E GTT HE N,
TEACES OF TRAVEL
BROUGHT HOME
FROM THE EAST.
,
HEROD, vii., 58.
NEW YORK:
WILEY AND PUTNAM, 161 BROADWAY.
1845.
R. CBAiaHKAIW Power Fre,
CONTENTS,
PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAP. I. OVER THE BORDER ...... 1
II. JOURNEY FROM BELGRADE TO CONSTANTINOPLE . 11
III. CONSTANTINOPLE 23
IV. THE TROAD 31
V. INFIDEL SMYRNA 37
VI. GREEK MARINERS 47
VII. CYPRUS 55
VIII. LADY HESTER STANHOPE .... .62
IX. THE SANCTUARY . . . . ... 84
X. THE MONKS OF THE HOLY LAND ... .87
XI. FROM NAZARETH TO TIBERIAS ... 93
XII. MY FIRST BIVOUAC 97
XIII. THE DEAD SEA 104
XIV. THE BLACK TENTS . . . . '..# . .110
XV. PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN 113
XVI. TERRA SANTA . 118
XVII. THE DESERT 133
XVIII. CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE 154
XIX. THE PYRAMIDS 176
XX. THE SPHYNX 179
XXI. CAIRO TO SUEZ 181
XXII. SUEZ 183
XXIII. SUEZ TO GAZA 193
XXIV. GAZA TO NABLOUS 199
XXV. MARIAM 203
XXVI. THE PROPHET DAMOOR 211
XXVII. DAMASCUS 215
XXVIII. PASS OF THE LEBANON . .-._'. . . 222
XXIX. SURPRISE OF SATALIEH .... 226
2036059
PREFACE
ADDRESSED BY
THE AUTHOR TO ONE OF HIS FRIENDS,
WHEN you first entertained the idea of travelling in the
East, you asked me to send you an outline of the tour
which I had made, in order that you might the better be
able to choose a route for yourself. In answer to this re-
quest, I gave you a large French map, on which the .course
of my journeys had been carefully marked ; but I did not
conceal from myself, that this was rather a dry mode for a
man to adopt, when he wished to impart the results of his
experience to a dear and intimate friend. Now, long be-
fore the period of your planning an Oriental tour, I had
intended to write some account of my Eastern Travels.
I had, indeed, begun the task, and had failed ; I had begun
it a second time, and failing again, had abandoned my at-
tempt with a sensation of utter distaste. I was unable to
speak out, and chiefly, I think, for this reason that I knew
not to whom I was speaking. It might be you, or, perhaps,
our Lady of Bitterness, who would read my story ; or it
might be some member of the Royal Statistical Society,
and how on earth was I to write in a way that would do
for all three ?
Well your request for a sketch of my tour suggested
to me the idea of complying with your wish by a revival
of my twice-abandoned attempt. I tried, and the pleasure
and confidence which I felt hi speaking to you, soon made
my task so easy, and even amusing, that after a while
PREFACE.
(though not in time for your tour), I completed the scrawl
from which this book was originally printed.
The very feeling, however, which enabled me to write
thus freely, prevented me from robing my thoughts in that
grave and decorous style which I should have maintained if
I had professed to lecture the public. Whilst 1 feigned to
myself that you, and you only, were listening, I could not
by possibility speak very solemnly. Heaven forbid that I
should talk to my own genial friend, as though he were a
great and enlightened Community, or any other respectable
Aggregate !
Yet I well understood that the mere fact of my professing
to speak to you rather than to the public generally, could
not perfectly excuse me for printing a narrative too roughly
worded, and accordingly, in revising the proof sheets, I
have struck out those phrases which seemed to be less fit
for a published volume than for intimate conversation. It
is hardly to be expected, however, that correction of this
kind should be perfectly complete, or that the almost bois-
terous tone in which many parts of the book were origi-
nally written should be thoroughly subdued. I venture,
therefore, to ask, that the familiarity of language still pos-
sibly apparent in the work, may be laid to the account of
our delightful intimacy, rather than to any presumptuous
motive ; I feel, as you know, much too timidly too dis-
tantly, and too respectfully, towards the Public, to be capa-
ble of seeking to put myself on terms of easy fellowship
with strange and casual readers.
It is right to forewarn people (and I have tried to do this
as well as I can, by my studiously unpromising title-page*)
* " Eothen" is, I hope, almost the only hard word to be found in the
book ; it is written in Greek >'i' poov hvep irpovBev lev Ka\\tppoov vtiup,
but their old channels passing through that light pervious soil
would have been lost in the nine days' flood, and perhaps the
god, when he willed to bring back the rivers to their ancient
beds, may have done his work but ill ; it is easier, they say, to
destroy than it is to restore.
We took to our horses again, and went southward towards
the very plain between Troy and the tents of the Greeks, but we
rode by a line at some distance from the shore. Whether it was
that the lay of the ground hindered my view towards the sea, or
that I was all intent upon Ida, or whether my mind was in
vacancy, or whether, as is most like, I had strayed from the
Dardan plains, all back to gentle England, there is now no
knowing, nor caring, but it was not quite suddenly indeed, but
rather as it were, in the swelling and falling of a single wave,
that the reality of that very sea-view, which had bounded the
sight of the Greeks, now visibly acceded to me, and rolled full
in upon my brain. Conceive how deeply that eternal coast-line
that fixed horizon those island rocks must have graven their
images upon the minds of the Grecian warriors by the time that
they had reached the ninth year of the siege! conceive the
strength, and the fanciful beauty, of the speeches with which a
whole army of imagining men must have told their weariness,
and how the sauntering chiefs must have whelmed that daily,
daily scene with their deep Ionian curses !
And now it was that my eyes were greeted with a delightful
surprise. Whilst we were at Constantinople, Methley and I had
pored over the map together j we agreed that whatever may
36 EOTHEN. [CHAP. iv.
have been the exact site of Troy, the Grecian camp must have
been nearly opposite to the space betwixt the islands of Imbros
and Tenedos :
but Methley reminded me of a passage in the Iliad in which Jove
is represented as looking at the scene of action before Ilion from
above the Island of Samothrace. Now, Samothrace, according
to the map, appeared to be not only out of all seeing distance
from the Troad, but to be entirely shut out from it by the inter-
vening Imbros, which is a larger island, stretching its length
right athwart the line of sight from Samothrace to Troy.
Piously allowing that the eagle-eye of Jove might have seen
the strife even from his own Olympus, I still felt that if a station
were to be chosen from which to see the fight, old Homer, so
material in his ways of thought, so averse from all haziness and
over-reaching, would have meant to give the Thunderer a sta-
tion within the reach of men's eyes from the plains of Troy.
I think that this testing of the poet's words by map and compass,
may have shaken a little of my faith in the completeness of his
knowledge. Well, now I had come j there to the south was
Tenedos, and here at my side was Imbros, all right, and
according to the map, but aloft over Imbros aloft in a far-away
Heaven was Samothrace, the watch-tower of Jove !
So Homer had appointed it, and so it was j the map was cor-
rect enough, but could not, like Homer, convey the whole truth.
Thus vain and false are the mere human surmises and doubts
which clash with Homeric writ !
Nobody, whose mind had not been reduced to the most de-
plorably logical condition, could look upon this beautiful con-
gruity betwixt the Iliad and the material world, and yet bear to
suppose that the poet may have learned the features of the coast
from mere hearsay j now then, I believed now I knew that
Homer had passed along here that this vision of Samothrace
over-towering the nearer island was common to him and to me.
After a journey of some few days by the route of Adramiti
and Pergamo, we reached Smyrna. The letters which Methley
here received obliged him to return to England.
CHAP, v.] INFIDEL SMYRNA.
CHAPTER V.
Infidel Smyrna.
SMYRNA, or Giaour Izmir, as the Mussulmans call it, is the
main point of commercial contact betwixt Europe and Asia ;
you are there surrounded by the people, and the confused cus-
toms of many, and various nations you see the fussy European
adopting the East, and calming his restlessness with the long
Turkish pipe of tranquillity you see Jews offering services,
and receiving blows* on one side you have a fellow whose
dress and beard would give you a good idea of the true oriental,
if it were not for the gobe-mouche expression of countenance
with which he is swallowing an article in the National, and
there, just by, is a genuine Osmanlee, smoking away with all
the majesty of a Sultan, but before you have time to admire
sufficiently his tranquil dignity, and his soft Asiatic repose, the
poor old fellow is ruthlessly " run down " by an English mid-
shipman, who has set sail on a Smyrna hack. Such are the
incongruities of the " infidel city," at ordinary times ; but when
I was there, our friend Carrigaholt had imported himself, and
his oddities, as an accession to the other and inferior wonders
* The Jews of Smyrna are poor, and having little merchandize of their
own to dispose of, they are sadly importunate in offering their services as
intermediaries ; their troublesome conduct has led to the custom of beating
them in the open streets. It is usual for Europeans to carry long sticks with
them for the express purpose of keeping off the chosen people. I always
felt ashamed to strike the poor fellows myself, but I confess to the amuse-
ment with which I witnessed the observance of this custom by other people ;
the Jew seldom got hurt much, for he was always expecting the blow, and
was ready to recede from it the moment it came ; one could not help being
rather gratified at seeing him bound away so nimbly with his long robes
floating out in the air, and then again wheel round, and return with fresh
importunities.
38 EOTHEN. [CHAP. v.
of Smyrna. I was sitting alone in my room one day at Con-
stantinople, when I heard Methley approaching my door with
shouts of laughter and welcome, and presently I recognized
that peculiar cry by which our friend Carrigaholt expresses his
emotions ; he soon explained to us the final causes by which the
fates had worked out their .wonderful purpose of bringing him
to Constantinople. He was always, you know, very fond of
sailing, but he had got into such sad scrapes (including I think
a lawsuit) on account of his last yacht, that he took it into his
head to have a cruise in a merchant vessel, so he went to Liver-
pool, and looked through the craft lying ready to sail, till he
found a smart schooner which perfectly suited his taste : the
destination of the vessel was the last thing he thought of, and
when he was told that she was bound for Constantinople, he
merely assented to that as a part of the arrangement to which
he had no objection. When the vessel had sailed, the hapless
passenger discovered that his skipper carried on board an enor-
mous wife with an inquiring mind, and an irresistible tendency
to impart her opinions. She looked upon her guest as upon a
piece of waste intellect that ought to be carefully tilled. She
tilled him accordingly. If the Dons at Oxford could have seen
poor Carrigaholt thus absolutely " attending lectures " in the
bay of Biscay, they would surely have thought him sufficiently
punished for all the wrongs he did them, whilst he was preparing
himself under their care for the other, and more boisterous
University. The voyage did not last more than six or eight
weeks, and the philosophy inflicted on Carrigaholt was not
entirely fatal to him ; certainly he was somewhat emaciated, and
for aught I know, he may have subscribed somewhat too largely
to the " Feminine-right-of-reason Society ;" but it did not appear
that his health had been seriously affected. There was a
scheme on foot, it would seem, for taking the passenger back to
England in the same schooner a scheme, in fact, for keeping
him perpetually afloat, and perpetually saturated with argu-
ments; but when Carrigaholt found himself ashore, and re-
membered that the skipperina (who had imprudently remained
on board), was not there to enforce her suggestions, he was open
to the hints of his servant (a very sharp fellow), who arranged
CHAP, v.] INFIDEL SMYRNA. 39
a plan for escaping, and finally brought off his master to Giu-
seppini's Hotel.
Our friend afterwards went by sea to Smyrna, and there he
now was in his glory. He had a good, or at all events a gen-
tleman-like judgment in matters of taste, and as his great object
was to surround himself with all that his fancy could dictate,
he lived in a state of perpetual negotiation ; he was for ever on
the point of purchasing, not only the material productions of
the place, but all sorts of such fine ware as " intelligence,"
" fidelity," and so on. He was most curious, however, as a
purchaser of the " affections." Sometimes he would imagine
that he had a marital aptitude, and his fancy would sketch a
graceful picture, in which he appeared reclining on a divan,
With a beautiful Greek woman fondly couched at his feet, and
soothing him with the witchery of her guitar ; having satisfied
himself with the ideal picture thus created, he would pass into
action ; the guitar he would buy instantly, and would give such
intimations of his wish to be wedded to a Greek, as could not
fail to produce great excitement in the families of the beautiful
Smyrniotes. Then again (and just in time perhaps to save
him from the yoke), his dream would pass away, and another
would come in its stead ; he would suddenly feel the yearnings
of a father's love, and willing by force of gold to transcend all
natural preliminaries, he would give instructions for the pur-
chase of some dutiful child that could be warranted to love him
as a parent. Then at another time he would be convinced that
the attachment of menials might satisfy the longings of his
affectionate heart, and thereupon he would give orders to his
slave-merchant for something in the way of eternal fidelity.
You may well imagine that this anxiety of Carrigaholt to pur-
chase (not only the scenery) but the many dramatis personse
belonging to his dreams, with all their goodness, and graces
complete, necessarily gave an immense' stimulus to the trade
and intrigue of Smyrna, and created a demand for human vir-
tues which the moral resources of the place were totally inade-
quate to supply. Every day after breakfast, this lover of the
Good and the Beautiful held a levee, which was often exceedingly
amusing ; in his ante-room, there would be not only the sellers
40 EOTHEN. [CHAP. v.
of pipes, and slippers, and shawls, and such like Oriental mer-
chandize, not only embroiderers, and cunning workmen patiently
striving to realize his visions of Albanian dresses not only the
servants offering for places, and the slave-dealer tendering his
sable ware, but there would be the Greek master, waiting to
teach his pupil the grammar of the soft Ionian tongue, in which
he was to delight the wife of his imagination, and the music-
master who was to teach him some sweet replies to the antici-
pated sounds of the fancied guitar ; and then above all, and
proudly eminent with undisputed preference of entree, and
fraught with the mysterious tidings on which the realization of
the whole drama might depend, was the mysterious match-
maker,* enticing, and postponing the suitor, yet ever keeping
alive in his soul the love of that pictured virtue whose beauty
(unseen by eyes) was half revealed to the Imagination.
You would have thought that this practical dreaming must
have soon brought Carrigaholt to a bad end, but he was in much
less danger than you would suppose ; for besides that the new
visions of happiness almost always came in time to counteract
the fatal completion of the preceding scheme, his high breeding
and his delicately sensitive taste almost always came to his aid,
at times, when he was left without any other protection, and the
efficacy of these qualities in keeping a man out of harm's way
is really immense j in all baseness and imposture there is a
coarse, vulgar spirit, which, however artfully concealed for a
time, must sooner or later show itself in some little circum-
stance, sufficiently plain to occasion an instant jar upon the
minds of those whose taste is lively and true j to such men a shock
of this kind disclosing the ugliness of a cheat, is more effec-
tively convincing than any mere proofs could be.
Thus guarded from isle to isle, and through Greece, and
through Albania, this practical Plato, with a purse in his hand,
carried on his mad chase after the Good and the Beautiful, and
yet returned in safety to his home. But now, poor fellow ! the
lowly grave, that is the end of men's romantic hopes, has closed
* Marriages in the East are arranged by professed match-makers ; many
of these, I believe, are Jewesses,
CHAP, v.] INFIDEL SMYRNA. 41
over all his rich fancies, and all his high aspirations ; he is
utterly married ! No more hope, no more change for him no
more relays he must go on Vetturini-wise to the appointed end
of his journey !
Smyrna, I think, may be called the chief town, and capital of
the Grecian race, against which you will be cautioned so care-
fully as soon as you touch the Levant. You will say that I
ought not to confound as one people the Greeks living under a
constitutional government, with the unfortunate Rayahs who
" groan under the Turkish yoke," but I can't see that political
events have hitherto produced any strongly marked difference
of character. If I could venture to rely (which I feel that I
cannot at all do) upon my own observation, I should tell you
that there was more heartiness and strength in the Greeks of
the Ottoman Empire than in those of the new kingdom the
truth is, that there is a greater field for commercial enterprise,
and even for Greek ambitions, under the Ottoman sceptre, than
is to be found in the dominions of Otho. Indeed the people, by
their frequent migrations from the limits of the constitutional
kingdom, to the territories of the Porte, seem to show, that, on
the whole, they prefer " groaning under the Turkish yoke," to
the honor of " being the only true source of legitimate power,"
in their own land.
For myself, I love the race ; in spite of all their vices, and
even in spite of all their meanness, I remember the blood that
is in them, and still love the Greeks. The Osmanlees are, of
course, by nature, by religion, and by politics, the strong foes
of the Hellenic people, and as the Greeks, poor fellows ! hap-
pen to be a little deficient in some of the virtues which facilitate
the transaction of commercial business (such as veracity, fidel-
ity, &c.), it naturally follows that they are highly unpopular
with the European merchants. Now, these are the persons
through whom, either directly or indirectly, is derived the
greater part of the information which you gather in the Levant,
and therefore you must make up your mind to hear an almost
universal and unbroken testimony against the character of the
people, whose ancestors invented Virtue. And strange to say,
the Greeks themselves do not attempt to disturb this general una-
42 EOTHEN. [CHAP. v.
nimity of opinion by any dissent on their part. Question a
Greek on the subject, and he will tell you at once that the people
are " traditori," and will then, perhaps, endeavor to shake off
his fair share of the imputation, by asserting that his father had
been dragoman to some foreign embassy, and that he (the son),
therefore, by the law of nations, had ceased to be Greek.
"E dunque no siete traditore ?"
" Possibile, Signor, ma almeno lo no sono Greco."
Not even the diplomatic representatives of the Hellenic king-
dom are free from the habit of depreciating their brethren. I
recollect, that at one of the ports in Syria, a Greek vessel was
rather unfairly kept in quarantine by order of the Board of
Health, which consisted entirely of Europeans. A consular
agent from the kingdom of Greece had lately hoisted his flag in
the town, and the captain of the vessel drew up a remonstrance,
which he requested his -consul to present to the Board.
" Now, is this reasonable ?" said the consul, "is it reasonable
that I should place myself in collision with all the principal
European gentlemen of the place for the sake of you, a Greek ?"
The skipper was greatly vexed at the failure of his application,
but he scarcely even questioned the justice of the ground which
his consul had taken. Well, it happened some time afterwards,
that I found myself at the same port, having gone thither- with
the view of embarking for the port of Syra. I was anxious of
course to elude as carefully as possible the quarantine detention
which threatened me on my arrival, and hearing that the Greek
consul had a brother who was a man in authority at Syra, I got
myself presented to the former, and took' the liberty of asking
him to give me such a letter of introduction to his relative at
Syra, as might possibly have the effect of shortening the term
of my quarantine, he acceded to this request with the utmost
kindness and courtesy ; but when he replied to my thanks by
saying that " in serving an Englishman he was doing no more
than his strict duty commanded," not even my gratitude could
prevent me from calling to mind his treatment of the poor cap-
tain who had the misfortune of not being alien in blood to his
consul, and appointed protector.
I think that the change which has taken place in the charac-
CHAP, v.] INFIDEL SMYRNA. 43
ter of the Greeks has been occasioned, in great measure, by the
doctrines and practice of their religion. The Greek Church
has animated the Muscovite peasant, and inspired him with
hopes and ideas, which, however humble, are still better than
none at all ; but the faith, and the forms, and the strange eccle-
siastical literature which act so advantageously upon the mere
clay of the Russian serf, seem to hang like lead upon the
ethereal spirit of the Greek. Never, in any part of the world,
have I seen religious performances so painful to witness as those
of the Greeks. The horror, however, with which one shudders
at their worship, is attributable, in some measure, to the mere
effect of costume. In all the Ottoman dominions, and very fre-
quently too, in the Kingdom of Otho, the Greeks wear turbans,
or other head-dresses, and shave their heads, leaving only a
rat's-tail at the crown of the head ; they of course keep them-
selves covered within doors, as well as abroad, and never remove
their head-gear, merely on account of being in a church : but
when the Greek stops to worship at his proper shrine, then, and
then only, he always uncovers ; and as you see him thus with
shaven skull, and savage tail pending from his crown, kissing a
thing of wood and glass, and cringing with base prostrations,
and apparent terror, before a miserable picture, you see super-
stition in a shape, which, outwardly at least, looks sadly abject,
and repulsive.
The fasts, too, of the Greek Church, produce an ill effect upon
the character of the people, for they are carried to such an ex-
tent, as to bring about a bona fide mortification of the flesh ; the
febrile irritation of the frame operating in conjunction with the
depression of spirits occasioned by abstinence, will so far answer
EOTHEN. [CHAP. v.
the objects of the rite, as to engender some religious excitement,
but this is of a morbid and gloomy character, and it seems to
be certain, that along with the increase of sanctity, there comes
a fiercer desire for the perpetration of dark crimes. The num.
ber of murders committed during Lent is greater, I am told,
than at any other time of the year. A man under the influence
of a bean dietary (for this is the principal food of the Greeks
during their fasts), will be in an apt humor for enriching the
shrine of his Saint, and passing a knife through his next door
neighbor. The moneys deposited upon the shrines are appro-
priated by priests ; the priests are married men, and have fami-
lies to provide for ; they " take the good with the bad," and con-
tinue to recommend fasts.
Then, too, the Greek Church enjoins her followers to keep
holy such a vast number of Saints' days, as practically to
shorten the lives of the people very materially. I believe that
one third out of the number of days in the year are " kept holy,"
or rather, kept stupid, in honor of the Saints ; no great portion
of the time thus set apart is spent in religious exercises,
and the people don't betake themselves to any animating pas-
times, which might serve to strengthen the frame, or invigorate
the mind, or exalt the taste. On the contrary, the Saints' days
of the Greeks in Smyrna, are passed in the same manner as the
Sabbaths of well-behaved Protestant housemaids in London
that is to say, in a steady and serious contemplation of street
scenery. The men perform this duty at the doors of their
houses, the women at the windows, which the custom of Greek
towns has so decidedly appropriated to them as the proper station
of their sex, that a man would be looked upon as utterly effemi-
nate if he ventured to choose that situation fdr the keeping of
the Saints' days. I was present one day at a treaty for the hire
of some apartments at Smyrna, which was carried on between
Carrigaholt, and the Greek woman to whom the rooms belonged.
Carrigaholt objected that the windows commanded no view of
the street : immediately the brow of the majestic matron was
clouded, and with all the scorn of a Spartan mother, she coolly
asked Carrigaholt and said, " Art thou a tender damsel that
thou wouldest sit, and gaze from windows ?" The man whom
CHAP, v.] INFIDEL SMYRNA. 45
she addressed, however, had not gone to Greece with any
intention of placing himself under the laws of Lycurgus, and
was not to be diverted from his views by a Spartan rebuke, so
he took care to find himself windows after his own heart, and
there, I believe, for many a month, he kept the Saints' days,
and all the days intervening, after the fashion of Grecian
women.
Oh ! let me be charitable to all who write, and to all who
lecture, and to all who preach, since even I, a lay-man not
forced to write at all, can hardly avoid chiming in with some
tuneful cant ! I have had the heart to talk about the pernicious
effects of the Greek holidays, to which I owe some of my most
beautiful visions ! I will let the words stand, as an humbling
proof that I am subject to that immutable law which compels a
man with a pen in his hand to be uttering every now and then
some sentiment not his own. It seems as though the power of
expressing regrets and desires by written symbols were coupled
with a condition that the writer should from time to time express
the regrets and desires of other people as though, like a French
peasant under the old regime, one were bound to perform a cer-
tain amount of work upon the public highways. I rebel as
stoutly as I can against this horrible corvee I try not to deceive
you I try to set down the thoughts which are fresh within me,
and not to pretend any wishes, or griefs, which I do not really
feel, but no sooner do I cease from watchfulness in this regard,
than my right hand is, as it were, seized by some false demon,
and even now, you see, I have been forced to put down such
words and sentences as I ought to have written if really and
truly I had wished to disturb the Saints' days of the beautiful
Smyrniotes !
Which, Heaven forbid ! for as you move through the narrow
streets of the city, at these times of festival, the transom-shaped
windows suspended over your head, on either side, are filled
with the beautiful descendants of the old Ionian race ; all (even
yonder Empress that sits throned at the window of that humblest
mud cottage) are attired with seeming magnificence ; their
classic heads are crowned with scarlet, and loaded with jewels,
46 EOTHEN. [CHAP. v.
or coins of gold the whole wealth of the wearers ;* their
features are touched with a savage pencil, which hardens the
outline of eyes and eye-brows and lends an unnatural fire to
the stern^ grave looks, with which they pierce your brain.
Endure their fiery eyes as best you may, and ride on slowly
and reverently, for facing you from the side of the transom, that
looks long-wise through the street, you see the one glorious
shape transcendant in its beauty ; you see the massive braid of
hair as it catches a touch of light on its jetty surface and the
broad, calm, angry brow the large black eyes, deep set, and
self-relying like the eyes of a conqueror, with their rich shadows
of thought lying darkly around them, you see the thin fiery
nostril, and the bold line of the chin and throat disclosing all
the fierceness, and all the pride, passion, and power, that can
live along with the rare womanly beauty of those sweetly
turned lips. But then there is a terrible stillness in this breath-
ing image ; it seems like the stillness of a savage that sits in-
tent, and brooding day by day, upon some one fearful scheme
of vengeance, but yet more like it seems to the stillness of an
Immortal, whose will must be known, and obeyed without sign
or speech. Bow down ! Bow down, and adore the young
Persephone, transcendant Queen of Shades !
* A Greek woman wears her whole fortune upon her person, in the shape
of jewels, or gold coins ; I believe that this mode of investment is adopted
in great measure for safety's sake. It has the advantage of enabling a suitor
to reckon, as well as to admire the objects of his affection.
CHAP, vi.] GREEK MARINERS. 47
CHAPTER VI.
Greek Mariners.
I SAILED from Smyrna in the Amphitrite, a Greek brigantine,
which was confidently said to be bound for the coast of Syria,
but I knew that this announcement was not to be relied upon
with positive certainty, for the Greek mariners are practically
free from the stringency of ship's papers, and where they will,
there they go. However, I had the whole of the cabin for my-
self, and my attendant, Mysseri, subject only to the society of
the Captain at the hour of dinner ; being at ease in this respect,
being furnished too with plenty of books, and finding an unfail-
ing source of interest in the thorough Greekness of my Captain
and my crew, I felt less anxious than most people would have
been about the probable length of the cruise ; I knew enough of
Greek navigation to be sure that our vessel would cling to Earth
like a child to its mother's knee, and that I should touch at many
an isle before I set foot upon the Syrian coast ; but I had no
invidious preference for Europe, Asia, or Africa, and I felt that
I could defy the winds to blow me upon a coast that was blank,
and void of interest. My patience was extremely useful to me,
for the cruise altogether endured some forty days, and that in
the midst of winter.
According to me, the most interesting of all the Greeks (male
Greeks) are the mariners, because their pursuits and their so-
cial condition are so nearly the same as those of their glorious
ancestors j you will say, that the occupation of commerce must
have smoothed down the salience of their minds, and this would
be so perhaps, if their mercantile affairs were conducted accord-
ing to the fixed business-like routine of Europeans ; but the
ventures of the Greeks are surrounded by such a multitude of
imagined dangers, and (from the absence of regular marts in
48 EOTHEN. [CHAP. vi.
which the true value of merchandize can be ascertained) are
so entirely speculative, and besides, are conducted in a manner
so wholly determined upon by the wayward fancies and wishes
of the crew, that they belong to Enterprise, rather than to in-
dustry, and are very far indeed from tending to deaden any
freshness of character.
The vessels in which war and piradflr were carried on during
the years of the Greek Revolution, became merchantmen at the
end of the war but the tactics of the Greeks, as naval war-
riors, were so exceedingly cautious, and their habits, as commer-
cial mariners, are so wild, that the change has been more slight
than you might imagine. The first care of Greeks (Greek
Rayahs) when they undertake a shipping enterprise, is to pro-
cure for their vessel the protection of some European Power ;
this is easily managed by a little intriguing with the Dragoman
of one of the Embassies at Constantinople, and the critffc soon
glories in the ensign of Russia, or the dazzling Tricolor, or the
Union Jack ; thus, to the great delight of her crew, she enters
upon the ocean world with a flaring lie at her peak, but the
appearance of the vessel does no discredit to the borrowed flag ;
she is frailer, perhaps, than the rest of her sex, but she does not
look the worse for this in harbor ; she is gracefully built, and
smartly rigged ; she always carries guns, and in short, gives
good promise of mischief and speed.
The privileges attached to the vessel "and her crew, by virtue
of the borrowed flag, are so great as to imply a degree of liberty,
greater than that which is enjoyed by individuals in our more
strictly civilized countries, so that there is no pretence for say-
ing that the development of the true character belonging to
Greek mariners is prevented by the dominion of the Ottomans ;
they are free, too, from the power of the great capitalist whose
imperial sway is more withering than despotism itself, to the
enterprises of humble adventurers. The capital employed is
supplied by those whose labor is to render it productive ; the
crew receive no wages, but have all a share in the venture, and
in general, I believe, they are the owners of the whole freight ;
they choose a Captain to whom they entrust just power enough
to keep the vessel on her course in fine weather, but not quite
CHAP, vi.] GREEK MARINERS. 49
enough for a gale of wind ; they also elect a cook and a mate ;
the cook whom we had on board was particularly careful about
the ship's reckoning, and when, under the influence of the keen
sea breeze, we grew fondly expectant of an instant dinner, the
great author of pilafs would be standing on deck with an ancient
quadrant in his hands, calmly affecting to take an observation.
But then to make up for this, the Captain would be exercising a
controlling influence over the soup, so that all, in the end, went
well. Our mate was a Hydriot, a native of that island rock
which grows nothing but mariners and mariners' wives. His
character seemed to be exactly that which is generally attribut-
ed to the Hydriot race ; he was fierce, and gloomy, and lonely
in his ways. One of his principal duties seemed to be that of
acting as counter-captain, or leader of the opposition, denounc-
ing the first symptoms of tyranny, and protecting even the
cabin-boy from oppression. Besides this, when things went
smoothly, he would begin to prognosticate evil, in order that his
more light-hearted comrades might not be puffed up with the
seeming good fortune of the moment.
It seemed to me that the personal freedom of these sailors,
who own no superiors except those of their own choice, is as like
as may be to that of their sea-faring ancestors. And even in
their mode of navigation they have admitted no such an entire
change as you would suppose probable ; it is true that they
have so far availed themselves of modern discoveries as to look
to the compass instead of the stars, and that they have supersed-
ed the immortal Gods of their forefathers by St. Nicholas in
his glass case,* but they are not yet so confident either in their
needle or their Saint, as to love an open sea, and they still hug
their shores as fondly as the Argonauts of old. Indeed, they
have a most unsailorlike love for the land, and I really believe
that in a gale of wind they would rather have a rock-bound
coast on their lee, than no coast at all. According to the
notions of an English seaman, this kind of navigation would
* St. Nicholas is the great patron of Greek sailors ; a small picture of
him enclosed in a glass case is hung up like a barometer at one end of the
cabin.
GO EOTHEN. [CHAP. vi.
soon bring the vessel on which it might be practised, to an evil
end. The Greek, however, is unaccountably successful in
escaping the consequences of being "jammed in," as it is
called, upon a lee shore; he is favored, I suppose, by the
nature of the coast along which he sails, especially those of the
many islands through which he threads his way in the ^Egean,
for there is generally, I think, deep water home to the very
cliffs, and besides there are innumerable coves in which the
dexterous sailor, who knows and loves the land so well, will
contrive to find a shelter.
These seamen, like their forefathers, rely upon no winds
unless they are right a-stern, or on the quarter ; they rarely go
on a wind if it blows at all fresh, and if the adverse breeze ap-
proaches to a gale, they at once fumigate St. Nicholas, and put
up the helm. The consequence, of course, is, that under the
ever- vary ing winds of the ^Egean they are blown about in the
most whimsical manner. I used to think that Ulysses, with his
ten years' voyage, had taken his time in making Ithaca, but my
experience in Greek navigation soon made me understand that
he had, in point of fact, a pretty good " average passage."
Such are now the mariners of the ..
riness of our beasts (which had already done two good days'
journey in one) forced us to determine upon coming to a stand-
still. Upon the heights to the eastward we saw lights ; these
100 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xn.
shone from caves on the mountain-side, inhabited, as the Naza-
rene told us, by rascals of a low sort not real Bedouins men
whom we might frighten into harmlessness, but from whom there
was no willing hospitality to be expected.
