UC-NRLF $B ETO fiSS mm THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID DOWN THE STREAM OF CIVILIZATION Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/downstreamofciviOOdonirich DOWN THE STREAM OF CIVILIZATION BY WORDSWORTH DONISTHORPE AUTHOR OF "INDIVIDUALISM," "LAW IN A FREE STATE' ETC. ETC. With One Hundred and Eight Illustrations LONDON GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND 1898 DRAMATIS PERSONS Com. . The Commodore of the S.Y. "Maria Len . . Hon. Sec. of the B.Y.C. Jus A Literary Failure Clare A Young 'Varsity Man Cassius . A Rich Banker Orlando . A Wily Warrior RiT . . The Legal Luminary Jacko . . A Midshipmite w>Ra9.^^R CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. In the Bay of Biscay, O i 11. The Riviera 23 III. Napoleon's Nursery . . . *. . . 47 IV. "What of the Ships, O Carthage?" , . 56 V. The Knights of Malta 80 VI. Papyrus Land 93 VII. The Pyramid Builders 121 VIII. Temple and Tomb ...... 149 IX. Islam . . 180 X. Turkish Welcome at Joppa .... 196 XI. The Stronghold of Zion 221 XII. The Jewel of Constantine . . . . 260 XIII. Athens 271 XIV. The Voice of Vesuvius 296 XV. The Eternal City 309 XVI. Homeward 323 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Sfeam Yacht "Maria" . . . . . Frontispiece The only Passenger on Board ....... 4 Le Chateau d'lf . . 24 With Apologies to the French Navy 27 Loafing about Cannes 30 Pro Rege, lege Grege ! . 31 A Cafe in Monte Carlo 33 Virtue its own Reward 36 Mentone from Italian Side 38 Flowering A loes . . . . . ' • . , . • . 39 A peep in La Turbie . . 4J Foutitain in La Turbie . .- .• . . . 42 View from Corniche Road . 43 "Not half a bad Corner" 44 Monaco Bay 45 Napoleon's House . . 48 Vietv from the Bey's Palace .... • • 57 French Gunboat in El Bahira 60 The honest Merchant ........ 63 Cactus , , , 66 List of Illustrations PAGE Cathedral on the Ruins of Carthage . . . . . 67 To Saint Louis 70 Museum Garden 72 On the Horns of a Trilemma ...... 73 Arsenal Quay, Malta . . . . . . . . 83 She means to keep it 85 A more modern Weapon of War 89 Don Quixote . . .91 Some big Holes 96 Policeman Pompey's Pillar 97 Lord Cromer calls on the Gaekwar ..... 103 Khedive's Palace at Alexandtia ...... 105 Selim Gazziri . . . . . . . . .108 A young Nubian . .111 A Funeral . . . . ■ . . . . . .112 Marching past Shepheard's Hotel 114 The " Nitocris " . . . 122 Sailing down 125 The oldest Building in the World 129 Ninety years in the Desert 131 The Triumph of Mind over Matter 134 The great "City" of Memphis! 137 An island Home 141 Singing "Daisy Bell" 144 HuP 145 Children of the 200th Generation 147 Ibrahim Pasha 151 Pastoral Scene at Beni-Hasan 152 The Composer 15,5 The Man at the Wheel .... . . 157 xii List of Illustrations Mahomedan Cemetery Asyut Market-place Shopping in Asyut Bedouins at Qeneh Bedouins at Home Cleopatra " Rather like a broken-down Cotton Factory Cambyses beheads the Statues Hatshepsefs Obelisk at Karnac Tombs of the Kings In the Tomb of " The Rosy Belle Pylon at Luxor . True Arabs are scrupulously clean Ploughing . Ships of the Desert Cargo of Water-jars Arab Hut . Mosque at Asyut A Child of the Desert . Village on the Bank . The Desert as it really is At PhilcB . " Ver good Donkey. I am your Friend ' Shooting the Cataract Entrance to Cataract Aswan Edfu from the Ply on Kom-Omho . Kom-Ombo . Poem, Goddess, and Chocolate Cream ! xiii PAGE 161 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 181 185 . 188 189 193 194 197 198 199 200 201 202 204 205 List of Illustrations PAGE Convicts at Aswan 207 Ancient Memories 208 jfoppa 211 Street in Jerusalem 223 Colonnade on the Platform 227 Dome of the Rock 231 The Rock 235 The "Tower of David" 239 The Jews' Wailing-place 243 Gethsemane 249 Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives 253 Gordon's Calvary 257 A Turkish Man-of-war 265 The Piraus 275 Temple of Theseus and Acropolis 281 The Erechtheum 283 Caryatides • 285 The Parthenon 287 The Areiopagus 289 Temple of Jupiter 292 In the Gulf of Corinth 294 A House in Pompeii 299 Vesuvius from Pompeii 303 Daughters of Rea Silvia ^ 311 The Vatican Gardens 317 Galileo's Post of Vantage 325 Mentone from the Sea 327 The last Committee Meeting 329 XIV DOWN THE STREAM OF CIVILIZATION CHAPTER I IN THE BAY OF BISCAY. O " Do you know I have been thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea just to sail quietly down the stream of civiliza- tion," said the Com., poking the fire, as it were to cast a ruddier gleam on the pictures in his mind's eye. " What do you mean ? " inquired the Literary Failure, looking up from the chess-board on which he was struggling with rather a nasty attack—" down the stream of civilization? I suppose we are always doing that, eh?" "You don't quite follow me," continued the Com. meditatively ; " what I mean is, why not let you and me and a few more go off and have a peep at what is left of the cradle of history in Egypt, and then slip over to where the Hebrews carried on the work at Jerusalem, and then run over to Athens and see for ourselves, at first hand so to speak, what the Greeks made of it ; we might drop in, on the way in or out, at Carthage or Down the Stream of Civilization Tyre, and glance at the Plains of Troy, and then finish up at Rome. After Rome, I suppose Paris and London may be said to illustrate how the ball was kept rolling : but we are pretty familiar with them." "That is a heavy order," said the Literary Failure ; 'but if you are really serious it is a grand idea. How do you propose to do it ? " "Oh, to take it easy," replied the Cora., as though he contemplated a stroll in Epping Forest. " Suppose we join the yacht at Marseilles, and potter about the Riviera for a week or ten days, and then cross over by Corsica to Africa — say Tunis ; from there we might nip across to Malta, and so on to Alexandria. The Maria could wait for us there, or at Port Said, while we went to Cairo, chartered a good dahabieh, and went up the Nile to the first or second cataract and back ; after which we could rejoin the yacht and steam across to Joppa for Jerusalem. How would that do ? " " Splendid, of course ; but " and Jus paused for breath. For just as we speak of the mind's eye, so we may speak of the mind's breath ; and, truth to tell, the scheme, so suddenly sprung upon him, had taken his breath away. " What about time ? " he continued. " Well," said the Com., " the fact is, I mean to take a holiday, and I fancy a look round would do me a lot of good. I am not particular to a month or so — and you ? " The Literary Failure smiled. " Oh, I am all right ; I can easily spare the rest of my natural life for such a trip^ as you call it; you know I belong to that much- misrepresented class, the Unemployed ; but what about the others ? Whom do you propose to ask ? " " So far I have sounded Cassius — you know whom I In the Bay of Biscay, O mean : the Devonshire banker — he is ready to come ; and I don't think our friend, the Wily Warrior, will raise insuperable objections ; then what about the Hon. Sec. ? He is a good sort. And I will take my nephew Clare." "Good," exclaimed the Literary Failure ; "we must see the effect on the ' opening flower ' as the poet hath it : you and I are getting into the fogey stage." " Speak for yourself," retorted the Com., with the air of one who was quite prepared to conduct an expedition to the South Pole, "I am all right ;" and then, after a pause, " I wonder whether the Legal Luminary could find time to come." " What tonnage is your yacht ? " asked Jus. " Eight hundred and thirteen, and thirteen knots, but she can do eighteen at a pinch." " Rather large for a small party." " All the more room," was the reply : " I like plenty of elbow-room." "Certainly, I hate a crowd: it is like a big com- mittee : too much talking — divided counsels ; seven or eight make a pleasant party." And so it was settled. There was to be a banquet at the club on October 22nd, and on the following day the rendezvous was at Victoria Station at eleven in the fore- noon. Meantime the yacht was sent round from South- ampton to Marseilles with one passenger on board, named Jacko. How it came about that the party was so small, so extremely small at starting (for Jacko stood only one foot six in his stockings), was due to a chapter of accidents. It happened in this wise. On the night of the banquet it became manifest that, although the eight members of the party (eight counting Jacko) 3 Down the Stream of Civilization differed in opinion on many points, political, religious, scientific, and artistic, as parties of eight always do if they have any grit in them, yet on one point they were THE ONLY PASSENGER ON BOARD unanimous : they aril longed to go round by the Bay of Biscay. Said the Legal Luminary, "There is nothing I should enjoy more, but unfortunately I have some very im- portant business in Paris ; so I must kill two birds with one stone, and join the yacht at Marseilles." " Ah," said the Wily Warrior, " there is nothing equal 4 In the Bay of Biscay, O to it ; but you see I have done it once, when I was in- valided home from Egypt, after bleeding for my Queen and country, and, as I have never seen Lyons, I think I will go overland, just for a change." " To cross the Bay of Biscay in a good yacht has been the dream of my life," said the Literary Failure," especially about the end of October, but really I have such a lot of things to settle up before leaving home that I shall never be able to reach Southampton in time to start. It is a great nuisance, but there is no help for it." " I had quite decided to go by the Bay," said the 'Varsity Man mournfully, " but my aunt is such an awful funk : she- firmly believes that nine persons are drowned out of every ten who cross the Bay of Biscay ; and she made me swear I would join at Marseilles : it's fearful rot, but what is a fellow to do ? " " How I envy you fellows ! " said the Rich Banker. "You can take as much time as you like, but my time is limited; and I think it is my duty to take it out at the other end — that is to say, in Egypt — rather than at the beginning, even though I have to miss that glorious cruise in the Atlantic." "Well, of course," said the Com., "if you are all determined to go overland, I suppose I must do so too. You know what those fellows are. They will be so much more free and easy by themselves that it seems a pity to put them on pipe-clay for the sake of one. But there is nothing like the Bay, so long as you keep a stiff upper lip." So we all went to Paris, and the Maria went round by the Bay with the crew and Jacko. Nothing eventful occurred at Victoria, except that the Wily One encountered 5 Down the Stream of Civilization a fellow he had not met for fifteen years. We afterwards discovered that he did this at every place we stopped at, not only in Europe, but in the hills of Judaea and in the Libyan Desert. "Most 'strornary thing I ever knew in my Hfe," he said, " meetin' that man. Would you believe it, I have never seen him since I left Llanwyddlanelliponty- fechan." " It seems to me," said the Hon. Sec, " it would have been still more extraordinary if you had not seen him, considering you were both struggling to take tickets at the same booking-office at the same moment." That is what I do not like about the Hon. Sec. — he always throws cold water upon one's bubbles of enthusiasm. It is not right. I forget the precise moment at which the train got under way — as Cassius expressed it — but as all the others have it down, I must refer the reader to them. I have got a watch. Make no mistake about that. It is only a silver one, but it keeps time — within reason. Otherwise how could I keep a regulation narrative of this voyage ? You all know how to do it : " Up at 6.15 ; breakfast at 8; arrive at Stick-in-the-mud at 11.27; go ashore; back at 6.20 for dinner at 7.0; bed at 10.30." This, which I regard as the highest order of traveller's journal, is one to which, I cannot aspire, because, as I have said, my watch is only a silver one. But other members of our party kept proper journals, like the above, and they will be published in due course. Again, a watch is absolutely necessary if you wish to take part in the wrangle which invariably develops whenever you arrive at or depart from a place. In the Bay of Biscay, " Moving at last," quoth the Rich Banker. " Eleven- three ; that is three minutes late." "Excuse me," said the Hon. Sec, "I make it 11.2, and I set my watch by Greenwich yesterday. What do you say, Com. ? " The Com. carefully examined his timepiece, and ex- pressed an opinion at variance with both ; and at the end of ten minutes' debate all three disputants fell asleep, while