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 A srKKKT IN palkstim; 
 
 August 23. 1921
 
 I^tgli SItglita of tl|p mh Wmih 
 
 Word Pictures of Famous Scenes 
 and Places Overseas 
 
 BY 
 REV. HENRY KENDALL BOOTH, D. D. 
 
 LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA: 
 THE PRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1922
 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 THE LONG BEACH 
 
 ROTARY CLUB
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 This little brochure embodies the record of a 
 few of the many vivid impressions of a jour- 
 ney made in the summer of 1921. The dated 
 illustrations are from photographs by the 
 author.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 1. Edinburgh Castle. 
 
 2. The Pyramids of Gizeh. 
 
 3. Westminster Abbey. 
 
 4. Antiquity's Mightiest Temple. 
 
 5. A Swiss Garden of Enchantment. 
 
 6. In the Catacombs. 
 
 7. Going Down to Jericho. 
 
 8. Karnak by Moonlight. 
 
 9. The Paradise of the Poets. 
 1 0. A Ramble Thru Pompeii. 
 II. In Flanders Fields. 
 
 1 2. Blue Galilee. 
 
 1 3. The Castle of Chillon. 
 
 14. Florentine Vignettes. 
 
 1 5. Versailles. 
 
 1 6. Damascus. 
 
 17. A Night in Venice. 
 1 8. By the Avon. 
 
 1 9. The City of Minarets. 
 
 20. Nazareth. 
 
 21. Under the Dome of St. Peter's. 
 
 22. The Glory of the Alps. 
 
 23. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
 
 EdiebuiiFfflhi Cagttle 
 
 "Thy rough rude fortresfi gleams afar 
 Like some bold veteran grey in arms, 
 And, marked with many a seamy scar. 
 The ponderous wall and massy bar 
 Grim, — rising o'er the rugged rock — 
 Have oft withstood assailing war. 
 And oft repelled the invader's rock." 
 
 —BURNS.
 
 Edinburgh Castle 
 
 IT WAS my last night in Edinburgh. The hour was late and 
 the clocks were chiming eleven when I left my hotel for a last 
 stroll down Princes Street, that well named, truly royal high- 
 way of this old Scottish city. All day it had been teeming with 
 the tides of human life that by tram car and automobile, on foot 
 and in carriage had surged back and forth in a never-ending- 
 Hood. It was silent now and well-nigh deserted, with shuttered 
 shops and empty sidewalks. A fine mist, drawn in from the 
 northern sea, hung like a veil over the roofs, or drifted, ghost- 
 like, through the side streets. Above the mist the moon was 
 shining, now and then revealed through a rift in the clouds, 
 transforming the whole scene by its mystic touch into a fairyland 
 of unearthly beauty. 
 
 Seen through this moon-lighted, silvery mist everything was 
 shimmering, elusive, ethereal. The towering Gothic spires of 
 the Scott Monument seemed like the white flames of a torch 
 soaring heavenward. The formal gardens on Princes Street had 
 lost their monotonous regularity and become an intriguing maze. 
 And, as I strolled down the long sidewalk, the moss-covered 
 monuments and marble statues, the columned porticos and broad 
 squares took on a new and mystic beauty. At last I halted to 
 stand opposite the long sweep of greensward and flowers that 
 leads the eye across a deep valley with its trees and terraces, up 
 the steep slope to rest upon that beetling precipice upon whose 
 summit stands the old castle of Edinburgh like a "New Jeru- 
 salem scaling heaven," as Stevenson well terms it. 
 
 Frowning down from its sheer heights upon the city at its 
 foot that old castle has for centuries dominated this Athens of 
 the north as the Acropolis of this Scottish capital. Around that 
 rock from the days of the Picts onward the life of Edinburgh 
 has been centered. Changeless it stands through the passing- 
 generations, and to it many times daily the eyes of its citizens 
 are lifted in pride and love. And I could not but think of how 
 the great of Edinburgh's past had stood many times in admira- 
 tion on this very spot and looked up at that romantic old castle. 
 Bruce and Wallace, King James and Mary Queen of Scots, John 
 Knox and James Guthrie, Scott and Burns, Christopher North 
 and Robert Louis Stevenson — how that unending group of kings 
 and prophets, writers and statesmen, hover around this old spot. 
 There it stood above me now in all its rugged grandeur, silhou- 
 etted against the sky, this historic and romantic fortress whose 
 halls are haunted by the specters of Scotland's ancient glory.
 
 I Jut this night it was all swathed in misty light that hung about 
 it like a silvery mantle, softening its harsh outlines and obliter- 
 ating the scars of time and age until it seemed to hang like a 
 very dwelling place of light between earth and sky, no longer 
 grim but glorious, not a fortress now, but a cathedral. And as I 
 mused upon that scene it seemed to me that I saw revealed in it 
 the true expression of the genius of that great people who w^ere 
 cradled under the shadow of that castle — strong, rugged, vigor- 
 ous, hard, austere, but with their austerity and hardness suffused 
 by the misty veil of sentiment and affection, and glorified by the 
 heavenly light of religious fire and passion.
 
 II 
 
 The Pyramidg of 
 
 Through the long centuries of history 
 Casting thy shadotv o'er the river Nile, 
 Thou mighty, massy, towering pile. 
 Thou dwelling-jilace of silence and of mystery. 
 
 —H. K. B.
 
 The Pyramids of Gizeh 
 
 THE sun was setting, and the western sky was all aglow with 
 light as I bade farewell to my hospitable dragoman, Sheik 
 Abdul, and left his Bedouin home and walked down the 
 dusty road to board my car for Cairo. Long shafts of sunlight 
 touched the tall palm trees and flat roofed houses, suffusing them 
 with splendor. I turned for a last long look at the pyramids of 
 Gizeh. High above my head they reared themselves, silhouetted 
 against the golden afterglow, the monstrous tombs of those 
 colossal egotists, Cheops, Khefren and Menkaura, seemingly more 
 stupendous than ever as their long shadows crept across the 
 plain. Behind them as they towered aloft on their elevated 
 plateau, rolled the billowing sands of the Sahara. Midway they 
 stood between the glowing green of the Nile valley and the eter- 
 nal desolation of the grim desert, seeming like mighty sentries 
 guarding this fair land against the fiery genii of the sands. 
 
 Old Egypt is incarnate in the pyramids, old Egypt of tower- 
 ing genius, resistless might. Builded as royal tombs by proud 
 monarchs who believed Egypt's rule eternal, their kingdom has 
 long since gone, but these great memorials yet remain, seem- 
 ingly immortal. And I could not but think of how they had thus 
 stood against the sunset splendor to thrill the souls of men for 
 five thousand years. Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Persian, 
 Syrian, Roman, Crusader, Bedouin, Frank — each had stood 
 beneath their shadow and gazed at their towering bulk in admira- 
 tion and awe. Through all the centuries the tides of human life 
 had swirled about these unchanging monuments. They were 
 here when Nebuchadnezzar threatened the nations, when Alex- 
 ander led his phalanxes to victory, when Caesar was campaigning 
 in Gaul. Perchance the infant eyes of the Christ gazed upon 
 them in that immortal Flight into Egypt. Pilgrim, Crusader, 
 Saracen and Turk dwelt beneath their shadow, the soldiers of 
 Napoleon camped at their feet. Nations came and went, king- 
 doms rose and fell, continents were discovered, inventions multi- 
 plied, world wars were fought, civilizations were born and buried 
 — yet through all these changes of human life they have kept 
 their ceaseless vigil over the lotus land of Egypt. Here, in these 
 mighty memorials of far off antiquity, one is face to face with 
 the Past, with the Yesterday of the race. Never, not even in 
 the presence of the Alps, "rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun," 
 have I felt so strongly the sense of changelessness, of eternity, as 
 when I gazed in that golden sunset upon those man-made moun- 
 tains, the pyramids of Gizeh. and my thoughts were swept back
 
 through the corridors of the centuries to that hour in the dawn 
 of humanity's morning when by the magic wand of the genius 
 of the Pharaohs they rose between the desert and the Nile, there 
 to stand unchanged through the ages as symbols of eternity.
 
 
 III 
 
 
 w 
 
 esttmmgtteF A 
 
 ihhej 
 
 ''Here, where the end of earthly things 
 
 Lay 
 
 heroes, patriots, bards and 
 
 kings. 
 
 Here ivhere the fretted aisles prolong | 
 
 The 
 
 distant notes of holy song, 
 
 
 As 
 
 if some angel spoke again, 
 
 
 'All 
 
 peace on earth, goodwill to 
 
 men.' 
 
 If ever from an English heart, 
 
 
 Oh, 
 
 here let prejudice depart." 
 
 —SCOTT
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY
 
 Westminster Abbey 
 
 IT WAS on a Sunday afternoon that I was privileged to visit 
 Westminster Abbey. Founded by Edward the Confessor as 
 "Westminster" because it was situated in the west side of 
 London, it has been for over a thousand years the most famous 
 of all English cathedrals, the center of English religious life. 
 With its two fine Norman towers, its immense rose windows, its 
 cloisters and transepts, this splendid Gothic edifice impresses the 
 beholder by its size and magnificence, while the softening hand 
 of time has made it dignified and venerable. And the interior is 
 awe-inspiring with its pointed arches, massive fluted columns, 
 long aisles and glorious chapels. But more than all else is it hal- 
 lowed by its memorials. For this is more than a church, it is the 
 Pantheon of the Anglo Saxon race. Like the church of Santa 
 Croce at Florence, it has been for generations the burial place of 
 kings and queens, statesmen and warriors, poets, artists and men 
 of letters, and here amid its sacred associations have the kings 
 of England been crowned. All the greatness of England finds 
 sanctuary here. To walk through the aisles of this great min- 
 ster is to find one's self surrounded by the spirits of the great 
 and mighty, those immortals whose genius has given them a 
 lasting place in human hearts. Here in the North Transept is 
 the "Statesmen's Aisle" with the graves and monuments of 
 Chatham and Pitt, Fox, Palmerston, Peel, Hastings, Cobden and 
 Gladstone. Not far away are buried England's greatest scien- 
 tists — Herschel, Darwin, Newton, Kelvin. Along the great nave 
 are the statues of Wordsworth and Kingsley, Keble and Dr. 
 Arnold of Rugby, Matthew Arnold and Isaac Watts, and the 
 founders of Methodism, Charles and John Wesley. In the middle 
 of the nave one pauses to muse above the square slab in the 
 pavement marked by two words — "David Livingstone." Far 
 away amid the wilds of Africa is buried the heart of the intrepid 
 explorer and missionary, but his body lies here, borne by loving- 
 black men through leagues of jungle, to sleep amid the immortal 
 dead in this quiet Abbey. And as we walked on and on through 
 this avenue of royal souls, with philosophers, statesmen, scien- 
 tists, all about us, we could not but be thrilled with a sense of 
 the glory of the Anglo-Saxon, and feel upon us the touch of that 
 genius for freedom and truth, whose representatives slumber in 
 this necropolis. And as our wandering footsteps led us at last 
 to stand in silent reverence before the great slab near the 
 entrance where sleeps England's unknown soldier, we felt a new 
 pride in that race to which we belong. For here, amid the kings 
 and rulers, the leaders and the geniuses, lies the body of a simple
 
 English lad, because he gave his life for liberty on the battle- 
 fields of the Great War. That simple slab that covers his form, 
 expresses more eloquently than words the honor in which our 
 Anglo-Saxon race holds freedom of thought and life. 
 
 The afternoon service was about to begin and we found seats 
 in the "Poet's Corner." All around us were slabs, busts, tablets, 
 memorials, bearing names that are household words. We honor 
 the statesmen and the kings, but it is the poets that we love, for 
 they have reached our hearts with their winged words of song. 
 Here is the fine old tomb of Chaucer, and near by are the graves 
 of Browning, Tennyson, Milton, Spenser, Scott, Burns and John- 
 son. I sat directly beneath the fine memorial of William Shakes- 
 peare. The greatest English poet leans in thoughtful attitude 
 upon a pile of books, his published plays, and on a scroll in his 
 hand I read these words from "The Tempest" : 
 
 The cloud-capped toTvers, the gorgeous palaces 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself 
 Yea, all ivhich it inherit, shall dissolve 
 And, lil(e this insubstantial pageant faded. 
 Leave not a raclf behind. 
 
 The solemn w^ords seemed fitly to blend with the stately 
 music of the great organ that filled the cathedral and the chanted 
 cadences of the choir that echoed from the Gothic arches far 
 above. Through the murky twilight of the vast interior long 
 shafts of sunlight were broken by the great rose windows into 
 prismatic colors and I thought of the famous lines: 
 
 Life lil(e a dome of many tinted glass 
 Stams the ivhite radiance of eternity. 
 
 Through the long Sunday afternoon I sat there, while those 
 lights of red and blue and amber touched carved pew and rood 
 screen, choir stall and royal tomb, transforming them by their 
 glory. A long flame-colored ray crept over the reredos into the 
 Poet's Corner and suffused with its rosy splendor the marble 
 bust of our own Longfellow, touching that kindly face with its 
 living light. It was that "touch of nature that makes the whole 
 world kin." America and England — we are one in language and 
 literature — and Westminster Abbey is the common shrine of our 
 Anglo-Saxon race.
 
 IV 
 
 Antiqiiity^g Miglitiest 
 Temple 
 
 Towering 'gainst Syrian skies of blue 
 
 O'er Baalbec, mightiest temple of the past. 
 
 Rise those majestic Columns of the Sun 
 
 All golden, glowing with the sun's own hue; 
 
 Amid the silence of that ruined fane 
 
 Like a great six-stringed lyre they seem to stand 
 
 Waiting the touch but of a giant hand. 
 
 To sound tlie praises of the God of Day. 
 
 —H. K. B.
 
 TEMPLE WALL AND COLUMNS OF THE SUN 
 Baalbec, Aujiust 27, 1921.
 
 Antiquity's Mightiest Temple 
 
 LONG hours we rode over the plain of Coele-Syria between the 
 great Lebanon ranges, and all was brown and bare on either 
 side of the dusty road, endless miles of empty moorland. 
 Then far across the plain we saw a cluster of trees against a dis- 
 tant hillside, a splash of green upon a field of brown ; then as we 
 drew nearer, there rose against the sky the mighty Columns of 
 the Sun ; and we were at Baalbec. The little town huddles about 
 the great mound upon which are the ruins of the most splendid 
 temple of antiquity. Here Baal was worshipped in the days of 
 Solomon; Helios in the Grecian era; Jupiter and Bacchus in 
 Roman times. Here Theodosius built amid the broken pagan 
 temple a Christian basilica and Tamur and the Arabs made a 
 fortress. But through all these nineteen centuries, in spite of 
 earthquake, vandalism and the hand of time — these six great 
 stone columns have dominated this vast ruined temple and the 
 whole plain, even as they do today. It is truly a Temple of the 
 Sun and those old Syrians who first worshipped here the Ruler 
 of the Day would find His power still in evidence. For it is the 
 sun that is sovereign here. His warm caress has changed the 
 stone from cold white to glowing gold, and through broken archi- 
 trave and shattered roof he pours his ardent beams. And what a 
 majestic shrine it is even in its ruin ! 
 
