxen ; the ride up the mountainside and the 
 slide in a wicker sledge down to the starting-place ; 
 the visit to the shopping district ; the prayer-meeting at 
 the Methodist Mission ; the ball at the Casino, with the 
 gardens a veritable fairyland — one was sorry to hear 
 the steamer's whistle summoning him to return in order 
 to take up the journey from a Portuguese possession to 
 Spain. 
 
 A sail past the Pillars of Hercules with Gibraltar 
 and Trafalgar Bay on the right and not far away, and 
 then the Arabic anchored near the place from which 
 Columbus set sail when he started on his great voyage 
 of discovery. After the verdure of Madeira the white 
 walls of the Cadiz buildings strike many unpleasantly 
 It takes the edge off of the novelty of other Spanish
 
 250 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 towns to see them after one has been in Seville. One 
 could well afford to go a long distance to see the old 
 Cathedral with its tond^ of Columbus and its picture of 
 St. Anthony, from which a })iece of canvas was cut not 
 long ago and later restored ; to stand before the Giralda, 
 
 REV. DR. JOEL LEONARD THE LORD BISHOP OF OXTARIO 
 
 the wonderful tower near the Cathedral erected as an 
 observatory by the Moors; and to stroll through the 
 palace grounds of the Alcazar with their beautiful gar- 
 dens. When one goes to Granada he wishes to get away 
 from the crowd and with one. or at most two or three, 
 walk slowly through the Alhambra. 
 
 The sail from Gibraltar to Algiers was enlivened by
 
 BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA 251 
 
 the recital of experiences in Spain and Morocco, by a 
 concert and a lecture on the countries next to be seen. 
 In Algiers carriages took the visitors through the Arab 
 quarter to the Governor's Palace, and over a pictur- 
 esque drive, through the Botanical Gardens, ending 
 with a visit to the mosques and the markets. 
 
 Interest was divided as one approached Malta be- 
 tween the fortifications constructed by Great Britain 
 and the Bible narrative of St. PauPs shipwreck. Break- 
 fast was forgotten as the steamer whistle announced that 
 the place where Paul's little boat went to pieces was 
 less than a half-mile to starboard. Two or three small 
 parties, not satisfied with the view of the bay from the 
 steamer, drove out to the •" place where two seas met'' 
 while the rest of the company were visiting the public 
 gardens, the church of St. John so closely identified 
 with the Knights of Malta and the Chapel of Bones, 
 sufficiently grewsome to thrill the most staid members 
 of the party. 
 
 Two days were spent in Athens ; a small party visited 
 Corinth as well. Through the illuminating lecture on 
 Athens given on the way from Malta it was easy to 
 locate the buildings as soon as one came in sight of 
 them. The fact that the lecturer himself visited Greece 
 for the first time on this Cruise did not detract from 
 the interest of his description ; on the contrary, he en- 
 tered more into detail doubtless than he would if he 
 were describing the city now that he has seen it. 
 
 The ride through the Dardanelles gave one an op-
 
 252 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 portunity to read for a day about the wonderful city of 
 Constantinople which was reached shortly before night. 
 It was cold during the stay at the Capital of the Turk- 
 ish Empire. In fact it was the only day during the 
 trip that one could complain of the cold ; but so much 
 time was spent in the Mosque of St. Sophia, the Im- 
 perial Treasury and the bazaars that even the cold did 
 not chill one unduly. 
 
 A day in Smyrna and Ephesus and another in Beirut 
 prepared the tourists for a week or fortnight in the Holy 
 Land. The Lord Bishop of Ontario and a few other 
 choice spirits went to Baalbec and Damascus, reaching 
 the Sea of Galilee by rail from the north, while other 
 members of the party rode from Haifa to Nazareth and 
 Tiberias in carriages, and after a sail on the Sea of 
 Galilee to the sites of Capernaum and Bethsaida re- 
 turned by rail to Haifa. Perhaps a dozen people went 
 across country from Nazareth to Jerusalem, but the rest 
 of the party reached the Holy City by rail from Jaffa. 
 
 Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablous. Jericho, the Jordan 
 and the Dead Sea, as well as Bethany and the Mount 
 of Olives, were visited by members of the Cruise, ac- 
 cording to the time reserved for Jerusalem and for the 
 side trips. No one could take all the excursions pro- 
 vided, as considerable time was needed for places of 
 interest in and about the Holy City. Many of the tour- 
 ists attended the American Church in Jerusalem sup- 
 ported by the American Christian Alliance, and later 
 they held a service near the Russian Church on the
 
 ROMANCE ON THE NILE 253 
 
 Mount of Olives. The Garden of Gethsemane, the 
 garden near Gordon's Calvary, and the tomb in the 
 garden produced a deeper impression on the minds of 
 the non-Catholic part of the company than did the 
 Church of the Holy Sepulcher, though every one went 
 through that historic building as well as the Mosque of 
 Omar, not far away. 
 