their watches went on ticking angrily in their pockets till Rochester was reached. This place was rendered memorable by being the first at which the Wily Warrior told us the cemetery story. It is a capital yarn, and we all laughed. He told it again in the Bois de Boulogne, and several of us laughed. And then, after leaving Toulon, he told it a third time and laughed heartily. But he never told it after that, which is a pity, for it is a good story. We reached Dover precisely thirty-seven seconds after the moment predicted by the punctilious Bradshaw. So I believe, but the Com. said thirty-nine. " You will be good enough to observe," he continued severely, "that my watch is of gold, eighteen, if not nineteen, carats fine, whereas yours is apparently of pewter, and certainly never passed the sixth standard." "What does it matter?" the Hon. Sec. interposed; " we are in plenty of time to catch the boat, anyhow." But the Hon. Sec. is un homme serieux. Sir Edward Watkin's tunnel having been nipped in the bud by trembling Englishmen fearful of a French invasion, and there being no regular balloon service across the Channel at present, we were constrained to make the passage by water. Fortunately we are all 7 Down the Stream of Civilization excellent sailors. Our party was broken up, and at one time we feared the boat would suffer a like fate; but it managed to hold out as far as Calais. The Legal Luminary took up a strong position amidships, and seemed absorbed in introspection. Like little Mary, "he had his little porringer," but, unlike her, "he eat no supper there." There are times when the carnal indulgence of eating is repugnant to the contemplative mind of poet and philosopher. The Rich Banker was everywhere. With his yachting cap cocked jauntily on one side, and with a complexion which seemed to borrow a pale green hue from the reflection of the waves, he lurched about in search of his sea-legs, whistling "Tom Bowling," to the intense envy and admiration of the 'Varsity Man, who stood ankle-deep in a puddle of salt water without apparently being conscious of it. The Com. was forward, playing his accustomed role of figure-head and drinking in the briny breeze; while the Hon. Sec. and the Literary Failure took root-hold near the stern of the vessel — which the reader will be good enough to pronounce " starn " w^hen reading aloud. For three parts of the journey they exchanged congratulations on their respective possession of cast-iron stomachs ; they chaffed the 'Varsity Man ; they wondered what had become of the Wily Warrior ; they glanced at the Legal ^Luminary and winked signifi- cantly. But at length silence supervened ; the Hon. Sec. ducked mysteriously under a rope on to forbidden ground. " Come out of that ! " cried a red-faced sailor, and the Hon. Sec. came out. "What were you trying to do?" asked the Literary Failure with a limp smile. 8 In the Bay of Biscay, O *' Nothing," faltered the Hon. Sec, and the conversa- tion flagged again. We were, of course, all sorry to reach Calais. English people do not as a rule drink brandy with their lunch : but when in Rome, do as Rome does. Now the people of Calais — or at any rate a majority of those in the Calais refreshment room — do drink brandy with their lunch, and so, not to be eccentric, we did the same. After the customary wrangle about luggage, which I mention merely in order to drag in the Com.'s pun, we started for Paris punctually at — well, we started for Paris. The " exact time " debate was already beginning to pall, so the conversation took the form, the usual form, of capping each other's recollections of dodging the douane. One man had smuggled ten pounds of honeydew into France by the artful device of stuffing it into an un- locked hatbox and losing the key of a suspicious-looking bag. Naturally the bufifle-headed prepose declined to ex- amine any of his baggage except the bag of the lost key. This being found, after an exhaustive search, the tobacco romped in triumphantly. Another had successfully pi'oted a hamper from Cologne to Charing Cross, containing eight soda-water bottles, one of which was open and half full of soda water, while the remaining seven were well wired down and full of eau-de-cologne. After these stories had reached the point at which nobody believed a word of them, as they always do— the Legal Luminary trotted up his little lot. He had never done anything very brilliant in that line himself, he said, but a friend of his once did a smart thing. This gave the smuggling yarn a new lease of life ; until the nefarious, albeit thrill- ing adventures of friends, cousins, and aunts had also 9 Down the Stream of Civilization reached saturation-point. Finally, even the friends dropped out, the reflected glory of knowing the hero was cast to the winds, and-all the old smuggling chestnuts ; rolled down the slippery hour, till the Com. suggested poker as an agreeable change. Poker, with the assist- ance of cold chickens, claret, and big pears, lasted till the straggling lights of the outskirts of Paris increased in number and intensity and the " Gare du Nord Station " (as Rit pointed out) could not be far off. As luck would have it, we all lost at poker. Some say this cannot be, but I have observed it on so many occa- sions that I feel bound to admit the force of the old saying, "One ounce of fact is worth a ton of theory." Another pleasing feature of this game is the witticisms to which it gives rise. For example, the Wily One per- sisted in addressing the Rich Banker and the Hon. Sec. as Bryant and May, and they retorted by calling him Griffith, Of course, everybody roared at these sallies ; but I have never been able to fathom them. The Literary Failure was of opinion that beggar-my-neigh- bour and old-maid are in some respects more satis- factory games than poker. " Anyhow," said he, "I should have been more lucratively employed sowing corks on the seashore." This gentleman was always asking why the game is called poker. One day in the hall of Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo (if I may be allowed to "get afore my tale") he endeavoured to obtain an answer to this question from an American, who looked as though he might know. *' I believe," said he, " that poker is a game which is a good deal played in America ? " " Some," was the laconic reply. lO In the Bay of Biscay, O " In that case, perhaps you can tell me why poker is called poker ? " " What ails you, sir ? " answered the Yankee. " If you are trying to get your latest off on me, I'm not dealing." " Of course not ; that is obvious," persisted his inter- locutor. "I am not inviting you to play, but merely asking whether you can assign a reason for the jiame." "Why," came the answer in crescendo tones, " why is cricket called cricket ? Why are cocktails called cock- tails? Why is anything called anything ? I recommend you to consult a doctor, sir." And he did ; but the doctor could not tell, because he did not know. Of course we drove off at once to the Hotel de I'Athenee. When I say " of course," I mean that there were no reasons why we should not, and several reasons why we should. To begin with, it is as unlike the monster hotels of London and New York as a lady's boudoir is unlike the waiting-room at a railway station. You are known, not by your number, but by your name. Again (and, as I expect to be read by more millions of English than of foreign readers, perhaps I should have put this first) the cuisine is the best in Paris ; the wines are excellent, and even the cigars are good. But to me the chief charm of the hotel is the absence of all furniture and fittings of the railway-director type — no mammoth scagliola columns ; no Brobdingnagian chimney-pieces ; no Cyclopean clocks, like the sarcophagi in the Sera- peum. My own bedroom, with its drapery of heliotrope and glaucus-blue cunningly blended, and its air of re- finement and repose, was in itself a work of art — com- plete without fussiness. The previous night I had slept, Down the Stream of Civilization or tried to sleep, at one of the billionaire barracks in Northumberland Avenue. There, my bedroom had been "undertaken" by a contractor. The barren acres of hideously papered walls were rendered still more oppres- sively bare by a couple of crude chromos over the wash- stand and mantel-shelf. The latter funereal structure was relieved by a pair of cast-iron vases and a composite match-box and ash-tray of sham bronze. On the dress- ing-table was an elegant assortment of illuminated cards in brilliant colours and variegated type, setting forth the virtues of the wares in the neighbouring shops. The rooms on each side of me differed from mine only in having another number on the door. I need hardly say that the change from the English to the P'rench hotel did not greatly stimulate my insular pride. I have said that it was our intention to pass through Paris on our way to Marseilles : but what need was there for hurry ? " Why hustle ourselves ? " asked the Hon. Sec, with the air of a man who does not fear contradiction. " Ah ! why ? " chimed in Rit and the Wily One in chorus. The Rich Banker smiled. "Upon my word," said the Com., as though a new light had broken in upon his soul, " now that we are here, we may as well have a look round for a day or two. The Maria will want some doing to, and then there is the coaling. Of course the Bay would have been my " "Of course, of course," echoed every man of the party. " Still," added the Literary Failure, " we are not bound to break our necks just because we are not yet drowned." 12 In the Bay of Biscay, O And so it was settled, and the next four days were spent in Paris. Meanwhile the Maria encountered some very foul weather in the Channel and in the Bay ; and what the solitary passenger, Jacko, must have suffered will never be known. By the time he arrived at Marseilles he had forgotten all about it, or at all events he never referred to it. Perhaps he was a little bit ashamed. What we did in those days forms no part of this treatise, which, as we know, is of a strictly scientific nature. What we left undone is better worth mention. We visited no tombs, churches, picture galleries, nor catacombs — not even the dear old Morgue. We did not attend the race meeting at Chantilly, neither did we ascend the Eiffel Tower. In short, we did just what other people do when they do not happen to be British tourists. There were two exceptions to this rule. The 'Varsity Man went to the Musee Grevin, and came back with a fixed conviction that the murderer's lot is an unenviable one. He registered a solemn vow never to tread the downward path, and, what is more, he kept it — for days, if not for weeks. Then the Wily One had never visited the last resting- place of his brother warrior. Napoleon the Great ! He therefore inveigled the Literary Failure into a pilgrimage to the Hotel des Invalides. From him, and from an ancient veteran who sits at the door of Ihe tomb, he learned much that may be of great use to him in after life — all about the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars ; all about St. Helena and the depth of the Atlantic Ocean ; all about embalming the dead, and how it was 13 Down the Stream of Civilization done by the early Egyptians (he afterwards bought a mummy of his own), and all about the strained relations presently subsisting between England and France in the matter of modern Egypt. On all these matters Jus told him all he knew and a great deal more. The veteran at the door told him the precise weight of the said door. I think it was 2300 kilogrammes. The Warrior was a bit staggered at this. "Dear, dear," he said, "that must be tremendously heavy; by the way, what is a kilogramme? " "Half a ton," answered his companion promptly in English, and the veteran did not contradict. That door will be heard of in Wales. Once upon a time three soldiers were walking together. "We always dine at eight," remarked the Hussar languidly. " Do you really ? " drawled the Guardsman, drawing himself up to his full height; " we never dine before nine." " Haw, demmy," said the militiaman, not to be beaten, "?