 One walks amazed around its outer walls and gazes in stupe- 
 faction from the groves and gardens that surround it at the 
 Cyclopean stones that form its foundations. Sixty feet long and 
 sixteen feet high, they are the largest hewn stones in the world, 
 and one wonders how any human hands could ever have placed 
 them where they are. A long flight of steps leads to the main 
 entrance and one finds himself standing on a lofty stone plat- 
 form and all about are the remains, not of a single structure but 
 a whole vast complex of temples. He wanders from the entrance 
 court to the arena of the Hexagonal Court, and on into the outer 
 court and inner court, surrounded on every side by masses of 
 fallen masonry — broken columns, sections of friezes, fragments 
 of doorways, bits of architraves, capitals carved with lions' 
 heads, gigantic foundation stones — and all on an almost super- 
 human scale. The Temple of Bacchus, which is small in compari- 
 son with the other buildings, is in itself simply tremendous in 
 size. To pass along what was once its outer colonnade under the 
 solitary leaning column and let the eye wander up its vast dimen- 
 sions, gives one a sense of littleness in the presence of its huge 
 size and height. The interior, with its grand columns, masses
 
 of carved stone ornamentation, fluted pilasters and delicately 
 sculptured doorway, gfives some little idea of the ornate beauty 
 of the original. But the crowning glory of this huge temple is 
 that portion which was once the Temple of the Sun, Fifty-four 
 towering Corinthian columns once upheld its great roof — of these 
 only six are now standing. But what majestic things they are! 
 Rising from a great platform of huge blocks of stone to a dizzy 
 heigiit, surmounted by a glorious architrave, elaborately carved 
 with acanthus leaves and lions' heads, one marvels that any 
 human mind could have conceived or human hands erected those 
 pillars. To stand beneath them and look up at them against the 
 blue Syrian sky makes you reel. All things else around you 
 seem small in comparison with these giants. These Columns of 
 the Sun dominate Baalbec even as the ruins of Baalbec surpass 
 all the temples of ancient times. They are majestic beyond any 
 words to describe — the very incarnation of the might and genius 
 of antiquity. 
 
 That evening as I sat on the porch of the hotel in the soft 
 Syrian twilight the last thing I saw, looming against the mauve 
 background of the darkening Lebanon mountains, w^as the sight 
 of those great Columns of the Sun keeping guard over that vast 
 ruin at their feet as they have done through the centuries. And 
 I shall cari-y the memory of those mighty columns, seemingly 
 i-ising by magic amid the vast empty plains of Syria, so long as 
 I live. For Baalbec, once seen, can never be forgotten.
 
 V 
 
 A §wi§§ Gairdeii of 
 
 "From the deep shadow of the silent grove, 
 
 I lift my eyes, and trembling look on thee, 
 
 Broiv of eternity, thou dazzling peak. 
 
 From whose calm heights my dreaming spirit 7no%ints 
 
 And soars away into the infinite! 
 
 —F. BRUNN.
 
 THE JUNGFRAU, FROM INTERLAKEN 
 July 13, 1921
 
 A Swiss Garden of Enchantment 
 
 INTERLAKEN lies in a beautiful broad valley in the heart of 
 Bernese Switzerland, at the foot of precipitous cliffs, tree- 
 covered and beautiful with waterfalls. The beauty of the 
 two lakes between which it lies and from which position it 
 derives its name is, however, overshadowed by the glory of the 
 Jungfrau, which lifts its massive white pyramid into the sky to 
 dominate the little village by its majestic purity. 
 
 The day was intensely hot and when the evening came it 
 had the soft, balmy languor of the tropics, and to wander forth 
 was like a night in the Orient. Near the hotel was a great public 
 garden and into this we turned for interest and amusement. We 
 stepped within the gates into a scene that rivaled the enchant- 
 ments of the Arabian Nights. All about was a mass of tapering 
 green pines and cedars with gorgeous banks of colored bloom at 
 their feet, arranged in strange and fantastic designs, like a magic 
 carpet of flowers. There were squares and crescents and circles, 
 a floral arabesque, woven by a master hand. A great floral clock 
 with moving hands of vari-colored bloom, and little gnomes that 
 appeared from a floral bower to strike the hours with tiny ham- 
 mers upon silver bells, was unique enough to have delighted the 
 heart of good Haroun al Raschid. The air was fragrant with 
 the sweet scent of the pines and the perfume of rare flowers. I 
 sat down upon a bench and gazed about me. Before me rose the 
 facade of an Oriental palace, lighted by colored lights, gay with 
 the moving figures of people in festive garments — the Kursaal 
 or Casino of Interlaken. From this building the eye traveled up 
 and up the face of a great clilf, green with dwarf pines, until it 
 merged with the sky, and far above was the single brilliant elec- 
 tric light of a tourist hotel, gleaming like an evening star. Here 
 and there amid the trees was the soft light of swinging vari- 
 colored lanterns glowing upon the dusky shade beneath. From 
 the hidden orchestra of this Casino came strains of exquisite 
 music, and through the softer passages the plash of the nearby 
 fountain wove a theme that spoke of the peace of the evening. 
 The soft languorous air, the perfume of the flowers, the twitter 
 of sleepy birds in the trees, the soft lights and sweet music, made 
 the hour a time of magic dreams in a veritable garden of 
 enchantment. 
 
 And now through the interlacing branches of the trees came 
 the long fingers of the moonlight, thrusting their soft radiance 
 upon the beds of bloom, the crystal fountains. And as the moon 
 at last soared over the tree tops, I turned reluctantly to go, and
 
 faced the crowning- touch of that perfect evening:. For 
 through an opening in the trees, far across the valley, slowly 
 emerging from dimness to radiance, as with the magic of the 
 lights of a theater, I saw the snowy splendor of the Jungfrau, 
 bathed in the moonlight, towering in ethereal beauty, sublime 
 with a glory as of the world above.
 
 VI 
 
 le like Cato(C(D)iml])g 
 
 "The infant Church, of love she felt the tide 
 Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave; 
 And then she sTniled, and in the catacombs. 
 With eye suffused, but heart inspired true, 
 On these 2valls subterranean, where she hid 
 Her head mid ignominy, death and tombs. 
 She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew." 
 —MATTHEW ARNOLD.
 
 In the Catacombs 
 
 STRAIGHT as an arrow southward from the walls of Rome 
 across the Campagna stretches the Via Appia. Builded by 
 Appius Claudius three centuries before Christ, this mag- 
 nificent old highway has echoed to the tread of Roman legions 
 and the rumble of chariot wheels as into the Eternal City the 
 victorious conquerors carried the spoils of the world. And one 
 day over the stone blocks of this old road there passed a little 
 band of Roman soldiers and in their midst an old man in chains, 
 and henceforward this highway was to be sacred to the hearts 
 of men — for this venerable prisoner was the Apostle Paul, going 
 to Rome to appeal to Caesar. But as we passed out of the Porta 
 San Sebastiano, and sped on our way over the ancient road that 
 July afternoon, we saw no splendid legions but only a long line 
 of rumbling carts with their sleeping drivers slowly moving 
 toward Rome; and all about us was the desolate and silent Cam- 
 pagna, once swarming with prosperous villages. On either side 
 was the beginning of that endless line of ruined tombs that 
 borders the road for miles, and far away the skeleton of the old 
 Claudian aqueduct stretching across the Alban Hills. The ruined 
 tombs, the broken walls, the desolate plain, seemed to mourn 
 over the long-dead civilization that once flourished here, and the 
 mournfulness of the surroundings gave a sense of fitness to the 
 announcement of my guide that we had now arrived at the 
 catacombs. 
 
 We passed through a stone gate and up a tree-bordered lane 
 to a little eminence, from which could be seen far away the 
 seven-hilled city by the Tiber with its gardens and palaces and 
 on the horizon the mighty dome of St. Peter's. A brown-robed 
 Trappist monk handed us some tapers and led us along a grav- 
 eled walk to a doorway. The opened door disclosed a long flight 
 of steps leading down into darkness, and the air was chill, the 
 hand-rail dripping, as, by the feeble light of the tapers, we 
 slowly descended. At the foot of the stairs we found ourselves 
 in a narrow passageway whose roof might be dimly seen high 
 above our heads ; and on either side, tier upon tier, were marble- 
 lined recesses, some open, some closed with marble slabs. Here 
 in these niches were buried in the early centuries of Christian 
 history the bodies of the Christian dead. All about us were the 
 mortal remains of those who first accepted the name of Christ 
 in Rome, many of them doubtless members of that Roman church 
 to which Paul wrote his immortal epistle. Perhaps yonder slab 
 covered the body of Prisca or Aquila or Timothy. And how
 
 many a mangled form had been tenderly borne down that long 
 stairway from the arena of the Colosseum, here to sleep through 
 all these centuries. On and on our guide led us, through a perfect 
 maze of corridors and passages, to stop at last in a large empty 
 chamber, an ancient Christian chapel. On the walls were dim 
 mosaics, depicting Biblical scenes and in one coraer was a marble 
 episcopal chair. It required no great imagination to people that 
 tiny chapel again with the forms of the early Christians fleeing 
 from the cruel persecutions of the Roman emperors to find 
 refuge, and here, amid the chill subterranean dampness of this 
 little room, lighted only by flickering torches, singing songs of 
 love to Christ and offering prayers for their martyred brethren 
 in prison and arena. We followed our guide's little candle as 
 he led us on again, and on the slabs and walls as we passed we 
 saw the dove, the anchor, the palm-branch, carved by the early 
 Christians, mute evidences of the triumphant faith of these dai'k 
 days of Christianity. We entered a tomb-chamber to gaze upon 
 the remains of two of those who so long ago were buried here, 
 and on the wall above was carved the symbol of the resurrection. 
 To walk as I did that day for miles through those endless rows 
 of tombs, with all around such symbols of the faith of those old 
 days, gave me as never before a sense of the heroism of those 
 early years of Christianity. For the cold and dampness seemed to 
 penetrate one's very bones and the eternal darkness settled upon 
 one's soul like a black pall. That those early Christians kept 
 faith and hope amid those catacombs bears witness to the tri- 
 umph of Christianity no less than their brave death upon the 
 sands of the Colosseum. 
 
 As we emerged from the catacombs the end of the day was 
 near and the sun was already sinking below the horizon. Miles 
 away across the Campagna I saw again the city of Rome. And 
 clear-cut as a cameo against the western sky stood above its 
 roofs that wonderful dome of St. Peter's. All else was obscure, 
 dim, hazy in the advancing twilight. Over the ruined temples 
 and palaces, the glory of Rome's past, that great church stood 
 out supreme that evening over the city of the Caesars. But I 
 knew that it was the faith of those patient souls that endured 
 and suffered and now sleep in the catacombs beneath my feet 
 that had made possible that great church that rules the Eternal 
 City. Even so the Christian religion that stands lofty, eternal, 
 dominating the world and its life, owes its triumph to the myriad 
 unknown souls whose faith has endured the shock and struggle 
 of the centuries.
 
 VII 
 
 Gcoiimg D([])we to 
 
 "This plain made bright with streaks of crimson clay 
 And sprinkled o'er with grains of golden sand, 
 Once saw the host of Israel as it lay 
 With pike and trumpet in war's fierce array; 
 Now pensive silence broods upon this land." 
 
 —HAZARD.
 
 ELISHA'S FOINTAIN. JERICHO 
 
 Aug^ust 15, 1921
 
 Going Down to Jericho 
 
 THE sun was just rising over the Judean hills and the air 
 was still chill on those mountain heights on which Jerusa- 
 lem stands, when we left the hotel, and in an ancient Ford 
 car rattled over the cobblestones and through the Jaffa Gate. 
 We passed along the ancient city wall, skirted the Mount of 
 Olives, climbed a steep hill, and looked back for a last glimpse 
 of the city of Jerusalem, rising like an ancient fortress from the 
 Valley of the Kedron, the sun glittering like fire from the dome 
 of the Mosque of Omar. Then the olive g]'oves suddenly ended, 
 the parched herbage amid the rocks ceased, and we found our- 
 selves winding amid a waste of rocky hills, barren, desolate, sin- 
 ister. We were in the wilderness of Judea, that chaos of sand 
 and rock that constitutes one of the most forbidding landscapes 
 in the world. It seemed fit only to be the haunt of wild beasts 
 and of wilder men. And as if to give point to the menace of the 
 land, on the winding narrow road we met drove after drove of 
 laden camels driven by agile, gaily-robed Bedouins, whose fierce 
 eyes and wild gestures gave an uneasy sense of insecurity and 
 danger. And the final thrill came with the sight far above us 
 on the sky line of the hills of the picturesque figures of Arab 
 soldiery, armed with long rifles, keeping watch over the road, 
 because but a few weeks before a lone traveler had been set 
 upon by Bedouins and killed. The background of Jesus' famous 
 parable was vividly before us, for we were on that Jericho 
 road where from time immemorial men have "fallen among 
 thieves." And as these thoughts were passing through our 
 minds we rounded a curve and came to the "Inn of the Good 
 Samaritan." Before the war a place of hospitality, it is now 
 roofless and in ruins, tenanted only as it was that morning by a 
 group of Bedouins and their camels. It w^as at this point that 
 the encircling hills parted for one of those vistas of the "land 
 that is very far off" so characteristic of Palestine, and we saw 
 far below us shimmering through the haze the vast plain of 
 Jericho and on the horizon the blue waters of the Dead Sea. A 
 mile farthei" and we came to the edge of a great gorge which the 
 Brook Cherith has cleaved through the rock and on the opposite 
 side, clinging like an eagle's eyrie to the precipice, the old Mon- 
 astery of St. George. Here it was that Elijah was fed by the 
 ravens. The descent was rapid now and we sped swiftly down- 
 ward until we reached the level of the plain and entered a little 
 huddle of tumble down houses — the modern village of Jericho — 
 and passing through its one crooked street with its few stone 
 houses and stores, we came to a placid pool of water, enclosed
 
 in a stone wall — the Fountain of Elisha, whose waters have been 
 in past ages the source of the gardens of Jericho, and that still 
 furnishes sustenance to the oleanders, pomegranates, bamboos 
 and jasmines that make it an oasis in the midst of the Jordan 
 Valley with its slime pits and ugly desolation. Nearby was the 
 ancient city of Jericho, now a few mounds with the ruins of brick 
 walls revealed by the archaeologist's spade. Standing on one of 
 these highest mounds I looked over the landscape. To the south- 
 ward over a grotesque and repellent waste of sickly white and 
 yellow sand and clay I could see the green water of the Dead Sea 
 covered w^ith the mist of its own eternal evaporation. Eastward 
 a dense tangled growth of willows and shrubbery marked the 
 course of the Jordan, and beyond rose the mountains of Moab, 
 delicate, dream like, spirituelle, the dome of Nebo recalling the 
 great law-giver and the days of the Exodus. Across the plain, 
 grim and terrible, with its beetling precipices and terrific masses 
 of rock, rose the the Mount of the Temptation. And somewhere 
 amid those square chiseled mountain blocks, in the awful and 
 savage grandeur of that mountain, our Lord looked down upon 
 this spot where I was now standing, then a great and populous 
 city with its lights and its music, while His soul w-restled in the 
 darkness with the powers of the unseen world. And through 
 its streets as the thronging crowd pressed upon Him, that same 
 One later walked to find welcome and hospitality in one of those 
 ruined houses beneath my feet, then the home of Zaccheus. To 
 stand on that spot, where once the trumpets of the Hebrews had 
 laid low the walls, to look out upon that plan where once Sodom 
 and Gomorah had stood, to see those mountains of Moab where 
 Moses looked upon the Promised Land from afar, to watch the 
 winding course of the Jordan, sacred in song and story, to lift 
 my eyes to the mountains of the wilderness of Judea or to turn 
 them to where at my feet gleamed the mirror of the fountain 
 of the prophet — brought to me a flood of emotions too deep for 
 words. I was in a land where every stone was vocal with mem- 
 ories, every hill and valley reminiscent of a Sacred name or a 
 Scripture event. And this is the charm of Palestine, as it fell 
 upon me there at Jericho, that in this tiny country, one is face to 
 face at every turn of the road with sacred sights and scenes, and 
 that the old Book lives again in this, its native land.
 