We heard at a little distance the brawling of a rivulet, and on
the banks of this it was determined to establish our bivouac ; we
soon found the stream, and following its course for a few yards,
came to a spot which was thought to be fit for our purpose. It
was a sharply cold night in February, and when I dismounted I
found myself standing upon some wet, rank herbage, that pro-
mised ill for the comfort of our resting-place. I had bad hopes
of a fire, for the pitchy darkness of the night was a great obsta-
cle to any successful search for fuel, and besides, the boughs of
trees or bushes would be so full of sap in this early spring, that
they would not be easily persuaded to burn. However, we were
not likely to submit to a dark and cold bivouac without an effort,
and my fellows groped forward through the darkness, till after
advancing a few paces, they were happily stopped by a complete
barrier of dead prickly bushes. Before our swords could be
drawn to reap this glorious harvest, it was found, to our surprise,
that the precious fuel was already hewn, and strewed along the
ground in a thick mass. A spot fit for the fire was found with
some difficulty, for the earth was moist, and the grass high and
rank. At last there was a clicking of flint and steel, and pre-
sently there stood out from darkness one of the tawny faces of
my muleteers, bent down to near the ground, and suddenly lit up
by the glowing of the spark, which he courted with careful
breath. Before long there was a particle of dry fibre, or leaf,
that kindled to a tiny flame ; then another was lit from that, and
then another. Then small, crisp twigs, little bigger than bod-
kins, were laid athwart the growing fire. The swelling cheeks
of the muleteer laid level with the earth, blew tenderly at first,
and then more boldly, upon the young flame, which was daintily
nursed and fed, and fed more plentifully when it gained good
strength. At last a whole armful of dry bushes was piled up
over the fire, and presently with loud, cheery cracking and crack-
ling, a royal tall blaze shot up from the earth, and showed me
once more the shapes and faces of my men, and the dim outlines
of the horses and mules that stood grazing hard by.
CHAP, xii.] MY FIRST BIVOUAC. 101
My servants busied themselves in unpacking the baggage, as
though we had arrived at an hotel Shereef and his helpers un-
saddled their cattle. We had left Tiberias without the slightest
idea that we were to make our way to Jerusalem along the deso-
late side of the Jordan, and my servants (generally provident in
those matters) had brought with them only, I think, some unlea-
vened bread, and a rocky fragment of goat's-milk cheese.
These treasures were produced. Tea, and the contrivances for
making it, were always a standing part of my baggage. My
men gathered in circle around the fire. The Nazarene was in
a false position, from having misled us so strangely, and he
would have shrunk back, poor devil, into the cold and outer
darkness, but I made him draw near, and share the luxuries of
the night. My quilt and my pelisse were spread, and the rest
of my party had all their capotes, or pelisses, or robes of some
sort, which furnished their couches. The men gathered in cir-
cle, some kneeling, some sitting, some lying reclined around our
common hearth. Sometimes on one, sometimes on another, the
flickering light would glare more fiercely. Sometimes it was
the good Shereef that seemed the foremost, as he sat with vene-
rable beard, the image of manly piety unknowing of all
geography, unknowing where he was, or whither he might go,
but trusting in the goodness of God, and the clenching power of
fate, and the good star of the Englishman. Sometimes like
marble, the classic face of the Greek Mysseri would catch the
sudden light, and then again by turns the ever-perturbed Dthe-
metri, with his odd Chinaman's eyes, and bristling, terrier-like
moustache, shone forth illustrious.
I always liked the men who attended me on these Eastern
travels, for they were all of them brave, cheery-hearted fellows,
and although their following my career brought upon them a
pretty large share of those toils and hardships which are so much
more amusing to gentlemen than to servants, yet not one of
them ever uttered or hinted a syllable of complaint, or even
affected to put on an air of resignation ; I always liked them,
but never perhaps so much as when they were thus grouped
together under the light of the bivouac fire. I felt towards
them as my comrades, rather than as my servants, and took
102 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xn.
delight in breaking bread with them, and merrily passing the
cup.
The love of tea is a glad source of fellow-feeling between
the Englishman and the Asiatic ; in Persia it is drunk by all,
and although it is a luxury that is rarely within the reach of the
Osmanlees, there are few of them who do not know and love the
blessed "tchai."* Our camp-kettle filled from the brook hum-
med doubtfully for awhile then busily bubbled under the side-
long glare of the flames cups clinked and rattled the fragrant
steam ascended, and soon this little circlet in the wilderness
grew warm and genial as my lady's drawing-room.
And after this there came the tchibouque great comforter of
those that are hungry and way-worn. And it has this virtue
it helps to destroy the gene and awkwardness which one some-
times feels at being in company with one's dependents; for
whilst the amber is at your lips, there is nothing ungracious in
your remaining silent, or speaking pithily in short inter-whiff
sentences. And for us that night there was pleasant and plen-
tiful matter of talk ; for the where we should be on the morrow,
and the wherewithal we should be fed whether by some ford
we should regain the western banks of Jordan, or find bread and
salt under the tents of a wandering tribe, or whether we should
fall into the hands of the Philistines, and so come to see Death
the last, and greatest of all " the fine sights" that there be
these were questionings not dull nor wearisome to us, for we
were all concerned in the answers. And it was not an ill-
imagined morrow that we probed with our sharp guesses, for the
lights of those low Philistines the men of the caves still hung
over our heads, and we knew by their yells that the fire of our
bivouac had shown us.
At length we thought it well to seek for sleep. Our plans
were laid for keeping up a good watch through the night. My
quilt, and my pelisse, and my cloak, were spread out so that
I might lie spokewise, with my feet towards the central fire. I
wrapped my limbs daintily round, and gave myself positive
orders to sleep like a veteran soldier. But I found that my
attempt to sleep upon the earth that God gave me was more
new and strange than I had fancied it. I had grown used to
CHAP, xii.] MY FIRST BIVOUAC. 103
the scene which was before me whilst I was sitting, or reclining
by the side of the fire, but now that I laid myself down at length,
it was the deep black mystery of the heavens that hung over my
eyes not an earthly thing in the way from my own very fore-
head right up to the end of all space. I grew proud of my
boundless bed-chamber. I might have " found sermons" in all
this greatness (if I had I should surely have slept), but such was
not then my way. If this cherished Self of mine had built the
Universe, I should have dwelt with delight on the " wonders of
creation." As it was, I felt rather the vain-glory of my pro-
motion from out of mere rooms and houses into the midst of that
grand, dark, infinite palace.
And then, too, my head, far from the fire, was in cold lati-
tudes, and it seemed to me strange that I should be lying so
still, and passive, whilst the sharp night breeze walked free
over my cheek, and the cold damp clung to my hair, as though
my face grew in the earth, and must bear with the footsteps of
the wind, and the falling of the dew, as meekly as the grass of
the field. Besides, I got puzzled and distracted by having to
endure heat and cold at the same time, for I was always con-
sidering whether my feet were not over-devilled, and whether
my face was not too well iced. And so when from time to time
the watch quietly and gently kept up the languishing fire, he
seldom, I think, was unseen to my restless eyes. Yet, at last,
when they called me, and said that the morn would soon be
dawning, I rose from a state of half-oblivion, not much unlike
to sleep, though sharply qualified by a sort of vegetable's con-
sciousness of having been growing still colder and colder, for
many, and many an hour.
104 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xin.
CHAPTER XIII.
The Dead Sea.
THE grey light of the morning showed us for the first time, the
ground which we had chosen for our resting-place. We found
that we had bivouacked upon a little patch of barley, plainly
belonging to the men of the caves. The dead bushes which we
found so happily placed in readiness for our fire, had been
strewn as a fence for the protection of the little crop. This
was the only cultivated spot of ground which we had seen for
many a league, and I was rather sorry to find that our night
fire and our cattle had spread so much ruin upon this poor soli-
tary slip of corn land.
The saddling and loading of our beasts, was a work which
generally took nearly an hour, and before this was half over,
daylight came. We could now see the men of the caves.
They collected in a body, amounting, I should think, to nearly
fifty, and rushed down towards our quarters with fierce shouts
and yells. But the nearer they came, the slower they went ;
their shouts grew less resolute in tone, and soon ceased alto-
gether. The fellows advanced to a thicket within thirty yards
of us, and behind this " took up their position." My men with-
out premeditation did exactly that which was best ; they kept
steadily to their work of loading the beasts without fuss, or
hurry, and whether it was that they instinctively felt the wisdom
of keeping quiet, or that they merely obeyed the natural incli-
nation to silence, which one feels in the early morning I can-
not tell, but I know that except when they exchanged a syllable
or two relative to the work they were about, not a word was
said. I now believe, that this quietness of our party created
an undefined terror in the minds of the cave-holders, and scared
them from coming on; it gave them a notion that we were re-
CHAP, xrn.] THE DEAD SEA. 105
lying on some resources which they knew not of. Several
times the fellows tried to lash themselves into a state of excite-
ment which might do instead of pluck. They would raise a
great shout, and sway forward in a dense body from behind the
thicket ; but when they saw that their bravery, thus gathered
to a head, did not even suspend the strapping of a portmanteau,
or the tying of a hat-box, their shout lost its spirit, and the whole
mass was irresistibly drawn back like a wave receding from
the shore.
These attempts at an onset were repeated several times, but
always with the same result ; I remained under the apprehen-
sion of an attack for more than half an hour, and it seemed to
me that the work of packing and loading had never been done
so slowly. I felt inclined to tell my fellows to make their best
speed, but just as I was going to speak, I observed that every
one was doing his duty already ; I therefore held my peace, and
said not a word, till at last Mysseri led up my horse, and asked
me if I were ready to mount.
We all marched off without hindrance.
After some time, we came across a party of Ibrahim's cavalry,
which had bivouacked at no great distance from us. The
knowledge that such a force was in the neighborhood may have
conduced to the forbearance of the cave-holders.
We saw a scraggy-looking fellow nearly black, and wearing
nothing but a cloth round the loins; he was tending flocks.
Afterwards I came up with another of these goat-herds, whose
helpmate was with him. They gave us some goat's milk, a wel-
come present. I pitied the poor devil of a goat-herd for having such
a very plain wife. I spend an enormous quantity of pity upon
that particular form of human misery.
About mid-day I began to examine my map, and to question
my guide, who at last fell on his knees, and confessed that he
knew nothing of the country in which we were. I was thus thrown
upon my own resources, and calculating that on the preceding
day, we had nearly performed a two days' journey, I concluded
that the Dead Sea must be near. In this I was right, for at
about 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I caught a first sight of its
dismal face.
10G EOTHEN. [CHAP. xin.
I went on, and came near to those waters of Death ; they
stretched deeply into the southern desert, and before me, and all
around, as far away as the eye could follow, blank hills piled
high over hills, pale, yellow, and naked, walled up in her tomb
for ever, the dead, and damned Gomorrah. There was no fly
that hummed in the forbidden air, but instead a deep stillness
no grass grew from the earth no weed peered through the void
sand, but in mockery of all life, there were trees borne down by
Jordan in some ancient flood, and these grotesquely planted upon
the forlorn shore, spread out their grim skeleton arms all scorch-
ed, and charred to blackness, by the heats of the long, silent
years.
I now struck off towards the debouchure of the river ; but I
found that the country, though seemingly quite flat, was inter-
sected by deep ravines, which did not show themselves until
nearly approached. For some time my progress was much
obstructed ; but at last I came across a track which led towards
the river, and which might, as I hoped, bring me to a ford. I
found, in fact, when I came to the river's side, that the track
reappeared upon the opposite banks, plainly showing that the
stream had been fordable at this place. Now, however, in con-
sequence of the late rains, the river was quite impracticable for
baggage horses. A body of waters, about equal to the Thames
at Eton, but confined to a narrower channel, poured down in a
current so swift and heavy, that the idea of passing with laden
baggage horses was utterly forbidden. I could have swum
across myself, and I might, perhaps, have succeeded in swim-
ming a horse over. But this would have been useless, because
in such case I must have abandoned, not only my baggage, but
all my attendants, for none of them were able to swim, and with-
out that resource, it would have been madness for them to rely
upon the swimming of their beasts across such a powerful
stream. I still hoped, however, that there might be a chance of
passing the river at the point of its actual junction with the Dead
Sea, and I therefore went on in that direction.
Night came upon us whilst laboring across gullies, and sandy
mounds, and we were obliged to come to a stand-still quite sud-
denly, upon the very edge of a precipitous descent. Every step
CHAP, xin.] THE DEAD SEA. 107
towards the Dead Sea had brought us into a country more, and
more dreary ; and this sand-hill, which we were forced to choose
for our resting-place, was dismal enough. A few slender blades
of grass, which here and there singly pierced the sand, mocked
bitterly the hunger of our jaded beasts, and with our small
remaining fragment of goat's milk rock, by way of supper, we
were not much better off than our horses ; we wanted, too, the
great requisite of a cheery bivouac fire. Moreover, the spot on
which we had been so suddenly brought to a stand-still was rela-
tively high, and unsheltered, and the night wind blew swiftly,
and cold.
The next morning I reached the debouchure of the Jordan,
where I had hoped to find a bar of sand that might render its
passage possible. The river, however, rolled its eddying waters
fast down to the " sea," in a strong, deep stream that shut out all
hope of crossing. It was always said that no vegetation could
live in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea, but now I began to
look upon my party and myself as forming a very fine " planta-
tion ;" for never in the hunting sense of the term were men more
thoroughly " planted."
It now seemed necessary either to construct a raft of some
kind, or else to retrace my steps, and remount the banks of the
Jordan. 1 had once happened to give some attention to the sub-
ject of military bridges a branch of military science which
includes the construction of rafts, and contrivances of the like
sort, and I should have been very proud indeed, if I could have
carried my party and my baggage across by dint of any idea
gathered from Sir Howard Douglas, or Robinson Crusoe. But
we were all faint, and languid from want of food, and besides
there were no materials. Higher up the river there were bushes,
and river plants, but nothing like timber, and the cord with
which my baggage was tied to the pack-saddles amounted
altogether to a very small quantity not nearly enough to h aul
any sort of craft across the stream.
And now it was, if I remember rightly, that Dthemetri sub-
mitted to me a plan for putting to death the Nazarene, whose
misguidance had been the cause of our difficulties. There was
something fascinating in this suggestion, for the slaying of the
108 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xin.
guide was of course easy enough, and would look like an act of
what politicians call " vigor." If it were only to become known
to my friends in England that I had calmly killed a fellow crea-
ture for taking me out of my way, I might remain perfectly quiet
and tranquil for all the rest of my days, quite free from the
danger of being considered " slow ;" I might ever after live on
upon my reputation like "single-speech Hamilton" in the last
century, or "single-sin " in this, without being obliged to
take the trouble of doing any more harm in the world. This
was a great temptation to an indolent person, but the motive was
not strengthened by any sincere feeling of anger with the .Na-
zarene : whilst the question of his life and death was debated,
he was riding in front of our party, and there was something in the
anxious writhing of his supple limbs that seemed to express a
sense of his false position, and struck me as highly comic ; I
had no crotchet at that time against the punishment of the
death, but I was unused to blood, and the proposed victim looked
so thoroughly capable of enjoying life (if he could only get to
the other side of the rive), that I thought it would be hard for
him to die, merely in order to give me a character for energy.
Acting on the result of these considerations, and reserving to
myself a free and unfettered discretion to have the poor villain
shot at any future moment, I magnanimously decided that for
the present he should live, and not die.
I bathed in the Dead Sea. The ground covered by the water,
sloped so gradually, that I was not only forced to " sneak in,"
but to walk through the water nearly a quarter of a mile before
I could get out of my depth. When at last I was able to attempt
a dive, the salts held in solution made my eyes smart so sharply
that the pain which I thus suffered acceding to the weakness
occasioned by want of food, made me giddy and faint for some
moments, but I soon grew better. I knew beforehand the im-
possibility of sinking in this buoyant water, but I was surprised
to find that I could not swim at my accustomed pace ; my legs
and feet were lifted so high and dry out of the lake, that my
stroke was baffled, and I found myself kicking against the thin
air, instead of the dense fluid upon which I was swimming. The
water is perfectly bright and clear ; its taste detestable. After
CHAP, xni.] THE DEAD SEA. 109
finishing my attempts at swimming and diving, I took some time
in regaining the shore, and before I began to dress, I found that
the sun had already evaporated the water which clung to me,
and that my skin was thickly encrusted with sulphate of mag-
nesia.
110 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xiv.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Black Tents.
MY steps were reluctantly turned towards the north. I had
ridden some way and still it seemed that, all life was fenced, and
barred out from the desolate ground over which I was jour-
neying. On the west there flowed the impassable Jordan ;
on the east stood an endless range of barren mountains, and on
the south lay that desert sea that knew not the plashing of an
oar j greatly therefore was I surprised, when suddenly there
broke upon my ear, the long, ludicrous, persevering bray of a
living donkey. I was riding at this time some few hundred
yards a-head of all my party, except the Nazarene (who by a
wise instinct kept closer to me than to Dthemetri), and I instantly
went forward in the direction of the sound, for I fancied that
where there were donkeys, there too most surely would be men.
The ground on all sides of me seemed thoroughly void and life-
less, but at last I got down into a hollow, and presently a sudden
turn brought me within thirty yards of an Arab encampment.
The low black tents which I had so long lusted to see were right
before me, and they were all teeming with live Arabs men,
women, and children.
I wished to have let my party behind know where I was, but
I recollected that they would be able to trace me by the prints
of my horse's hoofs in the sand, and having to do with Asiatics,
I felt the danger of the slightest movement which might be
looked upon as a sign of irresolution. Therefore, without look-
ing behind me without looking to the right or to the left, I rode
straight up towards the foremost tent. Before this was strewn a
semicircular fence of dead boughs, through which there was an
opening opposite to the front of the tent. As I advanced, some
twenty or thirty of the most uncouth looking fellows imaginable
CHAP, xiv.] THE BLACK TENTS. Ill
came forward to meet me. In their appearance they showed
nothing of the Bedouin blood ; they were of many colors, from
dingy brown to jet black, and some of these last had much of
the negro look about them. They were tall, powerful fellows,
but awfully ugly. They wore nothing but the Arab shirts,
confined at the waist by leathern belts.
I advanced to the gap left in the fence, and at once alighted
from my horse. The chief greeted me after his fashion by alter,
nately touching first my hand and then his own forehead, as if
he were conveying the virtue of the touch like a spark of elec-
tricity. Presently I found myself seated upon a sheep-skin,
which was spread for me under the sacred shade of Arabian
canvass. The tent was of a long, narrow, oblong form, and
contained a quantity of men, women and children, so closely
huddled together, that there was scarcely one of them who was
not in actual contact with his neighbor. The moment I had
taken my seat, the chief repeated his salutations in the most en-
thusiastic manner, and then the people having gathered densely
about me, got hold of my unresisting hand, and passed it round
like a claret jug for the benefit of everybody. The women soon
brought me a wooden bowl full of buttermilk, and welcome in-
deed came the gift to my hungry and thirsty soul.
After some time my party, as I had expected, came up, and
when poor Dthemetri saw me on my sheep-skin, " the life and
soul" of this ragamuffin party, he was so astounded that he even
failed to check his cry of horror ; he plainly thought that now,
at last, the Lord had delivered me (interpreter and all) into the
hands of the lowest Philistines.
Mysseri carried a tobacco pouch slung at his belt, and as soon
as its contents were known, the whole population of the tent be-
gan begging like spaniels for bits of the beloved weed. I con-
cluded,, from the abject manner of those people, that they could
not possibly be thorough-bred Bedouins, and I saw too, that they
must be in the very last stage of misery, for poor indeed is the
man in these climes, who cannot command a pipeful of tobacco.
I began to think that I had fallen amongst thorough savages,
and it seemed likely enough that they would gain their very first
knowledge of civilisation by ravishing and studying the con-
112 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xiv.
tents of my dearest portmanteaus, but still my impression was
that they would hardly venture upon such an attempt ; I observ-
ed, indeed, that they did not offer me the bread and salt, which
I had understood to be the pledges of peace amongst wandering
tribes, but I fancied that they refrained from this act of hospi-
tality, not in consequence of any hostile determination, but in
order that the notion of robbing me might remain for the present
an " open question." I afterwards found that the poor fellows
had no bread to offer. They were literally " out at grass ;" it is
true that they had a scanty supply of milk from goats, but they
were living almost entirely upon certain grass stems, which
were just in season at that time of the year. These, if not
highly nourishing, are pleasant enough to the taste, and their
acid juices came gratefully to thirsty lips.
CHAP, xv.] PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN. 113
CHAPTER XV,
Passage of the Jordan.
AND now Dthemetri began to enter into a negotiation with my
hosts for a passage over the river. I never interfered with my
worthy Dragoman upon these occasions, because from my entire
ignorance of the Arabic, I should have been quite unable to
exercise any real control over his words, and it would have
been silly to break the stream of his eloquence to no purpose.
I have reason to fear, however, that he lied transcendantly, and
especially in representing me as the bosom friend of Ibrahim
Pasha. The mention of that name produced immense agitation
and excitement, and the Sheik explained to Dthemetri the
grounds of the infinite respect which he and his tribe entertained
for the Pasha. A few weeks before Ibrahim had craftily sent
a body of troops across the Jordan. The force went warily
round to the foot of the mountains on the East, so as to cut off
the retreat of this tribe, and then surrounded them as they lay
encamped in the vale ; their camels, and indeed all their
possessions worth taking, were carried off by the soldiery, and
moreover the then Sheik, together with every tenth man of the
tribe, was brought out and shot. You would think that this
conduct on the part of the Pasha might not procure for his
" friend" a very gracious reception amongst the people whom
he had thus despoiled and decimated, but the Asiatic seems to
be animated with a feeling of profound respect, almost border-
ing upon affection, for all who have done him any bold and
violent wrong, and there is always too, so much of vague and
undefined apprehension mixed up with his really well-founded
alarms, that I can see no limit to the yielding and bending of
his mind when it is worked upon by the idea of power.
After some discussion the Arabs agreed, as I thought, to con-
9
114 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xv.
duct me to a ford, and we moved on towards the river, followed
by seventeen of the most able-bodied of the tribe, under the
guidance of several grey-bearded elders, and Sheik Ali Djoub-
ran at the head of the whole detachment. Upon leaving the
encampment a sort of ceremony was performed, for the purpose,
it seemed, of ensuring, if possible, a happy result for the under-
taking. There was an uplifting of arms, and a repeating of
words, that sounded like formulae, but there were no prostra-
tions, and I did not understand that the ceremony was of a re-
ligious character. The tented Arabs are looked upon as very
bad Mahometans.
We arrived upon the banks of the river not at a ford, but at
a deep and rapid part of the stream, and I now understood that
it was the plan of these men, if they helped me at all, to trans-
port me across the river by some species of raft. But a reac-
tion had taken place in the opinions of many, and a violent dis-
pute arose, upon a motion which seemed to have been made by
some honorable member, with a view to robbery. The fellows
all gathered together in circle, at a little distance from my party,
and there disputed with great vehemence and fury, for nearly
two hours. I can't give a correct report of the debate, for it
was held in a barbarous dialect of the Arabic, unknown to my
Dragoman. I recollect, I sincerely felt at the time that the
arguments in favor of robbing me must have been almost un-
answerable, and I gave great credit to the speakers on my side
for the ingenuity and sophistry which they must have shown in
maintaining the fight so well.
During the discussion, I remained lying in front of my bag-
gage, which had all been taken from the pack-saddles, and
placed upon the ground. I was so languid from want of food,
that I had scarcely animation enough to feel as deeply inter-
ested as you would suppose, in the result of the discussion. I
thought, however, that the pleasantest toys to play with, during
this interval, were my pistols, and now and then, when I list-
lessly visited my loaded barrels with the swivel ramrods, or
drew a sweet, musical click from my English firelocks, it
seemed to me that I exercised a slight and gentle influence on
the debate. Thanks to Ibrahim Pasha's terrible visitation, the
CHAP, xv.] PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN. 115
men of the tribe were wholly unarmed, and my advantage in
this respect might have counter-balanced in some measure the
superiority of numbers.
Mysseri (not interpreting in Arabic) had no duty to perform,
and he seemed to be faint and listless as myself. Shereef
looked perfectly resigned to any fate. But Dthemetri (faithful
terrier !) was bristling with zeal and watchfulness ; he could
not understand the debate, which indeed was carried on at a
distance too great to be easily heard, even if the language had
been familiar ; but he was always on the alert, and now and
then conferring with men who had straggled out of the assembly ;
at last he found an opportunity of making a proposal, which at
once produced immense sensation ; he offered, on my behalf,
that if the tribe should bear themselves loyally towards me, and
take my party and my baggage in safety to the other bank of
the river, I should give them a " teskeri," or written certificate
of their good conduct, which might avail them hereafter in the
hour of their direst need. This proposal was received, and in-
stantly accepted by all the men of the tribe there present, with
the utmost enthusiasm. I was to give the men, too, a " bak-
sheish," that is, a present of money, which is usually made
upon the conclusion of any sort of treaty ; but, although the
people of the tribe were so miserably poor, they seemed to look
upon the pecuniary part of the arrangement as a matter quite
trivial in comparison with the " teskeri." Indeed the sum
which Dthemetri promised them was extremely small, and not
the slightest attempt was made to extort any further reward.
The Council now broke up, and most of the men rushed madly
towards me, and overwhelmed me with vehement gratulations ;
they caressed my boots with much affection, and my hands
were severely kissed.
The Arabs now went to work in right earnest to effect the
passage of the river. They had brought with them a great
number of the skins which they use for carrying water in the
desert ; these they filled with air, and fastened several of them
to small boughs which they cut from the banks of the river. In
this way they constructed a raft not more than about four feet
square, but rendered buoyant by the inflated skins which sup-
116 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xv.
ported it. On this a portion of my baggage was placed, and
was firmly tied to it by the cords used on my pack-saddles.
The little raft, with its weighty cargo, was then gently lifted
into the water, and I had the satisfaction to see that it floated well.
Twelve of the Arabs now stripped, and tied inflated skins to
their loins ; six of the men went down into the river, got in
front of the little raft, and pulled it off a few feet from the bank.
The other six then dashed into the stream with loud shouts,
and swam along after the raft, pushing it from behind. Off
went the craft in capital style at first, for the stream was easy
on the eastern side, but I saw that the tug was to come, for the
main torrent swept round in a bend near the western banks of
the river.
The old men with their long grey grisly beards stood shout-
ing and cheering, praying and commanding. At length the
raft entered upon the difficult part of its course ; the whirling
stream seized and twisted it about, and then bore it rapidly
downwards ; the swimming men flagged, and seemed to be beat
in the struggle. But now the old men on the bank, with their
rigid arms uplifted straight, sent forth a cry and a shout that
tore the wide air into tatters, and then to make their urging yet
more strong, they shrieked out the dreadful syllables, " 'brahim
Pasha !" The swimmers, one moment before so blown, and so
weary, found lungs to answer the cry, and shouting back the
name of their great destroyer, they dashed on through the tor-
rent and bore the raft in safety to the western bank.
Afterwards the swimmers returned with the raft, and attached
to it the rest of my baggage. I took my seat upon the top of the
cargo, and the raft thus laden, passed the river in the same way
and with the same struggle as before. The skins, however, not
being perfectly air-tight, had lost a great part of their buoyan-
cy, so that I, as well as the luggage that passed on this last voy-
age, got wet in the waters of Jordan. The raft could not be
trusted for another trip, and the rest of my party passed the river
in a different, and (for them) much safer way. Inflated skins
were fastened to their loins, and thus supported, they were tug-
ged across by Arabs swimming on either side of them. The
horses and mules were thrown into the water, and forced to
swim over j the poor beasts had a hard struggle for their lives
CHAP, xv.] PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN. 117
in that swift stream, and I thought that one of the horses would
have been drowned, for he was too weak to gain a footing on
the western bank, and the stream bore him down. At last,
however, he swam back to the side from which he had come.
Before dark all had passed the river except this one horse and
old Shereef. He, poor fellow, was shivering on the eastern
bank, for his dread of the passage was so great that he delayed
it as long as he could, and at last it became so dark that he was
obliged to wait till the morning.
I lay that night on the banks of the river, and at a little dis-
tance from me the Arabs made a fire, round which they sat in a
circle. They were made most savagely happy by the tobacco
with which I supplied them, and they had determined to' make
the whole night one smoking festival. The poor fellows had only
one broken bowl, without any tube at all, but this morsel of a
pipe they passed round from one to the other, allowing to each
a fixed number of whiffs. In that way they passed the whole
night.
The next morning old Shereef was brought across. It was a
strange sight to see this solemn old Mussulman with his shaven
head, and his sacred beard, sprawling and puffing upon the sur-
face of the water. When at last he reached the bank, the peo-
ple told him that by his baptism in Jordan he had surely become
a mere Christian. Poor Shereef! the holy man ! the descen-
dant of the Prophet ! he was sadly hurt by the taunt, and the
more so as he seemed to feel there was some foundation for it.
and that he really may have absorbed some Christian errors.
When all was ready for departure, I wrote the " Teskeri ''
in French, and delivered it to Sheik AH Djoubran, together
with the promised "baksheish;" he was exceedingly grateful,
and I parted upon very good terms from this ragged tribe.
In two or three hours I gained Rihah, a village which is said
to occupy the site of ancient Jericho. There was one building
there which I observed with some emotion, for although it may
not have been actually standing in the days of Jericho, it con-
tained at this day a most interesting collection of modern
loaves.
Some hours after sun-set I reached the Convent of Santa
Saba, and there remained for the night.
118 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvi.
CHAPTER XVI.
Terra Santa.
THE enthusiasm that had glowed, or seemed to glow, within me
for one blessed moment when I knelt by the shrine of the
Blessed Virgin at Nazareth, was riot rekindled at Jerusalem.
In the stead of the solemn gloom, and the deep stillness that of
right belonged to the Holy City, there was the hum and the
bustle of active life. It was the " height of the season." The
Easter ceremonies drew near; the Pilgrims were flocking in
from all quarters, and although their objects were partly at
least of a religious character, yet their " arrivals " brought as
much stir and liveliness to the city, as if they had come up to
marry their daughters.
The votaries who every year crowd to the Holy Sepulchre
are chiefly of the Greek and Armenian Churches. They are
not drawn into Palestine by a mere longing to stand upon the
ground trodden by our Saviour, but rather they perform the
pilgrimage as a plain duty, which is strongly inculcated by their
religion. A very great proportion of those who belong to the
Greek Church, contrive at some time or other in the course of
their lives, to achieve the enterprise. Many, in their infancy
and childhood, are brought to the holy sites by their parents,
but those who have not had this advantage will often make it
the main object of their lives to save money enough for this holy
undertaking.
The Pilgrims begin to arrive in Palestine some weeks before
the Easter festival of the Greek Church ; they come from
Egypt from all parts of Syria from Armenia and Asia
Minor from Stamboul, from Roumelia, from the provinces of
the Danube, and from all the Russias. Most of these people
bring with them some articles of merchandize, but I myself be-
CHAP, xvi.] TERRA SANTA. 119
lieve (notwithstanding the common taunt against pilgrims), that
they do this rather as a mode of paying the expenses of their
journey, than from a spirit of mercenary speculation ; they
generally travel in families, for the women are of course more
ardent than their husbands in undertaking these pious enter-
prises, and they take care to bring with them all their children,
however young, for the efficacy of the rites does not depend
upon the age of the votary, so that people whose careful
mothers have obtained for them the benefit of the pilgrimage in
early life, are saved from the expense and trouble of under-
taking the journey at a later age. The superior veneration so
often excited by objects that are distant and unknown, shows
not perhaps the wrongheadedness of a man, but rather the
transcendant power of his Imagination ; however this may
be, and whether it is by mere obstinacy that they poke their
way through intervening distance, or whether they come
by the winged strength of Fancy, quite certainly the Pilgrims
who flock to Palestine from the most remote homes are the peo-
ple most eager in the enterprise, and in number, too, they bear a
very high proportion to the whole mass.
The great bulk of the Pilgrims make their way by sea to the
port of Jaffa. A number of families will charter a vessel
amongst them, all bringing their own provisions, which are of the
simplest and cheapest kind. On board every vessel thus
freighted, there is, I believe, a Priest who helps the people in
their religious exercises, and tries (and fails) to maintain some-
thing like order and harmony. The vessels employed in this
service are usually Greek brigs or brigantinee, and schooners,
and the number of passengers stowed in them is almost always
horribly excessive. The voyages are sadly protracted, not
only by the land-seeking, storm-flying habits of the Greek sea-
men, but also by their endless schemes and speculations, which
are for ever tempting them to touch at the nearest port. The
voyage, too, must be made in winter, in order that Jerusalem
may be reached some weeks before the Greek Easter, and thus
by the time they attain to the holy shrines, the Pilgrims have
really and truly undergone a very respectable quantity of suf-
fering. I once saw one of these pious cargoes put ashore on
120 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvi.
the coast of Cyprus, where they had touched for the purpose of
visiting (not Paphos, but) some Christian sanctuary. I never
saw (no, never even in the most horridly stuffy ball room)
such a discomfortable collection of human beings. Long hud-
dled together in a pitching and rolling prison jfed on beans
exposed to some real danger, and to terrors without end, they
had been tumbled about for many wintry weeks in the chopping
seas of the Mediterranean ; as soon as they landed, they stood
upon the beach and chaunted a hymn of thanks ; the chaunt
was morne and doleful, but really the poor people were looking so
miserable that one could not fairly expect from them any lively
outpouring of gratitnde.
When the Pilgrims have landed at Jaffa they hire camels,
horses, mules or donkeys, and make their way as well as they
can to the Holy City. The space fronting the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre soon becomes a kind of Bazaar, or rather, per-
haps, reminds you of an English Fair. On this spot the Pil-
grims display their merchandize, and there too the trading resi-
dents of the place offer their goods for sale. I have never, I
think, seen elsewhere in Asia, so much commercial animation
as upon this square of ground by the Church door ; the " money
changers" seemed to be almost as brisk and lively as if they
had been within the Temple.