£/ THE DESERT AS IT REALLY IS '' I don't know about that," the 'Varsity Man said thoughtfully ; " I think your theory of the sudden spread of Arabian philosophy sounds rational enough. But are you not flying in the face of all the authorities ? " " He always does," the Wily One replied for him. ^'Well," said the Literary Failure, moistening his lips with hot water carefully diluted with a drop of Dewar's 194 Islam best whisky,* " them's my sentiments — take 'em or leave 'em!" The said sentiments were forgotten, but the example was carefully followed, though not with that exactitude due to the example of a prophet. The 'Varsity Man ordered a lemon squash. The Hon. Sec. got outside (as he expressed it) a pint of bitter. The Wily one pre- ferred a glass of dry champagne ; and the Com. thought a little light wine might do him good. Whereupon they all retired to their respective bunks, and the 'Varsity man dreamt that he was being cornered by the Ox-god with red-hot horns ; the Hon. Sec. that he was being " preached to death' by wild curates " ; the Wily One dreamt that the pyramid had six sides to it, with a number on each side ; the Com. slept the dreamless sleep of the just, while the Literary Failure dreamt of Amineh and her beautiful eyes. So they say. * The reference to Dewar's whisky is a mere advertisement reluctantly inserted by the writer at the urgent request of the Literary Failure, whose stock is running rather short. 195 CHAPTER X TURKISH WELCOME AT JOPPA The Nttocris, unlike the yacht of the Mor?nng Post, could proceed no further than Aswan ; so mounting our gallant steeds — if asses can be called steeds — we went off at a smart gallop through the sandy and rocky desert to Philae. Yet we did not far outstrip our Arab escort, who, though on foot, covered the ten miles in very little over the hour. The ruins of Philae are the most beautiful in the world. If a single one of my numerous and ac- complished readers doubt it, let him get himself rowed over to the island — the frontier-island, as it was called in the days of the Amen-heteps. It is the smaller of the two which lie just south of the Cataract. The larger one is called Biggeh — " most appropriately," the Com. observed. Let him stretch a rug in "Pharaoh's Bed," as one of the little temples is called, or, indeed, in any other part of the ruins; but not before whispering to Selim that he wishes to dream away the afternoon where Cleo- patra dreamed. Let him obey the injunctions of that modern y^^sculapius to the very last drop of Liebfrau- milch, or " fizz," as the case may be. And then let him resign himself to contemplation and reverie. We did these things, and more also. And then we 196 Turkish Welcome at Joppa pulled ourselves together for the anti-climax — the hurry- scurry and headlong rush back through the Cataract. It is a glorious experience. While we reclined beneath AT PHIL^ a canopy in the strong, quaint boat in which the passage of the rapids is effected — the choregus sits on the gun- wale, armed with a species of tom-tom, to the accom- paniment of which he sings wild chants, urging the oarsmen to redoubled exertion. They all join in the 197 Down the Stream of Civilization chorus, a minor strain synchronising with the strokes of the oars, while the old pilot, hand on tiller, gazes with solemn (perhaps affected) anxiety at the rocks ahead and the raging surf around. After each point of danger successfully passed, Allah is loudly thanked, and the last 'VER GOOD DONKEY. I AM YOUR FRIEND" of thein is the signal for a lusty Hip, hip, hurrah ! It is most inspiriting to watch jthe young Arabs on the banks fling themselves into the roaring torrent from a rock twenty-five feet high. Down they go, one after the other, laughing and cheering, and away they are swept by the current, like corks in a mill-race. Not one of the twenty or thirty who performed the feat for our delec- tation sustained any injury; but it is said that if a Turkish Welcome at Jopp^ stranger were to attempt it he would inevitably be dashed to pieces. And I can well believe it. Some of these fellows come whirling down the rapids on chunks of wood and in tubs, but they never forget the reward which such exploits deserve. » 1 1 ^^^^^KKmt/f^o'ij/l^^^r Jt/tfr^^^^m ^ .^H W^^Bt^kz P^l^^9v2^fl i^Hh SHOOTING THE CATARACT On arriving at Aswan we found our Rosy Belle with her head resolutely facing northward, and after sticking on a sandbank for six hours, just beyond the Isle of Elephantine, we set off down-stream. The temples of Kom-ombo, of Esneh, and of Edfu all date — as [to their main buildings — from the comparatively recent age of the Ptolemies. Kom-ombo, both as to position and 199 Down the Stream of Civilization preservation, is the most picturesque of the Egyptian temples north of Philae. I think it is Baedeker who relates a legend picked up from a native of Kom-ombo. I wish I had the book at hand to refresh my memory, because I wish to point ENTRANCE TO CATARACT to it as a shocking example of legend-weaving. The bad prince kills his good brother; the people are grieved and refuse to work for him ; thereupon he summons the dead to rise up and to plough and sow his fields. This they do, but by the pale moonlight the ploughs and their phantom bullocks can be seen skimming in the air a foot or so above the surface. And then, when the harvests should be at hand, the bad prince finds that 200 Turkish Welcome at Joppa instead of wheat the dead had sown only sand. This story is so thoroughly Teutonic in tone, so absurdly un- Egyptian, that it is surprising how it should come to be served up as an authentic legend on the bare testimony of some half-Berber donkey-boy, and at second hand. ■^'-JY'^^ At Asyut our mirth was turned to melancholy. The Rich Banker was suddenly recalled to England on affairs of State which could brook no delay. He went to the piano as usual, and in plaintive tones made a rambling statement to the effect that he was off to Philadelphia in the morning. Then the Warrior declared that he also was off to Philadelphia in the morning. But when the Com. chimed in, and they all made the same untrue 20I Down the Stream of Civilization statement together, the lights went out ; the Arabs fell on their faces and sued for mercy, and Selim rushed in to find out whether the rats had got into the piano, or something had gone wrong in the engine-room. Then we went ashore and supported Cassius to the station, ^MMMjii^^.'^^f^^tt^Hn iHt ^KSm^^^B •'^i^.:r..:.j-' ^'^- ^^% - ^.^ EDFU FROM THE PYLON and lifted him tenderly into a comfortable carriage, for his fourteen-hour railway journey to Cairo. Whether he ever reached Philadelphia I have not yet heard. On returning to the dahabieh it became evident that something very serious was the matter with the 'Varsity Man. We tried boiled banana poultices inside, and Capri lotion, and everything we could think of, but all in vain. At last he owned up. In the waiting-room at Turkish Welcome at Joppa the station he had met the loveliest creature in the world. She was a poem, a goddess, and a chocolate cream, all rolled into one. He was beside himself. He could talk of nothing, think of nothing, dream of nothing but his divinity. Could he but survive till morning he was to KOM-OMBO meet her again on the river bank. What rapture ! Oh, those ten long, long hours ! But they came to an end ; and the Idyl appeared on the bank. The flowing white burnouse was gone; gone the saffron sash and the many-hued head-dress. And the young Arab merchant, attired in his workaday raiment, stood before us. Clare was petrified. The shock was a severe one ; however, he bore up wonderfully. But he never loved again — for 203 Down the Stream of Civilization several days. And he will never forget — he will never be allowed to forget — his first Arabian sweetheart. We did not touch at many points on the downward journey. We lounged all day on deck, watching the life on the dark-brown level banks, with the cinnamon- coloured hills beyond, all as level on the top as though they had been mown with a scythe. The shadoofs were always at work with their creaking see-saw. Ibises, buffaloes, myriads of pigeons, camels, asses, wagtails, and goats marched, flew, ran, and flitted everywhere. Little green paroquets glinted like eme- ralds amid the tall durra. Boys with slings, like that with which David slew Goliath, flung stones at the 204 Turkish Welcome at Joppa winged thieves who do not respect private property ; a full furlong and more they flung them, with a crack like the report of a pistol. And then the sun set. Long PUKM, .GUUUKbS, AXD CHOCOLATE .CREAM ! bands of carmine streaked the western sky, broken by the black outlines of hills and palms. But the Eastern panorama was even more wonderful. Mys- terious iris hues, like a long horizontal rainbow, rise in strata from the hills to the green sky above. I believe 205 Down the Stream of Civilization these prismatic tints are due to the sarid, which, in vary- ing densities, fills the air. It is caught up by the rising breeze, which always accompanies the fall of the sun. This seems to me to be the explanation of that unique tone of Egyptian sunsets which has fascinated travellers from the earliest times ; and which when reproduced on canvas usually produces an effect of unreality. I now and then recall the whole scene as in a lotus-eater's dream. " Coats, gentlemen," rose Selim's warning voice, just five minutes before the precise moment of time when scorching day gives place to chilly eve ; and then, after watching the stars come out and the moon glimmer through the palm branches, we would one by one descend to the cosy saloon, and end the day with — con- found sentiment ! — with whisky and poker. After lingering for another fortnight at Cairo, we bade farewell to the Nile, and went off, via Ismailia, and the Bitter Lakes, and the Suez Canal, to Port Said ; where we re-embarked on the Maria, bound for Joppa. At the Warrior's urgent request, we broke our journey at Tel-el-Kebir and at Ismailia. From the former we proceeded to the little cemetery where the English soldiers who fell in that battle lie buried among palms and cypresses. It seems to be carefully tended. All about the sands of El \\(ady we sought in vain for the missing heel of Orlando, which was blown off fifteen years ago in this neighbourhood. "You are searching in the wrong place," said the Com. "How so?" asked the Warrior. " You would have been more Hkely to find it at Heliopolis," was the reply. Clearly the Com.'s case is quite hopeless. At Ismailia we drove round 206 Turkish Welcome at Joppa Egypt's youngest city, with its fine avenues, its bridges and hotels, its lake and its fresh-water canal. The Warrior pointed out the little window in the Viceroy's Palace from which he used to gaze with glittering eye and fevered brain, wondering whether he would ever' CONVICTS AT ASWAN again see the rocky glens of his native land. The memory of past sufferings is not in itself painful, and, strange to say, we rather envied him his reflections. But I am going back on my track, for the Maria is now threading her way between the green and red lights at the ends of the two breakwaters of Port Said, and we, having supped on board, are asking, " Watchman, what of the night ? " for we have heard disquieting rumours 207 Down the Stream of Civilization of Neptune's little doings ever since we reached Cairo. Indeed, the Clyde had not been heard of for forty-eight hours, and a search party had put out from Malta to look for her. The managers of the Cairo hotels make capital out of these telegrams, which they post in conspicuous '' i^w^^^^^H^Mtt ^ * ^J \ ANCIENT MEMORIES places, as a warning to yachtsmen. However, we found the sea settling down again and in a tolerable humour. It was in the early morning of December 1 2 that the Com. knocked us all up out of our beauty sleep with the intelligence that if we wanted to land at Jaffa, now was the moment. " The wind is rising," he said, " and the Captain is dead against our making the attempt as it is, so hurry up." It was a chilly grey morning and a heavy 208 Turkish Welcome at Joppa sea was running. " What about breakfast ? " wept the Wily One. " No time for that," answered the Com. ; " it is now or never. We must breakfast in Joppa." We romped into our " things " * and instructed the stewards to stuif what was necessary for a four or five days' absence into bags and pitch them after us into the gig. Jus will not easily forget what the third steward regarded as necessary for such a trip. His bag was as big and bulgy as any one's, but he had no knowledge of its contents until he opened it at Jerusalem. It contained two dozen linen shirts, a bulky dressing-gown, a smoking-jacket, a filled camera, an evening-dress suit, a Nubian scarf, and a Coptic dictionary, some opera glasses, and several suits of pyjamas. It did not contain a boot, a shoe, a sock, a collar, a coat, or a handkerchief, neither did it contain razor, sponge, soap, comb, nor brush of any kind. Altogether it was a specimen kit. However, it helped to fill the boat, and it looked well. In fifteen minutes, empty, unkempt, half awake, and none the better for a night's rocking, we were all in the gig and off. " She will break her back in the surf, and I shall jump for it," growled the second mate as a sea broke over the gunwale and left us over the ankles in water. The Warrior and the Hon. Sec. removed their shoes and coats and prepared for the worst. Unfor- tunately, it soon became obvious that the boat was leak- ing pretty quickly. She had been out of water and in a blazing sun for two months. But it was too late to return to the yacht with the wind and sea against us, and we might have been breakfast for the fishes but for a * Victorian English for " clothes." My French translator is earnestly requested not to construe this word as " choses." 