 GHAND HYPOSTYLE HALL, KARNAK 
 August 15. 1921
 
 Karnak by Moonlight 
 
 THE burning orb of the sun had ended its sovereign sway 
 over the land of the Nile for another day and had sunk 
 behind the horizon, and the swift Egyptian night had 
 fallen, but the air was still hot and not a leaf was stirring. On 
 the porch of the little pension dinner had been served by candle- 
 light, and the barefooted Arab waiter had retired with his whis- 
 pered "Mah salaami." Over the nearby mosque the moon was 
 just rising when there was a touch on my arm and by me stood 
 my Coptic dragoman Saleeb, and in the street below the patient 
 donkeys. 
 
 We soon passed by the more pretentious dwellings of Luxor 
 into the outskirts of the village, and into a long avenue of syca- 
 mores that overhung the dark waters of an irrigation ditch. On 
 we padded through the thick, warm dust of the road. Silently, 
 so close that we could touch them, a long file of loaded camels 
 passed like ghosts in the night. Then came groups of gaily clad 
 men, ever chatting, and bands of women in trailing black robes, 
 ever silent. Now and then there opened the vista of the interior 
 of a mud hut, with its dim shadowy figures of kneeling camels 
 and huddled sheep, and in the center of the courtyard the flare 
 of coals in the fireplace and the flitting figures of women, the 
 recumbent forms of men. But none spoke any word, and the 
 sharp, vicious bark of the dogs was our only greeting as we 
 passed. A little hillock was crowded with dark figures, and 
 through the night came a weird, monotonous chant. "It is a 
 whirling dervish," was Saleeb's answer to my spoken query. At 
 last we reached the wonderful avenue of sphinxes with the 
 majestic pylon at its end that marks the entrance to the great 
 Temple of Karnak. A short colloquy with the Arab guard, an 
 iron door swung wide, and we stood in the courtyard of the most 
 famous of all Egypt's temples. 
 
 All around, in the confusion created by centuries of earth- 
 quake, war and vandalism, lay masses of vast stones, overturned 
 and broken statues, fragments of obelisks, pediments of columns, 
 like some gigantic wreckage left by the grim sport of Titans. 
 Before me rose two huge tapering monolithic obelisks, and one 
 mighty towering column, still complete and perfect, to witness 
 to the one time magnificence of this greater outer court. Yet 
 now in ruins, seen thus in the moonlight, with all its harsher out-
 
 lines softened, the scene was entrancingly beautiful, a realm of 
 romance and of mystery. 
 
 It was but a few steps more and I stood in that part of the 
 temple that the hand of man and time had spared such utter 
 ruin, — the great Hypostyle Hall of Karnak. 
 
 All about me was a veritable forest of columns, so immense 
 and massive as to have seemed squat and heavy, had not their 
 great height and the graceful lotus-capitals that crowned them 
 given them a lift and lightness that made them beautiful. As one 
 gazed at those hundred enormous columns, as the eye wandered 
 up to the fragments of the huge roof that still remained, wonder 
 and awe filled the mind. That majestic temple seemed too great 
 for human hands, a work rather of demigods than of men. 
 
 I was standing in the midst of the central portion of the 
 shrine, once covered by a great stone roof from wind and 
 weather. But the roof has long since gone, and the temple stands 
 open to the sky. Seen by day it is a myriad huge columns over- 
 powering the beholder with their size and majesty. But now, in 
 the moonlight, some of the darkness and mystery that once held 
 sway here had returned. Down into those dim recesses the moon 
 was sending long shafts of light. Here and there in its brilliant 
 rays stood revealed the chiseled figure of some god or king of 
 ancient Egypt, or the delicate traceries of some lotus-capital. 
 But into the cavernous depths of the vast interior the moonlight 
 could not penetrate, and the larger part of the temple was 
 wrapped in darkness. The night was warm and intensely still. 
 No sound could be heard save the distant monotonous chant of 
 the dervish on his hillside. Standing thus it seemed to me that 
 I could almost see in the darkness the swirl of white garments, 
 smell the fragrance of perfumed censers, and the dervish's chant 
 became the song of priest and celebrant as they swept through 
 those dim colonnades. All about me were the ghosts of those 
 ancient days when Rameses the Great ruled this land of the Nile 
 and this vast temple was filled with worshippers. 
 
 In the warm silence of that summer night the glory of old 
 Egypt laid hold on me, her power, her grandeur, as expressed in 
 those great columns, huge statues, mighty obelisks, tumbled 
 masses of stone. Egypt lies in ruins, her story is an oft-told tale, 
 but the spell of Egypt lingers on at Karnak, and it fell on the soul 
 of one who stood in that majestic temple one moonlight night 
 and listened to the whispers of the Past.
 
 IX 
 
 Tlie Paradise of 
 the Poets 
 
 Far from my dearest friends, 'tis mine to rove 
 Through bare grey dell, high wood and pastoral cove, 
 His wizard course where hoary Derxvent takes 
 Through crags and forest glooms, and opening lakes. 
 Where silver rocks the savage prospect cheer 
 Of giant yews that frown on Rydal's tnere; 
 Where peace to Grasmere's lonely island leads, 
 To ivilloivy hedgerou's and to emerald meads. 
 Her bridge, nide church, and cottaged grounds 
 Her rocky sheejncalks and her woodland bounds. 
 
 —WORDSWORTH.
 
 VIKVV FROM BRIDGE, GRASMERE 
 June 20. 1921
 
 The Paradise of the Poets 
 
 AT SUNSET of that June day we found ourselves standing 
 by the shores of a httle lake awaiting the ferry that was 
 to carry us to our hotel. Across the lake the hotel, a three- 
 story building of rubble, with green ivy drooping over window 
 and wall, nestled amid masses of trees at the foot of a long range 
 of mist-covered hills. The short ferry trip revealed a charming 
 vista of green islands and winding channels ending on the west- 
 ern horizon in a great range of purple mountains massed against 
 the silvery western sky. We were at Windermere, in the heart 
 of the English lake-country, made immortal by the English 
 poets, and every little hill, every lake, every waterfall, every 
 stream was enshrined in verse by those famous bards who lived 
 in this paradise and sang its praises in their poetry. One of 
 those distant peaks was Coniston, beneath whose shadow is the 
 former home of Tennyson and in its quiet churchyard the grave 
 of John Ruskin. Around the lake are the favorite dwelling places 
 of Mrs. Hemans and Christopher North. And as we journeyed 
 the next day to Grasmere and its tiny lake amid the reeds, we 
 passed the homes of Harriet Martineau, champion of freedom; 
 and Dr. Arnold of Rugby immortalized in "Tom Brown's School 
 Days"; "Nab Cottage," where Coleridge and Dr. Quincey once 
 lived; and residences made forever famous by Matthew Arnold, 
 Charlotte Bronte, John Keats, Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson, Robert Southey, Charles Lamb, and Shelley, nestle 
 amid these hills and by these charming lakes. But the poet- 
 laureate of this exquisitely beautiful lake country was Words- 
 worth, and scarce a place in all this region that Lowell called 
 "Wordsworthshire" but finds its mention in his poetry. Rydal 
 W^ater, Duddon Valley, Derwentwater, Rothay, Ullswater, — at 
 every turn we looked upon some scene made immortal by its 
 mention by Wordsworth. 
 
 And to lovers of Wordsworth his shrine is found in the little 
 village of Grasmere. Here we found a quaint two-story cottage 
 bowered in vines, with a tiny garden in the rear. The interior is 
 but dimly lighted by diamond-paned windows and the little rooms 
 are furnished with the simplest furniture. Yet here in what 
 he called 
 
 "The lovely cottage in the guardian nool(" 
 
 dwelt William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy for ten years ;
 
 and here this great poet of Nature amid the sylvan beauty of 
 this sequestered spot 
 
 "learned 
 To loolf on Nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth, but hearing, oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity." 
 
 And here it was that he came to know the God who reveals him- 
 self in nature, and on that old black table in the corner of his 
 study at Grasmere he could write : 
 
 "/ have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused. 
 Whose dn>elling is the light of setting suns 
 And the round ocean, and the living air 
 And the blue sl(y, and in the mind of man." 
 
 Filled with the memories of this g-entle bard who was truly 
 
 "A lover of the meadoivs and the woods 
 And mountains — " 
 
 I strolled that evening through the winding streets of the little 
 village in the long northern twilight. I passed ivy-covered 
 houses, their dooryards full of hollyhocks and wallflowers, by 
 hedgerows fragrant with roses, through a bowling-green where 
 two old men were solemnly playing bowls, and sat down at last 
 to rest on the stone wall of a bridge that spanned a tiny stream 
 in the center of the village. On one side of the stream, rising 
 from the water's edge, were a cluster of houses, ivy-mantled from 
 rooftree to ground, reflected as in a mirror in the limpid waters 
 of the stream ; on the other the little parish church in whose 
 churchyard Wordsworth sleeps his last deep sleep. The mists 
 hung over the rocky peak of Helm Crag above me, and the dark- 
 ening shadows began to fall. All around were the bracken cov- 
 ered hills, the silvery waterfalls, the green woods with the soft 
 splotch of color of an occasional copper-beech, the charming tarns 
 and fells, the blue lakes, the sloping velvety meadows ; and before 
 me that crystal stream set in its framework of emerald — a pic- 
 ture of perfect peace. A.nd I did not wonder that this was to 
 the poets what Southey called "an earthly paradise," or that 
 Wordsworth prayed to be laid to rest under the yew trees in 
 Grasmere churchvard.
 
 X 
 
 A MamMe Throuiiglhi 
 P(D)innipeii 
 
 "To Hiancl within the City Disinterred 
 And hear the autumnal leaves like light footfalls, 
 Of spirits passing through the streets, and hear 
 The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals 
 Thrill through these roofless halls."
 
 A Ramble Through Pompeii 
 
 WHEEZING and puffing, with man}^ a jolt and jar, the 
 decrepit Itahan train crawled slov.iy along- from Naples 
 to Pompeii that hot August day while dust and cinders 
 swirled in clouds through the open w^indows of our compartment. 
 Yet these many discomforts were compensated by the view of 
 the blue bay on our right and the changing panorama of groves 
 and vineyards and quaint stone villages on our left. And now here 
 and there in the railroad cuts could be seen ugly lava beds, and the 
 great cone of Vesuvius with its pillar of white smoke drev*' stead- 
 ily nearer; and the shadow of that tragedy that on that other 
 August day so long ago overwhelmed that smiling Roman city 
 hung over us as we alighted at the station marked "Pompeii.' 
 
 No trace of the old city w^as to be seen as we walked up a 
 long winding avenue among the trees until we came to a long- 
 incline of rough stone pavement and passed under a stone arch- 
 way, and suddenly we found ourselves in old Pompeii. There it 
 was before us, buried for nineteen centuries from the sight and 
 memory of man and uncovered once more by the archaeologist's 
 spade to the light of daj'. We were walking on the very pave- 
 ments over which the gay Pompeians passed, and in the lava- 
 blocks of the street could be seen the ruts worn by the chariot 
 wheels, and there were the stepping stones by which the Pom- 
 peian ladies daintily walked dry-shod as they crossed the oft- 
 flooded street. We passed a great open court and within were 
 the remains of one of the public baths, the marble lined plunge 
 as perfect as though just builded, the colors still bright upon its 
 portico and pillars. Here was a bake shop w-ith its great brick 
 ovens in which were found charred loaves with the baker's stamp 
 upon them, ready for the morrow that never came. There was 
 a wine shop with its marble counter and amphorae where the 
 convival spirits met to quaff the sparkling Falernian. 
 
 Another corner and we found ourselves in the old Forum. 
 On one side was the public market and the remains of fruits and 
 vegetables still were to be seen among the ashes, and nearby the 
 fish market with fish scales still to be seen beneath its counters. 
 And all about, on walls and buildings were bulletins, official busi- 
 ness, notices of elections, tax lists, scrawls and names and all that 
 literary miscellany that gathers in a public place in every age. 
 What a strange feeling comes over one's soul to see these relics 
 of the daily life and thought of so long ago. All about were 
 altars and columns and porticos and pillars and lu-oken statues — 
 remains of the fine temples to jMercury and Apollo and Isis that
 
 once bordered this great square. Near by were the palaces and 
 fine homes, most of them now roofless and in ruins, but with the 
 once bright colors of floor and pillar to be seen and on the walls 
 the wonderful mosaics and frescoes that were the glory of old 
 Pompeii. 
 
 One house still remains, partly restored by modern hands 
 to give us some faint idea of the beauty of a Pompeian home, the 
 House of the Vettii. One passed through the atrium or recep- 
 tion room into the peristyle, the heart of the house. Its large 
 court, open to the sky, surrounded by a corridor of marble pillars ; 
 its gay formal gardens, fountains and statues, marble benches 
 and pools, make a scene of such exquisite beauty as one only 
 sees in dreams. No wonder Pompeii was the Riviera of old Rome, 
 nor that the charm of its blue sky and beauteous homes drew to 
 it the Roman nobles for rest and pleasure. 
 
 For hours we rambled on through the streets and houses of 
 this old Roman city, fascinated by the intriguing thoughts as 
 w^e looked upon the very inmost life of the days of Imperial Rome. 
 We came at last into the great amphitheater, tier upon tier of 
 stone benches where once 20,000 people sat through the long 
 afternoon while on the grassy arena where we stood gladiators 
 fought "to make a Roman holiday." And here upon the walls of 
 the entrance was this inscription in Latin, "A troop of gladiators 
 will fight in this amphitheater the last day of August." How 
 strange to read these words! For that day never came, but 
 while the people were gathered in this place, as Bulwer-Lytton 
 so vividly portrays it, that great mountain that still towers over 
 Pompeii hurled its flaming death upon the doomed city, to lie 
 here forgotten, until in our day we can walk again its streets and 
 stand in its amphitheater and muse upon its departed glories. 
 
