BBffiilH!ffiIbfc : [>Sfi ggiflliflfjFfl THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES V uSr TRAVELS TO JERUSALEM AND THE HOLY LAND. TRAVELS TO JERUSALEM AND THE HOLY LAND THROUGH EGYPT. BY THE VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY FREDERIC SHOBERL. Cljtrtt iEfctttou. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR HENRY COLBURN, BY RICHARD BENTLEY ; BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH ; AND JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN. 1835. LONDON Printed by J. L. Cox and Sons, 75. Great Que*!) Street, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. HL CONTENTS. PART THE FOURTH. CHAPTER I. Page Church of the Holy Sepulchre— Description of it by Des- hayes— Composed of Three Churches— Its Architecture —Its Origin and History— Visit to the Chamber of the Holy Sepulchre— Effect produced on the mind by the Sacred Edifice— The Via Dolorosa— Pilate's House— The Crown of Thorns — Sentence pronounced by Pilate — Church of our Lady of Grief— Houses of the Rich Man and of Lazarus— Veronica— Calvary — Other places of Devotion in Jerusalem * CHAPTER II. Exterior of Jerusalem — Pool of Beersheba— Mount Sion — David's Palace and Tomb— Fountain of Siloe— Valley of Jehoshaphat— The brook Cedron— Tombs of Zachariah, Jehoshaphat, and Absalom — Garden of Olivet — Gethse- mane — Sepulchre of the Virgin Mary — Grotto where our Saviour sweated blood — Rock where he foretold the Destruction of Jerusalem — Burning of the Temple — Tombs of the Prophets — Subterraneous meeting- place of the Apostles — Olive-tree where Christ foretold the Last Judgment— Spot of his Ascension to Heaven — Bossuet's History of Christ's Passion and Death 26 203J/M2- VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. Page History of Jerusalem — Besieged and taken by Titus — New City built by Adrian — Taken by the Mahometans— Cha- racter of the Crusades — Jerusalem taken by the Crusaders and erected into a Kingdom— Godfrey of Bouillon, the first King — His Successors— Baldwin takes Jerusalem- Crusade of Louis IX. — Account of the Kingdom of Jeru- salem — Present state of the City— The Citadel — Street of the Bazar— The Jews' Quarter — Ancient Christian Hospital -The City Walls— Gates— Streets— The Greek Convent— Visit to the Greek Patriarch— The Armenian Convent and Patriarch — Second visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Rencounter with two drunken Spahis. 4-7 CHAPTER IV. Monuments of Jerusalem — The Hebrew Monuments — Solo- mon's Temple — The Pool of Bethesda — Grecian and Roman Monuments — Sepulchres of Absalom and Zacha- riah — Sepulchres of the Kings — Christian Monuments prior to the Saracen Conquests — Arabic or Moorish Monu- ments— Mosque of Omar -Origin of Moorish Architec- ture — Gothic Monuments — Tombs of Godfrey and Baldwin— Turkish Monuments— Racine's Athaliah 84 CHAPTER V. Convent of the Latin Fathers — The Pilgrims' Room — Diet — Prices of Eatables — Horses — The Pilgrims — Their Expences — Statement of the Author's Expences at Jaffa and Jerusalem — Poverty and Persecution of the Latin Fathers — Their Library and Archives — Firmans granted to them , 114 CHAPTER VI. Examination of the Fields of Battle around Jerusalem described by Tasso — History of the Siege of Jerusalem by Robert the Monk 132 CONTENTS. VII CHAPTER VII Page Government of Jerusalem — Abrlallah, Pacha of Damascus — His Extortions — Order of the Holy Sepulchre con- ferred on the Author — General Survey of the City — Houses — Inhabitants — Communities of Christian Monks — Jews — Departure from Jerusalem — Arrival at Jaffa. .. 151 PART THE FIFTH. CHAPTER I. The Author embarks at Jaffa for Egypt — Gulf of Pelusium, now Damietta — Death of Pompey — The Nile — Alex- andria — M. Drovetti, the French Consul — Rosetta — Albanian Soldiers — Appearance of the Delta — Voyage to Cairo— Restraints imposed on the Kings of ancient Egypt — The Pyramids 1 65 CHAPTER II. Cairo — French Mamelukes— The Pacha's Son — Plains of Memphis — View of the Pyramids — Departure from Cairo — Arab Camp — Attack on the Author's Vessel— Esme- nard's Apostrophe to Egypt — Return to Alexandria — In- scription on Pompey's Pillar — AH Bey and Atala — Dreariness of Alexandria and its Environs — Embarkation for Tunis — Tempestuous Weather — Island of Scarpanto — Stampalia — A Hurricane— New Year's Day — The Kerkeni Islands — Arrival at Tunis 185 viii CONTENTS. PART THE SIXTH. CHAPTER I. Page M. Devoise, French Consul at Tunis — Fondness of the French for Dancing — M. Violet and the Iroquois— Ac- quaintances made by the Author at Tunis — Travels in Barbary — Situation of Tunis — Its Population — Environs — The Bey — History of Carthage— Regulus — Hannibal — Scipio Africanus — Syphax and Masinissa — Sophonisba — Interview between Scipio and Hannibal — Battle of Zama— The Third Punic War— Scipio's Dream— Siege of Carthage — Destruction of the City by Fire — Asdrubal's Wife — Marius — Cato of Utica— Carthage rebuilt by Au- gustus — St. Augustine — The Vandals conquer Carthage — Genseric — The taking of the City by Belisarius — Its Reduction by the Saracens 207 CHAPTER II. Plan of Ancient Carthage — New Carthage — State of Carthage under the Roman Emperors — Ruins of Carthage — An- cient Port — Port described by Virgil — Aqueduct — Byrsa — Crusade of Louis IX. — His attempt on Tunis — Fatal Illness of the King — His last Instructions to his Son — His Death — Departure from Tunis — Arrival at Cadiz — Cordova— Grenada — Arrival at Madrid — The Escurial — Bayonne — Conclusion 258 TRAVELS TO JERUSALEM. PART THE FOURTH. JERUSALEM. CHAPTER I. Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Description of it by Deshayes — Composed of Three Churches — Its Architecture — Its Origin and History — Visit to the Chamber of the Holy Sepulchre — Effect produced on the mind by the Sacred Edifice — The Via Dolorosa — Pilate's House — The Crown of Thorns — Sentence pronounced by Pilate — Church of our Lady of Grief — Houses of the Rich Man and of Lazarus — Veronica — Calvary — Other places of Devotion in Jerusalem. I was employed for some hours in noting- down with pencil my remarks on the places which I had just visited ; a practice which I followed during the whole of my residence at Jerusalem, running about all day, and writing at night. Very early in the morning of the 7th of October, the procurator entered my apartment, and informed me how matters stood between the pacha and the superior. We concerted our measures accordingly. My fir- VOL. II. B 2 JERUSALEM. mans were sent to Abdallah, who flew into a pas- sion, shouted, threatened, but at last thought fit to lower his demands. I am sorry that I cannot insert the copy of a letter written by Father Bona- ventura de Nola to General Sebastiani, which copy I received from Bonaventura himself. Besides giving - a history of the pacha, it states facts not less honourable to France than to General Sebas- tiani. This letter I should not venture to publish without the permission of the person to whom it is addressed ; and, unfortunately, the General's absence deprives me of the means of obtaining such permission. Nothing but the strong desire which I felt to be of service to the fathers of Palestine, could for a moment have diverted my attention from a visit to the Holy Sepulchre. About nine the same morn- ing I sallied from the convent, attended by two friars, a drogman, my servant, and a janissary. I repaired to the church which encloses the tomb of Jesus Christ. All preceding travellers have de- scribed this church, the most venerable in the world, whether we think as philosophers or as Christians. Here I am reduced to an absolute dilemma. Shall I give an accurate delineation of the sacred scenes ? If so, I can but repeat what has been said before : never was subject less known to modern readers, and never was subject more completely exhausted. Shall I omit the descrip- tion of those places ? In this case should I not leave out the most important part of my travels, and exclude what constitutes their object and their end ? After long hesitation, I determined to de- scribe the principal stations of Jerusalem from the following considerations : 1. Nobody now reads the ancient pilgrimages to THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 3 Jerusalem ; and what is very old will probably appear quite new to the majority of readers. 2. The church of the Holy Sepulchre no longer exists ; it was totally destroyed by fire since my return from Judea. I am, I may say, the last tra- veller by whom it was visited, and, for the same reason, I shall be its last historian. But as I have not the presumption to suppose that I can excel the very able descriptions which have already been given, I shall avail myself of the works of my predecessors; taking care, however, to elucidate them by my own observations. Among these works, 1 should have chosen, in preference, those of protestant travellers, as more consonant with the spirit of the age : we are apt , at the present day, to reject what springs, in our opinion, from too religious a source. Unfortu- nately, I found nothing satisfactory on the subject of the Holy Sepulchre in Pococke, Shaw, Maun- drell, Hasselquist, and some others. The scholars and travellers who have written in Latin concerning the antiquities of Jerusalem, as Adamannus, Bede, Brocard, Willibald,Breydenbach, Sanuto,Ludolph, Reland,* Adrichomius, Quaresmius, Baumgarten, Fureri, Bochart, Arias Montanus, Reuwich, Hesse, and Cotovic,t would impose the necessity of making translations which, after all, would furnish the rea- der with no new information.^ I have, therefore, * His work, Palcestina ex Monumentis veteribus illustrata, is a miracle of erudition. f His description of the Holy Sepulchre is so circumstantial, as to give the whole of the hymns sung by the pilgrims at every station. f There is also a description of Jerusalem in the Armenian language, and another in modern Greek ; the latter I have seen. The more ancient descriptions, as those of Sanuto, Ludolph, Brocard, Breydenbach, Willibald, Adamannus, or rather Arculfe, and the venerable Bede, are curious, because they afford the y 2 means 4 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. adhered to the French travellers,* and among' these I have preferred the description of the Holy Sepul- chre by Deshayes, for the following- reasons: Belon (1550), of high celebrity as a naturalist, savs scarcely a word concerning- the Holy Sepul- chre; his style is, moreover, too antiquated. Other authors, either of still older date, or cotemporary with him, as Cachermois (1490), Regnault (1522), Salignac (1522), le Huen (1525), Gassot (1536), Renaud(l548)i Postel (1553), Giraudet (1575), likewise employ a language too different from that of the present day.t Villamont (1588) overloads his work with mi- nutiae, and he has neither order nor judgment. Father Boucher (1610) is so extravagantly pious, that it is impossible to quote him. Benard writes with great sobriety, though no more than twenty years of age at the period when he travelled ; but he is diffuse, insipid, and obscure. Father Pacifico (1622) is vulgar, and his narrative too concise, Monconys (1647) pays attention to nothing but medical recipes. Doubdan (1651) is clear, learned, and well worthy of being consulted; but prolix, and apt to lay too much stress on trivial objects. Roger, the friar (1653), who was for five years attached to the service of the holy places, possesses erudition and judgment, and writes in a lively, animated style; his description of the Holy Se- means of judging what changes have since taken place in the church of the Holy Sepulchre ; but in reference to the modern edifice, they are wholly useless. * De Vera, in Spanish, is very concise, and yet extremely perspicuous. Zuallardo, who wrote in Italian, is vague and con- fused- Pietro de la Valle charms by the peculiar elegance of his style and his singular adventures ; but he is no authority. t Some of these authors wrote in Latin, but there are old French versions of their works. DESHAYES DESCRIPTION. 5 pulchre is too long, and on this account I have excluded it. Thevenot (1056), one of the most celebrated French travellers, has given an excel- lent account of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and I would advise the reader to consult his work : but he implicitly follows Deshayes. Father Nau, a Jesuit (1674), added to a knowledge of the ori- ental languages the advantage of visiting Jeru- salem with the Marquis de Nointel, our ambas- sador at Constantinople, and the same gentleman to whom we are indebted for the first drawings of Athens : but it is a pity that the learned Jesuit is so insufferably prolix. Father Neret's letter, in the Lettres Edifiantes, is excellent in every respect, but omits too many things. The same may be said of Du Loiret de la Roque (1688). As to travellers of very recent date, such as Muller, Vanzow, Korte, Bescheider, Mariti, Volney, Nie- buhr, and Brown, they are almost totally silent respecting the holy places. The narrative of Deshayes (1621), who was sent to Palestine by Louis XIII., appears therefore to me the fittest to be followed : 1st, Because the Turks themselves were soli- citous to shew this ambassador whatever was curious at Jerusalem; and he might even have obtained admission, had he pleased, into the mosque of the Temple. 'idly, Because he is so clear and so precise, in the style, now somewhat antiquated, of his secre- tary, "that Paul Lucas has, according to his usual custom, copied him, verbatim, without acknow- ledging the plagiarism. 3dly, Because d' Anville (and this, indeed, is the primary reason) has taken Deshayes' map for the subject of a dissertation, which is, perhaps, the () THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. master-piece of that celebrated geographer.* Des- hayes will, therefore, furnish us with the descrip- tion of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, to which I shall subjoin my observations. " The Holy Sepulchre, and most of the sacred places, are attended by Franciscan friars, who are sent thither every three years ; and though they are of all nations, yet they all pass for French or Venetians, and they could not maintain their ground were they not under the king's protection. About sixty years ago, they had a habitation with- out the city, on Mount Sion, on the spot where our Saviour instituted the Lord's Supper with his disciples ; but their church having been converted into a mosque, they have since resided in the city on Mount Gihon, upon which stands their con- vent, called St. Saviour's. Here dwells their su- perior, with the members of the family, which supplies with monks all the places in the Holy Land that stand in need of them. " From this convent the church of St. Sepulchre is but two hundred paces distant. It comprehends the Holy Sepulchre, Mount Calvary, and several other sacred places. It was partly built by direc- tion of St. Helena, to cover the Holy Sepul- chre ; but the Christian princes of succeeding ages caused it to be enlarged so as to include Mount Calvary, which is only fifty paces from the Sepul- chre. " In ancient times, Mount Calvary, as I have already observed, was without the city; it was the place where criminals, sentenced to suffer death, were executed ; and that all the people might attend on these occasions, there was a large vacant * This dissertation, which is very scarce, is given in the Appendix. ©ESHAYES 1 DESCRIPTION. space between the eminence and the wall of the city. The rest of the hill was surrounded with gardens, one of which belonged to Joseph of Ari- mathea, who was, in secret, a disciple of Jesus Christ : here he had constructed a sepulchre for himself, and in this the body of our Lord was de- posited. The Jews were not accustomed to bury their dead in the manner that we do. Each, ac- cording to his ability, had a kind of little closet excavated in some rock, where the body was laid at length upon a table, also hewn out of the rock, and this receptacle was closed by a stone placed before the entrance, which was generally no more than four feet in height. " The church of the Holy Sepulchre is very irregular, owing to the nature and situation of the places which it was designed to comprehend. It is nearly in the form of a cross, being one hundred and twenty paces in length, exclusive of the descent to the Discovery of the Holy Cross, and seventy in breadth. It has three domes, of which that covering the Holy Sepulchre serves for the nave of the church. It is thirty feet in diameter, and is covered at top like the Rotunda at Rome. There is no cupola, it is true ; the roof being supported only by large rafters, brought from Mount Leba- non. This church had formerly three entrances, but now there is but one door, the keys of which are cautiously kept by the Turks, lest the pilgrims should gain admittance without paying the nine sequins, or thirty- six livres, demanded for this indulgence : I allude to those from Christendom : for the Christian subjects of the Grand Signor pay no more than half that sum. This door is always shut ; and there is only a small window, crossed with an iron bar, through which the people with- 8 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. out hand provisions to those within, who are of eight different nations. " The first is that of the Latins or Romans, which is represented by the Franciscan friars. They are the keepers of the holy sepulchre ; the place on Mount Calvary, where our Lord was nailed to the cross ; the spot where the sacred cross was discovered ; the stone of unction, and the chapel where our Lord appeared to the Blessed Virgin after his resurrection. " The second nation is that of the Greeks, who have the choir of the church, where they officiate : in the midst of it is a small circle of marble ; the centre of which they look upon as the middle of the globe. " The third is the nation of the Abyssinians, to whom belongs the chapel containing the pillar of Impropere. " The fourth nation is that of the Copts, who are Egyptian Christians : these have a small ora- tory near the Holy Sepulchre. " The fifth nation is the Armenian. They have the chapel of St. Helena, and that where the soldiers cast lots for, and divided the apparel of our Lord. " The sixth nation is that of the Nestorians, or Jacobites, who are natives of Chaldea and of Syria. These have a small chapel near the spot where our Lord appeared to Mary Magdalen, in the form of a gardener, and which is on 'that account denomi- nated Magdalen's Chapel. " The seventh is the nation of the Georgians, who inhabit the country between the Euxine and the Caspian Sea. They keep the place on Mount Calvary where the cross was prepared, and the prison in which our Lord was confined till the hole was made to set it up in. DESHAYEs' DESCRIPTION. 9 <( The eighth nation is that of the Maronites, who inhabit Mount Lebanon. Like us, they acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope. " Exclusively of these places, which all who are within are at liberty to visit, each nation has a par- ticular spot allotted to it in the ailes and corners of this church, where its members assemble and perform their devotions, according to their respec- tive rituals ; for the priests and religious who enter this place are usually two months before they leave it, that is, till others are sent from the convent in the city to attend in their stead. It would be scarcely possible to remain there long without being ill, because the place has very little air, and the vaults and walls produce a coldness that is ex- tremely unwholesome ; nevertheless, we there found a worthy hermit, who has assumed the habit of St. Francis, and lived twenty years in the place without ever leaving it. There is, moreover, such abun- dant employment to keep two hundred lamps burning, and to sweep and cleanse all the holy places, that no more than four hours a night can be allowed for sleep. " On entering the church, you come to the stone of unction, on which the body of our Lord was anointed with myrrh and aloes, before it was laid in the sepulchre. Some say that it is of the same rock as Mount Calvary ; and others assert that it was brought to this place by Joseph and Nicodemus, secret disciples of Jesus Christ, who performed this pious office, and that it is of a greenish colour. Be this as it may, on account of the indiscretion of certain pilgrims, who broke off pieces, it was found necessary to cover it with white marble, and to surround it with an iron railing, lest people should walk over it. This stone is eight feet, wanting three b3 10 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. inches, in length, and two feet, wanting- one inch, in breadth; and above it, eight lamps are kept continually burning. " The Holy Sepulchre is thirty paces from this stone, and exactly in the centre of the great dome, of which I have already spoken : it resembles a small closet, hewn out of the solid rock. The entrance, which faces the east, is only four feet high, and two feet and a quarter broad, so that you are obliged to stoop very much to go in. The interior of the sepulchre is nearly square. It is six feet, wanting an inch in length, and six feet, wanting two inches in breadth, and from the floor to the roof, eight feet one inch. There is a solid block of the same stone, which was left in excavating the other part. This is two feet four inches and a half high, and occupies half of the sepulchre ; for it is six feet, wanting one inch, in length, and two feet and five- sixths wide. On this table the body of our Lord was laid, with the head towards the west, and the feet to the east: but on account of the superstitious devotion of the Orientals, who imagine that, if they leave their hair upon this stone, God will never for- sake them, and also because the pilgrims broke off pieces, it has received a covering of white marble, on which mass is now celebrated. Forty -four lamps are constantly burning in this sacred place, and three holes have been made in the roof for the emission of the smoke. The exterior of the sepul- chre is also faced with slabs of marble, and adorned with several columns, having a dome above. " At the entrance of the sepulchre there is a stone about a foot and a-half square, and a foot thick, which is of the same rock, and served to sup- port the large stone that closed the access to the sepulchre. Upon this stone was seated the angel DESHAYES 1 DESCRIPTION. 11 when lie spoke to the two Marys ; and as well on account of this mystery, as to prevent the sepulchre from being - entered, the first Christians erected before it a little chapel, which is called the Angel's Chapel. " Twelve paces from the Holy Sepulchre, turning towards the north, you come to a large block of grey marble, about four feet in diameter, placed there to mark the spot where our Lord appeared to Mary Magdalen in the form of a gardener. '* Farther on is the Chapel of the Apparition, where, as tradition asserts, our Lord first appeared to the Virgin Mary after his resurrection. This is the place where the Franciscans perform their devotions, and to which they retire; and hence they pass into chambers with which there is no other communication. " Continuing your progress round the church, you find a small vaulted chapel seven feet long and six wide, otherwise denominated the Prison of our Lord, because he was here confined while the hole was made for erecting- the cross. This chapel is opposite to Mount Calvary, so that these two places form what may be termed the transept of the church, the hill being to the south, and the chapel to the north. " Very near to this is another chapel, five paces long - and three broad, standing on the very spot where our Lord was stripped by the soldiers before he was nailed to the cross, and where they cast lots for his apparel, and divided it among - them. " Leaving- this chapel, you find on the left a great staircase, which pierces the wall of the church; and descends into a kind of cellar dug- out of the rock. Having gone down thirty steps, you come to a chapel on the left hand; which is com- 12 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. monl y called the Chapel of St. Helena, because she prayed there while she caused search to be made for the sacred cross. You descend eleven more steps to the place where it was discovered, together with the nails, the crown of thorns, and the head of the spear, after lying- buried in this place up- wards of three hundred years. " Near the top of this staircase, turning" towards Mount Calvary, is a chapel, four paces long and two and a half broad, under the altar of which is a pillar of grey marble spotted with black, two feet in height, and one in diameter. It is called the pillar of Impropere, because our Lord was there forced to sit down in order to be crowned with thorns. " Ten paces from this chapel you come to a very narrow staircase, the steps of which are of wood at the beginning, and of stone at the end. There are twenty in all, by which you ascend to Mount Cal- vary. This spot, once so ignominious, having been sanctified by the blood of our Lord, was an object of the particular attention of the first Christians. Having removed every impurity, and all the earth which was upon it, they surrounded it with walls, so that it is now like a lofty chapel enclosed within this spacious church. It is lined in the interior with marble, and divided by a row of arches into two parts. That towards the north is the spot where our Lord was nailed to the cross. Here thirty-two lamps are kept continually burning: they are attended by the Franciscans, who daily perform mass in this sacred place. " In the other part, which is to the south, the Holy Cross was erected. You still see the hole dug in the rock, to the depth of about a foot and a half, besides the earth which was above it. Near THREE CHURCHES. 13 this is the place where stood the crosses of the two thieves. That of the penitent thief was to the north, and the other to the south ; so that the first was on the right hand of our Saviour, who had his face turned towards the west, and his back to Jerusa- lem, which lay to the east. Fifty lamps are kept constantly burning in honour of this holy spot. " Below this chapel are the tombs of Godfrey de Bouillon and his brother Baldwin, on which you read these inscriptions : HIC JACET INCLYTUS DUX GODEFRIDUS DE BULION, QUI TOTAM ISTAM TERRAM AC- QUISIVIT CULTU1 CHRISTIANO, CUJUS AN1MA REGNET CUM CHRIS TO. AMEN. REX BALDUINUS, JUDAS ALTER MACHABEUS SPES PATRIyE, VIGOR ECCLESLE, VIRTUS UTRIUSQUE, QUEM FORMIDABANT, CU1 DONA TRIBUTA FEREBANT CiEDAR ET jEGYPTUS, DAN AC HOMICIDA DAMASCUS, PROH DOLOR! IN MOD1CO CLAUDITUR HOC TUMULO.* " Mount Calvary is the last station of the church of the Holy Sepulchre ; for twenty paces from it, you again come to the Stone of Unction, which is just at the entrance of the church." Deshayes having thus described in order the sta- tions of all these venerable places, I have now nothing to do but to exhibit to the reader a general view of the whole together. It is obvious, in the first place, that the church of the Holy Sepulchre is composed of three churches : that of the Holy Sepulchre, properly * Besides these tombs, four others are to be seen, half demo- lished. On one of them may still be read, but not without great difficulty, an epitaph given by Cotovic. 14 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. so called ; that of Calvary ; and the church of the Discovery of the Holy Cross. The first is built in the valley at the foot of Calvary, on the spot where it is known that the body of Christ was deposited. This church is in the form of a cross, the chapel of the Holy Sepul- chre constituting in fact the nave of the edifice. It is circular, like the Pantheon at Rome, and is lighted only by a dome, beneath which is the sepulchre. Sixteen marble columns adorn the cir- cumference of this rotunda : they are connected by seventeen arches, and support an upper gallery likewise composed of sixteen columns and seven- teen arches, of smaller dimensions than those of the lower range. Niches corresponding with the arches appear abov£ the frieze of the second gallery, and the dome springs from the arch of these niches. The latter were formerly decorated with mosaics, representing the twelve apostles, St. Helena, the emperor Constantine, and three other portraits unknown. The choir of the church of the Holy Sepulchre is to the east of the nave of the tomb : it is double, as in the ancient cathedrals ; that is to say, it has, first, a place with stalls for the priests, and beyond that a sanctuary raised two steps above it. Round this double sanctuary run the ailes of the choir, and in these ailes are situated the chapels described by Deshayes. It is likewise in the aile on the right, behind the choir, that we find the two flights of steps leading, the one to the church of Calvary, the other to the church of the Discovery of the Holy Cross. The first ascends to the top of Calvary, the second conducts you down underneath it : for the Cross was erected on the summit of Golgotha^ ITS ARCHITECTURE. 15 and found again under that hill. To sum up then what we have already said, the church of the Holy Sepulchre is built at the foot of Calvary ; its east- ern part adjoins that eminence, beneath and upon which have been constructed two other churches, connected by walls and vaulted staircases with the principal edifice. The architecture of the church is evidently of the age of Constantine : the Corinthian order pre- vails throughout. The columns are either too heavy or too slender, and their diameter is almost always disproportionate to their height. Some double columns which support the frieze of the choir are, however, in a very good style. The church being lofty and spacious, the profile of the cornices displays a considerable degree of gran- deur ; but as the arches which separate the choir from the nave were stopped up about sixty years ago, the horizontal line is broken, and you no longer enjoy a view of the whole of the vaulted roof. The church has no vestibule, nor any other en- trance than two side doors, only one of which is ever opened. Thus this structure appears to have never had any exterior decorations. It is besides concealed by shabby buildings, and by the Greek convents erected close to its walls. The small structure of marble which covers the Holy Sepulchre is in the figure of a canopy, adorned with semi-gothic arches ; it rises with ele- gance under the dome, by which it receives light, but is spoiled by a massive chapel which the Ar- menians have obtained permission to erect at one end of it. The interior of this canopy presents to the view a very plain tomb of white marble, which adjoins on one side to the wall of the monument, 16 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. and serves the Catholic religious for an altar. This is the tomb of Jesus Christ. The origin of the church of the Holy Sepulchre is of high antiquit} 7 . The author of the Epitome of the Holy Wars ( Epitome Bellorum sacrorum) asserts, that, forty-six years after the destruction of Jerusalem by Vespasian and Titus, the Chris- tians obtained permission of Adrian to build, or rather to rebuild, a church over the tomb of their God, and to enclose in the new city the other places venerated by the Christians. This church, he adds, was enlarged and repaired by Helena, the mother of Constantine. Quaresmius contests this opinion, " because," says he, " the believers were not allowed till the reign of Constantine to erect such churches." This learned monk forgets that, anterior to the persecution by Dioclesian, the Christians possessed numerous churches, and pub- licly celebrated the mysteries of their religion. Lactantius and Eusebius boast of the opulence and prosperity of the believers at this period. Other writers worthy of credit, Sozomenes, in the second book of his History ; St. Jerome, in his Letters to Paulina and Ruffinus ; Severus, in his second book ; Nicephorus, in his eighteenth ; and Eusebius, in the Life of Constantine, inform us that the Pagans surrounded the sacred places with a wall ; that they erected a statue of Jupiter on the tomb of Jesus Christ, and another of Venus on Mount Calvary ; and that they consecrated a grove to Adonis on the spot where our Saviour was born. These testimonies not only demonstrate the anti- quity of the true worship at Jerusalem, by this very profanation of the sacred places, but prove that the Christians had sanctuaries on those sites. ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 17 Be this as it may, the foundation of the church of the Holy Sepulchre dates at least as far back as the time of Constantine. A letter of that prince is yet extant, in which he commands Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, to erect a church on the place where the great mystery of salvation was accom- plished. This letter Eusebius has preserved. The bishop of Ca3sarea then describes the new church, the dedication of which occupied eight days. If the account of Eusebius required confirmation from other testimonies, we might adduce those of Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem {Catechism 1, 10, 13,) of Theodoret, and even of the Itinerary fromBour- deaux to Jerusalem, in 333, which says: Ibidem, jitssu Constantini imperatoris, basilica facta est miras pidcltritudinis. This church was ravaged by Cosroes II. king of Persia, about three hundred years after its erection by Constantine. Heraclius recovered the genuine Cross; and Modest us, bishop of Jerusalem, rebuilt the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Some time afterwards, the caliph Omar made himself master of Jerusalem, but he allowed the Christians the free exercise of their religion. About the year 1009, Hequem, or Hakem, who then reigned in Egypt, spread desolation around the tomb of Christ. Some will have it, that this prince's mother, who was a Christian, caused the church to be again re- built ; while others assert, that the son of the Egyptian caliph, at the solicitation of the emperor Argyropilus, permitted the believers to enclose the sacred places with a new structure. But as the Christians of Jerusalem possessed, in Hakem's time, neither the resources nor the skill requisite for the erection of the edifice which now covers 18 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. Calvary;* as, notwithstanding a very suspicious passage of William of Tyre, we find no indication that the Crusaders ever built any church for the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem ; it is probable that the church founded by Constantine has always sub- sisted in its present form, at least as far as regards the walls of the structure. The mere inspection of the architecture of this building would suffice to demonstrate the truth of what I advance. The Crusaders having gained possession of Je- rusalem the 15th of July 1099, wrested the tomb of Christ from the hands of the Infidels. It re- mained eighty-eight years in the power of the suc- cessors of Godfrey of Bouillon. When Jerusalem again fell under the Mahometan yoke, the Syrians ransomed the church of the Holy Sepulchre with a considerable sum of money, and monks repaired to defend with their prayers a spot entrusted in vain to the arms of kings. Thus, amid a thousand revolutions, the piety of the early Christians pre- served a church of which the present age was des- tined to witness the destruction. The ancient travellers were extremely fortunate : they were not obliged to enter into all these critical disquisitions ; in the first place, because they found in their readers that religion which never contends against truth ; and, secondly, because every mind was convinced that the only way of seeing a coun- try as it is, must be to see it with all its traditions and recollections. It is, in fact, with the Bible in his hand that a traveller ought to visit the Holy Land. If we are determined to carry with us a spirit of * It is said that Mary, wife of Hakem, and mother of his suc- cessor, defrayed the expence of it, and that in this pious under- taking she was assisted by Constantine Monomachus. EFFECT ON THE MIXD. 19 cavil and contradiction, Judea is not worth our going so far to examine it. What should we say to a man, who in traversing- Greece and Italy, should think of nothing but contradicting- Homer and Virgil ? Such, however, is the course adopted by modern travellers ; evidently the effect of our va- nity, which would excite a high idea of our own abilities, and at the same time fill us with disdain for those of other people. Christian readers will perhaps inquire, what were my feelings on entering this awful place. I really cannot tell. So many reflections rushed at once upon my mind, that I was unable to dwell upon any particular idea. I continued near half an hour upon my knees in the little chamber of the Holy Sepulchre, with my eyes rivetted on the stone, from which I had not the power to turn them. One of the two religious who accompanied me remained prostrate on the marble by my side, while the other, with the Testament in his hand, read to me by the light of the lamps the passages relating to the sacred tomb. Between each verse he repeated a prayer : Domine Jcsu Christe, qui in kord diet vespertind de cruce depositus, in bracltiis dulcissimce Matris tuce reclinatus fuisti, hordque ultima in hoc sanctissimo monumento corjnts tuum exanime contidisti, &c. All I can say is, that when I beheld this triumphant sepul- chre, I felt nothing but my own weakness ; and that when my guide exclaimed with St. Paul, " O death, where is thy victory ! O grave, where is thy sting !" I listened as if death were about to reply that he was conquered, and enchained in this mo- nument. We visited all the stations till we came to the summit of Calvary. Where shall we look in anti- 20 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. quity for any thing so impressive, so wonderful, as the last scenes described by the Evangelists ? These are not the absurd adventures of a deity foreign to human nature : it is the most pathetic history — a history, which not only extorts tears by its beauty, but whose consequences, applied to the universe, have changed the face of the earth. I had just beheld the monuments of Greece, and my mind was still profoundly impressed with their grandeur ; but how far inferior were the sensations which they excited, to those which I felt at the sight of the places commemorated in the Gospel ! The church of the Holy Sepulchre, composed of several churches, erected upon an unequal surface, illumined by a multitude of lamps, is singularly mysterious ; it is pervaded by a sombre light, fa- vourable to piety and profound devotion. Christian priests, of various sects, inhabit different parts of the edifice. From the arches above, where they nestle like pigeons, from the chapels below, and subterraneous vaults, their songs are heard at all hours both of the day and night. The organ of the Latin monks, the cymbals of the Abyssinian priest, the voice of the Greek caloyer, the prayer of the solitary Armenian, the plaintive accents of the Coptic friar, alternately, or all at once assail your ear: you know not whence these concerts proceed; you inhale the perfume of incense, without per- ceiving the hand that burns it; you merely per- ceive the pontiff, who is going to celebrate the most awful of mysteries on the very spot where they were accomplished, pass quickly by, glide behind the columns, and vanish in the gloom of the temple. I did not leave the sacred structure without stop- ping at the monuments of Godfrey and Baldwin. They face the entrance of the church, and stand THE CROWN OF THORNS. 21 against the wall of the choir. I saluted the ashes of these royal chevaliers, who were worthy of re- posing near the sepulchre which they had rescued. These ashes are those of Frenchmen, and they are the only mortal remains interred beneath the sha- dow of the tomb of Christ. What an honourable distinction for my country ! I returned to the convent at eleven o'clock, and an hour afterwards I again left it to follow the Via Dolorosa. This is the name given to the way by which the Saviour of the world passed from the residence of Pilate to Calvary. Pilate's house* is a ruin, from which you survey the extensive site of Solomon's Temple, and the mosque erected on that site. Christ, having been scourged with rods, crowned with thorns, and dressed in a purple robe, was presented to the Jews by Pilate. Ecce Homo ! exclaimed the judge ; and you still see the window from which these memorable words were pro- nounced. According to the tradition current among the Latins at Jerusalem, the crown of Jesus Christ was taken from the thorny tree, called Lycium spino- sum. Hasselquist, a skilful botanist, is, however, of opinion, that the nabka of the Arabs was employed for that purpose. The reason which lie gives for this conjecture deserves to be men- tioned. " It is highly probable," says he, " that the nabka furnished the crown which was put on the head of our Saviour. It. is common in the east. A plant better adapted for this purpose could not have been selected ; for it is armed with thorns, * The governor of Jerusalem formerly resided in this building, but at present these ruins serve only for stabling for his horses. 22 OUR LADY OF GRIEF. its branches are supple and pliant, and its leaf is of a dark green, like that of ivy. Perhaps, in order to add insult to punishment, the enemies of Christ chose a plant nearly resembling' that made use of to crown the emperors and the generals of armies." Another tradition at Jerusalem preserves the sentence pronounced by Pilate on the Saviour of the World, in these words: Jesum Nazarenum, snbversorem gentis, con- temptorem Ccesaris, et falsvm Messiam, ut ma- jorum suce gentis testimonio probation est, ducite ad communis supplicii locum, et eum ludibriis regice majestatis in medio duorum latronum cruci affigite. I, lictor, expedi cruces. A hundred paces from the arch of the Ecce Homo, I was shewn, on the left, the ruins of a church formerly dedicated to Our Lady of Grief . It was on this spot that Mary, who had been at first driven away by the guards, met her son bend- ing 1 beneath the weight of the cross. This circum- stance is not recorded by the Evangelists ; but it is generally believed, on the authority of St. Bo- niface and St. Anselm. The former says, that the Virgin sunk to the ground as if lifeless, and could not utter a single word : — nee verbum dicere potuit. St. Anselm asserts that Christ saluted her in these words: Salve, Mater! As John relates that Mary was at the foot of the cross, this account of the Fathers is highly probable. Re- ligion is not disposed to reject these traditions, which shew how profoundly the wonderful and sublime history of the Passion is engraven on the memory of man. Eighteen centuries of persecu- tions without end, of incessant revolutions, of con- tinually increasing ruins, have not been able to THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS. 23 erase or to hide the traces of a mother going to weep over her son. Fifty paces farther we came to the spot where Simon, the Cyrenean, assisted Jesus to bear his cross. — " And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenean, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus."* Here the road, which before ran east and west, makes an angle, and turns to the north. I saw on the right the place where dwelt the indigent Lazarus, and on the opposite side of the street, the residence of the obdurate rich man. — " There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar, named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table : moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom : the rich man also died, and was buried. And in hell, he lift up his eyes, being in great torments."! St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, and St. Cyril, have looked upon the history of Lazarus and the rich man, as not merely a parable, but a real and well-known fact. The Jews themselves have pre- served the name of the rich n.an, whom they call Nabal. Having passed the house of the rich man, you turn to the right, and again proceed in a westerly direction. At the entrance of the street which leads up to Calvary, Christ was met by the holy women, who deplored his fate. — " And there fol- * Luke, xxiii. '26. f Luke, xvi. 19—23. 24 CALVARY. lowed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus, turning unto them, said : Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for your- selves and for your children."* One hundred and ten paces farther is shewn the site of the house of Veronica, and the spot where that pious woman wiped the face of the Lord. The original name of this female was Berenice ; by the transposition of two letters, it was afterwards altered into Vera-icon, true image ; besides, the change of b into v is very frequent in the ancient languages. Proceeding about another hundred paces, you come to the Judicial Gate, by which criminals were led to be executed on Golgotha. That hill, now inclosed within the new city, was without the walls of ancient Jerusalem. The distance from the Judicial Gate to the sum- mit of Calvary, is about two hundred paces. Here terminates the Via Dolorosa, which may be in the whole about a mile in length. We have seen that Calvary is at present comprised in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. If those who read the history of the Passion in the gospels are overcome with sacred melancholy and profound admiration, what must be his feelings who traces the scenes them- selves at the foot of Mount Sion, in sight of the Temple, and within the very walls of Jerusalem? After this description of the Via Dolorosa, and the church of the Holy Sepulchre, I shall say very little concerning the other places of devotion in the city. I shall merely enumerate them in the order in which they were visited by me, during my stay at Jerusalem. * Luke xxiii. 27, 28. PLACES OF DEVOTION. 25 1. The house of Anna, the priest, near David's Gate, at the foot of Mount Sion, within the wall of the city. The Armenians possess the church erected on the ruins of this house. 2. The place where our Saviour appeared to Mary Magdalen, Mary, the mother of James, and Mary Salome, between the castle and the gate of Mount Sion. 3. The house of Simon the Pharisee, where Magdalen confessed her sins. Here, in the eastern part of the city, is a church totally in ruins. 4. The monastery of St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin, and the grotto of the immacu- late Conception, under the church of the monas- tery. This convent has been turned into a mosque, but admission may be obtained for a trifling sum. 5. The prison of St. Peter, near Calvary. This consists of nothing but old walls, in which are yet shewn some iron staples. 6. Zebedee's house, situated very near St. Peter's prison; now a spacious church belonging to the Greek Patriarch. 7. The house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where St. Peter took refuge when he had been set at liberty by the angel. It is a church, the duty of which is performed by the Syrians. 8. The place of the martyrdom of St. James the Great. This is the Armenian convent, the church of which is very rich and elegant. Of the Arme- nian Patriarch I shall speak hereafter. The reader has now before him a complete view of the Christian monuments in Jerusalem. Let us next visit the exterior of the holy city. VOL. II. CHAPTER II. Exterior of Jerusalem — Pool of Beersheba — Mount Sion — David's Palace and Tomb — Fountain of Siloe — Valley of Jehoshaphat — The brook Cedron — Tombs of Zachariah, Jehoshaphat, and Absalom— Garden of Olivet — Gethsemane — Sepulchre of the Virgin Mary — Grotto where our Saviour sweated blood — Rock where he foretold the Destruction of Jerusalem — Burning of the Temple — Tombs of the Prophets — Subterraneous meeting, place of the Apostles — Olive-tree where Christ foretold the Last Judgment — Spot of his Ascension to Heaven — Bossuet's History of Christ's Passion and Death. It took me two hours to get through the Via Dolorosa on foot. I made a point of daily revisit- ing' this sacred read, as well as the church of Cal- vary, that no essential circumstance might escape my memory. It was, therefore, two o'clock on the 7th of October when I finished my first survey of the holy places. I then mounted my horse, with Ali Aga, Michael, the drogman, and my servants. We went out by the gate of Jaffa, to make the complete circuit of Jerusalem. We were abun- dantly provided with arms, dressed in the French fashion, and fully determined not to submit to any insult. Thanks to the renown of our victories, the times are greatly altered ; for, during the reign of Louis XIII. his ambassador, Deshayes, had the greatest difficulty in the world to obtain permis- sion to enter Jerusalem with his sword. MOUNT SION. 27 Turning- to the left as soon as we had passed the gate, we proceeded southward, and passed the Pool of Beersheba, a broad, deep ditch, but with- out water ; and then ascended Mount Sion, part of which is now without the city. The name of Sion doubtless awakens grand ideas in the mind of the reader, who is curious to hear something concerning this mount, so mysterious in Scripture, so highly celebrated in Solomon's Song — this mount, the subject of the benedictions or of the tears of the Prophets, and whose misfortunes have been sung by Racine. This hill, of a yellowish colour, and barren ap- pearance, open in form of a crescent towards Jeru- salem, is about as high as Montmartre at Paris, but rounder at the top. This sacred summit is distinguished by three monuments, or more pro- perly by three ruins ; the house of Caiaphas, the place where Christ celebrated his last supper, and the tomb or palace of David. From the top of the hill you see, to the south, the valley of Ben- Hinnon ; beyond this the Field of Blood, purchased with the thirty pieces of silver given to Judas, the Hill of Evil Counsel, the tombs of the judges, and the whole desert towards Hebron and Bethlehem. To the north, the wall of Jerusalem, which passes over the top of Sion, intercepts the view of the city, the site of which gradually slopes from this place towards the valley of Jehoshaphat. The residence of Caiaphas is now a church, the duty of which is performed by the Armenians. David's tomb is a small vaulted room, containing three sepulchres of dark-coloured stone; and on the spot where Christ held his last supper, stand a mosque and a Turkish hospital, formerly a church and monastery occupied by the fathers of the Holy c 2 28 david's palace. Land. This last sanctuary is equally celebrated in the Old and in the New Testament. Here David built himself a palace and a tomb ; here he kept for three months the Ark of the Covenant ; here Christ held his last Passover, and instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist ; here he appeared to his disciples on the day of his resurrection ; and here the Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles. The place hal- lowed by the last supper was transformed into the first Christian temple the world ever beheld, where St. James the Less was consecrated the first Chris- tian bishop of Jerusalem, and St. Peter held the first council of the church. Finally, it was from this spot that the apostles, in compliance with the injunction to go and teach all nations, departed without purse and without scrip, to seat their reli- gion upon all the thrones of the earth. Josephus, the historian, has left us a magnificent description of David's palace and tomb. On the subject of the latter, Benjamin of Tudela relates this curious story : " Jerusalem is encompassed all round with lofty hills ; but it is on Mount Sion that the sepulchres of David's family must be situated, though the exact spot is not known. About fifteen years ago, one of the walls of the temple, which, as I have observed, stands on Mount Sion, fell down. Upon this the patriarch ordered a priest to repair it with such stones as were to be procured from the foun- dation of the walls of ancient Sion. To this end the latter hired about twenty workmen, between two of whom subsisted the closest friendship. One of these took the other home with him one morning to breakfast. Returning after their repast, the overseer enquired why they came so late ? They replied that they would make up for it, by working TOMB OF DAVID. 