When I entered the Church I found a Babel of worshippers.
Greek, Roman, and Armenian priests were performing their
different rites in various nooks and corners, and crowds of dis-
ciples were rushing about in all directions, some laughing
and talking, some begging, but most of them going about in a
regular and methodical way to kiss the sanctified spots, and
speak the appointed syllables, and lay down the accustomed
coin. If this kissing of the shrines had seemed as though it
were done at the bidding of Enthusiasm, or of any poor senti-
ment, even feebly approaching to it, the sight would have been
less odd to English eyes ; but as it was, I stared to see grown
men thus steadily and carefully embracing the sticks and the
stones not from love or from zeal (else God forbid that I should
have stared), but from a calm sense of duty ; they seemed to
CHAP, xvi.] TERRA SANTA.
be not " working out," but transacting the great business of Sal-
vation.
Dthemetri, however, who generally came with me when I
went out, in order to do duty as interpreter, really had in him
some enthusiasm ; he was a zealous and almost fanatical mem-
ber of the Greek Church, and had long since performed the
pilgrimage, so now great indeed was the pride and delight with
which he. guided me from one holy 'spot to another. Every
now and then, when he came to an unoccupied shrine, he fell
down on his knees and performed devotion ; he was almost dis-
tracted by the temptations that surrounded him ; there were so
many stones absolutely requiring to be kissed, that he rushed
about happily puzzled and sweetly teased, like " Jack among
the maidens."
A Protestant, familiar with the Holy Scriptures, but ignorant
of tradition and the geography of Modern Jerusalem, finds
himself a good deal " mazed" when he first looks for the sacred
sites. The Holy Sepulchre is not in a field without the walls,
but in the midst, and in the best part of the town under the roof
of the great Church which I have been talking about ; it is a
handsome tomb of oblong form, partly subterranean and partly
above ground ; and closed in on all sides, except the one by
which it is entered. You descend into the interior by a few
steps, and there find an altar with burning tapers. This is the
spot which is held in greater sanctity than any other at Jerusa-
lem, When you have seen enough of it, you feel perhaps
weary of the busy crowd and inclined for a gallop ; you ask
your Dragoman whether there will be time before sunset to
procure horses and take a ride to Mount Calvary. Mount Cal-
vary, Signer ? eccolo ! it is up stairs on the first floor. In
effect you ascend, if I remember rightly, just thirteen steps,
and then you are shown the now golden sockets in which the
crosses of our Lord and the two thieves were fixed. All this
is startling, but the truth is, that the city having gathered round
the Sepulchre, which is the main point of interest, has crept
northward, and thus in a great measure are occasioned the
many geographical surprises which puzzle the " Bible Chris-
tian."
122 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvi.
The church of the Holy Sepulchre comprises very compendi-
ously almost all the spots associated with the closing career of
our Lord. Just there, on your right, he stood and wept; by the
pillar on your left he was scourged ; on the spot just before you
he was crowned with the crown of thorns ; up there he was cru-
cified, and down here he was buried. A locality is assigned to every
the minutest event connected with the recorded history of our Sa-
viour ; even the spot where the cock crew, when Peter denied
his Master, is ascertained and surrounded by the walls of an
Armenian convent. Many Protestants are wont to treat these
traditions contemptuously, and those who distinguish themselves
from their brethren by the appellation of " Bible Christians,"
are almost fierce in their denunciation of these supposed errors.
It is admitted, I believe, by everybody, that the formal sanc-
tification of these spots was the act of the Empress Helena,
the mother of Constantino, but I think it is fair to suppose that
she was guided by a careful regard to the then prevailing tra-
ditions. Now the nature of the ground upon which Jerusalem
stands, is such that the localities belonging to the events there
enacted might have been more easily and permanently ascer-
tained by tradition than those of any city that I know of. Jeru-
salem, whether ancient or modern, was built upon and surrounded
by sharp, salient rocks, intersected by deep ravines. Up to the
time of the siege, Mount Calvary, of course, must have been
well enough known to the people of Jerusalem ; the destruction
of the mere buildings could not have obliterated from any man's
memory the names of those steep rocks and narrow ravines in
the midst of which the city had stood. It seems to me, therefore,
highly probable that in fixing the site of Calvary, the Empress
was rightly guided. Recollect, too, that the voice of tradition at
Jerusalem is quite unanimous, and that Romans, Greeks, Arme-
nians, and Jews, all hating each other sincerely, concur in
assigning the same localities to the events told in the Gospel. I
concede, however, that the attempt of the Empress to ascertain
the sites of the minor events cannot be safely relied upon. With
respect, for instance, to the certainty of the spot where the cock
crew, I am far from being convinced.
Supposing that the Empress acted arbitrarily in fixing the
CHAP, xvi.] TERRA SANTA. 123
holy sites, it would seem that she followed the Gospel of St.
John, and that the geography sanctioned by her can be more
easily reconciled with that history than with the accounts of the
other Evangelists.
The authority exercised by the Mussulman Government in re-
lation to the Holy sites, is in one view somewhat humbling to the
Christians, for it is almost as an arbitrator between the contend-
ing sects (this always, of course, for the sake of pecuniary
advantage), that the Mussulman lends his contemptuous aid ; he
not only grants but enforces toleration. All persons, of what-
ever religion, are allowed to go as they will into every part of
the church of the Holy Sepulchre, but in order to prevent inde-
cent contests, and also from motives arising out of money pay-
ments, the Turkish Government assigns the peculiar care of
each sacred spot to one of the ecclesiastic bodies. Since this
guardianship carries with it the receipt of the coins which the
pilgrims leave upon the shrines, it is strenuously fought for by
all the rival Churches, and the artifices of intrigue are busily
exerted at Stamboul in order to procure the issue or revocation
of the Firmans, by which the coveted privilege is granted. In
this strife the Greek Church has of late years signally triumph-
ed, and the most famous of the shrines are committed to the care
of their priesthood. They possess the golden socket in which
stood the cross of our Lord, whilst the Latins are obliged to con-
tent themselves with the apertures in which were inserted the
crosses of the two thieves ; they are naturally discontented with
that poor privilege, and sorrowfully look back to the days of
their former glory the days when Napoleon was Emperor, and
Sebastiani was minister at the Porte. It seems that the " citi-
zen" Sultan, old Louis Philippe, has done very little indeed for
Holy Church in Palestine.
Although the Pilgrims perform their devotions at the several
shrines with so little apparent enthusiasm, they are driven to
the verge of madness by the miracle which is displayed to them
on Easter Saturday. Then it is that the heaven-sent fire issues
from the Holy Sepulchre. The Pilgrims all assemble in the
great Church, and already, long before the wonder is worked,
they are wrought by anticipation of God's sign, as well as by
124 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvi.
their struggles for room and breathing space, to a most frightful
state of excitement. At length the Chief Priest of the Greeks,
accompanied (of all people in the world) by the Turkish Gov-
ernor, enters the tomb. After this there is a long pause, and
then, suddenly, from out of the small apertures on either side of
the Sepulchre, there issue long, shining flames. The pilgrims
now rush forward, madly struggling to light their tapers at the
holy fire. This is the dangerous moment, and many lives are
often lost.
The year before that of my going to Jerusalem, Ibrahim Pa-
sha, from some whim or motive of policy, chose to witness the
miracle. The vast Church was of course thronged, as it always
is on that awful day. It seems that the appearance of the fire
was delayed for a very long time, and that the growing frenzy
of the people was heightened by suspense. Many, too, had
already sunk under the effect of the heat and the stifling atmo-
sphere, when at last the fire flashed from the Sepulchre. Then
a terrible struggle ensued many sunk and were crushed.
Ibrahim had taken his station in one of the galleries, but now,
feeling perhaps his brave blood warmed by the sight and sound
of such strife, he took upon himself to quiet the people by his
personal presence, and descended into the body of the Church
with only a few guards ; he had forced his way into the midst
of the dense crowd, when unhappily he fainted away ; his guards
shrieked out, and the event instantly became known. A body of
soldiers recklessly forced their way through the crowd, trampling
over every obstacle that they might save the life of their gene-
ral. Nearly two hundred people were killed in the struggle.
The following year, however, the Government took better
measures for the prevention of these calamities. I was not pre-
sent at the ceremony, having gone away from Jerusalem some
time before, but I afterwards returned into Palestine, and I then
learned that the day had passed off" without any disturbance of
a fatal kind. It is, however, almost too much to expect that so
many ministers of peace can assemble without finding some
occasion for strife, and in that year a tribe of wild Bedouins
became the subject of discord ; these men, it seems, led an Arab
life in some of the desert tracts bordering on the neighborhood of
CHAP, xvi.] TERRA SANTA. 125
Jerusalem, but were not connected with any of the great ruling
tribes. Some whim or notion of policy had induced them to
embrace Christianity, but they were grossly ignorant of the
rudiments of their adopted faith, and having no priests with them
in their desert, they had as little knowledge of religious cere-
. monies as of Religion itself; they were not even capable of
conducting themselves in a place of worship with ordinary
decorum, but would interrupt the service with scandalous cries
and warlike shouts. Such is the account the Latins give of
them, but I have never heard the other side of the question.
These wild fellows, notwithstanding their entire ignorance of all
religion, are yet claimed by the Greeks, not only as proselytes
who have embraced Christianity generally, but as converts to
the particular doctrines and practice of their church. The
people thus alleged to have concurred in the great schism of the
Eastern Empire, are never, I believe, within the walls of a
church, or even of any building at all, except upon this occa-
sion of Easter, and as they then never fail to find a row of some
kind going on by the side of the Sepulchre, they fancy, it seems,
that the ceremonies there enacted are funeral games, of a mar-
tial character, held in honor of a deceased chieftain, and that a
Christian festival is a peculiar kind of battle fought between
walls and without cavalry. It does not appear, however, that
these men are guilty of any ferocious acts, or that they attempt
to commit depredations. The charge against them is merely,
that by their way of applauding the performance by their hor-
rible cries and frightful gestures, they destroy the solemnity of
divine service, and upon this ground the Franciscans obtained
a firman for the exclusion of such tumultuous worshippers.
The Greeks, however, did not choose to lose the aid of their
wild converts, merely because they were a little backward in
their religious education, and they therefore persuaded them to
defy the firmah by entering the city en masse, and overawing
their enemies. The Franciscans, as well as the Government
authorities, were obliged to give way, and the Arabs triumph-
antly marched into the church. The festival, however, must
have seemed to them rather flat, for although there may have
been some " casualties" in the way of black eyes, and noses
126 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvi.
bloody, and women " missing," there was no return of
"killed."
Formerly the Latin Catholics concurred in acknowledging
(but not I hope in working) the annual miracle of the heavenly
fire, but they have for many years withdrawn their countenance
from this exhibition, and they now repudiate it as a trick of the
Greek church. Thus, of course, the violence of feeling with
which the rival churches meet at the Holy Sepulchre, on Easter
Saturday, is greatly increased, and a disturbance of some kind is
certain. In the year I speak of, though no lives were lost, there
was, as it seems, a tough struggle in the church. I was amused
at hearing of a taunt that was thrown that day upon an English
traveller : he had taken his station in a convenient part of the
church, and was no doubt displaying that peculiar air of serenity
and gratification with which an English gentleman usually
looks on at a row, when one of the Franciscans came by, all
reeking from the fight, and was so disgusted at the coolness and
placid contentment of the Englishman (who was a guest at the
convent, that he forgot his monkish humility as well as the duties
of hospitality, and plainly said, " You sleep under our roof you
eat our bread you drink our wine, and then when Easter Satur-
day comes you don't fight for us !"
Yet these rival churches go on quietly enough till their blood
is up. The terms on which they live remind one of the peculiar
relation subsisting at Cambridge between " town and gown."
These contests and disturbances certainly do not originate
with the lay pilgrims, the great body of whom are, as I believe,
quiet and inoffensive people ; it is true, however, that their pious
enterprise is believed by them to operate as a counterpoise for a
multitude of sins, whether past or future, and perhaps they
exert themselves in after life to restore the balance of good and
evil. The Turks have a maxim, which, like most cynical
apothegms carries with it the buzzing trumpet of falsehood, as
well as the small, fine " sting of truth." " If your friend has
made the pilgrimage once, distrust him if he has made the pil-
grimage twice, cut him dead!" The caution is said to be as
applicable to the visitants of Jerusalem as to those of Mecca, but
CHAP, xvi.] TERRA SANTA. 127
I cannot help believing that the frailties of all the Hadjis,* whether
Christian or Mahometan, are greatly exaggerated. I certainly
regarded the pilgrims to Palestine as a well-disposed, orderly
body of people, not strongly enthusiastic, but desirous to comply
with the ordinances of their religion, and to attain the great end
of salvation as quietly and economically as possible.
When the solemnities of Easter are concluded, the pilgrims
move off in a body to complete their good work, by visiting the
sacred scenes in the neighborhood of Jerusalem, including the
Wilderness of John the Baptist, Bethlehem, and above all the
Jordan, for to bathe in those sacred waters is one of the chief
objects of the expedition. All the pilgrims men, women, and
children, are submerged, en chemise, and the saturated linen is
carefully wrapped up, and preserved as a burial dress that shall
inure for salvation in the realms of death.
I saw the burial of a pilgrim ; he was a Greek miserably
poor and very old he had just crawled into the Holy City, and
had reached at once the goal of his pious journey and the end of
his sufferings upon earth ; there was no coffin nor wrapper, and
as I looked full upon the face of the dead, I saw how deeply it
was rutted with the ruts of age and misery. The priest, strong
and portly, fresh, fat, and alive with the life of the animal king-
dom unpaid, or ill paid for his work, would scarcely deign to
mutter out his forms, but hurried over the words with shocking
haste; presently he called out impatiently "Yalla! Goor!"
(Come ! look sharp !) and then the dead Greek was seized ; his
limbs yielded inertly to the rude men that handled them, and
down he went into his grave, so roughly bundled in that his neck
was twisted by the fall, so twisted, that if the sharp malady of
life were still upon him the old man would have shrieked and
groaned, and the lines of his face would have quivered with
pain ; the lines of his face were not moved, and the old man lay
still and heedless so well cured of that tedious life-ache, that
nothing could hurt him now. His clay was itself again cool,
firm, and tough. The pilgrim had found great rest ; I threw
the accustomed handful of the holy soil upon his patient face,
* Hadji a pilgrim.
EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvi.
and then, and in less than a minute, the earth closed coldly
round him.
I did not say " Alas !" (nobody ever does that I know of,
though the word is so frequently written). I thought the old
man had got rather well out of the scrape of being alive and poor.
The destruction of the mere buildings in such a place as Jeru-
salem would not involve the permanent dispersion of the inhabit-
ants, for the rocky neighborhood in which the town is situate
abounds in caves, which would give an easy refuge to the peo-
ple until they gained an opportunity of rebuilding their dwell-
ings. Therefore I could not help looking upon the Jews of
Jerusalem, as being in some sort the representatives, if not the
actual descendants, of the rascals who crucified our Saviour.
Supposing this to be the case, I felt that there would be some
interest in knowing how the events of the Gospel History were
regarded by the Israelites of modern Jerusalem. The result of
my inquiry upon this subject, was, so far as it went, entirely
favorable to the truth of Christianity. I understood that
the performance of the miracles was not doubted by any of the
Jews in the place; all of them concurred in attributing the
works of our Lord to the influence of magic, but they were
divided as to the species of enchantment from which the power
proceeded ; the great mass of the Jewish people believed, I
fancy, that the miracles had been wrought by aid of the powers
of darkness, but many, and those the more enlightened, would
call Jesus " the good Magician." To Europeans repudiating
the notion of all magic, good or bad, the opinion of the Jews as
to the agency by which the miracles were worked, is a matter
of no importance, but the circumstance of their admitting that
those miracles icere in fact performed, is certainly curious, and
perhaps not quite immaterial.
If you stay in the Holy City long enough to fall into anything
like regular habits of amusement and occupation, and to become
in short for the time a " man about town" at Jerusalem, you
will necessarily lose the enthusiasm which you may have felt
when you trod the sacred soil for the first time, and it will then
seem almost strange to you to find yourself so thoroughly sur-
rounded in all your daily pursuits by the signs and sounds of re-
CHAP. XVL] TERRA SANTA. 129
ligion. Your Hotel is a monastery your rooms are cells the
landlord is a stately abbot and the waiters are hooded monks.
If you walk out of the town you find yourself on the Mount of
Olives, or in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, or on the Hill of Evil
Counsel. If you mount your horse and extend your rambles,
you will be guided to the wilderness of St. John, or the birth-
place of our Saviour. Your club is the great Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, where everybody meets everybody every day.
If you lounge through the town, your Bond Street is the Via
Dolorosa, and the object of your hopeless affections is some
maid or matron all forlorn, and sadly shrouded in her pilgrim's
robe. If you would hear music, it must be the chaunting of
friars if you look at pictures, you see Virgins with mis-fore-
shortened arms, or devils out of drawing, or angels tumbling up
the skies in impious perspective. If you make any purchases
you must go again to the church doors, and when you inquire for
the manufactures of the place, you find that they consist of
double-blessed beads and sanctified shells. These last are the
favorite tokens which the pilgrims carry off with them ; the
shell is graven or rather scratched on the white side with a rude
drawing of the Blessed Virgin, or of the Crucifixion, or some
other scriptural subject ; and having passed this stage, it goes
into the hands of a priest ; by him it is subjected to some pro-
cess for rendering it efficacious against the schemes of our ghostly
enemy ; the manufacture is then complete, and deemed to be fit
for use.
The village of Bethlehem lies prettily couched on the slope of
a hill. The sanctuary is a subterranean grotto, and is committed
to the joint-guardianship of the Romans, Greeks, and Arme-
nians, who vie with each other in adorning it. Beneath an altar
gorgeously decorated, and lit with everlasting fires, there stands
the low slab of stone which marks the holy site of the Nativity ;
and near to this is a hollow scooped out of the living rock. Here-
the infant Jesus was laid. Near the spot of the Nativity is the
rock against which the Blessed Virgin was leaning when she
presented her babe to the adoring shepherds.
Many of those Protestants who are accustomed to despise tra-
dition, consider that this sanctuary is altogether unscriptural
10
130 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvi.
that a grotto is not a stable, and that mangers are made of wood.
It is perfectly true, however, that the many grottos and caves
which are found among the rocks of Judea were formerly used
for the reception of cattle ; they are so used at this day ; I have
myself seen grottos appropriated to this purpose.
You know what a sad and sombre decorum it is that outward-
ly reigns through the lands oppressed by Moslem sway. The
Mahometans make beauty their prisoner, and enforce such a
stern and gloomy morality, or at all events such a frightfully
close semblance of it, that far and long the wearied traveller
may go without catching one glimpse of outward happiness. By
a strange chance in these latter days, it happened, that alone of
all the places in the land, this Bethlehem, the native village of
our Lord, escaped the moral yoke of the Mussulmans, and heard
again, after ages of dull oppression, the cheering clatter of social
freedom and the voices of laughing girls. It was after an insur-
rection which had been raised against the authority of Mehemet
Ali, that Bethlehem was freed from the hateful laws of Asiatic
decorum. The Mussulmans of the village had taken an active
part in the movement, and when Ibrahim had quelled it, his
wrath was still so hot that he put to death every one of the few
Mahometans of Bethlehem who had not already fled. The effect
produced upon the Christian inhabitants by the sudden removal
of this restraint was immense. The village smiled once more.
It is true that such sweet freedom could not long endure. Even
if the population of the place should continue to be entirely
Christian, the sad decorum of the Mussulmans, or rather of the
Asiatics, would sooner or later be restored by the force of
opinion and custom. But for a while the sunshine would last,
and when I was at Bethlehem, though long after the flight of the
Mussulmans, the cloud of Moslem propriety had not yet come
back to cast its cold shadow upon life. When you reach that
gladsome village, pray Heaven there still may be heard there
the voice of free, innocent girls. It will sound so dearly wel-
come !
To a Christian, and thorough-bred Englishman, not even the
licentiousness which generally accompanies it, can compensate
for the oppressiveness of that horrible outward decorum, which
CHAP, xvi.] TERRA SANTA. 131
turns the cities and the palaces of Asia into deserts and gaols.
So, I say, when you see, and hear them, those romping girls of
Bethlehem will gladden your very soul. Distant at first, and
then nearer and nearer, the timid flock will gather around you
with their large, burning eyes gravely fixed against yours, so
that they see into your brain, and if you imagine evil against
them, they will know of your ill thought before it is yet well
born, and will fly, and be gone in the moment. But presently
if you will only look virtuous enough to prevent alarm, and
vicious enough to avoid looking silly, the blithe maidens will
draw nearer and nearer Jo you, and soon there will be one, the
bravest of the sisters, who will venture right up to your side,
and touch the hem of your coat, in playful defiance of the
danger, and then the rest will follow the daring of their youth-
ful leader, and gather close round you, and hold a shrill con-
troversy on the wondrous formation that you call a hat, and the
cunning of the hands that clothed you with cloth so fine ; and
then growing more profound in their researches, they will pass
from the study of your mere dress, to a serious contemplation
of your stately height, and your nut-brown hair, and the ruddy
glow of your English cheeks. And if they catch a glimpse of
your ungloved fingers, then again will they make the air ring
with their sweet screams of wonder and amazement, as they
compare the fairness of your hand with their warmer tints, and
even with the hues of your own sunburnt face ; instantly the '
ringleader of the gentle rioters imagines a new sin ; with tremu-
lous boldness she touches then grasps your hand, and smoothes
it gently betwixt her own, and pries curiously into its make and
color, as though it were silk of Damascus, or shawl of Cash-
mere. And when they see you even then, still sage and gentle,
the joyous girls will suddenly, and screamingly, and all at once,
explain to each other that you are surely quite harmless, and
innocent a lion that makes no spring a bear that never hugs,
and upon this faith, one after the other, they will take your
passive hand, and strive to explain it, and make it a theme and
a controversy. ' But the one the fairest, and the sweetest of
all, is yet the most timid ; she shrinks from the daring deeds of
her playmates, and seeks shelter behind their sleeves, and strives
132 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvi.
to screen her glowing consciousness from the eyes that look upon
her ; but her laughing sisters will have none of this cowardice
they vow that the fair one shall be their complice shall share
their dangers shall touch the hand of the stranger ; they
seize her small wrist, and drag her forward by force, and at
last, whilst yet she strives to turn away, and to cover up her
whole soul under the folds of downcast eyelids, they vanquish
her utmost strength they vanquish your utmost modesty, and
marry her hand to yours. The quick pulse springs from her
fingers, and throbs like a whisper upon your listening palm.
For an instant her large, timid eyes are upon you in an instant
they are shrouded again, and there comes a blush so burning,
that the frightened girls stay their shrill laughter, as though
they had played too perilously, and harmed their gentle sister.
A moment, and all, with a sudden intelligence, turn away, and
fly like deer, yet soon again, like deer they wheel round, and
return, and stand and gaze upon the danger, until they grow
brave once more.
" I regret to observe that the removal of the moral restraint
imposed by the presence of the Mahometan inhabitants, has led
to a certain degree of boisterous, though innocent levity, in the
bearing of the Christians, and more especially in the demeanor
of those who belong to the younger portion of the female popu-
lation, but I feel assured that a more thorough knowledge of the
principles of their own pure religion, will speedily restore these
young people to habits of propriety, even more strict than those
which were imposed upon them by the authority of their Ma-
hometan brethren." Bah ! thus you might chaunt, if you
chose ; but loving the truth, you will not so disown sweet
Bethlehem you will not disown, nor dissemble the right good
hearty delight, with which, in the midst of the arid waste, you
found this gushing spring of fresh and joyous girlhood.
CHAP, xvii.] THE DESERT. 133
CHAPTER XVII.
The Desert.
GAZA is upon the edge of the Desert, to which it stands in the
same relation as a sea-port to the sea. It is there that you char-
ter your camels (" the ships of the Desert"), and lay in your
stores for the voyage.
These preparations kept me in the town for some days ; dis-
liking restraint, I declined making myself the guest of the Gov-
ernor (as it is usual and proper to do), but took up my quarters
at the Caravanserai, or " Khan," as they call it in that part of
Asia.
Dthemetri had to make the arrangements for my journey, and
in order to arm himself with sufficient authority for doing all
that was required, he found it necessary to put himself in com-
munication with the Governor. The result of this diplomatic
intercourse was that the Governor, with his train of attend-
ants, came to me one day at my Caravanserai, and formally
complained that Dthemetri had grossly insulted him. I was
shocked at this, for the man was always attentive and civil to
me, and I was disgusted at the idea of his having been reward-
ed with insult. Dthemetri was present when the complaint was
made, and I angrily asked him whether it was true that he had
really insulted the Governor, and what the deuce he meant by
it. This I asked, with the full certainty that Dthemetri, as a
matter of course, would deny the charge would swear that a
11 wrong construction had been put upon his words, and that noth-
ing was further from his thoughts," &c. &c., after the manner
of the parliamentary people, but to my surprise, he very plainly
answered that he certainly had insulted the Governor, and that
rather grossly, but, he said, it was quite necessary to do this, in
order to '.' strike terror, and inspire respect." " Terror and
134 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvn.
respect ! What on earth do you mean by that nonsense ?"
" Yes, but without striking terror, and inspiring respect, he
(Dthemetri) would never be able to force on the arrangements
for my journey, and Vossignoria would be kept at Gaza for a
month !" This would have been awkward, and certainly I
could not deny that poor Dthemetri had succeeded in his odd
plan of inspiring respect, for at the very time that this explana-
tion was going on in Italian, the Governor seemed more than
ever, and more anxiously disposed to overwhelm me with assur-
ances of good will, and proffers of his best services. All this
kindness, or promise of kindness, I naturally received with
courtesy a courtesy that greatly perturbed Dthemetri, for he
evidently feared that my civility would undo all the good that
his insults had achieved.
You will find, I think, that one of the greatest drawbacks to
the pleasure of travelling in Asia, is the being obliged more or
less to make your way by bullying. It is true that your own
lips are not soiled by the utterance of all the mean words that
are spoken for you, and that you don't even know of the sham
threats, and the false promises, and the vain-glorious boasts put
forth by your dragoman ; but now and then there happens some
incident of the sort which I have just been mentioning, which
forces you to believe, or suspect, that your dragoman is habitu-
ally fighting your battles for you in a way that you can hardly
bear to think of.
A Caravanserai is not ill adapted to the purposes for which it
is meant ; it forms the four sides of a large quadrangular court.
The ground floor is used for warehouses, the first floor for guests,
and the open court for the temporary reception of the camels,
as well as for the loading and unloading of their burthens, and
the transaction of mercantile business generally. The apart-
ments used for the guests are small cells opening into a corri-
dor, which runs round the four sides of the court.
Whilst I lay near the opening of my cell, looking down into
the court below, there arrived from the Desert a caravan, that
is, a large assemblage of travellers ; it consisted chiefly of Mol-
davian pilgrims, who, to make their good work even more than
complete, had begun by visiting the shrine of the Virgin in
CHAP, xvn.] THE DESERT. 135
Egypt, and were now going on to Jerusalem. They had been
overtaken in the Desert by a gale of wind, which so drove the
sand, and raised up such mountains before them, that their jour-
ney had been terribly perplexed and obstructed, and their pro-
visions (including water, the most precious of all) had been
exhausted long before they reached the end of their toilsome
march. They were sadly way-worn. The arrival of the
caravan drew many and various groups into the court. There
was the Moldavian pilgrim with his sable dress, and cap of fur,
and heavy masses of bushy hair the Turk with his various
and brilliant garments the Arab superbly stalking under his
striped blanket, that hung like royalty upon his stately form
the jetty Ethiopian in his slavish frock the sleek, smooth-faced
scribe with his comely pelisse, and his silver ink-box stuck in
like a dagger at his girdle. And mingled with these were the
camels some standing some kneeling and being unladen
some twisting round their long necks, and gently stealing the
straw from out of their own pack-saddles.
In a couple of days I was ready to start. The way of pro-
viding for the passage of the Desert is this : there is an agent
in the town who keeps himself in communication with some of
the desert Arabs that are hovering within a day's journey of the
place ; a party of these upon being guaranteed against seizure,
or other ill-treatment at the hands of the Governor, come into
the town bringing with them the number of camels which you
require, and then they stipulate for a certain sum to take you to
the place of your destination in a given time ; the agreement
which they thus enter into, includes a safe-conduct, through their
country, as well as the hire of the camels. According to the
contract made with me, I was to reach Cairo within ten days
from the commencement of the journey. I had four camels, one
for my baggage, one for each of my servants, and one for my-
self. Four Arabs, the owners of the camels, came with me on
foot. My stores were a small soldier's tent, two bags of dried
bread brought from the convent at Jerusalem, and a couple of
bottles of wine from the same source two goat-skins filled with
water, tea, sugar, and cold tongue, and (of all things in the
world) a jar of Irish butter, which Mysseri had purchased from
136 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvii.
some merchant. There was also a small sack of charcoal, for
the greater part of the desert, through which we were to pass,
is destitute of fuel.
The camel kneels to receive her load, and for a while she will
allow the packing to go on with silent resignation, but when she
begins to suspect that her master is putting more than a just
burthen upon her poor hump, she turns round her supple neck
and looks sadly upon the increasing load, and then gently remon-
strates against the wrong with the sigh of a patient wife ; if sighs
will not move you, she can weep ; you soon learn to pity, and
soon to love her for the sake of her gentle and womanish ways.
You cannot, of course, put an English or any other riding
saddle upon the back of the camel, but your quilt, or carpet, or
whatever you carry for the purpose of lying on at night, is fold-
ed and fastened on the pack-saddle upon the top of the hump,
and on this you ride, or rather sit. You sit as a man sits on a
chair when he sits astride and faces the back of it. I made an
improvement on this plan ; I had my English stirrups strapped
on to the cross-bars of the pack-saddle, and thus by gaining rest
for my dangling legs, and gaining, too, the power of varying
my position more easily than I could otherwise have done, I add-
ed very much to my comfort. Don't forget to do as I did.
The camel, like the elephant, is one of the old-fashioned sort
of animals that still walk along upon the (now nearly exploded)
plan of the ancient beasts that lived before the flood ; she moves
forward both her near legs at the same time, and then awkward-
ly swings round her off shoulder and haunch, so as to repeat the
manoeuvre on that side ; her pace, therefore, is an odd, disjoint-
ed and disjoining sort of movement that is rather disagreeable at
first, but you soon grow reconciled to it ; the height to which
you are raised is of great advantage to you in passing the burn-
ing sands of the desert, for the air at such a distance from the
ground is much cooler and more lively than that which circulates
beneath.
For several miles beyond Gaza, the land which had been
plentifully watered by the rains of the last week, was covered
with rich verdure, and thickly jewelled with meadow flowers, so
fresh and fragrant that I began to grow almost uneasy to fancy
CHAP, xvii.] THE DESERT. 137
that the dcoort was receding before me, and that the long-desired
adventure of passing its " burning sands," was to end in a mere
ride across a field. But as I advanced the true character of the
country began to display itself with sufficient clearness to dispel
my apprehensions, and before the close of my first day's jour-
ney I had the gratification of finding that I was surrounded on
all sides by a tract of real sand, and had nothing at all to com-
plain of, except that there peeped forth at intervals a few isolated
blades of grass, and many of those stunted shrubs which are the
accustomed food of the camel.
Before sunset I came up with an encampment of Arabs (the
encampment from which my camels had been brought), and my
tent was pitched amongst theirs. I was now amongst the true
Bedouins ; almost every man of this race closely resembles his
brethren ; almost every man has large and finely formed fea-
tures, but his face is so thoroughly stripped of flesh, and the
white folds from his head-gear fall down by his haggard cheeks,
so much in the burial fashion, that he looks quite sad and
ghastly : his large dark orbs roll slowly and solemnly over the
white of his deep-set eyes his countenance shows painful
thought and long-suffering the suffering of one fallen from a
high estate. His gait is strangely majestic, and he marches
along with his simple blanket, as though he were wearing the
purple. His common talk is a series of piercing screams and
cries,* more painful to the ear than the most excruciating fine
music that I ever endured.
The Bedouin women are not treasured up like the wives and
daughters of other Orientals, and indeed they seemed almost
entirely free from the restraints imposed by jealousy ; the feint
which they made of concealing their faces from me was always
slight ; they never, I think, wore the yashmack properly fixed ;
when they first saw me, they used to hold up a part of their
drapery with one hand across their faces, but they seldom perse-
vered very steadily in subjecting me to this privation. Unhappy
beings ! they were sadly plain. The awful haggardness which
* Milnes cleverly goes to the French for the exact word which conveys
the impression produced by the voice of the Arabs, and calls them " un
peuple criard."
138 EOTHEN. [CHAP. XVH.
gave something of character to the faces of the men, was sheer
ugliness in the poor women. It is a great shame, but the truth
is that except when we refer to the beautiful devotion of the
mother to her child, all the fine things we say and think about
woman, apply only to those who are tolerably good-looking or
graceful. These Arab women were so plain and clumsy that
they seemed to me to be fit for nothing but another and a better
world. They may have been good women enough, so far as
relates to the exercise of the minor virtues, but they had so
grossly neglected the prime duty of looking pretty in this tran-
sitory life, that I could not at all forgive them ; they seemed to
feel the weight of their guilt and to be truly and humbly peni-
tent. I had the complete command of their affections, for at any
moment I could make their young hearts bound, and their old
hearts jump, by offering a handful of tobacco, and yet, believe
me, it was not in the first soiree that my store of Latakaga was
exhausted !