 Footsore and weary, w^e left Pompeii at the end of that won- 
 derful day of poignant memories and set our faces again toward 
 Naples. And as we passed on our way again through the vine- 
 yards and groves, past towns and villages, my thoughts were 
 still in Pompeii and busy wdth that day so long ago when all in 
 a moment that beautiful city passed from life to death. Even 
 now, tenantless and empty, it slumbers on under the blue Italian 
 sky, but my walk through its streets had made it seem as though 
 it were again peopled with those happy folk that there laughed 
 the hours away. Its bright paintings are faded, its splendid 
 temples in ruins, yet some touch of its glory lingers yet amid 
 its desolation, and its tragic fate tugs at the heartstrings. And 
 as I turned for a last look, there hung over Pompeii that vast 
 white mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke from Vesuvius, beau- 
 tiful yet sinister, menacing prophecy of some other Dies Irae, 
 that by the wrath of this monster volcano may transform some 
 other city by that blue bay into a second City of the Dead.
 
 XI 
 
 In Flaeders Fields 
 
 In Flanders Fields the poppies grow 
 Between the crosses, row on row. 
 That mark our place; and in the sky 
 The larks, still bravely singing, fly. 
 Scarce heard amid the guns beloiv. 
 
 We are the dead; short days ago 
 We lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glotv. 
 Loved arid were loved and now we lie 
 In Flanders fields. 
 
 Take up our quarrel with the foe! 
 To you from failing hands we throw 
 The torch; be yours to hold it high! 
 If ye break faith with us tvho die 
 We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
 In Flanders fields. 
 
 —JOHN McCRAE.
 
 BELGIAN BATTLEFIELDS
 
 In Flanders Fields 
 
 I WAS in "Flanders Fields". Early that June morning we had 
 left the hotel at Ostende in a great charabanc, or motor-bus, 
 and had jolted over the rutted stone roads of Flanders, bound 
 for the battlefields. The road ran straight as an arrow beneath 
 great double rows of trees, through fields lush with the green of 
 growing wheat and rye and flax, past quaint Flemish stone farm- 
 houses with their courtyards, stone-walled and filled with live- 
 stock and implements, and through tiny villages, huddles of stone 
 dwellings with pointed roofs and mullioned windows. All was 
 peaceful as with the sweet calm of a perfect Sabbath morning. 
 Sturdy peasant women looked up with a smile from their house- 
 hold tasks as we passed. Old men sunning themselves in open 
 doorways touched their hats. Chubby Belgian children waved 
 and cheered as we swept by them. No one would ever dream as 
 he passed through that smiling countryside that this picturesque 
 Flemish land had ever known the horrors of war, or echoed for 
 four years with the incessant crash of great guns and the shriek 
 of flying shells. 
 
 But the long line of elms that overarched the roadway came 
 to an abrupt end, and beyond it stretched a row of bare, branch- 
 less boles and stumps, bleached ghastly white like skeletons ; the 
 stone fences ended in heaps of broken masonry ; and we suddenly 
 found ourselves face to face with the wreckage of war. All in 
 an instant we had passed from heaven to hell. What an inferno 
 of desolation was here! The broad rolling fields with their 
 squares of green were gone ; and all about us was a tumbled mass 
 of dirt and stones, torn, pitted, gashed, tortured out of all sem- 
 blance to the good brown Mother Earth ; here white with piles of 
 crumbled concrete, here gray with masses of gas-poisoned dead 
 shrubbery, here dirty yellow from the sulphurous fumes of 
 exploded mines. In place of the ordered symmetry of the culti- 
 vated lands we had left behind, all here was chaos. Great craters 
 dug by monster shells were everywhere, long crooked trenches 
 wound in every direction, still holding in their wattled walls the 
 dirty torn sandbags behind which men once crouched for safety. 
 We crossed a muddy ditch, full of debris, and foul with stagnant 
 pools of green slime ; the ugly relic of the once pretty little river 
 Yser, for whose possession men fought in legions upon its banks 
 until it ran red with human blood. 
 
 We were now in the very heart of the war-torn district of 
 Belgium where German and Briton fought in ooze and muck for
 
 four long years, one of the bloodiest battlefields of all human 
 history, the "Planders Fields" of that gallant soldier-poet who 
 died here to give to his little poem immortality. Over yonder 
 lay Dixmude and Ypres, martyr-cities, whose crucified spirits still 
 seem to mourn over those ghastly piles of broken masonry where 
 once their happy children lived. All around us were great shat- 
 tered stone observation towers, broken fragments of bomb- 
 proofs, great masses of rusting barb wire, long lines of entangle- 
 ments and scattered heaps of discarded gun carriages, old iron 
 roofs, motor lorries, shattered cannon and fragments of shells, on 
 and on in endless confusion as far as the eye could see. What a 
 waste of ruin, desolation, horror! And as we passed onward, to 
 crown the scene with its full measure of avvf ulness were the acres 
 of white crosses, "row on row," that mark the last resting-place 
 of the mortal remains of ten thousands of heroes like Colonel 
 McRae, with whom our lads that lie beneath their crosses in 
 France kept faith in answer to his great challenge. In that hour 
 I was face to face with all the stark, fearful, ghastly wreckage of 
 war. And this was "Flanders Fields" as I saw it that beautiful 
 June day. 
 
 And yet "in Flanders Fields the poppies grow." Every- 
 where, over bomb-proofs and through the ugly barbs of wire 
 entanglements and crowning the long lines of trenches flamed 
 the scarlet poppies, blood-red as though they were the expression 
 of the sacrificial spirit of those thousands who lie beneath those 
 torn fields of Flanders. Reverently I stooped and plucked one 
 of those scai'let blossoms. To me they were the very efflores- 
 cence of heroism. And as I gazed out over those war-scarred 
 fields I saw everywhere the lush grass growing green over trench 
 and tower, the flaming poppies covering ruined wall and broken 
 cannon. It was as though nature was mercifully seeking to oblit- 
 erate those awful wounds human hate had made. 
 
 To mo that scene, with those silent and gentle influences of 
 nature slowly but surely covei-ing over the wreck that man had 
 made, was prophetic. Some day the harmony and beauty of 
 God's universe shall prevail over the discord and ugliness cre- 
 ated by human sin, "Flanders Fields," ugly and terrible, grim 
 and awful, a shambles for four years, a desolation now, shall be 
 redeemed again to beauty and peace, and that expanse of scarlet 
 poppies, which was the last sight we had of it as we sped on 
 our way, was the flaming prophecy of its new day.
 
 XII 
 
 lee Galilee 
 
 "BrigJit 'neat It the Syricm sun, dim 'neath the Syrian 
 
 star 
 Thus lieth Galilee's sea, sapphirine lake Gennesar, 
 Girdled by mountains that range purple and proud 
 
 to their crests 
 Bearing the btirden of dreams — glamor of eld on 
 
 their breasts; 
 And over all and through all memories stveet of His 
 
 name 
 Kindling the past with their light, touching tJie 
 
 future with flame." 
 
 —SCOLLARD.
 
 
 
 TIBERIAS AND THE SEA OF GALILEE
 
 Blue Galilee 
 
 THE road northward from Nazareth wound among the rocky 
 hills past Gath-Hepher, the reputed birthplace of Jonah, 
 through Cana of Galilee, the scene of Jesus' first miracle; 
 and then for miles across a great tableland until we came in sight 
 of two large hills, separated by a saddle of rock, the Horns of 
 Hattin, where Jesus is said to have uttered those immortal words 
 we call the Sermon on the Mount. Below was a long slope of 
 cultivated ground, the traditional place of the feeding of the five 
 thousand. And then from afar there was the gleam of water 
 through a rift in the hills, and we saw far below us, set like a 
 gem of lapis lazuli amid its brown encircling hills, the Lake of 
 Galilee. Swifty descending the steep winding road, we passed 
 through pastures filled with sheep, by long hedges of dusty 
 cactus, past a ruined fortress of Crusader days into the town of 
 Tiberius. Once a thriving city, it is now a wretched village of 
 flat-roofed houses and filthy streets, only the crumbling towers 
 and ruined walls amid which the modern town is builded giving 
 evidence of its ancient glory. From the elevated porch of our 
 hotel we looked down upon a scene of poverty and squalor — a 
 marketplace filled with ragged men and black-robed women nois- 
 ily bargaining in true Oriental fashion for the wares that filled 
 the sidewalks. But that evening the softening light of the 
 August moon gave to the place a touch of romance as it rose 
 behind the minaret of the nearby mosque with its two guardian 
 palm trees and suffused the squalid houses with its silvery 
 splendor. 
 
 The next day we embarked in a fishing boat with its lateen 
 sail and our crew of three Syrian boatmen and found ourselves 
 on the blue lake. It was strangely reminiscent of the familiar 
 gospel story to feel the sudden gusts of wind that swept down 
 from the hills to heel the boat over until the water almost came 
 over the gunwale. One could not but remember that day when 
 in such a little boat One slept in its bow while just such a sudden 
 squall struck terror into the hearts of His fishermen disciples. 
 Our destination was Capernaum and after an hour's sail we 
 landed at the pebbly beach, and walked through a grove of euca- 
 lyptus and palms to the mass of ruins that marks the site of 
 Capernaum. Here was the headquarters of the Galilean Ministry 
 of Jesus and this was His adopted city. Once a busy place, as 
 the custom port of the lake, nothing remains now to mark its 
 site except the ruins of the synagogue. Here a French priest has 
 been toiling for years, patiently and wtih loving care uncovering
 
 stone by stone this ancient sanctuary. At least three-fourths 
 of the building has thus been brought to the light of day and it 
 was with many a thrill that w^e wandered about among the 
 broken walls and piles of stone, for upon these carved pedestals 
 and elaborate friezes the eyes of Christ must many times have 
 rested, and perhaps one of these many pillars his hands may have 
 touched. Courteous and kindly, the priest led us about. He 
 pointed out the fact that carved lions and eagles before us were 
 contrary to Jewish law, that forbade any "graven images", that 
 the whole synagogue was more Roman than Jewish, and how all 
 this confirmed that incidental reference in the gospels to the 
 generous centurion (Luke 7:5), whose work this building doubt- 
 less is. He told us that when his task is finished, he hopes from 
 that mass of stone to rebuild this old synagogue as it was in the 
 Master's day. 
 
 From this place, with its sacred memories, we took boat 
 again and landed near Bethsaida at a little place called Tabagha, 
 where a priest has built a little pension or hotel. Climbing the 
 rocky path, we came out upon a terrace high above the lake, and 
 under the shade of palm trees and oleanders, we were served 
 with afternoon tea. 
 
 Sitting thus in the peace of that summer afternoon I looked 
 out over the blue lake environed by the brow^n hills that shut it 
 in on every side. And my mind went back to those days of our 
 New Testament, when these barren hills were clothed with ver- 
 dure, and all about the lake were the white cities — Bethsaida, 
 Capernaum, Magdala, Tiberius, Gadera — and the scores of Roman 
 villas with their marble terraces and green gardens — the lake 
 alive with sails. Over yonder was once the little wharf where the 
 sons of Zebedee dried their nets, and there on the lake the sturdy 
 boat of Andrew and Peter. And by its shores there stood one 
 day One whose commanding presence transformed these rugged 
 Galileans into "fishers of men". About blue Galilee lingers yet 
 the spell of those sacred scenes and the spirit of Jesus seemed 
 very near to me that day as I sat under the oleanders and looked 
 out upon the sparkling waters and dreamed of the days of the 
 j\Ian of Galilee.
 
 
 
 XIII 
 
 lee 
 
 Ca^ 
 
 ^ttle of Ghillon 
 
 "Cliillon! thy prison is a holy place, 
 And thy sad floor an altar, — for 'twas trod 
 Until his very steps have left a trace 
 Worn, as if thy cold pavemeyit were a sod, 
 By Bonnivard! — May none these marks efface 
 For the appeal from tyranny to God." 
 
 
 
 —BYRON.
 
 The Castle of Chillon 
 
 LIKE a journey through an enchanted land was that morning 
 ride across Lake Geneva. Behind us lay the parks and pal- 
 aces of old Geneva, before us rose the castellated summits 
 of the Alps, and on the banks of the lak we passed an ever chang- 
 ing, ever charming panorama of great chateaux, tiny chalets, 
 smiling villages, stately hotels, each framed with verdure and 
 brilliant flowers and reflected in the smooth waters of the lake. 
 No wonder that Voltaire, Dumas and Hugo praised the beauty of 
 this Lake Leman, nor that, floating on its placid surface, Byron 
 could write "Childe Harold". We passed Nyon with its crum- 
 bling old castle, Lausanne with its chateaux and its great 
 cathedral and came to the sun-bathed strip of hotels, parks and 
 stores that bears the name of Montreux, the winter Paradise of 
 Europe. From the window of my room high up in the palatial 
 hotel I gazed down upon a wonderful terraced park and out upon 
 the lake, blazing like a burnished mirror in the midday sun, and 
 far on the dim horizon rose the cloud-like summit of Mt. Blanc. 
 That afternoon we visited the historic Castle of Chillon 
 which has been immortalized by the genius of Byron. Rising 
 from the waters of the lake, this venerable pile recalls his 
 familiar lines : — 
 
 ^'Lake Leman lies by Chillon s Tvalls, 
 A thousand feet in depth beloTV 
 Its many Waters meet and flow." 
 
 As we crossed the ancient moat and drawbridge we felt as 
 though we had suddenly passed from the twentieth to the fif- 
 teenth century. For just beyond the gloomy archway we stepped 
 into a dim old room, its great timbered ceiling black with age, 
 on its walls and chimney grotesque old paintings and in the 
 center of the room the brass culverins that once flamed death in 
 some medieval battle. All around us, as we crossed a square 
 flagged courtyard, were rough stone walls green with ivy and 
 mullioned windows bowered in vines, and up a steep stairway we 
 passed to enter into the very Dwelling-Place of Romance. For 
 we stood in the old dining hall of the Dukes of Savoy, with its 
 great fifteenth century fireplace, and carved oak pillars, and in 
 one corner a quaint old sixteenth century tile stove. How that 
 oak table in the center of the room must once have groaned 
 beneath the heaped up viands of ducal feasts and those heavy 
 timbers of the ceiling reverberated to the shouts of revelers. 
 Finer still was the great Hall of Justice, once the grand salon
 
 with its beautiful black marble columns and fine old brown pan- 
 eled ceiling. From the arched windows with their deep embra- 
 sures one looked out upon the sparkling waters of the lake. How 
 many a perfumed gallant must have sat by his lady love in 
 these old window seats, and whispered honeyed nothings in her 
 waiting ear, while the plash of the waters below made music for 
 their amours. Up another stairway and through the ducal bed- 
 room with its wierd medieval paintings of animals and trees on 
 the walls, we passed into the magnificent Hall of the Chevaliers 
 with its wonderful medieval furniture, its vivid-hued medallions 
 with their coats of arms, and from the windows an even more 
 splendid view of lake and mountain. For the charm of this old 
 castle is enhanced a thousandfold by that lake in which it is 
 embosomed. And the tiny chapel with its arches and bays, its 
 whole interior covered with beautiful decorations and paintings 
 pf the thirteenth century, crowns the old castle with its final 
 touch of exquisite beauty. That wonderful afternoon amid those 
 halls and courtyards, around that swaying gallery with its loop- 
 holes for the archers, its moats and towers, brought up before 
 niy very eyes as nothing else I saw in all Europe that era of 
 chivalry with its splendid pageantry of color, its clash of arms, 
 its romance and its beauty. 
 