209 O Down the Stream of Civilization French cargo-ship which happened to catch sight of the pHght we were in, and which lowered a boat and came to our rescue. With difficulty we transhipped ourselves, and then discovered that it was impossible to land with- out a surf-boat. At this moment rose a friend in need. A Hungarian, named Halle, the proprietor of the Hotel du Pare, had been looking out to sea, as is his wont, when he descried the operations just recorded, and, with the promptitude and indifference to personal risk and dis- comfort which ever distinguish the sterling man of action from ihQ felts farta or stuffed cat (worthily repre- sented on this occasion by Messrs. Cook's agent), he rapidly manned a surf-boat, and, springing into it himself, piloted her through the breakers and between the reefs to the little cargo-boat in which we were tossing — safe enough, but not very clear as to our next step. Tran- shipped again, not without difficulty, we rounded the reef, keeping as close to the rocks as possible, and eventually gained the quay and landed. But our troubles were by no means ended. The Turkish officer of cus- toms with a posse of underlings barred our way. Un- fortunately, in the hurry of departure we had forgotten our pratique. Moreover, Jus had stupidly lost his pass- port. Land, we must not. Were the people of Jaffa to be decimated by plague for the sake of a handful of English- men ? Allah forbid ! We must return to the yacht, or, for the matter of that, to the bottom of the sea. One of the party — I think it was Clare — shouted " Beauseant ! " at the top of his voice, but the cry seemed to have lost its old rallying-power. Not a soul arrayed himself on our side. We looked in vain for the white 2TO Turkish Welcome at Joppa mantle and the red cross. What has become of the grand old vow of the Knights Templars to maintain free and open passage for all pilgrims visiting the sacred land of milk and honey ? Where are the Pauper Soldiers of the Holy City ? Alas ! five hundred years ago, and more, they lapsed into the ancient worship of the Golden Calf, or, what comes to the same thing, they sank under the charge. The Knights of St. John, the warrior-priests with the black mantle and the white cross, they too are gone. Did they also worship the Golden Calf? He would be a bold man who would acquit them, after exploring the Church of St. John and the Palace of the Grand Masters at Malta and all the proceeds of " gioja." Let them rest in peace down in Limbo among the remnants and wreckage of battered superstitions and the debris of moribund creeds. The Temple stronghold in Paris, and our own little Temple in London, which was built by Henry II. in imitation of the temple near the Holy Sepulchre, remain to us as monuments of a strange bygone age — the age of Caliphs and Crusaders and Assassins ; of Godefroy de Bouillon, of Saladin, of Richard Lion-heart, of Saint Louis, and of the Old Man of the Mountain. Leo now dozes and mumbles in the chair in which Clement V. raged and thundered, and the throne of the genial Harun the Just lies trampled under the feet of Abdul the Assassin. So we must shift for ourselves. Clare was in favour of signalling for our six and thirty mariners bold, and at once driving the Turk out, bag and baggage. But Jus counselled patience. " Give him still five years' probation," he pleaded. "We require reinforcements." And his counsel prevailed. 213 Down the Stream of Civilization "Cannot one man fetch the papers from the yacht, and the rest remain on shore ? " demanded Halle. " Cer- tainly not ; they must all remain in the sea," replied the obdurate official. " Besides," thought each man of the party, " who is the one ? " There rode the Maria, a good mile and a half off. The wind was still rising. Then came a voice uttering words more blessed than the balm of Gilead, and falling like the sweet South on the seared hearts of the wet and weary Britishers. It was the voice of Halle. " Look here," he cried : " one is better than all ; I will go and fetch the pratique, and you can all tumble into that barge until I return." There rocked the dirty barge, moored by the head. Into the surf-boat we all stepped, and so to the barge, where, damp and ridiculous, we rose and fell till Halle and his men returned triumphantly with the proof that we were none of us afflicted with plague or leprosy. The passport was still missing, but, by dint of a little ducking and dodging, one passport was made to serve for two, and we reached the Hotel du Pare and imbibed caloric in the form of yellow wine. Meantime, our deliverers were promptly flung into prison, one and all, and it was not until the Com. had signed a solemn affidavit before the British Consul testifying that we were in peril of our lives when Halle and his men put to sea that they were released, with a caution never again to be too zealous in succouring Englishmen without first examining their papers. Only a few days before, another Englishman had under similar circumstances been himself confined in a Turkish prison for twenty-four hours. I do not think any of the crew had cause to regret their temporary incar- 214 Turkish Welcome at Joppa ceration, for the Com., as the saying is, has his Uttle ways. If it was an unhappy accident that brought us to the Hotel du Pare, it was at all events a happy circumstance that we were there. It commands the finest views of Joppa, and stands in the best position. The brothers Halle turned out to be great travellers, not only in Europe, but in America, and they thoroughly understand what English and American travellers appreciate. The hotel is furnished with comforts and conveniences, for w^hich as a rule one may look in vain in Oriental houses, and the cooking is excellent, as we had good reason to know, and to be thankful for. Mr. David Halle, our deliverer, as we called him, after- wards accompanied us to Jerusalem, and his local know- ledge was of great service to us, pressed as we were for time. The brothers, like most Hungarians, are good judges of horses, and they rattled us over the undulating Syrian roads at a pace that would make an English coachman's hair stand on end. I ought to mention that our luggage had in the mean- time got into the hands of Messrs. Cook's Syrian agent, who, having done nothing to help us, carefully hurried it off to the Jerusalem Hotel, presided over by his friend Mr. Hardegg, who discharges the duties of American Vice-Consul at Joppa. Oddly enough, that gentleman, whom the Warrior most improperly christened Mr. Hard- boiled Egg, took a very different view of the Syrian's conduct from that taken by the British Consul — a fact which cannot be explained by reference to his nationality, since the brothers Halle are both American citizens, upon whom American travellers will do well to call, if 215 Down the Stream of Civilization they wish their sojourn in Palestine to be rendered pro- fitable and pleasant. I believe they contemplate building a good hotel in Jerusalem. There is certainly room for one. Talking of Americans, Orlando one day remarked, "These Yankees are all over the show, bragging and swaggering as if the world belonged to them. They quite forget that they were once only a pack of runaways and rebels." " Rot ! " ejaculated the Literary Failure, utterly regardless of that classical English which charac- terises his utterances when in classical company, " rot ! do you expect the descendants of the Mayjlozver to knuckle down to the descendants of those who stayed at home and paid ship-money ? " "Oh, you are always against your own country when it suits your argument, but none can be more patriotic on occasions. What were you saying only yesterday about the English occupation of Egypt, and the glorious British flag ? What were you saying about the Sandwich Islands ? " " Quite so," replied Jus ; " I'm solid on the Union Jack, because it is the flag of freedom, of free trade all the world over, of a fair field and no favour. That is why ; and not for any paleozoic reason whatever. If the star-spangled banner meant freedom, as it some day will, I would fight under it as readily as under the Union Jack." " Ah, free trade, that's another of your fads : you would see every farmer in England starve for the sake of that cranky notion. Why, it's out of date. Ask the Com." "Will be," the Com. interjected, ''when water flows up hill." " You are all against me, of course," pleaded the Warrior ; " but I say the British flag has nothing to do 216 Turkish Welcome at Joppa with free trade ; it means the orderly and honest govern- ment of all the races that come under it." It was now the 'Varsity Man's turn to cut in. " And what right have you, what right have the English, to force weaker races to conform to British ideas of law and order ? I call it downright bullying." " Nonsense," shouted the Warrior ; " don't you believe it — they like it'' " Well, you ought to know, you are one of them," retorted Clare with a malicious allusion to the Warrior's birth- place at Llanwyddlanellipontyfechan. "Go hon with you," replied that gentleman with his sweetest smile ; for to tell the truth he was rather proud of the gallant little principality. And then the subject dropped; but the Union Jack went on flying all over the two hemispheres just as though nothing had occurred. Says Baedeker : " The meaning of the ancient name Joppa is doubtful." Don't you believe him. It means nothing of the sort. It is the name of the daughter of ^olus, the King of the Winds ; and her daughter, the famous Andromeda, was chained to a rock on this very spot, for a horrible sea monster to devour. But Perseus came and saved her. That was very nice of Perseus. So thought the Warrior. " Now, was it ? " asked the Hon. Sec. ; " suppose the lady bound to the rock had been the one that sat by you at dinner last night — the one with the leather face and projecting tusks — would Perseus have risked his life for her then ? " " Lord knows," growled Orlando : " I'll take my oath I wouldn't." " I think he would," said Clare. " I have no doubt the leather-faced lady does quite as much good, and is alogether as worthy a person as ever Andromeda was, and why should she not be saved ? " 217 Down the Stream of Civilization ' That is just where you make a mistake," chipped in the Literary Failure with his detestable, cold-blooded philosophy; "it is Man's duty to preserve and protect Beauty, on the principle of the survival of the fittest. If heroes risked their lives for the sake of hideous hags as readily as for beauties like Andromeda, then you ought to marry the ugliest girl in the parish." " Well, I always make a point," persisted Clare, " of dancing with the plainest girl in the room, because she gets so few partners, poor thing." " In that case," replied Jus, " you selfishly gratify your own sympathetic faculty to the detri- ment of the race; you ought to leave the plain girl severely alone; and so you all do when it comes to marrying and not merely galumphing round the ball- room." " But if everybody made beauty a sine qua -non the plain girls would never get husbands at all." " Quite so — the elimination of the unfit," was the reply. " And what right have you to call people unfit who may be clever, or self-denying, or accomplished, merely because they are not good-looking ? " "Because, ex hypothesi, they are woifit to be seen. Look here, my dear fellow," he continued, " I feel as you do ; I am irresistibly drawn towards ugly people : pity is akin to love ; it is with the greatest difficulty that I tear myself away from them, and seek the company of the fair ; but I am sustained in my efforts by a consciousness of rectitude." "That will do," the Warrior interrupted, " about your blooming rectitude." "Confound Andromeda," said the Com. " Are you all ready to go and see Tabitha's house ? " " No," replied Clare doggedly. "I see from the guide-books that there's a place called Yafa near here that we ought to see," the Warrior 218 Turkish Welcome at Joppa