29 an hour over the regular time. Accordingly, while the rest of the men were at dinner, and these were continuing their work as they had promised, they raised a stone which closed the mouth of a cavern, and said to one another, ' Let's see if there be not some treasure concealed here.' Having- entered, they went forward till they came to a palace sup- ported by marble pillars, and covered with plates of gold and silver. Before it was a table, on which lay a crown and sceptre. This was the sepulchre of David, king of Israel ; that of Solomon, with similar ornaments, was on the left ; as were also the tombs of several other kings of Judah of the family of David, who were interred in this place. They saw likewise chests which were locked up ; so that what they contained is not known to this day. The two men were proceeding to enter the palace, when a violent whirlwind, rushing in at the mouth of the cavern, threw them upon the ground, where they remained as if dead till night. Another blast of wind roused them from this situation, and they heard a voice, resembling that of a man, which said to them : ' Arise, and be gone from this place.' Overcome with terror, they precipitately departed, and related all that had befallen them to the Patriarch, who made them repeat the account in the presence of Abraham of Constantinople, the Pharisee, surnamed the Pious, who then resided at Jerusalem. He had sent for him, to inquire what he thought of the matter ; on which he re- plied that this was the burial-place of the house of David, prepared for the kings of Judah. The fol- lowing day, the two men were found confined to their beds and very ill in consequence of the fright. They refused to return to the spot for any reward whatever, declaring that it was vain for mortal to SO FOUNTAIN OF SILOE. attempt to penetrate into a place the entrance of which was defended by God himself; so that it was stopped up by the command of the Patriarch, and it has thus been concealed from sight to this day."* Having- descended Mount Sion on the east side, we came at its foot to the fountain and pool of Siloe, where Christ restored sight to the blind man. The spring issues from a rock, and runs in a silent stream, according to the testimony of Jeremiah, which is contradicted by a passage of St. Jerome. It has a kind of ebb and flood, sometimes discharg- ing its current like the fountain of Vaucluse, at others returning and scarcely suffering it to run at all. The Levites sprinkled the water of Siloe on the altar at the feast of Tabernacles, singing, Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus Salvatoris. Milton mentions this spring, instead of Castalia's fount, in the beautiful invocation with which his poem opens : Heavenly muse, that on the secret top Of Orel) or of Sinai didst inspire That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed In the beginning how the heav'ns and earth Rose out of chaos: or if Sion hill Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd Fast by the oracle of God ; I thence Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous song. Lines which M. Delille has thus magnificently rendered : Toi done qui, celebrant les merveilles des cieux, Prends loin de 1' Helicon un vol audacieux ; Soit que te retenant sous ses palmiers antiques, Sion avec plaisir repete tes cantiques ; * This story seems to be a revival of that related by Josephus concerning the same tomb. Herod the Great having attempted to open David's coffin, flames issued from it and prevented the accomplishment of his design. MOUNT MORIA. 31 Soit que chantant ou Dieu donna sa loi, Le Sina sous tes pieds tressaille encor d'effroi ; Soit que pres du saint lieu d'ou partent tes oracles Les flots de Siloe te disent ses miracles : Muse sainte, soutiens mon vol presomptueux ! Some relate that this spring- suddenly issued from the ground to allay the thirst of Isaiah when the prophet was sawed in two with a wooden saw by the command of Manasses ; while others assert that it first appeared during the reign of Heze- kiah, by whom we have the admirable song begin- ning : " I said in the cutting off my days I shall go to the gates of the grave." According to Josephus, this miraculous spring flowed for the army of Titus, and refused its waters to the guilty Jews. The pool, or rather the two pools of the same name, are quite close to the spring. They are still used for washing linen as formerly ; and we there saw some women, who ran away abusing us. The water of the spring is brackish, and has a very disagreeable taste ; people still bathe their eyes with it, in memory of the miracle performed on the man born blind. Near this spring is shewn the spot where Isaiah was put to death, in the manner above mentioned. Here you also find a village called Siloan : at the foot of this village is another fountain, denomi- nated in Scripture Rogel. Opposite to this foun- tain is a third, which receives its name from the Blessed Virgin. It is conjectured that Mary came hither to fetch water, as the daughters of Laban resorted to the well from which Jacob removed the stone. The virgin's fountain mingles its stream with that of the fountain of Siloe. Here, as St. Jerome remarks, you are at the foot of Mount Moria, under the walls of the Temple, and nearly opposite to the Sterquiline 32 VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT. Gate. We advanced to the eastern angle of the wall of the city, and entered the valley of Jeho- shaphat. It runs from north to south between the Mount of Olives and Mount Moria ; and the brook Cedron flows through the middle of it. This stream is dry the greatest part of the year, but after storms, or in rainy springs, a current of red colour rolls along- its channel. The valley of Jehoshaphat is also called in Scripture the Valley of Shaveh, the King's Valley, the Valley of Melehisedeck.* It was in the valley of Melchisedeck that the king of Sodom went to meet Abraham, to congratulate him on his victory over the five kings. Moloch and Beel- phegor were worshipped in the same valley. It was afterwards distinguished by the name of Jeho- shaphat, because that king caused his tomb to be constructed there. The valley of Jehoshaphat seems to have always served as a burial-place for Jerusalem : there you meet with monuments of the most remote ages, as well as of the most modern times : thither the Jews resort from the four quarters of the globe to die ; and a foreigner sells them, at an exorbitant rate, a scanty spot of earth to cover their remains in the land of their forefathers. The cedars that Solomon plant- ed in this valley, t the shadow of the Temple by which it was covered, the stream flowing through the midst of it,£ the mournful Songs composed * On this subject different opinions are entertained. The King's Valley was probably towards the mountains of Jordan ; and that situation would be more consonant with the history of Abraham. f Josephus relates that Solomon caused the mountains of Judea to be covered with cedars. t Cedron is a Hebrew word, which signifies darkness and sorrow. It is remarked that there is an error in the Gospel of St. MOUNT OF OLIVES. 33 there by David, and the Lamentations there uttered by Jeremiah, rendered it an appropriate situation for the melancholy and the silence of the tombs. Christ, by commencing his passion in this sequestered place, consecrated it anew to sorrow. Here this innocent David shed tears to wash away our crimes, where the guilty David wept to expiate his own sins. Few names awaken in the imagination ideas at the same time more affecting and more awful than that of the valley of Jeho- shaphat, a valley so replete with mysteries, that, according to the prophet Joel, all mankind shall there appear before a formidable judge : " I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there." — " It is reasonable," says father Nau, " that the honour of Christ should be publicly retrieved in the place where it was taken from him by such opprobrious and ignominious treatment, and that he should judge men with justice, where they judged him so unjustly." The valley of Jehoshaphat exhibits a desolate appearance : the west side is a high chalk cliff, supporting the walls of the city, above which you perceive Jerusalem itself ; while the east side is formed by the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Offence, Mons Offensionis, thus denominated from Solomon's idolatry. These two contiguous hills are nearly naked, and of a dull red colour. On their desolate sides are seen here and there a few black and parched vines, some groves of wild olive-trees, wastes covered with hyssop, chapels, oratories, and mosques in ruins. At the bottom St. John, who calls this stream the Brook of Cedars. The error arises from an omega being put instead of an omicron : xi\™ for Ktogiv. c 3 34 BKOOK CEDRON. of the valley you discover a bridge of a single arch, thrown across the channel of the brook Cedron. The stones in the Jews' cemetery look like a heap of rubbish at the foot of the Mount of Offence, below the Arabian village of Siloan, the paltry houses of which can scarcely be distinguished from the surrounding sepulchres. Three antique monuments, the tombs of Zachariah, Jehoshaphat, and Absalom, appear conspicuous amid this scene of desolation. From the dulness of Jerusalem, whence no smoke rises, no noise proceeds ; from the solitude of these hills, where no living creature is to be seen ; from the ruinous state of all these tombs, overthrown, broken, and half open, you would imagine that the last trump had already sounded, and that the valley of Jehoshaphat was about to render up its dead. On the brink and near the source of Cedron, we entered the garden of Olivet. It belongs to the Latin fathers, who purchased it at their own ex- pence, and contains eight large and extremely ancient olive-trees. The olive may be said to be immortal, since a fresh tree springs up from the old stump. In the citadel of Athens was preserved an olive-tree, whose origin dated as far back as the foundation of the city. Those in the garden of Olivet, at Jerusalem are, at least, of the time of the Eastern Empire, as is demonstrated by the follow- ing circumstance. In Turkey, every olive-tree found standing by the Mussulmans when they conquered Asia, pays one medine to the treasury ; while each of those planted since the conquest, is taxed half its produce by the Grand Signior.* Now the eight * This law is as absuid as most of the other laws of Turkey. How ridiculous to make a shew of sparing the vanquished in the moment of conquest, when violence, going hand in hand with injustice, can overwhelm the subject in time of profound peace ! SEPULCHRE OF THE VIRGIN. 3-5 olive-trees of which we are speaking are charged only eight medines. At the entrance of this garden we alighted from our horses, and proceeded on foot to the stations of the Mount. The village of Gethsemane was at some distance from the garden of Olivet. It is at present confounded with this garden, according to the remark of Thevenot and Roger. The tirst place we visited was the sepulchre of the Virgin Mary ; it is a subterraneous church, to which you descend by a handsome flight of fifty steps ; it is shared by all the Christian sects, nay, even the Turks have an oratory in this place ; but the Catho- lics possess the tomb of the Virgin. Though Mary did not die at Jerusalem, yet, according to the opinion of several of the fathers, she was miracu- lously buried at Gethsemane by the apostles. Euthymius relates the history of this marvellous funeral. St. Thomas having caused the coffin to be opened, nothing was found in it but a virgin robe, the simple and mean garment of that queen of glory, whom the angels had conveyed to heaven. The tombs of St. Joseph, St. Joachim, and St. Anne, are also to be seen in this subterraneous church. On leaving the Virgin's sepulchre, we went to see the grotto in the garden of Olivet, where our Saviour sweated blood as he uttered the words : " Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." This grotto is irregular ; altars have been erected in it. A few paces from it is shewn the place where Judas betrayed his master with a kiss. To what multifarious sufferings was Christ pleased to submit ! He experienced those most painful cir- cumstances of life, which virtue itself is scarcely 36 GROTTO OF THE CUP OF BITTERNESS. able to surmount. At the moment when an angel is obliged to descend from heaven to support the Deity, sinking beneath the weight of human woe, this gracious and compassionate Redeemer is be- trayed by one of those for whom he suffers ! " No sooner," says Massillon, " has the spotless soul of the Saviour undertaken the arduous task of our reconciliation, than the justice of his Father begins to consider him as a sinful man. He ceases to regard him as his beloved son, in whom he is well pleased; he sees in him nought but a victim of wrath, laden with the iniquities of the world, which eternal justice compels him to sacrifice to the utmost rigour of his vengeance. Here all the weight of that justice begins to fall on his pure and innocent soul ; here Christ, like the real Jacob, has to struggle all night against the wrath of God him- self ; and here his sacrifice is consummated before- hand, but in a manner so much the more painful, as his sacred soul is ready to expire, as it were, under the strokes of the justice of an offended God, whereas on Calvary it was doomed to be consigned only to the power and the fury of men. " The sacred soul of the Saviour, full of grace, of truth, and of light, beholds sin in all its horrors ; beholds its excesses, injustice, and everlasting stain; beholds all its deplorable consequences, pride, cor- ruption, all the passions that have sprung from this fatal source, and inundated the world. In this agonizing moment, all the ages of time marshal themselves in dread array against him ; from the blood of Abel to the final consummation of all things, he beholds an uninterrupted succession of crimes ; he peruses this frightful history of the universe, and nothing escapes that can aggravate the secret horrors of his sufferings. He there ob- our saviour's agony. 37 serves the most enormous superstitions established amongf men : the knowledge of his Father effaced : infamous crimes erected into divinities ; temples and altars raised to adultery, incest, abominations of every kind ; impiety and irreligion embraced by the wisest and the most moderate. If he turns to the ages of Christianity, he there discerns the future calamities of his church ; the schisms, the errors, the dissensions, destined to rend asunder the exquisite mystery of its unity ; the profanation of his altars ; the unworthy use of the sacraments ; the extinction almost of his faith ; and the polluted manners of Paganism re-established among his dis- ciples. " His sacred soul, unable to endure the weight of his sufferings, but yet retained in his body by the rigour of divine justice ; sorrowful unto death, yet not permitted to die ; incapable alike of termi- nating his woes, and of supporting them ; seems to struggle in the excess of his agony both with death and with life ; and sweat, like drops of blood, fall- ing down upon the ground, is the fearful effect of his excruciating pangs. Just Father ! and was it necessary that blood should be added to the inward sacrifice of thy son ? was it not enough that it was destined to be spilt by his enemies ? but must thy justice, to be satisfied, accelerate its effusion ?" On leaving the grotto of the Cup of Bitterness, and ascending by a rugged winding path, the drog- man stopped us near a rock, where it is said that Christ, surveying the guilty city, bewailed the approaching desolation of Sion. Baronius observes, that Titus pitched his tents on the very spot where our Saviour had predicted the destruction of Jeru- salem. Doubdan, who contests this opinion, with- out mentioning Baronius, conjectures that the sixth 38 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. Roman Legion encamped on the top of the Mount of Olives, and not on the side of the hill. This criticism is too rig-id, and the remark of Baronins is not the less excellent, or the less just. The destruction of Jerusalem, foretold and la- mented by Jesus Christ, is a subject of sufficient importance to demand some notice. Let us hear what is said by Josephus, who was an eye-witness of this event. The city being taken, a soldier set fire to the Temple. " While the flames were thus consuming this magnificent structure, the soldiers, eager after plunder, put to death all that fell in their way. They spared neither age nor rank : the old as well as the young, priests as well as laymen, were put to the edge of the sword. All were involved in the general carnage, and those who had recourse to supplication, were not more humanely treated than such as had the courage to defend themselves to the last extremity. The groans of the dying were intermingled with the crackling of the flames, which continued to gain ground ; and the conflagration of so vast an edifice, together with the height of its situation, led those who beheld it at a distance to suppose that the whole city was on fire. " It is impossible to conceive any thing more dreadful than the noise which rent the air in every quarter : for how tremendous was that alone raised by the Roman legions in their fury ! what shrieks did the rebels set up when they found themselves surrounded on all sides with fire and sword ! what lamentations escaped those miserable wretches, who happened just then to be in the Temple, and were so terrified as to throw themselves, in their flijrht, into the midst of their enemies ! and how was the air rent by the discordant shouts of the multi- CONFLAGRATION OF THE TEMPLF-. 39 tude, who, from the hill opposite to the Temple, beheld this awful spectacle ! Even those whom famine had reduced to such extremity, that the hand of death was ready to close their eyes for ever, on perceiving- this conflagration of the Temple, mustered their remaining strength, to deplore so extraordinary a calamity; and the echoes of the neighbouring hills, and of the country beyond the Jordan, augmented this horrible uproar. But, frightful as it was, the miseries which it occasioned were infinitely more so. Such was the magnitude and violence of the conflagration, that the hill upon which the Temple stood, seemed to be on fire to its very foundation. The blood flowed in such abun- dance, that it appeared to dispute with the flames which should extend farthest. The number of the slain surpassed that of those who sacrificed them to their vengeance and indignation; the ground was covered with carcases, and the soldiers walked over them to pursue by so hideous a path those who fled. " Four years before the commencement of the war, when Jerusalem yet enjoyed profound peace and abundance, Jesus, the son of Ananias, who was but a peasant, having come to the feast of Tabernacles, held every year in the Temple in honour of God, cried : " A voice from the east ; a voice from the west ; a voice from the four winds; a voice against Jerusalem, and against the Temple; a voice against the bridegroom and against the bride; a voice against all the people!" And he never ceased, night and day, to run through the whole city, repeating- the same thing-. Some per- sons of rank, unable to endure words of such bad omen, caused him to be apprehended, and severely scourged. But, at every stroke that was inflicted, 40 TOMBS OF THE PUOPIIETS. he repeated, in a plaintive and doleful voice : " Woe ! woe to Jerusalem !" When Jerusalem was besieged, his predictions were found to be verified. He then went round the walls of the city, and again began to cry : " Woe ! woe to the city ! woe to the people! woe to the Temple!" on which, having added, " Woe to myself!" a stone, dis- charged by a machine, struck him to the ground, and uttering the same words, he gave up the ghost." From the rock of the Prediction, we ascended to some grottoes on the right of the road. They are called the Tombs of the Prophets ; they have no- thing worthy of notice, neither, indeed, is it known exactly what prophets they were whose remains are here deposited. A little above these grottoes we found a kind of reservoir, consisting of twelve arches. Here it was that the apostles composed the first symbol of our faith. While the whole world adored in the face of heaven a thousand scandalous divinities, twelve sinners, secreted in the bowels of the earth, drew up the profession of faith for mankind, and acknow- ledged the unity of God, the creator of those orbs in whose light they durst not yet proclaim his existence. Had some Roman of the court of Augustus, passing near this subterraneons retreat, espied the twelve Jews composing this sublime piece, what profound contempt he would have expressed for this superstitious assembly ! with what disdain would he have spoken of these first believers ! And yet these were destined, by the divine wisdom, to overthrow the temples of this haughty Roman, to destroy the religion of his fore- fathers, to change the laws, the politics, the morals, the reason, nay, even the very thoughts of mankind. MEETING OF THE APOSTLES. 41 Let us, then, never despair of the conversion of nations ! The Christians of the present day deplore the lukewarmness of the faith ; but who knows whether God may not have sown, in some un- known recess, the grain of mustard-seed destined to spread over the face of the earth ? Perhaps this hope of salvation may be at this moment before our eyes, without attracting our notice. Perhaps it may appear to us equally absurd and ridiculous. Who could ever have been expected to believe in the foolishness of the cross ? You now ascend a little higher, and come to the ruins, or rather to the naked site, of a chapel. An invariable tradition records that in this place Christ recited the Lord's Prayer. " And it came to pass, that as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his dis- ciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say: " Our Father which art in heaven," &c* Thus the profession of faith of all mankind, and the universal prayer, were composed nearly on the same spot. Thirty paces farther, bearing a little towards the north, is an olive-tree, at the foot of which the Son of the Eternal Arbiter foretold the general judgment. " Then," says Massillon, whom I have already quoted, " will be seen the Son of Man, aloft in the air, overlooking the nations of the earth inter- mingled and assembled at his feet ; surveying, in this spectacle, the history of the universe, that is, of the passions or the virtues of men. Then will he call together his elect from the four winds ; he * St. Luke, ix. 1. 42 DAY OF JUDGMENT. will choose them from all tongues, and kindreds, and nations; collect the children of Israel, scat- tered over the universe ; display the secret history of a new and holy people ; and crown with glory heroes of the faith before unknown to the world. Then will he no longer distinguish ages by the vic- tories of conquerors, by the creation or the decline of empires, by the civilization or the barbarism of the times, by the great men who have made their appearance in each ; but by the various triumphs of his grace, by the silent victories of the righteous over their passions, by the establishment of his reign in a heart, by the heroic fortitude of a per- secuted believer. " The universe being thus arranged ; all the nations of the earth being thus separated ; each being immovably fixed in his allotted place : sur- prise, terror, confusion, despair, will be stamped on the faces of some ; on those of others, joy, serenity, and confidence. The eyes of the righteous will be raised towards the Son of Man, from whom they expect their deliverance ; those of the wicked frightfully ri vetted on the earth, and almost pene- trating its abysses, as if in quest of the place assigned for their future residence." Lastly, proceeding about fifty paces farther on the mountain, you come to a small mosque, of an octagonal form, the relic of a church formerly erected on the spot from which Christ ascended to' heaven after his resurrection. On the rock may be discerned the print of a man's left foot ; the mark of the right also was formerly to be seen : most of the pilgrims assure us that the Turks removed the latter, and placed it in the mosque of the Temple, but Father Roger positively declares that it is not there. I am silent, out of respect, without how- spot of Christ's ascension. 43 ever being- convinced, before authorities of consi- derable weight- St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Paulina, Sulpicius Severus, the venerable Bede, all travellers, ancient and modern, assure us that this is a print of the foot of Jesus Christ. From an examination of this print, it has been concluded that our Saviour had his face towards the north, at the moment of his ascension, as if to renounce the south, involved in errors, and to call to the faith barbarians destined to overthrow the temples of false gods, to create new nations, and to plant the standard of the cross on the walls of Jerusalem. Several fathers of the church were of opinion, that Christ ascended to heaven, attended by the souls of the patriarchs and prophets, delivered by him from the chains of death: his mother, and one hundred and twenty disciples, witnessed his ascen- sion. He stretched out his arms like Moses, says St. Gregory Nazianzen, and commended his dis- ciples to his Father; he then crossed his almighty hands, holding them down over the heads of his beloved friends,* in the same attitude that Jacob blessed his son Joseph : then rising from earth with inexpressible majesty, he slowly ascended towards the eternal mansions, till he was enveloped by a brilliant cloud.f St. Helena caused a church to be erected on the spot where now stands the octagonal mosque. St. Jerome informs us that it was found impossible to cover in that part of the roof through which Christ pursued his heaven-ward route. The venerable Bede declares that in his time, on the eve of the Ascension, the Mount of Olives was all night seen covered with flames. Nothing obliges us to jrive • Tertull. f Ludolph. 44 bossuet's history of credit to these traditions, which I record merely in illustration of history and manners; but if Des- cartes and Newton had doubted of these miracles as philosophers, Racine and Milton would not have rejected them as poets. Such is the gospel history explained by monu- ments. We have seen it commence at Bethlehem, proceed to the denouement at the mansion of Pilate, arrive at the catastrophe on Calvary, and conclude on the Mount of Olives. The very spot of the Ascension is not quite on the top of the Mount, but two or three hundred paces below its highest summit. Bossuet has comprised this whole history in a few pages, but those pages are sublime. " Meanwhile, the jealousy of the Pharisees and priests hurries him on to an ignominious death ; he is forsaken by his disciples, betrayed by one of them, and thrice denied by the first and most zealous of their number. Beins: accused before the council, he to the last pays respect to the sacerdotal office, and replies in precise terms to the high priest, who judicially interrogates him. The pontiff and the whole council condemn Jesus, because he declares that he is the Christ, the Son of God. He is delivered to Pontius Pilate, the Roman o-overnor: his innocence is acknowledged by his judge, who is induced by policy and interest to act against his conscience. The just is con- demned to die ; and the greatest of crimes gives occasion to the most perfect obedience that ever was. Jesus, though master over his own life and all things that exist, voluntarily consigns himself to the fury of wicked men, and offers this sacrifice which is to atone for mankind. When on the cross, he consults the prophets what he has yet left Christ's passion and death. 45 to do ; he fulfils it, and at length says, It is finished ! " At these words, the whole face of things is changed in the world ; the law ceases, types become obsolete, and sacrifices are abolished by a more perfect oblation. This done, Christ expires with a loud cry ; all nature is convulsed ; the Centurion who guards him, astonished at such a death, exclaims: Verily, this is the Son of God! — and the spectators return, smiting their breasts. On the third day he rises again ; he appears to his disciples, who had forsaken him, and who obsti- nately refused to believe the account of his resur- rection. They see him, they converse with him, they touch him, and are convinced. " On this foundation, twelve sinners undertake to convert the whole world, which they find so hostile to the laws which they have to prescribe, and the truth which they have to announce to it. They are enjoined to begin with Jerusalem, and thence to proceed to all the world, to instruct all nations, and to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Jesus pro- mises to be with them always, even unto the end of the world, and by this expression assures the perpetual duration of the ecclesiastical ministry. Having said this, he ascends to heaven in their presence." We descended the Mount of Olives, and again mounting our horses, continued our excursion. We left the valley of Jehoshaphat behind us, and proceeded by a steep road to the northern angle of the city : then turning to the west, and keeping along the wall that faces the north, we reached the grotto where Jeremiah composed his Lamentations. We were not far from the Sepulchres of the Kings, 46 GATK OF JAFFA. but we relinquished our intention of seeing them that day, because it was too late ; and returned to the gate of Jaffa, by which we had set out from Jerusalem. It was exactly seven o'clock when we arrived at the convent. Our excursion had lasted five hours. On foot, if you keep close to the walls, it takes scarcely an hour to make the circuit of Jerusalem. CHAPTER III. History of Jerusalem — Besieged and taken by Titus— New City built by Adrian — Taken by the Mahometans— Character of the Crusades — Jerusalem taken by the Crusaders and erected into a Kingdom— Godfrey of Bouillon, the first King— His Suc- cessors—Baldwin takes Jerusalem— Crusade of Louis IX. — Account of the Kingdom of Jerusalem — Present state of the City— The Citadel— Street of the Bazar— The Jews' Quarter —Ancient Christian Hospital -The City Walls — Gates- Streets— The Greek Convent— Visit to the Greek Patriarch — The Armenian Convent and Patriarch— Second visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Rencounter with two drunken Spahis. On the 8th of October, at five in the morning, attended by Ali Aga, and Michael, the drogman, I commenced my survey of the interior of the city. Let us here pause, and take a rapid view of its history. Jerusalem was founded in the year of the world 2023, by the royal priest Melchisedeck, who called it Salem, which signifies peace. At that time it occupied only the two hills of Moria and Acra. Fifty years after its foundation it was taken by the Jebusites, the descendants of Jebus, a son of Canaan. They erected on Mount Sion a fortress, to which they gave the name of Jebus, their father. The whole city then received the appellation of Jerusalem, which signifies vision of peace. In Scripture it is always spoken of in very magnificent terms. 48 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM. Joshua made himself master of the lower town of Jerusalem, in the first year after his arrival in the Land of Promise: he put to death king Ado- nisedeck, and the four kings of Hebron, Jerimol, Lachis, and Eglon. The Jebusites still retained possession of the upper town, or citadel of Jebus, and kept it till they were driven out by David, 824 years after their entrance into the city of Mel- chisedeck. David made additions to the fortress of Jebus, and gave it his own name. He erected also on Mount Sion a palace and a tabernacle for the re- ception of the Ark of the Covenant. Solomon enlarged the Holy City. He built the first Temple, the grandeur of which is described in Scripture, and by Josephus the historian, and for which Solomon himself composed such beautiful hymns. Five years after Solomon's death, Sesac, king of Egypt, attacked Rehoboam, and took and plun- dered Jerusalem. It was again pillaged one hundred and fifty years afterwards by Joas, king of Israel. Conquered once more by the Assyrians, Manas- seh, king of Judah, was carried away captive to Babylon. At last, during the reign of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar razed the city to its very founda- tions, burned the Temple, and transported the Jews to Babylon. " Sion was ploughed like a field," says Jeremiah ; and St. Jerome, to describe the solitude of this desolated city, says " that not a single bird was to be seen flying about it." The first Temple was destroyed four hundred and seventy years six months and ten days after its foundation by Solomon, in the year of the world 3513, about six hundred years before Christ. HISTORY OF JERUSALEM. 49 Four hundred and seventy-seven years had elapsed from the time of David to Zedekiah, and the city had been governed by seventeen kings. After the seventy years' captivity. Zerubbabel began to rebuild the Temple and the city. This work, after an interruption of some years, was successively prosecuted and completed by Esdras and Nehemiah. Alexander visited Jerusalem in the year of the world 3583, and offered sacrifices in the Temple. Ptolemy, the son of Lagus,made himself master of Jerusalem : but it was treated with great kind- ness by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who made some magnificent presents to the Temple. Antiochus the Great retook Jerusalem from the Egyptian monarchs, and afterwards ceded it to Ptolemy Evergetes. Antiochus Epiphanes again plundered the city and erected in the Temple a statue to the Olympian Jupiter. The Maccabees restored liberty to their country and defended it against the kings of Asia. In an unlucky dispute for the crown between Aristobulus and Hircanus, they had recourse to the Romans, who, by the death of Mithridates, had become masters of the East. Pompey hastened to Jerusalem, and being admitted into the city, he besieged and took the Temple. Crassus abstained not from plundering this august monument, which the victorious Pompey had respected. Hircanus, under the protection of Caesar, ob- tained the supreme authority. Antigonus, the sou of Aristobulus, who had been poisoned by Pom- pey 's partisans, made war upon his uncle Hircanus, and applied to the Parthians for assistance. The latter invaded Judea, entered Jerusalem, and car- ried away Hircanus into captivity. VOL. II. D 50 BESIEGED AND TAKEN BY TITUS. Herod the Great, the son of Antipater, a distin- guished officer of the court of Hircanus, seated himself, by the favour of the Romans, upon the throne of Judea. Antigonus, thrown by the for- tune of war into Herod's hands, was sent to An- thony. The last descendant of the Maccabees, the rightful sovereign of Jerusalem, was bound to a stake, scourged with rods, and put to death by the command of a Roman citizen. Herod, now left in undisputed possession o£ Jerusalem, filled it with splendid edifices, of which I shall speak in another place. It was during the reign of this prince that Christ came into the world. Archelaus, son of Herod and Mariamne, suc- ceeded his father, while Herod Antipas, another son of Herod the Great, became tetrarch of Galilee and Pereea. It was the latter who ordered St. John Baptist to be beheaded, and sent Christ to Pilate. This Herod the tetrarch was exiled to Lyons by Caligula. Agrippa, a grandson of Herod the Great, ob- tained the kingdom of Judea; but his brother Herod, king of Calcis, possessed all the power over the Temple, the sacred treasures and the priesthood. On the death of Agrippa, Judea was reduced into a Roman province. The Jews having revolted against their masters, Titus besieged and took Jerusalem. During this siege, two hundred thou- sand Jews perished by famine. From the 14th of April to the 1st of July in the year 71 of the Christian era, one hundred and fifteen thousand one hundred and eighty dead bodies were carried out of Jerusalem by one single gate. They ate the leather of their shoes and shields; and were at length reduced to such extremity as to feed upon FAMINE AND MASSACRE. 51 hay and filth which they picked up in the common sewers : a mother devoured her child. The be- sieged swallowed their gold ; the Roman soldiers, who perceived the action, put to death the pri- soners, and then sought the treasure concealed in the bowels of these unfortunates. Eleven hundred thousand Jews perished in the city of Jerusalem, and two hundred thirty-eight thousand four hun- dred and sixty in the rest of Judea. In this cal- culation I comprehend neither the women and children, nor the aged destroyed by famine, sedi- tions, and the flames. Lastly, there were ninety- nine thousand two hundred prisoners of war, some of whom were doomed to labour at the public w-orks, and others reserved for the triumph of Titus; they appeared in the amphitheatres of Europe and Asia, and butchered one another for the amusement of the populace of the Roman empire. Such as had not attained the age of seventeen years were put up to auction with the women ; and thirty of them were sold for a denarius. The blood of the just Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver at Jerusalem, and the people had cried: " His blood be upon ourselves and upon our children!" God heard this wish of the Jews, and for the last time he granted their prayer : after which he turned away his face from the Land of promise, and chose for himself another people. The temple was burned thirty-eight years after the death of Christ ; so that many of those who had heard the prediction of our Saviour, might also have witnessed its fulfilment. The remnant of the Jewish nation having again rebelled, Adrian completed the destruction of what Titus had left standing in ancient Jerusalem. On the ruins of the citv of David he erected ano- d2 52 NEW CITY BUILT BY ADRIAN. ther town, to which he gave the name of JEUa, Capitolina : he forbade the Jews to enter it upon pain of death, and caused the figure of a hog, in sculpture, to be placed upon the gate leading to Bethlehem. St. Gregory Nazianzen nevertheless relates that the Jews were permitted to enter vElia once a-year to give vent to their sorrows ; and St. Jerome adds, that they were forced to purchase, at an exorbitant price, the right of shedding tears over the ashes of their country. Five hundred and eighty-five thousand Jews, according to the account of Dio, perished by the sword in this war under Adrian. Prodigious num- bers of slaves, of either sex, were sold at the fairs of Gaza and Membre ; and fifty castles and nine hundred and eighty-five villages were destroyed. Adrian built the new city precisely on the spot which it occupies at this day ; and by a particular providence, as Doubdan observes, he included Mount Calvary within the walls. At the time of Dioclesian's persecution, the very name of Jeru- salem was so totally forgotten, that a martyr having said, in reply to the question of a Roman governor, that he was a native of Jerusalem, the latter imagined it to be some factious town, se- cretly erected by the Christians. Towards the conclusion of the seventh century, the city still re- tained the name of ^Elia, as may be seen from the account of the travels of Arculfe, given by Ada- mannus, or that of the venerable Bede. Some commotions appear to have taken place in Judea under the emperors Antoninus, Septimus Severus, and Caracalla. Jerusalem, transformed in her old age into a Pagan city, at length ac- knowledged the God whom she had rejected. Constantiue and his mother overthrew the idols TAKEN BY THE MAHOMETANS. 53 erected upon the Sepulchre of our Saviour, and consecrated the sacred stations bv the edifices that are still seen upon them. In vain did Julian, thirty-seven years afterwards, assemble the Jews at Jerusalem for the purpose of rebuilding- the Temple. The men employed in this undertaking worked with hods, pick-axes, and shovels of silver ; while the women carried away the earth in the skirts of their best garments : but globes of fire issuing from the half-excavated foundations, dispersed the labourers, and pre- vented the accomplishment of the design. We find a revolt of the Jews under Justinian, in the year of Christ 501. It was also during the reign of this emperor that the church of Jerusalem was elevated to the patriarchal dignity. Still destined to struggle with idolatry, and to vanquish false religions, Jerusalem was taken by Cosroes, king of the Persians, in the year of Christ 613. The Jews scattered over Judea purchased of that prince ninety thousand Christian prisoners,, whom they put to death. Heraclius defeated Cosroes in 627, recovered the true cross which the Persian monarch had taken away, and carried it back to Jerusalem. Nine years afterwards the caliph Omar, the third iu succession from Mahomet, took Jerusalem after a siege of four months ; and Palestine, as well as Egypt, passed under the yoke of the con- queror. Omar was assassinated at Jerusalem in 643. The establishment of several caliphats in Arabia and in Syria, the fall of the dynasty of the Om- miades, and the elevation of that of the Abassides, involved Judea in troubles and calamities for more than two hundred years. 54 CTTY TAKEN AND RETAKEN. Ahmed, a Turk, who from being- governor had made himself sovereign of Egypt, conquered Jeru- salem in 868 ; but his son having been defeated by the caliphs of Bagdad, the Holy City again returned under their dominion in the year 905 of our era. Mahomet Ikschid, another Turk, having in his turned seized the sovereignty of Egypt, carried his arms abroad, and subdued Jerusalem in the year of Christ 936. The Fatimites, issuing from the sands of Cyrene, expelled the Ikschidites from Egypt in 968, and conquered several towns in Palestine. Another Turk, named Ortok, favoured by the Seljucides of Aleppo, made himself master of Je- rusalem in 984, and his children reigned there after his death. Mostali, caliph of Egypt, drove the Ortokides out of Jerusalem. Hakem or Haquem, the successor of Aziz, the second Fatimite caliph, persecuted the Christians at Jerusalem about the year 996, as I have already related in the account of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and died in 1021. Meleschah, a Seljucide Turk, took the Holy City in 1076, and ravaged the whole country. The Ortokides, who had been expelled from Jerusalem by the caliph Mostali, returned thither, and main- tained possession of the city against Redouan, prince of Aleppo. They were again driven out in 1076 by the Fatimites, who were masters of the place when the Crusaders appeared on the frontiers of Palestine. The writers of the eighteenth century have taken pains to represent the Crusades in an odious light. I was one of the first to protest against this igno- CHARACTER OF THE CRUSADES. 55 ranee or injustice.* The Crusades were not mad expeditions, as some writers have affected to call them, either in their principle or in their results. The Christians were not the aggressors. It' the subjects of Omar, setting out from Jerusalem, and making- the circuit of Africa, invaded Sicily, Spain, nay, even France, where they were exterminated by Charles Mattel ; why should not the subjects of Philip I. quitting France, make the circuit of Asia, to take vengeance on the descendants of Omar in Jerusalem itself? It was certainly a grand spec- tacle exhibited by these two armies of Europe and Asia, marching in opposite directions round the Mediterranean, and proceeding under the banner of their respective religions, to attack Mahomet and Christ in the midst of their votaries. Those who perceive in the Crusades nothing- but a mob of armed pilgrims running to rescue a tomb in Palestine, must take a very limited view of history. The point in question was not merely the deliver- ance of that sacred tomb, but likewise to decide which of the two should predominate in the world, a religion hostile to civilization, systematically favourable to ignorance, despotism, and slavery, or a religion which has revived among the moderns the spirit of learned antiquity and abolished servi- tude. Whoever reads the address of Pope Urban II. to the Council of Clermont, must be convinced that the leaders in these military enterprizes had not the petty views which have been ascribed to them, and that they aspired to save the world from a new inundation of barbarians. The spirit of Islamism is persecution and conquest ; the Gospel, on the contrary, inculcates only toleration and peace. Accordingly, the Christians endured for * In the Genie du Christianisme. 56 CHARACTER OF THE CRUSADES. seven hundred and sixty-four years all the oppres- sions which the fanaticism of the Saracens impelled them to exercise. They merely endeavoured to interest Charlemagne in their favour ; for neither the conquest of Spain, the invasion of France, the pillage of Greece and the two Sicilies, nor the entire subjugation of Africa, could for near eight centuries rouze the Christians to arms. If at last the shrieks of numberless victims slaughtered in the East, if the progress of the barbarians, who had already reached the gates of Constantinople, awakened Christendom, and impelled it to rise in its own defence, who can say that the cause of the Holy Wars was unjust ? Contemplate Greece, if you would know the fate of a people subjected to the Mussulman yoke. Would those who at this day so loudly exult in the progress of knowledge, wish to live under a religion which burned the Alexandrian Library, and which makes a merit of trampling mankind under foot, and holding litera- ture and the arts in sovereign contempt ? The Crusades, by weakening the Mahometan hordes in the very centre of Asia, prevented our falling a prey to the Turks and Arabs : they did more, they saved us from our own revolutions ; they suspended, by the peace of God, our intes- tine wars ; and opened an outlet to that excess of population, which sooner or later occasions the ruin of states. With regard to the other results of the Crusades, people begin to admit that these military enter- prizes were favourable to the progress of science and civilization. Robertson has admirably discussed this subject in his Historical Disquisition con- cerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India. I shall add, that in this estimate we must JERUSALEM TAKEN BY CRUSADERS. 57 not omit the renown gained by the European arms in these distant expeditious. The time of these expeditions is the heroic period of our history, the period which gave birth to epic poetry. Whatever diffuses a tinge of the marvellous over a nation, ought not to be despised by that very nation. In vain should we attempt to deny that there is a something implanted in our hearts which excites in us a love of glory : man is not absolutely made up of positive calculations of profit and loss ; it would be debasing him too much to suppose so. It was by impressing upon the Romans the eternity of their city, that their chiefs led them on to the conquest of the world, and spurred them forward to achievements which have gained them everlast- ing renown. Godfrey appeared on the frontiers of Palestine in the year of Christ 1099. He was accompanied by Baldwin, Eustace, Tancred, Raimond de Tou- louse, the counts of Flanders and Normandy, l'Etolde, who was the first to scale the walls of Jerusalem ; Guicher, already celebrated for having cut a lion in two; Gaston de Foix, Gerard de Roussillon, Rambaud d'Orange, St. Paul, and Lambert. At the head of these knights went Peter the hermit with his pilgrim's staff. They first made themselves masters of Rama ; they next entered Emmaus, while Tancred and Baldwin du Bourg penetrated to Bethlehem. Jerusalem was soon besieged, and at three in the afternoon of the 15th, or according to others the 12th of July 1099, the standard of Christ waved upon its walls. I shall treat of the siege of this city when I come to examine the theatre of the Jerusalem Deliver ed. Godfrey was, by his brothers in arms, elected king of the conquered city. These were the times in d3 58 GODFREY, THE FIKST KING. which mere knights sprung- from the breach upon the throne ; when the helmet learned to bear die diadem, and the wounded hand which wielded the pike, was nobly wrapped in the regal purple. God- frey refused to put on his head the brilliant crown that was offered him, declaring that " he would not wear a crown of gold where Christ had worn a crown of thorns." Naplusia opened its gates ; the army of the sultan of Egypt was defeated at Ascalon. Robert, the monk, in his description of this defeat, makes use of the very same comparison which has been employed by J. B. Rousseau, and which, by the bye, is borrowed from the Bible : Now Palestine, her cruel suff' rings past, Beholds the Paynim legions scour v the plain, As scud the clouds before the northern blast. It is probable that Godfrey died at Jaffa, the walls of which he had rebuilt. He was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, Count of Edessa. The latter expired in the midst of his victories, and in 1118 left the throne to his nephew, Baldwin du Bourg. Melisandra, eldest daughter of Baldwin II. mar- ried Foulqes d'Anjou, and conveyed the kingdom of Jerusalem into her husband's family about the year 1130. Foulques dying in consequence of a fall from his horse, was succeeded in 1 140 by his son Baldwin III. The second Crusade, preached up by St. Bernard, and conducted by Louis VII. and the emperor Conrad, took place during the reign of this third Baldwin, who filled the throne twenty years, and left it to his brother Amaury. After a reign of eleven years, Amaury was suc- ceeded by his son Baldwin IV. SALADIN TAKES JERUSALEM. 