 And then — we went down into the dungeons of Chillon — and 
 all the glamour and splendor faded away. For we stood shud- 
 deringly in that awful torture chamber whose grotesque decora- 
 tions seemed like dreams of the damned, and with a recoil of 
 horror were shown that open door by which the mangled bodies 
 of those who in that room found a lingering death were thrown 
 into the oblivious waters of the lake. A long stone corridor — and 
 we found ourselves in a great chamber hewn out of the solid 
 rock, with vaulted Gothic arches borne on stone columns, and 
 high-barred windows from which a lone bar of sunlight streamed 
 into this cold dungeon to fall upon a stone column at whose base 
 is a great iron ring and chain. Here for four long years, round 
 and round this pillar at the tether of that chain, walked an old 
 man, patriot and saint, chained here as a prisoner of Liberty,— - 
 Bonnivard, the hero of the people of Savoy, who has been immor- 
 talized by Byron in his "Prisoner of Chillon". To stand in that 
 dank dungeon all immured in cold gray stone and to think of the 
 despair and the anguish of that lone prisoner in that dark vault 
 
 "/i/fe a living grave 
 Dclon> the surface of the ivave," 
 
 was to feel the dark shadows of that cruel age when "man's 
 inhumanity to man" knew no pity, and had no mercy. Those 
 splendid halls above were but as a fleeting dream, the permanent 
 memory of the Castle of Chillon is of that terrible dungeon and
 
 of that innocent sufferer whose hving death has made of it a 
 shrine. 
 
 That nig-ht from the httle balcony of my hotel I looked out 
 upon a scene of heavenly beauty. Over the lake the full moon 
 was shining, turning its vast expanse into silver, save where, 
 under the shadows of the opposite mountains, it lay shrouded in 
 velvety darkness. On the terrace below an orchestra was playing 
 the "Traumerei". The snowy sails of a few boats and the lights 
 of the lake-shore at my feet ended in a wooded promontory and 
 at its extremity, clear cut as a cameo, were the crenellated bat- 
 tlements and square towers of the Castle of Chillon, rising like a 
 dream castle from the waters of Lake Geneva, And far above 
 it and beyond, brooding spirit-like above both lake and castle, 
 rose the ghostly spires of the Dent du Midi, clothed in eternal 
 snow. The moonlighted lake, the mystic mountains, the magic 
 castle, the ethereal music, and over all the glamour of tradition 
 and history, the haunting spell of romance — these made an hour 
 of rapture whose memory shall never fade.
 
 XIV 
 
 Flereinittiime Vigmietlte^ 
 
 "O Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills 
 And famous Arno, fed with all their rills, 
 Thoii brightest star of star-bright Italy!" 
 
 ~S. T. COLERIDGE.
 
 Florentine Vis^nettes 
 
 THE DUOMO 
 
 ENTERING the great square in the heart of Florence we stood 
 before the world's most magnificent piece of architecture — 
 the Duomo or cathedral. Covered from street to roof over 
 its whole vast exterior with blocks of marble mellowed by the 
 hand of time, its glorious facade like a screen of marble mar- 
 quetry with its bewildering array of exquisitely carved windows, 
 doorways, sculptured saints and angels, it seems like a golden 
 dream of some artist soul, or the symphony of some master 
 musician, rather than a real building. Enraptured we stood in 
 admiring scrutiny of the great rose windows delicate as a lotus 
 flower, the countless niches with their winged figures, each a 
 poem in marble, the intricate and equisite carvings of the count- 
 less archways and pillars — and all as ethereal as the breath of 
 spring. And as if to overwhelm the beholder with beauty, there 
 rises by the cathedral the marvelous Campanile of Giotto, which 
 Ruskin declared the most perfect product of architecture in the 
 world. Three hundred feet in height, sheathed in variegated 
 marble, it looks like a piece of Florentine mosaic and its beauty 
 is as exquisite as that of a perfect flower. 
 
 Within the huge interior we stood under that wonderful 
 dome of Brunelleschi that seems vast as the canopy of heaven. 
 Plain and severe in comparison with its sumptuous exterior, it is 
 yet glorious with memories. For that dim interior was once 
 crowded with eager Florentines, listening with beating hearts 
 and bated breath as the great prophet of Florence, Savonarola, 
 swayed their souls by his impassioned eloquence. From that 
 marble pulpit in the Duomo as from a spiritual throne he ruled 
 Florence until his death. And greater even than the splendor of 
 this triumph of architecture was the glory of this triumphant 
 soul. Savonarola has made the Duomo immortal. 
 
 THE PALAZZO VECCHIO 
 
 Frowning down upon the Square of the Senate is the Palazzo 
 Vecchio, massive like a medieval fortress. Its ugly, strange, dis- 
 proportionately lofty tower has cast its shadow for six hundred 
 years over many a famous scene in this old historic square. In 
 front of it stands Michael Angelo's famous statue of David, and 
 on the side of the square is the marvelous outdoor sculpture gal- 
 lery, the Loggia dei Lanzi, with its "Rape of the Sabines," "Per- 
 seus and Medusa," and other immortal statues. Romantic as are 
 the memories of this old palace, beautiful as are the products of
 
 Florentine art and genius that adorn this square, yet my imag- 
 ination was not stirred to its very depths until I found in the 
 pavement at my feet a bronze plate that marks the spot where 
 Savonarola was burned at the stake. And my mind went back 
 to that May day in 1498, when out from the doorway of the 
 Palazzo Vecchio he marched between his guards. As his white- 
 robed figure mounted the pile of fagots, the crowd hooted and 
 jeered. Calm and unmoved he stood, then raised his head and 
 looked into their faces with the flashing gaze that had so often 
 compelled obedience from thousands, and the mob was hushed 
 into silence. The Bishop of Verona stripped off his priest's robe 
 with the words, "I separate thee from the church militant and 
 triumphant." Calm and clear came the answer — "Militant, yes; 
 triumphant, no; that is not yours!" The flaming torches — the 
 pillar of living fire — and wuth a prayer on his lips, that mighty 
 man of vision, — preacher, prophet, and statesman — w^ent to his 
 reward. Somehow it seemed to me that his spirit lingers yet in 
 that great Piazza under the shadow of that grim palace. For 
 Savonarola loved Florence and for Florence he died. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF SANTA CROCE 
 
 Passing by an imposing statue of Dante in the square before 
 it, we entered through the swaying brow^n curtains in its door- 
 way the Westminster Abbey of Florence — the Church of Santa 
 Croce. To walk about it that afternoon was to feel that one had 
 fellowshipped with the immortals. For all about are the beauti- 
 ful tombs of Florence greatest sons. Here is the cenotaph of 
 Dante inscribed "Onorate V altissimo Poeta." Here are the 
 tombs of Michael Angelo, Galileo, Cherubini, Rossini, Machia- 
 velli, Donatello, and that seemingly endless galaxy of genius that 
 has made the name of Florence glorious. And all around were 
 the marvelous frescoes of Giotto, the wonderful statues by Dona- 
 tello. Here is the shrine of the soul of Florence, the "city of 
 flowers," whose sons made her more beautiful by the consecra- 
 tion of their surpassing talents to her glory. To stand in this 
 church is to feel upon one's soul the spell of those immortals 
 whose greatness has made Florence the very home of beauty, 
 the sanctuary of genius, the dwelling place of poetry, art and 
 song. 
 
 THE PONTE VECCHIO 
 
 Six bridges span the silvery waters of the Arno but the old- 
 est and most picturesque is the Ponte Vecchio. Standing in the 
 tiny square on the center of the bridge I found myself looking 
 upon a statue of Benvenuto Cellini. It is right and fitting that 
 this sculptured form should occupy this place, for the bridge is 
 still as it has been for five centuries, lined on either side with 
 shops of goldsmiths and jewelers, and this master goldsmith of 
 the ages stands here as patron saint. Generations of Florentines
 
 have on this very spot where I was standing, watched the endless 
 lines of human traffic, or looked down upon the ever-flowing 
 waters of the Arno. And it was from this bridge that Tito 
 leaped into the stream, as readers of "Romola" will remember. 
 It was charming and romantic beyond words to describe to linger 
 here or to wander amid its many shops with their glittering 
 wares. 
 
 But the romance and beauty of this old bridge can best be 
 seen as one views it from afar. Early that evening I wandered 
 along the banks of the Arno until I came in sight of the Ponte 
 Vecchio. The evening light had turned the river into a great 
 ribbon of silver, and reflected in it as in a mirror was the bridge, 
 with its graceful arches, its tiled roof, its gray walls — looking 
 with its four stories, the buildings clinging to its walls, its innum- 
 erable windows, like a huge beehive, spanning the waters of the 
 river. The light dimmed, the waters darkened, the lights of the 
 bridge began to glow, and the last view I had of Florence was of 
 the Ponte Vecchio, highway of the centuries, romantic with mem- 
 ories, crouching above the waters of the Arno, like a sleeping 
 giant keeping watch over the silent city.
 
 XV 
 
 Versaillei 
 
 "Oh, que Versailles etait superbe 
 Dans ces jours purs de tout affront 
 Ou les prosperites en gerbe 
 S'epanouissient sur son front." 
 
 —HUGO.
 
 THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES
 
 Versailles 
 
 STRAIGHT through the heart of Paris runs the Champs 
 Elysees, the world's most magnificent boulevard, and it was 
 out by this splendid highway, past the Arch of Triumph, 
 beneath whose shadow now lies France's unknown hero, that we 
 drove through the Bois de Boulogne and through the park of 
 Versailles to the Grand Trianon. This Italian villa, with its relics 
 of the days of the monarchy visited, we spent some time in the 
 adjoining building amid the state carriages and palanquins of 
 Madame Maintenon, Madame Pompadour, Napoleon I and III. 
 Gorgeous with red and gold, elaborate with carving and rich 
 with many-hued upholstery, they are a riot of color, but all their 
 splendor pales beside the coronation coach of Charles V, the most 
 splendid and costly carriage ever built. It was a relief to turn 
 from this sumptuous sight to the simple pastoral beauty of the 
 Little Trianon, that small chateau and park which Louis XVI 
 gave to Marie Antoinette. Here the fair queen and the ladies 
 of the court forgot the cares of state in playing at farm life. The 
 little dairy and the vine-covered mill, seen amid the great trees 
 and across the lily-strewn ponds of this park with their rustic 
 bridges, make a picture never to be forgotten, and recall those 
 days of gaiety when royalty laid aside its robes and here returned 
 to its carefree youth. 
 
 Crossing a courtyard of immense proportions we found our- 
 selves before a vast complex of buildings, the great palace of 
 Versailles, the hunting lodge of Louis XIII, which Louis Qua- 
 torze, well named "the Magnificent", turned into the most splen- 
 did royal residence in Europe. Many of the most dramatic events 
 in French history have taken place in this courtyard, and from 
 its central balcony was announced the death of each king. We 
 passed up the staircase and through the splendid rooms and cor- 
 ridors filled with paintings, statues and historical relics, each 
 one seemingly more splendid than the one before. The Hall of 
 the Tennis Court recalls the days of the French Revolution and 
 was the cradle of French liberty. The Coronation Hall is mem- 
 orable for its great canvases and for the impressive statue of 
 "Napoleon's Last Days at St. Helena" in which the sculptor has 
 depicted the despair and heartbreak of that great soul. The 
 Hall of Mirrors, with its vast expanse of mirrors and the view 
 of the parks and gardens through its lofty windows, is not only 
 splendid with its memories of the past glories of the French 
 monarchs once reflected from its walls, but has been given a 
 new place in history as the room in which the Peace Confer-
 
 ence held its sessions. Most magnificent of all these great halls 
 is the Gallery of Battles, with its seemingly endless perspective 
 of busts of famous generals, its series of historical paintings, its 
 polished floor and gilded ceiling. 
 
 But the crown of Versailles is its immense park, with the 
 gardens and fountains. Seen from the steps at the back of the 
 palace, one looks down a long tree-bordered vista of fountains, 
 lawns, esplanades and marble basins that seems to end only at 
 the horizon line. And everywhere are shaded walks and avenues, 
 and amid the green trees the multitude of marble statues that 
 people the park of Versailles. The park is beautiful enough but 
 its supreme glory is found in the magnificent fountains whose 
 playing is called the "Grandes Eaux." Through two long hours 
 we waited, but the sight was splendid enough to have compen- 
 sated for any wait. Promptly at four o'clock the Fountain of 
 Latona began to play, then the more distant Fountain of Apollo. 
 From apertures of every size, and set at every conceivable angle, 
 the flashing waters sent their columns of white spray high into 
 the air, the myriad drops glittering like diamonds in the sun. 
 The eff'ect was to transform the whole scene into an artist's 
 dream. Wherever one turned he saw reflected from a still pool 
 or in relief against a background of green trees, those ever- 
 changing, flashing, ethereal columns of white spray. Moment 
 by moment the panorama held our breathless attention, then sud- 
 denly the waters began to fall lower and lower; then were still. 
 But only with a renewed power to find the climax of their display 
 in the Basin of Neptune. Here in this colossal pool there broke 
 forth such a bewildering, coruscating, rainbow-crowned outburst 
 of fountains, geysers, cascades as to dazzle the eyes and ravish 
 the soul. And as I turned at the top of the steps for one lasr 
 look at this stupendous panorama of park and lane and pool and 
 lawn and fountain I felt that I had indeed looked upon a supreme 
 creation of French genius and art, a fairyland of beauty that 
 recalled those days when Louis the Magnificent held court amid 
 this royal splendor. Over Versailles still hangs the glitter and 
 glamour of those golden days.
 
 XVI 
 
 "The dim dark speck in the distance grexv green and 
 broad and large. 
 
 And lo! a minareVs slender spear on the line of its 
 widening marge; 
 
 And noiv ive rode in the shadow of botighs that were 
 blossom-sweet, 
 
 While the gurgle of crystal waters rilled up through 
 the swooning heat. 
 
 And sudden or ever we dreamed it, did the orchards 
 give apart, 
 
 Ayid there was the bower ed city with the flood of its 
 orient heart; 
 
 There was the endless pageant that surged through 
 
 the arching gate; 
 There was the slim Bride's Minaret and the ancient 
 
 "street called Straight." 
 
 —C. SCOLLARD.
 
 A STREET IN DAMASCUS 
 August 26. 1921
 
 D 
 
 amascus 
 
 FOR long hours we had been riding across the great table- 
 land of the Hauran that merged in the distance with the 
 long slopes of the Lebanon range. As far as the eye could 
 see was a barren waste of rocks and the road had become a rough, 
 rocky trail over which the automobile toiled slowly. Now and 
 then we passed a little flock of goats near the stone huts of a 
 Druse village with the goatherd seated nearby, but otherwise 
 the land appeared deserted. 
 