The Bedouin women have no religion ; this is partly the cause
of their clumsiness ; perhaps, if from Christian girls they would
learn how to pray, their souls might become more gentle, and
their limbs be clothed with grace.
You who are going into their country, have a direct personal
interest in knowing something about "Arab hospitality;" but
the deuce of it is, that the poor fellows with whom I have hap-
pened to pitch my tent were scarcely ever in a condition to exer-
cise that magnanimous virtue with much eclat ; indeed Mysseri's
canteen generally enabled me to outdo my hosts in the matter of
entertainment. They were always courteous, however, and
were never backward in offering me the "youart," or curds and
whey, which is the principal delicacy to be found amongst the
wandering tribes.
Practically, I think, Childe Harold would have found it a
dreadful bore to make " the desert his dwelling-place," for at
all events if he adopted the life of the Arabs, he would have
tasted no solitude. The tents are partitioned, not so as to divide
the Childe and the " fair spirit," who is his " minister," from
the rest of the world, but so as to separate the twenty or thirty
brown men that sit screaming in the one compartment, from the
CHAP, xvii.] THE DESERT.
fifty or sixty brown women and children that scream and squeak
in the other. If you adopt the Arab life for the sake of seclu-
sion, you will be horribly disappointed, for you will find your-
self in perpetual contact with a mass of hot fellow-creatures.
It is true that all who are inmates of the same tent are related
to each other, but I am not quite sure that that circumstance
adds much to the charm of such a life. At all events before
you finally determine to become an Arab, try a gentle experi-
ment ; take one of those small, shabby houses in May Fair, and
shut yourself up in it with forty or fifty shrill cousins for a
couple of weeks in July.
In passing the Desert you will find your Arabs wanting to
start and to rest at all sorts of odd times ; they like, for in-
stance, to be off at one in the morning, and to rest during the
whole of the afternoon ; you must not give way to their wishes
in this respect ; I tried their plan once, and found it very
harassing and unwholesome. An ordinary tent can give you
very little protection against heat, for the fire strikes fiercely
through single canvas, and you soon find that whilst you lie
crouching, and striving to hide yourself from the blazing face
of the sun, his power is harder to bear than it is where you
boldly defy him from the airy heights of your camel.
It had been arranged with my Arabs, that they were to bring
with them all the food which they would want for themselves
during the passage of the Desert, but as we rested at the end of
the first day's journey, by the side of an Arab encampment,
my camel-men found all that they required for that night in the
tents of their own brethren. On the evening of the second day,
however, just before we encamped for the night, my four Arabs
came to Dthemetri, and formally announced that they had not
brought with them one atom of food, and that they looked
entirely to my supplies for their daily bread. This was awk-
ward intelligence ; we were now just two days deep in the
Desert, and I had brought with me no more bread than might
be reasonably required for myself, and my European atten-
dants : I believed at the moment (for it seemed likely enough)
that the men had really mistaken the terms of the arrangement,
and feeling that the bore of being put upon half rations would
EOTHEN. [CHAP. XVH.
bo a less evil (and even to myself a less inconvenience) than
the starvation of my Arabs, I at once told Dthemetri to assure
them that my bread should be equally shared with all. Dthe-
metri, however, did not approve of this concession ; he assured
me quite positively that the Arabs thoroughly understood the
agreement, and that if they were now without food, they had
wilfully brought themselves into this strait, for the wretched
purpose of bettering their bargain, by the value of a few paras'
worth of bread. This suggestion made me look at the affair in
a new light ; I should have been glad enough to put up with
the slight privation to which my concession would subject me,
and could have borne to witness the semi-starvation of poor
Dthemetri with a fine, philosophical calm, but it seemed to me
that the scheme, if scheme it were, had something of audacity
iu it, and was well enough calculated to try the extent of my
softness ; I well knew the danger of allowing such a trial to
result in a conclusion that I was one who might be easily
managed ; and therefore, after thoroughly satisfying myself
from Dthemetri's clear and repeated assertions, that the Arabs
had really understood the arrangement, I determined that they
should not now violate it by taking advantage of my position in
the midst of their big desert, so I desired Dthemetri to tell them
that they should touch no bread of mine. We stopped, and the
tent was pitched ; the Arabs came to me, and prayed loudly
for bread ; I refused them.
" Then we die !"
" God's will be done."
I gave the Arabs to understand, that I regretted their perish-
ing by hunger, but that I should bear this calmly, like any
other misfortune not my own that in short I was happily
resigned to their fate. The men would have talked a great
deal, but they were under the disadvantage of addressing me
through a hostile interpreter ; they looked hard upon my face,
but they found no hope there, so at last they retired, as they
pretended, to lay them down, and die.
In about ten minutes from this time, I found that the Arabs
were busily cooking their bread ! Their pretence of having
brought no food was false, and was only invented for the pur-
CHAP, xvii.] THE DESERT.
pose of saving it. They had a good bag of meal which they
had contrived to stew away under the baggage, upon one of the
camels, in such a way as to escape notice. In Europe the
detection of a scheme like this would have occasioned a dis-
agreeable feeling between the master and the delinquent, but
you would no more recoil from an Oriental, on account of a
matter of this sort, than in England you would reject a horse
that had tried, and failed to throw you. Indeed I felt quite
good-humoredly towards my Arabs, because they had so wo-
fully failed in their wretched attempt, and because, as it turned
out, I had done what was right ; they too, poor fellows, evidently
began to like me immensely, on account of the hard-heartedness
which had enabled me to baffle their scheme.
The Arabs adhere to those ancestral principles of bread-
baking which have been sanctioned by the experience of ages.
The very first baker of bread that ever lived, must have done
his work exactly as the Arab does at this day. He takes some
meal and holds it out in the hollow of his hands, whilst his
comrade pours over it a few drops of water ; he then mashes up
the moistened flour into a paste, which he pulls into small
pieces, and thrusts into the embers ; his way of baking exactly
resembles the craft or mystery of roasting chestnuts, as practised
by children ; there is the same prudence and circumspection in
choosing a good berth for the morsel the same enterprise, and
self-sacrificing valor, in pulling it out with the fingers.
The manner of my daily march was this. At about an hour
before dawn, I rose, and made the most of about a pint of water
which I allowed myself for washing. Then I breakfasted upon
tea, and bread. As soon as the beasts were loaded, I mounted
my camel, and pressed forward ; my poor Arabs being on foot
would sometimes moan with fatigue, and pray for rest, but I was
anxious to enable them to perform their contract for bringing
me to Cairo within the stipulated time, and I did not therefore
allow a halt until the evening came. About mid-day, or soon
after, Mysseri used to bring up his camel alongside of mine, and
supply me with a piece of bread softened in water (for it was
dried hard like board), and also (as long as it lasted) with a
piece of the tongue ; after this there came into my hand (how
142 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvii.
well I remember it !) the little tin cup half filled with wine and
water.
As long as you are journeying in the interior of the Desert
you have no particular point to make for as your resting-place.
The endless sands yield nothing but small stunted shrubs even
these fail after the first two or three days, and from that time
you pass over broad plains you pass over newly reared hills
you pass through valleys that the storm of the last week has
dug, and the hills and the valleys are sand, sand, sand, still
sand, and only sand, and sand, and sand again. The earth is
so samely, that your eyes turn towards heaven towards heaven,
I mean, in the sense of sky. You look to the Sun, for he is your
task-master, and by him you know the measure of the work that
you have done, and the measure of the work that remains for
you to do ; He comes when you strike your tent in the early
morning, and then, for the first hour of the day, as you move
forward on your camel, he stands at your near side, and makes
you know that the whole day's toil is before you then for a
while and a long while you see him no more, for you are veiled,
and shrouded, and dare not look upon the greatness of his glory,
but you know where he strides over head, by the touch of his
flaming sword. No words are spoken, but your Arabs moan,
your camels sigh, your skin glows, your shoulders ache, and for
sights you see the pattern and the web of the silk that veils
your eyes, and the glare of the outer light. Time labors on
your skin glows, and your shoulders ache, your Arabs moan,
your camels sigh, and you see the same pattern in the silk,
and the same glare of light beyond, but conquering Time
marches on, and by and by the descending Sun has compassed
the Heaven, and now softly touches your right arm, and throws
your lank shadow over the sand, right along on the way for
Persia ; then again you look upon his face, for his power is
all veiled in his beauty, and the redness of flames has become
the redness of roses the fair, wavy cloud that fled in the morn-
ing now comes to his sight once more comes blushing, yet still
comes on comes burning with blushes, yet hastens, and clings
to his side.
Then arrives your time for resting. The world about you is
CHAP, xvii.] THE DESERT. 143
all your own, and there, where you will, you pitch your solitary
tent ; there is no living thing to dispute your choice. When
at last the spot had been fixed upon, and we cams to a halt, one
of the Arabs would touch the chest of my camel, and utter at
the same time a peculiar gurgling sound ; the beast instantly
understood, and obeyed the sign, and slowly sunk under me till
she brought her body to a level with the ground ; then gladly
enough I alighted ; the rest of the camels were unloaded, and
turned loose to browse upon the shrubs of the Desert, where
shrubs there were, or where these failed, to wait for the small
quantity of food which was allowed them out of our stores.
My servants, helped by the Arabs, busied themselves in
pitching the tent and kindling the fire. Whilst this was doing I
used to walk away towards the East, confiding in the print of my
foot as a guide for my return. Apart from the cheering voices
of my attendants I could better know and feel the loneliness of
the Desert. The influence of such scenes, however, was not of
a softening kind, but filled me rather with a sort of childish
exultation in the self-sufficiency which enabled me to stand thus
alone in the wilderness of Asia a short-lived pride, for wher-
ever man wanders, he still remains tethered by the chain that
links him to his kind ; and so when the night closed round me,
I began to return to return as it were to my own gate.
Reaching at last some high ground, I could see, and see with
delight, the fire of our small encampment, and when, at last,
I regained the spot, it seemed to me a very home that had sprung
up for me in the midst of these solitudes. My Arabs were busy
with their bread, Mysseri rattling tea-cups, the little kettle
with her odd, old-maidish looks sat humming away old songs
about England, and two or three yards from the fire my tent
stood prim and tight with open portal, and with welcoming look,
like "the old arm chair" of our Lyrist's " sweet Lady Anne."
At ihe beginning of my journey, the night breeze blew coldly ;
when that happened, the dry sand was heaped up outside round
the skirts of the tent, and so the Wind that everywhere else
could sweep as he listed along those dreary plains was forced to
turn aside in his course, and make way, as he ought, for the
Englishman. Then within my tent, there were heaps of luxu-
144 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvn.
ries, dining rooms, dressing rooms, libraries, bed rooms,
drawing rooms, oratories, all crowded in the space of a hearth
rug. The first night, I remember, with my books, and maps
about me, I wanted light, they brought'me a taper, and imme-
diately from out of the silent Desert there rushed in a flood of life,
unseen before. Monsters of moths of all shapes and hues, that
never before perhaps had looked upon the shining of a flame,
now madly thronged into my tent, and dashed through the fire
of the candle till they fairly extinguished it with their burning
limbs. Those who had failed in attaining this martyrdom, sud-
denly became serious, and clung despondingly to the canvas.
By and by there was brought to me the fragrant tea, and big
masses of scorched and scorching toast, that minded me of old
Eton days, and the butter that had come all the way to me in this
Desert of Asia, from out of that poor, dear, starving Ireland. I
feasted like a King, like four Kings, like a boy in the fourth
form.
When the cold, sullen morning dawned, and my people began
to load the camels, I always felt loath to give back to the waste
this little spot of ground that had glowed for a while with the
cheerfulness of a human dwelling. One by one the cloaks, the
saddles, the baggage, the hundred things that strewed the ground,
and made it look so familiar all these were taken away, and
laid upon the camels. A speck in the broad tracts of Asia
remained still impressed with the mark of patent portmanteaus,
and the heels of London boots ; the embers of the fire lay black
and cold upon the sand, and these were the signs we left.
My tent was spared to the last, but when all else was ready for
the start, then came its fall ; the pegs were drawn, the canvas
shivered, and in less than a minute there was nothing that
remained of my genial home but only a pole and a bundle.
The encroaching Englishman was off, and instant, upon the fall
of the canvas, like an owner, who had waited, and watched, the
Genius of the Desert stalked in.
To servants, as I suppose to any other Europeans not much
accustomed to amuse themselves by fancy, or memory, it often
happens that after a few days' journeying, the loneliness of the
desert will become frightfully oppressive. Upon my poor fel-
CHAP, xvn.] THE DESERT. 145
lows the access of melancholy came heavy, and all at once, as a
blow from above ; they bent their necks, and bore it as best they
could, but their joy was great on the fifth day, when we came to
an Oasis called Gatieth, for here we found encamped a caravan
(that is an assemblage of travellers) from Cairo. The Orientals
living in cities, never pass the Desert, except in this way ; many
will wait for weeks, and even for months, until a sufficient num.
ber of persons can be found ready to undertake the journey at
the same time until the flock of sheep is big enough to fancy
itself a match for wolves. They could not, I think, really
secure themselves against any serious danger by this contri-
vance, for though they have arms, they are so little accustomed
to use them, and so utterly unorganized, that they never could
make good their resistance to robbers of the slightest respectability.
It is not of the Bedouins that such travellers are afraid, for the
safe-conduct granted by the Chief of the ruling tribe is never, I
believe, violated, but it is said that there are deserters and
scamps of various sorts who hover about the skirts of the Desert,
particularly on the Cairo side, and are anxious to succeed to the
property of any poor devils whom they may find more weak
and defenceless than themselves.
These people from Cairo professed to be amazed at the ludi-
crous disproportion between their numerical forces and mine.
They could not understand, and they wanted to know by what
strange privilege it is that an Englishman with a brace of pistols
and a couple of servants rides safely across the Desert, whilst
they, the natives of the neighboring cities, are forced to travel in
troops, or rather in herds. One of them got a few minutes of
private conversation with Dthemetri, and ventured to ask him
anxiously, whether the English did not travel under the protec-
tion of Evil Demons. I had previously known (from Methley
I think, who travelled in Persia) that this notion, so conducive
to the safety of our countrymen, is generally prevalent among
Orientals ; it owes its origin partly to the strong wilfulness of
the English gentleman (which not being backed by any visible
authority, either civil or military, seems perfectly superhuman
to the soft Asiatic), but partly too to the magic of the Banking
system, by force of which the wealthy traveller will make all
11
146 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvn.
his journeys, without carrying a handful of coin, and yet when
he arrives at a city, will rain down showers of gold. The
theory is that the English traveller has committed some sin
against God and his conscience, and that for this, the Evil
Spirit has hold of him and drives him from his home, like a vic-
tim of the old Grecian Furies, and forces him to travel over
countries far and strange, and most chiefly over Deserts and
desolate places, and to stand upon the sites of cities that once
were, and are now no more, and to grope among the tombs of
dead men. Often enough there is something of truth in this
notion ; often enough the wandering Englishman is guilty (if
guilt it be) of some pride, or ambition, big or small, imperial
or parochial, which being offended has made the lone places
more tolerable than ball rooms to him, a sinner.
I can understand the sort of amazement of the Orientals at
the scantiness of the retinue with which an Englishman passes
the Desert, for I was somewhat struck myself when I saw one
of my countrymen making his way across the wilderness in
this simple style. At first there was a mere moving speck in
the horizon ; my party, of course, became all alive with excite-
ment, and there were many surmises ; soon it appeared that
three laden camels were approaching, and that two of them
carried riders ; in a little while we saw that one of the riders
wore the European dress, and at last the travellers were pro-
nounced to be an English gentleman and his servant ; by their
side there were a couple, I think, of Arabs on foot, and this was
the whole party.
You, you love sailing, in returning from a cruise to the
English coast, you see often enough a fisherman's humble boat
far away from all shores, with an ugly black sky above, and
an angry sea beneath, you watch the grisly old man at the
helm, carrying his craft with strange skill through the turmoil
of waters, and the boy, supple-limbed, yet weather-worn al-
ready, and with steady eyes that look through the blast, you
see him understanding commandments from the jerk of his
father's white eyebrow, now belaying, and now letting go,
now scrunching himself down into mere ballast, or baling out
Death with a pipkin. Stale enough is the sight, and yet when
CHAP, xvii.] THE DESERT. 147
I see it I always stare anew, and with a kind of Titanic exulta-
tion, because that a poor boat with the brain of a man, and the
hands of a boy on board, can match herself so bravely against
black Heaven and Ocean ; well, so when you have travelled
for days and days, over an Eastern Desert, without meeting the
likeness of a human being, and at last see an English shooting,
jacket and his servant come listlessly slouching along from out
the forward horizon, you stare at the wide unproportion between
this slender company, and the boundless plains of sand through
which they are keeping their way.
This Englishman, as I afterwards found, was a military man
returning to his country from India, and crossing the Desert at this
part in order to go through Palestine. As for me, I had come pretty
straight from England, and so here we met in the wilderness at
about half way from our respective starting points. As we ap-
proached each other it became with me a question whether we /
should speak ; I thought it likely that the stranger would accost
me, and in the event of his doing so I was quite ready to be as
sociable and chatty as I could be, according to my nature, but
still I could not think of anything in particular that I had to
say to him ; of course among civilized people the not having
anything to say is no excuse at all for not speaking, but I was
shy and indolent, and I felt no great wish to stop and talk like
a morning visitor, in the midst of those broad solitudes. The '
traveller, perhaps, felt as I did, for except that we lifted our (
hands to our caps and waved our arms in courtesy, we passed
each other as if we had passed in Bond Street. Our attendants,
however, were not to be cheated of the delight that they felt in
speaking to new listeners, and hearing fresh voices once more.
The masters, therefore, had no sooner passed each other than
their respective servants quietly stopped and entered into con-
versation. As soon as my camel found her companions were
not following her, she caught the social feeling and refused to
go on. I felt the absurdity of the situation and determined to
accost the stranger, if only to avoid the awkwardness of re-
maining stuck fast in the Desert, whilst our servants were amus-
ing themselves. When with this intent I turned round my
camel, I found that the gallant officer who had passed me by
148 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvn.
about thirty or forty yards, was exactly in the same predica-
ment as myself. I put my now willing camel in motion and
rode up towards the stranger, who, seeing this, followed my ex-
ample and came forward to meet me. He was the first to
speak ; he was much too courteous to address me as if he ad-
.mitted of the possibility of my wishing to accost him from any
feeling of mere sociability, or civilian-like love of vain talk ;
on the contrary, he at once attributed my advances to a lauda-
ble wish of acquiring statistical information, and accordingly,
when we got within speaking distance, he said, " I dare say you
wish to know how the Plague is going on at Cairo ?" and then
he went on to say, he regretted that his information did not enable
him to give me in numbers a perfectly accurate statement of the
daily deaths : he afterwards talked pleasantly enough upon other
and less ghastly subjects. I thought him manly and intelligent ;
a worthy one of the few thousand strong Englishmen to whom
the Empire of India is committed.
The night after the meeting with the people of the caravan,
Dthemetri, alarmed by their warnings, took upon himself to
keep watch all night in the tent ; no robbers came except a
jackal that poked his nose into my tent from some motive of ra-
tional curiosity ; Dthemetri did not shoot him for fear of wak-
ing me. These brutes swarm in every part of Syria ; and
there were many of them even in the midst of the void sands,
that would seem to give such poor promise of food ; I can hardly
tell what prey they could be hoping for, unless it were that they
might find, now and then, the carcase of some camel that had
died on the journey. They do not marshal themselves into
great packs like the wild dogs of Eastern cities, but follow their
prey in families, like the place-hunters of Europe ; their voices
are frightfully like to the shouts and cries of human beings ; if
you lie awake in your tent at night, you are almost continually
hearing some hungry family as it sweeps along in full cry ; you
hear the exulting scream with which the sagacious dam first
winds the carrion, and the shrill response of the unanimous
cubs as they snuff the tainted air " Wha ! wha ! wha ! wha !
wha ! wha ! Whose gift is it in, mamma ?"
Once, during this passage, my Arabs lost their way among the
CHAP, xvii.] THE DESERT. 149
hills of loose sand that surrounded us, but after a while we were
lucky enough to recover our right line of march. The same
day we fell in with a Sheik, the head of a family, that actually
dwells at no great distance from this part of the desert during
nine months of the year. The man carried a match-lock, of
which he was very proud ; we stopped and sat down, and rested
awhile for the sake of a little talk; there was much that I
should have liked to ask this man, but he could not understand
Dthemetri's language, and the process of getting at his know-
ledge by double interpretation through my Arabs was unsatis-
factory. I discovered, however (and my Arabs knew of that
fact), that this man and his family lived habitually for nine
months of the year, without touching or seeing either bread or
water. The stunted shrub growing at intervals through the sand
in this part of the desert, is fed by the dews which fall at night,
and enables the camel mares to yield a little milk, which fur-
nishes the sole food and drink of their owner and his people.
During the other three months (the hottest of the months, I sup-
pose) even this resource fails, and then the Sheik and his people
are forced to pass into another district. You would ask me why
the man should not remain always in that district which supplies
him with water during three months of the year, but I don't
know enough of Arab politics to answer the question. The
Sheik was not a good specimen of the effect produced by the diet
to which he is subjected ; he was very small, very spare, and
sadly shrivelled a poor, over-roasted snipe, a mere cinder of a
man ; I made him sit down by my side, and gave him a piece of
bread and a cup of water from out of my goat-skins. This
was not very tempting drink to look at, for it had become turbid,
and was deeply reddened by some coloring matter contained in
the skins, but it kept its sweetness and tasted like a strong de-
coction of Russia leather. The Sheik sipped this, drop by drop,
with ineffable relish, and rolled his eyes solemnly round between
every draught, as though the drink were the drink of the Prophet,
and had come from the seventh heaven.
An inquiry about distances led to the discovery that this Sheik
had never heard of the division of time into hours ; my Arabs
themselves, I think, were rather surprised at this.
150 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvn.
About this part of my journey, I saw the likeness of a fresh-
water lake ; I saw, as it seemed, a broad sheet of calm water
that stretched far and fair towards the south stretching deep
into winding creeks, and hemmed in by jutting promontories, and
shelving smooth off towards the shallow side ; on its bosom the
reflected fire of the sun lay playing and seeming to float upon
waters deep and still.
Though I knew of the cheat, it was not till the spongy foot of
my camel had almost trodden in the seeming waters, that I could
undeceive my eyes, for the shore line was quite true and natural.
I soon saw the cause of the phantasm. A sheet of water
heavily impregnated with salts, had filled this great hollow ; and
when dried up by evaporation had left a white saline deposit
that exactly marked the space which the waters had covered,
and thus sketched a true shore-line. The minute crystals of
the salt sparkled in the sun, and so looked like the face of a lake
that is calm and smooth.
The pace of the camel is irksome, and makes your shoulders
and loins ache from the peculiar way in which you are obliged
to suit yourself to the movements of the beast, but you soon of
course become inured to this, and after the first two days this
way of travelling became so familiar to me, that (poor sleeper
as I am) I now and then slumbered for some moments together,
on the back of my camel. On the fifth day of my journey the
air above lay dead, and all the whole earth that I could reach
with my utmost sight and keenest listening, was still and life-
less as some dispeopled and forgotten world, that rolls round and
round in the heavens, through wasted floods of light. The sun,
growing fiercer and fiercer, shone down more mightily now than
ever on me he shone before, and as I drooped my head under his
fire and closed my eyes against the glare that surrounded me, I
slowly fell asleep, for how many minutes or moments, I cannot
tell, but after a while I was gently awakened by a peal of church
bells my native bells the innocent bells of Marlen, that never
before sent forth their music beyond the Blaygon hills ! My
first idea naturally was, that I still remained fast under the
power of a dream. I roused myself and drew aside the silk
that covered my eyes, and plunged my bare face into the light.
CHAP, xvii.] THE DESERT. 151
Then at least I was well enough wakened, but still those old
Marlen bells rung on, not ringing for joy, but properly, prosily,
steadily, merrily ringing " for church." After a while the
sound died away slowly j it happened that neither I nor any of
my party had a watch by which to measure the exact time of its
lasting, but it seemed to be that about ten minutes had passed
before the bells ceased. I attributed the effect to the great heat
of the sun, the perfect dryness of the clear air through which I
moved, and the deep stillness of all around me ; it seemed to me
that these causes, by occasioning a great tension, and consequent
susceptibility of the hearing organs, had rendered them liable to
tingle under the passing touch of some mere memory, that must
have swept across my brain in a moment of sleep. Since my
return to England it has been told me that like sounds have been
heard at sea, and that the sailor becalmed.under a vertical sun
in the midst of the wide ocean, has listened in trembling wonder
to the chime of his own village bells.
At this time I kept a poor, shabby pretence of a journal,
which just enabled me to know the day of the month and the
week, according to the European calendar, and when in my tent
at night I got out my pocket-book, I found that the day was Sun-
day, and roughly allowing for the difference of time in this lon-
gitude, I concluded that at the moment of my hearing that
strange peal, the church-going bells of Marlen must have been
actually calling the prim congregation of the parish to morning
prayer. The coincidence amused me faintly, but I could not
pluck up the least hope that the effect which I had experienced
was anything other than an illusion an illusion liable to be
explained (as every illusion is in these days) by some of the
philosophers who guess at nature's riddles. It would have been
sweeter to believe that my kneeling mother, by some pious
enchantment, had asked, and found this spell to rouse me from
my scandalous forgetfulness of God's holy day, but my fancy
was too weak to carry a faith like that. Indeed, the vale
through which the bells of Marlen send their song is a highly
respectable vale, and its people (save one, two, or three) are
wholly unaddicted to the practice of magical arts.
After the fifth day of my journey, I no longer travelled over
EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvn.
shifting hills, but came upon a dead level a dead level bed of
sand, quite hard, and studded with small shining pebbles.
The heat grew fierce ; there was no valley nor hollow, nor
hill, no mound, no shadow of hill nor of mound by which I
could mark the way I was making. Hour by hour I advanced,
and saw no change I was still the very centre of a round horizon ;
hour by hour I advanced, and still there was the same, and the
same, and the same the same circle of flaming sky the same
circle of sand still glaring with light and fire. Over all the
heaven above over all the earth beneath, there was no visible
power that could balk the fierce will of the sun ; " he rejoiced
as a strong man to run a race : his going forth was from the
end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it ; and there
was nothing hid from the heat thereof." From pole to pole, and
from the East to the West, he brandished his fiery sceptre as
though he had usurped all Heaven and Earth. As he bid the
soft Persian in ancient times, so now and fiercely too, he bid
me bow down and worship him ; so now in his pride he seemed
to command me and say, " Thou shalt have none other gods
but me." I was all alone before him. There were these two
pitted together, and face to face the mighty sun for one, and
for the other this poor, pale, solitary self of mine, that I
always carry about with me.
But on the eighth day, and before I had yet turned away from
Jehovah for the glittering god of the Persians, there appeared
a dark line upon the edge of the forward horizon, and soon the
line deepened into a delicate fringe that sparkled here and
there as though it were sown with diamonds. There, then,
before me were the gardens and the minarets of Egypt, and the
mighty works of the Nile, and I (the eternal Ego that I am !)
I had lived to see, and I saw them.
When evening came I was still within the confines of the
desert, and my tent was pitched as usual, but one of my Arabs
stalked away rapidly towards the West without telling me of
the errand on which he was bent. After a while he returned ;
he had toiled on a graceful service ; he had travelled all the
way on to the border of the living world, and brought me back
for token an ear of rice, full, fresh, and green.
CHAP, xvii.] THE DESERT. L53
The next day I entered upon Egypt, and floated along (for the
delight was as the delight of bathing) through green, wavy fields
of rice, and pastures fresh and plentiful, and dived into the
cold verdure of groves and gardens, and quenched my hot eyes
in shade, as though in deep rushing waters.
< &$&i&
154 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvm.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Cairo and the Plague.*
CAIRO and Plague ! During the whole time of my stay, the
Plague was so master of the city, and showed himself so star-
ingly in every street and every alley, that I can't now affect to
dissociate the two ideas.
When coming from the desert, I rode through a village which
lies near to the city on the eastern side, there approached me
with busy face and earnest gestures, a personage in the Turkish
dress ; his long flowing beard gave him rather a majestic look,
but his briskness of manner and his visible anxiety to accost
me, seemed strange in an Oriental. The man, in fact, was
French or of French origin, and his object was to warn me of
the Plague and prevent me from entering the city.
Arretez-vous, Monsieur, je vous en prie arretez-vous ; il ne
faut pas entrer dans la ville ; la Peste y rSgne partout.
* There is some semblance of bravado in my manner of talking about the
Plague. I have been more careful to describe the terrors of other people
than my own. The truth is, that during the whole period of my stay at
Cairo, I remained thoroughly impressed with a sense of my danger. I may
almost say that I lived in perpetual apprehension, for even in sleep, as I
fancy, there remained with me some faint notion of the peril with which I
was encompassed. But Fear does not necessarily damp the spirits ; on the
contrary, it will often operate as an excitement, giving rise to unusual ani-
mation, and thus it affected me. If I had not been surrounded at this time
by new faces, new scenes, and new sounds, the effect produced upon my
mind by one unceasing cause of alarm, may have been very different. As
it was, the eagerness with which I pursued my rambles among the wonders
of Egypt was sharpened and increased by the sting of the fear of Death.
Thus my account of the matter plainly conveys an impression that I re-
mained at Cairo without losing my cheerfulness and buoyancy of spirits.
And this is the truth, but it is also true, as I have freely confessed, that my
sense of danger during the whole period was lively and continuous.
CHAP, xviir.] CAIRO AND THE PJLAGUE. 155
Oui, je sais,* mais
Mais, Monsieur, je dis la Peste la Peste ; c'est de LA PESTE
qu'il est question.
Oui, je sais, mais
Mais, Monsieur, je dis encore LA PESTE LA PESTE. Je vous
conjure de ne pas entrer dans la ville vous seriez dans une
ville empestee.
Oui, je sais, mais
Mais Monsieur, je dois done vous avertir tout bonnement que
si vous entrez dans la ville, vous serez enfin vous serez COM-
PROMIS !f
Oui, je sais, mais
The Frenchman was at last convinced that it was vain to
reason with a mere Englishman who could not understand what
it was to be "compromised." I thanked him most sincerely for
his kindly meant warning ; in hot countries it is very unusual
indeed for a man to go out in the glare of the sun, and give free
advice to a stranger.
When I arrived at Cairo I summoned Osman Effendi, who
was, as I knew, the owner of several houses, and would be able
to provide me with apartments ; he had no difficulty in doing
this, for there was not one European traveller in Cairo besides
myself. Poor Osman ! he met me with a sorrowful counte-
nance, for the fear of the Plague sat heavily on his soul ; he
seemed as if he felt that he was doing wrong in lending me a
resting-place, and he betrayed such a listlessness about temporal
matters, as one might look for in a man who believed that his
days were numbered. He caught me, too, soon after my arri-
val, coming out from the public baths,:}: and from that time for-
* Anglice for "je le sais." These answers of mine as given above, are
not meant for specimens of mere French, but of that fine, terse, nervous,
Continental English, with which I and my compatriots make our way
through Europe. This language, by the bye, is one possessing great force
and energy, and is not without its literature a literature of the very highest
order. Where will you find more sturdy specimens of downright, honest,
and noble English, than in the Duke of Wellington's " French " despatches ?
t The import of the word " compromised " when used in reference to
contagion, is explained in page 2.
% It is said, that when a Mussulman finds himself attacked by the Plague,
156 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvm.
ward he was sadly afraid of me, for he shared the opinions of
Europeans with respect to the effect of contagion.
Osman's history is a curious one. He was a Scotchman
born, and when very young, being then a drummer-boy, he
landed in Egypt with Mackensie Eraser's force. He was
taken prisoner, and according to Mahometan custom, the alter-
native of Death or the Koran was offered to him ; he did not
choose Death, and therefore went through the ceremonies which
were necessary for turning him into a good Mahometan. But
what amused me most in his history was this that very soon
after having Embraced Islam, he was obliged in practice to be-
come curious and discriminating in his new faith to make war
upon Mahometan dissenters, and follow the orthodox standard of
the Prophet in fierce campaigns against the Wahabees, who are
the Unitarians of the Mussulman world. The Wahabees were
crushed, and Osman returning home in triumph from his holy
wars, began to flourish in the world ; he acquired property and
became effendi, or gentleman. At the time of my visit to Cairo
he seemed to be much respected by his brother Mahometans, and
gave pledge of his sincere alienation from Christianity by keep-
ing a couple of wives. He affected the same sort of reserve in
mentioning them as is generally shown by Orientals. He invit-
ed me, indeed, to see his hareem, but he made both his wives
bundle out before I was admitted ; he felt, as it seemed to me,
that neither of them would bear criticism, and I think that this
idea, rather than any motive of sincere jealousy, induced him
to keep them out of sight. The rooms of the hareem reminded
me of an English nursery, rather than of a Mahometan para-
dise. One is apt to judge of a woman before one sees her, by
the air of elegance or coarseness with which she surrounds her
home ; I judged Osman's wives by this test, and condemned them
both. But the strangest feature in Osman's character was his
inextinguishable nationality. In vain they had brought him
he goes and takes a bath. The couches on which the bathers recline would
carry infection, according to the notion of the Europeans. Whenever,
therefore, I took the bath at Cairo (except the first time of my doing so) I
avoided that part of the luxury which consists in being " put up to dry "
upon a kind of bed.