59 Saladin now appeared. Unfortunate at first, but afterwards victorious, he finally wrested the Holy Land from its new masters. Baldwin had given his sister Sybilla, widow of William Longue-Epee, in marriage to Guy de Lusignan. The grandees of the kingdom, jealous of this choice, divided into parties. Baldwin IV. dying in 1184, left as his heir his nephew Baldwin V. the son of Sybilla and William Longue-Epee. The young king, only eight years of age, sunk in 1186 under a fatal disease. His mother Sybilla caused the crown to be conferred on Guy de Lusignan, her second husband. The count of Tri- poli betrayed the new monarch, who fell into Saladin's hands at the battle of Tiberias. Having completed the conquest of the maritime towns of Palestine, the sultan laid siege to Jeru- salem, and took it in 1188. Every man was obliged to pay ten gold besants ; and, from ina- bility to raise this sum, fourteen thousand of the inhabitants were made slaves. Saladin would not enter the mosque of the Temple, which had been converted into a church by the Christians, till he had caused the walls to be washed with rose- water; and we are told by Sanuto that five hundred camels were scarcely able to carry all the rose- water employed on this occasion — a story worthy of the East. The soldiers of Saladin pulled down a gold cross erected above the Temple, and dragged it through the streets to the top of Mount Sion, where they broke it in pieces. One church only was spared, and this was the church of the Holy Sepulchre: it was ransomed by the Syrians for a large sum of money. The crown of this kingdom, thus shorn of its lus- tre, devolved to Isabel, daughter of Baldwin, sister 60 CRUSADE OF LOUIS IX. to the deceased Sybilla, and wife of Eufroy de Turenne. Philip Augustus and Richard Cceur-de- Lion arrived too late to save the Holy City, but they took Ptolemais, or St. John d'Acre. The valour of Richard struck such terror into his ene- mies, that, long after his death, when a horse trembled without any visible cause, the Saracens were accustomed to say that he had seen the ghost of the English monarch. Saladin died soon after the taking of Ptolemais : he directed that, on the day of his funeral, a shroud should be car- ried on the point of a spear, and a herald proclaim in a loud voice : " Saladin, the conqueror of Asia, out of all the fruits of his victories, carries with him only this shroud." Richard, Saladin's rival in glory, on leaving Palestine, contrived to get himself imprisoned in a tower in Germany. His confinement gave rise to adventures, which history has rejected, but which the Troubadours have preserved in their ballads. In 1242, Saleh Ismael, emir of Damascus, who was at war with Nedjmeddin, sultan of Egypt, and had gained possession of Jerusalem, restored the city to the Latin princes. The sultan sent the Karismians to besiege the capital of Judea. They retook it, and slaughtered the inhabitants. They plundered it once more the following year, before they delivered it up to Saleh Ayub, the successor of Nedjmeddin. During these events, the kingdom of Jerusalem had been transferred from Isabel to her new hus- band, Henry, Count of Champagne, and from him to Amaury, brother of Lusignan, to whom she was married, for the fourth time. By him she had a son, who died while an infant. Mary, CRUSADE OF LOUIS IX. 61 daughter of Isabel and her first husband, Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, now became heiress to an imaginary kingdom. She married John, Count de Brienne, by whom she had a daughter, Isabel, or Yolante, afterwards the wife of the emperor Frederic II. The latter arriving at Tyre, made peace with the sultan of Egypt. The conditions of the treaty stipulated that Jerusalem should belong jointly to the Christians and the Mussul- mans. Frederic, in consequence, assumed the crown of Godfrey, at the altar of the Holy Sepul- chre, placed it on his head, and returned to Europe. It is probable that the Saracens did not long keep the eng-agfement which they had contracted with Frederic, since we find that twenty years after- wards Jerusalem was pillaged by Nedjmeddin, as I have mentioned above. St. Louis arrived in the East seven years after this last calamity. It is remarkable, that this prince, while a prisoner in Egypt, beheld the last heirs of Saladin's family butchered before his face. " The king," says the Sire de Joinville, " who was seized with the disease of the East, like those whom he had left, might have escaped, if he had pleased, in his great ships ; but he said that he chose rather to die than to desert his men : he therefore began to shout, and call to us to stay. And he pulled us stoutly by the saddle-bows to make us stop, till he gave us leave to swim. Now I will tell you the manner in which the king was taken, as he related to me himself. I have heard him say that he had loft his guards and his division of the army, and that he and Messire Geffroy de Sergine had joined Messire Gualtier de Chatillon, who commanded the rear-guard. And the king was mounted on a low horse, covered with a silk 62 CRUSADE OF LOUIS IX. horse-cloth; and, as I have since heard him tell, he had none left of all his men at arms but the brave knight Messire Geffroy de Sergine, who at- tended him to a little village, named Casel, where the king was taken. But before the Turks could see him, as I have heard him say, Messire Geffroy de Sergine defended him in the same manner as a good servant defends his master's face from the flies. For every time the Saracens approached, Messire Geffroy laid about him with lusty cuts and thrusts, so that he, seemed to exert double his usual strength and bravery. And in every attack he drove them away from the king. In this manner he brought him to Casel, and there took him into the house of a woman who was a native of Paris. And they fully expected to see him expire, and had no hopes of his living over that day." By a freak of fortune not a little astonishing, she had delivered one of the greatest monarchs that France ever had into the hands of a young sultan of Egypt, the only remaining heir of the great Saladin. But this fortune, which disposes of em- pires, determined, as it would appear, to display, in one day, her unbounded power and caprice, caused the conqueror to be murdered before the face of the vanquished king. " The Sultan, who was yet young, seeing this, and perceiving the mischief that had been plotted against his person, fled to the high tower which he had near his chamber, and of which I have spoken already. For his own people had already over- thrown all his pavilions, and surrounded the tower in which he had taken refuge. And within the tower there were three of his bishops, who had eaten with him, and who wrote to desire that he would come down. And he said to them '.hat he CRUSADE OF LOUIS IX. 63 would willingly come down, if they would insure his safety. They replied they would make him descend by force, and against his will. And pre- sently they threw Greek fire into the tower, which was only made of deal and linen cloth, as I have said before ; and immediately the tower was all in a blaze. So fine and so sudden a fire I can assure you I never beheld. When the sultan saw that he was pressed by the flames, he went down by way of the meadow, which I have already mentioned, and fled towards the river ; and one of the chevaliers of the Haulequa struck at him on the bank with a great sword, on which he threw himself into the river. After him jumped about nine chevaliers, who killed him in the river quite close to our gal- ley. And when the sultan was dead, one of the said chevaliers, whose name was Faracataie, ripped up his body, and cut out his heart. Then he came to the king, his hand all covered with blood, and said to him : " What wilt thou give me for killing thine enemy, who would have put thee to death if he had lived V And to this question the good king St. Louis, replied not a single word." It is certain that the Babarite Mamelukes, after they had embrued their hands in the blood of their master, entertained, for a moment the idea of breaking the fetters of their prisoner and making him their sultan ; such was the impression pro- duced upon them by his virtues! St. Louis told the Sire de Joinville that he would have accepted this crown, had it been decreed him by the Infidels. Nothing, perhaps, can afford a better insight into the character of this prince, whose greatness of soul equalled his piety, and in whose bosom religion had not stifled the sentiments worthy of a king 1 . The Mamelukes changed their mind. Moas, G4< CRUSADE OF LOUIS IX. Almansor Nuradin Ali, and Sefeidin Modfar, suc- cessively ascended the throne of Egypt, and the famous Bibars Bondoc Dari became sultan in 1263. He ravaged that part of Palestine which was not under his dominion, and repaired Jerusalem. Kelaoun, the heir of Bondoc Dari, in 1281, drove the Christians from place to place ; and his son, Khalil, took from them Tyre and Ptolemais. At length, in 1291, they were entirely expelled from the Holy Land, after they had maintained themselves one hundred and ninety- two years in their con- quests, and reigned eighty-eight at Jerusalem. The empty title of king of Jerusalem was trans- ferred to the house of Sicily, by Charles, Count of Provence and Anjou, brother to St. Louis, who united in his person the rights of the king of Cy- prus and of the princess Mary, daughter of Fre- deric, prince of Antioch. The knights of St. John of Jerusalem, since denominated knights of Rhodes and Malta, and the Teutonic knights, the con- querors of the north of Europe and founders of the kingdom of Prussia, are now the only remains of those Crusaders who struck terror into Africa and Asia, and seized the thrones of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Constantinople. There are yet persons who believe, on the autho- rity of certain trite sarcasms, that the kingdom of Jerusalem was a miserable little valley, wholly unworthy of the pompous name with which it was dignified. The whole of the sacred Scripture; the Pagan authors, as Hecateus of Abdera, Theophras- tus, Strabo himself, Pausanias, Dioscorides, Pliny, Tacitus, Solinus, and Ammianus Marcellinus ; the Jewish writers, as Josephus, and the compilers of the Talmud and Mischna ; the Arabian historians and geographers, Massudi, Ibn Haukal, Ibn el KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 65 Quadi, Hamdoullah, Abulfeda, Edrisi ; the tra- vellers in Palestine, from the earliest times down to the present day, unanimously bear testimony to the fertility of Judea. The Abbe Guenee has dis- cussed these authorities with admirable perspicuity and critical skill.* Could it appear surprising-, however, if so fruitful a country had become barren after such repeated devastations ? Seventeen times has Jerusalem been taken and pillaged ; millions of men have been slaughtered within its walls, and this massacre may be said still to continue. No other city has experienced such a fate. This pro- tracted and almost supernatural punishment an- nounces unexampled guilt — guilt winch no chastise- ment is capable of expiating. In this country, consigned to the ravages of fire and sword, the uncultivated land has lost that fertility which it derived from human toil ; the springs have been buried beneath heaps of rubbish ; the soil of the mountains being no longer kept up by the industry of the vine-dresser, has been hurried down into the vallies ; and the eminences, once covered with woods of sycamores, now present to view nought but parched and barren hills. The account of the kingdom of Jerusalem by the Abbe Guenee is worthy of being repeated here. It would be presumption to attempt to recompose a performance whose only fault consists in voluntary omissions. The author, doubtless perceiving it impossible to comprehend every thing, confined himself to the most important particulars. " This kingdom," says he, " extended, from west to east, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Desert of Arabia, and, from south to north, from the for- tress of Darum beyond the river of Egypt, to the * In four Memoirs, of which I shall speak presently. 66 KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. river that runs between Berith and Biblos. It there- fore included, in the first plaee, the three Palestines, the first of which had for its capital Jerusalem, the second maritime Cresarea, and the third Bethsan, afterwards Nazareth. It comprehended, moreover, all the country of the Philistines, all Phoenicia, withlhe second and third Arabia, and some parts of the first. " This state had two chief lords, the one spiritual, the other temporal ; the patriarch was the spiritual head and the king the temporal ruler. " The jurisdiction of the patriarch extended over the four archbishoprics of Tyre, Csesarea, Naza- reth, and Krak. He had for suffragans the bishops of Lydda and Hebron ; on him were dependent also the six abbeys of Mount Sion, of the Latin Church, the Temple, Mount Olivet, Jehoshaphat, and St. Samuel ; the prior of the Holy Sepulchre, and the three abbesses of Our Lady the Great, St. Anne, and St. Ladre. iC The archbishops had for their suffragans the following bishops ; that of Tyre, the bishops of Berith, Sidon, Paneas, and Ptolemais ; that of Cassarea, the bishop of Sebaste ; that of Nazareth, the bishop of Tiberias and the prior of Mount Tabor ; that of Krak, the bishop of Mount Sinai. " The bishops of St. George, Lydda, and Acre had under their jurisdiction — the first, the two abbeys of St. Joseph of Arimathea and St. Hab- bakuk, the two priors of St. John the Evangelist and St. Catherine of Mount Gisart, with the abbess of the Three Shades ; the second, the Tri- nity and the Penitents. " All these bishoprics, abbeys, chapters and convents of monks and nuns appear to have en- joyed very large possessions, if we may judge from KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. G7 the number of troops which they were obliged to furnish for the service of the state. Three orders in particular, at the same time military and reli- gious, were distinguished for their opulence ; they had in the country extensive lands, castles and towns. " Besides the domains which were the property of the king, as Jerusalem, Naplusia, Acre, Tyre and their dependencies, the kingdom contained four great baronies. The first of these comprised the counties of Jaffa and Ascalon, with the lord- ships of Ramah, Mirabel, and Ybelin ; the second, the principality of Galilee ; the third, the lordships of Sidon, Ceesarea, and Bethsan ; the fourth, the lordships of Krak, Montreal, and Hebron. The county of Tripoli formed a separate principality, dependent indeed on the kingdom of Jerusalem, but distinct from it. " One of the first cares of the kings was to give a code to their subjects. Wise men were commis- sioned to collect the principal laws of the different countries from which the Crusaders came, and to form them into a body of legislation, according to which all matters civil and criminal should be de- cided. Two courts of justice were established ; the upper for the nobles, and the lower for the commonalty. The Syrians obtained the privilege of being judged by their own laws. " The different lords, as the counts of Jaffa, the lords of Ybelin, Caesarea, Caiaphas, Krak, the archbishop of Nazareth, &e. had their courts of justice ; and the principal cities, as Jerusalem, Naplusia, Acre, Jaffa, Ca?sarea, Bethsan, Hebron, Gadres, Lydda, Assur, Paneas, Tiberias, Naza- reth, &c. had their municipal courts. These seig- norial aud municipal courts, to the number at first 68 KIXGDOM OF JERUSALEM. of twenty or thirty of each kind, increased in pro- portion to the aggrandizement of the state. " The baronies and their dependencies were obliged to furnish two thousand horse ; and the cities of Jerusalem, Acre, and Naplusia, six hun- dred and sixty-six horse, and one hundred and thirteen foot ; the towns of Ascalon, Tyre, Caesa- rea, and Tiberias, a thousand foot. " The churches, bishoprics, abbeys, chapters, &c. had to find about seven thousand ; that is to say, the patriarch, the church of the Holy Sepul- chre, the bishop of Tiberias, and the abbot of Mount Tabor, five hundred each ; the archbishop of Tyre and the bishop of Tiberias, five hundred and fifty each ; the bishops of Lydda and Bethle- hem, two hundred each ; and the others in pro- portion to their domains. " The troops of the state altogether formed at first an army amounting to ten or twelve thousand men ; the number was afterwards increased to fifteen thousand ; and when Lusignan was de- feated by Saladin, his army comprehended near twenty-two thousand men, all troops of the kingdom. " Notwithstanding the expenses and losses occa- sioned by almost incessant wars, the imposts were moderate, abundance reigned in the country, the people multiplied, and the lords found in their fiefs an indemnification for what they had left behind in Europe ; so that Baldwin du Bourg himself did not long regret his rich and beautiful county of Edessa." The Christians having lost this kingdom in 1291, the Baharite sultans of Egypt remained in posses- sion of their conquest till 1382. At this period the Circassian Mamelukes usurped the supreme autho- PRESENT STATE OF THE CITY. 69 rity in Egypt, and gave Palestine a new form of government. If it was these Circassian sultans that established a post by means of pigeons, and relays for carrying the snow of Mount Lebanon to Cairo, it must be allowed that, for barbarians, they were tolerably well acquainted with the luxuries of life. Selim put an end to all these revolutions in 1517, by the reduction of Egypt and Syria. It is this Jerusalem of the Turks, this seven- teenth shadow of the primitive city, that we are now about to examine. On leaving the convent we proceeded to the citadel. No person was formerly permitted to enter : but now that it is in ruins, you may obtain admittance for a few piastres. D'Anville proves that this casfle, called by the Christians the Castle or Tower of the Pisans, is erected upon the ruins of an ancient fortress of David, and occupies the site of the tower of Psephina. It has nothing remark- able : it is one of those Gothic fortresses of which specimens are to be found in every country, with interior courts, ditches, covered ways, &c. I was shewn a forsaken hall full of old helmets. Some of these had the shape of an Egyptian cap. 1 remarked also some iron tubes, about the length and thickness of a gun-barrel, but am ignorant of their use. I bargained secretly for two or three of these antiques, but some accident or other frus- trated the negociation. The keep of the castle overlooks Jerusalem from west to east, as the Mount of Olives commands a view of it from east to west. The scenery sur- rounding the city is dreary : on every side are seen naked mountains, with circular or flat tops, several of which, at great distances, exhibit the ruins of towers, or dilapidated mosques. These mountains 70 THE CITADEL. are not so close as not to leave intervals through which the eye wanders in quest of other prospects ; but these openings display only a back-ground of rocks just as bare and barren as the foreground. It was from the top of this tower that the royal prophet descried Bathsheba bathing in the garden of Uriah. The passion which he conceived for this woman, afterwards inspired him with those mag- nificent psalms of repentance. " O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath : neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure ! Have pity upon me, according to the extent of thy mercy ! — My days are consumed like smoke. — I am like a pelican of the wilderness. — Out of the depth have I cried to thee, O Lord !" For what reason the castle of Jerusalem is denominated the castle of the Pisans, is not known. D' Anville, who forms various conjectures on this sub- ject, has overlooked a very curious passage in Belon. " Whoever would obtain admittance into the sepulchre," observes that writer, " is obliged to pay nine ducats, and from this demand, no person, whether rich or poor, is exempted. The farmer of the tax upon the sepulchre pays eight thousand ducats to the sovereign ; which is the reason why he lays this charge upon the pilgrims, who are not allowed to enter unless it be paid. The Turks have a great reverence for this place, and enter it with profound devotion. It is said that the Pisans imposed this tax of nine ducats when they were masters of Jerusalem, and that it has been con- tinued ever since " The citadel of the Pisans* was guarded, when * From a passage in Brocard, it appears that towards the conclusion of the thirteenth century, it was also denominated Neblosa. STREET OF THE BAZAR. 71 I saw it, by a sort of half-negro aga. He kept his women shut up in it, and he acted wisely, to judge from the eagerness to shew themselves in this dreary ruin. Not a gun was to be seen, and 1 am doutful whether the recoil of a single piece would not shake all these ancient battlements into ruins. - Having examined the cast ? e for an hour, we left it, and took a street which runs eastward, and is called the street of the Bazar : this is the princi- pal street, and the best quarter of Jerusalem. But what wretchedness, what desolation ! We will not encroach upon the general description. We met with not a creature, for most of the in- habitants had fled to the mountains on the pacha's arrival. The doors of some forsaken shops stood open ; through these we perceived small rooms, seven or eight feet square, where the master, then a fugitive, eats, lies, and sleeps, on the single mat that composes his whole stock of furniture. On the right of the Bazar, between the Temple and the foot of Mount Sion, we entered the Jews' quarter. Fortified by their indigence, these people had withstood the attack of the pacha. Here they appeared covered with rags, seated in the dust of Sion, seeking the vermin which devoured them, and keeping their eyes fixed on the Temple. The drogman took me into a kind of school : I would have purchased the Hebrew Pentateuch, in which a rabbi was teaching a child to read ; but he refused to dispose of the book. It has been observed that the foreign Jews, who fix their residence at Jerusalem, live but a short time. As to those of Palestine, they are so poor as to be obliged to send every year to raise contributions among their brethren in Egypt and Barbary. 72 ABBE DE GUENJEE 1 S MEMOIRS. I had commenced a long inquiry concerning the state of the Jews of Jerusalem, from the destruc- tion of that city by Titus till the present time ; and had entered into an important discussion respecting the fertility of Judea ; but on the publication of the last volumes of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions, I desisted from my undertaking. In these volumes may be found four Memoirs by the Abbe Guenee, which leave nothing more to be wished for on the two subjects of which I purposed to treat. These Memoirs are real master-pieces of perspicuity, criticism, and erudition. The author of the Letters of some Portuguese Jews is one of those writers whose fame, during his life, was stifled by literary cabals, but whose reputation will increase with posterity. To these excellent Memoirs I refer the inquisitive reader ; he will easily find them, since they have been recently published, and are preserved in a collection which is not scarce. I pretend not to surpass such masters : I have learned to throw into the fire the fruits of my studies, and to acknowledge the superiority of the performances of others.* I cannot, however, forbear giving in this place a * I might have pillaged the Abbe de Guenee's Memoirs with- out saying a word about the matter, after the example of number- less writers, who pretend to have derived their information from the original sources, when they have merely plundered scholars whose names they keep to themselves. These frauds are now-a- days extremely easy; for in this age of knowledge, ignorance is great. People begin to write before they have read any thing, and this method they pursue as long as they live. The genuine scholar heaves a sigh when he beholds this swarm of young authors, who would perhaps have possessed talents, had they taken the pains to study. It should be recollected that Boileau read Longinus in the original, and that Racine knew the Greek Sophocles and Euripides by heart. God give us back the age of pedants! Thirty Vadiuses will not do so much injury to letters as one school-boy in a doctor's cap. NCMI1ER OF THE JEWS. 73 Calculation which formed part of my work : it is made from the Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela. This Spanish Jew travelled in the thirteenth cen- tury, to ascertain the state of the Hebrew nation in the known world.* On extracting - the numbers given by that writer, I find the sum total of Jews in Africa, Asia, and Europe, to be seven hundred sixty-eight thousand one hundred and sixty-five. Benjamin, it is true, mentions the Jews of Ger- many, without stating - their number, and he is wholly silent respecting those of London and Paris. Let us take the total amount at one million of men ; let us add to this million of men, one million women, and two million children; we shall then have four millions of souls of Jewish race in the thirteenth century. According to the most pro- bable computation, Judea, properly so called Galilee, Palestine, or Idumea, contained in Vespa- sian's time, about six or seven millions of men, though some authors state the number much higher : at the siege alone of Jerusalem, by Titus, eleven hundred thousand Jews perished. The Jewish population, therefore, in the thirteenth cen- tury, was reduced to one-sixth of what it was before the dispersion. Though Benjamin has not specified the number of the Jews in Germany, he mentions the towns containing their principal synagogues. These are: Cobleniz, Andernache, Caub, Creutznach, Bengen, Germersheim, Munster, Strasburg, Manheim, Freising, Bamberg, Tsor, and Reguespurch. Speaking of the Jews of Paris, he says: In qua * It is not, however, perfectly clear that Benjamin visited all the places mentioned by him ; nay, it is evident, from certain pas- sages of the Hebrew text, that the Jewish traveller has, in various instances, only followed other works. VOL. II. K 74 THE JEWS 1 QUAUTEH. sapientum discipuli sunt omnium qui hodie in omni regione sunt doctissimi. Let us continue our survey of Jerusalem. From the Jews' quarter we repaired to Pilate's house, to view the mosque of the Temple through one of the windows ; all Christians being- prohibited, on pain of death, from entering the court that surrounds this mosque. The description of it I shall reserve till I come to treat of the buildings of Jerusalem. At some distance from the Praetorium of Pilate we found the pool of Bethesda, and Herod's palace. This last is a ruin, the foundations of which belong to antiquity. An ancient Christian hospital, now appropriated to the relief of the Turks, drew our attention. We were here shewn an immense cauldron, denomi- nated the Cauldron of St. Helena. Formerly, every Mussulman who applied at this hospital re- ceived two small loaves and a portion of vegetables dressed with oil ; to which, on Fridays, was added rice sweetened with honey, or grape syrup. This practice is no longer kept up ; scarcely is any trace now left of this evangelical charity, whose emanations were in some measure attached to the walls of this structure. Traversing the city once more, we went towards the gate of Sion, when Ali Aga invited me to mount with him upon the walls : the drogman durst not venture to follow us. I found some old twenty- four pounders fixed upon carriages without wheels, and placed at the embrasures of a Gothic bastion. A sentry, who was smoking his pipe in a corner, was going to raise an alarm ; Ali threatened to tumble him into the ditch if he did not hold his tongue. He remained quiet, and I gave him a piastre. THE CITY WALLS. 75 The walls of Jerusalem, which I have gone thrice round, form an oblong square, the four sides facing the four winds, and the longest running from west to east, two points of the compass to the south : D'Anville has proved by the measures and local positions that ancient Jerusalem was not much more extensive than the modern city ; it occupied nearly the same site, except that it comprehended the whole of Mount Sion, but excluded Calvary. We must not take in a literal sense the text of Josephus, when the historian asserts that the walls of the city advanced, to the north, as far as the Sepulchres of the Kings: the number of stadia forbids such an interpretation ; though the walls may still be said to be contiguous to those sepul- chres, the distance between them being only five hundred paces. The exterior wall, now standing, is the work of Solyman, the son of Selim*, as is proved by the Turkish inscriptions placed in this wall. It is re- ported that it was Solyman's design to enclose Mount Sion within the circumvallation of Jeru- salem, and that he caused the architect to be put to death for having deviated from his orders. These walls, flanked wit ft square towers, may be, on the platform of the bastions, about thirty feet thick, and one hundred and twenty feet high: they have no other ditches than the vallies surrounding the city. By merely throwing up a few gabions, with- out opening any trenches, you might with six twelve-pounders effect a practicable breach in one night ; but it is well known that the Turks defend themselves extremely well behind a wall by means of epaulements. Jerusalem is commanded from all sides ; to render it tenable against a regular army, • In 1534. e2 76 GATES OF THE CITY. it would be necessary to construct considerable works,, projecting - to the west and north, and to build a citadel on the Mount of Olives. In this heap of rubbish, denominated a city, the people of the country have thought fit to give the appellation of streets to certain desert passages. These divisions are extremely curious, and are so much the more worthy of notice as they have not been mentioned by any traveller ; though the Fa- thers Roger, Nau, &c. name some of the gates in Arabic. I shall begin with these latter. Bab-el- Kzalil, the Gate of the Beloved, opens to the west. You leave the city by this gate to go to Bethlehem, Hebron, and St. John's in the Desert. Nau writes Bab-el Khalil, which he renders Abra- ham's Gate. By Deshayes it is called the Jaffa Gate, and by other travellers, the Gate of Pilgrims, and sometimes the Gate of Damascus. Bab-el-Nabi-Dahoud, the Gate of the Prophet David, is to the south, on the top of Mount Sion, nearly opposite to David's Tomb, and the scene of the Last Supper. Nau writes Bab-Sidi-Daod. It is termed the Gate of Sion by Deshayes, Doub- dan, Roger, Benard, &c. Bab el-Maugrabe, the Gate of the Maugrabins, or people of Barbary. It is situated between the east and south, towards the valley of Annon, nearly at the corner of the Temple, and opposite to the village of Siloan. Nau writes Bab-el-Mega- rebe. This is the Porta Stcrquilinaria, through which the Jews led Jesus Christ to Pilate, after they had seized him in the Garden of Olives. Bab-el-Derahie, the Dorean Gate : this is to the east, and contiguous to the court of the Tem- ple. The Turks have walled it up : they have a prediction that the Christians will some time or GATES OF THK CITY. 77 other take the city by this gate. It is conjectured that Christ entered Jerusalem by this same gate on the day when the people strewed palm branches before him. Bab-el-Sidi-Mariam, the gate of the Blessed Virgin, to the east, opposite to the Mount of Olives. Nau calls it in Arabic Heutta. All the accounts of the Holy Laud give to this gate the name of St. Stephen, or Mary, because it witnessed the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, and leads to the Sepulchre of the Blessed Virgin. Iu the time of the Jews it was denominated the Gate of Flocks, or the Sheep- Gate. Bab-el-Zahara, the Gate of the Dawn, or of the Circle, Cerchiollno. It looks towards the north, and leads to the grotto of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The best plans of Jerusalem agree in giving to this gate the name of Ephraim' s or Herod's Gate. Cotovic suppresses it entirely, and confounds it with the Gate of Damascus. He writes : Porta Damascena sive Effralm ; but his plan, too small and very defective, cannot be com- pared with that of Deshayes, and still less witli Shaw's. The plan in the Travels of De Vera the Spaniard, is very fine, but too crowded and inac- curate. Nau has not given the Arabic name of the Gate of Ephraim, and is perhaps the only traveller who calls it the Gate of the Turcomans. The Gate of Ephraim, and the Porta Sterquilinaria, or Dun" - Gate, are the two smaller gates of Jeru- salem. Bab-el-Hamond, or Bab-el-Cham, the Gate of the Column, or of Damascus, looks towards the north-west, and leads to the Sepulchres of the Kings, to Naplusiaor Sichem, to St. John D'Acre, and to Damascus. Nau writes Bab-el-Amond. 78 STREETS. When Simon, the Cyrenian, met Christ bearing the cross, he was coming from the Gate of Damas- cus. The Pilgrims formerly entered by this gate, but now they enter by that of Jaffa or Bethlehem ; and to this cause it is owing 1 that the name of the Gate of Damascus has been transferred to the Gate of Jaffa, or the Pilgrims' Gate. This observation has not yet been made, and I here insert it to clear up a confusion of places, which sometimes creates much perplexity in the accounts of travellers. •Let us now proceed to the detail of the streets. The three principal are : Harat-bab-el-Hamond, the street of the Gate of the Column : it crosses the city from north to south. Souk-el- Kebiz, the street of the Great Bazar, which runs from east to west. Harat-el-Allam, the Via Dolorosa, commences at the Virgin's Gate, passes the Prsetorium of Pilate, and terminates at Calvary. Besides these, you find seven other small streets ; Harat-el-Muslmin, the street of the Turks. Harat-el-Nassara, the street of the Christians, leading from the Holy Sepulchre to the Latin Con- vent. Harat-el-Asman, the street of the Armenians, to the east of the castle. Harat-el-Youd, the street of the Jews, in which are the shambles of the city. Harat-bab-Hotta, the street near the Temple. Harat-el-Zahara. My drogman translated these words by Strada Compafita. I know not exactly what this means. He assured me, moreover, that this street was inhabited by rebels and wicked people. Harat-el-Magrabe, street of the Magrabins. NAMES OF ANCIENT GATES. 79 These Magrabins, as I have observed, are the people of the West, or of Barbary. Among them are included some descendants of the Moors driven from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. These exiles were charitably received in the Holy City ; a mosque was built for their use, and bread, fruit, and money are yet distributed among them. The heirs of the proud Abencerrages, the elegant ar- chitects of the Alhambra, are become porters at Jerusalem, who are sought after on account of their intelligence, and couriers esteemed for their swiftness. What would Saladin and Richard say, if suddenly returning to the world, they were to find the Moorish champions transformed into the door-keepers of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Christian knights represented by brethren of the Mendicant Order ? At the time of the visit of Benjamin of Tudela, that is to say, under the French kings of Jerusa- lem, the city had three parts enclosed by walls, and four gates, which Benjamin denominates Porta Somnus Abraha*,, Porta David, Porta Sion, Porta Jehoshaphat. As to the three enclosures, they by no means agree with what we know re- specting the localities of Jerusalem at the time when that city was taken by Saladin. Benjamin found several Jews resident in the quarter of the Tower of David, where they enjoyed the exclusive privilege of dyeing wool and woollen cloth, for which they paid a yearly sum to the king. Such readers as are desirous of comparing mo- dern with ancient Jerusalem, may refer to D'An- ville's Dissertation, to Reland, and to Father Lami, De Sancta Civ it ate et Templo. We returned to the convent about nine o'clock. After breakfast I went to pay a visit to the Greek 80 THE GREEK CONVENT. and Armenian patriarchs, who had sent their salu- tations by their drogmaus. The Greek convent adjoins the church of the Holy Sepulchre. From the terrace of this convent you see a spacious enclosure, in which grow two or three olive-trees, a palm-tree, and a few cy- presses. The house of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem formerly occupied this deserted spot. The Greek patriarch seemed to me be an excellent man. He was at this moment as much harassed by the pacha as the superior of St. Saviour's. We conversed about Greece : I inquired if he possessed any manuscripts, and was shewn some Rituals and Treatises of the Fathers. Having- taken coffee, and received three or four chaplets, I proceeded to the Armenian patriarch. The latter, named Arsenios, was a native of Csesarea in Cappadocia ; he was metropolitan of Scythopoli, and patriarchal procurator of Jerusa- lem. He wrote down himself his name and titles in Syriac characters on a card, which I still pos- sess. I did not perceive in him that look of suf- fering and oppression which I had remarked in the unfortunate Greeks, who are every where slaves. The Armenian convent is agreeable, the church delightful, and uncommonly clean. The patriarch, who resembled a rich Turk, was wrapped in silken robes, and seated on cushions. Here I drank some excellent Mocha coffee : sweetmeats, cold water, and clean napkins were brought me ; aloe wood was burned, and I was perfumed with essence of roses to such a degree as to be incommoded by it. Arsenios spoke of the Turks with contempt. He assured me that all Asia was anxiously waiting the coming of the French ; and that if but a single soldier of my nation were to appear in his country, CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 81 the insurrection would be general. It is impos- sible to conceive the ferment that subsists in the minds of the people of the East.* I saw Ali Aga highly exasperated at Jericho against an Arab, who laughed at him, and told him, that if the emperor had chosen to take Jerusalem, he might have entered with the same ease as a camel enters a field of doura. The nations of the East are much more familiar than we are with the ideas of invasion. They have seen among them all those celebrated men who have changed the face of the globe : Sesostris, Cyrus, Alexander, Mahomet, and the last conqueror of Europe. Accustomed to follow the destinies of a master, they have no law that attaches them to ideas of political order and moderation : to kill appears to them to be a lawful right of the strongest, and they submit to or exercise it with equal indiiFerence. They essen- tially belong to the sword ; they are fond of all the prodigies which it performs ; it is with them the fairy-wand which erects and overthrows em- pires. To liberty they are strangers: property they have none : power is their God. When they have been long without witnessing the appearance of those conquering executors of the high decree* of heaven, they resemble soldiers without a com- mander, citizens without a legislator, and a family without a head. My two visits lasted near an hour. I then went to the church of the Holy Sepulchre : the Turk who opens the door had received intimation to be in readiness to receive me. I again paid Mahomet • M. Seetzen, who passed through Jerusalem a few months before me, and who is yet travelling in Arabia, says, in a letter to M. von Zach, that the inhabitants of the country did nothing but talk to him concerning the French armies. k3 82 RENCONTRE WITH for the right to adore Jesus Christ. I studied a second time, and more at my leisure, the monu- ments of this venerable church. I went up to the gallery, where I met the Coptic monk and the Abyssinian bishop : they are extremely poor, and their simplicity reminds you of the early ages of the Gospel. These priests, half savages, with a complexion burned by a tropical sun, having no other mark of their dignity than a robe of blue cloth, and no other shelter than the Holy Sepul- chre, touched me much more than the chief of the Greek papas and the Armenian patriarch. I would defy any imagination, however insensible to reli- gious impressions, not to be affected on thus meet- ing with individuals of so many nations at the tomb of Christ ; on hearing those prayers pro- nounced in a hundred different languages, on the very spot where the apostles received from the Holy Ghost the gift of speaking in all the tongues of the earth. Atone o'clock I left the Holy Sepulchre, and we returned to the convent. The pacha's soldiers had taken possession of the hospital, as I have already related, and were living there at free quarters. Going along a corridor with Michael the drogman to my cell, I met two young spahis armed cap-a- pee, and making an uncommon noise: they were not indeed very formidable, for, to the disgrace of Mahomet, they were so intoxicated that they could scarcely stand. As soon as they perceived me they obstructed my passage, at the same time laughing heartily. I stood still to wait for the con- clusion of this frolic. So far no harm had been done ; but presently one of these Tartars step- ping behind me, drew my head forcibly back, while his comrade, turning down the collar of my TWO SPAHIS. 83 coat, struck me on the neck with the back of his drawn sabre. The drogman began to stammer. I disengaged myself from the hands of the spahis, and catching at the throat of him who had seized me by the head, with one hand I pulled his beard, and with the other throttled him against the wall, till he was as black as my hat ; on which I let him go, having returned joke for joke, and insult for insult. The other spahi was too full of liquor, and too much astonished at my behaviour, to think of revenging the greatest affront that, can be offered to a Turk, that of taking him by the beard. I retired to my chamber, and prepared myself for the worst. The superior was not displeased that I had bestowed a little correction on his persecu- tors ; but he was fearful of some catastrophe. An humbled Turk is never dangerous, and we heard no more of the matter. 84 CHAPTER IV. Monuments of Jerusalem — The Hebrew Monuments — Solomon's Temple — The Pool of Bethesda — Grecian and Roman Monu- ments—Sepulchres of Absalom and Zachariah — Sepulchres of the Kings — Christian Monuments prior to the Saracen Con- quests — Arabic or Moorish Monuments — Mosque of Omar — Origin of Moorish Architecture — Gothic Monuments — Tombs of Godfrey and Baldwin — Turkish Monuments — Racine's Athaliah. I dined at two o'clock, and went out again at three with the same little retinue as usual. 1 visited the Sepulchres of the Kings, and proceed- ing - thence on foot to make the circuit of the city, 1 stopped at the tombs of Absalom, Jehoshaphat, and Zachariah, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. I have observed, that the Royal Sepulchres were without the Gate of Ephraim towards the north, at the distance of three or four musket-shot from the grotto of Jeremiah. Let us now consider the monuments of Jerusalem. These I divide into six classes: 1. the monu- ments purely Hebrew ; 2. the Greek and Roman monuments of pagan times ; 3. the Greek and Roman monuments of the Christian ages ; 4. the Arabic or Moorish ; 5. the Gothic monuments under the French kings; 6. the Turkish monu- ments. HEBREW MONUMENTS. 85 We will begin with the first. Of these no traces are now discoverable at Jerusalem, unless it be at the Pool of Bethesda ; for I reckon the Sepulchres of the Kings, and the tombs of Absalom, Jehosha- phat, and Zachariah, among the Greek and Roman monuments erected by the Jews. It is difficult to form any precise idea of the first or even of the second Temple, from the account given in the Old Testament, or the description of Josephus ; but we may perceive two things — that the Jews had a taste for the sombre and the grand in their edifices, like the Egyptians ; and that they were fond of minute details, and highly-finished decorations, both in the engravings on stones, and in the ornaments of wood, bronze, and gold. Of the first Temple Josephus speaks in the fol- lowing terms : " The length of the Temple was sixty cubits, its height the same, and its breadth twenty cubits. Upon this edifice was erected ano- ther of the like dimensions, and thus the total height of the Temple was one hundred and twenty cubits. It faced the east, and its porch was of the same height of one hundred and twenty cubits, twenty long-, and six broad. Round about the Temple were thirty chambers in the form of gal- leries, and these served externally as buttresses to support it. You passed out of one into another, and each was twenty cubits in length, the same in breadth, and twenty in height. Above these apart- ments were two stories of others, similar in all respects to those beneath. Thus the height of the three stories together, amounting to sixty cubits, was exactly equal to the height of the lower edifice of the Temple just mentioned, and there was nothing above. AH these apartments were covered with cedar, and each had a separate roof, 88 SOLOMONS TEMPLE. in the mariner of a pavilion : but they were con- nected by long- and thick beams, to give them greater solidity ; so that they formed altogether but one single body. Their ceilings were of cedar, highly polished, and enriched with gilded foliage, carved in the wood. The rest was likewise covered with cedar, so exquisitely wrought and gilded, that it was impossible to enter without being dazzled by its lustre. The whole of this magnificent edifice was of hewn stones, so smooth and so admirably fitted together, that the joinings could not be per- ceived ; but it seemed as if nature had formed them thus of a single piece, without any assistance from art, or the instruments employed by skilful masters to embellish their works. In the body of the wall, on the east side, where there was no grand portal, but only two doors, Solomon caused a spiral staircase, of his own invention, to be constructed, for the purpose of ascending to the top of the Temple. Both within and without the building were vast planks of cedar, fastened together with great and strong chains, for the purpose of giving it the greater firmness and solidity. " When the whole of this extensive structure was finished, Solomon caused it to be divided into two parts ; one of these, denominated the Holy of Holies, or Sanctuary, was twenty cubits in length; it was consecrated, in an especial manner, to God; and no person was permitted to enter this place. The other division, being forty cubits long, was called the Holy Temple, and appropriated to the priests. These two parts were separated by large doors of cedar, of curious workmanship, and highly gilt, upon which hung veils of linen covered with various flowers of a purple, blue, and scarlet colour. Solomon's temple. 87 " Solomon employed in all that I have described an admirable workman, particularly skilful in works of gold, silver, and copper, named Chiram, whom he brought from Tyre. His father, of the name of Ur, though a native of Tyre, was of Is- raelitish extraction, and his mother was of the tribe of Naplhali. This same man also made him two columns of brass, which were four inches thick, eighteen cubits high, and twelve in circum- ference, at the top of which were cornices of brass, in the form of lilies, five cubits in height. These lilies were covered with foliage of gold, which en- twined the columns, and from which hung, in two rows, two hundred pomegranates, also of brass. These columns were placed at the entrance of the porch of the Temple ; that on the right hand being called Jachin, and the other on the left, Boaz. " Out of this inclosure, Solomon built another kind of temple, of a quadrangular form; sur- rounded with large galleries, having four entrances, facing the east, west, north, and south, with great doors, gilt all over; but only those who were puri- fied according to the law, and were resolved to observe the commandments of God, had permission to enter. The construction of this other temple was a work so worthy of admiration, as to be a thing scarcely credible : for in order to obtain a level of sufficient magnitude on the top of the hill on which the Temple is seated, it was necessary to fill up, to the height of four hundred cubits, a val- ley of such depth, that it could not be looked at without fear. He caused this temple to be encom- passed with a gallery supported by a double range of stone columns, each of one single piece, and these galleries, all the doors of which were silver, had ceilings of cedar." 88 POOL OF BETHESDA. From this description it is evident that the He- brews, when they built the first temple, were un- acquainted with the orders of architecture. The two columns of brass afford a sufficient proof of this ; the capitals and the proportions of these co- lumns have no resemblance to the early Doric, the only order, perhaps, at that time invented in Greece ; but these same pillars, adorned with fo- liage, lilies, and pomegranates, remind you of the capricious decorations of the Egyptian column. Besides, the apartments in the form of pavilions, the ceilings of cedar gilt, and all those details im- perceptible in large masses, demonstrate the truth of my observations respecting the taste of the first Hebrews. Solomon's Temple having been destroyed by the Syrians, the second temple built by Herod the Ascalonile, belonged to the class of those half Jewish and half Grecian works, of which I shall presently speak. We have, therefore, now nothing left of the pri- mitive architecture of the Jews at Jerusalem, except the Pool of Bethesda. This is still to be seen near St. Stephen's Gate. It bounded the Temple on the north, and is a reservoir one hundred and fifty feet long, and forty wide. The sides are walled, and these walls are composed of a bed of large stones joined together by iron cramps; a wall of mixed materials run up on these large stones ; a layer of flint stuck upon the surface of this wall ; and a coating laid over these flints. The four beds are perpendicular to the bottom and not horizontal ; the coating was on the side next to the water, and the large stones rested, as they still do, against the ground. This pool is now dry and half filled up. Here SEPULCHRES. 89 grow some pomegranate trees, and a species of wild tamarind of a bluish colour ; the western angle is quite full of nopals. On the west side may also be seen two arches, which probably led to an aque- duct that carried the water into the interior of the Temple. Josephus calls this pool Stagnum Salomonis ; in Scripture it is called Bethesda. Here the lambs destined for sacrifice were washed ; and it was on the brink of this pool that Christ said to the para- lytic man: " Rise, take up thy bed and walk." Such is now all that remains of the Jerusalem of David and Solomon. The monuments of Grecian and Roman Jeru- salem are more numerous ; they form a class per- fectly new, and very remarkable in the arts. I shall begin with the tombs in the valley of Jehoshaphat and in the valley of Siloe. Having passed the bridge over the brook Cedron, you come to the Sepulchre of Absalom at the foot of the Mount of Offence. It is a square mass, measuring eight feet each way ; composed of a single rock hewn from the neighbouring' hill, from which it stands only fifteen feet detached. The ornaments of this sepulchre consist of twenty-four semi-columns of the Doric order, not fluted, six on each front of the monument. These columns form an integral part of the block, having been cut out of the same mass with it. On the capital is the frieze, with the triglyph, and above the frieze rises a socle, which supports a triangular pyramid too lofty for the total height of the tomb. The pyra- mid is not of the same piece as the rest of the monument. The sepulchre of Zachariah very nearly resembles that just described. It is hewn out of the rock 90 SEPULCHRES. in the same manner, and terminates in a point, bending a little back, like the Phrygian cap, or a Chinese monument. The sepulchre of Jehosha- phat is a grot, the door of which, in a very good style, is its principal ornament. Lastly, the sepul- chre in which St. James the Apostle concealed himself has a handsome portico. The four columns which compose it do not rest upon the ground, but are placed at a certain height in the rock, in the same manner as the colonnade of the Louvre rises from the first story of that palace. Tradition, as the reader may see, assigns names to these tombs. Arculfe, in Adamannus (De Locis Sanctis, lib. i. c. 10); Villalpandus (Antiques Jerusalem Descriptio) ; Adrichomius (Sententia de Loco Sepulchri Absalon) ; Quaresmius (tom.ii. c. 4, 5.), and several others, have treated of these names and exhausted historical criticism on the subject. But though tradition were not in this instance contradicted by facts, the architecture of these monuments would prove that their origin cannot date so far back as the earliest period of Jewish antiquity. If I were required to fix precisely the age in which these mausoleums were erected, I should place it about the time cf the alliance between the Jews and the Lacedaemonians, under the first Maccabees. The Doric order was still prevalent in Greece ; the Corinthian did not supplant it till a century later, when the Romans began to over- run the Peluponnese and Asia.* But in naturalizing at Jerusalem the architecture of Corinth and Athens, the Jews intermixed with * Thus we find at this latter period a Corinthian portico in the Temple rebuilt by Herod, columns with Greek and Latin inscrip- tions, gates of Corinthian brass, &c. — {Joseph, book vi. c. 14 ) SEPULCHRES. 91 it the forms of their peculiar style. The tombs in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and particularly those of which 1 shall presently speak, display a manifest alliance of the Egyptian and Grecian taste. From this alliance resulted a heterogeneous kind of mo- numents, forming, as it were, the link between the Pyramids and the Parthenon ; monuments in which you discover a sombre, bold and gigantic genius, and a pleasing, sober and well-regulated imagination.