 At midday we halted for lunch by a muddy little stream that 
 bore the historic name of Pharpar. Then we pushed on. The 
 unending rocky fields began to be varied by patches of sand. 
 The heat was intense and stifling, the only breeze that created 
 by the motion of the car. We were in the desert of Syria 
 — a land of iron under a sky of brass. At last we topped a rise 
 and the guide pointed to where on the distant horizon lay a line 
 of vivid green and uttered the magic word "Damascus!" 
 
 It was the open sesame to a host of memories. Could those 
 rocks by the wayside speak, what tales they could tell — of Baby- 
 lonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Tartar, Mongol, 
 Bedouin, Frank — of that endless line of traders, soldiers, kings, 
 priests, slaves, pilgrims — who had in the bygone centuries wound 
 along that old caravan road on foot and horseback or camel and 
 in chariot, to stop even as we were doing now, — and gaze at that 
 first view of that green oasis in the desert. But my wandering 
 thoughts swifty centered on one traveler who had passed that 
 way one midday long ago, and the words sang themselves in 
 my ears : 
 
 "As he journeyed with companions towards Damascus — " 
 
 I shut my eyes for a moment and was far away across the 
 sea in the dear church at home and a rich contralto voice was 
 singing this recitative of Mendelssohn's beautiful aria. Warmly 
 comforting the voice and the music sounded on — 
 
 "But the Lord is mindful of His own." 
 
 It was on this road and perhaps on this very spot that that 
 light beyond the glory of the noonday arrested the mad career 
 of Saul, the persecutor, and that pleading voice from heaven, — 
 "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" — transformed him from 
 the messenger of hate into the apostle of love, and as we sped
 
 on along the road the haunting refrain merged with the whir of 
 the flying wheels — 
 
 "But the Lord is mindful of His own." 
 
 Yes, truly; and not only in that hour when he saved those 
 frightened Christians of Damascus from the sword, but where- 
 ever and whenever the souls of men have turned to him for help 
 and succor. 
 
 We were closer now, — and white buildings and graceful min- 
 arets towered above the green foliage and soon we were speeding 
 past groves of figs and pomegranates into the city of Damascus, 
 crown of Syria, the oldest city in the world. Everywhere was 
 verdure and the sound of running water. We caught glimpses 
 of gardens behind white walls, vistas of cool courtyards with 
 rlowers and bubbling fountains, then followed the silvery waters 
 of the Abana to the park in the center of the city. No wonder 
 that Damascus — set like an emerald in the midst of that gray 
 waste of desolation about her, — seemed to the desert dwellers 
 who looked upon her an earthly paradise. No wonder that 
 Mohammed, as the legend runs, refused to enter the city lest 
 he be unable later to enjoy the delights of the Moslem heaven. 
 
 The muezzin's call from the minaret of the mosque sum- 
 moned us forth that afternoon to a visit to the bazaars of 
 Damascus — the meeting place of the ends of the earth. Syrians, 
 Jews, Egyptians, Copts, Bedouins from the desert, Circassians, 
 Druses, Turks, French, Sudanese, Libyans — jostled one another 
 in the narrow crowded streets. Long covered arcades, where one 
 passed from the glaring sun to semi-darkness stretched on inter- 
 minably. On either side of the alley-like streets (where camels, 
 donkeys, push carts, men, women and carriages disputed the 
 right of way) were little stalls open to the street; full of goods 
 that oveiiiowed onto the sidewalk. Seated cross-legged within, 
 eager, garrulous, the traders and shopkeepers bargained and hag- 
 gled just as in the days of Abraham. 
 
 Here in the murky darkness amid dust and the smoke of 
 torch and blowpipe were the goldsmiths, manufacturing jewelry 
 by methods as old as the pyramids. There with a lathe of bow- 
 string and a toe for motor power the wood turner was at work 
 on spindles and chairs. What a medley of peoples — a Babel of 
 sounds, a kaleidoscope of colors. 
 
 It was a relief to step into the calm of the quiet nearby 
 mosque and into a vast room, its walls adorned with arabesques, 
 its floors covered with hundreds of costly rugs. On one side, 
 prostrating themselves toward Mecca was a group of men 
 engaged in prayer. In another corner sat a gray bearded man 
 with his disciples about him explaining the sayings of the Koran. 
 The light was filtered through ancient windows of ruby and
 
 amethyst from above. In the quiet of this place, with its rever- 
 ence and simplicity was Mohammedanism at its best. But as 
 the swirl of the streets enveloped us again and the ignorance, 
 the confusion, the fanaticism, the filth, the degradation thrust 
 themselves upon us once more, we looked upon Mohammedanism 
 at its worst. It is a strange complex — this Moslem faith — and 
 Damascus, where all races and classes mingle in confusion — seems 
 its fit habitation. Nowhere does one feel as here such a sense of 
 unutterable confusion. 
 
 The soft pad of camels, the raucous bray of donkeys, the 
 shouts of beggars and peddlers, the clang of the cymbals of the 
 lemonade seller, the long wailing cry of the muezzin, the blare of 
 trumpet and beat of drum — the cloying fragrance of Oriental 
 perfume, the sickening stench of decay and filth, the warm scent 
 of dust, — black clad women, stately Arabs, menacing Bedouins, 
 sleek Turks, veiled ladies of the harem, khaki clad soldiers, 
 ragged beggars, repulsive lepers, linen clad Europeans — crowded 
 streets, gay cafes, squalid houses, palatial buildings, courtyards 
 with plashing fountains, graceful minarets, crystal clear rivers 
 and streams — and. over all this medley of sights and smells and 
 sounds — the romance of the centuries, the immemorial spirit of 
 the past — that is Damascus.
 
 XVII 
 
 A Nifflblt m Venice 
 
 "/ stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, 
 A palace and a prison on each hand, 
 I saw from out the wave her structure rise 
 As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand; 
 A thousand years their cloxidy ivings expand 
 Around me, and a dying glory smiles 
 O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
 Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles 
 When Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred 
 isles." 
 
 —BYRON.
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS 
 July 25. 1921
 
 A Night in Venice 
 
 I WAS in a gondola on the Grand Canal. The swift but prosaic 
 train had been exchanged for this unique, picturesque and 
 leisurely means of locomotion, and, as we slowly rowed to 
 our hotel, before my eyes unrolled the panorama of ever-recur- 
 ring vistas of labryrinthine waterways and winding banks from 
 which rose sheer the fronts of the famous old palaces of Venice. 
 Here the gondolier pointed out the Palazzo Rezzonico in which 
 Browning died, then the palaces that were once the homes of 
 Titian, Byron, Richard Wagner. But seen in the glare of the 
 morning sun, these buildings looked anything but palatial. Their 
 windows were broken, their sculptured facades dirty and crum- 
 bling; while the touch of color on their walls gave the beholder 
 that feeling of mingled pity and repulsion with which one sees 
 a faded old woman striving by art to restore her vanished beauty. 
 Only the fine lines of archway and window, the elaborate orna- 
 mentation of entrance and cornice, the beautiful overhanging 
 marble balconies remained as witness of those golden days when 
 Venice was Queen of the Adriatic and these old palaces were 
 royal in their splendor, Venice by day is dingy with age, her 
 palaces rotting, her canals muddy and malodorous. Under the 
 Rialto Bridge, recalling Shylock and Othello, we passed to the 
 great lagoon with its vista of the island of San Giorgio with its 
 profile of dome and campanile, and alighted at the Piazzetta. 
 Here, standing between those two fine columns that for seven 
 centuries have guarded its portals, we looked upon the heart of 
 Venice, its world famous Piazza of St. Mark. Before us rising 
 three hundred and fifty feet in air, crowned with its gilded angel, 
 is the glorious campanile, the replica of the one that collapsed 
 two decades ago. But while this structure is new, the Palazzo 
 Reale, with its long arcades, the medieval clock tower with its 
 bronze figures, the Palace of the Doges with its Byzantine col- 
 umns and variegated marble facade, and the great Church of St. 
 Mark, take us back across the centuries to those days of yore 
 when Venice was mistress of the Mediterranean and to her Ducal 
 Palace came the tribute of the world. As in a dream I wan- 
 dered through the glorious apartments of the Ducal Palace and 
 its great courtyard, across the Bridge of Sighs to the horrible 
 old dungeons, into the great church with its gold mosaic, ala- 
 baster columns, its wealth of color and treasures of art and 
 history, into the great Piazza with its swarm of pigeons, and 
 standing under the shadow of Campanile, I looked at the facade 
 of St. Marks' with its variegated mass of marble columns 
 brought here from all the world, its much-traveled quadriga of
 
 bronze horses above the doorway with their romantic history, 
 and above the bewildering forest of belfries and domes and min- 
 arets that crowns this wonderful complex of architecture, this 
 age-old treasury of art, this golden church of the golden age of 
 Venice. And I could not but remember that here in this great 
 Piazza there had been enacted for centuries nearly all the scenes 
 in the city's history ; and while the rest of Venice is but a shadow 
 of her former glory, here one still stands amid the undimmed 
 splendor of her past. 
 
 The next evening there was a regatta on the great lagoon. 
 As darkness settled down on the city we embarked in a gondola, 
 whose gondolier in honor of the gala night had donned a white 
 linen costume with a scarlet sash about his waist. To the con- 
 tinuous accompaniment of a torrent of liquid Italian profanity 
 as we bumped our way through a swarm of gondolas, we emerged 
 from the narrow canal into the bay of Venice. The waters were 
 deep black and on the horizon stood out in dim outline the dome 
 of Santa Maria della Salute and its nearby campanile. Lazily 
 we drifted on in the soft warmth of the July night. Then far 
 across the lagoon with the fitful gleam as of fireflies appeared a 
 cluster of lights. One by one, until it was ablaze with a myriad 
 colors, lanterns were lighted, and there drifted toward us an 
 illuminated barge, from which to the soft accompaniment of 
 guitars and mandolins there was wafted over the waters one of 
 the passionate songs of Italy, sung only as a group of Italians 
 can sing. And as by magic, out of the liquid darkness, like a 
 flock of black swans, a hundred gondolas suddenly appeared, and 
 as by one impulse moved upon the floating bar, there to crowd in 
 a dark swarm about it. The soft light from the colored lamps of 
 the barge illuminated the scene, revealing now a picturesque 
 gaily-clad gondolier, now the lace-scarfed head and white 
 shoulders of some w^ealthy Italian lady, now the huddled forms 
 of a peasant family in their vari-colored garments, now a pair of 
 lovers rapturously oblivious of all save the romance of this their 
 perfect hour of bliss. From the white-clad musicians came the 
 lilting strains of "Funiculi, Funicula", then a plaintive Italian 
 ballad, then a marvelous tenor voice, singing "La donna e mobile." 
 
 Floating lazily thus through the enchanted night, the lap- 
 ping of the waves against the gondola, the low voiced laughter, 
 the throbbing guitars, the heart-searching music, the shifting 
 gondolas, the vague outlines of the palaces on the shore, the 
 drifting radiance of the barge aureoled in the dark waters, and 
 over all the star-gemmed Italian sky — made a scene of haunting 
 beauty and matchless loveliness that gripped one's very soul. 
 
 And then — to crown the memory of the night — on a sudden 
 there was the flare of varicolored lights along the shore, and the 
 long line of palaces stood out resplendent again as in their pris-
 
 tine glory, the square of St. Mark's shone as with the Hght of 
 day, the Doge's Palace was transfigured by a warm brilliance 
 from without and within until it glowed like a great casket of 
 jewels, and high over all rose the majestic Campanile, blazing like 
 a lofty beacon of living light, the golden angel on its summit 
 poised between earth and sky shining with a heavenly radiance. 
 It was as though by the power of genii the Venice of old, the 
 Venice of the Doges, of Titian and Tintoretto, Queen of the Adri- 
 atic, had suddenly risen from the sea. That night I saw that City 
 of Poetry, of Romance, of Dreams, radiant in all the splendor of 
 the days of yore.
 
 XVIII 
 
 J ttike Av(0)i]i 
 
 Floiv on, silver Avon, in song ever flotvf 
 Be the swan on thy bosom still whiter than snow! 
 Ever full he thy stream, like his fame he it spread, 
 And the turf ever hallow' d which pilloived his head! 
 
 —GARRICK.
 
 By the Avon 
 
 THROUGH a mouldering old medieval gate we entered the 
 little village of Warwick and found ourselves transported 
 as by a magician's wand into sixteenth century England. 
 For the streets were lined with old tottering timbered houses 
 and quaint moss-covered stone walls whose archways gave vistas 
 of dim courtyards. And through a winding avenue under fine 
 old elms and beeches we entered the great bastion of Warwick 
 Castle and were at once surrounded by the Middle Ages. Around 
 its bannered walls were battleaxes, spears and armour, and in 
 its great reception-hall was a medieval knight upon his horse, 
 while from the walls Charles I, Henry VHI and the great of 
 England's past looked down upon us. Through those magnificent 
 rooms once proudly walked the Earl of Leicester, handsome, 
 debonair, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth, and in the nearby 
 chapel, clad in full armour, his effigy lies recumbent above his 
 tomb. Lords and ladies, kings and queens, warriors and states- 
 men made brilliant these handsome apartments and held high 
 wassail in the great banqueting-hall. From the windows of this 
 hall we looked down upon an old mill and the grass-bordered 
 stream which bears the immortal name of the Avon. 
 
 After a night in the old "Warwick Arms", for three hundred 
 years the inn of the village, we set out in the dewy morning, 
 bound for Shakespeare's haunts. Through the long winding 
 roads shaded by great elms, past sturdy oaks standing in isolated 
 majesty, alongside stone walls covered wtih moss and ivy or 
 hedgerows white with tangled roses, past thatched cottages bor- 
 dered in flowers, by fields of velvety green sprinkled with daisies, 
 with now and then a picturesque old wayside inn with its quaint 
 signboard and quainter name — through England in June we 
 drove over the perfect roads, and the charm of England took 
 hold on us. 
 
 ''England, countr)) of my heart's desire 
 Land of the hedgerow and the village spire. 
 Land of thatched cottages and murmuring bees 
 And TPa^side inns rvhere one may tal(e one's ease; 
 Your daisied meadows and your grassy hills. 
 Your primrose banjos, your parIfs,your tinl(ling rills. 
 Your cottage gardens with their wallflowers scent. 
 Your swallows 'neath the eaves, your sweet content." 
 
 The poet has caught the spirit of the English countryside — 
 beauty, peace, contentment. 
 
 An hour of this pastoral scenery and we came to Kenilworth. 
 Paiddy in the sun's warm rays, with its battlements and ivy-
 
 mantled walls, its open windows that frame the sky, this 
 romantic old ruin brings up before the eye of memory the days 
 of Elizabeth, when her favorite. Lord Leicester, kept open house 
 for her in this castle, with jousts and water carnivals on its 
 artificial lake, with feasting and dance, and on its lawns Will 
 Shakespeare and his strolling players delighted the court with 
 their acting. And the genius of Scott has invested the ruin with 
 romance and glamour in his famous story. 
 