said, looking up from his Baedeker. He did not often consult Baedeker, whom he regarded as a bit of a dullard. The rest of the party looked at him to make sure that he was pulling no man's leg, and then they looked at one another, and then they gave way to unseemly hilarity." Orlando turned red. " What's the matter now ? " he exclaimed, but the laughter only increased in violence. To do Baedeker justice, he devotes a good deal of space to the German Colony, as it is called. It consists of a crowd of broken-down Teutons who some thirty years ago emigrated to Joppa with the object of regenerating society, but who, after failing in their laudable object, and splitting up into as many sects as there were individuals among them (viz., about one thousand), drifted into the orange business, in which they are fairly successful. You can buy Jaffa oranges on the spot at the rate of about half a dozen for a penny, whereas the converts they manufactured were not worth a guinea a box, as the Hon. Sec. pointed out with his accustomed eye to business. The so-called " places of interest to the tourist " are not numerous. After driving through some slums to the Jerusalem Gate, or rather the place where the Jerusalem Gate was, and after passing a varied assortment of ceme- teries and seminaries, hospices and cafes, churches and nondescripts — French, German, Russian, English, Arab, Jewish, and Armenian — we finally arrive at Tabitha's house, or again (as one is compelled to say) the place where Tabitha's house was, or may have been. '•Who was Tabitha?" whispered the Com. to the Hon. Sec. " Heaven knows," whispered the latter in 219 Down the Stream of Civilization return; "ask me another." Other members of the party, lacking the requisite moral courage, maintained a discreet silence, but resolved to look her out on the earliest opportunity in a biographical dictionary. Another equally famous house is pointed out by the inhabi- tants — namely, that of Simon the tanner. Unfortu- nately, they are at variance as to the precise spot. Some say the Latin Hospital stands on the site, while others maintain that the tannery originally stood on the plot of land now occupied by a shady little mosque near the lighthouse at the other end of the town. In neither place is there a vestige of a house or a tannery, but careful excavation may some day reveal the sar- cophagus of Simon himself. The long and the short of it is that Joppa contains many relics of the days of the Crusades and of other stirring times, but nothing whatever dating back to the Year One. CHAPTER XI THE STRONGHOLD OF ZION The journey from Joppa to Jerusalem, says the guide- book, " can be done by carriage or on horseback." Excellent well ! That was in 1890. We decided to do it by rail, and thanks to the French we succeeded. One cannot sufficiently admire the engineering energy of the French. Wherever we go we meet with the enduring testimonies of their generous labours. Whether it be Corsica with its mountain railway, or Tunis with its renovated Goletta Canal, or the still grander canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, or the enterprising railway through the rocky hills of Judaea, the track of these true sons of Rome is strewn with their noble works. Englishmen are far too apt to magnify their own enterprise at the expense of their neighbours. As political and commercial pioneers Englishmen may justly claim the first place. But a couple of thousand years hence the future historian will have some difficulty in pointing to any evidences of English rule comparable with the noble monuments of the French. In truth, if we are the Phcenicians of the nineteenth century, the French are the Romans. I do not say that our labours are not so beneficent : all I say is that they are not Down the Stream of Civilization so enduring or so manifest to the eye. I have the fullest sympathy with our Gallic brethren in regard to the African and Syrian shores of the Mediterranean, They have done far more than we have to reclaim that vast territory to civilization. We, represented by Lord Palmerston, did our utmost to obstruct the building of the Suez Canal, and now we control it and profit by it. The Frenchman's dream of a Greater France is a rational and righteous one. Like Russia, France desires elbow-room for legitimate expansion. From Morocco on the west to the shores of the Red Sea on the east stretches her heritage, facing her own southern coast. She claims it by the right of occupancy and honest work done. And if it were not for the selfish and shortsighted obstinacy of her politicians, none could better than she be entrusted with the peaceful development of that fair region. Alas, the tricolour does not yet mean Freedom ! And it must not be. After five hours' journey through barren, rocky, and desolate scenery, we reached Jerusalem. This de- scription does not of course apply to Joppa and its immediate vicinity, which is a rich and smiHng garden of orange-trees, whose fragrance is wafted for miles inland and across the sea. You can scent Joppa from afar, like the bean-fields of England and the mignonette of Cahfornia. But Jeriisalem stands on the summit of a stony plateau about as high as Skiddaw, and the change from Egypt's sunny sands to the wet and windy heights of Jebus was somewhat sudden and unpleasant. "At four," as the Com. recorded in his journal, "it ceased raining and began to pelt ; at five it ceased pelting and began to pour in torrents ; at six it ceased 222 STRPET IN JERUSALEM The Stronghold of Zion pouring in torrents, and then there was no name for it." Heaven help the wretches who were out in it ! " They hadn't a dog's chance." But apart from the weather, I suppose the city of Jerusalem is the filthiest in the world, with the single and doubtful exception of Constantinople. The Turk and the Syrian Jew are not clean animals, and the Armenian is little better. The streets are ankle-deep in the foulest mire, and so narrow that when the donkeys and mules come along in single file with their burdens the pedestrian must stand with his back to the wall to let them pass. There seem to be no sanitary arrangements of any kind. Most of the houses have neither windows nor chimneys. I need hardly say that wheel traffic is out of the question, not only because of the straitness of the way, but also because many of the principal streets are a long suc- cession of steps. Let me say at once, that from the point of view of the Christian antiquarian, the scenes and sights of Jerusalem are, almost without exception, vulgar, gro- tesque, ridiculous, and even disgusting. Saving the ground on which it stands, there is not a single authentic relic or memorial of the days of Christ. True, there are several Golgothas or Calvaries, a couple of Pools of Bethesda, two Holy Sepulchres, two sites of the Pre- torium, and a dozen or so of most of the houses and places mentioned in the New Testament. Most of them are impossible, and badly selected even for the purposes of a pious fraud. Then you are shown the tomb of Lazarus, and the house of Mary and Martha at Bethany, and the footprint of Christ in the solic} stone. At Bethlehem is the manger — made of marble ! Even your 225 P Down the Stream of Civilization guide soon wearies of saying, "Thiis is supposed to be so and-so," and he settles down by your permission into the dogmatic affirmative, after premising that there is not a word of truth in all he is about to relate. And this is the proper spirit in which to approach the sacred spots of the Holy City. By the way, the Arabic name of the place, " El Kuds," also signifies the Holy Place ; and there are as many vestiges and monuments of the life of Mahomet as of the life of Jesus. Pointing one day to the Mount of Olives, I inquired of a picturesque old Jew whether it was the hill of the Ascension. " One of them," he replied. "Which is the other?" I asked. "Mahomet," said he with a smile, "ascended from Mount Moriah." On reaching the platform called the Haram, we were treated by a chance tourist to the following passage from his guide-book : " We now stand on one of the most profoundly interesting spots in the world ; it was about this spot where David erected an altar." " Dear me," said the tourist, burning with enthusiasm, "only think of it ! " Having only just left Thebes, where Rameses and his predecessors had erected the still majestic temples of Karnak and Luxor some five centuries earlier, our hearts did not respond to the thrill : more especially as not a splinter of the supposed altar remains, nor is the precise spot known to within a furlong. Still the Haram claims attention for other and better reasons. Here once stood the gorgeous temple built by Hiram of Tyre for his wealthy friend Solomon. And here stands to-day one of the most remarkable buildings 726 The Stronghold of Zion in the world, both in appearance and by reason of its associations — the Dome of the Rock, or, as unbelievers call it, the Mosque of Omar. I prefer to err with the faithful for once, for there stands the dome, and beneath it lies the rock, whereas there is no evidence that the Khalif Omar had anything to do with it. Nor had he either the power or the will to erect such a building. If we can attach any credence to the statements of the Emperor Constantine, this is the real Holy Sepulchre of Christ. It was built in the fourth century, and its sombre magnificence is unsurpassed by any building of post-classical times. It is an octagon of i6o feet in diameter, supported by pillars of the rarest marbles. The rock itself stands about five feet above the level of the surrounding pavement of marble, and on one corner of it is still to be seen the footprint of Mahomet as he he left the world on his famous visit to heaven. The Warrior was irreverent enough to call it his "kick-ofi"." I was myself a little perplexed by it, for I was always taught that the prophet ascended on ass-back, whereas the print is that of a human foot. In another part of the rock we see the hand-print of Gabriel, who, when the rock, in its anxiety to follow Mahomet, was rising out of its place, thought fit to hold it down by force. I do not wish to be irreverent, but I must protest that a rock which showed such noble aspirations and such a spirit of daring should not have been thrust back to earth at the mere caprice of an archangel. Whether this grand temple is really the work of Con- stantine, or whether it owes much of its magnificence to Khalif Abd-el-Melik, is an unsettled point. There is certainly much Arabic art in it. 229 Down the Stream of Civilization Some members of our party were prevailed on to cast a few piastres into a basin as the price of eternal happiness — for so we were told ; but Clare scoffed, and Jus said he thought he would save his pocket-money for poker, and risk it. It is a melancholy reflection, and a humiliating one, too, that after all the blood and treasure lavished on the Crusades, the tomb of Christ (or, at all events, the oldest tomb which can lay any claim to the distinction) should form the site of a Mahommedan mosque ; but it is still more painful to know that Turkish soldiers are com- pelled to keep guard at the Bethlehem Manger to prevent the rival sects of his worshippers from cutting each others' throats. Yet so it is. The Christians of the Holy City are far the most degraded fraction of the populace, and we actually met Turkish troops entering the town in readiness for the customary riots by which Christmas Day is signalised. The Jews hate the Mahom- medans ; both hate and despise the Christians ; but their united hate is as charity itself compared with the hatred with which the Christians hate one another. Latins, Greeks, and Armenians alike seem to wallow in a slough of religious bigotry and intolerance fouler even than the mire in which their bodies stew. The jangle of bells, by which they announced their rival festivals, became at one time such an intolerable nuisance to peaceful citizens, who cared for none of these things, that the authorities were compelled to step in, and now, outside the Armenian church, hangs a gigantic gong, which Armenian ingenuity substituted for the prohibited bells. It booms away to the annoyance and envy of the Greek and Latin Christians, who, however, meditate 230 The Stronghold of Zion reprisals in the form of steam sirens and monster clatter- rattles. No wonder respectable citizens hate the pork- eating canaille I The history of Jerusalem is not the history of art, science, or civilization. It is the history of bloodshed and fanaticism. When first heard of, it is in possession of a Phoenician tribe by whom it was called Jebus. David, the