* A beautiful illustration of this truth will be seen in the Sepulchres of the Kings. Leaving Jerusalem by the Gate of Ephraiin, and proceeding for about half a mile along the level surface of a reddish rock, with a few olive-trees growing upon it, you arrive in the middle of a field at an excavation which bears a great resemblance to the neglected works of an old quarry. A broad road conducts you by an easy descent to the further end of this excavation, which you enter by an arcade. You then find yourself in an uncovered hall cut out of the rock. This hall is thirty feet long by twenty broad, and the sides of the rock may be about twelve or fifteen feet in height. In the centre of the 3011th wall you perceive a large square door, of the Doric order, sunk to the depth of several feet in the rock. A frieze, rather whimsical, but exquisitely delicate, is sculptured above the door: it consists, first, of a triglyph; then comes a metope adorned with a simple ring, and afterwards a bunch of grapes between two crowns and two palm branches. The triglyph is repre- sented, and the line was doubtless carried in the same manner along the rock; but it is now effaced. At the distance of eighteen inches from this frieze * Thus under Francis I. the Greek architecture, blended with the Gothic style, produced some exquisite works. 92 SEPULCHRES OF runs a wreath of foliage intermixed with pine-apples and another fruit which I could not make out, but which resembles a small Egyptian lemon. This last decoration followed parallel to the frieze, and afterwards descended perpendicularly down both sides of the door. In the recess, and in the angle to the left of this great portico, opens a passage in which people formerly walked erect, but where you are now obliged to crawl on your hands and knees. Like that in the great pyramid, it leads, by a very steep descent, to a square chamber, hewn out of the rock. Holes six feet Ions' and three broad are made in the walls, or rather in the sides of this chamber, for the reception of coffins. Three arched doors conduct from this first chamber into seven other sepulchral apartments of different di- mensions, all excavated out of the solid rock ; but it is a difficult matter to seize their plan, especially by the light of torches. One of these grots, which is lower than the others, having a descent of six steps, seems to have contained the principal coffins. These were generally ranged in the following man- ner: the most distinguished personage was deposited at the farther end of the grot, facing the entrance, in the niche or case prepared for the purpose : and in either side of the door a small vault was reserved for the less illustrious dead, who thus seemed to guard those kings who had no further occasion for their services. The coffins, of which only fragments are to be seen, were of stone and ornamented with elegant arabesques. Nothing is so much admired in these tombs, as the doors of the sepulchral chambers. These, as well as the hinges and pivots on which they turned, were of the same stone as the grot. Almost all THE KIXGS. 93 travellers have imagined that they were cut out of the rock itself, but this is evidently impossible, as Father Nau has clearly demonstrated. Thevenot assures us, that " upon scraping 1 away the dust a little, you may perceive the joinings of the stones, placed there after the doors with their pivots were fixed in the holes." Though I scraped away the dust, I could perceive none of these marks at the lower part of the only door that remains standing; all the others being - broken in pieces and thrown into the grots. On entering these palaces of death, I was tempted to take them for baths of Roman architecture, such as those of the Sibyl's Cave, near Lake A vermis. I here allude only to the general effect, in order to make myself understood ; for I well knew the pur- pose to which they had been appropriated. Arculfe (apud Adaman. ) , who has described them with great accuracy, saw bones in the coffins. Several centuries afterwards Villamant found in them remains of the same kind, that are now sought in vain. Three pyramids, one of which still existed in the time of Villalpandus, marked externally the situation of this subterraneous monument. I know not what to think of Zuellard and Appart, who describe exterior buildings and vestibules. One question occurs concerning these tombs denominated the Sepulchres of the Kings — what kings are meant ? From several passages of Scripture, we find that the tombs of the kings of Judah were in the city of Jerusalem : " And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem.*" David had his sepul- • The auth r seems to have been particularly unfortunate in his choice of this passage for the purpose of supporting the preced- ing assertion ; since it is immediately added : " but they brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel." — T. 94 TOMB OF THE MACCABEES. chre on Mount Sion : besides, traces of the Greek chisel are discernible in the ornaments of the Sepulchres of the Kings. Josephus, to whom we must have recourse, men- tions three celebrated mausoleums. The first was the tomb of the Maccabees, erected by their brother Simon. " It was," says Josephus, in his Jewish Antiquities, " of white and polished marble, so lofty that it could be seen at a very great distance. All around are vaults in the form of porticoes ; each of the columns which support them is of a single stone: and in commemoration of these seven persons he added seven pyramids of very great height and wonderful beauty." The first book of the Maccabees gives nearly the same particulars concerning this tomb; adding that it was built at Modin, and " might be seen of all that sail on the sea." Modin was a town situated near Diospolis, on a hill of the tribe of Judah. In the time of Eusebius, and even in that of St. Jerome, the monument of the Maccabees was still in existence. The Sepulchres of the Kings at the gate of Jerusalem, notwithstanding their seven sepulchral chambers and the pyramids with which they were crowned, cannot have belonged to the Asmonean princes. Josephus afterwards informs us that Helena, queen of Adiabene, caused three funeral pyramids to be erected at the distance of two stadia from Jerusalem, and that her remains and those of her son Izates were there deposited by the care of Monabazes. The same historian, in his narrative of the Jewish war, tracing the limits of the Holy City, says that the walls passed to the north oppo- site to the sepulchre of Helena. All this exactly applies to the Sepulchres of the Kings, which, TOMB OF HELENA. 95 according to Villalpandus, were adorned with three pyramids, and which are yet to be seen to the north of Jerusalem, at the distance specified by Josephus. St. Jerome also speaks of this mau- soleum. The writers who have bestowed their attention on the monument under examination, have overlooked a curious passage in Pausanias :* but who would think of Pausanias in treating of Jerusalem ! This passage is as follows : " The second tomb was at Jerusalem. It was the burial-place of a Jewess named Helena. The door of the tomb, which was of marble, as well as all the rest, opened of itself, on a certain day of the year and at a certain hour, by means of a mechanical contrivance, and shut again soon after. At any other time, had you tried, you would sooner have broken it in pieces than opened it." This door, which opened and shut of itself by a mechanical contrivance, might, setting aside the touch of the marvellous, almost apply to the extra- ordinary doors of the Sepulchres of the Kings. Suidas and Stephen of Byzantium speak of an Itinerary of Phoenicia and Syria, published by Pausanias. If we had this work we should doubt- less find it of great assistance in elucidating the subject before us. The passages of the Jewish historian and the Greek traveller, taken together, would therefore seem to afford satisfactory evidence that the Sepulchres of the Kings are no other than the tomb of Helena ; but in this conjecture we are * I have since found that it is mentioned by the Abbe Guenee, in the excellent Memoirs of which I have already spoken. He says that he purposes to examine this passage in another memoir : tie has not done so, which is much to be regretted. \ 96 ROYAL CAVERNS. checked by the knowledge of the existence of a third monument. Josephus mentions certain grottoes, which, ac- cording to the literal translation, he denominates the Royal Caverns ; but, unfortunately, he gives no description of them. He places them to the north of the Holy City, quite close to the tomb of Helena. It remains then to be ascertained what prince it was who caused these caverns of death to be exca- vated, how they were decorated, and the remains of what monarchs were there deposited. Josephus, who enumerates with such care the works under- taken or completed by Herod the Great, has not included among these works the Sepulchres of the Kings. He evSn informs us that Herod, having died at Jericho, was interred with great magnifi- cence at Herodium ; consequently the Royal Caverns were not the burial-place of that prince. An expression, however, which has elsewhere dropped from the historian, may throw some light on this discussion. Speaking of the wall which Titus erected to press Jerusalem still more closely than before, he says that this wall, returning toward the north, enclosed the sepulchre of Herod. Now this is the situation of the Royal Caverns : these must, there- fore, have been indiscriminately called the Royal Caverns and the Sepulchre of Herod. In this case, this Herod could not be Herod the Ascalonite, but Herod the tetrarch. The latter prince was almost as magnificent as his father: he built two towns, Sephoris and Tiberias ; and though he was exiled to Lyons by Caligula, he might nevertheless have prepared a tomb for himself in his native land. His brother Philip had furnished a model for these sepulchral edifices. TOMBS OF THE HERODS. 97 We know nothing- of the monuments with which Agrippa embellished Jerusalem. Such are the most satisfactory particulars that I have been able to meet with relative to this ques- tion. I have thought it right to enter into the dis- cussion, because the subject has been rather ob- scured than elucidated by preceding critics. The ancient pilgrims, who saw the sepulchre of Helena, have confounded it with the Royal Caverns. The modern travellers, being unable to find the tomb of the queen of Adiabeue, have given the name of that tomb to the sepulchres of the princes of the house of Herod. From all these accounts has resulted a strange confusion — a confusion increased by the erudition of the pious writers, who will have it that the Royal Grots are the burial-place of the kings of Judah, and have not wanted authorities to pro- duce in support of their opinion. A critical consideration of the state of the arts, as well as historical facts, obliges us to class the Sepulchres of the Kings among the Greek monu- ments at Jerusalem. These Sepulchres were ex- tremely numerous, and the posterity of Herod very soon became extinct, so that many of these recep- tacles waited in vain for their tenants. Nothing- more was wanting to convince me of all the vanity of our nature, than to behold the tombs of persons who were never born. For the rest, nothing can form a more singular contrast than the charming frieze wrought by the Grecian chisel over the door of these awful mansions, where once reposed the ashes of the Herods. The most tragic ideas are connected with the memory of these princes ; we know little of them, except from the murder of Mariamne, the massacre of the Innocents, the death of St. John Baptist, and the condemnation of Jesus vol. n. f 98 CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS. Christ. Little would you then expect to find their tombs embellished with light garlands in the midst of the terrific site of Jerusalem, not far from that Temple where Jehovah issued his tremendous oracles, and near the grotto where Jeremiah com- posed his Lamentations. The other edifices of the time of the Romans at Jerusalem, such as the theatre and amphitheatre, the towers of Antonia, Hippicos, Phasael, and Spephima, no longer exist, or at least are nothing but shapeless masses of ruins. We now proceed to the third class of the monu- ments of Jerusalem, to the monuments of Chris- tianity prior to the invasion of the Saracens. Of these I have nothing more to say, since I have described them in my account of the sacred sta- tions. I shall make but this remark, that as these monuments owe their origin to Christians who were not Jews, they display nothing of that half-Egyp- tian, half-Grecian character, which I have observed in the works of the Asmonean princes, and of the Herods: they are merely Greek churches of the time of the decline of the arts. The fourth class of monuments at Jerusalem consists of those that belong to the period of the taking of the city by the caliph Omar, the successor of Abubeker, and the head of the race of the Om- miades. The Arabs, who had followed the banners of the caliph, made themselves masters of Egypt ; thence advancing along the coast of Africa, they passed over into Spain, and occupied the enchanted palaces of Grenada and Cordova. It is, then, from the reign of Omar that we must date the origin of that Arabian architecture, of which the Alhambra is the master-piece, as the Parthenon is the miracle of the genius of Greece. The mosque of the Tern- THE SECOND TEMPLE. 99 pie, begun at Jerusalem by Omar, enlarged by Abd-el-Malek, and rebuilt on a new plan by El Oulid, is a very curious monument for the history of the arts among the Arabs. It is not yet known after what model were erected those fairy man- sions of which Spain exhibits the ruins. Perhaps the reader will not be displeased if I introduce a few words on a subject so new and hitherto so little studied. The first temple erected by Solomon having been destroyed six hundred years before the birth of Christ, it was rebuilt after the seventy years' cap- tivity, by Joshua the son of Josedek, and Zerub- babel the son Salathiel. Herod the Ascalonite wholly rebuilt this second temple. On his edifice he employed eleven thousand labourers for nine years ; the works were prodigious, and were not completed till long after Herod's death. The Jews having filled up precipices, and cut down the top of the mountain, at length formed that magnificent esplanade on which the Temple was erected to the east of Jerusalem, above the vallies of Siloe and Jehoshaphat. Forty days after his birth, Christ was presented in this second Temple, and here the Virgin was purified : here, too, at the age of twelve years, the Son of Man instructed the doctors ; and hence he expelled the dealers. Here he was in vain tempted by the devil ; here he remitted the sins of the adulteress ; here he delivered the parables of the 1 7*2 — - due villani; regallo alii capi e servitori j Ali Agha figlio d'Abugiahfar 150 — Item. Zbirri, poveri e guardiel ne calare) ,^ al S mo . Sepolcro, l'ultimo giorno j 804 20 A Michele Casar 80— Alcusnaro 20 100 — 004 29 We must then, in the first place, reduce this great number of pilgrims, at least as far as regards the Catholics, to a very small matter, or to nothing 126 POVERTY" AND PERSECUTION at all ; for seven, twelve, twenty, thirty, nay, even a hundred pilgrims are not worth reckoning. But if this dozen of pilgrims, who for the last century or two have annually visited the Holy Sepulchre, were poor travellers, the fathers of the Holy Land could scarcely enrich themselves with what they left behind. Let us hear what honest Doubdan says : " The religious who live there (at the convent of St. Saviour,) subject to the rule of St. Francis, keep up a very strict poverty, and subsist entirely upon the alms and benefactions transmitted to them from Christendom, and the presents made them by the pilgrims according to their respective abilities : as, however, the latter are far from their own country, aud know not what great expenses they may incur during their return, their alms are inconsiderable ; but this does not prevent their being received and treated with great kindness." Thus the pilgrims to the Holy Land, who are said to leave treasures behind them at Jerusalem, cannot be Catholic pilgrims ; consequently that part of these treasures which falls to the share of the convents, does not come into the hands of the Latin monks. If these religious receive alms from Europe, these alms, so far from enriching them, are not sufficient for the preservation of the holy stations, which are every where crumbling into ruin, and must soon be forsaken for want of support. The poverty of these religious is therefore proved by the unanimous testimony of travellers. I have already spoken of their sufferings : were other proofs wanting, here they are : " ^Vs it was a French monk," says Father Roger, ' ' who gained possession of the holy places at Jeru- salem, so the first of the religious who suffered OF THE LATIN FATHERS. 127 martyrdom was a Frenchman, named Limin, of the province of Touraine, who was beheaded at Grand Cairo. Some time after, brother James and brother Jeremiah were put to death without the gates of Jerusalem. Brother Conrad d' Alis Barthelemy, of Monte Politiano in the province of Tuscany, was sawed in two from the head downwards, in Grand Cairo. Brother John d'Ether, a Spaniard, of the province of Castile, was cut in pieces by the bashaw of Casa. Seven religious were decapitated by the sultan of Egypt, and two were flayed alive in Syria. " In the year 1637, the Arabs martyred the whole community of friars who were on the sacred Mount of Sion, to the number of twelve. Some time afterwards, sixteen religious, both ecclesias- tics and laics, were carried from Jerusalem and imprisoned at Damascus (this was at the time when Cyprus was taken by the king of Alexandria), and there remained five years, till one after another perished for want. Brother Cosmo was killed by the Turks at the door of the Holy Sepulchre, where he preached the doctrines of Christianity. Two other friars at Damascus received so many strokes of the bastinado, that they died on the spot. Six religious were put to death by the Arabs one night whilst at matins in the convent built at Ana- thot, in the house of the prophet Jeremiah, which they afterwards burned. It would be abusing the patience of the reader to enter into the particulars of all the sufferings and persecutions which our poor religious have endured since they have had the care of the holy places. These have kept increasing since the year 1G27, when our religious settled there, as will be seen from what follows," &c* • Dcscript. de la Terre Sainte, p. 136. 128 THEIR POVERTY DESCRIBED. Deshayes, the ambassador, speaks in the same terms of the persecutions experienced by the Fa- thers of the Holy Land from the hands of the Turks . " The poor religious who attend these places are also reduced sometimes to such extremities, for want of assistance from Christendom, that their condition is truly deplorable. Their whole reve- nue consists in the alms which are sent them, and which are not sufficient to cover one-half of the expences that they are obliged to incur ; for, ex- clusively of their subsistence and the great number of lights which must be kept up, they are forced to be continually giving to the Turks, if they would live in peace, and when they possess not the means of satisfying their avarice, they must go to prison. " Jerusalem is at such a distance from Constan- tinople, that the king's ambassador resident there cannot receive information of the oppressions prac- tised upon them till long afterwards. Meanwhile they suffer and endure, if they have not money to redeem themselves ; and very often the Turks, not content with persecuting them in their persons, likewise convert their churches into mosques."* I could fill whole volumes with similar testimo- nies contained in the works of travellers in Pales- tine ; I will produce only one more, but that shall be unanswerable. This testimony I find in a monument of iniquity and oppression, perhaps without any parallel in the world ; a monument of the greater authority, as it was designed to remain in everlasting oblivion. The Fathers had permitted me to examine the library and the archives of their convent. Unfor- * Voyage du Levant, p. 409. FIRMAUNS GRANTED. 1^0 tunately, these archives and this library were dis- persed near a century ago : a pacha threw the religious in irons, and carried them prisoners to Damascus. Some papers escaped the devastation ; in particular the firmans, which the Fathers had obtained either from the Porte or the rulers or* Egypt, to defend themselves against the oppres- sions of the people and their governors. This curious document is entitled : Registro delli Capitol azioni, Cattiscerifi, Ba- ratti, Cotnandamenti, Oggetti, Attestaziom, Sentenzi, Ordini des Bascia, Giudici e Polizze, che si trovano nell archivio di questa procura- generale di Terra Santa. Under the letter H, No. 1, p. 369, we read: " Instrumento del re saraceno Muzafar,contiene: che non sia dimandato del vino da i religiosi franchi. Dato alii 13 della luna di Regeb dell anno 414." Under No. 2 is the following .- " Instrumento del re saraceno Matamad contiene: che li religiosi franchi non siano molestati. Dato alii 2 di Sciaval dell anno 501." Under No. 5, page 370 : " Instrumento con la sua copia del re saraceno Amed Ciakmak contiene : che li religiosi franchi non paghino a quei ministri, che non vengono per gli affari dei frati...possino sepelire i loro morti, possino fare vino, provizione...non siano obligati a montare cavalli per forza in Rama. ..non diano visi- tate loro possessioni...che nessuno pretenda d'esser drogloromanno, se non alcuno appoggio. Dato alii' 10 di Sefer609." Several of the firmans beg-in thus : " Copia autenticata d'un commendamento otte- nuto ad instanza dell'ambasciadore diFrancia,"&c. g 3 130 PATIENCE OF THE MONKS We see, then, the unfortunate Fathers, the guar- dians of the tomb of Christ, solely occupied for several centuries in defending- themselves day by day against every species of tyranny and insult. We see them obliged to obtain permission to sub- sist, to bury their dead, &c. Sometimes they are forced to ride without occasion, that they may be necessitated to pay the duties ; at others, a Turk proclaims himself their drogman in spite of them, and demands a salary from the community. The most absurd inventions of Oriental despotism are exhausted against these hapless monks.* In vain do they obtain, for exorbitant sums, orders which apparently secure them from all this ill usage : these orders are not obeyed ; each successive year witnesses a new oppression, and requires a new fir- man. The equivocating governor, and the prince, ostensibly their protector, are two tyrants who concert together, the one to commit an injustice before the law is enacted ; the other to sell, at an enormous price, a law that is not issued till after the commission of the crime. The register of the firmans of the Fathers is a valuable record, worthy in every respect of the library of those apostles, who, in the midst of tribulations, adhere with invincible constancy to the tomb of Christ. The Fathers were not aware of the value of this evan- gelical catalogue ; they had no idea that it could interest me ; they saw nothing curious in it ; to suffer is to them so natural, that my astonishment actually astonished them. Great indeed and sin- cere was my admiration of their courageous endu- rance of so many afflictions ; but deeply too was I * Two of the religious narrowly escaped being put to death at Jerusalem, because a cat had fallen into the cistern of the con- vent. — Roger, p. 330. UNDER TRIBULATION. 131 affected on finding frequent repetitions of this head: Copy of a firman, obtained on the solicitation of the French Ambassador. Honour be to a coun- try, which, from the midst of Europe, extends her care to the unfortunate in the remote regions of Asia, and protects the weak against the strong ! Never, O land of my nativity, didst thou appear to me greater and more glorious than when I dis- covered the acts of thy beneficence concealed at Jerusalem in the register, in which are inscribed the unknown sufferings of a few oppressed religious, and the unheard-of iniquities of the basest of oppressors ! How is it possible to conceive that a man of talents, who prides himself on independent ideas, can have taken a pleasure in calumniating the un- fortunate ! There is a something superior to all opinions — that is justice. If a philosopher of the present day were to write a good book ; if he were to do what is still better, to perform a good action ; if he displayed noble and elevated sentiments, I, who am a Christian, would applaud him without reserve. And why should not a philosopher act in the same manner towards a Christian ? Because a man wears a monastic habit, a long beard, a cord girdle, must we allow him no merit for any sacri- fice ? For my part, I would go to the end of the world in quest of a virtue in a votary of Vishnou or the Grand Lama, that I might enjoy the happi- ness of admiring it. Generous actions are now-a- days too rare for us not to honour them under whatever garb they may be discovered, or to make such nice distinctions between the robe of a priest and the mantle of a philosopher. 132 CHAPTER VI. Examination of the Fields of Battle around Jerusalem described by Tasso — History of the Siege of Jerusalem by Robert the Monk. Very early in the morning - of the 10th, I sallied forth from Jerusalem by the gate of Ephraim, accompanied as usual by the faithful Ali, with a view to examine the fields of battle immortalized by Tasso. Proceeding to the north of the city, when I was between the grotto of Jeremiah and the Royal Sepulchres, I opened the Jerusalem De- livered, and was immediately struck with the accuracy of the poet's description : On two unequal hills the city stands, A vale between divides the higher lands. Three sides without impervious to the foes: The northern side an easy passage shews, With smooth ascent ; but well they guard the part, With lofty walls and labour'd works of art. The city lakes and living springs contains, And cisterns to receive the falling rains : But bare of herbage is the country round ; Nor springs nor streams refresh the barren ground. No tender flower exalts its cheerful head : No stately trees at noon their shelter spread ; Save where two leagues remote a wood appears, Embrown'd with noxious shade, the growth of years. Where morning gilds the city's eastern side, The sacred Jordan pours its gentle tide. Extended lie against the setting day The sandy borders of the midland sea : TASSO. 133 Samaria to the north and Bethel's wood, Where to the golden calf the altar stood : And on the rainy south, the hallow'd earth Of Bethlem where the Lord receiv'd his birth. » Nothing can be more clear, more precise, more explicit than this description ; had it been composed on the spot it could not be more exact. The wood placed at the distance of six miles from the camp, on the Arabian side, is no poetical invention : William of Tyre speaks of the wood where Tasso has laid the scene of so many enchantments. Here Godfrey procured timber for the construction of his military engines. It will be seen how closely Tasso had studied the originals, when I come to quote the historians of the Crusades. E'l capitano Poi ch'intorno ha mirato, a i snoi descende. From the hill descends The Christain chief and joins his warlike friends. The city view'd. he deems th' attempt were vain O'er craggy rocks the steepy pass to gain. Then on the ground that rose with smooth ascent, Against the northern gate he pitch'd his tent ; And thence proceeding to the corner tow'r, Encamp'd at length the remnant of his pow'r : But could not half the city's walls enclose, So wide around the spacious bulwarks rose. But Godfrey well secures each several way That might assistance to the town convey. You are absolutely transported to the spot. The camp extends from the gate of Damascus to the corner tower at the source of the brook Cedron and the entrance of the valley of Jehoshaphat. The ground between the city and the camp is exactly as Tasso has represented it, very level and well adapted for a field of battle, at the foot of the walls of * This and all the succeeding quotations from Tasso are taken from Iloole's translation of the Jerusalem Delivered. — T. 134? TASSO's " JERUSALEM! DELIVERED." Solyma. Aladine is seated with Erminia in a tower situated between two orates, whence they survey the combat in the plain and the camp of the Christians. This tower is still standing, with several others, between the gate of Damascus and that of Ephraim. In the episode of Olindo and Soppronia, in the second book, we meet with two extremely correct local descriptions: Nel tempio de Christian! occulto giace, &c An altar by the Christians stands immur'd Deep underground from vulgar eyes secur'd; The statue of their goddess there is shovv'd, The mother of their human, buried god. This church, now denominated the Sepulchre of the Virgin, stands in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and has been described in a preceding page. Tasso, by a license granted to poets, places this church within the walls of Jerusalem. The mosque, in which the image of the Virgin is set up, agreeably to the advice of the sorcerer, is evidently the mosque of the Temple. Io la, donde riceve L'alta vostra meschita e l'aura e'l die, &c. Where the high dome receives the air and light, I found a passage favour'd by the night. The first onset of the adventurers, the single combats of Argantes, Otho, Tancred, and Ray- mond of Toulouse, take place before the gate of Ephraim. When Armida arrives from Damascus, she enters, says the poet, at the extremity of the camp. It was in reality near the gate of Damas- cus, on the west side, that the last tents of the Christians must have stood. I place the admirable scene of Erminia's flight TASSO's li JERUSALEM DELIVERED." 135 towards the northern extremity of the valley of Jehoshaphat. When Tancred's lover has passed the gate of Jerusalem with her faithful squire, we are told that she went Obliquely winding down the hill's descent. She could not therefore have left the city by the gate of Ephraim, for the road leading from that gate to the camp of the Crusaders passes over perfectly level ground ; she chose rather to make her escape by the eastern gate, which was less liable to suspicion, and guarded with less vigilance. Erminia arrives in solitaria ed ima parte, in a deep and solitary recess ; she directs her attendant to go and speak to Tancred. This deep and solitary recess is distinctly marked at the upper end of the valley of Jehoshaphat, before you turn the northern angle of the city. There Erminia might await in safety the return of he rmessengpr : but, unable to conquer her impatience, she ascends the eminence and descries the distant tents. In fact, on leaving the channel of the brook Cedron, and proceeding northward, a person must have perceived the camp of the Christians on the left. Then follow those admirable stanzas: Now was the night in starry lustre seen. And not a cloud obscured the blue serene: The rising morn her silver beams displayed. And deck'd with pearly dew the dusky glade- With anxious soul th' enamour'd virgin strays From thought to thought in love's perplexing maze; And vents her tender plaints and breathes her sighs To all the silent fields and conscious skies. Then, fondly gazing on the camp, she said: Ye Latian tents, by me witli joy surveyed ! From you methinks the gales more gently blow, And seem already to relieve my woe! So may kind Heaven afford a milder state To this unhappy life, the sport of fate! 136 TASScTs " JERUSALEM DELIVERED." As 'tis from you I seek t' assuage my care, And hope alone for peace in scenes of war! Receive me then, and may my wishes find That bliss which love has promised to my mind ; Which e'en my worst of fortune could afford, When made the captive of my dearest lord ! I seek not now, inspired with fancies vain, 13y you my regal honours to regain : Ah oh ! be this my happiness and pride, Within your shelter humbly to reside ! So spoke the hapless fair, who little knew How near her sudden change of fortune drew ; For, pensive while she stood, the cloudless moon Full on th' unheedful maid with splendour shone ; Her snow-white vesture caught the silver beam ; Her polish'd arms return 'd a trembling gleam ; And on her lofty crest, the tigress, rais'd, With all the terrors of Clorinda blaz'd. When, lo! (so will'd her fate) a numerous band Of Christian scouts were ambush'd near at hand, These Polyphernes and Alcander guide. Alcander and Polyphernes must have been sta- tioned somewhere near the Royal Sepulchres. It is to be regretted that Tasso has given no descrip- tion of these subterraneous monuments, for the delineation of which his genius peculiarly qualified him. It is not so easy to determine the spot where the fugitive Erminia meets with the shepherd on the bank of the river ; but as there is only one river in this country, and as Erminia has left Jerusalem by the eastern gate, it is probable that Tasso meant to place this charming scene on the shore of the Jordan. In this case, I acknowledge it to be an unaccountable circumstance that he has not men- tioned the name of the river ; but it is certain that this great poet has not adhered so closely as he ought to have done to scriptural records, from which Milton has elicited so many beauties. As to the lake and castle in which the enchantress TASSO's " JERUSALEM DELIVERED." 137 Armida confines the knights whom she has seduced, Tasso himself informs us that the lake here meant is the Dead Sea : At length we drew to where in dreadful ire Heaven rain'd of old on earth a storm of fire, T' avenge the wrongs which Nature's laws endur'd On that dire race to wicked deeds inur'd; Where once were fertile lands and meadows green, Now a deep lake with sulph'rous waves was seen. One of the finest passages in the poem is the attack of the Christian camp by Solyman. The sultan marches in the night amid the thickest dark- ness, for, according to the sublime expression of the poet, A deeper gloom exulting Pluto made, With added terrors from th' infernal shade. The camp is assailed on the west side. Godfrey, who commands the centre of the army towards the north, is not apprised til] late that the right wing is engaged. Solyman has been prevented from attacking the left wing, though nearest to the desert, because there were deep ravines in that quarter. The Arabs, concealed during the day in the valley of Turpentine, sally from it at night to attempt the deliverance of Jerusalem. Solyman, being discomfited, pursues alone the way to Gaza. He is met by Ismeno, the magician, who conveys him in an enchanted chariot, enve- loped in a cloud, through the camp of the Chris- tians to Mount Sion in Jerusalem. This episode, admirable on other accounts, is accurate in locali- ties, as far as the exterior of the Castle of David near the gate of Jaffa or Bethlehem ; but there is an error in what follows. The poet has confounded, or perhaps chosen to confound the tower of David with that of Antonia ; the latter stands at a con- 138 TASSo's " JERUSALEM DELIVERED." siderable distance from the former, in the lower part of the city, at the northern angle of the Temple. When on the spot, you may fancy that you be- hold Godfrey's troops setting out from the gate of Ephraim, turning to the east, descending into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and proceeding like pious and peaceful pilgrims to pray to the Almighty on the Mount of Olives. Be it here remarked that this Christian procession strongly reminds us of the pomp of the Panathenaea celebrated at Eleusis in the midst of the troops of Alcibiades. Tasso, who had read every thing, who incessantly imi- tates Virgil, Homer, and the other poets of antiquity, has here given in beautiful verses one of the finest scenes of the story. It may likewise be added, that this procession is moreover an historical fact related by the anonymous writer, Robert the Monk, and William of Tyre. We now come to the first assault. The engines are planted before the north wall. Tasso is here most scrupulously accurate : Non era il fosso di palustie limo (Che nol consento in loco) o d'acqua molle. This is strictly true. The ditch on the north is a dry ditch, or rather a natural ravine, like the other ditches of the city. In the circumstances of the first, assault the poet has followed his own genius, without adhering to historical fact ; and as his plan would not allow him to keep pace with the chronicler, he represents the principal engine of the besiegers as having been burned by the infidels, which rendered it necessary to begin the work again. It is certain that the besieged set fire to one of the towers of the assail- TASSO'S " JERUSALEM DELIVERED." 139 ing army. Tasso has extended this accident as much as his plot required. Next follows the terrible combat between Tan- cred and Clorinda, the most pathetic fiction that ever sprung- from the imagination of a poet. The scene of action may easily be ascertained. Clo- rinda being unable to regain the Dorean gate with Argantes, is consequently below the Temple in the valley of Siloe. Tancred pursues her ; the battle begins ; the expiring Clorinda solicits bap- tism. Tancred, more unfortunate than his victim, fetches water from a neighbouring stream, and by this the spot is determined : Not distant far adown the mossy hill, In gentle murmurs roll'd a crystal rill. This is the fountain of Siloe, or rather Mary's Fountain, which thus springs from the foot of Mount Sion. I know not whether the picture of the drought delineated in the thirteenth book be not the most exquisite passage of the whole poem. Here Tasso equals Homer and Virgil. It is a highly-finished piece of composition, and is distinguished by an energy and purity of style in which the other parts of the work are sometimes deficient : The sun ne'er rises cheerful to the sight, But sanguine spots distain his sacred light : Pale hovering mists around his forehead play, The sad forerunners of a fatal day ; His setting orb in crimson seems to mourn, Denouncing greater woes at his return ; And adds new horrors to the present doom, By certain fear of evils yet come. All nature pants beneath the burning sky : The earth is cleft, the lessening streams are dry • The barren clouds like streaky flames divide. Dispers'd and broken through the sultry void. 140 TASS0\s " JERUSALEM DELIVERED."" No cheerful object for the sight remains ; Each gentle gale its grateful breath retains ; Alone the wind from Lybia's sands respires, And burns each warrior's breast with secret fires. Nocturnal meteors blaze in dusky air, Thick lightnings flash, and livid comets glare. No pleasing moisture Nature's face renews : The moon no longer sheds her pearly dews, To cheer the mourning earth ; the plants and flowers In vain require the soft and vital showers. Sweet slumber flies from every restless night, In vain would men his balmy povv'r invite; Sleepless they lie : but far above the rest, The rage of thirst their fainting souls oppress'd : For vers'd in guile, Judae's impious king With poisonous juice had tainted every spring; Whose currents now with dire pollution flow, Like Styx and Acheron in realms below. The slender stream where Siloa's gentle wave Once to the Christians draughts untainted gave, Now scarcely murmurs, in his channels dry, And yields their fainting host a small supply. But not the Po, when most his waters swell, Would seem too vast their raging thirst to quell : Nor mighty Ganges, nor the seven -mouth'd Nile, That with his deluge glads th' Egyptian soil. If e'er their eyes in happier times have view'd Begirt with grassy turf some crystal flood ; Or living waters foam from Alpine hills, Or through soft herhage purl the limpid rills ; Such flattering scenes again their fancies frame ; And add new fuel to increase their flame; Still in the mind the wish'd idea reigns : But still the fever rages in their veins. Then might you see on earth the warriors lie, Whose limbs robust could every toil defy : Inur'd the weight of pond'rous arms to bear, Inur'd in fields the hostile steel to dare, Deep in their flesh the hidden furies prey, And eat by slow degrees their lives away. The courser, late with generous pride endued, Now loaths the grass, his once delighted food : With feeble steps he scarcely seems to tread, And prone to earth is hung his languid head. No memory now of ancient fame remains, No thirst of glory on the dusty plains : TASSO'S " JERUSALEM DELIVERED." 141 The conquer'd spoils and trappings once bestow'd, His joy so late, are now a painful load. Now pines the faithful dog. nor heeds the board, Nor heeds the service of his dearer lord ; Outstretch'd he lies, and as he pants for breath, Receives at every gasp new draughts of death. In vain has nature's law the air assigned 7" allay the inward heat of human kind : What, here, alas! can air mankind avail. When fevers float on every burning gale! Here is a specimen of the truly grand and sublime in poetry. This picture, so exquisitely imitated in Paul and Virginia, possesses the double merit of being appropriate to the climate of Judea, and representing an historical fact: the Christians actually experienced such a drought during the siege of Jerusalem. Robert has left us a descrip- tion of it, which I shall presently lay before the reader. In the fourteenth book, we shall look for a river that runs near Ascalon, and at the bottom of which resided the magician who revealed to Ubald and the Danish knight the fortunes of Rinaldo. This stream is the river of Ascalon, or some other torrent more to the north, which was not known except in the times of the Crusades, as D'Anville asserts. In the voyage of the two knights, geographical order is wonderfully well preserved. Setting sail from a port between Jaffa and Ascalon, and steer- ing towards Egypt, they must successively have seen Ascalon, Gaza, Raphia, and Damietta. The poet represents their course as westerly, though it was at first southward : but he could not descend to such minute particulars. At any rate, I perceive that all epic poets have been men of extensive eru- dition, and had, above all, profoundly studied the works of their predecessors in the career of the 142 TASSO'S " JERUSALEM DELIVERED. 11 epopee . Virgil translates Homer ; Tasso imitates in every stanza, some passage of Homer, Virgil, Lucan, Statius ; Milton borrows from them all, and enlarges his own stores with the wealth of those who had gone before him. The sixteenth book, which comprehends a deli- neation of the gardens of Armida, furnishes nothing for our present subject. In the seventeenth, we find the description of Gaza, and the recapitulation of the Egyptian army : an epic subject in which Tasso displays the genius of a master, and at the same time a perfect acquaintance with history and geo- graphy. In my voyage from Jaffa to Alexandria, our vessel steered southward till we came exactly opposite to Gaza, the sight of which reminded me of these verses of the Jerusalem : Placed where Judae's utmost bounds extend Tow'rds fair Pelusium, Gaza's tow'rs ascend : Fast by the breezy shore the city stands, Amid unbounded plains of barren sands, Which, high in air, the furious whirlwinds sweep, Like mountain billows of the stormy deep; That scarce th' affrighted trav'ller, spent with toil, Escapes the tempest of th' unstable soil. The last assault in the nineteenth book is per- fectly consistent with history. Godfrey attacked the city in three places at once. The old Count de Toulouse assailed the walls between the west and south, facing the castle of the city, near the Jaffa gate. Godfrey forced the gate of Ephraim, while Tancred directed his efforts against the cor- ner tower, which afterwards assumed the name of Tancred's tower. Tasso likewise follows the chronicles in the cir- cumstances and the result of the assault. Ismeno, accompanied by two magicians, is killed by a stone hurled from an engine : two sorceresses actually TASSO'S " JERUSALEM DELIVERED. 1 " 143 met that fate on the walls at the taking of Jeru- salem. Godfrey looks up, and beholds celestial warriors fighting for him on every side. This is a fine imitation of Homer and Virgil, but it is also a tradition from the times of the Crusades. " The dead," says Father Nau, " entered with the living; for several distinguished Crusaders, who died be- fore their arrival, and among the rest, Ademar, the virtuous and zealous bishop of Puy, in Auvergne, appeared upon the walls ; as if the glory which they enjoyed in the heavenly Jerusalem required the ac- cession of that to be derived from visiting the ter- restrial one, and adoring the son of God upon the scene of his ignominy and sufferings, as they wor- shipped him on the throne of his majesty and power." The city was taken, as the poet relates, by means of bridges which were projected from engines and fell upon the ramparts. Godfrey and Gaston de Foix had furnished the plan of these machines, which were constructed by Pisan and Genoese sai- lors. The whole account of this assault, in which Tasso has displayed the ardour of his chivalrous genius, is true, except what relates to Rinaldo ; that hero being a mere fiction of the poet, his actions must also be imaginary. There was no warrior of the name of Rinaldo d'Este at the siege of Jerusalem ; the first Christian that scaled the walls was not a knight named Rinaldo, but Le- tolde, a Flemish gentleman of Godfrey's retinue. He was followed by Guicher and Godfrey himself. The stanza in which Tasso describes the standard of the cross overshadowing the towers of Jerusalem delivered, is truly sublime : The conquering banner to the breeze unroll'd, Redundant streams in many a waving fold : 144 TASS0\s " JERUSALEM DELIVERED. 11 The winds with awe confess the heavenly sign, Willi purer beams the day appears to shine : The swords seem bid to turn their points away, And darts around it innocently play : The sacred Mount the purple cross adores, And Sion owns it from her topmost tow'rs. All the historians of the Crusades record the piety of Godfrey, the generosity of Tancred, and the justice and prudence of the Count de St. Gilles. Anna Comnena herself speaks with commendation of the latter : the poet has therefore adhered to history, in the delineation of his heroes. When he invents characters, he at least makes them con- sistent with manners. Argantes is a jjenuine Ma- meluke. The other chief from fair Circassia came To Egypt's court, Argantes was his name : Exalted midst the princes of the land, And first in rank of all the martial band; Impatient, fiery, and of rage unquell'd, In arms unconquer'd, matchless in the field; Whose impious soul contempt of heaven avow'd, His sword his law, his own right hand his God. In Solyman is faithfully portrayed a sultan of the early times of the Turkish empire. The poet, who fails not to avail himself of every historical recollection, makes the sultan of Nice an ancestor of the great Saladin ; and it is obvious that he meant to delineate Saladin himself in the character of his progenitor. Should the work of Dom Ber- theleau ever be laid before the public, we shall be better acquainted with the Mahometan heroes of Jerusalem. Dom Bertheleau translated the Arabian authors who have written the history of the Cru- sades. This valuable performance was intended to form part of the collection of French historians. I am not able to fix the exact spot where the ferocious Argantes is slain by the generous Tancred ; ROBERT THE MONK. 145 but it must be sought in the vallies between the west and north. It cannot be placed to the west of the corner tower which Tancred assaulted ; for in this case, Erminia could not have met the wounded hero as she was returning from Gaza with Vafrino. The last action of the poem, which in reality took place near Ascalon, Tasso has laid with exquisite judgment under the walls of Jerusalem. Histori- cally considered, this action is of little importance ; but in a poetical point of view, it is a battle supe- rior to any in Virgil, and equal to the grandest of Homer's combats. I shall now give the siege of Jerusalem, ex- tracted from our old chronicles, so that the reader may have an opportunity of comparing the poem with history. Of all the historians of the Crusades, Robert the monk is most frequently quoted. The anonymous writer, in the collection entitled " Gesta Dei per Francos," is more ancient; but his narrative is too dry. William of Tyre falls into the contrary defect. For these reasons Robert is consulted in preference : his style it affected ; he copies the turns of the poets, but on this very account, notwithstanding his points and his puns,* he is less barbarous than his contemporaries ; he has, moreover, a certain degree of taste and a brilliant imagination. " The army encamped in this order about Jeru- salem. The Counts of Flanders and Normandy pitched their tents on the north side, not far from the churchf erected on the spot where Stephen, * Papa Urbanux urbano sermone peroravit, &c Vallis spaciosa ef speciosa, &c. Our old hymns are full of these plays upon words : Quo came carnis conditor, &c. t The text has : juxta eccksiam : which I have translated not far from the church, because this church is not to the north, hut VOL. II. H to 146 ROBERT THE MONK. the first martyr, was stoned. Godfrey and Tancred placed themselves on the west, and the Count de St. Gilles took a position to the south, on Mount Sion,* round about the church of Mary, the mother of our Saviour, formerly the house in which the Lord held the Last Supper with his disciples. The tents being thus disposed, while the troops, fatigued with their march, rested themselves, and constructed the machines necessary for the attack, Raimond Pilet,f and Raimond de Turenne, pro- ceeded from the camp with several others to re- connoitre the neighbouring country, lest the enemy should fall upon the Crusaders before they were prepared. They met by the way with three hun- dred Arabs, they killed many of them, and took thirty horses. The second day of the third week, June 13th 1099, the French attacked Jerusalem, but they could not take it that day. Their efforts, however, were not wholly useless : they threw down the outer wall, and set up ladders against the principal one. Had they but possessed a suf- ficient number of them, this first attempt had been the last. Those who ascended the ladders main- tained a long conflict against the enemy with swords and spears. Many of our people fell in this assault, but the loss of the Saracens was much more considerable. Night put an end to the action, and jjave rest to both sides. The failure of this first attempt certainly occasioned our army much to the east of Jerusalem ; and all the other historians of the Crusades relate that the Counts of Nonrandy and Flanders placed themselves between the east and the north. * The text says : scilicet in monte Sion. This proves that the city built by Adrian did not include the whole of Mount Sion, and that the site of Jerusalem at that time was exactly the same as it is at present. f Piletus, or, as he is elsewhere called, Pilitus and Fekz. SIEGE OF JERUSALEM. 