 From Kenilworth it was but a few miles until we found our- 
 selves passing by Charlecote Park, where Sir Thomas Lucy, 
 whom Shakespeare caricatured as "Justice Shallow," tried the 
 youthful dramatist for deer-stealing in the mansion, which we 
 could see through the trees ; then we crossed the Avon and were 
 in Stratford. An unpretentious old half timbered house is the 
 birthplace of Shakespeare. Its rude walls and ruder furniture, 
 its poverty and barreness recall the simple beginnings from 
 which ofttimes the greatest souls do spring. The interior is one 
 mass of autographs on walls and ceiling, and framed memorials 
 of the great poet are everyw^here. It seems more museum than 
 shrine. But Anne Hathaway's cottage, with its thatched roof 
 and moss-covered exterior, set in its gardens of old fashioned 
 tlowers, stirs the romance in one's soul. And as one enters the 
 old room within, with its ancient stone floor and fireplace, its 
 rough timbered ceilings, and looks upon the rude bench on which 
 Shakespeare sat and wooed Anne Hathaway, one can almost hear 
 him singing that most delightful of all love songs : — 
 
 "To melt the sad, mal^e blithe the ga^ 
 And nature charm, Anne hath a Tvay; 
 She hath a wa^) 
 Anne Hathaivay; 
 To breathe delight, Anne hath a Way." 
 
 By the river Avon, which winds like a silver ribbon through 
 its emerald banks, rises the beautiful Trinity Church of Strat- 
 ford. Its peaceful churchyard, with its mouldering stones and 
 great trees, seems a fit vestibule for the old church. It was with 
 a feeling of awe that I entered, for here on the north side of the 
 chancel is the grave of William Shakespeare, the greatest poet of 
 the ages. On the wall is a marble bust, and below it a slab under 
 which he sleeps. All around are beautiful memorial windows, 
 gifts of the world in honor of the bard of Avon. The rainbow- 
 hued light fell softly on the slab wuth its familiar inscription, and 
 the sculptured face of the poet in its niche seemed aureoled wuth 
 peace. And so he sleeps in the quiet old church ; while the waters 
 of the Avon that he loved murmur on unending requiem, and the 
 church spire is mirrored on its placid bosom. But that cloud- 
 capped genius of the bard of Avon dominates the centuries, and 
 Stratford on the Avon has become the shrine of the English- 
 speaking world.
 
 XIX 
 
 Tike City (of MiimsircBt^ 
 
 "The cloudless day was well-nigJi done, 
 The city, like an opal set 
 In emerald, shoived each 'minaret 
 Afire with radiant beams of sun." 
 
 SCOLLARD.
 
 OS 2 
 < 
 
 S 60 
 O 3 
 
 o 
 Pi
 
 The City of Minarets 
 
 THE long journey from Alexandria to Cairo was an unfolding 
 panorama of that Egypt of which all my life I had read and 
 dreamed. Ever since I landed at Alexandria I had been as 
 one under a spell. For this was another world than Europe or 
 America. Everything familiar had disappeared and I was face 
 to face with the unchanging East. Tall palm trees with their 
 tufted tops rose from the sand dunes; mud villages appeared 
 with their primitive pumps with oxen slowly going round and 
 round in their treadmill. In the deep irrigating ditches of muddy 
 water floundered the clumsy water buffalo. Above long mud 
 dikes in the distance could be seen the innumerable well-sweeps 
 or shadoofs, and the clustered sails of dahabiyehs, the native 
 boats, marking the channel of the Nile. White-robed and tur- 
 baned natives passed and repassed the door of my compartment 
 and each station at which we stopped was clamorous with the 
 chatter of guttural Arabic and the wierd cries of the vendors 
 of grapes and dates. The clusters of palm trees multiplied, the 
 cultivated fields were more numerous, and then we suddenly came 
 out upon a long bridge and below was a sluggish mass of muddy 
 waters. It was the Nile, the maker of that ribbon of fertility 
 between two deserts, the granary of the ancient world. I was in 
 old Egypt, land of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies, and as we 
 sped on towards Cairo, through the languorous heat, I felt about 
 me the brooding silence of this changeless land which holds 
 enshrined the memories of the long-gone centuries. 
 
 To sit upon the terrace of Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo and 
 watch the passing crowd, is to review the inhabitants of the four 
 corners of the earth, to see in panorama the West and the East, 
 the past and the present, the oldest and the newest civilization. 
 Barefooted Arab porters clad in faded blue robes, dirty Egyptian 
 beggars, black-clad women with ugly black yashmaks veiling 
 their faces, spruce English soldiers, voluble French tourists clad 
 in the latest garments from Paris, keen-eyed Bedouins with their 
 gorgeous robes and scimitars ; lemonade-sellers with their clang- 
 ing brass cymbals, Greeks, Syrians, Italians, Jev/s — all pass by 
 along the sidewalks. In the street ragged men drive patient don- 
 keys, wild looking desert dwellers lead their careening camels, 
 brisk drivers w^hirl by with their sleek horses and handsome car- 
 riages in which may often be seen the white-veiled women of the 
 Turkish harems, and in between are great gray Rolls-Royce
 
 limousines, shiny black Cadillacs and Buicks and the inevitable 
 Ford. In Cairo truly the East and the West do meet. 
 
 But when one passes into the native quarter, he finds him- 
 self in the true Orient. A kaleidoscope of colors, a babel of 
 sounds, are the narrow streets where flow the tides of native life. 
 Here are the bazaars, with their bewildering display of rugs and 
 silks, brass and inlaid woods, jewelry and perfumes, embroideries 
 and mother of pearl. Here are markets with their melons and 
 grapes, their figs and pomegranates, their dates and vegetables 
 and all the products of the Nile country. In the old side-streets 
 are to be seen the Moorish facade and minaret of some mosque 
 or the latticed windows of some harem. And through these 
 unpaved thoroughfares surges the unending stream of humanity, 
 every race, every color, every language, every costume conceiv- 
 able. To see the streets of Cairo is to feel one's self bewildered, 
 overwhelmed by its din and its confusion. And one comes away 
 with the sense of having for an hour been moving through the 
 enchanted pages of the Arabian Nights. 
 
 My last afternoon in Cairo I visited the famous old citadel 
 of Cairo. High above the city it towers, grim with its memories 
 of a bloody past. It has been standing thus ever since the days 
 of Saladin. We drove up the long winding road to the citadel 
 and entered the Alabaster Mosque which was erected as his royal 
 tomb by Mehemet Ali, the cruel and cunning Viceroy of Egypt. 
 Its immense interior is covered from floor to ceiling with creamy 
 alabaster and dependent from its great dome the light of a thou- 
 sand hanging lamps illuminates the gorgeous tomb of Mehemet 
 and the rich Oriental rugs that cover the floor. From the plat- 
 form before it I looked out over the city of Cairo. Below me was 
 a vast expanse of flat roofed houses and from their midst, a 
 veritable forest of minarets rises from the four hundred mosques 
 of Cairo. Slender, graceful, ethereal, are these spires of Moham- 
 medanism from whose lofty summits the muezzin's wierd cry 
 summons the faithful to prayer. Those myriad white taper-like 
 towers make this truly the City of Minarets. Beyond the city, 
 stretching for miles between its belt of tawn desert, was a strip 
 of green, and, winding through it, the gleaming ribbon of the 
 Nile. And as my eyes swept the horizon I saw nothing but the 
 desolate hills and the billowing sands of the great Sahara until, 
 dim at first, and then growing clearer as I gazed, three mighty 
 forms stood out against the western sky — the pyramids of Gizeh. 
 Minarets and pyramids — and over all the shimmering translucent 
 heat-haze, giving to the scene a touch of elusiveness and mys- 
 tery — this was my last view of Cairo.
 
 XX 
 
 Nazareth town in Galilee 
 
 Set where- the paths lead np from the sea, 
 
 What vast processional of stars 
 
 Pageants over its stilled bazaars 
 
 And where the full moon touches the height 
 
 Of Tabor, a torch of bi-illiant light, 
 
 Never was sight more fair to see 
 
 Nazareth toum in Galilee. 
 
 —SCOLLARD.
 
 NAZARETH
 
 Nazareth 
 
 MIDDAY found us among the bold hills of upper Samaria, 
 on either side rocky slopes and parched brown herbage, 
 monotonous, unending. Mile after mile the road wound 
 through these hills until we came to a final turn and below 
 us lay the vast plain of Esdraelon, once the bed of an inland 
 lake, ending on the western horizon in the bold headland of Car- 
 mel, merging on the east with the dim green of the Jordan Valley. 
 This great plain is rightly called in the Apocalypse, Armageddon, 
 the world's battlefield. For at least fifty battles have been 
 fought on this plain. Here has been heard the rumble of the 
 chariot wheels of Thotmes III, the fierce shouts of the host of 
 Saladin driving before them the rout of the Crusaders, and only 
 yesterday the machine guns of General Allenby woke the echoes 
 of the Galilean hills. Far across the plain rose opposite us a 
 range of mountains rising abruptly from the plain, and nestling 
 amid them well up toward the sky line was a huddle of white 
 houses — the little village of Nazareth. An hour later our auto- 
 mobile had climbed the long gradient from the plain below and 
 stood before the Hotel Galilee in Nazareth. 
 
 All about were the encircling hills, for Nazareth lies as in a 
 hollow bowl, environed by a rim of rounded hills. And it was to 
 the highest hill above the city that we turned our footsteps, and 
 climbed through the steep, crooked streets of the village over 
 cobblestones and then up a winding narrow path until we stood 
 upon the summit of the hill. At our feet lay the flat-roofed 
 houses of the little village. There was the Fountain of the Virgin 
 with its crowd of women with their water jars. Yonder was the 
 Church of the Annunciation and near by was the Church of the 
 Carpenter Shop. Yet none of these could stir the emotions as 
 did this bare rocky hilltop. For these sacred sites are at best 
 doubtful and our faith in their direct connection with Jesus' life 
 in Nazareth is tenuous and uncertain. But this hill is surely hal- 
 lowed ground, for we know that to this vantage point the boy 
 Jesus must have climbed innumerable times, and on the hill top 
 the man Jesus must have spent many a night in prayer. And 
 the view on which we looked that afternoon was the very same 
 upon which His eyes had lingered often. And what a view it was ! 
 
 To the north just below was the valley of Asochis, and on 
 the hilltop beyond Safed, "the city set upon a hill," and beyond 
 on the horizon snow-clad Hermon towered into the blue. East- 
 ward rose the green, rounded summit of Tabor and beyond the 
 plains and valley of the Jordan. To the westward, hazy in the
 
 distance, was the long- ridere of Carmel and the dazzling line of 
 white sand and blue waters of the Mediterranean. Southwards, 
 broken only by the graceful outlines of Gilboa and Little 
 Hernion, lay the great plain of Esdraelon, merging in a mist of 
 vagueness with the hills of Samaria. And the whole scene was 
 touched by the magic of the heat haze until the great plain was a 
 sea of mistiness, the distant mountains floating like fairy ships. 
 Here on this very spot, with the soft breeze fanning His face, 
 Jesus must have watched the eagles poised in the cloudless blue, 
 seen the chaff rise from a hundred threshing floors on the plain, 
 followed the dust-mantled progress of a caravan over the white 
 roads that cross the landscape. And here w^hen night came on 
 He may have dreamed of those distant regions beyond the shin- 
 ing sea into which His gospel was some day to go ; and perchance 
 here on this lofty ej^rie, with its wide-stretching panorama at 
 His feet, its horizons fused in the soft moonlight with infinity, 
 caught His vision of that world kingdom which He preached and 
 for which He died. Never have I felt quite so close to Him as 
 He walked among men as I did on that hilltop above Nazareth 
 that He must have loved. 
 
 That night I sat on the balcony of the hotel and the air was 
 filled with a delicious coolness as the breezes from the sea swept 
 up the rocky defiles and rustled the branches of the palms and 
 pomegranates. Here and there a light gleamed from an open 
 window but a velvety darkness slowly settled over the hills and 
 enwrapped the sleepy village. Sharp and clear against the starry 
 sky the shoulders of the hills were upheaved. There was no 
 sound save the whisper of the leaves and the distant bark of a 
 watch dog. And as I looked about me I remembered how many 
 times from the doorw^ay of that carpenter shop the boy Jesus 
 must have looked at those encircling hills about and longed like 
 every ambitious lad to heed the voice "beyond the ranges" calling 
 Him to go out into the great world. And yet the years came and 
 went and in this sleepy, gossipy, petty, cramped, circumscribed 
 environment He remained, content to limit His life within the 
 confines God had set, waiting patiently until the divine voice 
 should call Him forth to become the Saviour of the World. And 
 as I mused that evening within that hill-girt village I saw in 
 Nazareth the type and symbol of that limitation of life thai 
 environs us all. and which may be, as it was to Him, the school 
 of the spirit.
 
 XXI 
 
 Uflider ttlke Dome of 
 
 "Vastness whicli grows, but groivs to harmonies 
 All musical in its immensities ; 
 
 Rich marbles, richer paintings, shrines ivhere flame 
 The lamp of gold, and haughty dome ivhich vies 
 In air with earth's chief structures, though their 
 
 frame 
 Sits on the firm-set ground;— and this the cloud 
 
 viust claivi." 
 
 —BYRON.
 
 Under the Dome of St. Peter's 
 
 No CHURCH in all the world is so stupendous in size, so 
 magnificent in setting, so rich in history as St. Peter's in 
 Rome. The very approach to it, with the gigantic curv- 
 ing colonnades, the enormous circular court in front, the lofty 
 facade, the mighty dome, overwhelms the beholder with awe. 
 The granite obelisk in front recalls the fact that this church 
 is builded on the site of the Circus of Nero where so many Chris- 
 tians suffered martyrdom; for this Egyptian column once stood 
 in that pagan ampitheater and stands now, crowned with a 
 gilded cross, before this Christian church as symbol of the tri- 
 umph of Christianity over paganism. And the early history of 
 this building was even more vividly before us as we later passed 
 through the endless labyrinth of crypts and chapels beneath the 
 floor of the present church which are remains of the old basilica 
 of Constantine. We ascended the broad steps and entered. No 
 word or picture can do justice to that marvelous interior. So 
 harmonious and symmetrical are its proportions that its vastness 
 only later dawns upon one. To let the eye travel up and up 
 one of these fluted columns until it loses itself in the coffered 
 arch of gold far, far above, or to see the dwarfing of distant 
 people in the edifice brings home the fact that one is in the most 
 stupendous building ever reared by man. For St. Peter's, with 
 its forty-four altars, seven hundred and forty-eight massive col- 
 umns, its dozens of side aisles and its hundred and thirty papal 
 tombs, its army of ecclesiastics and its colony of workmen who 
 live in houses on its roof, is in reality a city, rather than a 
 building. 
 