CHAP, xvni.] CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE. 157
over the seas in early boyhood in vain had he suffered captivity,
conversion, circumcision in vain they had passed him through
fire in their Arabian campaigns they could not cut away or
burn out poor Osman's inborn love of all that was Scotch ; in
vain men called him Effendi in vain he swept along in eastern
robes in vain the rival wives adorned his hareem ; the joy of
his heart still plainly lay in this, that he had three shelves of
books, and that the books were thorough-bred Scotch the Edin-
burgh this the Edinburgh that, and above all, I recollect, he
prided himself upon the " Edinburgh Cabinet Library."
The fear of the Plague is its forerunner. It is likely enough
that at the time of my seeing poor Osman, the deadly taint was
beginning to creep through his veins, but it was not till after I
left Cairo that he was visibly stricken. He died.
As soon as I had seen all that I wanted to see in Cairo, and
in the neighborhood, I wished to make my escape from a city
that lay under the terrible curse of the Plague, but Mysseri fell
ill in consequence, I believe, of the hardships which he had
been suffering in my service ; after a while he recovered suffi-
ciently to undertake a journey, but then there was some difficul-
ty in procuring beasts of burden, and it was not till the nine-
teenth day of my sojourn that I quitted the city.
During all this time the power of the Plague was rapidly in-
creasing. When I first arrived it was said that the daily num-
ber of " accidents " by plague, out of a population of about
200,000, did not exceed four or five hundred, but before I went
away the deaths were reckoned at twelve hundred a day. I
had no means of knowing whether the numbers (given out, as
I believe they were, by officials) were at all correct, but I could
not help knowing that from day to day the number of the dead
was increasing. My quarters were in a street which was one
of the chief thoroughfares of the city. The funerals in Cairo
take place between day-break and noon, and as I was generally
in my rooms during this part of the day, I could form some
opinion as to the briskness of the Plague. I don't mean this for
a sly insinuation that I got up every morning with the sun. It
was not so, but the funerals of most people in decent circum-
stances at Cairo are attended by singers and howlers, and the
158 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvin.
performances of these people woke me in the early morning,
and prevented me from remaining in ignorance of what was
going on in the street below.
These funerals were very simply conducted. The bier was
a shallow wooden tray carried upon a light and weak wooden
frame. The tray had, in general, no lid, but the body was
more or less hidden from view by a shawl or scarf. The whole
was borne upon the shoulders of men who contrived to cut
along with their burdens at a great pace. Two or three singers
generally preceded the bier; the howlers (who are paid for
their vocal labors) followed after, and last of all came such of
the dead man's friends and relations as could keep up with such
a rapid procession ; these, especially the women, would get ter-
ribly blown, and would straggle back into the rear ; many were
fairly " beaten off." I never observed any appearance of
mourning in the mourners ; the pace was too severe for any
solemn affectation of grief.
When first I arrived at Cairo the funerals that daily passed
under my windows were many, but still there were frequent
and long intervals without a single howl. Every day^ however
(except one, when I fancied I observed a diminution of funerals),
these intervals became less frequent, and shorter, and at last
the passing of the howlers from morn to noon was almost inces-
sant. I believe that about one half of the whole people was
carried off by this visitation. The Orientals, however, have
more quiet fortitude than Europeans under afflictions of this
sort, and they never allow the Plague to interfere with their re-
ligious usages. I rode one day round the burial ground. The
tombs are strewed over a great expanse, among the vast moun-
tains of rubbish (the accumulations of many centuries) which
surround the city. The ground, unlike the Turkish " cities of
the dead,'' which are made so beautiful by their dark cypresses,
has nothing to sweeten melancholy nothing to mitigate the
odiousness of death. Carnivorous beasts and birds possess the
place by night, and now in the fair morning it was all alive
with fresh comers alive with dead. Yet at this very time
when the Plague was raging so furiously, and on this very
ground which resounded so mournfully with the howls of arriv-
CHAP, xvni.] CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE. 159
ing funerals, preparations were going on for the religious
festival called the Kourban Bairam. Tents were pitched
and swings hung for the amusement of children a ghastly holli-
day ! but the Mahometans take a pride, and a just pride, in fol-
lowing their ancient customs undisturbed by the shadow of
death.
I did not hear whilst I was at Cairo that any prayer for a re-
mission of the Plague had been offered up in the mosques. I
believe that, however frightful the ravages of the disease may
be, the Mahometans refrain from approaching Heaven with their
complaints until the Plague has endured for a long space, and
then at last they pray God, not that the Plague may cease, but
that it may not go to another city !
A good Mussulman seems to take pride in repudiating the
European notion that the will of God can be eluded by eluding
the touch of a sleeve. When I went to see the Pyramids of
Sakkara, I was the guest of a noble old fellow an Osmanlee,
whose soft rolling language it was a luxury to hear, after suf-
fering as I had suffered of late from the shrieking tongue of the
Arabs ; this man was aware of the European ideas about conta-
gion, and his first care, therefore, was to assure me that not a sin-
gle instance of Plague had occurred in his village ; he then in-
quired as to the progress of the Plague at Cairo I had but a
bad account to give. Up to this time my host had carefully re-
frained from touching me, out of respect to the European theory
of contagion, but as soon as it was made plain that he, and not
I, would be the person endangered by contact, he gently laid
his hand upon my arm, in order to make me feel sure that the
circumstance of my coming from an infected city did not occa-
sion him the least uneasiness. That touch was worthy of Jove.
Very different is the faith and the practice of the Europeans,
or rather I mean of the Europeans settled in the East, and com-
monly called Levantines. When I came to the end of my
journey over the desert, I had been so long alone that the pros-
pect of speaking to somebody at Cairo seemed almost a new
excitement. I felt a sort of consciousness that I had a little of
the wild beast about me, but I was quite in the humor to be
charmingly tame, and to be quite engaging in my manners if I
160 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvni.
should have an opportunity of holding communion with any of
the human race whilst at Cairo. I knew no one in the place,
and had no letters of introduction, but I carried letters of credit,
and it often happens in places remote from England that those
"advices" operate as a sort of introduction, and obtain for the
bearer (if disposed to receive them) such ordinary civilities as
it may be in the power of the banker to offer.
Very soon after my arrival I went to the house of the Levan-
tine, to whom my credentials were addressed. At his door
several persons (all Arabs) were hanging about and keeping
guard. It was not till after some delay, and the passing of some
communications with those in the interior of the citadel, that I
was admitted. At length, however, I was conducted through the
court and up a flight of stairs, and finally into the apartment
where business was transacted. The room was divided by an
excellent, substantial fence of iron bars, and behind this grille
the banker had his station. The truth was, that from fear of
the plague he had adopted the course usually taken by Euro-
pean residents, and had shut himself up " in strict quarantine,"
that is to say, that he had, as he hoped; cut himself off from all
communication with infecting substances. The Europeans long
resident in the East, without any, or with scarcely any excep-
tion, are firmly convinced that the plague is propagated by con-
tact and by contact only that if they can but avoid the
touch of an infecting substance, they are safe, and if they can-
not, they die. This belief induces them to adopt the contrivance
of putting themselves in that state of siege which they call
" Quarantine." It is a part of their faith that metals and
hempen rope, and also, I fancy, one or two other substances will
not carry the infection ; and they likewise believe that the germ
of pestilence which lies in an infected substance, may be
destroyed by submersion in water, or by the action of smoke.
They therefore guard the doors of their houses with the utmost
care against intrusion, and condemn themselves and all the
members of their family, including any European servants, to a
strict imprisonment within the walls of their dwelling. Their
native attendants are not allowed to enter at all, but they make
the necessary purchases of provisions, which are hauled up
CHAP, xviii.] CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE. 161
through one of the windows by means of a rope, and are then
soaked in water.
I knew nothing of these mysteries, and was not therefore pre-
pared for the sort of reception which I met with. I advanced to
the iron fence, and putting my letter between the bars, politely
proffered it to Mr. Banker. Mr. Banker received me with a
sad and dejected look, and not " with open arms," or with any
arms at all, but with a pair of tongs ! I placed my letter
between the iron fingers which picked it up as if it were a viper,
and conveyed it away to be scorched and purified by fire and
srnoke. I was disgusted at this reception, and at the idea that
anything of mine could carry infection to the poor wretch, who
stood on the other side of the grille pale and trembling, and
already meet for Death. I looked with something of the Maho-
metan's feeling upon these little contrivances for eluding Fate ;
and in this instance at least they were vain ; a few more days
and the poor money-changer who had strived to guaz-d the days
of his life (as though they were coins) with bolts and bars of iron
he was seized by the Plague and he died.
To people entertaining such opinions as these respecting the
fatal effect of contact, the narrow and crowded streets of Cairo
were terrible as the easy slope that leads to Avernus. The
roaring Ocean and the beetling crags owe something of their
sublimity to this that if they be tempted, they can take the
warm life of a man. To the contagionist, filled as he is with
the dread of final causes, having no faith in Destiny, nor in the
fixed will of God, and with none of the devil-may-care indiffer-
ence which might stand him instead of creeds to such one, every
rag that shivers in the breeze of a Plague-stricken city has this
sort of sublimity. If by any terrible ordinance he be forced to
venture forth, he sees Death dangling from every sleeve, and as
he creeps forward he poises his shuddering limbs between the
imminent jacket that is stabbing at his right elbow and the mur-
derous pelisse that threatens to mow him clean down, as it
sweeps along on his left. But most of all he dreads that which
most of all he should love the touch of a woman's dress, for
mothers and wives hurrying forth on kindly errands from the
bedsides of the dying, go slouching along through the streets
12
162 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvm.
more wilfully and less courteously than the men. For a while
it may be that the caution of the poor Levantine may enable him
to avoid contact, but sooner or later, perhaps, the dreaded chance
arrives ; that bundle of linen, with the dark tearful eyes at the
top of it, that labors along with the voluptuous clumsiness of
Grisi s"he has touched the poor Levantine with the hem of her
sleeve ! from that dread moment his peace is gone ; his mind
for ever hanging upon the fatal touch, invites the blow which he
fears ; he watches for the symptoms of plague so carefully, that
sooner or later they come in truth. The. parched mouth is a
sign his mouth is parched ; the throbbing brain his brain does
throb ; the rapid pulse he touches his own wrist (for he dares
not ask counsel of any man lest he be deserted), he touches his
wrist, and feels how his frighted blood goes galloping out of his
heart ; there is nothing but the fatal swelling that is wanting to
make his sad conviction complete ; immediately he has an odd
feel under the arm no pain, but a little straining of the skin ;
he would to God it were his fancy that were strong enough to
give him that sensation ; this is the worst of all ; it now seems
to him that he could be happy and contented with his parched
mouth, and his throbbing brain and his rapid pulse, if only he
could know that there were no swelling under the left arm ; but
dares he try ? in a moment of calmness and deliberation he
dares not, but when for a while he has writhed under the torture
of suspense, a sudden strength of will drives him to seek and
know his fate ; he touches the gland and finds the skin sane and
sound, but under the cuticle there lies a small lump like a pistol
bullet that moves as he pushes it. Oh ! but is this for all cer-
tainty, is this the sentence of death ? feel the gland of the other
arm ; there is not the same lump exactly, yet something a little
like it ; have not some people glands naturally enlarged ? would
to Heaven he were one ! So he does for himself the work of the
Plague, and when the Angel of Death, thus courted, does indeed
and in truth come, he has only to finish that which has been so
well begun ; he passes his fiery hand over the brain of the vic-
tim, and lets him rave for a season, but all chance-wise, of peo-
ple and things once dear, or of people and things indifferent.
Once more the poor fellow is back at his home in fair Provence,
CHAP, xvni.] CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE. 163
and sees the sun-dial that stood in his childhood's garden sees
part of his mother, and the long-since-forgotten face of that little
dead sister (he sees her, he says, on a Sunday morning, for all
the church bells are ringing) ; he looks up and down through the
universe, and owns it well piled with bales upon bales of cotton,
and cotton eternal so much so, that he feels he knows he
swears that he could make that winning hazard, if the billiard
table would not slant upwards, and if the cue were a cue worth
playing with ; but it is not it's a cue that won't move his own
arm won't move in short, there's the devil to pay in the brain
of the poor Levantine, and, perhaps, the next night but one he
becomes the "life and the soul" of some squalling jackal
family, who fish him out by the foot from his shallow and sandy
grave.
Better fate was mine ; by some happy perverseness (occa-
sioned perhaps by my disgust at the notion of . being received
with a pair of tongs), I took it into my pleasant head that all the
European notions about contagion were thoroughly unfounded
that the Plague might be providential, or " epidemic" (as they
phrase it), but was not contagious, and that I could not be killed
by the touch of a woman's sleeve, nor yet by her blessed breath.
I therefore determined that the Plague should not alter my habits
and amusements in any one respect. Though I came to this
resolve from impulse, I think that I took the course which was
in effect the most prudent, for the cheerfulness of spirits which
I was thus enabled to retain, discouraged the yellow- winged
Angel, and prevented him from taking a shot at me. I how-
ever so far respected the opinion of the Europeans, that I avoid-
ed touching, when I could do so without privation or inconve-
nience. This endeavor furnished me with a sort of amusement
as I passed through the streets. The usual mode of moving
from place to place in the city of Cairo, is upon donkeys, of
which great numbers are always in readiness, with donkey-
boys attached. I had two who constantly (until one of them
died of the Plague) waited at my door upon the chance of being
wanted. I found this way of moving about exceedingly plea-
sant, and never attempted any other. I had only to mount my
beast, and tell my donkey boy the point for which I was bound,
1G4 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvm.
and instantly I began to glide on at a capital pace. The streets
of Cairo are not paved in any way, but strewed with a dry sandy
soil so deadening to sound that the foot- fall of my donkey could
scarcely be heard. There is no trottoir, and as you ride
through the streets, you mingle with the people on foot ; those
who are in your way, upon being warned by the shouts of the
donkey-boy, move very slightly aside so as to leave you a nar-
row lane through which you pass at a gallop. In this way you
glide on delightfully in the very midst of crowds, without being
inconvenienced or stopped for a moment ; it seems to you that it
is not the donkey but the donkey-boy who wafts you on with his
shouts through pleasant groups and air that feels thick with the
fragrance of burial spice. " Eh ! Sheik, Eh ! Bint, regga-
lek shumalek, &c., &c. O old man, O virgin, get out of the
way on the right O virgin, O old man, get out of the way on
the left, this Englishman comes, he comes, he comes !" The
narrow alley which these shouts cleared for my passage made
it possible, though difficult, to go on for a long way without
touching a single person, and my endeavors to avoid such con-
tact were a sort of game for me in my loneliness, which was
not without interest. If I got through a street without being
touched, I won ; if I was touched, I lost, lost a deuce of a
stake, according to the theory of the Europeans, but that I
deemed to be all nonsense, I only lost that game ? and would
certainly win the next.
There is not much in the way of public buildings to admire
at Cairo, but I saw one handsome mosque, to which an instruc-
tive history is attached. A Hindostanee merchant, having
amassed an immense fortune, settled in Cairo, and soon found
that his riches in the then state of the political world gave him
vast power in the city power, however, the exercise of which
was much restrained by the counteracting influence of other
wealthy men. With a view to extinguish every attempt at
rivalry the Hindostanee merchant built this magnificent mosque
at his own expense ; when the work was complete, he invited all
the leading men of the city to join him in prayer within the
walls of the newly built temple, and he then caused to be mas-
sacred all those who were sufficiently influential to cause him
CHAP, xviii.] CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE. 165
any jealousy or uneasiness in short, all " the respectable men"
of the place ; after this he possessed undisputed power in the
city, and was greatly revered he is revered to this day. It
seemed to me that there was a touching simplicity in the mode
which this man so successfully adopted for gaining the confi-
dence and good will of his fellow-citizens. There seems to be
some improbability in the story (though not nearly so gross as
it might appear to an European ignorant of the East, for wit-
ness Mehemet Ali's destruction of the Mamelukes, a closely
similar act and attended with the like brilliant success*), but
even if the story be false, as a mere fact, it is perfectly true as
an illustration, it is a true exposition of the means by which
the respect and affection of Orientals may be conciliated.
I ascended one day to the citadel, which commands a superb
view of the town. The fanciful and elaborate gilt- work of the
many minarets gives a light and florid grace to the city as seen
from this height, but before you can look for many seconds at
such things, your eyes are drawn westward drawn westward,
and over the Nile, till they rest with a heavy stare upon the
massive enormities of the Ghizeh pyramids. I saw within the
fortress many yoke of men, all haggard and wo-begone, and a
kennel of very fine lions well fed and flourishing ; I say yoke of
men, for the poor fellows were working together in bonds ; 1 say
a kennel of lions ; for the beasts were not enclosed in cages, but
simply chained up like dogs.
I went round the Bazaars ; it seemed to me that pipes and
arms were cheaper here than at Constantinople, and I should
advise you therefore if you go to both places to prefer the market
of Cairo. I had previously bought several of such things at
Constantinople, and did not choose to encumber myself, or to
speak more honestly I did not choose to disencumber my purse
by making ariy more purchases. In the open slave-market I
saw about fifty girls exposed for sale, but all of them black, or
" invisible" brown. A slave agent took me to some rooms in
the upper story of the building, and also into several obscure
* Mehemet Ali invited the Mamelukes to a feast, and murdered them in
the Banquet Hall.
166 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvm.
houses in the neighborhood, with a view to show me some white
women. The owners raised various objections to the display of
their ware, and well they might, for I had not the least notion of
purchasing ; some refused on account of the illegality of the
proceeding,* and others declared that all transactions of this
sort were completely out of the question as long as the Plague
was raging. I only succeeded in seeing one white slave who
was for sale, but on this one the owner affected to set an immense
value, and raised my expectations to a high pitch, by saying
that the girl was Circassian, and was " fair as the full Moon."
After a good deal of delay, I was at last led into a room, at the
farther end of which was that mass of white linen which indi-
cates an Eastern woman ; she was bid to uncover her face, and
I presently saw that though very far from being good looking
according to my notion of beauty, she had not been inaptly
described by the man, who compared her to the full Moon, for
her large face was perfectly round and perfectly white.
Though very young, she was nevertheless extremely fat. She
gave me the idea of having been got up for sale of having been
fattened and whitened by medicines, or by some peculiar diet.
I was firmly determined not to see any more of her than the
face ; she was perhaps disgusted at this my virtuous resolve, as
well as with my personal appearance perhaps she saw my dis-
taste and disappointment ; perhaps she wished to gain favor
with her owner by showing her attachment to his faith ; at all
events she holloaed out very lustily and very decidedly that
" she would not be bought by the Infidel."
Whilst I remained at Cairo, I thought it worth while to see
something of the Magicians, who may be considered as it were
the descendants of those who contended so stoutly against the
superior power of Aaron. I therefore sent for an old man who
was held to be the chief of the Magicians, and desired him to
show me the wonders of his art. The old man looked and
dressed his character exceedingly well ; the vast turban, the
flowing beard, and the ample robes, were all that one could wish
in the way of appearance. The first experiment (a very stale
* It is not strictly lawful to sell white slaves to a Christian.
CHAP, xvm.] CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE. 167
one), which he attempted to perform for me, was that of
attempting to show the forms and faces of my absent friends,
not to me, but to a boy brought in from the streets for the pur-
pose, and said to be chosen at random. A mangale (pan of
burning charcoal) was brought into my room, and the Magician
bending over it, sprinkled upon the fire some substances which
must have consisted partly of spices, or sweetly burning woods,
for immediately a fragrant smoke arose, which curled round the
bending form of the Wizard, the while that he pronounced his
first incantations ; when these were over, the boy was made to
sit down, and a common green shade was bound over his brow ;
then the Wizard took ink, and still continuing his incantations,
wrote certain mysterious figures upon the boy's palm, and
directed him to rivet his attention to these marks, without look-
ing aside for an instant ; again the incantations proceeded, and
after a while the boy being seemingly a little agitated, was asked
whether he saw anything on the palm of his hand ; he declared
that he saw a kind of military procession with flags and banners,
which he described rather minutely. I was then called upon
to name the absent person whose form was to be made visible.
I named Keate. You were not at Eton, and I must tell you,
therefore, what manner of man it was that I named, though I
think you must have some idea of him already, for wherever
from utmost Canada to Bundelcund wherever there was the
white-washed wall of an officer's room, or of any other apart-
ment in which English gentlemen'are forced to kick their heels,
there, likely enough (in the days of his reign), the head of Keate
would be seen scratched, or drawn with those various degrees of
skill which one observes in the representations of Saints. Any-
body without the least notion of drawing could still draw a
speaking, nay scolding likeness of Keate. If you had no pen-
cil, you could draw him well enough with a poker, or the leg of
a chair, or the smoke of a candle. He was little more (if more
at all) than five feet in height, and was not very great in girth,
but in this space was concentrated the pluck of ten battalions.
He had a really noble voice, which he could modulate with great
skill, but he had also the power of quacking like an angry duck,
and he almost always adopted this mode of communication '
165 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvm.
in order to inspire respect ; he was a capital scholar, but his
ingenuous learning had not " softened his manners," and had
11 permitted them to be fierce" tremendously fierce ; he had the
most complete command over his temper I mean over his good
temper, which he scarcely ever allowed to appear ; you could
not put him out of humor that is out of the z7/-humor which he
thought to be fitting for a head master. His red, shaggy eye-
brows were so prominent, that he habitually used them as arms
and hands, for the purpose of pointing out any object towards
which he wished to direct atte ntion ; the rest of his features
were equally striking in their way, and were all and all his
own ; he wore a fancy dress, partly resembling the costume of
Napoleon, and partly that of a widow- woman. I could not by
any possibility have named anybody more decidedly differing
in appearance from the rest of the human race.
" Whom do you name ?" " I name John Keate." " Now,
what do you see ?" said the Wizard to the boy. " I see," an-
swered the boy, " I see a fair girl with golden hair, blue eyes,
pallid face, rosy lips." There was a shot ! I shouted out my
laughter to the horror of the Wizard, who, perceiving the gross-
ness of his failure, declared that the boy must have known sin
(for none but the innocent can see truth), and accordingly kicked
him down stairs.
One or two other boys were tried, but none could " see truth ;"
they all made sadly "bad shots."
Notwithstanding the failure of these experiments, I wished to
see what sort of mummery my Magician would practise if I
called upon him to show me some performances of a higher
order than those which had been attempted ; I therefore entered
into a treaty with him, in virtue of which he was to descend
with me into the tombs near the Pyramids, and there evoke the
Devil. The negotiation lasted some time, for Dthemetri, as in
duty bound, tried to beat down the Wizard as much as he could?
and the Wizard, on his part, manfully stuck up for his price,
declaring that to raise the Devil was really no joke, and insinu-
ating that to do so was an awesome crime. I let Dthemetri have-
his way in the negotiation, but I felt in reality very indifferent
about the sum to be paid, and for this reason, namely, that the
CHAP, xviii.] CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE, 169
payment (except a very small present, which I might make, or
not, as I chose) was to be contingent on success. At length the
bargain was made, and it was arranged that after a few days to
be allowed for preparation, the Wizard should raise the Devil
for two pounds ten, play or pay no Devil, no piastres.
The Wizard failed to keep his appointment. I sent to know
why the deuce he had not come to raise the Devil. The truth
was, that my Mahomet had gone to the mountain. The Plague
had seized him, and he died.
Although the Plague had now spread terrible havoc around
him, I did not see very plainly any corresponding change in the
look of the streets until the seventh day after my arrival ; I then
first observed that the city was silenced. There were no out-
ward signs of Despair, nor of violent terror, but many of the
voices that had swelled the busy hum of men were already
hushed in death, and the survivors, so used to scream and
screech in their earnestness whenever they bought or sold, now
showed an unwonted indifference about the affairs of this world ;
it was less worth while for men to haggle, and haggle, and crack
the sky with noisy bargains, when the Great Commander was
there, who could " pay all their debts with the roll of his drum."
At this time (the year was 1835), I was informed that of
twenty-five thousand people at Alexandria, twelve thousand had
died already ; the Destroyer had come rather later to Cairo, but
there was nothing of weariness in his strides. The deaths came
faster than ever they befell in the Plague of London, but the
calmness of Orientals under such visitations, and the habit of
using biers for interment, instead of burying coffins along with
the bodies, rendered it practicable to dispose of the Dead in the
usual way, without shocking the people by any unaccustomed
spectacle of horror. There was no tumbling of bodies into carts,
as in the Plague of Florence and the Plague of London ; every
man, according to his station, was properly buried, and that in
the usual way, except that he went to his grave at a more hur-
ried pace than might have been adopted under ordinary circum-
stances.
The funerals, which poured through the streets, were not the
only public evidence of deaths. In Cairo this custom prevails ;
170 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvm.
at the instant of a man's death (if his property is sufficient to
justify the expense), professional howlers are employed; I be-
lieve that these persons are brought near to the dying man,
when his end appears to be approaching, and the moment that
life is gone, they lift up their voices, and send forth a loud wail
from the chamber of Death. Thus I knew when my near
neighbors died ; sometimes the howls were near ; sometimes
more distant. Once I was awakened in the night by the wail of
death in the next house, and another time by a like howl from
the house opposite ; and there were two or three minutes, I
recollect, during which the howl seemed to be actually running
along the street.
I happened to be rather teazed at this time by a sore throat,
and I thought it would be well to get it cured, if I could, before
I again started on my travels. I therefore inquired for a Frank
doctor, and was informed that the only one then at Cairo was a
young Bolognese Refugee, who was so poor that he had not been
able to take flight, as the other medical men had done. At such
a time as this, it was out of the question to send for an European
physician ; a person thus summoned would be sure to suppose
that the patient was ill of the Plague, and would decline to come.
I therefore rode to the young Doctor's residence : after expe-
riencing some little difficulty in finding where to look for him, I
ascended a flight or two of stairs, and knocked at his door. No
one came immediately, but after some little delay the Medico
himself opened the door and admitted me. I, of course, made
him understand that I had come to consult him, but before enter-
ing upon my throat grievance, I accepted a chair, and exchanged
a sentence or two of common-place conversation. Now, the
natural common-place of the city at this season was of a gloomy
sort " Come va la peste ?" (how goes the plague ?) and this was
precisely the question I put. A deep sigh, and the words " Sette
cento per giorno, Signor" (seven hundred a day), pronounced in
a tone of the deepest sadness and dejection, were the answer I
received. The day was not oppressively hot, yet I saw that the
Doctor was transpiring profusely, and even the outside surface
of the thick shawl dressing-gown, in which he had wrapped him-
self, appeared to be moist ; he was a handsome, pleasant-looking
CHAP, xvm.] CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE. 171
young fellow, but the deep melancholy of his tone did not tempt
me to prolong the conversation, and without farther delay I re-
quested that my throat might be looked at. The Medico held
my chin in the usual way, and examined my throat ; he then
wrote me a prescription, and almost immediately afterwards I
bid him farewell, b'ut as he conducted me towards the door I
observed an expression of strange and unhappy watchfulness in
his rolling eyes. It was not the next day, but the next day but
one, if I rightly remember, that I sent to request another inter-
view with my Doctor ; in due time Dthemetri, who was my
messenger, returned, looking sadly aghast he had " met the
Medico," for so he phrased it, " coming out from his house in
a bier !"
It was of course plain that when the poor Bolognese was look-
ing at my throat, and almost mingling his breath with mine, he
was stricken of the Plague. I suppose that the violent sweat in
which I found him, had been produced by some medicine which
he must have taken in the hope of curing himself. The
peculiar rolling of the eyes which I had remarked, is, I
believe, to experienced observers, a pretty sure test of the
Plague. A Russian acquaintance of mine, speaking from the
information of men who had made the Turkish campaigns of
1828 and 1829, told me that by this sign the officers of Sabal-
kansky's force were able to make out the Plague-stricken soldiers
with a good deal of certainty.
It so happened that most of the people with whom I had any-
thing to do, during my stay at Cairo, were seized with Plague,
and all these died. Since I had been for a long time en route
before I reached Egypt, and was about to start again for another
long journey over the Desert, there were of course many little
matters touching my wardrobe, and my travelling equipments,
which required to be attended to whilst I remained in the city.
It happened so many times that Dthemetri's orders in respect to
these matters were frustrated by the deaths of the tradespeople,
and others whom he employed, that at last I became quite ac-
customed to the peculiar manner which he assumed when he
prepared to announce a new death to me. The poor fellow na-
turally supposed that I should feel some uneasiness at hearing of
172 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvni.
the " accidents" which happened to persons employed by me,
and he therefore communicated their deaths, as though they
were the deaths of friends ; he would cast down his eyes,
and look like a man abashed, and then gently, and with a
mournful gesture allow the words, " Morto, Signor," to come
through his lips. I don't know how many of such instan-
ces occurred, but they were several, and besides these (as I
told you before), my banker, my doctor, my landlord, and my
magician, all died of the Plague. A lad who acted as a helper
in the house which I occupied, lost a brother and a sister within
a few hours. Out of my two established donkey-boys one died.
I did not hear of any instance in which a plague-stricken patient
had recovered.
Going out one morning, I met unexpectedly the scorching
breath of the Khamseen wind, and fearing that I should faint
under the horrible sensations which it caused, I returned to my
rooms. Reflecting, however, that I might have to encounter
this wind in the desert, where there would be no possibility of
avoiding it, I thought it would be better to brave it once more
in the city, and to try whether I could really bear it or not. I
therefore mounted my ass, and rode to old Cairo, and along the
gardens by the banks of the Nile. The wind was hot to the
touch as though it came from a furnace ; it blew strongly, but
yet with such perfect steadiness, that the trees bending under its
force remained fixed in the same curves without perceptibly
waving ; the whole sky was obscured by a veil of yellowish
grey, which shut out the face of the sun. The streets were
utterly silent, being indeed almost entirely deserted, and not
without cause, for the scorching blast, whilst it fevers the blood,
closes up the pores of the skin, and is terribly distressing, there-
fore, to every animal that encounters it. I returned to my rooms
dreadfully ill. My head ached with a burning pain, and my
pulse bounded quick, and fitfully, but perhaps (as in the instance
of the poor Levantine, whose death I was mentioning), the fear
and excitement which I felt in trying my own wrist, may have
made my blood flutter the faster.
It is a thoroughly well believed theory, that during the con-
tinuance of the Plague, you can't be ill of any other febrile
CHAP, xviii.] CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE. 173
malady ; an unpleasant privilege that ! for ill I was, and ill of
fever, and I anxiously wished that the ailment might turn out to
be anything rather than Plague. I had some right to surmise
that my illness may have been merely the effect of the hot wind,
and this notion was encouraged by the elasticity of my spirits,
and by a strong forefeeling that much of my destined life in this
world was yet to come, and yet to be fulfilled. That was my
instinctive belief, but when I carefully weighed the probabilities
on the one side, and on the other, I could not help seeing that
the strength of argument was all against me. There was a
strong antecedent likelihood in favor of my being struck by the
same blow, as the rest of the people who had been dying around
me. Besides, it occurred to me, that after all, the universal
opinion of the Europeans upon a medical question, such as that
of contagion, might probably be correct, and if it were, I was so
thoroughly " compromised," and especially by the touch and
breath of the dying Medico, that I had no right to expect any
other fate than that which now seemed to have overtaken me.
Balancing as well as I could all the considerations which hope
and fear suggested, I slowly and reluctantly came to the con-
elusion that according to all merely reasonable probability the
Plague had come upon me.
You would suppose that this conviction would have induced
me to write a few farewell lines to those who were dearest, and
that having done that, I should have turned my thoughts towards
the world to come. Such however wasjiot the case ; I believe
that the prospect of death often brings with it strong anxieties
about matters of comparatively trivial import, and certainly
with me the whole energy of the mind was directed towards the
one petty object of concealing my illness until the latest pos-
sible moment until the delirious stage. I did not believe that
either My sseri, or Dthemetri, who had served me so faithfully
in all trials, would have deserted me (as most Europeans are
wont to do) when they knew that I was stricken by Plague, but
I shrank from the idea of putting them to this test, and I dreaded
the consternation which the knowledge of my illness would be
sure to occasion.
I was very ill indeed at the moment when my dinner was
EOTHEN. [CHAP, xviii.
served, and my soul sickened at the sight of the food, but I had
luckily the habit of dispensing with the attendance of servants
during my meal, and as soon as I was left alone, I made a mel-
ancholy calculation of the quantity of food which I should have
eaten if I had been in my usual health, and filled my plates ac-
cordingly, and gave myself salt, and so on, as though I were
going to dine ; I then transferred the viands to a piece of the
omnipresent "Times" newspaper, and hid them away in a cup-
board, for it was not yet night, and I dared not to throw the food
into the street until darkness came. I did not at all relish this
process of fictitious dining, but at length the cloth was removed,
and I gladly reclined on my divan (I would not lie down), with
the " Arabian Nights" in my hand.