147 toil and trouble, for our troops were without bread For ten days, till our ships arrived in the port of Jaffa. They moreover suffered exceedingly from thirst ; the fountain of Si!oe, at the foot of Mount Sion, could scarcely supply the troops, and they were obliged to send the horses and other animals, attended by a numerous escort, six miles from the camp to water. " Though the fleet which arrived at Jaffa fur- nished the besiegers with provisions, they still suffered as much as ever from thirst. So great was the drought during the siege, that the soldiers dug holes in the ground, and pressed the damp clods to their lips; they licked the stones wet with dew; they drank the putrid water which had stood in the fresh hides of buffaloes and other animals; and many abstained from eating, in the hope of miti- gating by hunger the pangs of thirst. " Meanwhile the generals caused large pieces of timber to be brought from a great distance for the construction of engines and towers. When these towers were finished, Godfrey placed his on the east side of the town ; and the Count de St. Gilles erected one exactly like it to the south. These arrangements being made, on the fifth day of the week, the Crusaders fasted, and distributed alms among the poor. On the sixth day, which was the 12th of July, the sun rose with brilliancy ; the towers were manned with chosen troops, who threw up ladders against the walls of Jerusalem. The bastard inhabitants of the Holy City were filled with consternation* when they found them- » Stupent et contremiscunt adulterini cites wrhis eximia. The expression is not. less beautiful than true ; for the Saracens were not only, as foreigners, the bastard citizens, the illegitimate children of Jerusalem, but they might likewise be termed adul- y 2 terinit 148 ROBERT THE MONK. selves besieged by so vast a multitude. But as they were on all sides threatened with their last hour, as death impended over their heads ; certain of falling, they thought only how to sell the rest of their lives as dearly as possible. Meanwhile, Godfrey posted himself at the top of his tower, not as a foot-soldier, but as an archer. The Lord guided his hand in the combat, and all the arrows discharged by him pierced the enemy through and through. Near this warrior were two brothers, Baldwin and Eustace, like two lions beside another lion : they received terrible blows from stones and darts, which they returned to the foe with usury. " While they were thus engaged on the walls of the city, a procession was made round those same walls with the crosses, relics, and sacred altars.* The victory remained uncertain during part of the day ; but at the hour when the Saviour of the world gave up the ghost, a warrior named Letolde, who fought in Godfrey's tower, leaped the first upon the ramparts of the city. He was followed by Guicher — that Guicher who had van- quished a lion ; Godfrey was the third, and all the other knights rushed on after their chief. Throw- ing aside their bows and arrows, they now drew their swords. At this sight the enemy abandoned the walls and ran down into the city, whither the soldiers of Christ with loud shouts pursued them. " The Count de St. Gilles, who on his part was endeavouring to bring up his machines to the walls, heard the clamour. ' Why,' said he to his men, terini, on account of their mother Hagar, and in reference to the legitimate posterity of Abraham by Sarah. * Sacra altaria. This would seem to be applicable only to a pagan ceremony; but it is probable that the Christians had port- able altars in their camp. SIEGE OF JERUSALEM. 14>9 * do we linger here ? The French are masters of Jerusalem ; they are making- it resound with their voices and their blows.' Quickly advancing to the gate near the castle of David, he called to those who were in the castle, and summoned them to surrender. As soon as the emir knew that it was the Count de St. Gilles, he opened the gate, and committed himself to the faith of that venerable warrior. " But Godfrey, with the French, was resolved to avenge the Christian blood spilt by the Infidels in Jerusalem, and to punish them for the railleries and outrages to which they had subjected the pilgrims. Never had he in any conflict appeared so terrible, not even when he encountered the giant on the bridge of Antioch. Guicher, and several thou- sands of chosen warriors, cut the Saracens in two from the head to the waist, or severed their bodies in the middle. None of our soldiers shewed timi- dity, for they met with no opposition. The enemy sought only to escape ; but to them flight was im- possible ; they rushed along in such crowds that they embarrassed one another. The small number of those who contrived to escape, took refuge in Solomon's Temple, and there defended themselves a considerable time. At dusk our soldiers gained possession of the Temple, and in their rage put to death all whom they found there. Such was the carnage, that the mutilated carcases were hurried by the torrents of blood into the court ; dissevered arms and hands floated in the current, that carried them to be united to bodies to which they had never belonged." In concluding the description of the places cele- brated by Tasso, I feel happy in having had an opportunity of being the first to pay to an immor- 150 VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT. tal poet the same honour which others before me had rendered to Homer and Virgil. Whoever has a relish for the beauty, the art, the interest of a poetic composition ; for richness of detail, for truth of character, for generosity of sentiment, should make the Jerusalem Delivered his favou- rite study. It is in a particular manner the poem of the soldier : it breathes valour and glory, and, as I have elsewhere observed, it seems to have been written upon a buckler in the midst of camps. I spent about five hours in examining the theatre of the battles described by Tasso. This theatre occupies very little more than half a league of ground, and the poet has so strongly discriminated the various scenes of action that they may be dis- covered at a single glance. As we were returning to the city by the valley of Jehoshaphat, we met the pacha's cavalry com- ing back from its expedition. It is impossible to conceive the joyous and triumphant aspect of these troops after their victory over the sheep, goats, asses, and horses of a few poor Arabs on the banks of the Jordan. 151 CHAPTER VII. Government of Jerusalem — Abdallah, Pacha of Damascus — His Extortions — Order of the Holy Sepulchre conferred on the Author — General Survey of the City — Houses — Inhabitants — Communities of Christian Monks — Jews — Departure from Jerusalem — Arrival at Jaffa. It is now time to say something' concerning the government of Jerusalem. There is, in the first place, 1. A Mosallam or Sangiack, the commander of the military. 2. A Moula Cadi, or minister of police. 3. A Mufti, the chief of the santons and lawyers. When this Mufti is a fanatic, or a bad man, like him who held that office when I was at Jerusalem, he has it in his power to tyrannize over the Chris- tians more than any of the other authorities. 4. A Moutenely, or collector of the duties at the mosque of Solomon. 5. A Soubachi, or sheriff of the city. These subaltern tyrants are all, with the excep- tion of the mufti, dependent on a principal tyrant, and this is the pacha of Damascus. Jerusalem is comprehended in the pachalik of Damascus, for what reason I know not, unless it be a result of that destructive system which is naturally and, as it were, instinctively pursued by J 52 GOVERNMENT OF JERUSALEM. the Turks. Cut off from Damascus by mountains, and still more by the Arabs who infest the deserts, Jerusalem cannot always prefer its complaints to the pacha when oppressed by its governors. It would be much more natural to make it dependent on the pachalik of Acre, which lies near it ; the Franks and the Latin fathers might then place themselves under the protection of the consuls residing in the ports of Syria ; and the Greeks and Turks would be able to make known their griev- ances. But this is the very thing that their go- vernors are desirous of preventing; they would have a mute slavery, and not insolent wretches who dare complain of the hand that oppresses them. Jerusalem is therefore at the mercy of an almost independent governor: he may do with impunity all the mischief he pleases, if he be not afterwards called to account for it by the pacha. It is well known that in Turkey every superior has a right to delegate his authority to an inferior ; and this authority extends both to property and life. For a few purses a janissary may become a petty aga, and this aga may, at his good pleasure, either take away your life or permit you to redeem it. Thus executioners are multiplied in every town of Judea. The only thing ever heard in this country, the only justice ever thought of, is : Let him pay ten, twenty, thirty purses — Give him Jive hundred strokes of the bastinado — Cut off his head. One act of injustice renders it necessary to commit a still greater. If one of these petty tyrants plunders a peasant, he is absolutely obliged to plunder his neighbour also ; for, to escape the hypocritical integrity of the pacha, he must procure by a se- cond crime sufficient to purchase impunity for the first. ABDALLAH PACHA. 153 It may perhaps be imagined that the pacha, when he visits his government, corrects these evils and avenges the wrongs of the people. So far from this, however, the pacha is himself the greatest scourge of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. His coming is dreaded like that of a hostile chief. The shops are shut up ; the people conceal themselves in cel- lars ; they feign to be at the point of death on their mats, or withdraw to the mountains. The truth of these facts I am able to attest, since I happened to be at Jerusalem at the time of the pacha's visit. Abdallah is sordidly avaricious, like almost all the Mussulmans : in the capacity of commander of the caravan of Mecca, and under the pretext of raising money for the better protection of the pilgrims, he thinks that he has a right to mul- tiply his extortions; and he is always devising new ways of fleecing the people. One of the methods which he most frequently employs is to fix a very low maximum for all kinds of provisions. The people are delighted, but the dealers shut their shops. A scarcity commences ; the pacha enters into a secret negociation with the shop-keepers, and, for a certain number of purses, grants them permission to sell at any price they please. These men are of course desirous to recover the sums which they have given the pacha : they raise the price of necessaries to an extraordinary height, and the people, dying a second time for want, are obliged to part with their last rag to keep them- selves from starving. I have seen this same Abdallah practise a still more ingenious vexation. I have observed that he sent his cavalry to pillage the Arabian farmers be- yond the Jordan. These poor people, who had paid the miri, and who knew that they were not at h3 154) HIS EXTORTIONS. war, were surprised in the midst of their tents and of their flocks. They were robbed of two thousand two hundred sheep and goats, ninety-four calves, a thousand asses, and six mares of the purest blood: the camels alone escaped,* having- followed a shieck who called them at a distance. These faithful children of the desert carried their milk to their masters in the mountains, as if they had known that these masters were bereft of every other sustenance. An European could scarcely guess what the pacha did with his booty. He put more than twice as high a price upon each animal as it was worth, rating each goat and sheep at twenty piastres, and each calf at eighty. The beasts thus appraised were sent to the butchers and different persons in Jerusalem, and to the chiefs of the neighbouring villages, who were obliged to take them and pay for them at the pacha's price upon pain of death. I must confess that, had I not been an eye-witness of this double iniquity, I should have thought it absolutely incredible. As to the asses and horses, they became the property of the soldiers ; for, according to a singular convention between these robbers, all the beasts with a cloven hoof taken in such expeditions belong to the pacha, and all the other animals fall to the share of the troops. Having exhausted Jerusalem, the pacha departs; but in order to save the pay of the city guards and to strengthen the escort of the caravan of Mecca, he takes the soldiers along with him. The gover- nor is left behind with about a dozen men, who are insufficient for the police of the city, much less for that of the adjacent country. The year before my visit, he was obliged to conceal himself in his * Of these, however, twenty-six were taken. CONVENT LIBRARY. 155 house, to escape the pursuit of a band of robbers who entered Jerusalem, and were on the point of plundering the city. No sooner is the pacha gone, than another evil, the consequence of his oppression, begins to be felt. Insurrections take place in the plundered villages; they attack each other, mutually intent on wreaking hereditary revenge. All communication is interrupted ; agriculture perishes; and the pea- sant sallies forth at night to pillage the enemy's vine and to cut down his olive-tree. The pacha returns the following year ; he demands the same tribute from a country whose population is dimi- nished. In order to raise it, he is obliged to re- double his oppressions and to exterminate whole tribes. The desert gradually extends ; nothing is to be seen but here and there habitations in ruins, and near them cemeteries which keep continually increasing ; each succeeding year witnesses the de- struction of a house, the extinction of a family, and soon nothing is left but this cemetery to mark the spot where once stood a village. Returning to the convent at ten in the morning, I completed my examination of the library. Be- sides the collection of firmans already mentioned, I found an autograph manuscript of the learned Quaresmius. This Latin manuscript, like all the printed works of the same author, relates to the Holy Land. Some other volumes contained Turk- ish and Arabic papers relative to the affairs of the convent, Letters of the Congregation, Miscellanies, &c. I saw likewise some treatises by Fathers of the church, several pilgrimages to Jerusalem, the Abbe Mariti's work, and Volney's excellent Nar- rative of his Travels. Father Clement Peres, having discovered, as he thought, some slight 156 ORDER OF HOLY SEPULCHRE errors in the latter, had noted down his observa- tions on some loose papers, of which he made me a present. I had seen every thing at Jerusalem ; I was acquainted with the interior and exterior of that city, and better acquainted with them than with the interior of Paris and its vicinity : I began, there- fore, to think of my departure. The Fathers of the Holy Land determined to confer on me an honour which I had neither solicited nor deserved. In consideration of the feeble services which, as they said, I had rendered to religion, they requested me to accept the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. This Order, of high antiquity in Christendom, though its origin may not date so far back as the time of St. Helena, was formerly very common in Europe. At present it is scarcely ever met with except in Spain and Poland : the superior of the Latin convent, as guardian of the Holy Sepulchre, has alone the right to confer it. We left the convent at one o'clock and repaired to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. We went into the chapel belonging to the Latin Fathers ; the doors were carefully shut, lest the Turks should perceive the arms, which might cost the religious their lives. The superior put on his pontifical habits ; the lamps and tapers were lighted ; all the brethren present formed a circle round me, with their hands folded upon their breasts. While they sung the Veni Creator in a low voice, the superior stepped up to the altar, and I fell on my knees at his feet. The spurs and sword of Godfrey de Bouillon were taken out of the treasury of the Holy Sepulchre : two of the religious, standing one on each side of me, held the venerable relics. The superior recited the accustomed prayers and asked CONFERRED ON AUTHOR. 157 me the usual questions : he then put the spurs on my heels and struck me thrice over the shoulders with the sword, on which the religious began to sing the Te Deum, while the superior pronounced this prayer over my head : '* Lord God Almighty, bestow thy grace and blessing on this thy servant," &c. All this is but a shadow of the days that are past. But if it be considered that I was at Jeru- salem, in the church of Calvary, within a dozen of paces of the tomb of Jesus Christ, and thirty from that of Godfrey de Bouillon ; that I was equipped with the spurs of the Deliverer of the Holy Sepul- chre : and had touched that sword, both lono- and large, which so noble and so valiant an arm had once wielded ; if the reader bear in mind these circumstances, my life of adventure, my peregrina- tions by land and sea, he will easily believe that I could not remain unmoved. Neither was this cere- mony in other respects without effect. I am a Frenchman ; Godfrey de Bouillon was a French- man ; and his ancient arms, in touching me, com- municated an increased ardour for glory and for the honour of my country. My certificate, signed by the guardian and sealed with the seal of the convent, was delivered to me. With this brilliant diploma of Knighthood, I received my humble passport of a pilgrim. I pre- serve them as a record of my visit to the land of the ancient traveller, Jacob. Now that I am about to bid farewell to Palestine, I must request the reader to accompany me once more beyond the walls of Jerusalem, to take a last survey of this extraordinary city. Let us first pause at the Grotto of Jeremiah near the Royal Sepulchres. This is a spacious cavern, 158 GROTTO OF JEREMIAH. the roof of which is supported by a pillar of stones. Here, as we are told, the Prophet gave vent to his Lamentations, which seem as though they had been composed within sight of modern Jerusalem, so accurately do they pourtray the state of this desolate city : " How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people ! how is she become a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary ! " The ways of Sion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts ; all her gates are deso- late : her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. " All ye that pass by, behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. " The Lord hath proposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Sion : he hath bent his bow like an enemy ; he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying ; therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament ; they languished together. " Her gates are sunk into the ground ; he hath destroyed and broken her bars ; her kings and her princes are among the Gentiles ; the law is no more ; her prophets also find no vision from the Lord. " Mine eyes do fail with tears ; my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. " What thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee? " All that pass by clap their hands at thee ; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying: " Is this the city that men call SURVEY OF THE CITY. 159 the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?" When seen from the Mount of Olives, on the other side of the valley of Jehoshaphat, Jerusalem presents an inclined plane descending' from west to east. An embattled wall, fortified with towers and a Gothic castle, encompasses the city all round; excluding, however, part of Mount Sion, which it formerly enclosed. In the western quarter, and in the centre of the city towards Calvary, the houses stand very close ; but in the eastern part, along - the brook Cedron, you perceive vacant spaces ; among the rest, that which surrounds the mosque erected on the ruins of the Temple, and the nearly deserted spot where once stood the castle of Antonia, and the second palace of Herod. The houses of Jerusalem are heavy, square masses, very low, without chimnies or windows ; they have flat terraces or domes on the top, and look like prisons or sepulchres. The whole would appear to the eye one uninterrupted level, did not the steeples of the churches, the minarets of the mosques, the summits of a few cypresses, and the clumps of nopals, break the uniformity of the plan. On beholding these stone buildings, encompassed by a stony country, you are ready to enquire if they are not the confused monuments of a cemetery in the midst of a desert. Enter the city, but nothing will you there find to make amends for the dullness of its exterior. You lose yourself among narrow, unpaved streets, here going up hill, there down, from the inequality of the ground, and you walk among clouds of dust or loose stones. Canvas stretched from house to house increases the gloom of this labyrinth ; 160 CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES. bazars, roofed over, and pregnant with infection, completely exclude the light from the desolate city. A few paltry shops expose nothing but wretchedness to view, and even these are frequently shut, from apprehension of the passage of a cadi. Not a creature is to be seen in the streets, not a creature at the gates, except now and then a peasant gliding through the gloom, concealing under his garments the fruits of his labour, lest he should be robbed of his hard earnings by the rapa- cious soldier. Aside, in a corner, the Arab butcher is slaughtering some animal, suspended by the legs from a wall in ruins ; from his haggard and fero- cious look and his bloody hands, you would rather suppose that he had been cutting the throat, of a fellow creature than killing a lamb. The only noise heard from time to time in this deicide city is the galloping of the steed of the desert : it is the janissary who brings the head of the Bedouin, or returns from plundering the unhappy Fellah. Amid this extraordinary desolation, you must pause a moment to contemplate two circumstances still more extraordinary. Among the ruins of Jerusalem two classes of independent people find in their religion sufficient fortitude to enable them to surmount such complicated horrors and wretched- ness. Here reside communities of Christian monks, whom nothing can compel to forsake the Tomb of Christ, neither plunder nor personal ill treatment, nor menaces of death itself. Night and day they chant their hymns around the Holy Sepulchre. Stripped in the morning by a Turkish governor, they are found at night in prayer, at the foot of Calvary, on the spot where Christ suffered for the salvation of mankind. Their brows are serene, their lips wear an incessant smile. They receive JEWS. 161 the stranger with joy. Without power, without soldiers, they protect whole villages against ini- quity. Driven by the cudgel and the sabre, women, children, flocks, and herds, seek refuge in the cloisters of these recluses. What prevents the armed oppressor from pursuing his prey and over- throwing such feeble ramparts ? The charity of the monks : they deprive themselves of the last resources of life to ransom their supplicants. Turks, Arabs, Greeks, Christian schismatics, all throw themselves under the protection of a few indigent religious, who are incapable of defending themselves. Here we cannot forbear acknow- ledging' with Bossuet, that " hands raised towards heaven disperse more battalions than hands armed with javelins." While the new Jerusalem thus rises from the desert, resplendent in brightness, cast your eyes between the Temple and Mount Sion ; behold another petty tribe cut oft' from the rest of the inhabitants of this city. The particular objects of every species of degradation, these people bow their heads without murmuring ; they endure every kind of insult without demanding justice; they sink beneath repeated blows without sighing ; if their head be required, they present it to the scymetar. On the death of any member of this proscribed community, his companion goes at night and inters him by stealth in the valley of Jeho- shaphat, in the shadow of Solomon's Temple. Enter the abodes of these people, you will find them, amidst, the most abject wretchedness, in- structing their children to read a mysterious book, which they in their turn will teach their offspring to read. What they did five thousand years ago, these people still continue to do. Seventeen times 162 DEPARTURE FROM JERUSALEM. have they witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem, yet nothing- can discourage them, nothing can prevent them from turning their faces toward Sion. To see the Jews, scattered over the whole world, according to the word of God, must doubtless excite surprise: but to be struck with supernatural astonishment, you must view them at Jerusalem ; vou must behold these rightful masters of Judea living as slaves and strangers in their own country; you must behold them expecting, under all op- pressions, a king who is to deliver them. Crushed by the cross that condemns them and is planted on their heads, skulking near the Temple, of which not one stone is left upon another, they continue in their deplorable infatuation. The Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, are swept from the earth ; and a petty tribe, whose origin pre- ceded that of those great nations, still exists un- mixed amid the ruins of its native land. If any thing among nations wears the character of a miracle, that character, in my opinion, is here legibly impressed. What can appear more won- derful, even to the philosopher, than this spectacle of ancient and modern Jerusalem at the foot of Calvary ? the former overwhelmed with affliction at the sight of the sepulchre of the risen Jesus ; the latter exulting before the only tomb which will have no deposit to render up at the consummation of ages. I thanked the Fathers for their hospitality : I wished them most sincerely a happiness which they indeed never expect to enjoy here below ; and when on the point of leaving them, I was overcome with heart-felt grief. I know no sufferings that can be compared with those endured by these unfortunate religious ; the state in which they live REFLECTIONS. 163 resembles that which prevailed in France during the reign of terror. I was about to return to my country, to embrace my relatives., to behold my friends again, to enjoy once more the sweets of life : and these Fathers, who had relations, friends, and country, as well as I, remained exiled in this land of servitude. All possess not the strength of mind which renders man insensible to privations : I have myself heard expressions of regret, which convinced me of the magnitude of the sacrifice. Did not Christ on this same spot find the cup bitter? and yet he drank it up to the very dregs. On the 12th of October, I mounted my horse, with AH Aga, John, Julian, and Michael the drogman. We left the city by the Pilgrim's Gate on the west, and passed through the pacha's camp. Before we descended into the Valley of Turpentine, I stopped once more to survey Jerusalem. I dis- cerned above the walls the dome of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Never will it again be saluted by the pilgrim, for it no longer exists, and the tomb of Christ is now exposed to the inclemency of the air. The time has been that all Christendom would have eagerly contributed to rebuild the sacred monument : at the present day nobody thinks of such a thing, and the smallest sum expended for this meritorious purpose would appear an absurd superstition. Having contem- plated Jerusalem for some time, I pursued my way [among the mountains. It was twenty-nine minutes past six when I lost sight of the Holy City : 'tis thus that the navigator marks the mo- ment when he ceases to discern a distant region which he shall never again behold. At the bottom of the Valley of Turpentine we found Abou Gosh and Giaber, the chiefs of the 164 ARRIVAL AT JAFFA. Arabs of Jeremiah, waiting for us. We arrived at Jeremiah about midnight. Abou Gosh insisted on our partaking of a lamb which he had provided for us. I offered him some money, which he refused, only requesting that I would send him two cufs of Damietta rice when I should arrive in Egypt. This I cheerfully promised, and yet I never recollected my promise till the moment I was embarking for Tunis. As soon as our communi- cation with the Levant is restored, Abou Gosh shall certainly receive his Damietta rice ; he shall see, that though the memory of a Frenchman may fail him, yet he never fails to keep his word. I am in hopes that the little Bedouins of Jeremiah will mount guard over my present, and that they will again say : " Forward ! march !" On the 13th, at noon, I arrived at Jaffa. PART THE FIFTH, EGYPT. CHAPTER I. The Author embarks at Jaffa for Egypt — Gulf of Pelusium, now Damietta — Death of Pompey — The Nile — Alexandria — M. Drovetti, the French Consul — Rosetta — Albanian Soldiers — Appearance of the Delta — Voyage to Cairo— Restraints im- posed on the Kings of ancient Egypt— The Pyramids. On my return to Jaffa I found myself in an awkward predicament : there was not a vessel of any kind in the harbour. I wavered between two plans ; the first of which was to proceed to St. John d'Acre and there embark, and the second to travel to Egypt by land. I should have given a decided preference to the latter, but it was im- practicable. Five armed parties were then dis- puting- the possession of the banks of the Nile : Ibrahim Bey, in Upper Egypt ; two other inde- pendent beys, the pacha of the Porte at Cairo, a body of Albanian rebels, and Elfi Bey, in Lower Egypt. These different parties infested the roads: and the Arabs, taking advantage of the confusion, completely intercepted all communication. From this dilemma I was providentally relieved. The second day after my arrival at Jaffa, as I was 166 EMBARKATION AT JAFFA. preparing- to set out for St. John d'Acre, a saiek from Tripoli, in Syria, entered the harbour. This vessel was in ballast, and in quest of a cargo. The Fathers sent for the captain, who agreed to carry me to Alexandria for four hundred and eighty pias- tres, and we had soon concluded our bargain. It was not without sincere regret that I quitted my venerable hosts on the 16th of October. One of the Fathers gave me letters of recommendation for Spain ; as it was my intention, after I had seen Carthage, to conclude my peregrinations with the ruins of the Alhambra. Thus these religious, who remained exposed to every species of outrage, were anxious to be serviceable to me beyond the seas and in their native land. John and Julian bavins - carried our baowase on CT OCT CT board, I embarked on the 16th at eight in the evening. The sea was rough, and the wind un- favourable. I continued upon deck as long as I could perceive the lights of Jaffa. I felt, I must own, a certain emotion of pleasure in reflecting that I had now accomplished a pilgrimage which I had so long meditated. I hoped soon to con- clude this holy adventure, the most hazardous part of which I had, in my opinion, surmounted. When I considered that I had traversed almost alone the continent and the seas of Greece, that I was a^ain alone in a small vessel at the remotest corner of the Mediterranean, after visiting the Jor- dan, the Dead Sea, and Jerusalem, I looked upon my return through Egypt, Barbary, and Spain, as the easiest matter in the world. I was, however, mistaken. I retired to the captain's cabin when we had lost sight of the lights of Jaffa, and I had for the last time saluted the shores of the Holy Land ; VOYAGE TO ALEXANDRIA. 187 but next morning, at day-break, we again disco- vered the coast of Gaza, for the captain had steered to the south. With the dawn a fine breeze sprung up from the east, the sea became smooth, and we turned the ship's head to the west. Thus I was pursuing the very same track which Ubald and the Dane had followed in their voyage to de- deliver Rinaldo. My vessel could scarcely be larger that that of the two knights, and, like them, I was guided by fortune. My voyage from Jaffa to Alexandria lasted but four days, and never had I a more agreeable or a quicker passage. The skv was constantly serene, the wind fair, and the sea brilliant. The sails were not once shifted. The crew of the saick consisted of five hands, in- cluding the captain ; they were not so merry as my Greeks of the island of Tino, but apparently better seamen. Fresh provisions, excellent pome- granates, Cyprus wine, coffee of the best quality, supplied us with abundance, and cheered our spi- rits. The excess of my prosperity ought to have excited apprehensions ; but had I possessed the ring of Polycrates, I should have taken good care not to throw it into the sea, to become the prey of a ravenous sturgeon. There is in the seaman's life something - adven- turous, which wins and delights us. This continual transition from calm to storm, this rapid change of lands and skies, keep the imagination of the navigator awake. He is, in his fortunes, the image of man here below ; always promising to himself to remain in port, and always spreading his sails anew ; seeking enchanted islands, at which he scarcely ever arrives, and of which, if he does touch at them, he soon grows weary ; talking only of rest, and delighting only in tempests ; perishing 168 GULF OF PELUSIUM. by shipwreck, or dying- on shore, worn out with age, unknown to younger mariners, whom he re- grets his inability to accompany. On the 17th and 18th we crossed the Gulf of Damietta : this town stands nearly on the site of the ancient Pelusium. When a country presents great and numerous recollections, the memory, to rid itself of the multiplicity of scenes which oppress it, fixes upon one single event. Such was my case in passing the Gulf of Pelusium: I first went back in idea to the time of the primitive Pharaohs, and at last I could think of nothing but the death of Pompey, which, in my opinion, is the finest passage in Plutarch. " Meanwhile, the boat approaching, Septimius spoke first, addressing Pompey in Latin, by the title of lmperator. Then Achillas saluted him in Greek, and desired him to come into the boat, because the water was very shallow towards the shore, and a galley must strike upon the sands. At the same time they saw several of the king's ships getting ready, and the shore covered with troops, so that if they would have changed their minds, it was then too late ; besides, their distrust would have furnished the assassins with a pretence for their injustice. He, therefore, embraced Cornelia, who lamented his sad exit before it happened ; and ordered two centurions, one of his enfranchised slaves, named Philip, and a servant called Scenes, to get into the boat before him. When Achillas had hold of his hand, and he was going to step in himself, he turned to his wife and son, and re- peated that verse of Sophocles : Seek'st thou a tyrant's door ? then farewell freedom ! Tho' free as air before These were the last words he spoke to them. DEATH OF POMPEY. 169 fC As there was a considerable distance between the galley and the shore, and he observed that not a man in the boat showed him the least civility, or even spoke to him, he looked at Septimius, and said, y Methinks, I remember you to have been mv fellow-soldier :" but he answered only with a nod, without testifying any regard or friendship. A profound silence again taking place, Pompey took out a paper, in which he had written a speech in Greek, that he designed to make to Ptolemy, and amused himself with reading it. " When they approached the shore, Cornelia, with her friends in the g-allev, watched the event with great anxiety. She was a little encouraged, when she saw a number of the king's great officers coming- down to the strand, in all appearance to receive her husband and to do him honour. But the mo- ment Pompey was taking hold of Philip's hand, to raise himself with more ease, Septimius came behind, and ran him through the body; after which Salvias and Achillas also drew their swords. Pom- pey took his robe in both hands and covered his lace ; and without saying or doing the least thing- unworthy of him, submitted to his fate, only utter- ing a groan, while they dispatched him with many blows. He was then just fifty-nine years old, for he was killed the day after his birth-day. " Cornelia, and her friends in the galleys, upon seeing him murdered, gave a shriek that was heard to the shore, and weighed anchor immediately. Their flight was assisted by a brisk gale as they had got out more to sea ; so that the Egyptians gave up their design of pursuing them. " The murderers having cut off Pompey's head, threw the body out of the boat naked, and left it exposed to all who were desirous of such a sight. vol. II. i 170 DEATH OF POMPEY. Philip stayed till their curiosity was satisfied, and then washed the body with sea-water, and wrapped it in one of his own garments, because he had nothing' else at hand. The next thing was to look out for wood fur the funeral pile ; and casting his eyes over the shore, he spied the old remains of a fishing--boat ; which, though not large, would make a sufficient pile for a poor naked body that was not quite entire. " While he was collecting- the pieces of plank and putting them together, an old Roman, who had made some of his first campaigns under Pompey, came up, and said to Philip, " Who are you that are preparing the funeral of Pompey the Great?" Philip answered, " I am his freedman." " But you shall not," said the old Roman, " have this honour entirely to yourself. As a work of piety offers itself, let me have a share in it, that I may not absolutely repent my having passed so many years in a foreign country ; but, to compensate many misfortunes, may have the consolation of doing some of the last honours to the greatest general Rome ever produced." In this manner was the funeral of Pompey conducted, " Next day Lucius Lentulus, who knew nothing of what had passed, because he was upon his voyage from Cyprus, arrived upon the Egyptian shore, and as he was coasting along, saw the funeral pile, and Philip, whom he did not yet know, standing by it. Upon which he said to himself, " Who has finished his days, and is going to leave his remains upon this shore ?" adding, after a short pause, with a sigh, " Ah ! Pompey the Great ! perhaps thou mayest be the man." Lentulus soon after went on shore, and was taken and slain. '' Such was the end of Pompey the Great. As CAPE BRULOS. 171 for Caesar, he arrived not long- after in Egypt, which he found in great disorder. When they came to present the head, he turned from it, and the per- son that brought it, as a sight of horror. He received the seal, but it was with tears. The device was a lion holding - a sword. The two assas- sins, Achillas and Photinus, he put to death: and the king being defeated in battle, perished in the river. Theodotus, the rhetorician, escaped the vengeance of Caesar, by leaving Egypt ; but he wandered about a miserable fugitive, and was hated wherever he went. At last, Marcus Brutus, who killed Caesar, found the wretch in his pro- vince of Asia, and put him to death, after having made him suffer the most exquisite tortures. The ashes of Pompey were carried to Cornelia, who buried them in his lands near Alba." On the 19th, at noon, after having been two days without seeing land, we perceived a pro- montory, called Cape Brulos, which forms the northernmost point of the Delta. I have already remarked, on occasion of the Granicus, the pro- digious illusion which names are capable of creating". Cape Brulos exhibited merely the appearance of a small sand-hill, but it was the extremity of the fourth continent, the only one that I had still to explore; it was a corner of Egypt, the cradle of the sciences, the mother of religions and laws, and there- fore 1 could not turn my eyes from it for a moment. The same evening we descried some palm-trees in the south-west, that seemed to rise out of the sea, for we could not discern the land on which they grew. To the south appeared a dark con- fused mass accompanied with a few detached trees: it was the ruins of a village, a melancholy token of the fate of Egypt. i2 172 THE KILE. On the 20th., at five in the morning-, I perceived, upon the green and ruffled surface of the sea, a line of froth, beyond which the water was pale and placid. The captain came up, and tapping me on the shoulder, said, in the Frank language, Kilo ! It was not long before we entered that celebrated river, whose water I tasted, and found it salt. Some palm-trees and a minaret indicated the site of Ro- setta, but the land itself was still invisible. This coast resembles the savannahs of Florida : its appearance is totally different from that of the shores of Greece and Syria, and strongly reminds you of the effect of a tropical horizon. At ten o'clock we at length discovered, below the tops of the palm-trees, a line of sand running west- ward to the promontory of Aboukir, which we should have to pass in our way to Alexandria. We were then exactly facing the mouth of the Nile at Rosetta, and were £oin°- to cross the Bogaz. The water of the river in this place was red, in- clining to violet, of the colour of a moor in autumn. The Nile, v\hose inundation was over, had been for some time falling. About twenty gerbs, or vessels belonging to Alexandria, were lying at anchor in the Bogaz, waiting for a favourable wind to pass the bar and sail up to Rosetta. Continuing to steer westward, we reached the extremity of the mouth of this immense sluice. The boundary line of the waters of the river and that of the sea were not blended, but perfectly separate and distinct ; they foamed when they met, and seemed mutually to serve as a barrier to each other. At five in the evening the aspect of the coast, which we still had on our left, was considerably changed. The palm-trees ran in right lines along ALEXANDRIA. 173 the shore, like the avenues that often adorn the country-seats of our gentry : thus Nature delights to renew the ideas of civilization in the land where that civilization originated, and where ignorance and misery have now erected their throne. Having doubled Cape Aboukir, the wind lulled by degrees, so that we could not reach the port of Alexandria before night. It was eleven o'clock when we came to an anchor in the commercial harbour, in the midst of the vessels lying before the city. I would not go on shore, but waited for daylight on the deck of our saick. I had abundant leisure to pursue my reflections. On my right I discerned shipping, and the castle, which stands on the spot once occupied by the Pharos ; on the left the horizon seemed bounded by hills, ruins, and obelisks, which I could scarcely distinguish in the dark ; before me extended a black line of walls and confused buildings : only one solitary light was to be seen on shore, and not a sound interrupted the universal silence. This was, nevertheless, that Alexandria, once the rival of Memphis and Thebes, which contained three millions of inhabitants, which was the sanctuary of the Muses, and which rang with the obstreperous orgies of Anthony and Cleopatra amid the shades of night. But in vain I listened ; a fatal charm plunged the inhabitants of modern Alexandria in profound silence: this charm is despotism, which extinguishes all joy, and allows not even a sigh to escape from the bosom of affliction. What sounds, indeed, could be expected to arise from a city, of which one-third at least is forsaken ; of which another third is occupied by sepulchres ; while the living third, in the midst of these two extremities, is a kind of palpitating trunk, which lying between 174 M. DROVETTI. ruins and tombs, has not even the strength to rattle its chains ! At eight in the morning- of the 20th, the saick's boat carried me on shore, and I desired to be con- ducted to M. Drovetti, the French consul at Alexandria. So far I have spoken of our consuls in the Levant with the gratitude which I owe them ; in this instance I shall go still farther, and suy, that I formed an acquaintance with M. Drovetti which has ripened into a sincere friendship. M. Drovetti, a native of Italy, and who has served with credit in the military profession, received me with that simplicity which distinguishes the soldier, and that warmth communicated by the influence of a de- 1 licious clime. I know not whether this work will find its way to the desert where he resides ; I wish it may, that he may learn that time has not weakened my attachment ; that I have not for- gotten the emotion which he manifested, when he bade me farewell on the beach — an emotion truly generous in any man who, like him, wipes away the marks of it with a hand mutilated in the service of his country. I have neither influence, nor patrons, nor fortune ; but if I had, for no person would I more cheerfully employ them than for M. Drovetti. The reader certainly does not expect me to give a description of Egypt. I have treated rather cir- cumstantially of the ruins of Athens, because, after all, they are not well known, except to amateurs of the arts ; I have entered into minute details respecting Jerusalem, because Jerusalem was the principal object of my tour. But what should I say of Egypt? Who is there now that has not seen it? Volney's travels in that country are a real masterpiece in every point but erudition ; ROSETTA. 175 that has been exhausted by Sicard, Norden, Pococke, Shaw, Niebuhr, and some others : while the drawings of M. Denon, and the grand de- lineations of the Egyptian Institute, have placed before our eyes the ,monuments of Thebes and Memphis. I shall therefore follow, without di- gression, the mere dates of my journal. M. Drovetti gave me a lodging in the house of the consulate, which stands almost close to the sea, in the commercial harbour. Since I was now in Egypt, I could not leave the country without seeing the Nile and the Pyramids : I therefore requested M. Drovetti to hire me an Austrian vessel for Tunis, while I proceeded to contem- plate the prodigy of a tomb. At Alexandria, I found two French gentlemen belonging' to the legation of M. de Lesseps, who, I believe, had then been appointed consul-general of Egypt, but, if I am not mistaken, lias since continued at Leghorn. As they also intended to visit Cairo, we procured a gerb, in which we embarked on the '23d for Rosetta. M. Drovetti kept Julian, who was ill of a fever, and provided me a janissary ; John I sent back to Constantinople in a Greek vessel which was preparing to sail. We departed in the evening from Alexandria, and arrived in the night at the Bogaz of Rosetta. We crossed the bar without accident. At day- break we found ourselves at the mouth of the river, and landed upon the cape on our right. The Nile appeared in all its beauty ; its current filled the channel without encroaching on its banks, and along its stream were seen verdant plains of rice interspersed with detached palm-trees, which re- presented columns and porticoes. We went again on board, and soon approached Rosetta. It was 176 ALBANIAN SOLDIERS. then that I obtained the first view of that magnifi- cent Delta, where nothing is wanting except a free government and a happy people. But there cannot be a fine country without independence ; the most serene sky is hateful if we are fettered upon earth. I found nothing worthy of these superb plains but the memorials of the glory of my native land. I beheld the remains of the monuments * of a new civilization, brought by the genius of France to the banks of the Nile; I considered at the same time that the lances of our chevaliers, and the bayonets of our soldiers, had twice reflected the rays of so brilliant a sun : with this difference, that the manes of our chevaliers w 7 ho fell on the unfortunate day of Massoura, were avenged by our soldiers at. the battle of the Pyramids. For the rest, though I was delighted with the appearance of a wide river and verdant plains, I was not much surprised ; for it was an absolute picture of my rivers of Louisiana, and my American savannahs. Fain would I have beheld also the forests where I cherished the first illusions of my life. M. Saint Marcel, the French consul at Rosetta, received us with great politeness; and.M. Caffe, a French merchant, and one of the kindest of men, resolved to accompany us to Cairo. We made a bargain with the master of a large vessel, hired his best cabin, and, for the greater safety, admitted an Albanian chief into our society. M. de Choiseul has accurately described these soldiers of Alex- andria. " These fierce Albanians," says he, " would still be heroes, if they had a Scanderbeg at their head : but they are now mere banditti, whose very * Several buildings erected by command of the emperor are still to be seen in Egypt. THE DELTA. 177 look indicates ferocity. They are tall, active, and muscular. Their dress consists of very wide trow- sers, a short petticoat, a waistcoat covered with plates, chains, and several rows of large balls of silver. They wear buskins, fastened with thongs of leather, which sometimes come up to the knees, to keep on the calves of the legs plates which assume their form, and preserve them from rubbing against the horse. Their cloaks, bordered and laced with different colours, render their dress still more picturesque. They have no other covering for the head than a red cap, and this they throw off when they are going to battle " * The two days which we passed at Rosetta were spent in surveying that pretty Arabian town, its gardens, and its wood of palm-trees. Savary has somewhat exaggerated the charms of this place; but he has not deviated so far from the truth as has been asserted. The pathos of his descriptions has proved detrimental to his authority as a tra- veller ; but it is no more than justice to assert, that his style is more deficient in truth than his narrative. On the 26th, at noon, we went on board our vessel, which carried a considerable number of Turkish and Arab passengers. We set sail, and began to ascend the Nile. On our left, a verdant marsh extended as far as the eye could reach ; on our right the river was lined with a cultivated border, beyond which were seen the sands of the desert. Palm-trees, thinly scattered here and there, indicated the sites of villages, like the trees planted about the cottages in the plains of Flan- ders. The houses of these villages are built of earth, and raised on artificial mounts ; an useless * Tlie dress of the Albanians is white, trimmed with red lace. i3 178 VOYAGE UP THE NILE. precaution, since there is very often not a creature in these houses to be saved from the inundations of the Nile. Part of the Delta is a waste ; thou- sands of Fellahs have been slaughtered by the Albanians, and the rest have removed to Upper Egypt. Impeded by contrary winds, and the rapidity of the current, we were seven tedious days in our progress from Rosetta to Cairo. Sometimes our sailors towed us along with a rope ; at others we advanced by the aid of a northerly breeze which blew but for a moment. We frequently stopped to take Albanians on board ; as early as the second day of our voyage we had four of these people, who took possession of our cabin : we were obliged to put up with their brutality and insolence. At the least nois?, they ran upon deck, seized their muskets, and like madmen, seemed ready to make war on absent enemies. I have seen them take aim at children who ran along the bank of the river asking charity : the little unfortunates ran and hid themselves behind the ruins of their huts, as if accustomed to these horrid diversions. During this time, our Turkish merchants went on shore, squatted quietly on their heels, turned their faces towards Mecca, and cut a kind of religious caper in the middle of the fields. Our Albanians, half Mussulmans and half Christians, ejaculated "Mahomet!" and "Virgin Mary!" took their beads from their pockets, repeated obscene words in French, swallowed large pitchers of wine, fired their muskets in the air, and insulted both Chris- tians and Mahometans. Is it then possible that the laws can make such a distinction among - men ? Can those hordes of Albanian banditti, those stupid Mussulmans, those ANCIENT KINGS. 