king of the Hebrews, came up and laid siege to it. But the Jebusites called to him from the walls, " So long as there is a blind man or a cripple left within, you cannot enter." " Nevertheless, David entered and took the stronghold of Zion ; the same is the City of David." This stronghold seems to have been regarded as impregnable by its successive occupants : "But John P. Robinson, he Says, ' They didn't know everythin' down in Judee, ' " And the truth is that no stronghold was ever much less defensible than that of Zion. In the days of David's grandson it fell before Shishak, king of Egypt. A cen- tury later it was stormed by the Philistines. After another sixty years Jehoash and the Israelites entered in triumph. Some years later it capitulated to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, when the Temple of Solomon was burnt to the ground. In the fourth century B.C. it yielded to Alexander the Great. Afterwards Pompey, the Roman, forced his way in and desecrated the new temple ; and in the memorable year 70 a.d. Titus stormed the town, burnt Herod's third temple, crucified a number of Jews, put many to the sword, and sold the rest into slavery. On this occasion the town was utterly annihilated. On the ruins of its foundations Hadrian built the city of 233 Down the Stream of Civilization Aelia, which Jews were forbidden to enter. It sub- sequently fell before the Persians, and again before the Byzantine Greeks ; and in 637 |it was captured by the Arabs under Omar. The Franks, as the Crusaders were called, held it for about eighty-eight years, from 1099 to II 8 7, when it was retaken by Saladin, only to fall a prey to the Turks in 1244. Who were these Hebrev;s who lived at Jebus for over a thousand years ? Manetho, the Egyptian historian who lived in the time of the Great Alexander, calls them Arabs. He also calls them Phoenicians. On the high authority of Mr. Poole, we learn that Abraham's visit to Egypt coincides with the Hyksos invasion. The most probable derivation of Hyksos seems to be from Huk, a foreigner, and Sos, a shepherd. Though Huk originally meant a slave or captive, it came to be used as a term of contempt for foreigners in general. This was about a thousand years before David. When we remember how the migrations of ancient peoples were narrated by the earliest chroniclers as the travels of individual heroes, we shall have little difficulty in identifying the Hyksos with the patriarch Abraham. This Semitic people appears to have come from the shores of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf; but earlier still, judging from their religion and their mental traits, rather than from their language, one would surmise that the Hebrews, who bear a strong resemblance to the Turks, were a tribe of invaders from the North — one of the early waves of the migratory hordes which ever and anon burst the boundaries of Central Asia, and poured down into the richer and happier lands of the south : just as in later times we have seen Genghis Khan with 234 The Stronghold of Zion his Mongol myrmidons invading Syria and Persia, through Samarcand and Bokhara ; and a century later Tamerlane the Terrible. Similarly, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Solyman, Othman (the founder of the Ottoman Empire) Amurath, and Bajazet, with their Turkish soldiers, became the terror of the peaceful and prosperous inhabitants of Southern Asia. Between these warriors, with their black eyes and hooked noses, their ferocity and sombre sensuality, their suspiciousness and intolerance of foreigners, and, above all, their grim fanaticism — between them and the Hebrews there is a remarkably strong affinity. From Tartary they brought with them their worship of the yak or primitive ox. As herdsmen rather than agriculturists, their totems would naturally be Apis, Baal, Moloch^ or Yakh, the Ox-god. During a sojourn of some centuries among the highly civilized Egyptians, their superstitions would undergo considerable amendment and purification ; and, while they left the worship of Apis as a legacy to the Egyp- tians, they no doubt carried away with them, on their expulsion by Aahmes (Amasis the Great) a highly con- ventionalised and elevated form of their pristine religion ; one which so able and learned a leader as Moses might reasonably hope to convert by degrees into a simple monotheism. This noble goal seems never to have been actually reached ; and throughout the entire history of this dismal race in Palestine, the old worship of Baal held its own with varying success against the newer and purer religion of the great lawgiver. If the worst vice of the Jew was his fanatical hatred of the foreigner, his greatest virtue was its natural concomitant — strong and even maudlin patriotism. To this day we may find (and 237 Down the Stream of Civilization we did find) a posse of blubbering old men bewailing the fall of the temple, at a place called the Jews' Wailing Place, where three or four layers of stones may possibly have once formed a part of Herod's Temple, or even of the second temple built after the Babylonian Cap- tivity. We were told, I cannot say with what truth, that a certain number of Jewish families are even now on the road between Babylon and Jerusalem — a month's journey — having only just discovered that the Captivity is over, and that they are at liberty to return to their native land. But it seems hardly credible. At all events, there does not appear to be any very marked tendency among the Jews of Western Europe to follow their home- sick example. The fleshpots of Egypt were magnetic even in 1500 b.c. ! We do not look for the old Latin cosmogony among the beliefs of the Romans after their conquest of Greece, but among the ancient fables of the days of the Kings, when dancing priests propitiated Mars and the Vestal Virgins kept alight the holy fire. Similarly we must look for the original Hebrew legends, not to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, but to the older traditions of the Arabs. The former are manifestly toned down into the semblance of historical events, and woven into the beau- tiful fabric of pure monotheism, which had been engrafted on an older faith by Moses and Amen-hetep IV. The latter are wilder and more extraordinary, and bear all the marks of greater antiquity. They were preserved in their original form by the uncivilized nomad tribes of Arabia, for centuries after they had come to be regarded as too grotesque to suit the taste of the more cultured people of Judaea. Mahomet took them as he found 238 The Stronghold of Zion them, and embodied them in the Koran. There were five archangels : Gabriel, Michael, Azrael, Azraphel, and Satan. Below them was a whole hierarchy of angels. Between angels and men were two intermediate races — the Gins and the Peris. The Gins (Chinese ?) ruled for seven thousand years ; and the Peris (Persians ?) two thousand years. Then came Adam. In riches, power, and magnificence the Gins and Peris surpassed every- thing that Adam's race experienced, but their pride at last provoked the wrath of the Almighty. Satan was ordered to exterminate them. He destroyed many, and drove the rest to the caves beneath Kaf — the mountain which supports the sky. One of the Gins carried off with him the enchanted shield, graven with seven mystic signs, which entitled its holder to the throne of the world. Adam pursued him into his cave, wrested from him the magic shield, and hid it away in the island of Serendib (Ceylon ?), where it was long afterwards discovered by Kaiomers, king of Persia, who therefore became the ruler of the Eastern world. So far, the Persian and Arabian legends seem to agree. Then the shield was lost, and both Gins and Persians were conquered by Solomon, the son of David, who forced them to build his mighty forts and walls. And from that day to this the Gins have ceased to trouble mankind. In all this there is clearly a legendary history. To return to Adam. Satan, being puffed up with his victory over the Gins, refused to do homage to Adam, the holder of the shield, whereupon he was driven from heaven, and the faithful angels threw great stones after him. Hence the Moslem prayer, " God preserve me from Satan the Stoned." A nimbus beamed from the 241 Q Down the Stream of Civilization brow of Adam, which has ever since played round the head of the successive prophets of God. When he died he was buried at Mecca, but Noah took the body with him into the Ark, and it was afterwards taken to Jerusalem by Melchizedek. The nimbus descended upon Seth, and then upon Edris (Enoch). This great prophet invented pens, needles, mathematics, and magic. Noah succeeded to the nimbus. Eighty persons (not eight) were saved in the Ark, but they did not include Noah's wife, Waila, who perished in the flood. H^re follows a statement of great interest for the ethnologist. All the vices of the world were practised by the sons of Japheth ; while all the virtues were pre- served by the descendants of Shem. Seeing that the Arabs were themselves what was understood by " sons of Japheth," that is, they were descendants of the old Egyptian race, this doctrine must have been imposed upon them from without, by the conquering Hyksos, or " sons of Shem." They would not have invented it of their own accord. Then arose Shedad, the wicked king of Arabia, who planted a garden and filled it with every delight. His subjects were so intoxicated with the pleasures of the garden that they gratefully worshipped Shedad as a god. But the prophet Hud came and reproved them, and they laughed at him and drove him out ; whereupon a black cloud came, and out of the cloud a pestilent wind that raged for seven days, and utterly destroyed all the people, except those who believed in Hud. The ruined city of Shedad is still sometimes, but rarely, to be seen. After Hud came the prophet Saleh ; but when he announced himself, the people asked for a sign, whereupon he smote 242 The Stronghold of Zion a rock, and it was rent asunder, and a she-camel came forth. Then the incredulous people hamstrung the she- camel and her young ones, and mocked Saleh, so an earthquake swallowed them up; all except those who believed in Saleh ; and they went and settled at Mecca. Abraham was the next prophet, and certainly one of the most remarkable. When he was a baby, we are told, he sucked two of his fingers. There is nothing very re- markable about that, but what is really extraordinary is that out of one finger flowed rich milk, and out of the other honey. He was brought up to worship the starry host, as all his fellow countrymen were, but he thought that one must needs be stronger than any of the others and fit to be worshipped more than they. Venus appeared to be the biggest, so he worshipped her, until he observed that she set; when he exclaimed, "I like not gods that fade away." He then asked his father for advice in the matter, and that prudent courtier recom- mended him to worship the king — Nimrod. Abraham therefore called at the Court, and beheld an old man, horribly deformed. He felt sure that such a being could not have created a world full of beauty and grandeur, and so returned home and worshipped the Unknown God. The prophetic nimbus immediately beamed from his brows, and he preached the doctrine of Islam — that is. Resignation. His first act of devotion seems to have been what we should call a lie. Having smashed all the idols in the house during his father's absence he was called to account for the wreckage. An old woman called, said he, bringing an offering of fine flour, and the idols fell to quarrelling over it, and knocked each other to pieces. 