I had a feeling that tea would be a capital thing for me, but I
would not order it until the usual hour. When at last the time
came, I drank deep draughts from the fragrant cup. The effect
was almost instantaneous. A plenteous sweat burst through my
skin, and watered my clothes through and through. I kept my-
self thickly covered. The hot, tormenting weight which had
been loading my brain was slowly heaved away. The fever was
extinguished. I felt a new buoyancy of spirits, and an unusual
activity of mind. I went into my bed under a load of thick
covering, and when the morning came, and I asked myself how
I was, I found that I was thoroughly well.
I was very anxious to procure, if possible, some medical
advice for Mysseri, whose illness prevented my departure.
Every one of the European practising doctors, of whom there
had been many, had either died or fled ; it was said, however,
that there was an Englishman in the medical service of the
Pasha, who quietly remained at his post, but that he never en-
gaged in private practice. I determined to try if I could obtain
assistance in this quarter. I did not venture at first, and at such
a time as this, to ask him to visit a servant who was prostrate on
the bed of sickness, but thinking that I might thus gain an op-
portunity of persuading him to attend Mysseri, I wrote a note
mentioning my own affair of the sore throat, and asking for the
benefit of his medical advice ; he instantly followed back my
messenger, and was at once shown up into my room ; I entreated
CHAP, xvni.] CAIRO AND THE PLAGUE. 175
him to stand off, telling him fairly how deeply I was " compro-
mised," and especially by my contact with a person actually ill,
and since dead of Plague. The generous fellow, with a good-
humored laugh at the terrors of the contagionists, marched
straight up to me, and forcibly seized my hand, and shook it
with manly violence. I felt grateful indeed, and swelled with
fresh pride of race, because that my countryman could carry
himself so nobly. He soon cured Mysseri, as well as me, and
all this he did from no other motives than the pleasure of doing
a kindness, and the delight of braving a danger.
At length the great difficulty* which I had had in procuring
beasts for my departure was overcome, and now, too, I was to
have the new excitement of travelling on dromedaries. With
two of these beasts, and three camels, I gladly wound my way
from out of the pest-stricken city. As I passed through the
streets, I observed a fanatical-looking elder, who stretched forth
his arms, and lifted up his voice in a speech which seemed to
have some reference to me ; requiring an interpretation, I found
that the man had said, " The Pasha seeks camels, and he finds
them not the Englishman says, ' let camels be brought,' and
behold there they are !"
I no sooner breathed the free, wholesome air of the desert,
than I felt that a great burthen which I had been scarcely con-
scious of bearing, was lifted away from my mind. For nearly
three weeks I had lived under peril of death ; the peril ceased,
and not till then did 1 know how much alarm and anxiety I had
really been suffering.
* The difficulty was occasioned by the immense exertions which the Pasha
was making to collect camels for military purposes.
176 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xvm.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Pyramids.
I WENT to see, and to explore the Pyramids.
Familiar to one from the days of early childhood are the forms
of the Egyptian Pyramids, and now, as I approached them from
the banks of the Nile, I had no print, no picture before me, and
yet the old shapes were there ; there was no change ; they were
just as I had always known them. I straightened myself in my
stirrups, and strived to persuade my understanding that this was
real Egypt, and that those angles which stood up between me
and the West were of harder stuff, and more ancient than the
paper pyramids of the green portfolio. Yet it was not till I
came to the base of the great Pyramid, that reality began to
weigh upon my mind. Strange to say, the bigness of the dis-
tinct blocks of stone was the first sign by which I attained to feel
the immensity of the whole pile. When I came, and trod, and
touched with my hands, and climbed, in order that by climbing
I might come to the top of one single stone, then, and almost
suddenly, a cold sense and understanding of the Pyramid's
enormity came down overcasting my brain.
Now try to endure this homely, sick-nursish illustration of the
effect produced upon one's mind by the mere vastness of the great
Pyramid : when I was very young (between the ages, I believe,
of three and five years old), being then of delicate health, I was
often in time of night the victim of a strange kind of mental
oppression ; I lay in my bed perfectly conscious, and with open
eyes, but without power to speak, or to move, and all the while
my brain was oppressed to distraction by the presence of a single
and abstract idea, the idea of solid Immensity. * It seemed to
me in my agonies, that the horror of this visitation arose from
its coming upon me without form or shape that the close
CHAP, xix.] THE PYRAMIDS. 177
presence of the direst monster ever bred in Hell would have
been a thousand times more tolerable, than that simple idea of
solid size ; my aching mind was fixed, and riveted down upon
the mere quality of vastness, vastness, vastness ; and was not
permitted to invest with it any particular object. If I could have
done so, the torment would have ceased. When at last I was
roused from this state of suffering, I could not of course in those
days (knowing no verbal metaphysics, and no metaphysics at all,
except by the dreadful experience of an abstract idea), I could
not of course find words to describe the nature of my sensations,
and even now I cannot explain why it is that the forced con-
templation of a mere quality, distinct from matter, should be so
terrible. Well, now my eyes saw and knew, and my hands
and my feet informed my understanding, that there was nothing
at all abstract about the great Pyramid, it was a big triangle,
sufficiently concrete, easy to see, and rough to the touch ; it
could not, of course, affect me with the peculiar sensation which
I have been talking of, but yet there was something akin to that
old night-mare agony in the terrible completeness with which a
mere mass of masonry could fill and load my mind.
And Time too ; the remoteness of its origin, no less than the
enormity of its proportions, screens an Egyptian Pyramid from
the easy and familiar contact of our modern minds ; at its base
the common Earth ends, and all above is a world one not created
of God, not seeming to be made by men's hands, but rather,
the shear giant- work of some old dismal age weighing down this
younger planet.
Fine sayings ! but the truth seems to be, after all, that the
Pyramids are quite of this world; that they were piled up into
the air for the realization of some kingly crotchets about immor-
tality, some priestly longing for burial fees ; and that as for the
building they were built like coral rocks by swarms of insects,
by swarms of poor Egyptians, who were not only the abject
tools and slaves of power, but who also eat onions for the reward
of their immortal labors!* The Pyramids are quite of this
world.
* Herodotus, in an after age, stood by with his note book, and got, as he
thought, the exact returns of all the rations served out.
13
178 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xix.
I of course ascended to the summit of the great Pyramid, and
also explored its chambers, but these I need not describe. The
first time that I went to the Pyramids of Ghizeh, there were a
number of Arabs hanging about in its neighborhood, and want-
ing to receive presents on various pretences ; their Sheik was
with them. There was also present an ill looking fellow in
soldier's uniform. This man on my departure claimed a reward,
on the ground that he had maintained order and decorum
amongst the Arabs ; his claim was not considered valid by my
Dragoman, and was rejected accordingly : my donkey-boys after-
wards said they had overheard this fellow propose to the Sheik
to put me to death whilst I was in the interior of the great
Pyramid, and to share with him the booty ; fancy a struggle for
life in one of those burial chambers, with acres and acres of solid
masonry between oneself and the daylight ! I felt exceedingly
glad that I had not made the rascal a present.
I visited the very ancient Pyramids of Aboucir and Sakka-
ra ; there are many of these, and of various shapes and sizes,
and it struck me that taken together they might be considered
.as showing the progress and perfection (such as it is) of Pyra-
midical Architecture. One of the Pyramids at Sakkara is
almost a rival for the full grown monster of Ghizeh ; others are
-scarcely more than vast heaps of brick and stone ; these last
suggested to me the idea that after all the Pyramid is nothing
more nor less than a variety of the sepulchral mound so com-
mon in most countries (including I believe Hindostan, from
whence the Egyptians are supposed to have come). Men ac-
customed to raise these structures for their dead Kings, or con-
querors, would carry the usage with them in their migrations,
but arriving in Egypt, and seeing the impossibility of finding
earth sufficiently tenacious for a mound, they would approxi-
mate as nearly as might be to their ancient custom by raising
up a round heap of these stones, in short, conical pyramids ;
of these there are several at Sakkara, and the materials of some
are thrown together without any order or regularity. The
transition from this simple form to that of the square angular
pyramid, was easy and natural, and it seemed to me that the
gradations through which the style passed from infancy up to its
mature enormity, could plainly be traced at Sakkara.
CHAP, xx.] THE SPHYNX. 179
CHAPTER XX.
The Sphynx.
AND near the Pyramids, more wondrous, and more awful than
all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphynx.
Comely the creature is, but the comeliness is not of this world ;
the once worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this
generation, and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and
heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of
beauty some mould of beauty now forgotten forgotten be-
cause that Greece drew forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of
the ^Egean, and in her image created new forms of beauty, and
made it a law among men that the short and proudly wreathed
lip should stand for the sign and the main condition of loveli-
ness, through all generations to come. Yet still there lives on
the race of those who were beautiful in the fashion of the elder
world, and Christian girls of Coptic blood, will look on you with
the sad, serious gaze, and kiss you your charitable hand with
the big, pouting lips of the very Sphynx.
Laugh, and mock if you will at the worship of stone idols,
but mark ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard, the
stone idol bears awful semblance of Deity unchangefulness in
the midst of change the same seeming will and intent for ever
and ever inexorable ! Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and
Egyptian Kings upon Greek and Roman, upon Arab and
Ottoman conquerors upon Napoleon dreaming of an Eastern
Empire upon battle and pestilence upon the ceaseless misery
of the Egyptian race upon keen-eyed travellers Herodotus
yesterday, and Warburton* to-day upon all, and more this un-
* Eliot Warburton, who is known to be the author of those brilliantly
sparkling papers, the " Episodes of Eastern Travel," which lit up our last
November. His book (" The Crescent and the Cross ") must, and will be
capital.
180 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xx.
worldly Sphynx has watched, and watched like a Providence
with the same earnest eyes, and the same sad, tranquil mien.
And we, we shall die, and Islam will wither away, and the
Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved India, will plant
a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the seats of the
Faithful, and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and
watching the works of the new, busy race, with those same sad,
earnest eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlasting. You
dare not mock at the Sphynx.
CHAP, xxi.] CAIRO TO SUEZ. 181
CHAPTER XXI.
Cairo to Suez.
THE " Dromedary" of Egypt and Syria, is not the two-humped
animal described by that name in books of natural history, but
is in fact of the same family as the camel, to which it stands in
about the same relation as a racer to a cart-horse. The fleet-
ness and endurance of this creature are extraordinary. It is
not usual to force him into a gallop, and I fancy from his make
that it would be quite impossible for him to maintain that pace
for any length of time, but the animal is on so large a scale
that the jog-trot at which he is generally ridden implies a pro-
gress of perhaps ten or twelve miles an hour, and this pace, it
is said, he can keep up incessantly without food, or water, or
rest, for three whole days and nights.
Of the two dromedaries which I had obtained for this journey,
I mounted one myself, and put Dthemetri on the other. My
plan was, to ride on with Dthemetri to Suez as rapidly as the
fleetness of the beasts would allow, and to let Mysseri (who was
still weak from the effects of his late illness) come quietly on
with the camels and baggage.
The trot of the Dromedary is a pace terribly disagreeable to
the rider, until he becomes a little accustomed to it ; but after
the first half hour I so far schooled myself to this new exercise,
that I felt capable of keeping it up (though not without aching
limbs) for several hours together. Now, therefore, I was anx-
ious to dart forward, and annihilate at once the whole space that
divided me from the Red Sea. Dthemetri, however, could not
get on at all ; every attempt which he made to trot seemed to
threaten the utter dislocation of his whole frame, and indeed I
doubt whether any one of Dthemetri's age (nearly forty I think)
and unaccustomed to such exercise, could have borne it at all
182 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxi.
easily ; besides, the dromedary which fell to his lot was evi-
dently a very bad one ; he every now and then came to a dead
stop, and coolly knelt down as though suggesting that the rider
had better get off at once, and abandon the attempt as one that
was utterly hopeless.
When for the third or fourth time I saw Dthemetri thus planted,
I lost my patience, and went on without him. For about two hours,
I think, I advanced without once looking behind me. I then
paused, and cast my eyes back to the western horizon. There
was no sign of Dthemetri, nor of any other living creature.
This I expected, for I knew that I must have far out-distanced
all my followers. I had ridden away from my party merely by
way of gratifying my impatience, and with the intention of
stopping as soon as I felt tired, until I was overtaken. I now
observed, however (which I had not been able to do whilst ad-
vancing so rapidly), that the track which I had been following
was seemingly the track of only one or two camels. I did not
fear that I had diverged very largely from the true route, but
still I could not feel any reasonable certainty, that my party
would follow any line of march within sight of me.
I had to consider, therefore, whether I should remain where I
was, upon the chance of seeing my people come up, or whether
I would push on alone, and find my way to Suez. I had now
learned that I could not rely upon the continued guidance of any
track, but I knew that (if maps were right) the point for which
I was bound bore just due East of Cairo, and I thought that
although I might miss the line leading most directly to Suez, I
could not well fail to find my way sooner or later to the Red
Sea. The worst of it was that I had no provision of food or
water with me, and already I was beginning to feel thirst. I
deliberated for a minute, and then determined that I would
abandon all hope of seeing my party again in the desert, and
would push forward as rapidly as possible towards Suez.
It was not, I confess, without a sensation of awe that I swept
with my sight the vacant round of the horizon, and remembered
that I was all alone and unprovisioned in the midst of the arid
waste ; but this very awe gave tone and zest to the exultation
with which I felt myself launched. Hitherto, in all my wander-
CHAP, xxi.] CAIRO TO SUEZ. 183
ings I had been under the care of other people sailors, Tatars,
guides and Dragomen had watched over my welfare, but now at
last, I was here in this African desert, and I myself, and no other,
had charge of my life ; I liked the office well ; I had the great-
est part of the day before me, a very fair dromedary, a fur pe-
lisse, and a brace of pistols, but no bread, and no water; for
that I must ride, and ride I did.
For several hours I urged, forward my beast at a rapid,
though steady pace, but now the pangs of thirst began to tor-
ment me. I did not relax my pace, however, and I had not suf-
fered long, when a moving object appeared in the distance be-
fore me. The intervening space was soon traversed, and I
found myself approaching a Bedouin Arab mounted on a camel,
attended by another Bedouin on foot. They stopped. I saw
that, as usual, there hung from the pack-saddle of the camel, a
large skin water-flask which seemed to be well filled ; I steered
my dromedary close up alongside of the mounted Bedouin,
caused my beast to kneel down, then alighted, and keeping the
end of the halter in my hand, went up to the mounted Bedouin
without speaking, took hold of his water-flask, opened it, and
drank long and deep from its leathern lips. Both of the Be-
douins stood fast in amazement and mute horror, and really if
they had never happened to see an European before, the appari-
tion was enough to startle them. To see for the first time a coat
and a waistcoat with the pale semblance of a human head at
the top, and for this ghastly figure to come swiftly out of the
horizon, upon a fleet dromedary approach them silently, and
with a demoniacal smile, and drink a deep draught from their
water-flask this was enough to make the Bedouins stare a
little : they, in fact, stared a great deal not as Europeans stare,
with a restless and puzzled expression of countenance, but with
features all fixed, and rigid, and with still, glassy eyes ; before
they had time to get decomposed from their state of petrifaction, I
had remounted my dromedary, and was darting away towards
the East.
Without pause, or remission of pace, I continued to press for-
ward, but after a while, I found to my confusion, that the slight
track, which had hitherto guided me, now failed altogether ; I
184 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxi.
began to fear that I must have been all along following the
course of some wandering Bedouins, and I felt that if this were
the case, my fate was a little uncertain. To comfort myself, I
began to nurse up a theory that death by thirst was not so terri-
ble as inexperienced people were apt to imagine. (Say what
you will, there is comfort in theories ; some of the repudiating
Americans of the United States entertain a theory that they are
distinguishable from common swindlers, and the national pride
of the "young Republic" is wholly supported by the indulgence
of this singular fancy.)
I had no compass with me, but I determined upon the eastern
point of the horizon as accurately as I could, by reference to the
sun, and so laid down for myself a way over the pathless sands.
But now my poor dromedary, by whose life and strength I held
my own, she began to show signs of distress ; a thick, clammy,
and glutinous kind of foam gathered about her lips, and piteous
sobs burst from her bosom in the tones of human misery ; I
doubted for a moment, whether I would give her a little rest, or
relaxation of pace, but I decided that I would not, and continued
to push forward as steadily as before.
The character of the country became changed ; I had ridden
away from the level tracts, and before me now, and on either
side, there were vast hills of sand, and calcined rocks that inter-
rupted my progress, and baffled my doubtful road, but I did my
best; with rapid steps 1 swept round the base of the hills,
threaded the winding hollows, and at last, as I rose in my swift
course to the crest of a lofty ridge, Thalatta ! Thalatta ! by
Jove ! I saw the Sea !
My tongue can tell where to find the clue to many an old pagan
creed, because that (distinctly from all mere admiration of the
beauty belonging.to Nature's works) I acknowledge a sense of
mystical reverence, when first I look to see some illustrious
feature of the globe some coast-line of Ocean some mighty
river or dreary mountain range, the ancient barrier of kingdoms.
But the Red Sea ! It might well claim my earnest gaze by force
of the great Jewish migration which connects it with the history
of our own Religion. From this very ridge, it is likely enough,
the panting Israelites first saw that shining inlet of the sea. Ay !
CHAP, xxi.] CAIRO TO SUEZ. 185
ay ! but moreover, and best of all, that beckoning Sea assured
my eyes, and proved how well I had marked out the East for my
path, and gave me good promise that sooner or later the time
would come for me to rest and drink. It was distant, the Sea,
but I felt my own strength, and I had heard of the strength of
dromedaries. I pushed forward as eagerly as though I had
spoiled the Egyptians, and were flying from Pharaoh's police.
I had not yet been able to discover any symptoms of Suez,
but after a while I descried in the distance a large, blank, iso-
lated building ; I made towards this, and in time got down to it.
The building was a fort, and had been built there for the protec-
tion of a well, which it contained within its precincts. A cluster
of small huts adhered to the fort, and in a short time I was
receiving the hospitality of the inhabitants who were grouped
upon the sands near their hamlet. To quench the fires of my
throat with about a gallon of muddy water, and to swallow a
little of the food placed before me, was the work of few minutes,
and before the astonishment of my hosts had even begun to sub-
side, I was pursuing my onward journey. Suez, I found, was
still three hours distant, and the Sun going down in the West
warned me that I must find some other guide to keep me in the
right direction. This guide I found in the most fickle and un-
certain of the elements. For some hours the wind had been
freshening, and it now blew a violent gale ; it blew not fitfully,
and in squalls, but with such remarkable steadiness that I felt
convinced it would come from the same quarter for several
hours. When the Sun set, therefore, I carefully looked for the
point from which the wind was blowing, and found that it came
from the very West, and was blowing exactly in the direction of
my route. I had nothing to do therefore but to go straight to
leeward, and this was not difficult, for the gale blew with such
immense force that if I diverged at all from its line I instantly
felt the pressure of the blast on the side towards which I was
deviating. Very soon after sun-set there came on complete
darkness, but the strong wind guided me well, and sped me, too,
on my way.
I had pushed on for about, I think, a couple of hours after
night- fall, when I saw the glimmer of a light in the distance, and
186 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxi.
this I ventured to hope must be Suez. Upon approaching it,
however, I found that it was only a solitary fort, and I passed on
without stopping.
On I went, still riding down the wind, when an unlucky acci-
dent occurred, for which, if you like, you can have your laugh
against me. I have told you already what sort of lodging it is
which you have upon the back of a camel. You ride the drome-
dary in the same fashion ; you are perched rather than seated
upon a bunch of carpets or quilts upon the summit of the hump.
It happened that my dromedary veered rather suddenly from her
onward course ; meeting the movement, I mechanically turned
my left wrist as though I were holding a bridle rein, for the com-
plete darkness prevented my eyes from reminding me that I had
nothing but a halter in my hand ; the expected resistance failed,
for the halter was hanging upon that side of the dromedary's
neck towards which I was slightly leaning ; I toppled over, head
foremost, and then went falling and falling through air till my
crown came whang against the ground. And the ground too
was perfectly hard (compacted sand), but the thickly wadded
head-gear which I wore for protection against the sun saved my
life. The notion of my being able to get up again after falling
head-foremost from such an immense height seemed to me at first
too paradoxical to be acted upon, but I soon found that I was not
a bit hurt. My dromedary utterly vanished ; I looked round me
and saw the glimmer of a light in the fort which I had lately
passed, and I began to work my way back in that direction.
The violence of the gale made it hard for me to force my way
towards the West, but I succeeded at last in regaining the fort.
To this, as to the other fort which I had passed, there was
attached a cluster of huts, and I soon found myself surrounded
by a group of villanous, gloomy-looking fellows. It was a
horrid bore for me to have to swagger and look big at a time
when I felt so particularly small on account of my tumble, and
my lost dromedary, but there was no help for it ; I had no
Dthemetri now to "strike terror" for me. I knew hardly one
word of Arabic, but somehow or other I contrived to announce
it as my absolute will and pleasure that these fellows should find
me the means of gaming Suez. They acceded, and having a
CHAP, xxi.] CAIRO TO SUEZ. 187
donkey, they saddled it for me, and appointed one of their num-
ber to attend me on foot.
I afterwards found that these fellows were not Arabs, but
Algerine refugees, and that they bore the character of being sad
scoundrels. They justified this imputation to some extent on the
following day. They allowed Mysseri with my baggage, and
the camels, to pass unmolested, but an Arab lad belonging to the
party happened to lag a little way in the rear, and him (if they
were not maligned) these rascals stripped and robbed. Low in-
deed is the state of bandit morality, when men will allow the
sleek traveller with well laden camels to pass in quiet, reserving
their spirit of enterprise for the tattered turban of a miserable
boy.
I reached Suez at last. The British Agent, though roused
from his midnight sleep, received me in his home with the utmost
kindness and hospitality. Oh ! by Jove, how delightful it was to
lie on fair sheets, and to dally with sleep, and to wake, and to
sleep, and to wake once more, for the sake of sleeping again !
158 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxn.
CHAPTER XXII.
I WAS hospitably entertained by the British Consul or Agent, as he
is there styled ; he is the employe of the East India Company,
and not of the Home Government. Napoleon, during his stay of
five days at Suez, had been the guest of the Consul's father, and
I was told that the divan in my apartment had been the bed of
the great Commander.
There are two opinions as to the point at which the Israelites
passed the Red Sea ; one is that they traversed only the very
small creek at the Northern extremity of the inlet, and that they
entered the bed of the water at the spot on which Suez now
stands the other that they crossed the sea from a point eighteen
miles down the coast. The Oxford theologians who, with Mil-
man their Professor,* believe that Jehovah conducted his chosen
people without disturbing the order of Nature, adopt the first
view, and suppose that the Israelites passed during an ebb tide
aided by a violent wind. One among many objections to this
supposition is, that the time of a single ebb would not have been
sufficient for the passage of that vast multitude of men and
beasts, or even for a small fraction of it. Moreover the creek
to the north of this point can be compassed in an hour, and in
two hours you can make the circuit of the salt marsh over which
the sea may have extended in former times ; if therefore the
Israelites crossed so high up as Suez, the Egyptians, unless in-
fatuated by divine interference, might easily have recovered their
stolen goods from the encumbered fugitives, by making a slight
detour. The opinion which fixes the point of passage at eighteen
miles distance, and from thence right across the Ocean depths to
* See Milman's History of the Jews. 1st Edit. Family Library.
CHAP. XXII.] SUEZ.
the Eastern side of the sea, is supported by the unanimous tra-
dition of the people, whether Christians or Mussulmans, and is
consistent with Holy writ ; " the waters were a wall unto them
on their right hand, and on their left" The Cambridge Mathe-
maticians seem to think that the Israelites were enabled to pass
over dry land by adopting a route not usually subject to the
influx of the Sea ; this notion is plausible in a merely hydrosta-
tical point of view, and is supposed to have been adopted by
most of the fellows of Trinity, but certainly not by Thorp, who
is one of the most amiable of their number ; it is difficult to
reconcile this theory with the account given in Exodus, unless
we can suppose that the words " sea" and " waters " are there
used in a sense implying dry land.
Napoleon, when at Suez, made an attempt to follow the sup-
posed steps of Moses by passing the creek at this point, but it
seems, according to the testimony of the people at Suez, that he
and his horsemen managed the matter in a way more resembling
the failure of the Egyptians, than the success of the Israelites.
According to the French account, Napoleon got out of the diffi-
culty by that warrior-like presence of mind which served him
so well when the fate of nations depended on the decision of a
moment ; he ordered his horsemen to disperse in all directions,
in order to multiply the chances of finding shallow water, and
was thus enabled to discover a line by which he and his people
were extricated. The story told by the people of Suez is very
different ; they declare that Napoleon parted from his horse, got
thoroughly submerged, and was only fished put by the assistance
of the people on shore.
I bathed twice at the point assigned to the passage of the
Israelites, and the second time that I did so, I chose the time of
low water, and tried to walk across, but I soon found myself out
of my depth, or at least in water so deep that I could only
advance by swimming.
The dromedary which had bolted into the Desert, was brought
into Suez the day after my arrival, but my pelisse and my pis-
tols, which had been attached to the saddle, had disappeared ;
these articles were treasures of great importance to me at that
time, and I moved the Governor of the town to make all possible
190 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxii.
exertions for their recovery ; he acceded to my wishes as well
as he could, and very obligingly imprisoned the first seven poor
fellows he could lay his hands on.
At first the Governor acted in the matter from no other mo-
tive than that of courtesy to an English traveller, but afterwards,
and when he saw the value which I set upon the lost property,
he pushed his measures with a degree of alacrity and heat,
which seemed to show that he felt a personal interest in the mat-
ter ; it was supposed either that he expected a large present in
the event of succeeding, or that he was striving by all means to
trace the property in order that he might lay his hands on it after
my departure.
I went out sailing for some hours, and when I returned I was
horrified to find that two men had been bastinadoed by order of
the Governor, with a view to force them to a confession of their
theft. It appeared, however, that there really was good ground
for supposing them guilty, since one of the holsters was actually
found in their possession. It was said, too (but I could hardly
believe it), that whilst one of the men was undergoing the bas-
tinado, his comrade was overheard encouraging him to bear the
torment without peaching. Both men, if they had the secret,
were resolute in keeping it, and were sent back to their dungeon.
I, of course, took care that there should be no repetition of the
torture, at least as long as I remained at Suez.
The Governor was a thorough Oriental, and until a com-
paratively recent period had shared in the old Mahometan feel-
ing of contempt for Europeans. It happened, however, one day
that an English gun-brig had appeared off Suez, and sent her
boats ashore to take in fresh water. Now fresh water at Suez
is a somewhat scarce and precious commodity ; it is kept in
tanks, the chief of which is at some distance from the place.
Under these circumstances the request for fresh water was
refused, or at all events was not complied with. The Cap-
tain of the brig was a simple-minded man, with a strongish
will, and he at once declared that if his casks were not filled
in three hours, he would destroy the whole place. " A great
people indeed !" said the Governor " a wonderful people, the
English !" He instantly caused every cask to be filled to the
CHAP, xxn.] SUEZ.
brim from his own tank, and ever afterwards entertained for the
English a degree of affection and respect for which I felt in-
finitely indebted to the gallant Captain.
The day after the abortive attempt to extract a confession
from the prisoners, the Governor, the Consul and I, sat in Council,
I know not how long, with a view of prosecuting the search for
the stolen goods. The sitting, considered in the light of a crim-
inal investigation, was characteristic of the East. The proceed-
ings began as a matter of course by the Prosecutor's smoking a
pipe, and drinking coffee with the Governor, who was Judge,
Jury, and Sheriff. I got on very well with him (this was not
my first interview), and he gave me the pipe from his lips in
testimony of his friendship. I recollect, however, that my prime
adviser, thinking me, I suppose, a great deal too shy and retiring
in my manner, entreated me to put up my boots, and to soil the
Governor's divan, in order to inspire respect, and strike terror.
I thought it would be as well for me to retain the right of res-
pecting myself, and that it was not quite necessary for a well
received guest to strike any terror at all.
Our deliberations were assisted by the numerous attendants
who lined the three sides of the room not occupied by the divan.
Any one of these who took it into his head to offer a suggestion,
would stand forward, and humble himself before the Governor,
and then state his views, which were always more or less attend-
ed to.
After a great deal of fruitless planning, the Governor directed
that the prisoners should be brought in. I was shocked when
they entered, for I was not prepared to see them come carried
into the room upon the shoulders of others. It had not occurred
to me that their battered feet would be too sore to bear the con-
tact of the floor. They persisted in asserting their innocence.
The Governor wanted to recur to the torture, but that I pre-
vented, and the men were carried back to their dungeon.
A scheme was now suggested by one of the attendants which
seemed to me childishly absurd, but it was nevertheless tried.
The plan was to send a man to the prisoners, who was to make
them believe that he had obtained entrance into their dungeon
upon some other pretence, but that he had in reality come to
192 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxn.
treat with them for the purchase of the stolen goods. This
shallow expedient of course failed.
The Governor himself had not nominally the power of life
and death over the people in his district, but he could if he chose
send them to Cairo, and have them hanged there. I proposed
therefore that the prisoners should be threatened with this fate.
The answer of the Governor made me feel rather ashamed of
my effeminate suggestion; he said that if I wished it he would
willingly threaten them with death, but he also said that if he
threatened, he should execute the threat.
Thinking at last that nothing was to be gained by keeping the
prisoners any longer in confinement, I requested that they might
be set free. To this the Governor acceded, though only, as he
said, out of favor to me, for he had a strong impression that the
men were guilty. I went down to see the prisoners let out with
my own eyes. They were very grateful, and fell down to the
earth, kissing my boots. I gave them a present to console them
for their wounds, and they seemed to be highly delighted.
Although the matter terminated in a manner so satisfactory to
the principal sufferers, there were symptoms of some angry ex-
citement in the place ; it was said that public opinion was much
shocked at the fact that Mahometans had been beaten on ac-
count of a loss sustained by a Christian. My journey was to
recommence the next day, and it was hinted that if I persever-
ed in my intention of proceeding, the people would have an
easy and profitable opportunity of wreaking their vengeance on
me. If ever they formed any scheme of the kind, they at all
events refrained from any attempt to carry it into effect.
One of the evenings during my stay at Suez was enlivened
by a triple wedding. There was a long and slow procession.
Some carried torches, and others were thumping drums, and
firing pistols. The bridegrooms came last, all walking abreast ;
my only reason for mentioning the ceremony (which was other-
wise uninteresting) is that I scarcely ever in all my life saw any
phenomena so ridiculous, as the meekness and gravity of those
three young men, whilst being " led to the altar."
CHAP, xxiii.] SUEZ TO GAZA. 193
CHAPTER XXIII.
Suez to Gaza.
THE route over the Desert from Suez to Gaza is not frequented
by merchants, and is seldom passed by a traveller. This part
of the country is less uniformly barren than the tracts of shifting
sand which lie on the El Arish route. The shrubs on which the
camels feed are more frequent, and there are many spots on
which the sand is mingled with so much of productive soil as to
admit the growth of corn. The Bedouins are driven out of this
district during the summer by the total want of water, but be-
fore the time for their forced departure arrives, they succeed in
raising little crops of barley from these comparatively fertile
patches of ground ; they bury the fruit of their labors, leaving
marks by which, upon their return, they may be able to recog-
nize the spot. The warm dry sand stands them for a safe gra-
nary. The country, at the time I passed it (in the month of
April), was pretty thickly sprinkled with Bedouins expecting
their harvest ; several times my tent was pitched along side of
their encampments ; I have told you already what the impres-
sions were which these people produced upon my mind.
I saw several creatures of the antelope kind in this part of the
Desert, and one day my Arabs surprised in her sleep, a young
gazelle (for so I call her), and took the darling prisoner. I
carried her before me on my camel for the rest of the day, and
kept her in my tent all night ; I did all I could to coax her, but
the trembling beauty refused to touch food, and would not be
comforted ; whenever she had a seeming opportunity of escap-
ing, she struggled with a violence so painfully disproportioned
to her fine, delicate limbs, that I could not continue the cruel
attempt to make her my own. In the morning, therefore, I set
her free, anticipating some pleasure from seeing the joyous
14
194 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxm.
bound with which, as I thought, she would return to her native
freedom. She had been so stupefied, however, by the exciting
events of the preceding day and night, and was so puzzled as
to the road she should take, that she went off very deliberately,
and with an uncertain step. She went away quite sound in
limb, but her intellect may have been upset. Never, in all
likelihood, had she seen the form of a human being, until the
dreadful moment when she woke from her sleep, and found her-
self in the gripe of an Arab. Then her pitching and tossing
journey on the back of a camel, and lastly, a soiree with me
by candlelight ! I should have been glad to know, if I could,
that her heart was not utterly broken.
My Arabs were somewhat excited one day by discovering the
fresh print of a foot the foot, as they said, of a lion. I had no
conception that the Lord of the forest (better known as a crest)
ever stalked away from his jungles to make inglorious war in
these smooth plains against antelopes and gazelles. I supposed
that there must have been some error of interpretation, and that
the Arabs meant to speak of a tiger. It appeared, however,
that this was not the case ; either the Arabs were mistaken, or
the noble brute, uncooped and unchained, had but lately crossed
my path.