179 Fellahs, so cruelly oppressed, inhabit the same places where once lived a people so industrious, so peaceable, so wise — a people of whose manners and customs Herodotus and Diodorus in particular have left us such a pleasing' description ! Is there in any poem a finer picture than the following.'' " In the early ag-es the kings of Egypt did not conduct themselves like those of other nations, where they do whatever they please, without being obliged to follow any rule or to take any advice ; every thing was prescribed to them by the laws, not only in regard to the government of the king- dom, but also in relation to their private conduct. They could not purchase slaves, or even such as were born in their residences, to wait upon them ; but the sons of the principal priests, always above the age of twenty years, and the best edu- cated persons in the whole nation, were given them for this purpose ; that the monarch, seeing himself night and day surrounded by the most distinguished of the Egyptian youth, might do nothing mean or unbecoming his high rank. In fact, if princes so easily plunge into all sorts of vice, it is because they find ministers ever ready to be the tools of their passions. There were in particular, certain hours of the day and night when the king could not dispose of his time as he pleased, but was obliged to perform duties specified by the laws. At day-break he was required to read the letters addressed to him by his subjects, that, being acquainted from his own knowledge with the wants of his kingdom, he might supply them all, and correct all abuses. Having bathed, he put on a splendid robe, and other insignia of royalty, to go and sacrifice to the gods. When the victims had been led to the altar, the high priest, standing, 180 ANCIENT EGYrTJAN CUSTOMS. and in the presence of all the people, prayed aloud to the gods to preserve the king, and to bestow on him all sorts of prosperity, because he governed his subjects with justice. He then enumerated in his prayer all the virtues befitting a sovereign, con- tinuing in these words : ' Because he is master of himself, magnanimous, beneficent, kind to others, an enemy to falsehood, his punishments are not equal to his crimes, and his rewards surpass the services for which they are conferred.' Having said several things of this kind, he condemned the errors into which the king had fallen through ignorance. It is true he exculpated the monarch himself, but he loaded with execrations the flatterers and all those who had given him bad counsel. The high priest adopted this method, because advice mingled with praise is often more efficacious than severe reproof, for inspiring sove- reigns with the fear of the gods and the love of virtue. After this, the king having sacrificed and consulted the entrails of the victim, the reader of the sacred books read to him some remarkable actions or words of great men ; in order that the head of the commonwealth, having his mind im- bued with excellent, principles, might put them in practice on such occasions as should present them- ves. It is greatly to be regretted that the illustrious Archbishop of Cambray did not, instead of de- lineating an imaginary Egypt, borrow this picture, working it up with such colours as his exquisite genius would have suggested. Faydit is right on this single point, if it be possible for that man to be right who is totally destitute of decorum, honesty, and taste. But still Fenelon should have retained, at any rate, the ground- work of the APPROACH THE PYRAMIDS. 181 adventures of his own invention, and related them in the most ancient style ; the episode of Ter- mosiris alone is equivalent in value to a long poem : "I advanced into a gloomy forest, where all at once I perceived an old man holding a book in his hand. This old man had a large forehead, bald, and somewhat wrinkled ; a white beard descended to his waist ; his person was tall and majestic, and his complexion still fresh and ruddy. His eyes were lively and piercing, his voice mild, his words simple and amiable. Never did I behold such a venerable old man ; his name was Termosiris." We passed through the canal of Menouf, which prevented me from seeing the fine wood of palm- trees on the oreat western branch ; but the Arabs then infested the west bank of that branch which borders on the Libyan Desert. On leaving the canal of Menouf, and continuing to ascend the river, we perceived on our left the ridge of Mount Mokattam, and on our right the high sandy downs of Libya. In the intermediate space between these two chains of mountains, we soon descried the tops of the Pyramids, from which we were yet upwards of ten leagues distant. During the remainder of our voyage, which took us near eight hours, I remained upon deck, to contemplate these tombs ; which seemed to increase in magnitude and height as we approached. The Nile, which then resem- bled a little sea ; the mixture of the sands of the desert, and the freshest verdure ; the palm-trees, the sycamores, the domes, the mosques, and the minarets of Cairo ; the distant pyramids of Sak- karah, from which the river seemed to issue as from its immense reservoirs, altogether formed a scene to which the world cannot produce a parallel. 182 THE PYRAMIDS. et But in spite of all the efforts of men," says Bos- suet, cC their insignificance is invariably apparent ; these pyramids were tombs ! — nay, more ; the kings by whom they were erected had not the satisfaction of being interred in them, and consequently did not enjoy their sepulchre." I confess, however, that at the first sight of the Pyramids, the only sentiment I felt was admiration. Philosophy, I know, can sigh or smile at the re- flection, that the most stupendous monument ever erected by the hand of man is a tomb : but why should we behold in the pyramid of Cheops nothing but a heap of stones and a skeleton ? It was not from a sense of his nothingness that man reared such a sepulchre, but from the instinct of his im- mortality : this sepulchre is not the boundary which marks the termination of the career of a day, but the entrance of a life without end : 'tis an everlast- ing "fate erected on the confines of eternitv. " All these people" (of Egypt), says Diodorus Siculus, ' c considering the duration of life as a very short period, and of little importance, are en the other hand extremely solicitous about that long memory which virtue leaves behind it. For this reason, they give to the habitations of the living 1 the name of inns, where they sojourn only for a short time : but that of eternal abodes to the tombs of the dead, which they are never more to quit. Accordingly, the kings have manifested a certain indifference in regard to the construction of their palaces, and bestowed all their attention on that of their tombs." It is insisted, at the present day, that all mo- numents had a physical utility, and it is not con- sidered that there is for nations a moral utility of a much higher order, which was studied by the legislators of antiquity. Is, then, nothing to be THE PYRAMIDS. 183 learned from the sight of a tomb ? If any lesson is taught by it, why should we complain that a king- resolved to render that lesson perpetual ? Majestic monuments constitute an essential part of the glory of every human society. Unless we maintain that it is a matter of indifference whether a nation leaves behind it a name or no name in history, we cannot condemn those structures which extend the memory of a people beyond its own existence, and make it contemporary with the future generations that fix their residence in its forsaken fields. Of what consequence is it, then, whether these edifices were amphitheatres or sepulchres ? Every thing is a tomb with a nation that no longer exists. When man is gone, the monuments of his life are still more vain than those of his death : his mausoleum is at least serviceable to his ashes ; but do his pa- laces retain any particle of his pleasures ? Most certainly, if we would be strict, a little grove is sufficient for all, and six feet of ground, as Mathew Mole observes, will always do justice to the greatest man in the world : God may be adored under a tree, as beneath the dome of St. Peter's; and a man may live in a cottage as well as in the Louvre. The error of this mode of rea- soning consists in transferrin" - one order of things into another. Besides, a nation is not more happy when it lives in ignorance of the arts, than when it leaves behind st: - ikinj>' evidences of its genius. People have ceased to believe in the existence of those communities of shepherds who pass their days in innocence, and* beguile the delicious hours with rambling in the recesses of forests. Full well we know that these honest pastors make war upon each other, that they may feast upon the sheep of their neighbours. Their bowers are neither shaded 184? THE PYRAMIDS. with vines, nor embalmed with the perfume of flowers ; you are suffocated in their habitation with the smoke, and stifled with the stench of milk. In poetry, and in philosophy, a petty, half-barbarous tribe may enjoy every earthly blessing ; but mer- ciless history subjects them to the same calamities as the rest of mankind. Are they who so loudly exclaim against glory — are they, I would ask, to- tally regardless of renown ? For my part, so far from considering the monarch who erected the great Pyramid as a madman, I look upon him to have been a sovereign of a magnanimous dispo- sition. The idea of vanquishing time by a tomb, of surviving generations, manners, laws, and ages, by a coffin, could not have sprung from a vulgar mind. If this be pride, it is at least a grand pride. Such a vanity as that which produced the great Pyramid, that has withstood the ravages of three or four thousand years, must certainly, in the end, be accounted as something. For the rest, these Pyramids reminded me of less pompous monuments, though they were like- wise sepulchres : I mean those edifices of turf, which cover the remains of the Indians on the banks of the Ohio. When I visited these, I was in a very different state of mind from that in which I contemplated the mausoleums of the Pharaohs : I was then beginning my journey, and now I am finishing it. The world, at these two periods of my life, wore to me precisely the appearance of the two deserts in which I have seen these two species of tombs • a smiling, wilderness, and barren sands. 185 CHAPTER II. Cairo— French Mamelukes— The Pacha's Son — Plains of Mem- phis—View of the Pyramids — Departure from Cairo — 'Arab Camp — Attack on the Author's Vessel— Esmenard's Apos- trophe to Egypt — Return to Alexandria — Inscription on Pompey's Pillar — Ali Bey and Atala — Dreariness of Alexan- dria and its Environs— Embarkation for Tunis — Tempestuous Weather— Island of Scarpanto — S tarn pal ia — A Hurricane- New Year's Day— The Kerkeni Islands — Arrival at Tunis. We landed at Boulak, where we hired horses and asses to carry ns to Cairo. This city, com- manded by the ancient castle of Babylon and Mount Mokattam, forms a very picturesque view, from the great number of palm-trees, sycamores, and minarets, which rise from the midst of it. We entered it by a ruined suburb, and lay-stalls where vultures were devouring their prey. We alighted in the quarter of the Franks, a street without any thoroughfare, the entrance of which is shut up every night, like the exterior cloisters of a convent. We were received by Monsieur * whom M. Drovetti had entrusted with the French a°ency at Cairo. He took us under his protec- tion, and sent to acquaint the pacha with our arrival ; he at the same time caused the five * By the greatest of accidents, the name of my host is effaced in my journal, and I fear that my memory has not retained it cor- rectly, for which reason I cannot venture to insert it. I should not forgive myself for such a mischance, if my memory were as treacherous in regard to the services, attentions, and civilities of my host, as it has prored in respect to his name. 186 FRENCH MAMELUKES. French Mamelukes to be apprised of the circum- stance, that they might attend us in our ex- cursions. These Mamelukes were in the service of the pacha. Large armies always leave behind them some stragglers; ours lost in this manner two or three hundred men, who remained dispersed in Egypt. They followed the fortunes of different beys, and soon became renowned for their valour. It was universally admitted, that if these deserters, instead of espousing opposite interests, had united and appointed a French bey, they might have made themselves masters of the whole country. Unfortunately, they wanted a leader, and almost all perished in the pay of the masters whom they had chosen. When 1 was at Cairo, Mohamed All Pacha was still deploring the death of one of these brave fellows. This soldier, who was at first a drum-boy in one of our regiments, had fallen by the chance of war into the hands of the Turks. Before he had arrived at manhood, he enlisted himself among the troops of the pacha. Mohamed, to whom he was yet a stranger, seeing him charge a whole host of enemies, cried out : " Who is that man ? he must be a Frenchman" — and a French- man he actually proved to be. From that moment he became a favourite with his master, and nothing was talked of but his intrepidity. He was killed shortly before my arrival in Egypt, in an action in which the other five Mamelukes lost their horses. These men were natives of Gascony, Languedoc, and Picardy : their chief acknowledged that he was the son of a shoemaker of Toulouse. The next in authority to him acted as interpreter for his com- rade. He spoke Turkish and Arabic very fluently, FRENCH MAMELUKES. 187 and always said in French fetions, fallions, je f aisions. A third, a tall young man, very slender and pale, had lived a long- time in the desert with the Bedouins, and exceedingly regretted that way of life. He told me that when he found himself alone in the midst of sands, upon a camel, he was seized with such transports of joy that he was unable to restrain them. The pacha esteemed these men so highly, that he preferred them to the rest of his spahis ; they alone equalled, and even surpassed the intrepidity of those formidable horse destroyed by the emperor at the battle of the Pyramids. We live in an age of wonders ; every Frenchman now seems to be summoned to per- form an extraordinary part : five soldiers out of the lowest ranks of our army, were, in 1806, all but masters of Cairo. Nothing could be a more amus- ing and singular spectacle than to see Abdallah of Toulouse take the strings of his caftan, lay them about the faces of the Arabs and Albanians who annoyed him, and thus clear a wide passage for us through the most populous streets. For the rest, these kings by exile had, after the example of Alexander, adopted the manners of the conquered ; they wore long vests of silk, fine white turbans, and superb arms ; they kept a harem, slaves, and horses of the highest blood : things which then- fathers in Gascony and Picardy knew nothing at. all about. But among the mats, the carpets, the divans, which I saw in their house, I remarked a relic of their native land ; it was a uniform which exhibited sabre cuts in different places, and cover- ed the foot of a bed made up in the French fashion. Abdallah perhaps reserved these honourable tatters for the conclusion of the dream, like the shepherd raised to the station of prime minister : 188 the pacha's SOX. Le coffre etant ouvert, on y vit des lambeaux, L'habit d'un gardeur de troupeaux, Petit chapeau, jupon, panetiere, houlette, Et, je pense, aussi sa musette. November 1st, the day after our arrival at seph's, we went up to the castle to examine Jo- Cairo Well, the mosque, &c. The pacha's son then resided in this castle. We paid our respects to his Excellency, who might be about fourteen or fifteen years old. We found him seated on a carpet in a ruinous apartment, surrounded by a dozen flatterers, eager to gratify all his caprices. Never did I behold a more disgusting spectacle. The father of this boy was scarcely master of Cairo, and possessed neither Upper nor Lower Egypt. It was in this state of things that twelve miserable savages fed with the vilest adulation a young barbarian shut up for safety in a dungeon. Such was the master to whom the Egyptians looked forward after so many calamities ! While they were thus engaged, in one corner of the castle, in corrupting the mind of a boy who was destined to govern men, in another part they were busily coining money of the basest alloy : and, that the inhabitants of Cairo might receive without a murmur both the adulterated coin and the depraved chief that were preparing for them, the guns were pointed against the city. I was much better pleased to expatiate abroad with my eye, and to admire from the top of the castle the immense picture presented in the distance by the Nile, the cultivated district, the desert, and the Pyramids. Though four leagues from the latter, we seemed to be quite close to them. I could per- fectly distinguish with my naked eye the courses of stones, and the head of the Sphynx rising above PLAIN'S OF MEMPHIS. 189 the sand ; with a telescope I counted the steps at the angles of the great Pyramid, and discerned the eyes, mouth, and ears of the Sphynx : sj prodigious are these masses. Iu the plains which extend from the other side of the Nile to the desert where the Pyramids rear their lofty heads, once stood the city of Memphis. " These happy plains," says Diodorus, " re- ported to be the abode of the just after death, are, in fact, no other than the beautiful country in the vicinity of the lake Acherusia, near Memphis, com- posed of fields and ponds covered with corn or the lotos. It is not without foundation that the dead have been said to reside here, for here terminate the funeral ceremonies of most of the Egyptians, when their bodies having been conveyed across the Nile and the lake Acherusia, are finally deposited in tombs constructed under the surface of these plains. The ceremonies yet practised in Eoypt, correspond with all the notions of the Greeks re- specting the infernal regions: as to the boat in which the body is transported ; the piece cf money that must be given to the ferryman, named in the Egyp- tian language, Charon ; the temple of the gloomy Hecate, situate at the entrance of hell ; the gates of the Cocytus and Lethe, turning on brazen hinges ; and other gates, which are those of Virtue and of Justice, who is without a head." On the 2d we went to Djize and the island of Roda. We examined the Nilometer in the midst of the ruins of the house of Murad Bey. We had thus advanced a good deal nearer to the Pyramids. At this distance they seemed to be of immense height : towering above the verdant rice-fields, the current of the river, the tops of the palms and 190 VIEW OK THE PYRAMIDS. sycamores, they appeared, in this point of view, like colossal structures erected in a magnificent garden. The beams of the sun, of admirable soft- ness, coloured the sterile chain of Mokattam, the sands of Libya, the horizon of Sakkarah, and the plain of the Tombs. A brisk wind drove the light white clouds towards Nubia, and ruffled the ex- panded surface of the Nile. I thought Egypt the finest country in the world ; I love the very deserts which border it, and which open to the imagination the field of immensity. On our return from this excursion, we saw the deserted mosque which I have mentioned in treat- ing of that of Jerusalem, and which appeared to me to be the model of the cathedral of Cordova. I spent five days more at Cairo, in the hope of visiting the sepulchres of the Pharaohs ; but this was impossible. Most unluckily, the waters of the Nile had not yet sufficiently subsided, to allow of my going on horseback to the Pyramids, and were not high enough to admit of approaching them in a boat. We sent out people to sound the fords and explore the country ; but all the Arabs agreed in reporting, that it would be necessary to wait at least three weeks or a month before the journey could be undertaken. Such a delay might have kept me all the winter in Egypt, for the westerly winds were just beginning to blow ; and this would not have agreed either with my object or my finances. I had already lingered too long on my journey, and by resolving upon this excur- sion to Cairo, I ran the risk of never more re- visiting France. I was therefore obliged to yield to my fate, to return to Alexandria, and to be content \vith having beheld the Pyramids with my eyes, as I could not touch them with my hands. DEPARTURE FROM CAIRO. 191 I requested M. Caffe, on the first opportunity, to inscribe ray name, according to custom, on these prodigious 'tombs ; for I like to fulfil all the little duties of a pious traveller. Are we not gratified when we read, on the relics of Memnon's statue, the names of the Romans who heard it sigh when gilded by the first beams of the rising sun ? These Romans were strangers, like ourselves, in "the land of Egypt, and like them we shall also pass away. For the rest, I could easily have reconciled my- self to a residence at Cairo ; it is the only place that I have seen which at all comes up to the idea we usually form of an oriental city. Accordingly it figures in the Arabian Nights. It still retains many traces of the visit of the French : the women shew themselves with less reserve than formerly ; you are at perfect liberty to go in and out whenever and wherever you please ; and the European dress, instead of being an object of insult, is a claim to protection. There is a very pleasant garden, having circular alleys planted with palm-trees, which serves for a public walk : this was the work of our soldiers. Before I left Cairo, I made Abdallah a present of a double-barrelled gun of Le Page's manufac- ture, which he promised to make use of on the first opportunity. 1 bade adieu to my host and my amiable fellow-travellers, and proceeded to Boulak, where I embarked with M. Caffe for Rosetta. We were the only pasgengers in the vessel, and we got under weigh at seven in the evening of the 8th of November. We fell down the river by the branch of Menouf. On the morning of the 10th, just as we had cleared that channel, and were again entering the great 192 ATTACK BY ARABS. branch of Rosetta, we perceived the west bank of the river occupied by a camp of Arabs. In spite of all our efforts the current drove us to that side, and obliged us to keep near the shore. A sentinel, concealed behind an old wall, called to the master to land. The latter replied that he was in a hurry to reach the place of his destination, and that, besides, he was not an enemy. During- this dialogue we had approached within pistol-shot of the shore, and the current ran in this direction for the space of a mile. The sentinel, seeing that we pursued our course, fired upon us : this first ball narrowly missed the man at the helm, who return- ed it with his carbine. The whole camp taking the alarm, hastened to the water's edge, and we were exposed to the fire of the whole line. We proceeded very slowly, for the wind was contrary, and, to crown our ill luck, we grounded for a moment. We were unarmed: I had given my piece, as I have related, to Abdallah. I would have persuaded M. Caffe, whose kindness to me had brought him into this disagreeable adventure, to go below ; but though the father of a family, and advanced in years, he insisted on remaining upon deck. I remarked the extraordinary agility of an Arab, who fired, charged his piece as he ran, fired again, and that without suffering the vessel to gain upon him a single step. The current at length carried us towards the opposite bank ; but in so doing, it threw us into a camp of Albanian rebels, from whom we were in much greater danger than from the Arabs, for they were provided with cannon, and a single ball might have sunk us. We perceived a bustle on shore ; but, luckily, night came on. We kindled no fire, and maintained profound silence. Providence con- LEAVES EGYPT. 193 ducted us, without farther accident, amid these hostile parties, to Rosetta, where we arrived on the 11th at ten in the morning. I there spent two days with M. Caflfe and M. de Saint Marcel, and set out on the 13th for Alex- andria. On quitting E^yp!, I saluted it in these beautiful lines of M. Esmenard, in his poem en- titled La Nari; the second with A; the third withT; the fourth with AXrOTS, and the fifth with A AION. It will be perceived that there is nothing arbitrary here except the word ATrOTSTON, which, hdw*- ever, is not of much consequence. With these additions it will read as follows: TON 20*nTATON ATTOKPATOPA TON nOAIOTXON AAE3ANAPEIA2 AIOK YHTIANON TON ATrOTSTON noAAinN EnAPxoi AirrnTor. " To the very wise Emperor, the Protector of Alexandria, Dioclesian Augustus, Pollio, Prefect of Egypt." Thus all doubts relative to Pompey's pillar are cleared up.* But is history silent on this subject ? I think I recollect reading, in the life of one of the Fathers of the Desert, written in Greek by a con- temporary, that during an earthquake which hap- pened at Alexandria, all the columns were over- thrown except Dioclesian's. M. Boissonade proposes to suppress the word I1P02 in my reading, which is prefixed merelv to govern the accusatives, and whose place is not marked on the base of the column. He conceives, that in this case, as in a great number of inscrip- * That is to say, as far as relates to the inscription, for the column itself is of much higher antiquity than this dedication. K 2 196 DREARINESS OF ALEXANDRIA lions recorded by Chandler, Wheeler, Spon, &c. ihe word hl^ms, honoratit, is understood. M. Boissonade, who is destined to console us for the loss or the old age of so many illustrious scholars, is evidently right. At Alexandria I enjoyed one of those little grati- fications of vanity which authors are so fond of, and which had before made me so proud at Sparta. A rich Turk, a traveller and astronomer, whose name was Ali Bey el Abassy, having heard my name mentioned, declared that he was acquainted with my works. I paid him a visit with the consul. Ah! mon cher Atala, et ma chere Rene! exclaimed he, as soon as he saw me. At that moment Ali Bey seemed worthy of being a descendant of the great Saladin. I am likewise inclined to believe that he is the most learned and polished Turk in the world, though he is not perfectly acquainted with the genders of nouns in French, but ?wn ego paucis offendar maculis. If 1 had been enchanted with Egypt, I thought Alexandria, on the contrary, the most dreary and desolate place in the world. From the terrace of the consul's house I could perceive nothing but a naked sea, breaking against a low and still more naked coast, harbours almost empty, and the Libyan desert stretching to the south as far as the eye could reach. This desert seemed, as it were, an exten- sion of the yellow and level surface of the deep : you might imagine that you had before you but one single sea, one ha!f of which was agitated and turbulent, and the other half silent and motionless. Modern Alexandria every where mingling its ruins with the ruins of the ancient city ; an Arab gallop- ping among them upon an ass ; a number of half- starved dogs devouring the carcases of camels on AND ITS ENVIROXS. 197 the beach ; the flags of the European consuls Waving over their habitations, and displaying hostile colours in the midst of tombs — such was the spectacle here presented to my view. Sometimes I took a ride with M. Drovetti to the old town, to Necropolis, or to the desert. The plant which yields soda scarcely covered the dry sand ; the jackals fled at our approach ; a species of cricket chirped with a shrill and disagreeable voice, painfully reminding you of the villager's cot in this solitude, where no rural smoke ever calls you to the tent of the Arab. This place has be- come still more dreary since the English inundated the spacious hollow which served Alexandria for a garden. Nothing meets the eye but sand, water, and Pompey's eternal pillar. On the platform of his house, M. Drovetti had built an aviary, in the shape of a tent, where he kept quails and partridges of various kinds. We spent whole hours in walking to and fro in this aviary, and talking of France. The conclusion of all our conversations was, that we ought to seek as speedily as possible for some humble retreat in our native land, and there bury our long-cherished hopes. One day, after a long argument on the subject of repose, I turned towards the sea, and pointed to the ship in which 1 was soon to embark, battered by the winds. Not but that, after all, the desire of repose is natural to man; but the object which to us appears the most humble is not always the most easily attained, and very often the cottage and the palace alike elude our wishes. The sky was overcast during my whole stay at Alexandria, and the sea gloomy and tempestuous. I went to sleep and awoke amidst the continual roarino- of the billows which broke almost at the 198 TEMPESTUOUS WEATHER. foot of the consul's house. I might have applied to myself the reflections of Eudore, if an author be allowed to quote his own work : " The dismal murmur of the sea was the first sound that greeted my ear on coming into the world : upon how many shores have I since beheld these same billows breaking, which I here contem- plate ! Who would have supposed, a few years ago, that I should hear those waves, which I saw sporting on the fine sands of Messenia, roaring on the coasts of Italy, on the shores of the Batavi, of the Bretons and of Gaul ! Where will be the end of my pereginations? Happy should I have been, had death overtaken me before I set out on my travels through the world, and when I had yet no adven- tures to relate."* During my compulsory stay at Alexandria, I received several letters from M. Caffe, my brave companion in the voyage up and down the Nile. I shall give an extract from one, dated Rosetta, November 14, 1806, as it contains a few par- ticulars relative to the affairs of Egypt at that period : " Mohamed Aga,-J- the present treasurer of Mohamed Ali, pacha of Cairo, arrived here about noon : it is reported that he demands a con- tribution of five hundred purses upon the new rice. So you see things get worse and worse. " The village where the Mamelukes defeated the Albanians, and which both of them plundered, is called Nekle : the name of that where we were attacked by the Arabs is Saffi." On the 23d of November, at noon, the wind * Les Martyrs. t Mohamed Aga, the chief of the Albanians, struck wit lustre of a great name, has added that of the Emperor to his own. EMBARK FOR TUNIS. 199 having become favourable, I went on board with my French servant. I took leave of M. Drovetti on the shore, and we once more promised each other remembrance and friendship. Our ship lay at anchor in the great harbour of Alexandria, where Christian vessels are now admitted as well as Turkish : a revolution owing to our arms. I found on board a rabbi from Jerusalem, a native of Barbary, and two poor Moors of Morocco, perhaps descendants of the Abencerrages, return- ing from a pilgrimage to Mecca. They begged their passage of me as a charity. I received the children of Israel and Mahomet in the name of Jesus Christ. In reality, I could claim no great merit on this account, for I took it into my head that these poor creatures would bring me good luck. At two o'clock we weighed anchor. A pilot steered us out of the port. We had but very little wind, and that from the south. We continued three days within sight of Pompey's pillar, which we perceived at the horizon. At length, on the third day, the evening gun of the port of Alex- andria seemed to give the signal for our final de- parture ; a breeze sprung up from the north, and we made sail to the west. We first attempted to cross the great Gulf of Libya, but the wind, which before was not very favourable, shifted to the north-west on the '29th of November, and we were obliged to stand out between Crete and the coast of Africa. On the 1st of December, the wind settling in the west, completely obstructed our farther progress. It got round by degrees to the south-west, and increased to a tempest, which lasted till our arrival at Tunis. The remainder of our voyage was but a kind of incessant shipwreck, for the 200 HUJRltlCANE. long space of forty-two days. On the 3d we took in all the sails, and began to scud before the wind. In this manner we were carried with prodigious violence to the very coast of Caramania : there, for four whole days, I had abundant leisure to survey the dreary and elevated summits of the Cragus, enveloped in clouds. We kept beating about, and endeavouring, on the slightest variation of the wind, to get out to sea. We had, for a moment, some thoughts of going into the harbour of Chateau Rouge ; but the captain, who was extremely timorous, durst not trust himself in those roads. The night of the 8th was very trying : a sudden squall from the south drove us towards the island of Rhodes : the sea ran so high as to strain the ship exceedingly. We descried a small Greek felucca half under water, to which we could afford no assist- ance. She passed within a cable's length of our stern. The crew, consisting of four men, were on their knees upon deck : they had hung a lantern to their mast, and their lamentable cries were wafted to us by the winds. Next morning we saw nothing of this falucca. The wind having shifted to the north, we hoisted the fore-sail, and endeavoured to keep to the south- ward of Rhodes. We made the island of Scar- panto. On the 10th the wind again changed to the west, and we lost all hopes of being able to pursue our course. I wished the captain to relinquish his design of crossing the Gulf of Libya, and to bear away for the Archipelago, where we might expect to meet with other winds ; but he was afraid to venture among the islands. We had already been seventeen days at sea. I employed myself in writing out and arranging the notes for these Travels; and at night I walked the deck with the SCARPANTO. 201 mate. The nights passed on the bosom of the deep, in a ship battered by the tempest, are not barren for the mind ; exalted ideas spring from grand objects. The stars, which appear for a moment between the fleeting clouds; the billows sparkling around you ; the hollow sound returned by the sides of the vessel to the dashing waves, all pro- claim that you are out of the power of man, and dependant on the will of the Almighty alone. The uncertainty of your future prospects reduces objects to their true value ; and the world, contemplated amidst a tempestuous sea, resembles life considered by a man on the brink of eternity. After twenty times ploughing the same billows, we again found ourselves, on the 12th, off the island of Scarpanto. This island, formerly called Carpathos, and by Homer Crapathos, gave its name to the Carpathian Sea. A few lines of Virgil now constitute all its celebrity- Est in Carpathio Neptuni gurgite vates Cieruleus Proteus, &c. In the Carpathian bottom makes abode The shepherd of the seas, a prophet, and a god. High o'er the main in vvat'ry pomp he rides, His azure car and finny coursers guides: Proteus his name ; to his Pallenian port I see from far the weary god resort. Him not alone we river gods adore, Put aged Nereus hearkens to his lore. With sure foresight, and with unerring doom, He sees what is, and was, and is to come. This Neptune gave him when he gave to keep His scaly flocks that graze the wat'ry deep.* I should not go, if I could, to reside in the island of Proteus, notwithstanding the fine verses of the Georgics. I can still figure to myself the miserable villages of Anchinates, Horo, and St. * Georg. IV. translated by Dryden. k3 202 STAMPALIA. Helia, which we descried with our glasses in the mountains of the island. I have not, like Mene- laus and Aristaeus, lost my kingdom or my bees ; I have nothing- to expect from the future, and I leave to the son of Neptune secrets which cannot interest me. On the 12th, at six in the evening, the wind turning to the south, I persuaded the captain, with some difficulty, to steer to leeward of the island of Crete. At nine he said, according to custom, Ho paura ! and retired to bed. M. Dinelli resolved to attempt the channel formed by the islands of Scarpanto and Coxo. We entered it with a violent south-west wind. At dawn of day we found ourselves among an archipelago of islets, and sur- rounded with breakers. We resolved to put into the harbour of the island of Stampalia, which was a-head of us. This dull port had neither ships upon its waters nor houses upon its shores. W T e perceived only a village, perched as usual on the summit of a rock. We came to an anchor, and I went on shore with the captain. While he proceeded to the village, I explored the interior of the island. I saw nothing but heaths, rills of water running over moss, and the sea breaking - against the rocks which girded the coast. The ancients, nevertheless, gave to this island the appellation of ©ewv Tfa7re£a,the Table of the Gods, on account of the flowers with which it was enamelled. It is better known by the name of Astypalaea, and contained a temple consecrated to Achilles. In the wretched hamlet of Stampalia there are, in all probability, very happy people — people who perhaps have never been out of their native isle, and never heard of our revolutions. I asked myself if I should have wished for their ANOTHER HURRICANE. 203 felicity ; but I was already an old mariner, inca- pable of answering this question in the affirmative, and whose dreams are the offspring of the winds and of the tempests. Our crew took on board a supply of water, and the captain returned with some fowls and a live hog. A Candiot felucca entered the harbour ; and no sooner had she come to an anchor by our side, than the crew set up a dance about the helm, O Grcecia vana 1 The wind still continuing to blow from the south, we got under weigh on the 16th at. nine a.m. We passed to the southward of the island of Nantia, and at sun-set descried the coast of Crete. The following day, the 17th, steering north-north-west, we discovered Mount Ida. Its summit, covered with snow, resembled an immense cupola. We made for the island of Cerigo, and were so for- tunate as to pass it on the 18th. On the l ( .)th, 1 once more beheld thecoasts of Greece, and saluted Taenarium. To our great joy, a gale sprung up from the south-west, and in five days we arrived in the sea of Malta. We descried that island on Christmas Eve; but the next day the wind shift- ing to west-north-west, drove us to the south of Lampedosa. For eighteen days we lay off the east coast of the kingdom of Tunis, suspended between life and death. Never while I live shall I forget the 28th. We were in sight of Pantalaria ; at noon we were overtaken by a profound calm ; a lurid light illumined the gloomy and threatening atmo- sphere. About sunset, so thick was the darkness that enveloped us, as to justify, in my opinion, the beautiful expression of Virgil : Ponto nox incnbat atra. A tremendous uproar ensued. A hurricane burst upon the vessel, and whirled her round 204 KERKENI ISLANDS. like a feather in a basin of water. In a moment the sea was agitated to such a degree, that its sur- face exhibited one continued sheet of foam. The ship, which no longer obeyed the helm, was like a black spot upon the whitened ocean ; the violence of the wind seemed to raise her out of the water : she turned round in every direction, plunging her head and stern alternately in the waves. The return of light shewed us the extent of our danger. We were almost close to the island of Lampedosa. In the same hurricane two English ships of war perished at Malta, as was stated in the newspapers of the time. M. Dinelli, considering the loss of the ship as inevitable, wrote upon a slip of paper: " F. A. de Chateaubriand, wrecked on the island of Lampedosa the 28th of December 1806, on his return from the Holy Land." This paper I corked up in an empty bottle, with the iutention of throw- ing it into the sea at the last moment. Providence was pleased to save us. A slight variation of the wind enabled us, at noon, to clear Lampedosa, and we found ourselves once more in the open sea. The wind getting round again to the north, we ventured to hoist a sail and bore away for the Lesser Syrtis. The bottom of this Syrtis keeps gradually rising to the shore, so that, by paying attention to the soundings as you approach, ycu may anchor in any depth of water you please. From the shallowness of the water, the sea is calm here in the most violent winds, and this gulf, so dangerous to the barks of the ancients, is a sort of port in the open sea for modern vessels. We cast anchor off the islands of Kerkeni, close to the line of the fishery. I was so heartily tired of this long passage, that I would gladly have landed new year's day. c 2Q5 at Sfax, and thence proceeded to Tunis by land ; but the captain durst not put into the harbour of Sfax, the entrance of which is really dangerous. We lay at anchor eight days in the Lesser Syrtis, and here I passed the first day of ttie year 1807. Under how many stars and in what a variety of si- tuations had I already witnessed the renewal of the years, which either glide away so swiftly or seem so tedious! How far were flown those days of infancy, when, with a heart throbbing for joy, I received the parental benediction and presents ! With what impatience was this first day of the year always expected ! But now, on board of a foreign ship, in the midst of the sea, in sight of a barbarous region, thisday fled without pleasure, without the embraces of relatives, without any of those tender wishes of felicity which a mother forms with such sincerity for her son. This day, sprung from the bosom of tempests, sprinkled nought but cares, regrets, and grey hairs upon my brow. We nevertheless thought it right to celebrate this day, not to do honour to an agreeable host, but out of regard for an old acquaintance. We slaughtered the remainder of our poultry, with the exception of a cock, our faithful time-keeper, which had never ceased to watch and crow in the midst of the greatest perils. The rabbis, the Barbaresco, and the two Moors, came fromthe ship's hold to partake of our banquet. This was my treat. We drank success to France: we were not far from the island of the Lotophagi, where the companions of Ulysses forgot their country ; but I know not any fruit so delicious as to make me forget mine. We were almost close to the Kerkeni islands, the Cercinae of the ancients. In the time of Strabo, there was a fishery off these islands, as at present. 206 ARRIVAL AT TUNIS. The Cercinse witnessed two extraordinary reverses of fortune : they beheld Hannibal and Marius suc- cessively pass them as fugitives. We were very near the spot ( Turris Annibalis) where the first of these two great men was obliged to embark, to escape the ingratitude of the Carthaginians. Sfax is a modern town, which, according to Dr. Shaw, derives its name from the word Fakouse, on ac- count of the great quantity of cucumbers which grow in its vicinity. On the 6th of January 1807, the tempest having at length abated, we quitted the Lesser Syrtis, pro- ceeded northward along - the coast of Tunis for three days, and on the 10th doubled Cape Bon, the object of all our wishes. On the 12th we came to an anchor before Goletta, the harbour of Tunis. The boat was dispatched to the shore, and I sent a letter to the French consul, M. Devoise. I was appre- hensive of being obliged to perform another qua- rantine, but M. Devoise obtained permission for me to land on the 18th. It was with sincere joy that I left the ship. I hired horses at Goletta, made the circuit of the lake, and at five in the evening reached the house of my new host. PART THE SIXTH. TUNIS AND RETURN TO FRANCE. CHAPTER I. M. Devoise, French Consul at Tunis — Fondness of the French for Dancing — M. Violet and the Iroquois — Acquaintances made by' the Author at Tunis — Travels in Barbary — Situation of Tunis — Its Population — Environs — The Bey' — History of Carthage — Regulus — Hannibal — Scipio Africanus — Syphax and Masinissa — Sophonisba — Interview between Scipio and Han- nibal — Battle of Zama — The Third Punic War — Scipio's Dream — Siege of Carthage — Destruction of the City by Fire — Asdu- bal's Wife — Marius — Cato of Utica — Carthage rebuilt by Au- gustus — St. Augustine — The Vandals conquer Carthage — Gen- seric — The taking of the City by Belisarius — Its Reduction by the Saracens. At the house of Monsieur and Madame Devoise I found the most generous hospitality and the most agreeable society : they had the kindness to keep me six weeks in their family, and at length I enjoyed a repose of which I had the greatest need. The carnival approached, and we thought of nothing but to be merry in spite of the Moors. The ashes of Dido and the ruins of Carthage were treated with the tones of a French violin. We cared not for Scipio, nor Hannibal, nor Marius, nor Cato of Utica, whose mouth would have been stopped with some generous wine (for he was fond 5208 M. VIOLET. of wine) had he taken it into his head to come and find fault with our mirth. St. Louis alone would have been respected as a Frenchman : but the good and oreat kin" - would not have taken it amiss of his subjects to amuse themselves in the very place where he suffered so much. The national character cannot be extinguished. Our seamen have a saying 1 , that in founding new colonies, the Spaniards begin with building a church, the English a tavern, and the French a fort, and, I would add, a ball-room. When I was in America, on the frontiers of the country of the Savages, I was informed that in the next day's journey I should meet with a countryman of mine among the Indians. On my arrival among the Cayougas, a tribe belonging to the Iroquois nation, my guide conducted me into a forest. In the midst of this forest stood a kind of barn, in which I found about a score of savages of both sexes, bedaubed like conjurers, with their bodies half naked, their ears cut into figures, ravens' feathers on their heads, and rings passed through their nostrils. A little Frenchman, powdered and frizzed in the old fashion, in a pea- green coat, a drugget waistcoat, muslin frill and ruffles, was scraping away on his kit, and making these Iroquois dance to the tune of Madelon Friquet. M. Violet, for that was his name, followed the profession of dancing-master among the Savages, by whom he was paid for his lessons in beaver skins and bears' hams. He had been a scullion in the service of General Rocham- beau, during the American war ; but, remaining at New York after the return of the French army, he resolved to give the Americans instruction in the fine arts. His views having enlarged with his success, this new Orpheus resolved to introduce NEW ACQUAINTANCES. 209 civilization even among the roving hordes of the New World. In speaking to me of the Indians, he always styled them: Ces messieurs Saunages^ and Ces dames Sauvages. He bestowed great praise on the agility of his scholars, and in truth never did I witness such gambols in my lite. M. Violet, holding his fiddle between his chin and his breast, tuned the fatal instrument ; he then cried out in Iroquois: To your j^^ces! and the whole troop fell a-capering like a band of demons. Such is the genius of nations ! We danced too on the ruins of Carthage. Hav- ing lived at Tunis exactly as in France, I shall no longer follow the dates of my journal; but treat of subjects in a general manner, and in the order in which they occur to my memory. But before I proceed to Carthage and its ruins, let me take some notice of the different persons with whom I became acquainted in Barbary. Besides the French consul, I frequently saw M. Lessing, the Dutch consul ; his brother-in-law, M. Humberg, a Dutch officer of engineers, commanded at Goletta. It was with the latter that I visited the ruins of Carthage, and I had infinite reason to be pleased with his attention and politeness. I also met with Mr. Lear, the consul of the United States. I had formerly been recommended in America to General Washington. Mr. Lear then held a situation under that great man, and he had the. kindness, in memory of my illustrious patron, to provide me a passage in an American sclmoner, which landed me in Spain, as I shall hereafter relate. Lastly, I saw at Tunis, both at the consul's house and in the city, several young Frenchmen to whom my name was not absolutely unknown, I must not 210 TRAVELS IN BARBARY. omit to mention also the remains of the interesting family of M. Adanson. If the multiplicity of materials puzzles the writer who would treat, at the present day, of Egypt and Judea, he is thrown into the very contrary dilemma in regard to the antiquities of Africa, by the scar- city of documents. Not that there is any want of Travels in Barbary ; I know of at least thirty ac- counts of the kingdoms of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis ; but all of them are unsatisfactory. Among the older Travels, Grammaye's Africa Illustrata, and Shawe's learned work, deserve particular no- tice. The Missions of the Fathers of the Trinity and the Fathers of Mercy record miracles of cha- rity ; but they do not, neither should they, contain any discussions respecting the Romans and Cartha- ginians. The Memoirs subjoined to Paul Lucas's Travels comprehend nothing but the narrative of a civil war at Tunis. Shaw might have supplied the deficiency, had he extended his researches to his- tory ; but unfortunately he considers the subject only in its geographical relations. He scarcely touches, in the slightest manner, upon ancient his- tory : Carthage, for instance, occupies no greater space in his observations than Tunis. Among the more modern travellers, Lady M. W. Montague, the Abbe Poiret, and M. Desfontaines, say a few words concerning Carthage, but without entering into any details. In 1806, the same year in which I travelled, a work was published at Milan with this title : Ra44 BELISAKIUS. over them without hurrying them away ; but on the other hand, they are unable to check the tide of the world. If souls of a superior nature shall be useful to society, they must spring up among a people which retains a love of order, of religion, and of good manners, and whose genius and character are in unison with its moral and political situation. In the age of Belisarius, the events w-ere great, and the actors little. For this reason, the annals of that age, though abounding in tragic catastrophes, tire and disgust us. We look not in history for revolutions which crush and over- whelm men ; but for men who control revolutions, and who are more powerful than fortune. The universe convulsed by the barbarians, excites no other feelings than those of horror and contempt; but we never fail to take the strongest interest in a petty quarrel between Sparta and Athens, in a narrow corner of Greece. Gelimer, carried prisoner to Constantinople, graced the triumph of Belisarius. Soon afterwards this monarch turned husbandman. In such a case, philosphy may afford consolation to an ordinary mind, but it serves only to increase the regret of a truly royal heart. It is well known that it was not by Justinian's order that Belisarius lost his eyes. Were this even the case, it would form but a very small event in the history of human ingratitude* As to Carthage, she witnessed the departure of a prince from her walls to take possession of the throneof the Caesars ; this was that Heraclius who deposed the tyrant Phocas. In 647 the Arabs made their first incur- sion into Africa. This was followed by four other expeditions within the space of fifty years. Car- thage fell under the Mahometan yoke in 696. CARTHAGE TAKEN BY SARACENS. 245 Most of its inhabitants fled into Spain and Sicily. John, the general of the emperor Leontius, retook the city in 697 : but the following year the Saracens recovered the possession of it, which they have retained ever since ; and the daughter of Tyre fell a prey to the children of Ishmael. It was taken by Hassan, during the caliphat of Abd-el- Malek. It is asserted that the new masters of Carthage razed it to the very foundations : but yet considerable remains of it must have existed at the beginning of the ninth century, if it be true that Charlemagne's ambassadors discovered there the body of St. Cyprian. Towards the conclusion of the same century, the Infidels formed a league against the Christians, and at their head, as we are told in history, were the Saracens of Carthage. We shall likewise see that St. Louis found a rising town upon the ruins of this ancient city. Be this as it may, nothing is at present to be seen there but the relics which I shall presently describe. The only name by which it is known in the coun- try is Bersach, apparently a corruption of Byrsa. In going from Tunis to Carthage, you must enquire for the tower of Almenara, or the roud of Mastinaces : Ventoso gloria curru ! CHAPTER II. Plan of Ancient Carthage — New Carthage — State of Cartilage under the Roman Emperors — Ruins of Carthage — Ancient Port — Port described by Virgil — Aqueduct — Byrsa — Crusade of Louis IX. — His Attempt on Tunis — Fatal Illness of the King — His last Instructions to his Son — His Death — De- parture from Tunis — Arrival at Cadiz — Cordova — Grenada — Arrival at Madrid — The Escurial — Bayonne — Conclusion. It is very difficult to collect, from the accounts of the historians, the plan of ancient Carthage. Polybius and Livy treated doubtless very circum- stantially of the siege of that city, but their des- criptions have not reached us. On this subject we possess nothing but abridgments, such as those of Florus and Velleius Paterculus, who enter into no local details. The geographers, who lived at a later period, were acquainted only with the Roman Carthage. The most complete authority on this head is that of Appian, a Greek, who flou- rished near three centuries after the event, and who, in his declamatory style, is deficient in pre- cision and perspicuity. Rollin, who follows him, and perhaps injudiciously blends Strabo's account with his, will spare me the trouble of a translation. " It was seated at the bottom of a bay, sur- rounded by the sea in the form of a peninsula, the neck of which, that is, the isthmus connecting it with the continent, was a league and a quarter ANCIENT CARTHAGE. 