 One week or two was spent in Cairo and on the Nile 
 according to the selection made in dividing the time 
 between Egypt and the Holy Land. Egypt still is the 
 land of romance as well as history. A young Armeni- 
 an from Constantinople, to whom one of the Southern 
 ladies had carried a letter of introduction, followed the 
 party to Cairo, and pressed his suit with such effect that 
 the young lady was in tears as she considered what 
 answer she should give to the old but ever new ques- 
 tion. 
 
 The members of some of the Nile parties saw Luxor 
 and Assouan, and if reports are true, at least one of the 
 couples found time to take a fishing trip, for it was re- 
 ported on their return to Cairo that their future was 
 assured, as he had "hooked her up the Nile." There 
 were other romances connected with the Land of the 
 Pharaohs, and not a few interesting incidents experi- 
 enced by members of the party ; and many amusing 
 comments were made by those who were visiting Egypt 
 for the first time. It was difficult for one of the 
 American travelers to remember the name of the stone 
 image back of the Pyramids, but she was able to iden-
 
 254 THE CLASSIC MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 tify it by this designation: "I mean that fixin' with 
 a man's face on it/' No one failed to know that she 
 had seen the Sphinx, and in referring to it as masculine 
 she had shown greater wisdom than some travelers with 
 more book knowledge than she possessed. 
 
 A day in Sicily after sailing through the Straits of 
 Messina whetted the appetite for Naples and Rome and 
 Florence and Pisa and Venice and Milan, for those who 
 went through Europe. About two-thirds of the party 
 contented themselves with Naples and Rome, and after 
 a few hours on the Riviera and a glimpse of Monte 
 Carlo sailed for Queenstown and Liverpool. There a 
 transfer was made to another ship, and after another 
 week of ocean life, the Cruise of the Arabic was at an 
 end, and enough information and inspiration had been 
 gained to last its five hundred members many years. 
 
 Thackeray concludes his story of his month on the 
 Mediterranean with a paragraph which may well 
 encourage future travelers in the Orient: "What a 
 number of sights and pictures and novel sensations 
 and lasting and delightful remembrances after such a 
 tour! You forget all the annoyances of travel, but 
 the pleasures remain with you; the sorrows of the 
 journey pass away with the soothing influence of time; 
 the pleasures of the voyage remain, let us hope, as 
 long as life will endure. It is but for a couple of 
 days that those shining columns of the Parthenon glow 
 under the blue sky there; but the experience of a life 
 could scarcely impress them more vividly. Who can
 
 THE TRIP AN IDEAL ONE 255 
 
 forget the Bosphorus, the brightest and fairest scene in 
 all the world ! But the happiest and best of all recol- 
 lections, perhaps, are those of the hours passed at 
 night on the deck when the stars were shining over- 
 head as the hours were tolled at their time, and your 
 thoughts were fixed upon home far away. ' ' 
 
 Eor those who desire to trace the course of the trip 
 in the Mediterranean which Thackeray took, and to 
 see the ports visited by those on the cruise described 
 in these pages, reference may be made to the frontis- 
 piece of this volume, which is reproduced by the 
 courtesy of the officers of the White Star Line, to 
 whom grateful recognition is made. 
 
 From first to last Mr. P. V. G. Mitchell, the director 
 of the Cruise, representing the White Star Line, had 
 done everything possible to insure the safety and com- 
 fort of the passengers, and, assisted by Mr. E. L. Her- 
 man, of Thomas Cook & Sons, had carried out every 
 promise made for side trips in Spain, Turkey, Pales- 
 tine, Egypt and Italy. To call the trip ideal is to 
 speak within bounds ; and no one could fail to recog- 
 nize the good hand of an overruling Providence in the 
 journey by land and sea.
 
 HOME THOUGHTS FROM EUROPE 
 
 By the Rev. Henry van Dyke, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 It is good to see the Old World, and travel up and down 
 Among the famous countries and the cities of renow^n, 
 To admire the crumbly castles, and the monuments and kings % 
 But soon or late you have enough of antiquated things. 
 
 Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air ; 
 And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair; 
 And it's sweet to loaf in Venice, and it's great to study Rome ; 
 But when it comes to living, there is no place like home. 
 
 Oh, Europe is a fine place, yet something seems to lack, 
 The past is too much with her, and the people looking back ° 
 But life is in the present, and the future must be free ; 
 We love our land for what she is, and what she is to be. 
 
 So it's home again, and home again, Am,encafor me! 
 My heart is turning home again to God's countrie. 
 To the blessed land of Room Enough, beyond the ocean bars. 
 Where the air is full of sunshine and the flag is full of stars 
 
 From "White Bees." Copy- 
 right, 1910, by Charles Scribner's 
 Sons, and reproduced here by the 
 kind permission of the author. 
 
 256
 
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