The camels with which I traversed this part of the Desert,
were very different in their ways and habits from those which
you get on a frequented route. They were never led. There
was not the slightest sign of a track in this part of the Desert,
but the camels never failed to choose the right line. By the
direction taken at starting, they knew, I suppose, the point (some
encampment) for which they were to make. There is always a
leading camel (generally, I believe, the eldest), who marches
foremost and determines the path for the whole party. If it
happens that no one of the camels has been accustomed to lead
the others, there is very great difficulty in making a start ; if you
force your beast forward for a moment he will contrive to wheel
and draw back, at the same time looking at one of the other
camels with an expression and gesture exactly equivalent to
" apres vous." The responsibility of finding the way is evi-
dently assumed very unwillingly. After some time, however,
CHAP, xxm.] SUEZ TO GAZA. 195
it becomes understood that one of the beasts has reluctantly con-
sented to take the lead, and he accordingly advances for that
purpose. For a minute or two he goes on with much indecision,
taking first one line and then another, but soon, by the aid of
some mysterious sense, he discovers the true direction and fol-
lows it steadily from morning to night. When once the leader-
ship is established, you cannot by any persuasion, and can
scarcely by any force, induce a junior camel to walk one single
step in advance of the chosen guide.
On the fifth day I came to an Oasis, called the Wady el Arish,
a ravine, or rather a gully, through which during a part of the
year there runs a stream of water. On the sides of the gully
there were a number of those graceful trees which the Arabs
call Tarfa. The channel of the stream was quite dry in the
part at which we arrived, but at about half a mile off some
water was found, which, though very muddy, was tolerably
sweet. This was a happy discovery, for the water which we
had brought from the neighborhood of Suez was rapidly putri-
The want of foresight is an anomalous part of the Bedouin's
character, for it does not result either from recklessness or stu-
pidity. I know of no human being whose body is so thoroughly
the slave of mind as that of the Arab. His mental anxieties
seem to be for ever torturing every nerve and fibre of his body,
and yet with all this exquisite sensitiveness to the suggestions of
the mind, he is grossly improvident. I recollect, for instance,
that when setting out upon this passage of the Desert, my Arabs,
in order to lighten the burthen of their camels, were most anx-
ious that we should take with us only two days' supply of water.
They said that by the time that supply was exhausted, we should
arrive at a spring which would furnish us for the rest of the
journey. My servants very wisely, and with much pertinacity,.
resisted the adoption of this plan, and took care to have both
the large skins well filled. We proceeded, and found no water
at all, either at the expected spring, or for many days after-
wards, so that nothing but the precaution of my own people
saved us from the very severe suffering which we should have
endured if we had entered upon the Desert with only a two days'
196 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxm.
supply. The Arabs themselves being on foot would have suf-
fered much more than I from the consequences of their im-
providence.
This unaccountable want of foresight prevents the Bedouin
from appreciating at a distance of eight or ten days the amount
of the misery which he entails upon himself at the end of that
period. The Bedouin's dread of a city is one of the most pain-
ful mental affections that I have ever observed, and yet when
the whole breadth of the Desert lies between him and the town
to which you are going, he will freely enter into an agreement to
land you in the city for which you are bound. When, however,
after many a day of toil, the distant minarets at length appear,
the poor Bedouin relaxes the vigor of his pace his step becomes
faltering and undecided every moment his uneasiness increases,
and at length he fairly sobs aloud, and embracing your knees,
implores with the most piteous cries and gestures, that you will
dispense with him and his camels and find some other means of
entering the city. This, of course, one can't agree to, and the
consequence is, that one is obliged to witness and resist the most
moving expressions of grief and fond entreaty. I had to go
through a most painful scene of this kind when I entered Cairo,
and now the horror which these wilder Arabs felt at the notion of
entering Gaza led to consequences still more distressing. The
dread of cities results partly from a kind of wild instinct which
has always characterized the descendants of Ishmael, but partly
too, from a well-founded apprehension of ill-treatment. So often
it happens that the poor Bedouin, when once jammed in between
walls, is seized by the Government authorities for the sake of his
camels, that his innate horror of cities becomes really well jus-
tified by results.
The Bedouins with whom I performed this journey were wild
fellows of the Desert, quite unaccustomed to let out themselves
and their beasts for hire, and when they found that by the natural
ascendency of Europeans they were gradually brought down to
a state of subserviency to me, or rather to my attendants, they
bitterly repented, I believe, of having placed themselves under
our control. They were rather difficult fellows to manage, and
gave Dthemetri a good deal of trouble, but I liked them all the
better for that.
CHAP, xxiii.] SUEZ TO GAZA. 197
Selim, the chief of the party and the man to whom all our
camels belonged, was a fine, wild, stately fellow ; there were, I
think, five other Arabs of the party, but when we approached the
end of the journey, they, one by one, began to make oft' towards
the neighboring encampments, and by the time that the minarets
of Gaza were ift sight, Selim, the owner of the camels, was the
only one who remained ; he, poor fellow, as we neared the
Town, began to discover the same terrors that my Arabs had
shown when I entered Cairo. I could not possibly accede to his
entreaties and consent to let my baggage be laid down on the
bare sands, without any means of having it brought on into the
city. So at length when poor Selim had exhausted all his rhe-
toric of voice and action and tears, he fixed his despairing eyes
for a minute upon the cherished beasts that were his only wealth,
and then wildly and suddenly dashed away into the farther
Desert. 1 continued my course and reached the city at last, but
it was not without immense difficulty that we could constrain the
poor camels to pass under the hated shadow of its walls. They
were the genuine beasts of the Desert, and it was sad and painful
to witness the agony which they suffered when thus they were
forced to encounter the fixed habitations of men ; they shrank
from the beginning of every high narrow street, as though from
the entrance of some horrible cave, or bottomless pit ; they
sighed and wept like women. When at last we got them within
the court-yard of the Khan, they seemed to be quite broken-hearted,
and looked round piteously for their loving master, but no Selim
came. I had imagined that he would enter the town secretly
by night, in order to carry off those five fine camels, his only
wealth in this world, and seemingly the main objects of his affec-
tion. But no his dread of civilisation was too strong ; during
the whole of the three days that I remained at Gaza, he failed
to show himself, and thus sacrificed, in all probability, not only
his camels but the money which I had stipulated to pay him for
the passage of the Desert. In order, however, to do all I could
towards saving him from this last misfortune, I resorted to a
contrivance which is frequently adopted by the Asiatics. I
assembled a group of grave and worthy Mussulmans in the
court-yard of the Khan, and in their presence paid over the
198 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxiu.
gold to a Sheik who was accustomed to communicate with the
Arabs of the Desert. All present solemnly promised that if
ever Selim should come to claim his rights they would bear
true witness in his favor.
I saw a great deal of my old friend the Governor of Gaza.
He had received orders to send back all persons coming from
Egypt, and force them to perform quarantine at El Arish ; he
knew so little of quarantine regulations, however, that his dress
was actually in contact with mine, whilst he insisted upon the
stringency of the orders which he had received. He was in-
duced to make an exception in my favor, and I rewarded him
with a musical snuff-box which I had bought at Smyrna, for the
purpose of presenting it to any man in authority who might hap-
pen to do me an important service. The Governor was im-
mensely delighted with this toy, and took it off to his harem with
great exultation ; he soon, however, returned with an altered
countenance ; his wives, he said, had got hold of the box, and put
it out of order. So short-lived is human happiness in this frail
world !
The Governor fancied that he should incur less risk if I re-
mained at Gaza for two or three days more, and he wanted me
to become his guest ; I persuaded him, however, that it would be
better for him to let me depart at once ; he wanted to add to my
baggage a roast lamb, and a quantity of other cumbrous viands,
but I escaped with half a horse-load of leaven bread, which was
very good of its kind, and proved a most useful present. The
air with which the Governor's slaves affected to be almost break-
ing down under the weight of the gifts which they bore on their
shoulders, reminded me of the figures one sees in some of the old
pictures.
CHAP, xxiv.] GAZA TO NABLOUS. 199
CHAPTER XXIV.
Gaza to Nablous.
PASSING now once again through Palestine and Syria, I retained
the tent which I had used in the Desert, and found that it added
very much to my comfort in travelling. Instead of turning out
a family from some wretched dwelling, and depriving them of a
repose which I was sure not to find for myself, I now, when
evening came, pitched my tent upon some smiling spot within a
few hundred yards of the village to which I looked for my sup-
plies that is, for milk and bread, if I had it not with me, and
sometimes also for eggs. The worst of it is, that the needful
viands are not to be obtained by coin, but only by intimidation.
I at first tried the usual agent money ; Dthemetri, with one or
two of my Arabs, went into the village near which I was en-
camped, and tried to buy the required provisions, offering liberal
payment, but he came back empty-handed. I sent him again,
but this time he held different language ; he required to see the
elders of the place, and threatening dreadful vengeance, directed
them upon their responsibility to take care that my tent should
be immediately and abundantly supplied. He was obeyed at
once, and the provisions which had been refused to me as a
purchaser soon arrived, trebled, or quadrupled, when demanded
by way of a forced contribution. I quickly found (I think it re-
quired two experiments to convince me) that this peremptory
method was the only one which could be adopted with success ;
it never failed. Of course, however, when the provisions have
been actually obtained, you can, if you choose, give money ex-
ceeding the value of the provisions to somebody ; an English a
thorough-bred English traveller will always do this (though it is
contrary to the custom of the country), for the quiet (false quiet
though it be) of his own conscience, but so to order the matter,
200 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxiv.
that the poor fellows who have been forced to contribute, should
be the persons to receive the value of their supplies, is not pos-
sible ; for a traveller to attempt anything so grossly just as that,
would be too outrageous. The truth is, that the usage of the
East, in old times, required the people of a village, at their own
cost, to supply the wants of travellers, and the ancient custom
is now adhered to, not in favor of travellers generally, but in
favor of those who are deemed sufficiently powerful to enforce
its observance ; if the villagers, therefore, find a man waiving
this right to oppress them, and offering coin for that which he is
entitled to take without payment, they suppose at once that he is
actuated by fear (fear of them, poor fellows !) and it is so delight-
ful to them to act upon this flattering assumption, that they will
forego the advantage of a good price for their provisions, rather
than the rare luxury of refusing for once in their lives to part
with their own property.
The practice of intimidation, thus rendered necessary, is
utterly hateful to an Englishman ; he finds himself forced to
conquer his daily bread by the pompous threats of the Drago-
man, his very subsistence, as well as his dignity and personal
safety, being made to depend upon his servants assuming a tone
of authority which does not at all belong to him. Besides, he
can scarcely fail to see, that as he passes through the country,
he becomes the innocent cause of much extra injustice many
supernumerary wrongs. This he feels to be especially the case
when he travels with relays. To be the owner of a horse or a
mule, within reach of an Asiatic potentate, is to lead the life of
the hare and the rabbit hunted down and ferreted out. Too
often it happens that the works of the field are stopped in the day-
time, that the inmates of the cottage are roused from their mid-
night sleep by the sudden coming of a Government officer, and
the poor husbandman, driven by threats and rewarded by curses,
if he would not lose sight for ever of his captured beasts, must
quit all and follow them ; this is done that the Englishman may
travel ; he would make his way more harmlessly if he could,
but horses or mules he must have, and these are his ways and
means.
The town of Nablous is beautiful ; it lies in a valley hemmed
CHAP, xxiv.] GAZA TO NABLOUS. 201
in with olive groves, and its buildings are interspersed with fre-
quent palm-trees. It Js said to occupy the site of the ancient
Sychem. I know not whether it was there, indeed, that the
father of the Jews was accustomed to feed his flooks ; but the
valley is green and smiling, and is held at this day by a race
more brave and beautiful than Jacob's unhappy descendants.
Nablous is the very furnace of Mahometan bigotry, and I be-
lieve that only a few months before the time of my going there,
it would have been quite unsafe for a man, unless strongly
guarded, to show himself to the people of the town in a Frank
costume ; but since their last insurrection, the Mahomedans of
the place had been so far subdued by the severity of Ibrahim
Pasha, that they dared not now offer the slightest insult to an
European. It was quite plain, however, that the effort with
which the men of the old, school refrained from expressing their
opinion of a hat and a coat, was horribly painful to them ; as I
walked through the streets and bazaars, a dead silence prevailed ;
every man suspended his employment, and gazed on me with a
fixed, glassy look, which seemed to say, " God is good, but how
marvellous and inscrutable are his ways that thus he permits
this white-faced dog of a Christian to hunt through the paths of
the faithful !"
The insurrection of these people had been more formidable
than any other that Ibrahim Pasha had to contend with ; he was
only able to crush them at last by the assistance of a fellow
renowned for his resources in the way of stratagem and cunning,
as well as for his knowledge of the country. This personage
was no other than Aboo Goosh (" the father of lies")* who was
taken out of prison for the purpose. The " father of lies" ena-
bled Ibrahim to hem in the insurrection, and extinguish it ; he
was rewarded with the Governorship of Jerusalem, which ho
held when I was there ; I recollect, by the bye, that lie tried one
of his stratagems upon me. I did not go to see him as I ought
in courtesy to have done, during my stay at Jerusalem, but I
happened to be the owner of a rather handsome amber tchibouk
* This is an appellation, not implying blame, but merit ; the " lies" which
it purports tc^affiliate are feints and cunning stratagems rather than the baser
kind of falsehoods. The expression in short has nearly the same meaning
as the English word " Yorkshireman."
202 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxiv.
piece which the Governor heard of, and by some means contriv-
ed to see ; he sent to me, and dressed up a statement that he
would give me a price immensely exceeding the sum which I
had given for it. He did not add my tchibouk to the rest of his
trophies.
There was a small number of Greek Christians resident in
Nablous, and over these the Mussulmans held a high hand, not
even, permitting them to speak to each other in the open streets ;
but if the Moslems thus set themselves above the poor Christians
of the place, I, or rather my servants, soon took the ascendant
over them. I recollect that just as we were starting from the
place, and at a time when a number of people had gathered
together in the main street to see our preparations, Mysseri,
being provoked at some piece of perverseness on the part of
a true Believer, coolly thrashed him wiljj his horsewhip before the
assembled crowd of fanatics. I was much annoyed at the time,
for I thought that the people would probably rise against us.
They turned rather pale, but stood still.
The day of my arriving at Nablo.us was a fete the new
year's day of the Mussulmans.* Most of the people were amus-
ing themselves in the beautiful lawns and shady groves without
the city. The men (except myself) were all remotely apart
from the other sex. The women in groups were diverting them-
selves and their children with swings. They were so handsome
that they could not keep up their yashmaks ; I believe that they
had never before looked upon a man in the European dress, and
when they now saw in me that strange phenomenon, and saw,
too, how they could please the creature by showing him a
glimpse of beauty, they seemed to think it was better fun to do
this, than to go on playing with swings. It was always, how-
ever, with a sort of Zoological expression of countenance that
they looked on the horrible monster from Europe, and whenever
one of them gave me to see for one sweet instant, the blushing of
her unveiled face, it was with the same kind of air as that with
which a young, timid girl will edge her way up to an elephant,
and tremblingly give him a nut from the tips of her rosy
fingers.
* The 29th of April.
CHAP, xxv.] MARIAM. 203
CHAPTER XXV.
,,<, Mariam.
THERE is no spirit of Propagandism in the Mussulmans of the
Ottoman dominions. True it is that a prisoner of War, or a
Christian condemned to death, may on some occasions save his
life by adopting the religion of Mahomet, but instances of this
kind are now exceedingly rare, and are quite at variance with
the general system. Many Europeans I think would be sur-
prised to learn that which is nevertheless quite true, namely that
an attempt to disturb the religious repose of the Empire by the
conversion of a Christian to the Mahometan faith is positively
illegal ; an incident which occurred at Nablous, and which I
am going to mention, showed plainly enough that the unlawful-
ness of such interference is recognized even in the most big-
oted stronghold of Islam.
During my stay at this place I took up my quarters at the
house of the Greek Papa, as he is called, that is, the Greek
Priest ; the priest himself had gone to Jerusalem upon the busi-
ness I am going to tell you of, but his wife remained at Nablous,
and did the honors of her home.
Soon after my arrival, a deputation from the Greek Christians
of the place came to request my interference in a matter which
had occasioned vast excitement.
And now I must tell you how it came to happen, as it did
continually, that people thought it worth while to claim the as-
sistance of a mere traveller who was totally devoid of all just
pretensions to authority, or influence of even the humblest de-
scription, and especially I must explain to you how it was that
the power thus attributed, did really belong to me, or rather to
my Dragoman. Successive political convulsions had at length
fairly loosed the people of Syria from their former rules of con-
204 EOTHEX. [CHAP. xxv.
duct, and from all their old habits of reliance. The violence
and success with which Mehemet Ali crushed the insurrections of
the Mahometan population, had utterly beaten down the head of
Islam, and extinguished for the time at least, those virtues and
vices which had sprung from the Mahometan Faith. Success so
complete as Mehemet Ali's, if it had been attained by an ordi-
nary Asiatic potentate, would have induced a notion of stability.
The readily bowing mind of the Oriental would have bowed
low and long under the feet of a conqueror whom God had thus
strengthened. But Syria was no field for contests strictly
Asiatic Europe was involved, and though the heavy masses of
Egyptian troops clinging down with strong gripe upon the land,
might seem to hold it fast, yet every peasant practically felt and
knew that in Vienna, or Petersburg, or London, there were four
or five pale looking men who could pull down the star of the
Pasha with shreds of paper and ink. The people of the country
knew, too, that Mehemet Ali was strong with the strength of the
Europeans, strong by his French General, his French tactics,
and his English engines. Moreover, they saw that the person,
the property, and even the dignity of the humblest European
was guarded with the most careful solicitude. The consequence
of all this was, that the people of Syria looked vaguely, but
confidently, to Europe for fresh changes ; many would fix upon
some nation, France or England, and steadfastly regard it as
the arriving sovereign of Syria ; those whose minds remained in
bt, equally contributed to this new state of public opinion,
which no longer depended upon Religion and ancient habits,
but upon bare hopes and fears. Every man wanted to know,
not who was his neighbor, but who was to be his ruler ; whose
feet he was to kiss, and by whom his feet were to be ultimately
beaten. Treat your friend, says the proverb, as though he were
one day to become your enemy, and your enemy as though he
were one day to become your friend. The Syrians went fur-
ther, and seemed inclined to treat every stranger as though he
might one day become their Pasha. Such was the state of cir-
cumstances and of feeling which now for the first time had
thoroughly opened the mind of Western Asia for the reception
of Europeans and European ideas. The credit of the English
5"
CHAP, xxv.] MARIAM. 205
especially was so great, that a good Mussulman flying from the con-
scription, or any other persecution, would come to seek from the
formerly despised hat, that protection which the turban could no
longer afford, and a man high in authority (as for instance the
Governor in command of Gaza) would think that he had won a
prize, or at all events a valuable lottery ticket, if he obtained a
written approval of his conduct from a simple traveller.
Still, in order that any immediate result should follow from
all this unwonted readiness in the Asiatic to succumb to the
European, it was necessary that some one should be at hand,
who could see, and would push the advantage ; I myself had
neither the inclination nor the power to do so, but it happened
that Dthemetri, who as my Dragoman represented me on all
occasions, was the very person of all others best fitted to avail
himself with success of this yielding tendency in the Oriental
mind. If the chance of birth and fortune had made poor Dthe-
metri a tailor during some part of his life, yet Religion and the
literature of the Church which he served, had made him a Man,
and a brave Man, too. The lives of Saints with which he was
familiar, were full of heroic actions, which invited imitation,
and since faith in a creed involves a faith in its ultimate triumph,
Dthemetri was bold from a sense of true strength ; his educa-
tion, too, though not very general in its character, had been
carried quite far enough to justify him in pluming himself upon
a very decided advantage over the great bulk of the Mahometan
population, including the men of authority. With all this con-
sciousness of religious and intellectual superiority, Dthemetri
had lived for the most part in countries lying under Mussulman
Governments, and had witnessed (perhaps, too, had suffered
from) their revolting cruelties ; the result was that he abhorred
and despised the Mahometan faith, and all who clung to it.
And this hate was not of the dry, dull, and inactive sort ; Dthe-
metri was in his sphere a true Crusader, and whenever there
appeared a fair opening in the defences of Islam, he was ready
and eager to make the assault. These sentiments, backed by a
consciousness of understanding the people with whom he had to
do, made Dthemetri not only firm and resolute in his constant
interviews with men in authority, but sometimes, also (as you
206 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxv.
may know already), very violent, and even insulting. This
tone, which I always disliked, though I was fain to profit by it,
invariably succeeded ; it swept away all resistance ; there was
nothing in the then depressed and succumbing mind of the Mus-
sulman that could oppose a zeal so warm and fierce.
As for me, I of course stood aloof from Dthemetri's crusades,
and did not even render him any active assistance when he was
striving (as he almost always was, poor fellow) on my behalf;
I was only the death's head and white sheet with which he
scared the enemy ; I think, however, that I played this spectral
part exceedingly well, for 1 seldom appeared at all in any dis-
cussion, and whenever I did, I was sure to be pale and calm.
The event which induced the Christians of Nablous to seek
for my assistance was this. A beautiful young Christian, between
fifteen and sixteen years old, had lately been married to a man
of her own creed. About the same time (probably on the
occasion of her wedding) she was accidentally seen by a Mus-
sulman Sheik of great wealth and local influence, who instantly
became madly enamored of her. The strict morality, which
so generally prevails where the Mussulmans have complete
ascendency, prevented the Sheik from entertaining any such
sinful hopes as an European might have ventured to cherish
under the like circumstances, and he saw no chance of gratify-
ing his love, except by inducing the girl to embrace his own
creed : if he could induce her to take this step, her marriage
with the Christian would be dissolved, and then there would be
nothing to prevent him from making her the last, and brightest
of his wives. The Sheik was a practical man, and quickly
began his attack upon the theological opinions of the bride ; he
did riot assail her with the eloquence of any Imaums or Mussul-
man Saints he did not press upon her the eternal truths of the
" Cow,"* or the beautiful morality of the " Table,"* he sent
her no tracts not even a dopy of the holy Koran. An old
woman acted as missionary. She brought with her a whole
basket full of arguments jewels, and shawls, and scarfs, and all
* These are the names given by the Prophet to certain chapters of the
Koran.
CHAP, xxv.] MARIAM. 207
kinds of persuasive finery. Poor Mariam ! she put on the jewels,
and took a calm view of the Mahometan Religion in a little hand
mirror she could not be deaf to such eloquent ear-rings, and
the great truths of Islam came home to her young bosom in the
delicate folds of the Cashmere ; she was ready to abandon her
faith.
The Sheik knew very well that his attempt to convert an
infidel was illegal, and that his proceedings would not bear
investigation, so he took care to pay a large sum to the Governor
of Nablous in order to obtain his connivance.
At length Mariam quitted her home, and placed herself under
the protection of the Mahometan authorities, who, however,
refrained from delivering her into the arms of her lover, and
detained her in a mosque until the fact of her real conversion
(which had been indignantly denied by her relatives) should be
established. For two or three days the mother of the young
convert was prevented from* communicating with her child by
various evasive contrivances, but not, it would seem, by a flat
refusal. At length it was announced that the young lady's pro-
fession of faith might be heard from her own lips. At an hour
appointed, the friends of the Sheik and the relatives of the
damsel met in the mosque. The young convert addressed her
mother in a loud voice, and said, " God is God, and Mahomet
is the Prophet of God, and thou, oh ! my mother, art an infidel
feminine dog !"
You would suppose that this declaration, so clearly enounced,
and that, too, in a place where Mahometanism is, perhaps,
more supreme than in any other part of the Empire, would have
sufficed to confirm the pretensions of the lover. This, however,
was not the case. The Greek Priest of the place was despatched
on a mission to the Governor of Jerusalem (Aboo Goosh) in
order to complain against the proceedings of the Sheik, and
obtain a restitution of the bride. Meanwhile the Mahometan
authorities at Nablous were so conscious of having acted unlaw-
fully, in conspiring to disturb the faith of the beautiful infidel,
that they hesitated to take any further step, and the girl was still
detained in the mosque.
Thus matters stood when the Christians of the place came and
sought to obtain my assistance.
208 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxv.
I felt (with regret) that I had no personal interest in the matter,
and I also thought that there was no pretence for my interfering
with the conflicting claims of the Christian husband, and the
Mahometan lover, and I therefore declined to take any step.
My speaking of the husband, by the by, reminds me that he
was extremely backward about the great work of recovering his
youthful bride. The relations of the girl, who felt themselves
disgraced by her conduct, were vehement, and excited to a high
pitch, but the Menelaus of Nablous was exceedingly calm and
composed.
The fact that it was not technically my duty to interfere in a
matter of this kind, was a very sufficient, and yet a very unsatis-
factory reason for my refusal of all assistance. Until you are
placed in situations of this kind, you can hardly tell how painful
it is to refrain from intermeddling in other people's affairs to
refrain from intermeddling when you feel that you can do so
with happy effect, and can remove a load of distress by the use
of a few small phrases. Upon this occasion, however, an
expression fell from one of the girl's kinsmen, which not only
determined me against all interference, but made me hope that
all attempts to recover the proselyte would fail ; this person,
speaking with the most savage bitterness, and with the cordial
approval of all the other relatives, said that the girl ought to be
beaten to death. I could not fail to see that if the poor child
were ever restored to her family, she would be treated with the
most frightful barbarity ; I heartily wished, therefore, that the
Mussulmans might be firm, and preserve their young prize from
any fate so dreadful as that of a return to her own relations.
The next day the Greek Priest returned from his mission to
Aboo Goosh, but the "father of lies," it would seem, had been
well plied with the gold of the enamored Sheik, and contrived
to put off the prayers of the Christians by cunning feints. Now,
therefore, a second and more numerous deputation than the first
waited upon me, and implored my intervention with the Gover-
nor. I informed the assembled Christians that since their last
application I had carefully considered the matter. The reli-
gious question I thought might be put aside at once, for the ex-
CHAP, xxv.] MARIAM. 209
cessive levity which the girl had displayed proved clearly that,
in adopting Mahometanism, she was not quitting any other reli-
gion ; her mind must have been thoroughly blank upon religious
questions, and she was not, therefore, to be treated as a Chris-
tian that had strayed from the flock, but rather as a child with-
out any religion at all, who was willing to conform to the usa-
ges of those who would deck her with jewels, and clothe her
with Cashmere shawls.
So much for the religious part of the question. Well, then,
in a merely temporal sense, it appeared to me that (looking
merely to the interests of the damsel, for I rather unjustly put
poor Menelaus quite out of the question), the advantages were
all on the side of the Mahometan match. The Sheik was
in a much higher station of life than the superseded husband,
and had given the best possible proof of his ardent affection, by
the sacrifices which he had made, and the risks which he had
incurred for the sake of the beloved object. I therefore stated
fairly, to the horror and amazement of all my hearers, that the
Sheik, in my view, was likely to make a most capital husband,
and that I entirely " approved of the match."
I left Nablous under the impression that Mariam would soon
be delivered to her Mussulman lover ; I afterwards found, how-
ever, that the result was very different. Dthemetri's religious
zeal and hate had been so much excited by the account of these
events, and by the grief and mortification of his co-religionists,
that when he found me firmly determined to decline all interfer-
ence in the matter, he secretly appealed to the Governor in my
name and (using, I suppose, many violent threats, and telling, no
doubt, many lies about my station and influence) extorted a
promise that the proselyte should be restored to her relatives. I
did not understand that the girl had been actually given up
whilst I remained at Nablous, but Dthemetri certainly did not de-
sist from his instances until he had satisfied himself by some means
or other (for mere words amounted to nothing) that the promise
would be actually performed. It was not till I had quitted Syria
and when Dthemetri was no longer in my service, that this vil-
lainous though well-motived trick of his came to my know-
ledge ; Mysseri, who informed me of the step which had been
15
210 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxv.
taken, did not know it himself until some time after we had quit-
ted Nablous, when Dthemetri exultingly confessed his success-
ful enterprise. I know not whether the engagement which my
zealous Dragoman extorted from the Governor was ever com-
plied with. I shudder to think of the fate which must have be-
fallen poor Mariam, if she fell into the hands of her husband.
CHAP, xxvi.] THE PROPHET DAMOOR. 211
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Prophet Damoor.
FOR some hours I passed along the shores of the fair Lake of
Galilee, and then turning a little to the westward, I struck into
a mountainous country, the character of which became more
bold and beautiful as I advanced. At length I drew near to
Safet, which sits as proud as a fortress upon the summit of a
craggy height, and yet because of its minarets, and stately
trees, the place looks bright and beautiful. It is one of the holy
cities of the Talmud, and according to this authority, the Mes-
siah will reign there forty years before he takes possession of
Sion. The sanctity thus attributed to the city renders it a favor-
ite place of retirement for Israelites, of whom it contains four
thousand, a number nearly balancing that of the Mahometan in-
habitants. I knew by my experience of Tabarieh that a " holy
city" was sure to have a population of vermin somewhat pro-
portionate to the number of its Israelites, and I therefore caused
my tent to be pitched upon a green spot of ground at a respect-
ful distance from the walls of the town.
When it had become quite dark (for there was no moon that
night) I was informed that several Jews had secretly come from
the city, in the hope of obtaining some assistance from me in
circumstances of imminent danger ; I was also informed that
they claimed my aid upon the ground that some of their
number were British subjects. It was arranged that the two
principal men of the party should speak for the rest, and these
were accordingly admitted into my tent. One of the two called
himself the British Vice-Consul, and he had with him his con-
sular cap, but he frankly said that he could not have dared to
assume this emblem of his dignity in the day time, and that
nothing but the extreme darkness of the night rendered it safe
212 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxvi.
for him to put it on upon this occasion. The other of the
spokesmen was a Jew of Gibraltar, a tolerably well-bred per-
son, who spoke English very fluently.
These men informed me that the Jews of the place, who were
exceedingly wealthy, had lived peaceably in their retirement
until the insurrection which took place in 1834, but about the
beginning of that year a highly religious Mussulman, called
Mohammed Damoor, went forth into the market-place, crying
with a loud voice, and prophesying, that on the fifteenth of the
following June the true Believers would rise up in just wrath
against the Jews, and despoil them of their gold, and their silver,
and their jewels. The earnestness of the prophet produced
some impression at the time, but all went on as usual, until at
last the fifteenth of June arrived. When that day dawned, the
whole Mussulman population of the place assembled in the
streets, that they might see the result of the prophecy. Sud-
denly Mohammed Damoor rushed furious into the crowd, and the
fierce shout of the prophet soon ensured the fulfilment of his
prophecy. Some of the Jews fled, and some remained, but they
who fled, and they who remained, alike and unresistingly left
their property to the hands of the spoilers. The most odious of
all outrages, that of searching the women for the base purpose of
discovering such things as gold and silver concealed about their
persons, was perpetrated without shame. The poor Jews were
so stricken with terror, that they submitted to their fate, even
where resistance would have been easy. In several instances a
young Mussulman boy, not more than ten or twelve years of
age, walked straight into the house of a Jew, and stripped him
of his property before his face, and in the presence of his whole
family.* When the insurrection was put down, some of the
Mussulmans (most probably those who had got no spoil where-
with they might buy immunity) were punished, but the greater
part of them escaped ; none of the booty was restored, and the
pecuniary redress which the Pasha had undertaken to enforce
for them, had been hitherto so carefully delayed, that the hope
of ever obtaining it had grown very faint. A new Governor
* It was after the interview which I am talking of, and not from the
Jews themselves, that I learnt this fact.
CHAP, xxvi.] THE PROPHET DAMOOR. 213
had been appointed to the command of the place, with stringent
orders to ascertain the real extent of the losses, and to discover
the spoilers, with the view of compelling them to make restitu-
tion. It was found that, notwithstanding the urgency of the in-
structions which the Governor had received, he did not push on
the affair with the vigor which had been expected ; the Jews
complained, and either by the protection of the British Consul at
Damascus, or by some other means, had influence enough to in-
duce the appointment of a special Commissioner they called
him " the Modeer" whose duty it was to watch for, and prevent
anything like connivance on the part of the Governor, and to
push on the investigation with vigor and impartiality.
Such were the instructions with which some few weeks since
the Modeer came fraught ; the result was that the investigation
had made no practical advance, and that the Modeer, as well as
the Governor, was living upon terms of affectionate friendship
with Mohammed Damoor, and the rest of the principal spoilers.
Thus stood the chances of redress for the past, but the cause
of the agonizing excitement under which the Jews of the place
now labored, was recent, and justly alarming ; Mohammed
Damoor had again gone forth into the market-place, and lifted
up his voice, and prophesied a second spoliation of the Israelites.