24-7 (twenty-five stadia) in breadth. The peninsula was eighteen leagues (three hundred and sixty stadia) in circumference. On the west side there was a long point of land, about twelve fathoms (half a stadium) in breadth, which, running out into the sea, separated it from the morass, and was encompassed on all sides by rocks and a single wall. On the south side, and next to the main land, the city was defended by a triple wall thirty cubits in height, exclusively of the parapets and the towers which flanked it all round at equal distances, being eighty fathoms asunder. Each tower hsd four stories; the walls had but two; they were roofed ; and at the bottom were stables capable of containing three hundred elephants, and four thousand horses, together with everything necessary for their subsistence. Here was likewise room sufficient to lodge twenty thousand infantry and four thousand horsemen : and the whole of this warlike equipage was contained in the walls alone. There was but one place where the walls were weak and low : this was a neglected angle, beginning at the point of land above-mentioned and running to the harbour which was on the west side. There were two ports, which communicated with each other, but had only one entrance, seventy feet wide, and defended by chains. The first, was for merchant vessels, and here were manv and various habitations for the mariners. The other was the inner port for the ships of war, in the middle of which was an island called Cothon, bordered, as well as the port, with large quays, where there were separate buildings, in which two hundred and twenty ships might be placed under cover, and storehouses above them where every thing necessary for the equipment of 248 CARTHAGE UNDER the ships Was deposited. The entrance of each of these buildings for the reception of the ships was adorned with two marble columns of the Ionic order ; so that the port and island exhibited on either side two magnificent galleries. In this island was the residence of the admiral ; and as it was over against the entrance of the harbour, he could thence discover what was passing at sea, though it was impossible to perceive, from the sea, what was doing in the interior of the port. The merchants, in like manner, could not overlook the ships of war, the two harbours being separated by a double wall, and in each of them there was a gate for the purpose of entering the city without passing through the other port. Carthage might therefore be divided into three parts : the harbour, which was double, and was sometimes called Cothon, from the little island of that name ; the citadel, denominated Byrsa ; and the city, pro- perly so called, where the inhabitants dwelt, which surrounded the citadel and was called Megara." Of this first city probably nothing was left but the public and private reservoirs, which are of as- tonishing beauty and give a high idea of the struc- tures of the Carthaginians: but I am doubtful whether the aqueduct which conveyed the water to these cisterns ought, not to be attributed to the second Carthage. My opinion of the total des- truction of the city of Dido is founded on the following passage of Florus : Quanta urbs deleta sit, ut de ceteris taceam, vel ignium mora probari potest. Qjnippe per continuos xvii dies vix potuit incendium extingui, quod domi- hus ac templis suis sponte hostes immiserant ; ut quatenus urbs eripi Romanis non poterat, triumpkus arderet. THE ROMAN'S. °,4f) Appian adds that what escaped the conflagra- tion was demolished by the command of the Roman senate. " Rome," says Velleins Paterculns, " al- ready the mistress of the world, thought herself not safe, as long as the name of Carthage subsisted :" nomen usquam maneret Carthoginis. Strabo in his concise and perspicuous descrip- tion, evidently blends different parts of the ancient and modern city. " Carthage, encompassed on all sides with walls, occupies a peninsula three hundred stadia in circumference, which is joined to the main land by an isthmus sixty stadia in breadth. In the centre of the city rose a hill, on which was erected a citadel called Byrsa. On the summit of this citadel was seen a temple consecrated to Escula- pius, and the declivity of the hill was covered with houses. The harbours are at the foot of Byrsa, as well as the small circular island called Cothon, around which the ships form a circle." On the word Karchedon, in the original, I shall observe that, according to Bochart, the Phoeni- cian name of Carthage was Cartha-Hadath, or Cartha-Hadtha, which signifies the new city. The Greeks turned it into Karchedon, and the Romans into Carthage The names of the three divisions of the city were likewise derived from the Phoenician: Magaria, from ww/^ar, a storehouse; Byrsa, from bosra, a fortress; and Cothon, from ratoun, a cut; for it is not perfectly clear that Cothon was an island. After the time of Strabo, we know nothing of Carthage, except that it became one of the largest and finest cities in the world. Pliny, however, M 3 250 CARTHAGE UNDER merely says : Colonia Carthago, magnce in vestigiis Carthaginis. Pompinius Mela, anterior to Pliny, does not seem much more favourable : Jamquidem iterum opulenta, etiam nunct amen priorwn excidio rerum qnam ope prasentium clarior : but Solinius says : Altermn post urban Romam terrarum decus. Other authors style it the Great and the Happy: Carthago magna, felicitate referenda. New Carthage suffered from a conflagration during the reign of Marcus Aurelius; for we find that prince engaged in repairing the losses of the colony. Commodus, who stationed a fleet at Carthage, for the purpose of carrying to Rome the corn of Africa, would have changed the name of Carthage into Villa Commodiani. This folly of the unworthy son of a great man was soon forgotten. The two Gordians having been proclaimed emperors in Africa, made Carthage the capital of the world during their transient reign. It appears, however, that the Carthaginians were by no means grateful for this distinction ; for, according to Capitolinus, they revolted against the Gordians, in favour of Capelius. Zosimus farther informs us that these same Carthaginians acknowledged Sabi- nianus for their master, while the younger Gordian succeeded Balbinus and Maximus at Rome. Though Aye should believe, from what is said by Zonaras, that Carthage was favourable to the Gordians, yet those emperors had not time to contribute much to the embellishment of that city. Several inscriptions given by the learned Dr. Shaw, prove that Adrian, Aurelian, and Septimus Severus, erected edifices in different cities of Byza- cium, and it is highly probable that the capital of that wealthy province was not neglected by them. THE ROMANS. 251 The tyrant Maxentius carried fire and sword into Africa, and triumphed over Carthage, as over the ancient enemy of Rome. It is impossible to survey, without shuddering, that long series of madmen, which almost uninterruptedly governed the world from Tiberius to Constantine, and was continued after the latter, in the monsters who reigned at Bysantium. The people were no better than the kings. A horrible convention seemed to exist between the nations and sovereigns — these to dare, those to endure every thing. Thus our information respecting the monuments of Carthage in the ages which we have just re- viewed, is reduced within a very narrow compass; we merely find, from the writings of Tertullian, St. Cyprian, Lactantius, and St. Augustine, from the canons of the Councils of Carthage, and the Acts of the Martyrs, that Carthage contained theatres, amphitheatres, baths, and porticoes. The city was never strongly fortified, for the elder Gordian could not defend himself there ; and, long after- wards, Genseric and Belisarius gained possession of it without difficulty. I have in my hands several coins of the Vandal kings, which prove that the arts were totally lost during the reigns of those monarchs : it is not pro- bable, therefore, that Carthage received any em- bellishment from its new masters. We know, on the contrary, that Genseric overthrew the churches and the theatres ; all the Pagan edifices were demo- lished by his command; mention is made, among others, of the temple of Memory and the street of the Celestial Goddess, which was lined with splen- did structures. Justinian, having wrested Carthage from the Vandals, caused porticoes, thermae, churches, and 252 RUINS OF CARTHAGE. monasteries, to be erected there, as we find in Pro- copius's book on Edificies. That historian speaks also of a church built by the Carthaginians on the sea-shore in honour of St. Cyprian. Such is all that I have been able to collect concerning the monuments of a city which occupies so high a rank in history. Let us now proceeds to its ruins. The ship in which I left Alexandria having arrived in the port of Tunis, we cast anchor oppo- site to the ruins of Carthage. I looked at them, but was unable to make out what they could be. I perceived a kw Moorish huts, a Mahometan hermitage at the point of a projecting cape, sheep browzing among ruins ; — ruins, so far from strik- ing, that I could scarcely distinguish them from the ground on which they lay. This was Car- thage. Devictae Carthaginis arces Procubuere, jacent infausto in littore turres Eversae. Quantum ilia metus, quantum ilia laborum Urbs dedit insultans Latio et Laurentibus arvis ! Nunc passim vix reliquias, vix nomina servans, Obruitur propriis non agnoscenda ruinis. " The walls of vanquished Carthage, and her demolished towers, lie scattered on the fatal shore. What fears did this city formerly excite in Rome; what efforts did she cost when insulting us, even in Latium and the Laurentian plains ! Now scarcely a relic of her is to be seen ; she scarcely retains her name, and cannot even be recognized by her own ruins." In order to discover these ruins, it is necessary to go methodically to work. I suppose, then, that the reader sets out with me from the fort of the Goletta, standing, as I have observed, upon the canal by which the lake of Tunis discharges RUINS OF CAKTHAGE. 253 itself into the sea. Riding along the shore in an east-north-east direction, you come, in about half an hour, to some salt-pits, which extend toward the west, as far as a fragment of wall, very near to the Great Reservoirs. Passing between these salt- pits and the sea, you begin to discover jetties run- ning out to a considerable distance under water. The sea and the jetties are on your right; on your left you perceive a great quantity of ruins, upon eminences of unequal height ; and below these ruins is a basin of a circular form, and of consider- able depth, which formerly communicated with the sea by means of a canal, traces of which are still t o be seen. This basin must be, in my opinion, the Cothon, or inner port of Carthage. The re- mains of the immense works discernible in the sea, would, in this case, indicate the site of the outer mole. If I am not mistaken, some piles of the dam constructed by Scipio, for the purpose of blocking up the port, may still be distinguished. I also observed a second inner canal, which shall be, if you please, the cut made by the Carthagi- nians when they opened a new passage for their fleet. This opinion is diametrically opposite to that of Dr. Shaw, who places the ancient port of Carthage to the north and north-west of the peninsula, in the wet morass, called El Mersa, or the harbour. He supposes that this port has been choaked up by the north-east winds, and the mud of the Bagrada. D'Anville, in his Ancient Geography, and Belidor, in his Hydraulic Architecture, have adopted this opinion. Travellers have bowed to these great authorities. I know not what opinion is entertained on the subject by the learned Italian, whose work I have already mentioned. 25-i RUINS OF CARTHAGE. I must own it is not without fear that I find myself opposed to men of such eminent merit as Shaw and D'Anville. The one had seen the places, and the other was acquainted with them, as it were, by intuition. One tiling, however, gives me cou- rage. M. Humberg, commandant-engineer at the Goletta, a man of great abilities, and who has long resided among the ruins of Carthage, absolutely rejects the hypothesis of the learned English travel- ler. It is certain that we should receive with cau- tion accounts of those assumed changes of places, those local accidents, by means of which a writer explains difficulties in a plan which he does not understand. I am doubtful, then, whether the Bagrada could have choaked the ancient port of Carthage, as Dr. Shaw supposes, or produced on the coast of Utica all the revolutions which he describes. The elevated part of the land to the north and north-west of the isthmus of Carthage has not, either along the sea or in the El Mersa, the smallest sinuosity capable of affording shelter to a vessel. To find the Cothon in this position, we must have recourse to a hole which, by Shaw's own account, is scarcely one hundred yards square: on the other hand, along the sea on the south- east you find long dykes, vaults which may have served for stoi'e-houses, or even for the reception of the galleys; you see canals excavated by the hand of man, an inner basin sufficiently capacious to hold the barks of the ancients, and in the midst of this basin a small island. History supports me in this explanation. Scipio Africanus was engaged in fortifying Tunis when he perceived the ships leaving Carthage to attack the Roman fleet at Utica-'. Had the port of * Livy, book x. RUINS OF CARTHAGE. °.55 Carthage been to the north, on the other side of the isthmus, Scipio, stationed at Tunis, could not have seen the Carthaginian gallies ; for the land in that part intercepts the view of the gulf of Utica. But if we place the port to the south- west, Scipio then could see, and must have seen, his enemies standing out of the harbour. When Scipio iEmilianus undertook to block up the entrance to the outer port, he began the jetty at the point of Cape Carthage.* Now Cape Carthage is to the east, on the bay of Tunis. Appian adds, that this point of land was near the port ; which is correct, if the port lie to the south-east, but false, if situated to the north-west. It would be the height of absurdity, to suppose a dyke carried from the longest point of the isthmus of Carthage for the purpose of enclosing what is termed El Mersa on the north-west. Lastly, after he had taken Cothon, Scipio attacked Byrsa, or the citadel :f the Cothon was consequently below the citadel. Now the latter stood on the highest hill of Carthage, a hill which is seen between the south and east. The Cothon^ if situated on the north-west, would have been too far distant from Byrsa, whereas the basin where I place it, lies exactly at the foot of the hill to the south-east. If I expatiate more on this point than is neces- sary for many readers, there are others, I know, who take a lively interest in the recollections of history, and who look in a work of this kind for nothing but facts and positive information. Is it not singular, that in a city so celebrated as Carthage, we should have to seek the very site of her ports, and that the circumstance which con- * Appian. f Ibid. 256 RUINS OF CARTHAGE. stituted her principal glory is precisely that which is now most completely forgotten ? Shaw seems to have been more happy in regard to the port described in the first book of the Eneid. Some scholars have looked upon this port as a creation of the poet; others have conceived that Virgil intended to represent either the port of Ithaca, or that of Carthagena, or the bay of Naples: but the bard of Dido was too scrupulous about the delineation of places to allow himself such a liberty. He has most accurately described a port at some distance from Carthage. Let us hear Dr. Shaw: " Two leagues to the east-north-east of Seedy Doude, and a little to the southward of the pro- montory of Mercury, is Lowhareah, the Aquilaria of the ancients, where Curio landed those troops that were afterwards cut in pieces by Sabura. There are several fragments of antiquities at this place, but nothing remarkable : however, from the sea-shore to this village, which is at half a mile's distance, the interjacent mountain, from the level of the sea to the height of twenty or thirty feet, is all the way very artfully scooped and hollowed, small openings being carried up in several places to the surface, for the admission of fresh air, whilst large pillars and arches are left standing at proper distances below, to support the mountain. These are the quarries which Strabo takes notice of, whence the buildings of Carthage, Utica, and many other adjacent cities, might receive their materials. Moreover, as the mountain above is all overshaded with trees; as the arches below lie open to the sea, having a large cliff on each side, with the island iEgimurus placed over against them; as there are likewise virgil's descbiptjon. 257 some fountains perpetually draining from the rocks, and seats for the weary labourer, we have little room to doubt, from such a concur- rence of circumstances, so exactly corresponding to the cave which Virgil placeth somewhere in this gulph, but that the following description is literally true, notwithstanding the opinion of some commentators who have thought it fictitious. Est in secessulongo locus ; insula portutn Efficit objectu laterum : quibus omnis ab alto Frangitur, inque sinus scindit sese unda reductos. Hinc atque bine vastse rupes, geminique minantur In coelum scopuli, quorum sub vertice late iEquora tuta silent : turn sylvis scena coruscis Desuper, borrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra. Fronte snb adversa, scopulis pendentibus antrum; Intus aquae dulces, vivoque sedilia saxo Nympharum domus, &c. Viug. JEn. I. 163. Having now settled the situation of the ports, the rest will not detain us long. I" suppose that we have pursued our way along the coast to the angle from which the promontory of Carthage projects. This cape, according to Dr. Shaw, was never included in the city. Let us now leave the sea, and striking off to the left, traverse, as we return to the south, the ruins of the city, scattered over the amphitheatre of the hills. We first find the remains of a very extensive edifice which seems to have formed part of a palace or of a theatre. Above this edifice, ascen- ding to the west, you come to the beautiful cisterns which are generally accounted the only relics of ancient Carthage : they were probably supplied with water by an aqueduct, some fragments of which may be seen in the plain. This aqueduct was fifty miles in length, commencing at the 258 AQUEDUCT. springs of Zawan and Zungar. There were tem- ples above these springs. The largest arches of the aqueduct are seventy feet high, and the columns which support these arches are sixteen feet square. The cisterns are prodigious ; they form a series of vaults, communicating with each other, and are bordered throughout their whole length by a corridor. This is a truly magnificent work. A rugged road leads from the public cisterns to the hill of Byrsa, At the foot of the hill you find a cemetery and a miserable village, perhaps the Tents of Lady M. W. Montagu.* The summit exhibits a level space bestrewed with small pieces of marble, and which is visibly the area of a palace or of a temple. If you suppose the former, it shall be the palace of Dido; if you prefer the latter, it must have been the temple of Escula- pius, Here two females, consigned themselves to the flames, not to survive, the one, her disho- nour, the other, her country. From the summit of Byrsa, the eye embraces the ruins of Carthage, which are more numerous than is generally imagined : they resemble those of Sparta, having nothing left in tolerable preser- vation, but covering an extensive space. I saw them in the month of February ; the fig, olive, and carob trees were already clothed with their young leaves; large angelicas and acanthuses formed verdant thickets among fragments of mar- ble of every colour. In the distance my eye wan- dered over the isthmus, the double sea, distan t islands, a pleasing country, bluish lakes, and azure mountains. I beheld forests, ships, aque- ducts, Moorish villages, Mahometan hermitages, * Tlie Elephants' Stables, mentioned by this lady, are sub- terraneous chambers, which have nothing remarkable. CRUSADE OF LOUIS IX. 259 minarets, and the white buildings of Tunis. Millions of starlings, in flocks that looked like clouds, flew over my head. Surrounded by the grandest and the most moving recollections, I thought of Dido, of Sophonisba, of the noble wife of Asdrubal; I contemplated the vast plains which entomb the legions of Hannibal, Scipio, and Caesar ; my eyes sought the site of Utica ; but alas ! the ruins of the palace of Tiberius still exist at Capri, and in vain you look for the spot occupied by Cato's house at Utica ! The terrible Vandals and the light Mooi-s passed successively before my memory ; which exhibited to me, as the last picture, St. Louis expiring on the ruins of Carthage. With the narrative of the death of that prince I shall conclude this work ; happy to return, as it were, to my country by an ancient monument of its virtues, and to finish, at the tomb of the monarch of sainted memory, this long pil- grimage to the sepulchres of great men. When St. Louis undertook his second expedi- tion, he was not young. His impaired health did not permit him to remain long on horseback, or to bear the weight of armour ; but Louis had lost none of the vigour of his mind. He assem- bled the grandees of his kingdom at Paris, repre- sented to them the unfortunate situation of Pales- tine, and declared his resolution to go to the relief of his Christian brethren. At the same time he received the cross from the hands of the legate and gave it to his three eldest sons. A great number of the nobility took the cross with him. The kings of Europe, Charles of Sicily, Edward of England, Gaston of Beam, the kings of Navarre and Arra- gon, prepared to follow his example. The fair sex displayed the same zeal: the lady de Poitiers, 260 ST. LOl'IS. the countess of Bretagne, Iolanda of Buro-undv, Joan de Toulouse, Isabel de France, Amicia de Courtenay, threw aside the distaff', which then afforded employment to queens, and accompanied their husbands beyond the sea. St. Louis made his will and then went to receive the oriflamme. This banner, which first made its appearance in the French armies under Louis the Fat, was a standard of silk affixed to the point of a lance. In time of peace it was deposited in the abbey of Saint Denis, among the tombs of the Kings, as if to indicate that, from generation to generation, the French were faithful to their God, to their prince, and to honour. St. Louis, accord- ing to custom, received this banner from the hand of the abbot, who delivered to him, at the same time, the scarf and the pilgrim's staff, which were then denominated the solace and the marks of the journey* Louis offered up his prayers at the shrine of the martyrs, and committed his kingdom to the protection of the patron of France. The day after this ceremony, he walked barefoot with his sons from the Palace of Justice to the Church of Notre Dame; in the evening he set out for Vincennes, where he took leave of Queen Mar- garet ; and then quitted for ever those aged oaks, the venerable witnesses of his justice and his virtues. " Many a time," says the Sire de Joinville, " have 1 seen the holy monarch go to amuse him- self in the wood of Vincennes, where he would sit down at the foot of an oak and make us seat our- selves round him, and all those who had business with him could come and speak to him without being hindered by any guard. In like manner, I have several times in summer seen the good kinme were already no more; the king had seen his favourite son, the Count of Nevers, expire in his arms. He felt himself the attacks of the disease. He was sensible from the first moment that it would terminate fatally, and that this shock could not fail to overpower a body worn out with the fatigues of war, the cares of a throne, and those religious and royal vigils which Louis gave to his God and to his people. He nevertheless strove to conceal his illness, as well as the grief which he felt for the loss of his son. With the 264 LAST MOMENTS. hand of death impressed upon his brow, he was seen visiting the hospitals, like one of those Fathers of Mercy, devoted, on the very same spot, to the redemption of captives and the attendance on the infected. From the works of the saint he passed to the duties of the monai'ch. providing for the safety of the camp, meeting the enemy with un- daunted countenance, or, seated before his tent, administering justice to his subjects, as he was wont under the oak of Vincennes. Philip, the eldest son and successor of Lcuis, never quitted his father, whom he saw sinking into the tomb. The kino- was at length confined to his tent ; when incapable of rendering, in his own person, any farther service to his people, he en- deavoured to ensure their future happiness, by addressing to Philip those Instructions which no true Frenchman can ever read without emotion. These he committed to writing when on his death- bed. Ducange speaks of a manuscript which appears to have been the original of these instruc- tions : the writing is large, but shews the weakness of the hand which expressed the sentiments of so strong a mind. " My dear son, the first thing which I instruct and command thee to keep, is to love God with all thy heart; for without this, no man can be saved. And beware of doing what is displeasing to him ; for thou shouldst rather desire to undergo all sorts of torments than commit a mortal sin. " If God sends thee adversity, receive it with resignation, and thank him for it; and think that thou hast amply deserved it, and that every thing will turn out for thy profit. If he gives thee pros- perity, return him thy most humble thanks, and take care that thou art made no worse for it, either ADVICE TO HIS SON. 265 by pride or otherwise. For we ought not to make war upon God with his gifts. " Take care to have about thee prudent and upright men, who are not full of covetousness, whether ecclesiastics, seculars, or others. Shun the society of the wicked ; listen to the words of God, and treasure them in thy heart. " Administer justice and equity to each, as well to the poor as to the rich. And to thy servants be honourable, liberal, and frugal of words, that they may fear and love thee as their master. And if any controversy or quarrel arise, enquire into the very truth, whether it be for or against thyself. If thou findest for certain that thou hast any thing rightfully belonging to another, acquired either by thyself or thy predecessors, immediately restore it. " Take care, with all diligence, that the people and subjects live in peace and happiness under thee, especially in the good cities and towns, and elsewhere. Maintain thy franchises and privileges, which thy forefathers have maintained and pre- served, and keep them in favour and love. " Beware of emjainnff in war against Christian men without mature deliberation, and unless thou canst not possibly avoid it. If war and disputes arise among thy subjects, pacify them as speedily as thou canst. " Keep a watchful eye over thy governors, bai- liffs, and other officers, and frequently enquire into their conduct, that, if need be to reprove them, thou mayst do it. " And I entreat thee, my son, after my death, to keep me in remembrance, and my poor soul ; and assist me with masses, prayers, alms, and be- nefactions, throughout all the kingdom. And Vol. ii. n 266 THE DEATH allow me a share and portion in all the charities which thou bestovvest. " And I give thee every benediction that ever father can give his child, praying to all the Trinity of paradise, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to keep thee and to protect thee from all evil ; that we may once, after this mortal life, be together in the presence of God, and thank and praise him to all eternity." Every man at the point of death, and undeceived in regard to the things of the world, may give prudent instructions to his children : but when these instructions are enforced by the example of a whole life of innocence ; when they issue from the lips of a great sovereign and an intrepid soldier, from a heart fraught with a simplicity that never was surpassed ; when they are the last expressions of a divine spirit, ready to speed its flight to the celestial mansions; then happy is that people who, with honest pride, can exclaim: " The man who penned these instructions was the king of my fathers !" The disease growing more violent, Louis de- manded extreme unction. He pronounced the responses to the prayers for the dying in as firm a tone as if he had been jrivinjj orders on the field of battle. He raised himself upon his knees at the foot of his bed, to receive the eucharist, and his attendants wereobliged to support in their arms this second Jerome, during his last communion. From that moment he banished all earthly thoughts and conceived that he stood acquitted towards his subjects. What monarch, indeed, ever fulfilled his duties in so exemplary a manner ! His charity now embraced all mankind: he prayed for the Infidels, who were at once the glory and the of louis ix. 267 misery of his life; he invoked the patron saints of France, of that France which was so dear to his royal heart. On the morning of Monday, the 25th of August, feeling his end approaching, he desired to be placed upon a bed of ashes, where he lay with his hands folded upon his bosom, and his eyes raised towards heaven. Never was such a spectacle beheld but once, and never will it be again exhibited. The fleet of the Sicilian monarch appeared on the horizon; while the plain and hills were covered with the army of the Moors. Amid the wreck of Carthage, the Christian camp presented the image of the pro- foundest grief: a death-like silence pervaded it, and the expiring soldiers, leaving the hospitals, crawled over the ruins to approach their dying monarch. Louis was surrounded by his weeping family, the dismayed princes, and their fainting consorts. The deputies of the emperor of Con- stantinople were present at this scene: they had it in their power to relate to Greece the particulars of an end which Socrates would have admired. From the bed of ashes on which St. Louis heaved his last sigh, could be seen the shore of Utica: each spectator might draw a comparison between the death of the stoic and that of the Christian philosopher. More happy than Cato, St. Louis was not obliged to read a treatise on the immor- tality of the soul, to convince himself of the existence of a future life: of this, he found an irrefragable proof in his religion, his virtues, and his misfortunes. At length about three in the afternoon, the king fetched a deep sigh, and having distinctly repeated these words : " Lord, I will go into thy house, and I will adore thee in n2 268 CHARLES OF ANJOU. thy holy temple" — his soul took its flight to that temple in which it was worthy to dwell. The trumpets of the Sicilian Crusaders sounded, and their fleet arrived full of joy, and bringing useless succours. Their signal was not answered. Charles of Anjou was astonished, and began to apprehend some disaster. He landed ; he beheld the sentinels with pikes reversed, while the dejec- tion visible in their faces expressed their grief much more strongly than this mark of military mourning. He flew to the tent of his brother, and found him extended lifeless on a bed of ashes. He threw himself on his sacred remains, he bathed them with his tears, he respectfully kissed the feet of the saint, and shewed marks of affection and sor- row that would not have been expected from so haughty a spirit. The face of Louis was yet tinged with all the colours of life, and his lips even retained their vermilion hue. Charles obtained the bowels of his brother, which he deposited at Montreal, near Salerno. The heart and body of the prince were destined for the abbey of St. Denis ; but the soldiers would not suffer these venerated relics to depart before them, saying that the remains of their sovereign were the safeguard of the army. France, incon- solable for the loss of such a monarch upon earth, declared him her protector in heaven ; and Louis, placed in the rank of saints, might be considered as the everlasting king of his country. His people vied with each other in erecting to his memory churches and chapels more magnificent than the simple palaces in which ne had passed his life. The old chevaliers who had accompanied him in his first crusade, were the foremost to acknowledge the new power of their chief. " And I too," DEPARTURE. 269 says the Sire de Joinvilie, " had an altar erected in honour of God, and of Monseigneur Saint Loys." The death of Louis, s> affecting, so virtuous, so calm, with which the history of Carthage con- cludes, may he regarded in the light of a sacrifice of peace, offered in expiation of the excesses, the passions, and the crimes of which that unfortunate city was so long the theatre. Leaving M. Devoise, by whom I had been so generously entertained, I embarked in the Ameri- can schooner, in which, as I have observed, Mr. Lear procured me a passage. We weighed from the Goletta on the 9th March 1807, and made sail for Spain. We received some instructions from an American frigate in the road of Algiers. This city stands in a charming situation, upon an eminence that reminds you of the beautiful hill of Pausilippo. On the 19th at seven in the morning, we descried the Spanish shore near Cape de Gatte, at the extremity of the kingdom of Grenada. Following the coast, we passed Malaga, and at length, on the 27th, being Good Friday, we came to an anchor in the bay of Gibralter. 1 landed on Easter Monday at Algesiras, and set out from that place on the 4th of April for Cadiz, where I arrived two days afterwards, and was received with extreme politeness by Messrs. Leroi and Canclaux, the French consul and vice- consul. From Cadiz I proceeded to Cordova, and admired the mosque, now transformed into the cathedral of that city. I traversed the ancient Bcetica, where the poets have placed the abodes of happiness. I went to Andujar, and turned back to look at Grenada. I thought the Alham- 270 THE ESCURIAL. bra worth seeing, even after the temples of Greece. The valley of Grenada is delicious, and very much resembles that of Sparta. Well may the Moors regret such a country ! From Grenada I set out for Aranjuez, and travelled through the country of the illustrious knight of La Mancha, whom I consider as the noblest, the bravest, the most amiable, and the least insane of mortals. I saw the Tajjus at Aranjuez, and arrived on the 21st of April at Madrid. M. de Beauharnais, the French ambassador at the court of Spain, loaded me with favours ; he had formerly known my unfortunate brother, who died on the scaffold with his illustrious grand- father.* I left Madrid on the 24th, and pro- ceeded to the Escurial, built by Philip II. on the desert mountains of Old Castile. The court pays its annual visit to this monastery, as if to exhibit to recluses dead to the world, the spec- tacle of all the passions, and to receive from them those lessons by which the passions never profit. Here you are shewn the sepulchral chapel where the kings of Spain are deposited one above another: so that all this dust is arranged and ticketed like the curiosities in a museum. Empty sepulchres are left lor the sovereigns who have not yet come into the world. From the Escurial I pursued my way to Segovia. The aqueduct of that city is one of the grandest works of the Romans, but for a description of it 1 refer the reader to the excellent work of M. de la Borde. At Burgos a superb gothic cathedral an- nounced my approach to my native land. I was not unmindful of the ashes of the Cid. * M. De Malsherbe. CONCLUSION. 271 At Miranda I saluted the Ebro, whose banks witnessed the first steps of that- Hannibal whose course I had so long been tracing. I passed through Vittoria, and crossed the charming moun- tains of Biscay. On the 3d of May I set foot on French ground, and arrived on the 5th at Bayonne, after having made the complete tour of the Medi- terranean, and visited Sparta, Athens, Smyrna, Constantinople, Rhodes, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Cairo, Cartilage, Cordova, Grenada, and Madrid. When the pilgrim of old had accomplished his journey to the Holy Land, he left behind his staff at Jerusalem, and returned with that of a palmer. I have not brought back to my country a similar mark of honor, neither have I attached to these my last efforts an importance of which they are un- deserving. For these twenty years I have devoted myself to study amid dangers and afflictions of every kind. Many of the pages of my works were written beneath the tent, in deserts, on the bosom of the deep ; and I have often held the pen without knowing whether my existence was likely to be prolonged for a few moments : these are claims to indulgence, and not titles to glory. Should heaven be pleased to grant me a repose which I have never yet enjoyed, I shall endeavour to rear in silence a monument to my country; but should Providence deny me this boon, I shall only strive to screen my declining years from those cares which embittered my early life. I am no longer young, no longer fond of bustle ; I know from experience that letters, the commerce with which is so delici- ous when secret, draw down upon us nought but storms from without. At any rate, I have written enough, if my name be destined to live, far too much if it be doomed to perish. APPENDIX. No. I. DISSERTATION ON THE EXTENT OF ANCIENT JERUSALEM, AND 01 ITS TEMPLE; AND ON THE HEBREW MEASURES OP LENGTH. BY M. d'aNVILLE. The cities which hold a considerable rank in history, require particular researches into what regards them in the detail ; and it cannot be denied that Jerusalem is one of those cities which deserve to be the objects ot our curiosity. This consideration has induced several scholars to treat this subject in a very ample manner, and in all its circumstances, and to endeavour to ascer- tain the site of the different quarters of that city, its public edifices, its gates, and almost generally all those places which we find mentioned in the sacred Scriptures and other monuments of antiquity. If even the re- searches of these scholars should not appear to have been attended throughout with complete success, still their zeal is not the less worthy of our commendation and gratitude. The principal point attempted in this dissertation is to determine the extent of that city, respecting which we have as yet nothing precise, and which even seems in general to be greatly exaggerated. To decide this question recourse must be had to local circumstances n3 274 APPENDIX. and it is owing to the neglect of these that this point yet remains to be discussed. Though it is difficult and next to impossible to elucidate in a satisfactory manner a great number of details respecting Jerusalem, yet the subject which we here undertake to examine is suscep- tible of being cleared up by the strongest evidence. In order to be able to treat this matter with precision, we must set out with ascertaining what composed ancient Jerusalem. This investigation will leave no uncertainty in the distinction between the modern and the ancient city. The site of the latter will appear to be the more accurately determined, as the natural situa- tion of places enables us to form an infallible judgment concerning it. In this view we insert the very faithful sketch of apian of modern Jerusalem, probably taken by the direction of M. Deshayes, and published in the narrative of his Travels in the Levant, in 1621, under- taken in consequence of commissions with which he was charged by Louis XIII. to the Grand Signor. One of the articles of these commissions being to support the Latin monks in the possession of the sacred places in Palestine, and to establish a consul at Jerusalem, it is not surprising that such a plan should be met with in his book rather than any other. The present extent of the city, its streets, the topography of the ground, are expressed in this plan, and better than any where else that I know of. For the greater clearness and less distraction in regard to the principal object we admic into our plan such circumstances only as are particularly connected with the subject of this dissertation. The utility, nay even the necessity of a plan in such a case, affords just reason for astonishment that no use has yet been made of that whose assistance we borrow. I. — Of the Quarters of Ancient Jerusalem. Josephus gives us a general idea of Jerusalem, when he says, ( War of the Jews, book vi. ch. 6.) that this city was seated on two hills facing each other and sepa- rated by a valley. That which was called the Upper APPENDIX. 275 City occupied the most extensive as well as the most elevated of these hills, whose advantageous situation induced David to chuse it for his fortress ; and the other hill, named Acra, was the site of the Lower City. Now we see that Mount Sion, which is the first of these two hills, is yet perfectly distinguished on the plan. Its most remarkable declivity looks towards the south and west, being formed by a deep ravine, which in Scripture is denominated Ge Ben Hinnom, or the Valley of the Children of Hinnom. This valley, running from west to east, meets, at the extremity of Mount Sion, the Valley of Kedron, which extends from north to south. These local circumstances, which are determined by nature herself, are not liable to those changes which time and the fury of men may have made in the city of Jerusalem. It is these that ascertain the limits of the city in that part which Sion occupied. It is this part that advances farthest towards the south, and you are not only fixed in such a manner that you cannot take in a greater space on that side, but the utmost breadth to which the site of Jerusalem can possibly extend is determined on the one hand by the declivity of Sion which faces the west, and on the other by its opposite extremity towards Cedron and the east. That part of the walls of Jerusalem which Josephus calls the most ancient, bordered the summit of the rock, according to that historian. To this also refer these words of Tacitus, in the description which he gives of Jerusalem (Hist, lib. i.e. W:) Duos col les, immeiishn editos, claudebant viuri extrema rupis abrupta.' Hence it follows that the contour of the mountain still serves to mark and circumscribe the ancient limits. The second hill rose to the north of Sion, its east side facing Mount Moria, on which the Temple was situated, and from which this hill was separated only by a chasm which the Asmoneans partly filled up, by lowering the summit of Acra, as we are informed by Josephus in the place quoted above : for, this sum- mit commanding the Temple, and being very near 2/6 APPENDIX. it, according to the account of Josephus, Antiochus Epiphanes erected a fortress upon it to over-awe the city and annoy the Temple ; which fortress, having a Greek or Macedonian garrison, held out against the Jews till the time of Simon, who demolished it, and at the same time levelled the summit of the hill. As no mention is ever made of Acra till after this time, it is most probahle that this name is nothing else than the Greek word"A*g«, which signifies a high place, and sometimes means a fortress. Besides, the term Hakra, with an aspirate, appears to have been peculiar to the Syrians, or at least adopted by them to denote a fortified place. In the Chaldean Paraphrase (II Samuel, ii. 7.) Hakra Dsiun is the fortress of Sion. Josephus gives an idea of the figure of the base of the hill, by the term uutpiKv^os, which, according to Suidas, is applied to the moon in one of her phases, between the new and the full, and according to Martianus Ca- pella, between the half and the full. A remarkable circumstance in the plan which serves for our ground- work, is a vestige of the principal eminence of Acra, between Sion and the Temple ; and this circumstance is the less equivocal, as care has been taken to write high place in the plan itself, near the south west corner of the Temple. Mount Moria, on which the Temple stood, being at first only an irregular hill, it was necessary, in order to extend the appendages to the Temple over an equal surface and to increase the area of its summit, to sup- port the sides, which formed a square, by immense works. The east side bordered the valley of Cedron, commonly called the valley of Jehoshaphat, which was very deep. The south side, overlooking a very low spot, was faced from top to bottom with a strong wall ; and Josephus assigns an elevation of not less than three hundred cubits to this part of the Temple ; so that, for its communication with Sion, it had occasion for a bridge, as the same author informs us. The west side looked towards Acra, the appearance of which , APPENDIX. 277 from the Temple, is compared by Josephus to a theatre. On the north side an artificial ditch, -ra^^ $1 faatvxTo, says our historian, separated the Temple from a hill named Bezetha, which was afterwards joined to the town by an extension of its area. Such is the general dispositon of Mount Moria, in the site of Jerusalem. The famous tower of Antonia flanked the north- east corner of the Temple. Seated on a rock, it was originally erected by Hyrcanus, the first of that name, and called Bag«<;, a Greek term, according to Josephus, but which St. Jerome asserts to have been common in Palestine, even down to his time, to denote strong buildings, and such as were erected in the form of towers. That in question received considerable em- bellishments from Herod, who named it after Anthony, his benefactor ; and before the accession of Bezetha, the area of the city did not extend beyond it towards the north. It is even necessary to recede a little to the south, a very small distance from the west front of the Temple, in order to exclude from the city Gol- gotha or Cavalry, which, being the place of execution for criminals, was not comprehended within its walls. The piety of the Christians did not at any time suffer this place to remain unknown, even prior to the reign of Constantine the Great ; for, could it have been so to those Jews who had been converted to Christianity, who, as we are told by St. Epiphanius, again took up their abode in the ruins of Jerusalem, after the destruction of that city by Titus, and there led an edifying life ? In the year 326, Constantine, according to Eusebius, covered this very spot with a church ; and his account agrees with the testimony of the author of the Itine- rariuin a Burdigala Hierusalem usque, who was at Jerusalem in 333, according to the consulate, which serves as a date to his Itinerary: Ibidem mo<\o jussu Constantini Imperatoris Basilica facta est, id est Domi- nicum, mirce pulchritudinis. Though Almansor Hakim S"S APPENDIX. Billa, a caliph of the race of the Fatimites of Egypt, ordered the church to be destroyed at the beginning of the eleventh century, from a determination not to tolerate the imposture of the holy fire, as it was termed, of the Greeks on Easter-eve ; yet the Greek emperor Constantine Monomachus, thirty-seven years after- wards, in 1048, obtained of Hakim's grandson the right to rebuild the same church, and defrayed the expence of the structure, as we are informed by William, archbishop of Tyre. Besides, the conquest of Jeru- salem, by Godfrey of Bouillon, in 1099, leaves no long interval of time from the circumstance just mentioned. Now it will be remarked that the preceding facts, relative to ancient Jerusalem, have nothing equivocal, and are as decisive as the disposition of Mount Sion on the opposite side. In respect to the eastern part of Jerusalen, there is no ambiguity. It is notorious and evident that the valley of Cedron served for the boundary of the city, in the same or nearly the same line as was described on the border of that valley, by the front of the Temple which looked that way. We arrive at the like cer- tainty in respect to the west side of the city, when we consider that the natural elevation of the ground which bounds the area of Sion on that side, as well as towards the south, continues to run northward till it comes opposite to the Temple. There is no reason to doubt that this long eminence, commanding a valley situated without the town, is the contrary side of Acra to that which faces the Temple. The advantageous situation which the walls of the city still retain on the precipice fully justifies this opinion. It is moreover supported by the testimony of Brocardus, a Dominican monk, who was in Palestine in 1283, as he informs us in the description which he gave of that country. It is to the west part of the site of Jerusalem, running from Sion towards the north, that these words, extracted from the special description of this city, refer : Vorago sen wilts quce procedebat versus aquilonem, Jhciebatque APPENDIX 279 Jbssam civitatis juxta longitudinem ejus, usque ad plagant aquilonis ; et super earn erat intrinsecus ritpes eminens quam Josephus Acram appellat, qua: suslinebat murum civitatis superpositum, cingentum ab occidente civitatem, usque ad portam Ephraim, ubi curvatur contra orientem. This statement of an author who wrote from actual observation, is perfectly conformable with the pre- ceding representation, suggested by the plan of the ground. This may suffice to explain the different quarters which composed ancient Jerusalem, their site, and relative positions. II. — Extent of Ancient Jerusalem. The account given by Josephus of the several walls which encompassed Jerusalem, comprehends circum- stances that contribute to make us thoroughly ac- quainted with the extent of that city. This historian distinguishes three different walls. That which he calls the most ancient, not only covered .Sion on the exterior of the city, but likewise separated that part from the Lower city, or Acra. It is at this very place that Josephus commences his description of this wall. He says that the tower called Hippicos flanked the end next the north, u^^ivm h Kara (Ztpiai ol-tto tS? l7T7rtx.?, incipiens ad boream ab Hippico ; it thence extended to the west gate of the Temple, by which, to judge from the plan, we are to understand its south-west angle. It is obvious that this part of the wall forms a separation between the Upper and the Lower city. It seems to correspond with the southern boundary of the modern city of Jerusalem, which excludes Sion; so that we have every reason to presume that the tower of Hippicos, whose situation, as we shall presently find, is an important point for us to ascertain, stood near the south-west angle of the present area of Jerusalem. If we may give credit to various accounts, the present wall was the work of Solyman, who, in 1520, succeeded his father Selim, to whom the Turks 280 APPENDIX. are indebted for the conquest of Egypt and Syria. Be this as it may, Edrisi, who wrote his geography for Roger I king of Sicily, deceased in 1151, represents Jerusalem as being nearly in the same state as at the present day, saying that it extends in length from west to east. He even expressly excludes Mount Sion from its area ; for, to use the words of his description, in order to go to a Temple where the Christians pretended that Christ had held the last supper with his disciples, and which is situated on that Mount, it is necessary to leave the town by a gate called Bab Seihun, the Gate of Sion, which corresponds with the present state of Jerusalem. Benjamin of Tudela, whose Travels are dated 1173, remarks, that in his time there was no entire edifice standing upon Mount Sion. except this church. The observation relative to Mount Sion, which is to be found in the Travels of Willebrand of Oldenburg, performed in 1211, Nunc includitur muris civitatis, sed tempore Passionis Dominicice excludebatur, must be taken in a contrary sense, if it were only on account of the last member of the sentence, excludeba- tur tempore Passionis. It is in general, highly proba- ble, that in places where the parts of the ancient wall had any correspondence with the modern inclosure, the situation of those places, nay even the vestiges of the former foundations having determined the limits of the modern area, the latter consequently gives the extent of the ancient site. A particular circumstance exists to authorize this general observation in regard to the separation of Sion from Acra. This is the re- entering angle facing Sion, which is to be observed in the present southern boundary of Jerusalem, in the part nearest to the site of the Temple or Mount Moria ; for it was, in fact, in this manneronly that the quarter of Sion could be separated from Acra ; since, as we have observed in speaking of Acra, the high -place marked in the plan, and on which the angle in question seems to depend, undoubtedly formed part of the emi- nence known by the name of Acra, and probably that APPENDIX. 