 Down the immense nave we wandered, all about us the mar- 
 velous marble columns inlaid with gold and rich with colors, 
 on either side chapel after chapel, each in itself large enough 
 for a church. Above these altars are what seem at first sight 
 beautiful canvases reproducing famous paintings by Raphael, 
 Guido Reni, Michael Angelo and many other great masters. But 
 on closer examination, one discovers that they are wonderful 
 stone mosaics, each the work of years. It is as though not only 
 the massive marble walls and pillars but even the pictures in this 
 great church were made to endure for eternity. All around the 
 walls we passed the papal tombs, each with its sculptured monu- 
 ment, each one a masterpiece. Out of that bewildering array 
 one stands out as the most impressive and beautiful — the mauso- 
 leum of Clement XHI. The genius of Canova has represented 
 above the crypt the pontiff kneeling in prayer, while on one side
 
 stands the fig-ure of Religion, with uplifted cross, and on the 
 other the Genius of Death, an angel figure of exquisite beauty. 
 
 In the center of St. Peter's is its High Altar, under the 
 mighty flood of light of the great dome. Over it stands a colossal 
 canopy of bronze borne aloft on spiral columns of gold a hundred 
 feet in the air ; but in St. Peter's its magnitude is dwarfed by its 
 sourroundings. Before it is a broad curving marble balustrade, 
 and below a great ci-ypt, lighted by eighty-nine ever burning 
 lamps, into which a double flight of mable steps descends. Here 
 under this high altar is that which this church, into which such 
 untold wealth has been poured, was builded to preserve forever — 
 the mortal remains of a poor fisherman ot Galilee; for this glo- 
 rious cathedral is but his tomb. And one wonders what that blunt, 
 hard-fisted, red-blooded, impulsive, intensely human, lovable 
 Simon Peter would think could he see the splendors amid which 
 lie his bones. 
 
 Standing here I gazed upwards into that glorious dome. On 
 the frieze far above in golden letters were the words of Jesus 
 spoken to His disciple so long ago—* Thou art Peter and on this 
 rock I will build my church." All glittering with golden mosaics, 
 the interior of the dome seemed a great golden abyss filled with 
 light. To look into it steadily made one reel, so vast its propor- 
 tions, so lofty its height. Truly Michael i^ngelo fulfilled his 
 promise to "hang the Pantheon in mid-air" when he reared thi:s 
 majestic dome toward heaven. And as I stood under the dome 
 of St. Peter's by the wondrous tomb of the apostle, I could not 
 but think of its eloquent testimony to the eternal influence of a 
 great soul. A life of poverty, a death of shame, — this was the 
 lot of Peter, — yet today to the memory of that simple peasant, 
 whose noble life and martyr death were the very incarnation of 
 the spirit of his Master, rises this most splendid edifice in the 
 world.
 
 XXII 
 
 The Glory of ttke Alps 
 
 "Thou too again stupendous mountain! thou 
 That as I raise my head, awhile boived loiv, 
 Solemnly seemest like a vapory cloud, 
 To rise before me — rise, O ever rise. 
 Rise like a spirit of incense from the earth! 
 Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, 
 Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky 
 And tell the stars and tell yon rising sun 
 Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God." 
 
 —S. T. COLERIDGE.
 
 VIEW OF THE MATTERHORN FROM GORNERGRAT
 
 The Glory of the Alps 
 
 THE morning was cold and the clouds hung heavy over the 
 mountains that hold the little Swiss village of Zermatt in 
 their close embrace, as we boarded the little train and the 
 puffing engine began its long climb up the cog-railway to Gorner- 
 grat. In a few minutes we had entered the pine-forested slopes 
 and crossed a dark gorge with its roaring waterfall; and then 
 through a break in the trees we caught sight far below us of the 
 long white ribbon of the River Visp, winding through the green 
 fields of the valley, with its border of scattered brown chalets 
 ending in the huddle of hotels and stores that marked the site 
 of the village. On we went, higher and higher through the Riff el 
 forest, shut in by rocky slopes dense with fir and pine, and all 
 along the way were cool sylvan glades, rushing mountain rills, 
 and tiny waterfalls. Then we rounded a turn in the road and 
 before us rose the Matterhorn, all hidden in the mist save its 
 topmost peak, which gleamed like a white spear point above the 
 clouds. Higher yet, and now below us lay the whole long valley 
 of the Visp losing itself in the distance in that great gorge 
 through the mountains with its rushing stream that is the only 
 means of entrance to this mountain-girt valley; and on beyond 
 were the piled-up, mist-wreathed black masses of the mountains 
 merging at last with the horizon. We were in Alpine pastures 
 now, with their fiocks of goats and sheep, flower-strewn meadows 
 of deep grass amid rocks and precipices that echo to the sweet 
 sound of the Alpine horn. Again we entered a long defile, and 
 then suddenly there burst upon us the first glimpse of that great 
 range of snow capped peaks of which the Matterhorn is but a 
 part and which are unseen from the village below; and we found 
 ourselves at the little station of Riffelalp. We had lost sight of 
 the valley now and were in a vast Alpine upland bordered by 
 vistas, ever changing and ever enlarging, of peaks, and glaciers 
 and snow-slopes and gorges. It was cold and the mist that 
 enwrapped us had changed to rain. And now the track ran out 
 on a great ledge ending in a bare peak, a rocky promontory 
 thrusting out a natural observation gallery into the midst of that 
 vast panorama of Alpine scenery. Slowly, through a rain that 
 had turned to snow, the little engine toiled up the terrible grade 
 to the summit of Gornergrat, this isolated peak, and we were at 
 the end of our journey. Numb with cold and light-headed from 
 the great altitude, we climbed the slope to the large stone-walled 
 platform above, and before us was a panorama that made us 
 forget all cold and discomfort. Directly below us lay the gray-
 
 ish dirty moraine of the Gorner glacier, merging with the blue- 
 green of the great ice field above, and this in tura with the daz- 
 zling white slopes of virgin snow that led upward to such an 
 encorcling group of Alpine giants as can be seen nowhere else 
 in Switzerland. Thrusting their bare black shoulders through 
 the snow, jagged and terrible against the sky, were the peaks of 
 the nearer mountains; while beyond and above towered the eter- 
 nal snow-covered summits of the highest Alps, soaring 14,000 feet 
 into the blue. All around the horizon was the continuous line of 
 Alpine summits — Lyskamm, Stralhorn, Castor and Pollux, 
 Breithorn, Mischabelhorn, Weisshorn, Gabelhorn, Dent Blanche, 
 Monte Rosa — an endless cordon of sentinels keeping watch over 
 this mighty realm of ice and snow. All was utterly silent on those 
 lofty heights save for the thunder of an occasional avalanche. 
 The over-arching vault of heaven seemed very near, this encom- 
 passing panorama of ice and snow like the vision of the Great 
 White Throne of the Almighty. 
 
 The clouds were growing lighter above us and here and 
 there appeared a patch of blue sky. The light grew brighter, 
 the snow ceased, and suddenly the sun shone through the mists, 
 turning the mountain peaks into jewels of dazzling brilliance, 
 making the vast snowfields scintillate like diamonds. Slowly the 
 heavy clouds that all day had shrouded the Matterhorn rolled 
 back like a curtain, and before us there stood revealed in all its ter- 
 rible majesty that imposing pyramid of rock that towers toward 
 the zenith until it almost seems to touch the sky — colossal, over- 
 powering, stupendous, Monarch of the Alps, the most impressive 
 mountain in the world. Even from the great height on ^^hich 
 we stood it seemed to tower as high above us as when we looked 
 up at it from the village in the valley below. It domi- 
 nated, with its soaring summit, even those giant peaks and lofty 
 plateaus of snow. And as it frowned down upon us, its snow- 
 clad slopes gleaming in the sun, its finger of black granite pierc- 
 ing the sky, bannered with long streamers of white mist, tremen- 
 dous in its lift and gi'eat in its lofty isolation — its awful glory 
 was transcendent, ovenvhelming. One's soul stood in the very 
 presence of the might and majesty of God. Never, until mine 
 eyes see the splendors of the world above, do I expect to see so 
 sublime a vision as I beheld that day when I stood face to face 
 with the glory of the Alps.
 
 XXIII 
 
 Tlie ClhiLiLFcdh (of the 
 H(Q)ly SepeleliFe 
 
 "The lamps ivere burning over sacred graves, 
 And the holy light gleams from, Helena's naves, 
 Fed with the incense which the pilgrim brings. 
 While through the panelled roof the cedar flings 
 Its sainted arms o'er choir and roof and dotne, 
 And every porphyry-pillared cloister rings 
 To every traveller thus its welcome home." 
 
 —BRAINARD.
 
 THE ( HURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
 
 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
 
 ONLY the lure of a visit to the most famous shrine in Chris- 
 tendom could have persuaded me to forsake the cool cor- 
 ridors of the hotel that Sunday afternoon. For the 
 Aug-ust sun was blazing on the white houses and gray walls of 
 the city of Jerusalem, as my guide and 1 stepped out into the 
 square by the Jaffa Gate, and the heat was as that of a furnace. 
 
 We passed quickly into the comparative shade afforded by 
 the hig-h walls of the narrow alley that is dignified by the name 
 of David Street, (and is the Champs Elysees of Jerusalem) and 
 stumbled down its slope of slippery cobblestones toward the old- 
 est part of the city. On either side, making more narrow the 
 way, were stalls of merchants, trays of fruits and vegetables, 
 push carts and crates, and all the paraphernalia of Oriental trade. 
 On every side was the shrill chatter of bargaining and only here 
 and there did one see a shuttered shop — for in this Judeo-Moslem 
 city the Christian Sunday is "more honored in the breach than 
 the observance." Making our way through the jostling throng 
 of Turks, Arabs and Jews, now and then flattening one's self 
 against the wall to escape the ever present donkey or camel, we 
 came shortly to a side street which ended in a large open court- 
 yard roughly paved with huge blocks of stone, and with pedi- 
 ments and fragments of pillars around it. This court was once 
 occupied by the basilica builded by Constantine, of which now 
 only these broken pillars remain. 
 
 At the farther side of the court rose a facade of weather- 
 beaten gray stone, surmounted by a rude cupola, with two ugly 
 arched windows in its second story and on the ground level two 
 arched doorways, one of which is now filled up with stone. The 
 building is neither impressive nor beautiful, yet this is the front 
 of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, sacred to Christianity for 
 sixteen centuries. 
 
 Stepping through the narrow doorway we found ourselves 
 in the semi-darkness of the vast interior, where under its one 
 huge roof are five monasteries, thirty chapels and seventy sacred 
 sites of Bible history. The floor was worn smooth as glass by 
 centuries of pilgrim feet and the kisses of countless multitudes. 
 Here and there in the murky light one could see the kneeling 
 figure of a pilgrim kissing the stone floor in reverent adoration. 
 Up a flight of steps deep worn by ages of use my guide led me 
 to a large platform where at one side is the Rock of Ages, the 
 rock of Calvary. A square hole in the center of a silver star
 
 under a canopy of silver lamps marks the spot where once stood 
 the foot of the cross, and near by is the crack in the rocky sur- 
 face made by the earthquake. And, even as we looked upon this 
 little shrine, a man in pilgrim's garb, moving forward over the 
 smooth pavement on his knees, leaned down and with tears and 
 murmured prayers reverently kissed this spot that to him 
 marked the place where the Saviour of mankind was crucified. 
 
 The strong sonorous chant of many voices filled the air and 
 moving now to the edge of this elevated platform upon which 
 we stood I looked down upon a never to be forgotten scene. Just 
 below was a great marble slab, yellow with age, with large golden 
 tapers burning at its head and foot, and kneeling about it was 
 a large band of brown-robed Franciscan friars, taper in hand, 
 chanting the solemn Latin liturgy, while over their heads bil- 
 lowed the fragrant clouds of incense as the attendant priests in 
 their gorgeous robes waved golden censers at the foot and the 
 head of the Stone of Anointing where the body of Jesus is said 
 to have once been laid. The shafts of dim golden sunlight from 
 the windows far above filtering through the smoke of the incense 
 upon the cowled heads, the moving figures of the priests, glim- 
 mering through the haze, the strange and solemn cadences of 
 the music of the chant — gave to the scene an unearthly beauty 
 and a sacred charm. What if this shrine be builded, as all stu- 
 dents of Jerusalem's history believe, upon a site that is not the 
 real Calvary of the Gospels? What if the many Bible sites, like 
 the tomb of Adam, to which one is pointed under this roof, be 
 but the response of a complaisant church to the demand of ignor- 
 ant and fanatical pilgrims? Here at least, in this reverential 
 band of devout souls, was a pure and untroubled faith. Call it 
 superstition if you will, no Christian could look upon that scene 
 unmoved. For it was humanity itself, clothed in the brown robes 
 of penitence and humility, kneeling in hushed and reverent love 
 before that Christ who died for love of man, that I saw in those 
 kneeling figures that Sunday afternoon in the perfumed twilight 
 of that ancient shrine. 
 
 From that solemn scene it was but a few steps until we 
 stood before the little chapel of the Holy Sepulcher, whose real 
 dignity and impressiveness have been almost lost in the absurd, 
 childish and meaningless exterior. The first view makes one 
 recoil. A small square building built of highly colored limestone, 
 it has been almost buried from sight under a mass of faded, dusty 
 pictures, ikons, banners and candles. But the interior redeems 
 it. One enters first into a little vestibule, ablaze with golden 
 lamps, and then one by one, permission is given to enter the inner 
 shrine. When my turn came I stooped low and found myself 
 within a tiny marble walled compartment, seven feet long and 
 six feet wide. At one end stood a black robed priest guarding 
 the holiest place in Christendom. Above my head blazed forty-
 
 three golden lamps and the air was hot and heavy with incense. 
 On my right was a niche in which was a marble slab cracked and 
 yellow with age, and polished like a mirror with the kisses of 
 millions. Here once laid, so tradition says, the lifeless body of 
 the Saviour of mankind. 
 
 And as I came away out of the murky twilight of that 
 ancient sanctuary into the light of day I could not but think of 
 the place that old church had played in human history. To res- 
 cue it from the Saracen four million of the bravest of Europe 
 laid down their lives in the Crusades, and for these many cen- 
 turies since it has been the prayer of millions that that lost 
 cause might some day be won, and the tomb of Christ be restored 
 to Christendom. We have lived to see that day and for the first 
 time in centuries the sepulcher of Christianity's founder belongs 
 no longer to the followers of an alien faith. And of vastly more 
 importance than the influenc eof this old church upon the politics 
 and history of mankind is its testimony to the undying vitality 
 of the Christian religion. Somehow I felt as never before as I 
 stood for that moment in the warm brilliance of that inner tomb 
 how much the Christ meant to men. These eager pilgrims that 
 tearfully kissed that marble slab, even though it may never have 
 held the sacred body of Jesus, bore witness thereby to that 
 undying love of Jesus that flames in the human breast. Catholic 
 or Protestant, what matters it, so long as that passion for Jesus 
 inspires us alike. And I thought as I turned for a last look at 
 that old gray stone church of those beautiful lines of Whittier — 
 
 "O Lord and Master of us all 
 Whate'er our name or sign 
 We ofpn Th)) slPap, n>e hear Thy call 
 We test our lives t\j Thine."
 
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