This was grave matter ; the words of such a practical man as
Mohammed Damoor were not to be despised. I fear I must
have smiled visibly, for I was greatly amused, and even, I think,
gratified at the account of this second prophecy. Nevertheless,
my heart warmed towards the poor oppressed Israelites, and I
was flattered too, in the point of my national vanity, at the no-
tion of the far-reaching link, by which a Jew in Syria, who
had been born on the rock of Gibraltar, was able to claim me
as his fellow-countryman. If I hesitated at all between the
" impropriety" of interfering in a matter which was no business
of mine, and the " horrid shame" of refusing my aid at such a
conjuncture, I soon came to a very ungentlemanly decision
namely, that I would be guilty of the " impropriety," and not of
the " horrid shame." It seemed to me that the immediate ar-
rest of Mohammed Damoor was the one thing needful to the
safety of the Jews, and ifelt confident (for reasons which I have
214 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxvi.
already mentioned in speaking of the Nablous affair) that I
should be able to obtain this result by making a formal appli-
cation to the Governor. I told my applicants that I would take
this step on the following morning ; they were very grateful,
and were for a moment much pleased at the prospect of safety
which might thus be opened to them, but the deliberation of a
minute entirely altered their views, and filled them with new
terror ; they declared, that any attempt, or pretended attempt on
the part of the Governor to arrest Mohammed Damoor would
certainly produce an immediate movement of the whole Mus-
sulman population, and a consequent massacre and robbery of
the Israelites. My visitors went out, and occupied considerable
time, if I rightly remember, in consulting their brethren, but all
agreed that their present perilous and painful position was better
than the certain and immediate attack which would be made if
Mohammed Damoor were seized that their second estate
would be worse than their first. I myself did not think that
this would be the case, but I could not, of course, force my
aid upon the people against their will, and moreover the day
fixed for the fulfilment of this second prophecy was not very
close at hand ; a little delay, therefore, in providing against the
impending danger, would not necessarily be fatal. The men
now confessed that although they had come with so much
mystery, and as they thought, at so great a risk, to ask my as-
sistance, they were unable to suggest any mode in which I
could aid them, except, indeed, by mentioning their grievances
to the Consul-general at Damascus. This I promised to do, and
this I did.
My visitors were very thankful to me for the readiness which
I had shown to intermeddle in their affairs, and the grateful
wives of the principal Jews sent to me many compliments, with
choice wines, and elaborate sweetmeats.
The course of my travels soon drew me so far from Safet
that I never heard how the dreadful day passed off which had
been fixed for the accomplishment of the second prophecy. If
the predicted spoliation was prevented, poor Mohammed Damoor
must have been forced, I suppose, to say that he had prophesied
in a metaphorical sense. This would be a sad falling off from
the brilliant and substantial success of the first experiment.
CHAP, xxvii.] DAMASCUS. 215
CHAPTER XXVII.
Damascus.
FOR a part of two days I wound under the base of the snow-
crowned Djibel el Sheik, and then entered upon a vast and deso-
late plain, rarely pierced at intervals by some sort of withered
stem. The earth in its length and its breadth, and all the deep
universe of sky, was steeped in light and heat. On I rode
through the fire, but long before evening came, there were strain-
ing eyes that saw and joyful voices that announced the sight of
Shaum Shereef the " Holy," the " Blessed" Damascus.
But that which at last I reached with my longing eyes, was
not a speck in the horizon, gradually expanding to a group of
roofs and walls, but a long, low line of blackest green that ran
right across in the distance from East to West. And this, as I
approached, grew deeper grew wavy in its outline ; soon for-
est trees shot up before my eyes and robed their broad shoulders
so freshly that all the throngs of olives as they rose into view
looked sad in their proper dimness. There were even now no
houses to see, but only the minarets peered out from the midst
of shade into the glowing sky and bravely touched the Sun.
There seemed to be here no mere city, but rather a province,
wide and rich, that bounded the torrid waste.
Until within a year or two of the time at which I went there,
Damascus had kept up so much of the old bigot zeal, against
Christians, or rather against Europeans, that no one dressed as
a Frank could have dared to show himself in the streets ; but
the firmness and temper of Mr. Farren, who hoisted his flag in
the city as Consul-general for the district, had soon put an end
to all intolerance of Englishmen. Damascus was safer than
Oxford.* When I entered the city, in my usual dress, there
* An enterprising American traveller, Mr. Everett, lately conceived the
216 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxvn.
was but one poor fellow that wagged his tongue, and him, in the
open streets, Dthemetri horse- whipped. During my stay I went
wherever I chose, and attended the public baths without molesta-
tion. Indeed my relations with the pleasanter portion of the
Mahometan population were upon a much better footing here
than at most other places.
In the principal streets of Damascus there is a path for foot
passengers, which is raised, I think, a foot or two above the
bridle road. Until the arrival of the British Consul-general,
none but a Mussulman had been permitted to walk upon the
upper way ; Mr. Farren would not, of course, suffer that the
humiliation of any such exclusion should be submitted to by an
Englishman, and I always walked upon the raised path as free
and unmolested as if I had been striding through Bond Street ;
the old usage was, however, maintained with as much strictness
as ever against the Christian Rayahs and Jews ; not one of
them could have set his foot upon the privileged path without
endangering his life.
I was lounging one day, I remember, along " the paths of the
faithful," when a Christian Rayah from the bridle-road below
saluted me with such earnestness, and craved so anxiously to
speak, and be spoken to, that he soon brought me to a halt ; he
had nothing to tell, except only the glory, and exultation with
which he saw a fellow Christian stand level with the imperious
Mussulmans ; perhaps he had been absent from the place for
some time, for otherwise I hardly know how it could have hap-
pened that my exaltation was the first instance he had seen. His
joy was great ; so strong and strenuous was England (Lord
Palmerston reigned in those days) that it was a pride and de-
bold project of penetrating to the University of Oxford, and this, notwith-
standing that he had been in his infancy (they begin very young those
Americans) an Unitarian preacher. Having a notion, it seems, that the
Ambassadorial character would protect him from insult, he adopted the
stratagem of procuring credentials from his government as Minister Pleni-
potentiary at the Court of her Britannic Majesty ; he also wore the exact
costume of a Trinitarian, but all his contrivances were vain ; Oxford dis-
dained and rejected him (not because he represented a swindling community,
but) because that his infantine sermons were strictly remembered against
him ; the enterprise failed.
CHAP, xxvn.] DAMASCUS. 217
light for a Syrian Christian to look up, and say that the Eng-
lishman's faith was his too ; if I was vexed at all that I could
not give the man a lift, and shake hands with him on level
ground, there was no alloy to his pleasure ; he followed me on,
not looking to his own path, but keeping his eyes on me ; he saw,
as he thought, and said (for he came with me on to my quar-
ters) the period of the Mahometan's absolute ascendency the
beginning of the Christian's. He had so closely associated
the insulting privilege of the path with actual dominion, that see-
ing it now in one instance abandoned, he looked for the quick
coming of European troops. His lips only whispered, and that
tremulously, but his fiery eyes spoke out their triumph in long
and loud hurrahs ! " I, too, am a Christian. My foes are the
foes of the English. We are all one people, and Christ is our
King?'
If I poorly deserved, yet I liked this claim of brotherhood.
Not all the warnings which I heard against their rascality could
hinder me from feeling kindly towards my fellow-Christians in
the East. English travellers, from a habit perhaps of depre-
ciating sectarians in their own country, are apt to look down
upon the Oriental Christians as being " dissenters" from the
established religion of a Mahometan Empire. I never did
thus. By a natural perversity of disposition, which my nurse-
maids called contraz'riness, I felt the more strongly for my creed
when I saw it despised among men. I quite tolerated the
Christianity of Mahometan countries, notwithstanding its humble
aspect, and the damaged character of its followers ; I went
further, and extended some sympathy towards those who, with
all the claims of superior intellect, learning, and industry, were
kept down under the heel of the Mussulmans by reason of their
having our faith. I heard, as I fancied, the faint echo of an old
Crusader's conscience, that whispered, and said, " Common
cause !" The impulse was, as you may suppose, much too
feeble to bring me into trouble it merely influenced my actions
in a way thoroughly characteristic of this poor sluggish cen-
tury that is, by making me speak almost as civilly to the
followers of Christ as I did to their Mahometan foes.
This " Holy" Damascus, this " earthly paradise" of the Pro-
218 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxvu.
phet, so fair to the eyes, that he dared not trust himself to tarry
in her blissful shades, she is a city of hidden palaces, of copses,
and gardens, and fountains, and bubbling streams. The juice
of her life is the gushing and ice-cold torrent that tumbles from
the snowy sides of Anti- Lebanon. Close along on the river's
edge through seven sweet miles of rustling boughs, and deepest
shade, the city spreads out her whole length ; as a man falls
flat, face forward on the brook, that he may drink, and drink
again, so Damascus, thirsting for ever, lies down with her lips
to the stream, and clings to its rushing waters.
The chief places of public amusement, or rather, of public
relaxation, are the baths, and the great cafe ; this last, which
is frequented at night by most of the wealthy men, and by many
of the humbler sort, consists of a number of sheds very simply
framed, and built in a labyrinth of running streams, which /oam
and roar on every side. The place is lit up in the simplest man-
ner by numbers of small, pale lamps, strung upon loose cords,
and so suspended branch to branch, that the light, though it looks
so quiet amongst the darkening foliage, yet leaps and brightly
flashes, as it falls upon the troubled waters. All around, and
chiefly upon the very edge of the torrents, groups of people are
tranquilly seated. They all drink coffee, and inhale the cold
fumes of the narguile ; they talk rather gently the one to the
other, or else are silent. A father will sometimes have two or
three of his boys around him, but the joyousness of the Oriental
child is all of the sober sort, and never disturbs the reigning
calm of the land.
It has been generally understood, I believe, that the houses of
Damascus are more sumptuous than those of any other city in the
East. Some of these said to be the most magnificent in the
place I had an opportunity of seeing.
Every rich man's house stands detached from its neighbors,
at the side of a garden, and it is from this cause, no doubt, that
the city has hitherto escaped destruction. You know some parts
of Spain, but you have .never, I think, been in Andalusia ; if you
had, I could easily show you'the interior of a Damascene house,
by referring you to the Alhambra, or Alcanzar of Seville. The
lofty rooms are adorned with a rich inlaying of many colors, and
CHAP, xxvii.] DAMASCUS.
illuminated writing on the walls. The floors are of marble.
One side of any room intended for noon-day retirement is gene-
rally laid open to a quadrangle, in the centre of which there
dances the jet of a fountain. There is no furniture that can in-
terfere with the cool, palace-like emptiness of the apartments.
A divan (which is a low and doubly broad sofa) runs round the
three walled sides of the room ; a few Persian carpets (which
ought to be called Persian rugs, for that is the word which indi-
cates their shape and dimension), are sometimes thrown about
near the divan ; they are placed without order, the one partly
lapping over the other, and thus disposed, they give to the room
an appearance of uncaring luxury ; except these (of which I saw
few, for the time was summer and fiercely hot), there is nothing
to obstruct the welcome air, and the whole of the marble floor
from one divan to the other, and from the head of the chamber
across to the murmuring fountain, is thoroughly open and free.
So simple as this is Asiatic luxury ! The Oriental is not a
contriving animal there is nothing intricate in his magnificence.
The impossibility of handing down property from father to son,
for any long period consecutively, seems to prevent the existence
of those traditions by which, with us, the refined modes of apply-
ing wealth are made known to its inheritors. We know that in
England a newly-ma4e rich man cannot, by taking thought and
spending money, obtain even the same-looking furniture as a
Gentleman. The complicated character of an English estab-
lishment allows room for subtle distinctions between that which
is comme ilfaut and that which is not. All such refinements are
unknown in the East the Pasha and the peasant have the same
tastes. The broad, cold marble floor the simple couch the air
freshly waving through a shady chamber a verse of the Koran
emblazoned on the walls the sight and the sound of falling
water the cold, fragrant smoke of the narguile, and a small
collection of wives and children in the inner apartments all
these, the utmost enjoyments of the grandee, are yet such as to
be appreciable by the humblest Mussulman in the empire.
But its gardens are the delight the delight and the pride of
Damascus ; they are not the formal parterres which you might
expect from the Oriental taste ; they rather bring back to your
EOTHEX. [CHAP. xxvn.
mind the memory of some dark old shrubbery in our northern
isle, that has been charmingly " wn-kept up" for many and
many a day. When you see a rich wilderness of wood in decent
England, it is like enough that you see it with some soft regrets.
The puzzled old woman at the lodge can give small account of
"The family." She thinks it is " Italy" that has made the
whole circle of her world so gloomy and sad. You avoid the
house in lively dread of a lone housekeeper, but you make your
way on by the stables ; you remember that gable with all its
neatly nailed trophies of fitches, and hawks, and owls, now
slowly falling to pieces you remember that stable, and that, but
the doors are all fastened that used to be standing ajar the
paint of things painted is blistered and cracked grass grows in
the yard just there, in October mornings, the keeper would
wait with the dogs and the guns no keeper now you hurry
away, and gain the small wicket that used to open to the touch
of a lightsome hand it is fastened with a pad'ock (the only new.
looking thing), and is stained with thick, green damp you climb
it, and bury yourself in the deep shade, and strive but lazily
with the tangling briars, and stop for long minutes to judge and
determine whether you will creep beneath the long boughs, and
make them your archway, or whether perhaps you will lift your
heel, and tread them down under foot. Long doubt, and scarcely
to be ended, till you wake from the memory of those days when
the path was clear, and chase that phantom of a muslin sleeve
that once weighed warm upon your arm.
Wild as that the nighest woodland of a deserted home in Eng-
land, but without its sweet sadness, is the sumptuous garden of
Damascus. Forest trees, tall and stately enough if you could
see their lofty crests, yet lead a tustling life of it below with
their branches struggling against strong numbers of bushes
and wilful shrubs. The shade upon the earth is black as night.
High, high above your head and on every side all down to the
ground, the thicket is hemmed in and choked up by the inter-
lacing boughs that droop witl^the weight of roses, and load the
slow air with their damask breath.* There are no other flow-
* The rose trees which I saw were all of the kind we call " damask ;"
they grow to an immense height and size.
CHAP, xxvii.] DAMASCUS. 221
ers. Here and there, there are patches of ground made clear
from the cover, and these are either carelessly planted with
some common and useful vegetable, or else are left free to the
wayward ways of Nature, and bear rank weeds, moist-looking
and cool to your eyes, and freshening the sense with their
earthy and bitter fragrance. There is a lane opened through
the thicket so broad in some places that you can pass along side
by side in some so narrow (the shrubs are for ever encroach-
ing) that you ought, if you can, to go on the first and hold back
the bough of the rose tree. And through this wilderness there
tumbles a loud rushing stream which is halted at last in the
lowest corner of the garden, and there tossed up in a fountain by
the side of the simple alcove. This is all.
Never for an instant will the people of Damascus attempt to
separate the idea of bliss from these wild gardens and rushing
waters. Even where your best affections are concerned, and
you prudent preachers " hold hard," and turn aside when
they come near the mysteries of the happy state, and we (pru-
dent preachers too), we will hush our voices and never reveal
to finite beings the joys of the " Earthly Paradise."
EOTHEN. [CHAP, xxvin
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Pass of the Lebanon.
" THE ruins of Baalbec !" Shall I scatter the vague, solemn
thoughts and all the airy phantasies which gather together when
once those words are spoken, that I may give you instead tall
columns, and measurements true, and phrases built with ink ?
No, no ; the glorious sounds shall still float on as of yore, and
still hold fast upon your brain with their own dim and infinite
meaning.
Come ! Baalbec is over ; I got " rather well " out of that.
The pass by which I crossed the Lebanon is like, I think, in
its features to one which you must know, namely, that of the
Foorca in the Bernese Oberland. For a great part of the way I
toiled rather painfully through the dazzling snow, but the labor
of ascending added to the excitement with which I looked for
the summit of the pass. The time came. There was a minute
in the which I saw nothing but the steep white shoulder of the
mountain, and there was another minute, and that the next,
which showed me a nether Heaven of fleecy clouds that floated
along far down in the a'ir beneath me, and showed me beyond
the breadth of all Syria west of the Lebanon. But chiefly I
clung with my eyes to the dim steadfast line of the sea which
closed my utmost view ; I had grown well used of late to the
people and the scenes of forlorn Asia well used to tombs and
ruins, to silent cities and deserted plains, to tranquil men and
women sadly veiled ; and now that I saw the even plain of the
sea, I leapt with an easy leap to its yonder shores, and saw all
the kingdoms of the West in that fair path that could lead me
from out of this silent land straight on into shrill Marseilles, or
round by the pillars of Hercules, to the crash and roar of Lon-
don. My place upon this dividing barrier was as a man's
CHAP, xxviii.] PASS OF THE LEBANON. 223
puzzling station in eternity, between the birthless Past and the
Future that has no end. Behind me I left an old decrepid World
Religions dead and dying calm tyrannies expiring in silence
women hushed and swathed, and turned into waxen dolls
Love flown, and in its stead mere Royal and " Paradise " plea-
sures. Before me there waited glad bustle and strife, Love
itself, an emulous game, Religion a Cause and a Controversy,
well smitten and well defended, men governed by reasons and
suasion of speech, wheels going, steam buzzing, a mortal
race and a slashing pace, and the Devil taking the hindmost,
taking me, by Jove (for that was my inner care), if I lingered
too long upon the difficult Pass that leads from Thought to
Action.
I descended, and went towards the West.
The group of Cedars, remaining on this part of the Lebanon,
is held Sacred by the Greek Church, on account of a prevailing
notion that the trees were standing at a time when the Temple
of Jerusalem was built. They occupy three or four acres on
the mountain's side, and many of them are gnarled in a way
that implies great age, but except these signs I saw nothing in
their appearance or conduct that tended to prove them contem-
poraries of the cedars employed in Solomon's Temple. The
final cause to which these aged survivors owed their preserva-
tion, was explained to me in the evening by a glorious old fel-
low (a Christian Chief), who made me welcome in the valley
of Eden. In ancient times, the whole range of the Lebanon
had been covered with cedars, but as the fertile plains beneath
became more and more infested with Government officers and
tyrants of high and low degree, the people by degrees aban-
doned them, and flocked to the rugged mountains which were
less accessible to their indolent oppressors. The cedar forests
gradually shrank under the axe of the encroaching multitudes,
and seemed at last to be on the point of disappearing entirely,
when an aged Chief who ruled in this district, and who had
witnessed the great change effected even in his own life-time,
chose to say that some sign or memorial should be left of the
vast woods with which the mountains had formerly been clad,
and commanded accordingly that this group of trees (which was
2-24 EOTHEN. [CHAP, xxviu.
probably situate at the highest point * to which the forest had
reached), should remain untouched. The Chief, it seems, was
not moved by the notion I have mentioned as prevailing in the
Greek Church, but rather by some sentiment of veneration for
a great natural feature, a sentiment akin, perhaps, to that old
and earthborn Religion, which made men bow down to Creation
before they had yet learnt how to know and worship the Creator.
The Chief of the valley in which I passed the night was a
man of large possessions, and he entertained me very sumptu-
ously ; he was highly intelligent, and had had the sagacity to
foresee that Europe would intervene authoritatively in the affairs
of Syria. Bearing this idea in mind, and with a view to give
his son an advantageous start in the ambitious career for which
he was destined, he had hired for him a teacher of the Italian
language, the only accessible European tongue. The tutor,
however, who was a native of Syria, either did not know, or did
not choose to teach the European forms of address, but contented
himself with instructing his pupil in the mere language of Italy.
This circumstance gave me an opportunity (the only one I ever
had, or was likely to have),* of hearing the phrases of Oriental
courtesy in an European tongue. The boy was about twelve
or thirteen years old, and having the advantage of being able to
speak to me without the aid of an interpreter, he took a very
prominent part in doing the honors of his father's house. He
went through his duties with untiring assiduity, and with a kind
of gracefulness which can scarcely be conveyed by mere de-
scription to those who are unacquainted with the manners of the
Asiatics. The boy's address resembled a little that of a highly
polished and insinuating Roman Catholic Priest, but had more
of girlish gentleness. It was strange to hear him gravely and
slowly enunciating the common and extravagant compliments
of the East in good Italian, and in soft, persuasive tones ; I
recollect that I was particularly amused at the gracious obsti-
nacy with which he maintained that the house in which I was
so hospitably entertained, belonged not to his father, but to me ;
to say this once, was only to use the common form of speech,
* A Dragoman never interprets in terms the courteous language of the
East.
CHAP, xxviii.] PASS OF THE LEBANON. 225
signifying no more than our sweet word " welcome," but the
amusing part of the matter was that, whenever in the course of
conversation I happened to speak of his father's house or the
surrounding domain, the boy invariably interfered to correct my
pretended mistake, and to assure me once again with a gentle
decisiveness of manner that the whole property was really and
exclusively mine, and that his father had not the most distant
pretensions to its ownership.
I received from my host much and (as I now know) most true
information respecting the people of the mountains, and their
power of resisting Mehemet Ali. The Chief gave me very
plainly to understand that the Mountaineers being dependent
upon others for bread and gunpowder (the two great necessaries
of martial life), could not long hold out against a power which
occupied the plains and commanded the sea, but he also assured
me, and that very significantly, that if this source of weakness
were provided against, the Mountaineers were to be depended
upon ; he told me that in ten or fifteen days the Chiefs could
bring together some fifty thousand fighting men.
16
226 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxix.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Surprise of Satalich.
WHILST I was remaining upon the coast of Syria, I had the
good fortune to become acquainted with the Russian Sataliefsky,*
a General Officer, who, in his youth, had fought and^ bled at
Borodino, but was now better known among Diplomats by the
important trust committed to him at a period highly critical for
the affairs of Eastern Europe ; I must not tell you his family
name ; my mention of his title can do him no harm, for it is I,
and I only, who have conferred it in consideration of the mili-
tary and diplomatic services performed under my own eyes.
The General as well as I was bound for Smyrna, and we
agreed to sail together in an Ionian Brigantine. We did not
charter the vessel, but we made our arrangement with the
captain upon such terms that we could be put ashore upon any
part of the coast which we might think proper. We sailed, and
day after day the vessel lay dawdling on the sea with calms and
feeble breezes for her portion. I myself was well repaid for
the painful restlessness which such weather occasions, because
I gained from my companion a little of that vast fund of inte-
resting knowledge with which he was stored knowledge, a
thousand times the more highly to be prized, since it was not of
the sort that is to be gathered from books, but only from the lips
of those who have acted a part in the world.
When after nine days of sailing, or trying to sail, we found
ourselves still hanging by the mainland to the north of the Isle
of Cyprus, we determined to disembark at Satalieh and to proceed
from thence by land. A light breeze favored our purpose, and
it was with great delight that we neared the fragrant land, and
* A title signifying Transcender or Conqueror of Satalieh.
CHAP, xxix.] SURPRISE OF SATALIEH. 227
saw our anchor go down in the bay of Satalieh, within two or
three hundred yards of the shore.
The town of Satalieh* is the chief place of the Pashalik in
which it is situate, and its citadel is the residence of the Pasha.
We had scarcely dropped our anchor when a boat from the
shore came alongside, with officers on board, who announced
that the strictest orders had been received for maintaining a qua-
rantine of three weeks against all vessels coming from Syria,
and directed accordingly that no one from the vessel should dis-
embark. In reply we sent a message to the Pasha, setting forth
the rank and titles of the General, and requiring permission to
go ashore. After a while the boat came again alongside, and the
officers declaring that the orders received from Constantinople
were imperative and unexceptional, formally enjoined us in the
name of the Pasha to abstain from any attempt to land.
I had been hitherto much less impatient of our slow voyage
than my gallant friend, but this opposition made the smooth sea
seem to me like a prison from which I must and would break
out. I had an unbounded faith in the feebleness of Asiatic Po-
tentates, and I proposed that we should set the Pasha at defiance.
The General had been worked up to a state of the most painful
agitation by the idea of being driven from the shore which
smiled so pleasantly before his eyes, and he adopted my sugges-
tion with rapture.
We determined to land.
To approach the sweet shore after a tedious voyage, and then
to be suddenly and unexpectedly prohibited from landing, this
is so maddening to the temper that no one who had ever experi-
enced the trial would say that even the most violent impatience
of such restraint is wholly inexcusable. I am not going to pre-
tend, however, that the course which we chose to adopt on this
occasion can be perfectly justified. The impropriety of a tra-
veller's setting at naught the regulations of a foreign state is
clear enough, and the bad taste of compassing such a purpose
by mere gasconading, is still more glaringly plain. I knew
* Spelt "Attalia" and sometimes " Adalia " in English books and
maps.
228 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxix.
perfectly well that if the Pasha understood his duty, and had
energy enough to perform it, he would order out a file of soldiers the
moment we landed, and cause us both to be shot upon the beach,
without allowing more contact than might be absolutely necessary
for the purpose of making us stand fire, but I also firmly believed
that the Pasha would not see the line of conduct which he ought to
adopt nearly so well as I did, and that even if he did know his duty
he would never be able to find resolution enough to perform it.
We ordered the boat to be got in readiness, and the officers on
shore seeing these preparations, gathered together a number of
guards who assembled upon the sands ; we saw that great ex-
citement prevailed, and that messengers were continually going
to and fro between the shore and the citadel. Our Captain, out
of compliment to his Excellency, had provided the vessel with a
Russian war-flag, which he had hoisted alternately with the
Union Jack, and we agreed that we would attempt our disem-
barkation under this, the Russian standard ; I was glad when
we came to that resolution, for I should have been very sorry to
engage the honored flag of England in such an affair as that
which we were undertaking. The Russian ensign was there-
fore committed to one of the sailors, who took his station at the
stern of the boat. We gave particular instructions to the Captain
of the Brigantine, and when all was ready, the General and I
without our respective servants got into the boat, and were slow-
ly rowed towards the shore. The guards gathered together at
the point for which we were making, but when they saw our
boat went on without altering her course, they ceased to stand
very still ; none of them ran away or even shrank back, but
they looked as if the pack were being shuffled, every man seem-
ing desirous to change places with his neighbor. They were
still at their post however when our oars went in, and the bow
of our boat ran up well up upon the beach.
The General was lame by an honorable wound which he had
gained at Borodino, and required some assistance in getting out
of the boat ; I, therefore, landed the first. My instructions to
the Captain were attended to with the most perfect accuracy, for
scarcely had my foot indented the sand, when the four six-
pounders of the Brigantine sublimely rolled out their brute
CHAP, xxix.] SURPRISE OF SATALIEH. 229
thunder. Precisely as I had expected, the guards, and all the
people who had gathered about them, gave way under the shock
produced by the mere sound of guns, and we were all allowed
to disembark without the least molestation.
We immediately formed a little column, or rather, as I should
have called it, a procession, for we had no fighting aptitude in
us, and were only trying, as it were, how far we could go in
frightening full-grown children. First marched the sailor with
the Russian flag of war bravely flying in the breeze ; then came
the General and I ; then our servants, and lastly, if I rightly
recollect, two more of the Brigantine's crew. Our flag-bearer
entered into the spirit of the enterprise, and bore the standard
aloft with so much pomp and dignity, that I found it exceedingly
hard to keep a grave countenance. We advanced towards the
castle, but the people had now had time to recover from the
effect of the six-pounders (which were only, of course, loaded
with powder), and they could not help seeing, not only the weak-
ness of our party, but the very slight amount of pomp and power
which it seemed to imply ; they began to hang round us more
closely, and just as this reaction was beginning, the General,
who was perfectly unacquainted with the Asiatic character,
thoughtlessly turned round in order to speak to one of the ser-
vants ; the effect of this slight move was magical ; the people
thought we were going to give way, and instantly closed round
us. In two words, and with one touch, I showed my comrade
the danger he was running, and in the next instant we were
both advancing more pompously than ever. Some minutes
afterwards there was a second appearance of reaction, followed
again by wavering and indecision on the part of the Pasha's
people, but at length it seemed to be understood that we should
go unmolested into the audience hall.
Constant communication had been going on between the re-
ceding crowd and the Pasha, and so when we reached the gates
of the citadel we saw that preparations were made for giving
us an awe-striking reception. Parting at once from the sailors
and our servants, the General and I were conducted into the
audience hall ; and there at least I suppose the Pasha hoped
that he would confound us by his greatness. The hall was
230 EOTHEN. [CHAP. xxix.
nothing more than a large white-washed room ; Oriental poten-
tates have a pride in that sort of simplicity when they can
contrast it with the exhibition of power, and this the Pasha was
able to do, for the lower end of the hall was filled with his offi-
cers ; these men, of whom I thought there were about fifty or
sixty, were all handsomely though plainly dressed in the mili-
tary frock-coats of Europe ; they stood in mass and so as to
present a hollow, semicircular front towards the upper end of
the hall at which the Pasha sat; they opened a narrow lane for
us when we entered, and as soon as we had passed they again
closed up their ranks. An attempt was made to induce us to
remain at a respectful distance from his Mightiness ; to have
yielded in this point would have been fatal to our success, perhaps
to our lives ; but the General and I had already determined
upon the place which we should take, and we rudely pushed on
towards the upper end of the hall.
Upon the divan and close up against the right hand corner of
the room there sat the Pasha his limbs gathered in the w holt-
creature coiled up like an adder. His cheeks were deadly pale,
and his lips had turned white, for without moving a muscle the
man impressed me with an immense idea of wrath within him.
He kept his eyes inexorably fixed, as if upon vacancy, and with
the look of a man accustomed to refuse the prayers of those
who sue for life. We soon discomposed him, however, from
this studied fixity of feature, for we marched straight up to the
divan and sat down, the Russian close to the Pasha, and I by
the side of the Russian. This act astonished the attendants and
plainly disconcerted the Pasha ; he could no longer maintain
the glassy stillness of the eyes which he had affected, and evi-
dently became much agitated. At the feet of the Satrap there
stood a trembling Italian ; this man was a sort of medico in the
potentate's service, and now, in the absence of our attendants,
he was to act as interpreter. The Pasha caused him to tell us
that we had openly defied his authority, and had forced our way
upon shore in the teeth of his own officers.
Up to this time I had been the planner of the enterprise, but
now that the moment had come when all would depend upon able
and earnest speechifying, I felt at once the immense superiority
CHAP, xxix.] SURPRISE OF SATALIEH. 231
of my gallant friend, and gladly left to him the whole conduct
of the discussion ; indeed he had vast advantages over me, not
only by his superior command of language, and his far more
spirited style of address, but also in his consciousness of a good
cause, for whilst I felt myself completely in the wrong, his
Excellency had really worked himself up to believe that the
Pasha's refusal to permit our landing was a gross outrage and
insult. Therefore, without deigning to defend our conduct, he
at once commenced a spirited attack upon the Pasha. The poor
Italian Doctor translated one or two sentences to the Pasha, but
he evidently mitigated their import ; the Russian, growing warm,
insisted upon his attack with redoubled energy and spirit ; but
the medico, instead of translating, began to shake violently with
terror, and at last he came out with his " non ardisco," and
fairly confessed that he dared not interpret fierce words to his
master.
Now then, at a time when everything seemed to depend upon
the effect of speech, we were left without an interpreter.
But this very circumstance, which at first appeared so un-
favorable, turned out to be advantageous. The General, finding
that he could not have his words translated, ceased to speak in
Italian, ^wid recurred to his accustomed French ; he became
eloquent ; no one present, except myself, understood one syllable
of what he was saying, but he had drawn forth his passport, and
the energy and violence with which, as he spoke, he pointed to
the graven Eagle of Russia, began to make an impression ; the
Pasha saw at his side a man, who not only seemed to be entirely
without fear, but to be raging with just indignation, and thence-
forward he plainly began to think that in some way or other (he
could not tell how), he must certainly have been in the wrong.
In a little time he was so much shaken, that the Italian ventured
to resume his interpretation, and my comrade had again the op-
portunity of pressing his attack upon the Pasha ; his argument,
if I rightly recollect its import, was to this effect " If the vilest
Jews were to come into the harbor, you would but forbid them
to land, and force them to perform quarantine, yet this is the
very course, O Pasha, which your rash officers dared to think of
adopting with us / those ma J and reckless men would have
232 EOTHEX. [CHAP. xxix.
actually dealt towards a Russian General Officer and an Eng-
lish Gentleman as if they had been wretched Israelites ! Never,
never, will we submit to such an indignity. His Imperial
Majesty knows how to protect his nobles from insult, and would
never endure that a General of his army should be treated in
matter of quarantine, as though he were a mere Eastern Jew !"
This argument told with great effect ; the Pasha fairly admitted
that he felt its weight, and he now only struggled to obtain a
compromise, which might seem to save his dignity ; he wanted
us to perform a quarantine of one day for form's sake, and in
order to show his people that he was not utterly defied, but
finding that we were inexorable, he not only abandoned his
attempt, but promised to supply us with horses.
When the discussion had arrived at this happy conclusion,
tchibouques and coffee were brought, and we passed, I think,
nearly an hour in friendly conversation. The Pasha, it now ap-
peared, had once been a prisoner of war in Russia, and the con-
viction of the Emperor's power, which he must have acquired
during his captivity, probably rendered him more alive than an
untravelled Turk would have been to the force of rny comrade's
eloquence.
The Pasha now gave us a generous feast ; our promised hor-
ses were brought without much delay ; I gained my loved saddle
once more, and when the moon got up and touched the heights
of Taurus, we were joyfully winding our way through one of
his rugged denies.
THE END.
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