281 which most overlooked, and consequently was most distinct from Sion. Josephus having described the northern part of the area of Sion, from the tower of Hippicos to the Temple, begins again at that tower, and follows it to the west, and afterwards of course to the south as far as the fountain of Siloe. This fountain is situated at the bot- tom of a deep ravine, which bounds the base of Sion, prolonged to the edge of the valley of Cedron, and which separates it from a portion of the city seated along this valley, as far as the foot of the Temple. At this ravine terminated the hollow, or valley, which part- ed Mount Sion from the hill of Acra, and which Jose- phus terms rZv 'VvgonnotZv, caseariorum, of the cheese- mongers. Edrisi, who makes mention of this valley, and that very distinctly, says, that on going out at the gate of which he had spoken by the name of Sion, you descend into a hollow (in fossam, according to the ver- sion of the Maronites), which, he adds, is called the Valley of Hell, and in which is the fountain of Seluan (or Siloan.) This fountain was not included within the ancient city. St. Jerome alludes to it in these words (in Matth. xxiii. 23) : in portarum exhibits, quce Siloam ducunt. As the valley in which Siloe is situated, ex- tends from south-east to north-west, Josephus must be considered very accurate, when he says that the wall which looks down upon the fountain of Siloe, runs on the one hand towards the south, and on the other to- wards the east : for it is almost exactly in this manner that this wall followed the edge of the two declivities which form the ravine. The Itinerary of Jerusalem agrees in its account of the fountain of Siloe : Deorsum in valle, juxta murum, est piscina quce dicitur Siloa. Be it here remarked, that mention is thus made of this wall in a document of the age of Constantine the Great. It may hence be inferred, that the re-building of Jeru- salem, after the destruction of the city by Titus, which we know to have been the work of Adrian, who gave the new town the name of iElia Capitolina, extende 282 APPENDIX. Sion, as well as the rest of the city ; so that the reduc-> tion of Sion to the state in which it now appears, must have originated in the ravages committed by Chosroes, king of Persia, by whom the city was taken in 614. It would therefore be wrong to take in a literal sense what is said by Abulpharagius (Dinast. 7.) that the TElia of Adrian was near the destroyed city. By this nothing else can be meant, but that the site of the city at the time when the historian wrote, and after the establish- ment of Mahometanism, did not exactly correspond with that which it occupied at a more remote period. It must not be imagined that the use of the name of iElia was strictly confined to the duration of the Roman power, since the oriental writers sometimes employed the denomination of Ilia to denote Jerusalem. But to resume the course of the wall beyond Siloe : this wall was continued across Ophla, and terminated at the east front of the Temple, which brings us in fact to its angle, between the west and the south. In seve- ral passages of Scripture mention is made of Oph'l, or Ophel. This term is even used mataphorically ; but it is impossible to determine, from the context of the ori- ginal, whether it signifies rather presumption or pride, than blindness or infatuation. Commentators are divi- ded, some insisting that Ophel means a high place, and others a deep place. The contrariety of this interpre- tation is not more extraordinary than that which we find in the use of the Latin word altus, which is some- times applied to depth as well as to height. The Greek version (Reg. N. 5, 24) has rendered Ophel and Suidas. On multiplying 75 fathoms three feet four inches, at which the stadium of ten to the mile is fixed, by 30, we shall have a product of 2,266 fathoms four feet. Now, this estimate of the parasang comes within eleven fathoms of the parseh ; so that two feet two inches more in the length of the stadium, which serves 312 APPENDIX. to compose the parasang, would make both amounts exactly equal. If even we were to adopt in preference, the result of the comparison made by St. Epiphanius of the Jewish mile, or Sabbath-day's journey, with six ordinary stadia, that is to say, 566 fathoms four feet, and to multiply this amount by four, we should obtain precisely the 2,266 fathoms four feet, which are the product of our 30 stadia. Who would not hence con- clude that the parseh is no other than the parasang, whether Persian, Babylonian, or whatever you may chuse to call it ? Does not parseh comprehend the amount of 30 stadia, since the Jewish mile, the fourth part of the parseh, is accounted by the Jews equal to 7i? Let us add, that the names parseh and parasang have sufficient affinity to countenance the idea of the identity of the measure ; and that, as the terms paras and parseh have, in the ancient oriental language, the Chaldee as well as Syriac, a proper and literal inter- pretation, which cannot have a meaning more suitable to the thing itself, this was undoubtedly adopted, to acquire the proper signification of the word parasang. As the parseh is not mentioned in scripture, there is every reason to believe that it was not introduced among the Jews till subsequent to the Babylonian captivity. But observe what a series of coincidences ! The de- finition of the parasang has this existence independent- ly of what constitutes the parseh, for this parasang depends on a particular stadium, which is produced by means totally foreign to what appears even to concern or to interest the parasang, as may be seen in my Treatise on Measures. The parseh, on the other hand, springs from totally different elements, and has its principle in this, that the Egyptian cubit seems to be a measure of the highest antiquity, and that the use of it was probably adopted by the Hebrew nation. On these presumptions (for so far we can have nothing more) the application of the cubit to this parseh is more exactly verified than we could venture to hope, APPENDIX. 313 by the conclusion which must be drawn from the mea- sure assigned by Epiphanius as the fourth part of the parseh. All these different ways, so totally distinct from each other, lead nevertheless to the same con- sequences, and meet at the same point. It would be impossible to obtain greater harmony by concerted means. What must result from this ? A mutual sua- rantee, if I may be allowed that expression, of all the parties and circumstances that enter into the com- bination. The positive determination of the Hebrew cubit is one of the principal advantages of such a discussion. It is very true that Father Lami, as well as some other scholars, proposed the adoption of the derah for this cubit, but without positively demonstrating the pro- priety of such adoption, or verifying it by applications of the nature of those which have just been produced. It would even appear that the precision of this mea- sure had in some sort escaped Father Lami, since, not- withstanding his conjecture respecting the derah, he makes the Hebrew cubit twenty inches. Nos, (says he lib. i. cap. 9. sect. 1.) cubitum HebrceumJ'acimus viginti pollicum. The Hebrew cubit was composed of six minor palms, and this palm is called in Hebrew Tophach (Teth, Phe, HhethJ. The Septuagint version has rendered this word 7T«Aa)s, which is peculiar to the palm in ques- tion ; the definitions given by Hesychius and Julius Pollux fix this palm at four fingers' breadth. The cubit consequently contained twenty-four fingers, and this is precisely the number of parts into which the Egyptian cubit or derah is divided on the column of Mihias, otherw ise the Kilometer near Fostat, or Old Cairo. Abulfeda is quoted by Kircher as saying that the legal cubit of the Jews, the same as the Egyptian, contains twenty-four fingers. In Diodorus Siculus (lib. i.) when he speaks of the Kilometer which existed at Memphis, and which he terms NuXoo-kotmov, we find mention made not only of the cubits into which it was vol. II. p 314 APPEXDIX. divided, but also of the fingers 2a.KrvXov^, which formed the subdivision of the cubit. According to the measure which agrees with this cubit, the tophach or palm is equal to 3 inches 5 lines of the French foot ; and I observe that this particular measure has the advantage of appearing to be bor- rowed from nature : for if we suppose it to be taken from the breadth of the four fingers of a clenched fist, agreeably to the explanation of Pollux, the study of the relative proportions of the parts of the body will shew that this measure is adapted to a stature of about 5 feet 8 inches French ; and this stature, which is ex- actly equivalent to six Greek feet, is rather above than below the ordinary height of man. But if the palm, which forms the sixth part of the Hebrew cubit, is thus found to correspond with a lofty and majestic stature, and cannot be sensibly extended without swelling into the gigantic, it will follow that the mea- sure of this cubit cannot, as a cubit, partake of the same concordance. Father Lami, in fixing the Hebrew cubit at twenty inches, has thence calculated the sta- ture of the patriarchs at 80 inches or 6 feet 8 inches, which agrees in proportion with this principle of Vi- truvius : Pes altitudinis corporis sextce cubitus quartce. According to this proportion the measure taken from the derah would produce seven feet wanting two inches. If such a stature be admissible on the score of a par- ticular distinction between the first race of mankind and the present state of nature, still it is very certain that the length of the cubit in question exceeds the limits to which the ordinary stature of men has long been confined : so that in proportion to the stature with which the measure of the palm seems particu- larly to agree, or 5 feet and about 8 inches, the length of the cubit should be but about seventeen inches. Now the rabbis seem to be persuaded that a difference existed between the common cubit and the legal or sacred cubit, the standard of which was deposited in the sanctuary; and that this common cubit was APPENDIX. 315 shorter than the other by one tophach. Being thus reduced to five tipuchim (the plural of tophach) or to twenty fingers, and losing 3 inches 5 lines, its length amounted to 17 inches 1 line. Though Father Lami has combated the Jewish tradition respecting this common cubit, still the striking analogy of proportion seems to support it. The testimony of the rabbis even receives a positive confirmation from the com- parison made by Josephus between the ordinary cubit of the Jews and the Attic cubit : for this cubit, being deduced from the proportion natural to it in common with the Greek foot, consisting of 1360 parts or tenths of a line of the Paris foot, makes 2,040 of the same parts, or 204 lines, or 17 inches. Let us recollect moreover what has been quoted above from Ezekiel, in treating of the measure of the Temple, when he di- rects the Jews of Babylon to employ a cubit longer by a hand-breadth than the ordinary one, in rebuilding the Temple. This hand-breadth being no other than the smaller palm or tophach, have we not here a for- mal distinction between two cubits, the shorter of which appears to have been in common use ? But, in allowing that the smaller cubit was introduced during the time of the second Temple, we might, from deli- cacy, and to shun any violation of the divine precept, which enjoins but one weight and one measure, be willing to reject the cubit in question for the time pre- ceding the captivity : which, however, we should be absolutely authorised to do by the silence of scripture, since, in Deuteronomy (hi. 11.) the measure of the bedstead of Og, king of Bashan, is given in cubits taken from the natural proportion of the human body, after the cubit of a man, or, according to the Vulgate, ad mensuram cubitivirilis manus. Though an infinite number of measures, which enlarge upon their natural principles (for example, all that bear the name of a foot, without entering into farther details), sufficiently authorize the denomination of cubit, in a measure of such length as the Hebrew and Egyptian cubit appear p 2 31 6 APPENDIX. to have been ; still the consideration of these princi- ples is frequently essential in the discussion of mea- sures, and ought not to be lost sight of. It was to this that I owed the discovery of the natural foot, the measure and use of which I have discussed in my Treatise on Itinerary Measures. We have then, in this Memoir, an Analysis of the Hebrew Measures, which, though independent of all particular application, nevertheless agrees with the measure of the circumference of Jerusalem and the extent of the Temple, according to the deduction of that measure from the various indications of antiquity compared with local circumstances. There appears to be such a connection between the different objects here brought together, that they seem dependent on each other, and to afford, as far as they are concerned, a mutual confirmation. Discussion of the Arabian Cubit. I promised, in treating of an article relative to the measure of the Temple, to enter into a discussion of the Arabian cubit after 1 had finished with the Hebrew measures. This cubit, deraga or derail, is of three kinds ; the ancient, the common, and the black. The first, which is thus named from having existed, as it is said, in the time of the Persians, consists of 32 fingers ; the se- cond of 24, according to the more common and na- tural definition; and the third, forming nearly the mean between the two, is reckoned at 27 fingers. The first is formed by the addition of two palms to the six which compose the second, and which it has in com- mon with the Egyptian and Hebrew cubit. These de- finitions are furnished by an extract from an oriental land-surveyor, for which we are indebted to Golius, in the notes with which he has illustrated the Elements of Astronomy of Alferganes. Of these three cubits, that which seems most enti- tled lo our attention, especially in regard to use and APPENDIX. 31T a greater conformity with the nature of the cubit in general, is the common one. As a circumstance of essential importance, to enable us to determine its length, I shall observe that the cubit deduced from the analysis of the measure of the earth, taken by command of the caliph Al Mamoun in the plains of Sinjar in Mesopotamia, cannot so well refer to any as that denominated the common or ordinary cubit. Ac- cording to Abulfeda's account of the measure of Al Mamoun, the terrestrial degree upon the meridian was calculated at 56J| Arabian miles : and Alferganes (ch. viii.) says that the mile in this measure was composed of 4,000 cubits. Taking the degree in round numbers at 57,000 fathoms (for the reason we have given in treating of the measure of the Temple), the Arabian mile consists as nearly as possible of 1,006. The thousand fathoms make the cubit of 18 inches ; and if we take into the account the six fathoms over, we shall have aline and about 3-lOths of a line to add to each. The learned Golius conceived that the black cubit was alluded to in Al Mamoun's measure, because Al- ferganes has made use of the term royal cubit, to de- note that which he considered adapted to this measure. It must be admitted to be the general opinion that this cubit owed its establishment to Al Mamoun, and that it was thus denominated because it was taken from the breadth of the hand or natural palm of an Ethiopian slave belonging to that prince, because it was found to surpass any other. Be it remarked, however, that not only does the surveyor quoted by Golius apply the use of the black cubit to the measure of various costly stuffs at Bagdad, but that the proportion established between the different Arabian cubits is extremely in- convenient for the application of the black cubit to the measure of the earth under Al Mamoun. Be it further remarked: 1. That the black cubit, with the advan- tage of three fingers over the common cubit, would 6till not have any striking excess beyond the ordinary standard, if it amounted to no more than 18 inches; 318 APPENDIX. 2. That the common cubit, which would be two inches less, would consequently appear small, since we have seen that the cubit in use among the Jews, not- withstanding its inferiority to the legal cubit, con- tained at least 17 inches; 3. That the ancient cubit, called the hashemide, amounted in proportion to no more than 21 inches and a few lines, though reasons might be adduced for supposing it to have been lon- ger; for according to Marufides, the height of the church of St. Sophia, which from the floor to the dome is 78 hashemide cubits, is computed by Evagrius at 180 Greek feet ; and according to the proportion which exists between the Greek foot and ours, the cubit in question will amount to 26 inches and about two lines. Even this is not enough if we follow the standard of the hashemide cubit, which, according to Edward Bar- nard, is marked upon a manuscript in the library at Oxford, and which he represents as measuring 28 inches 9 lines of the English foot, equal, within a trifle, to 27 inches of the Paris foot. The measures of the length and breadth of St. Sophia given by Marufides, namely, 101 cubits for the one, and 931 for the other, will make the cubit still longer, if we compare them with Grelot's dimensions of 42 and 38 fathoms. The comparison not being perfectly consistent, the result given by the length will be near 30 inches to the cubit, and by the breadth 29 inches 3 lines, good measure. I am aware that persons might think themselves justified in supposing that the length, whatever it may be, of the ancient or hashemide cubit, has an influence over the proportions of the other cubits; and that it would make the common one amount to 20 inches 3 lines, if we adhere to the standard itself of the hashe- mide cubit ; since the apparent comparison between them is as 4 to 3. But as such an argument is not sufficient to suppress and render null the analysis of the cubit resulting from the positive measure of the terrestrial degree under Al Mamoun, even though this measure should not be judged to possess the utmost APPENDIX. 319 degree of precision ; it must be natural to presume that there is no proportion among the different Arabian cubits better calculated to suit this analysis of the cu- bit than the common cubit. The black cubit will be the less fit for this purpose, as, according to the hashe- mide measure, it must have amounted to 22 inches 9 lines. Thevenot, whose accuracy and sagacity, so supe- rior to those of the generality of travellers, are well known, having remarked, in a geographical work writ- ten in Persian, that the finger, the fourth part of the palm and the twenty-fourth part of the cubit, was defined to be equal to six barley-corns placed by the side of each other, (a definition which is in fact universal among oriental authors,) says, that he found the measure of six barley-corns, multiplied eight times, to amount to six inches of our foot ; from which he concludes that the cubit, composed of 144 grains, must have been equal to a foot and a half. Now is not this the same thing that results not only from the measure of the terrestrial degree by order of Al Mamoun, but likewise of the special application which we make of the common cubit to that measure ? I remark that the black cubit, in proportion to the analyzed measure of the common one, will be 20 inches and 4 or 5 lines, which, be it observed by the way, comes very near to the Egyptian and Hebrew cubit. Now, as this black cubit exceeded the common measure only because the breadth of the Ethiopian's hand, or the palm which was taken for a standard, surpassed the ordinary mea- sure ; not because there was any intention of altering the cubit calculated at six palms; would it not be making too great a change in the natural proportion, to extend it to 20 inches and almost a half, while the six Greek palms, though proportioned to the stature of a man of 5 feet 8 inches, amount to no more than 17 inches? If these consonances and probabilities do not extend to the comparison which has been made of the ancient or hashemide cubit with the other cubits, we 320 • APPENDIX. observe that this comparison is probably but numerary in regard to the palms and ringers, without being pro- portional as to the effective length. Do we not see the same difference between the measures of a foot, though they are all composed of twelve inches ? And, to take an example from the very subject before us, though the black cubit exceeded the common by three inches in the 24 of that common cubit, were more than six palms taken to compose it? Into this discussion of the Arabian cubit, which re- lates only to one particular point in what forms the sub- ject of our Dissertation, I have the more willingly entered, as I am not aware that the result deduced from it has hitherto been developed. No. II. MEMOIR ON TUNIS. Question I. — Are the Beys, mho govern Tunis? Turks or Arabs ? At tvhat precise period did they usurp the authority which the Deysjbrmerlij possessed? It is near one hundred and fifty years since the Beys of Tunis wrested the authority from the Deys ; but they have not retained without revolutions the authority which they usurped. The party of the Deys several times recovered the superiority, and was not com- pletely discomfited till 1684, on the flight of Mahmed Icheleby, who was expelled by Mahmed and his bro- ther Ali Bey. An hereditary monarchy was then established ; and Mahmed Bey, the author of the re- volution, was the first sovereign. This new order of things was no sooner established than deranged. The Dey of Algiers, taking umbrage at the Tuniseens, went to enforce his pretensions at the head of an army (October 13, 1689), laid siege to Tunis, obtained pos- APPENDIX. 321 session of it in consequence of the flight of the Bey, and set up Ahmed Ben Chouques in his stead. Mah- med Bey having gained over the Arabs on the fron- tiers to his side, advanced against Ahmed Ben Chou- ques, engaged and defeated him, and then proceeded to lay siege to Tunis. His competitor having, after the battle, retired to Algiers, Mahmed Bey, without difficulty, made himself master of the capital, where he once more established his authority, which he re- tained till his death. He was succeeded by his brother Ramadan Bey, the mildness of whose character encou- raged the Tuniseens to expect a tranquil reign. They were not disappointed, but this very circumstance oc- casioned his ruin. His nephew Murat, son of Ali Bey, impatient to enjoy the throne to which he was the next heir, availed himself of his uncle's indolence, re- belled, took him prisoner, and put him to death. Murat's reign, too long for the welfare of his people, was marked with atrocious cruelties. Ibrahim Cherif, the Turk, put a period to it by assassinating him, (June 10, 1702). The house of Mahmed Bey becoming ex- tinct by this murder, Ibrahim had no difficulty to pro- cure himself to be acknowledged as Bey by the divan and the soldiery. Being afterwards taken prisoner in a battle in which he was defeated by the Algerines, the army elected Hassan Ben Ali, the grandson of a Greek renegado, as his successor. With him com- menced a new dynasty, which has continued without interruption till the present time. The new Bey was aware that his throne would not be secure as long as Ibrahim lived. This consideration induced him to employ various means to get him into his power. This he at length effected, by declaring that he was but Ibrahim's substitute, and only waited for his appearance to abdicate the supreme authority. Ibrahim, deceived by this apparent submission, repaired to Porto Farina, where his head was struck off, (January 10, 1706.} Hassan Ben Ali reigned in peace, and nothing but an heir was wanted to crown his wishes. Finding that p3 322 APPENDIX. he was not likely to have issue by any of his wives, he resolved to nominate his nephew Ali Bey, who com- manded his army, as his successor. Several years had elapsed; when a prize was brought in by one of the cruizers of the regency, which happened to have on board a Genoese woman, who was placed in Hassan Ben Ali's harem. This woman, for whom he conceived an attachment, became pregnant. When this circum- stance was fully ascertained, he assembled the divan and put the question, whether in case this woman, whom he had in vain solicited to turn Mahometan, should be delivered of a son, this child could be ac- knowledged as his successor? The divan was of opinion that he could not, unless the Christian slave embraced the religion of Mahomet. Hassan renewed his soli- citations, and his favourite at length consented to re- nounce her faith. She was delivered of a son, who was named Mahmed Bey, and afterwards of two more, Mahmoud and Ali Bey. Hassan, seeing that he had now three heirs, informed his nephew Ali Bey, that, as heaven had changed the order of things, he could not leave him the throne after his death ; but that, as a proof of his constant friendship, he would purchase for him the place of pacha, whom the Porte still continued to nominate at Tunis. The young Bey, submitting to his uncle's pleasure, accepted the promised appoint- ment, and assumed the title of Ali Pacha. His ambi- tion appeared gratified ; but he affected a content he did not feel, to disguise the great designs which he had conceived. He could not without impatience behold the sceptre snatched from his hands, and, to spare himself this disgrace, he fled from Tunis, to the moun- tain of Osseletis, put himself at the head of a party which he had secretly formed, and attacked his uncle. This attempt proved unsuccessful : he was defeated, and being obliged to quit his retreat, he sought refuge at Algiers, where, by intrigues and promises, he pre- vailed on the Algerines to espouse his cause. They sent an army to Tunis, and, after a complete victory, APPENDIX. 323 obliged Hassan Ben Ali to leave his capital and flee to Keyrouan. On the conclusion of the civil war, which produced a famine, the fugitive prince quitted Keyrouan and repaired to Sousse. A French captain, of la Ciotat, named Bareilbier, who had long been attached to Hassan, gave proofs of his zeal by going continually to procure him corn and provisions : the prince gave him bonds for the amount, which he was to pay in case fortune should replace him on the throne. Affairs, however, grew worse and worse, and being deprived of every resource, he resolved to send his children to Algiers (which seems to be the refuge of all the fugitive princes of Tunis), with a view to join them there ; but when he was preparing to accomplish this design, Younnes Bey, the eldest son of Ali Pacha, overtook him, and with his own hand struck off his head. Ali, having thus got rid of his most dangerous enemy, looked forward to the peaceable en- joyment of his power ; but his tranquillity was inter- rupted by the disharmony of his children. Mahmed Bey, who was his favourite, formed the plan of exclu- ding his elder brother Younnes Bey from the throne, to which he was the next heir. He accordingly endea- voured to ruin him in the good opinion of his father, and succeeded in the attempt. Ali Pacha, deceived by his specious stories, gave directions for the apprehen- sion of his eldest son ; but Younnes being apprised of the circumstance, revolted, and made himself master of the castle of Gaspe and the city of Tunis : but being again driven out by Ali Pacha, he was obliged to seek refuge at Algiers. Mahmed Bey, being delivered from so dangerous a competitor, resolved to rid himself also of his younger brother, and caused him to be poisoned. He then procured himself to be acknowledged pre- sumptive heir to the throne, and had the prospect of one day enjoying the dignity which his crimes had pre- pared for him, when the face of affairs was all at once totally changed. The city of Algiers experienced one of those revolutions so frequent in military governments; T324? APPENDIX. a new Dey was appointed, and the choice of the sol- diery fell upon Ali Tchaouy, a Turk. He had before been ambassador at Tunis, and had there received an affront from that same Younnes Bey, who was after- wards obliged to implore his protection. Regardless of his solicitations, he espoused, out of revenge, the cause of the children of Hassan Ben Ali, and supplied them with troops, commanded by the Bey of Constan- tine, for the purpose of recovering the throne. Success crowned their enterprize ; they sacked the city of Tunis and took prisoner Ali Pacha, who was immediately strangled. Mahmed Bey, the eldest son of Hassan, was seated on the throne. This good prince reigned but two years and a half, and left two sons, Mahmoud and Ismael Bey, who were yet infants. His brother Ali Bey succeeded him upon promising, it is said, to restore the throne to Mahmed's children, when the eldest should arrive at years of discretion. The desire to transmit it to his own family prevented him from fulfilling this engagement. He sought by degrees to remove his nephews from the government and to raise his son to it. He shewed the young Ha- moud to the people, gave him the command of his army, and solicited for him the title of pacha. By these means he secured the suffrages of the people in favour of his son; and by kind treatment acquired such an ascendancy over the minds of his nephews, that, when he died (May 26, 1782), they voluntarily relinquished their claims, and were the first to recognize their cousin Hamoud Pacha as sole Bey of Tunis. Since that period the state has not been disturbed by any revolution, and those who have it in their power to excite one, seem too much attached to the Bey to have the least inclination to do so. The remembrance of past calamities and the spec- tacles of the troubles of Algiers, have taught the Tuniseens to be too much upon their guard against the restless and uneasy disposition of the Turks, to admit them into the government. The Beys have therefore APPENDIX. 325 endeavoured to abolish by degrees the authority which they had usurped : they have made a point of keeping them out of all the important places of administration reserved for natives and Georgians, and to suffer them to fill such only as have but a shadow of authority attached to them. Thus, though the reigning family may be looked upon as Turkish, since Hassan 13en Ali was descended from a Greek renegado, the government itself must be considered as Moorish. II. With what nations of Europe has Tunis entered into treaties ? At what period were they concluded, and on what terms ? Are they still in force ? XVII. What nations have consuls at Tunis? Are there any nations ivho permit their consuls to engage in trade ? XVIII. How many foreign houses are established at Tunis for the pur-pose of trade, and to tvhat nations do they belong ? Are they all in the capital ? N.B. These questions, as well as some of the suc- ceeding, are brought together on account of their con- nection with each other. The European nations to which Tunis has granted treaties are, France, England, Holland, Sweden, Den- mark, and Spain. Venice also may be included in the number, notwithstanding the present war in which she is engaged with this regency, and the Emperor, whose flag has been struck only on account of his rupture with the Porte. The Ragusans, as tributaries of the Grand Signor, have also their treaty, but without flag and without commerce, and merely as a protection for their ships. The treaties between France and Tunis are the most ancient; they date from 1685, though there were some antecedent to that period which no longer exist, and which are not referred to in this treaty. That with England was concluded five or six months afterwards; and that with Holland a i'ew years later. The treaties with the other nations above-mentioned, are not of an earlier period than forty or fifty years back. From the 326 APPENDIX. subjoined outline of the treaties with France, a judg- ment may be formed respecting those with the other nations, since they were all framed as nearly as possi- ble after that model. By an article of these treaties, and with reference to the practice adopted by the Porte in regard to ambassadors, the French consul at Tunis takes precedence of the other consuls. His majesty confers on him the title of consul-general and charge des affaires, because, on the one hand, he is em- powered to administer justice to the houses established at the port, and the ships that touch there, and, on the other, to treat concerning the interests of the two powers. All the consuls have a right to engage in trade except the French consul, to whom it is forbid- den upon pain of removal from his post. This judi- cious prohibition was designed to prevent him from being, as he otherwise might, the judge and a party in the same cause, and likewise too powerful a com- petitor for the merchants, since the consideration at- tached to his office would easily have procured him a preference in all affairs of business. The other nations, having no mercantile houses established in Tunis, for the contrary reason allow their consuls to engage in trade. There are (in 1787) eight commercial houses esta- blished at Tunis, all of which are French, and fixed in the capital, p III. What is the amount of the population of this em- pire ? Are the Moors or the Arabs the most numerous? Are they taxed by tribes or individually ? Is there any proportion in the imposts ? Are there any Arabs fixed in the city ? The population was calculated at four or five mil- lions of souls before it was thinned by the plague, which may be computed to have swept off one-eighth. The number of the Arabs exceeds that of the Moors. Some taxes are paid by tribes and others by indi- viduals. There is no absolute rule for establishing any proportion in the taxes ; and upon the whole nothing APPENDIX. 327 is now left arbitrary. There are Arabs fixed in the city, but they are not the most numerous class of its inhabitants. IV. Are there in the heart of the kingdom, or on the frontiers, many tribes who refuse to pay the imposts ? Are the Moors or Arabs the most untractable ? Which of these two are the most opulent ? Do the wandering tribes ever farm lands of the inhabitants of the toivns, for the purpose of cultivating them or depasturing their flocks and herds ? What do these flocks and herds con- sist of? There are tribes on the frontiers which at times re- fuse to pay the imposts, but the troops sent to levy them soon compel payment. It is in general the Arabs that are most untractable. There is every reason to presume that the Moors are the richest, because they not only hold offices, but embark at the same time in agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. As the Arabs confine themselves to agriculture, the wander- ing tribes frequently farm lands of the inhabitants of the towns, either for the purposes of tillage or as pasturage for their flocks and herds, consisting of horned cattle, sheep, and camels, which serve them for beasts of burden, whose hair they spin, whose milk affords them nourishment, and whose flesh they often eat. Fine horses are become very scarce; the Arabs have grown tired of breeding them, because the govern- ment or its emissaries took from them every tolerable horse just at what price they pleased. V. Arc there many proprietors of lands ? Are these proprietors all resident in the towns, or are their houses detached and in villages P Are not the latter exposed to depredations from the roving hordes ? Though the Bey possesses a great extent of land, and though there is much the revenues of which be- long to Mecca, the proprietors are nevertheless nume- rous. They reside in the towns, in villages, and even in detached habitations, and in all these situations they 328 APPENDIX. are but little exposed to depredations from the roving hordes. VI. What maybe the amount of the rev^enues of the state ? From tvhat sources are they derived ? Are they entirely consumed by the ordinary expenditure, or can any part of them be laid by ? Is the Bey supposed to have amassed money, and is the amount considerable ? As far as it is possible to form an estimate of the finances of a state, most of the revenues of which are annually put up to sale, and a great part of which is raised bjr extortion, the revenues of the Bey of Tunis may be computed at twenty-four millions of livres. The sources whence it is derived are, the customs, licenses for exportation, the different sums of money given by every new governor, the amount of which keeps continually rising on account of the annual sales, the revenue of the domains, the tenths collected upon lands, the produce of prizes, the sale of slaves, &c. he. The yearly expenses are considerably below the reve- nues, part of which are of course annually laid by. There is no doubt that the Bey possesses consider- able wealth, and that he is continually augmenting it ; the most sordid avarice being one of his faults. The peace with Spain has just increased it by some millions, and Venice will not be long before she does the same. Algiers and Constantine sometimes make heavy drains upon this treasure, which the government of Tunis might secure against their extortion, if it were to lay out part of its wealth in keeping up its fortresses, its marine, and a few disciplined troops. VII. Are there many Christian slaves at Tunis ? Have any been ransomed of late years, and at what price ? Of what nation iverc they? The number of Christian slaves at Tunis is very considerable, and has greatly increased within these tew years, owing to the youth and military genius of the Bey, who encourages cruising, and even sends out corsairs himself. It is impossible to ascertain the exact number of slaves, because some are constantly being APPENDIX. 329 taken, and others ransomed. They are in general Neapolitans, Venetians, Russians, and Imperialists. At the present moment, Naples ransoms all of hers that she can, Genoa now and then, Malta almost always; but religion sometimes makes exchanges, by which Tunis is invariably a gainer, never releasing a Maltese but for two, three, or even four Mussulmans. The ransom of the slaves belonging to the Bey, who are most numerous, is fixed at two hundred and thirty Venetian sequins for the seamen, and four hundred and sixty for the captains and women, of whatever age they may be.* Private individuals nearly follow these prices, from which, however, they at times make some abatement, either on account of the age of the slave, or his want of talents. It may be asserted, that the condition of slaves at Tunis is in general very easy ; many remain or return after they have been ransomed ; and some obtain their liberty at the death? or even during the lifetime of their masters. VIII. What number of troops are kept by the Bey, and of what nation are they ? Hotv much do they cost ? Are they at all disciplined, and inured to war ? Where arc they stationed ? The Bey keeps about 20,000 men :f 5,000 Turks, Mamelukes, or Krougoulis, the latter of whom are natives of the country, but sons or descendants of Turks or Mamelukes; 2,000 Moorish spahis, under the command of the four agas of Tunis, Kairouant, Ref, and Bejea; 400 Moorish Ambas, commanded by the Bachictenba, their chief; 2,000, or 2,500 Moorish Zouavas, of all countries, under the command of their Hodgia. There are about 20,000 men enrolled in the * Since the time of the Prince of Paterno, the ordinary ran- som lias been fixed at three hundred Venetian sequins, and the double ransom at six hundred piastres. t At the time of the expedition against Tripoli, the Bey made a considerable addition to his troops. He enrolled, as it were, all the young Krougoulis in his dominions, to the number of more than 1,200; on which account the regular troops now cost the government about 700 000 piastres per annum. 330 APPENDIX. corps of Zouavas, but the government pays no more than 2,000 or 2 ; 500 at most : the others enjoy certain privileges, and are only called out on extraordinary occasions. Eleven or twelve thousand Arabs of the tribes of Berdes, Auled, Seid, Auled Hassan, &c. &c. compre- hended collectively under the name of Mazerguis, accompany the camps and the regular troops to watch the motions of the tributary Arabs, and especially some chiefs of independent Arabs encamped on the confines of Tunis and Constantine. The Turks, Mamelukes, and Krougoulis, who repre- sent the old militia, cost the government of Tunis 700.000 piastres and more per annum. The greater part of the Mamelukes, divided into four companies of 25 each,* are more particularly de- signed for a guard for the Bey. These are allowed, besides their pay, a gratuity of 20 piastres every half- year, and some small fees in stuffs and other articles. They are likewise the bearers of all orders sent by the Bey to the governors and shieks. When these orders relate to disputes between individuals, the latter are obliged to maintain them during their mission. Some Turks and Krougoulis are likewise employed as guards to the Bey, and enjoy nearly the same ad- vantages as the Mamelukes. They are not sent by government upon any business but what is of a military nature. It is the same with respect to the Moorish Ambas and Spahis. Nearly half the soldiers are at Tunis, either acting as a garrison to the city or in camp. The rest are dis- tributed upon the frontiers, viz. At Taharca 600 Gafsa 75 Gerbis 75 Mehdia 50 Galipia 50 * There are at present but two companies of Mamelukes of about 25 each. APPENDIX. 331 Hamamet 50 Bizertha 150 Porto Farina 100 La Goletta 300 Total 1,450 There are about 800 Zouavas employed in gar- risons, viz. At Gerbis 100 Zarsis 25 Beben 25 Gouvanes 25 Guebes 25 Hamma 25 Haxe 25 Sousse 25 Taburba 50 Sibi Daoud 25 The castles of Tunis 150 Aubarde 200 La Goletta 50 Total 750 The goverment employs the rest of the Zouavas, to which it allows pay, in the camp which it forms every year on the frontiers of Tripoli. IX. Art there any caravans in the kingdom ? Whi- ther do they travel ? Is the trade carried on by them considerable? What articles do they barter? Do they pay any tribute to the government ? Two caravans travel regularly to Tunis, the one from Constantine and the other from Godemes. The former makes eight or ten journies in a year; purchases mer- cery, jewellery, drugs, grocery, linen and woollen cloth, hardware, and hats, manufactured at Tunis ; paying for these articles in cattle and hard piastres. That from Godemes rarely performs more than three journies ; bringing negroes, and buying the same commodities as the other, and in general whatever is necessary for the supply of the trade which it carries on with the interior 332 APPENDIX. of Africa. No direct impost is levied by the govern- ment on these caravans. X. Has the government reserved any branch of com- merce for itself? The branches of commerce which the government has reserved for itself, are: leather; wax, which it relinquishes annually to a company of Jews, or Moors, for a certain quantity of woollen cloth, stuffs, or money ; soda, or barilla, which is sold to the highest bidder; the tunny fishery, for the monopoly of which the sum of 20,000 francs is annually paid ; and the coral fishery, for which the African company yearly pays nearly the same sum. XI. What was the amount, in the year 1787, of the exports from Tunis to the Levant, and of the imports from the Levant into Tunis ? It is impossible to calculate with any degree of cer- tainty the exports from Tunis to the Levant. The registers kept by the custom-houses established in the different ports of the kingdom are very imperfect ; be- sides which a brisk smuggling trade is carried on, and connived at by the officers of the customs, because the first profit from it goes into their pockets. XII. During the same period what was the amount of the exports from Tunis to Europe, and of the imports from Europe into Tunis ? XIII. In tvhat parts were the exports shipped, and by the ships of what nation of Europe or of the Levant ivas this commerce carried on ? The subjoined statement, as concise and as faithful as possible, will completely answer these two questions. Result of the state of Commerce in 1787. The merchandize which we imported into Livres. Tunis amounts to 5,225,844 The amount of exports 4,634,531 Balance in favour of the former 591,313 Total amount of both 9,860,375 Total amount of the commerce, active and passive, of all the foreign nations 5,108,477 Leaving a balance in our favour of 4,751,898 APPENDIX. 333 Tons. There is the same proportion between the respective tonnages, ours amounting to. . 12,806 That of foreigners 6,870 Surplus in favour of ours 5,936 Foreigners themselves freighted part of our vessels. The goods were shipped at Tunis, Bizerta, Porto Fa- rina, Sousse, and Gerbis. As to imports, they all enter the kingdom by the port of la Goletta. According to the note put at the foot of the Abbe Raynal's questions, the imports from Marseilles to Tunis in 1787 amounted to no more than 1,009,963 livres; whereas, by the above statement, they appear to have been 5,225,844 livres. The prodigious difference which exists between these two calculations proceeds from this circumstance, that the former includes nothing but goods ; whereas, in the second, the amount of the money received from Marseilles, and the bills drawn directly on that place or by way of Leghorn, is added. These two articles amount to 4,215,881 livres: and this is as nearly as possible the surplus given by this calculation of the Abbe Raynal. XIV. Are there many proprietors of lands? Are their possessions considerable and secure ? Is not the government the heir of all who die without children, as it is of all its agents ? It is impossible to ascertain the amount of property in lands, or the proportion which may exist between the domains, the private possessions, and the general mass. The government is proprietor of great part of the lands, but no register of those which are private property is kept. It collects one-tenth on the produce, so that, while the fields of an individual lie fallow, they yield absolutely nothing to the government. Here are not seen such great landed properties as in Europe ; but all landed property is under the safeguard of the law, and very rarely subject to oppression from the treasury. The government has for some time, and particularly since the latter part of Ali Bey's reign, had so much respect for itself as not to touch the property of its 334 APPENDIX. subjects, or even that of its agents, who, after amass- ing large fortunes and enjoying them in peace, left possessions to their heirs. The Hanefis (a generic term applied to the Turks and Mamelukes) who die without children, are allowed by law to dispose of one-third of their property, and the treasury claims the rest. It is also heir to all the Melckis (who are Moors) that leave no male issue; but if they have daughters the treasury divides the property with them according to law. The agent of the treasury, who superintends the recovery of this kind of property, is called Ben Elmengi ; he causes the pro- perty, both moveable and immoveable, to be sold, and transfers the produce to the chest of the domains. XV. What number of cruizers is kept by the govern- ment ? Of what class are these vessels ? hi vohat port do they lie ? The government usually keeps from fifteen to twenty cruizers ; consisting of three large vessels of twenty guns, with crews of 130 men, some xebecs of less force, galliots and feluccas.* Porto Farina is the only port frequented by the prince's vessels. The cruizers of private individuals are not more numerous, and nearly in the same proportion in regard to force. The former are equipped and dismantled in all ports of the king- dom, and claim one-tenth of all the prizes taken by private cruizers. XVI. What duty is paid by each ship ? What are the duties paid by merchandize on exportation or importa- tion? Are the duties payable by Europeans and by na- tives the same ? Have they varied of late years ? All vessels in ballast pay nothing ; every vessel, on unloading, pays 17^ piastres, and the same for loading. The French pay only three per cent, on commodities imported from France, and under the French flag. On commodities from Italy or the Levant, the English pay eight per cent. ; and on all goods from whatever place * This force has lately been increased by two kerlanglisches, a large Swedish vessel, which has been pierced for 24 guns, and a xebec, a present from the French republic. APPENDIX. 335 they come, the ether European nations pay something less than the latter. All natives pay eleven per cent, on goods imported from any Christian country, and four per cent, on those from the Levant. In respect to hats, the principal manufacture of the country, government, in order to encourage industry, requires no duty on exportation. As to articles of provision, the exportation is per- mitted by government according to circumstances, and it levies a higher or lower duty, according to the de- mand. This duty is, on wheat, from 12 to 15 piastres the caffis; on barley, from 5 to 9; on all pulse and other grain, 4-| ; and If on the metal of oil. 1802. Wheat 8 to 10 maboubs or more ; barley, 20 to 25 piastres and more ; oil, 2\ to 3 piastres ; and more for the other ports in proportion to the measure, which is larger. N.B. The piastre of Tunis may be reckoned at one livre twelve sous ; the caffis at 3| loads of Marseilles ; it takes three metals to make a millerotte, the rotte being about l^lb. Eighty rottes make a quintal. THE END. LONDON: Printed by J. L. Cox and Sons, 75, Great Queen Street, Lincoln"s-Inn Fields. &ntrr£0tin0 ffi&lot te> latrlj? putilt^rlr. I. THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIANITY. By F. A. De CHATEAUBRIAND, Author of" Travels to Jerusalem," " Atala," &c. 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" When we consider that, from the first year of his appearance in London, in 1741, down to the moment of his retirement from the stage, in the year 177#> he was on terms of more or less intimacy with all the wise, the illustrious, the patriotic of Great Britain ; that he was the favourite of Dr. Johnson, the friend and companion of the celebrated Lord Camden, the associate of Quin and Foote, and Barry and Hen- derson, the protege' of Pope, the correspondent of Bishop Warburton, the fos- terer of the early genius of Sheridan and Siddons, we can readily comprehend the interest that must be attached to the biography of such a man." — Sun. Published for Henry Colburn by R. Bentley. Sold by all Booksellers. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. Fori L 006 340 250 7 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 102 420 7