245 Down the Stream of Civilization Azar, his father, beHeved in the idols, but not in their power to fight ; so he haled his impious son before the king, who had him flung into a fiery furnace ; but the furnace turned into a bower of roses, and Abraham walked out unsinged. This was at Babylon. God then told Abraham to go to Jerusalem, and there, in order to try his faith, he commanded him to offer up his son Ishmael, who is always called " The Offering." Here the Arabs and Jews differ, the latter maintaining that Isaac was the Offering. The prophetic radiance passed from Isaac to Jacob and from Jacob to Joseph, of whom the Arabs tell us much more than the Jews. Potiphar's wife w^as named Zuleikha. When she was upbraided by the ladies of the Court for falling in love with a slave she took her revenge by inviting them all to a feast, to which she also invited Joseph ; and so agitated were they all by his wonderful beauty that their hands shook, and they cut their fingers instead of the pomegranates. After Potiphar's death Joseph married Zuleikha, and all was well. The sacred nimbus passed through Shoaib to his son-in-law Moses, who had been adopted when an infant by the Pharaoh himself and his wife under peculiar circumstances. His mother, Nagiah, a kins- woman of the Pharaoh, mistrusting her suspicious relative, put her child into a little ark of papyrus, covered with pitch and lined with cotton-wool, and committed him to the Nile; by whom he was washed up into a fish-pond in the king's garden. After his adoption the infant behaved rudely to his adoptive father, pulling him by the beard. Whereat the king was wrath and would have killed him, but the queen said : "How can you blame a babe which could not tell 246 The Stronghold of Zion a ruby from a red-hot coal ? " " Try," retorted the king, and this being done, Moses chose the red-hot coal, and put it in his mouth — a circumstance which is said to account for the impediment in his speech. Modern critics attribute it to the fact that, although he spoke excellent Egyptian, his Hebrew was not good. He was afterwards condemned to death on another occasion, but when the executioner brought down the axe, Moses' neck was suddenly turned to ivory, and the axe re- bounding slew the executioner. After this the Hebrew and Arabic accounts of his doings tally fairly well, till we come to the episode of the Golden Calf. In the biblical narrative, as we all remember, Aaron melted the gold and fashioned it into the form of a calf with a graving tool, but according to the Arabs, when the gold was melted it moulded itself in the form of a calf without any assistance from Aaron. This seems the more probable version, for what need was there for a graving tool after the calf was moulded ? Of Kedher, upon whom the prophetic aureole next descended, the Jews have nothing to tell us ; the Arabs a great deal, but he is believed by many to be no other than Elijah. Of Job the two accounts agree in the main, except that, according to the Arabian chroniclers, he appears to have been guilty of what we should call a shuffle. It seems that Satan told Rhamat, Job's wife, that if she would fall down and worship him, all their prosperity should at once return. Job was so much enraged when Rhamat proposed to do this that he vowed he would scourge her with a hundred stripes if he got better. When the time came, however, he tapped her once with a palm-branch having a hundred leaves, 247 Down the Stream of Civilization and so fulfilled his vow. We may admire his humanity more than his probity. From Job, after long obscuration, the holy light fell upon David and then upon Solomon, of whom the most astonishing stories are told. Most of these are un- mentioned in the Hebrew historical books. Here the genuine Arabic legends seem to come to a stop. The light passed on to Jesus, after whom no prophet arose till Mahomed. So all good Mahommedans assert ; and this period is called the Interval. From that day to this there has been a succession of Imams, from whose temples the light has radiated, though the sects disagree as to their number (the Shiites say twelve). But the controversy, having passed entirely out of the hands both of Arabians and Hebrews, does not concern us here. I believe the present Mahdi is the last holder, according to the Arabs of Upper Egypt and the Soudan. I will conclude this meagre summary of Hebro- Arabian traditions by reminding my anti-vivisectionist friends that a corner has been found in heaven for five of the lower animals, of whom three are asses, one a ram, and only one a dog. They are Balaam's ass, the ass on which Jesus rode to Jerusalem, the ass Al-borak, which carried Mahomet to heaven, the ram which allowed itself to be caught and sacrificed in the stead of Ishmael, and the good old bow-wow Katmir, who watched over the Seven Sleepers for two hundred years. I have indulged myself in this digression at the imminent risk of wearying some readers and offending others, because I believe that the earliest history of races 248 The Stronghold of Zion and their migrations is more likely to be found in their traditionary legends than in their language. In all the above there is nothing that bears much resemblance to Greek or Roman mythology; but those who are con- versant with the mythical stories of the Turks and Tartars — of Buzengir and his mother Alancona, of the Niron, or Children of Light, and the Dirlighin, or human Moguls — will mark some striking parallels between the Tartar and Semitic legends. Genghis Khan himself, the ninth in succession from Buzengir, claimed to be de- scended from Noah, through Japhet, Turk, Mogol, Kara, Oguz, Tchoubine, and Alancona, Beloved of the Sun. However, having offered my apology, I must leave this interesting field of inquiry to the serious student and proceed with my own trifling observations, for what they may be worth. As I have said, there is nothing whatever in Jerusalem, beyond the configuration of the earth's surface, to show that it was ever in the possession of the Hebrew nation. They have left not a single monument of their most uninteresting career save the crumbling foundations of a fortress that succumbed to every invader, and some sad tales of the sordid and sensual rulers of a spiritless and uninventive people. At the same time, the traveller who. is prepared to subdue the rebellious and sceptical spirit of modern criticism will find, as we did, much to interest him. In the mosque of El Aksa, not far from Christ's footprint, he will see two columns, through which, it is said, no one born out of wedlock can pass. The reader may smile at this, but I can assure him that it is true ; for between the two columns some one has erected an iron screen. Then at Easter Eve, if he is fortunate 251 Down the Stream of Civilization enough to be in the Holy City on that day, he will witness an extraordinary phenomenon. The lamps of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are on that occasion, to this day, lighted not by human agency, but by fire from heaven. It does not appear to be visible from outside above the roof, but inside there is no doubt about it. Here the visitor is shown the precise spot where Abraham attempted to slay his son Isaac. We had already seen another spot (the Rock under the Dome) where the ordeal took place. The Warrior him- self expressed doubt. " I thought," said he, " that this happened on the big rock." "That is just where you fellows are so absurdly sceptical," replied Jus; "there is no evidence that he did not make the attempt twice." " I never thought of that," Orlando meekly admitted ; " naturally he would try again, of course." The tree is also shown in which the ram was caught by the horns. " It must be very old," observed the Warrior. " Four thousand years old ! " said the guide. One of the most interesting spots in Jerusalem for the man of science is undoubtedly the Centre of the World. It is surprising that Sir Isaac Newton makes no mention of it. Coupling the facts that he was born on Decem- ber 25, and that he propounded the theory of gravita- tion, one would have expected him to have referred to it. An ancient arch in Jerusalem goes by the name of Robinson's arch. Now I respect Robinson as much as (even more than) Jehoshaphat or Sennacherib ; but the 252 The Stronghold of Zion three names do not run well together. I was re- minded of Campbell's tomb at Gizeh. Discoverers deserve to be remembered, but some other means should be found of associating their names with their discoveries. Of all spots on the earth the most woful and, to the truly reverent spirit, the most shocking is surely the Garden of Gethsemane. Over a squalid quad, sixty yards long, surrounded by railings, traversed by vulgar little paths of the cottage-garden order, and surrounded by fourteen childish and tawdry paintings of the fourteen Stations, the visitor is shown for a few piastres by a shabby Franciscan monk. The walk up the Mount of Olives is a refreshing change. The view from the top, or, better still, from the Belvedere Tower which the Russians have built there, is expansive and picturesque. There, at a con- siderable depth below sea-level, glitters the Dead Sea. There meanders the river Jordan ; and beyond stretches a chain of hills some three thousand feet high, over the top of which Moses is said to have had his first and last peep at the land of milk and honey. The mount is well wooded with olives, figs, almonds, and other trees ; and alas ! in a most conspicuous place some nineteenth- century Philistine has built himself a villa of the most modern type, doubtless " fitted throughout with all the latest appliances, and thoroughly adapted to the require- ments of a genteel family." On the way up we entered the Chapel of the Thirty- two Languages, in which the Lord's Prayer is printed on tablets hung all round the cloisters. Orlando was mortified to find that, although the tongues of Brittany 255 Down the Stream of Civilization and Provence figured in the thirty-two, that of the gallant little principality of Wales had been omitted. Whether the omission is due to the fact that the founders of the chapel had not heard of Wales, or to the fact that the Cymri of Jerusalem somehow could not recollect the Lord's Prayer, or to the more probable fact, that the tablet on which it was printed went to pieces under the strain, I cannot say. The young women of this gruesome convent lie in their coffins for three hours each morning to meditate on the mutability of mundane affairs. And in the midst of the quad stands a pomegranate, the emblem of abasement. Poor girls ! this world is not a paradise, but it has its bright side for all but you ! We were pursued by lepers near the foot of the hill : loathsome and pitiable beings who ought to be kept in comfortable confinement, instead of being encouraged to ply their vile trade of mendicity with menace. Most passers-by give for fear of pollution, but a resident who accompanied us threw stones at them. It seemed a drastic measure, but he declared there w^as nothing else for it, such importunate beggars had they become by long practice. The tombs of the kings and the tombs of the prophets are all paltry frauds ; and the Castle of David dates from the fourteenth century of our era. We wandered through the narrow lane now called the Via Dolorosa, a modern slum built on the debris of three cities; we explored Gordon's Calvary, the only one which can be made, by any stretch of the imagination, to correspond with the possible scene of the Crucifixion ; we inspected the numerous mediaeval gates of the city ; and then, The Stronghold of Zion bidding farewell to the off-scouring of all nations and the cesspool of all sects, we shook off the dust of our feet as a testimony against them, and returned, sadly dis- appointed, to Joppa : and thence through the smiling islands of the ^gean to Constantinople. 259 CHAPTER XII THE JEWEL OF CONSTANTINE There can be no doubt whatever that Constantinople stands on the finest site in the world, not only for com- mercial, but for military purposes. Six and a half cen- turies B.C. it attracted the attention of the early Greek navigators, who founded a small town there, under Byzas — hence the name Byzantium — which was afterwards forti- fied by the Spartan Pausanias. But it was not till the fourth century of our era that Constantine the Great discovered and appreciated its stupendous advantages. One night he fell asleep. An old woman appeared to him in his dream. Suddenly she was transformed into a bewitching maiden (they are in dreams), and he imme- diately proceeded to decorate her with all the imperial symbols and knick-knacks he could lay hands on. He was quite sorry to wake up ; nor could he shake off the memory of the entrancing creature. What could it all mean? A modern English schoolboy would have told him at once. "Clearly the old woman is withered Byzantium, a thousand years old. Under your care she is to be regenerated, and to bloom into the fairest and noblest city in the world." But Constantine was an experienced soldier and statesman, and it took him much 260 The Jewel of Constantine serious reflection to discover the correct interpretation of his dream. Having done so, he set to work without delay. He devoted two and a half million pounds (English value) to building the walls and laying out the town. In marking out the boundaries, which he did with his own hand, he was preceded by an invisible guide, and in a few years a glorious city arose which could vie with, and in some respects outshine, Rome herself Unfortunately, in his zeal and impatience, he beautified his new idol with the art treasures of Greece, which he ruthlessly transplanted from their ancient homes. From Athens he stole the colossal bronze statue of Apollo by Phidias. From the temple of Delphi he took the most memorable monument of all time — a pillar of brass composed of three serpents twisted together to commemorate the glorious victory of the Greeks over Xerxes. And there it stands until this day to witness if I lie. Turkish guardianship has not im- proved it. Indeed, Mahomed IL, anxious to show his prowess, smote off the under jaw of one of the serpents with his battle-axe. This was very clever of Mahomed, and it is typical of the reverence for art and antiquity which those sombre and uninteresting barbarians have ever evinced. For a thousand years Constantinople grew in splendour, but from the memorable year 1453, when the redoubtable serpent-smasher wrested it from the last of the Constantines, not an original building, not a scientific truth, not a single noble work of any kind has sprung up in the benighted city. Greek churches have been converted into Mahommedan mosques, and many similar ones have been erected on Greek plans 261 Down the Stream of Civilization and by Greek architects. Nothing new has seen the light, and all that was noble in the old is crumbling away. The artistic textile fabrics and costumes of the Turks are Persian, their religion is Arabian, their archi- tecture is Byzantine, their ships are English — their morals are their own. The streets are filthy — the Grande Rue de Pera would disgrace a London slum ; the houses are ugly and dirty, and the inhabitants are worse. Even the dogs are surly and suspicious, and I never saw one wag its tail. More- over, they are all of exactly the same size, showing the absence of human care and affection. Yet the Turks are warlike — barbarians usually are; and they possess some of the barbaric virtues. They are truthful and fairly honest. They are not cheats or sneaks, like the Armenian parasites who prey upon them. Moreover, they are hospitable and generous, and faithful in friendship. As we steamed up the Hellespont, through the Sea of Marmora and into the Bosphorus, the wind was cold and laden with sleet. After the tropical weather of Egypt, we not only felt the change keenly, but were possibly rendered less capable of appreciating what little enjoyment Constantinople has to afford. The first view of the triple-city is dazzling. The Maria lay-to a little to the east of the Arsenal quay. Our station commanded an excellent outlook. On our right lay Scutari with its cemeteries and cypresses. Before us lay Galata and the rising heights of Pera, and behind us was Byzantium, now called Stamboul, which is said to be a Turkish corruption of the Greek phrase for "up to Town." So says Gibbon, but I do not 262 The Jewel of Constantine believe it. Stamboul is separated from Galata and Pera by the Golden Horn, an arm of the sea seven miles long, and affording excellent anchorage for the largest ships. Both are separated from Scutari by the Bosphorus, which in its narrowest part is not more than half a mile wide. Which of the great nations of the future is the heir of the Sick Man? Here Europe and Asia meet. Here the Mediterranean and the Black Sea are connected by a narrow streak of water no wider than a respectable river. Whoever holds the keys of this gate will com- mand the trade of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and dominate all the inland seas. As a naval and military stronghold, vastly superior to Gibraltar, Constantinople stands at the crossways of the two great trade routes — the land route between India and the West, and the sea route between the shores of the Euxine and the Atlantic. Cowardice alone stands between Britannia and the jewel of Constantine. Neither ignorance nor want of enterprise can justly be laid to her charge. Meantime Russia is doing yeoman service on the vast Asiatic continent, and as a land power we may wish her god- speed. We took the opportunity of calling on the officers of H.M.S. Nymphj which was lying at no great distance from us, with a view to learning something of the social attractions of the place. They received us with British courtesy, and seemed mightily sick of the station. Clare inquired of one of them what was his opinion of the place after so long a sojourn in it. "Awfully slow," was the reply, " and all the fellows wear goloshes, don't you know ? " " But," he added, " I don't recommend you to smoke any of their cigarettes." 263 Down the Stream of Civilization All this, I need hardly say, threw a flood of light on the past history, present condition, and future prospects of the capital of Turkey. And I am bound to add that all three statements were perfectly true, and were fully borne out by subsequent experience. Should the officers of the Nymph desire to know to which of their number this work is indebted for the information just recorded, I will tell them frankly that it was the one in dark blue, with the English physiognomy and the jolly nautical gait. There can be no mistaking him, but if further identification is needed, I may say that it was the one who has not yet bought and read this treatise. Having no goloshes, we picked our way as well as we could through the filthy alleys leading up to Great Pera Street, accompanied by a Turk, who told us there were no fewer than eighty thousand Greeks in Constantinople — all murderers ! It afterwards transpired that by " murderers " he meant what we should call " cut- throats." After lunching at the Pera Hotel we took carriages and drove round, over the bumpy road, to the Yildiz Kiosk. At the drill-ground we saw some soldiers manoeuvring, and were surprised to find them nearly all Albanians or Africans of one kind or another. " Oh, yes," said one guide, " you see the Sultan cannot very well trust his own countrymen : among his own bodyguard there is not a single Turk." " Can we see the Sultan ? " we asked. "Only on Fridays," he replied, "when he crosses over to the mosque to say his prayers, well guarded." Everything along the route, except the Imperial Palaces, is squalid and tumble-down beyond descrip- 264 The Jewel of Constantine tion. both in the city and in the suburban country. And the Turkish warships in the Golden Horn are a laughing-stock. We met the Minister of War, not riding, but crouching in something very like a four- wheeled cab; ard several other dignitaries of State, A TURKISH MAN-OK-WAK similarly huddled up away from the gaze of the Young Turkish party or the snaky Armenian patriots. The wounded from the war seemed to be well taken care of, but they did not wear the jubilant air of conquerors ; and the music played by the military bands was not Oriental, but German. One of our party was anxious to ascertain on the spot, and at first hand, the truth about the numbers who fell in the recent Armenian massacres. A handsome young 265 Down the Stream of Civilization Greek, who could have given long odds to Baron Munch- hausen, assured us that not fewer than twelve thousand five hundred fell. A solemn Turkish official said he had no doubt there might have been between fifty and sixty of the conspirators killed. And a Jew named " Charley Bates," a hawking merchant, whom yachts- men will remember as a persistent and plausible invader, told us, after looking round to see that no one was listening, that the precise number of victims was eleven hundred and twenty. Clare had no difficulty in accepting the Greek's estimate. The Hon. Sec. thought the Turk had erred, if at all, on the side of exaggeration, while no one attached the slightest credence to the Jew, from which circumstance we may conclude that his version was most likely the true one — or, at any rate, the truest. When Togrul Bey and his pastoral warriors dwelt in their Tartar tents they were a race of hardy and worthy savages. Steeped in the uncongenial luxurious- ness of Persia and Greece, their descendants are still savages, but no longer entitled to esteem. Constanti- nople may be summarily described as the squalidest town on the noblest site in the world — a fertile garden covered with locusts. Of its inhabitants, the horses are bad, the dogs worse, and the people worst of all. Yet even the Turks them- selves are not so bad but that they are surpassed in depravity by the stranger within their gates. The cheats and cut-throats of all nations seem to thrive like vermin in this putrescent community. Travellers who base their estimate of Greek character on the specimens they meet in Turkey would do well to postpone judgment, and first to pay the Hellenes a visit in their own lovely and 266 The Jewel of Constantine orderly home in Athens, where private enterprise and private munificence may well serve as an example to all nations. Whither, bidding farewell (or ill) to the sleet and the mud and the dogs and the Yahoos of a moribund city, we now set forth. "Terrible thing, the despotic rule of the One," said Clare thoughtfully. " It all depends which One," Jus remarked with a sardonic smile, as noveHsts say. " Not at all ; the rule of the Many is better than that of any One," replied Clare. " What do you mean by the rule of the Many ? " " The majority, of course," was the ready response. " Oh, I see ; the rule of King Odd-man. I don't think much of him. / have seen him^^ said Jus. "Now it is you who are talking parables; who on earth is King Odd-man ? " Clare inquired. " Let me explain. There was once a great democracy : they had universal suffrage, male and female, adult and infant, prince and pauper. The population was forty millions and one. It was the day of the general election. I remember it well. The people were divided into blues and yellows. Every man, woman, and child had voted except one youth, and the votes were exactly equal — that is to say, there were twenty million blues and twenty million yellows. The unpolled free and independent elector was the aforesaid youth. I met him coming to the poUing-booth. He was a barman in a suburban public-house. He was seated in a nobleman's carriage drawn by his horses gaily caparisoned. He seemed weighed down by the responsibilities of his position, so much so that he was supported by the 267 Down the Stream of Civilization noble owner of the carriage on one side and an election- eering agent on the other. A calm and tranquil smile played over his otherwise unattractive features. His hair was hanging over his glittering eyes, and his head drooped on his chest reflectively. The carriage was accompanied by a huge surging crowd of cheering and howling ruffians, decked out in blue and yellow ribbons. These people, I was told, were the electorate, thirsting for justice and good government. At last the polling- booth was reached, and King Odd-man (for such he was) alighted, or rather was lifted out of the carriage. He was immediately assailed by two perspiring gentlemen with large tickets in their hats— blue and yellow respec- tively. They both deferentially asked the King for something or other, I could not clearly make out what. He replied with dignity, and perhaps some slight im- patience, "Ain't gonno tiksh ; lemme lone; go shoo devl," and then passed out of sight into the school-house to register his vote. The whole country during the few minutes of his absence stood in breathless suspense. King Odd-man was settling the destiny of a great nation. I was reminded of the battle of Marathon. It was indeed a thrilling moment. The immediate future of civilization hung upon the King's decision. What preg- nant thoughts were surging through his brain ? We cannot tell. He voted. ^ The news was bruited abroad in wider and wider circles, like the ripples that follow one another when a stone is dropped into smooth water. The welkin rang with tumultuous cheers and answering groans. The King had spoken 1 " The pause which followed this mendacious narrative was broken by the Warrior. 268 The Jewel of Constantine " I don't believe that yarn," he said, " but it is quite true all the same. Anything is better than the rule of the rabble, and that is what we have got now in England and Wales. Give me Julius Caesar or Bismarck, or even Oliver Cromwell, rather than a set of howling dervishes like our mob of electors. We are nearly as bad as America, and are going from bad to worse. Stick to the good old Monarchy, I say, and knock the agitator on the head." *' I always thought," the Hon. Sec. remarked, address- ing himself to Jus, "that you were a sort of Red Republican ; and here you are backing up the Sultan against the democracy." "I am doing nothing of the sort," rephed Jus; "it does not follov/ because I object to be governed by King Odd-man that I want to be governed by some other tyrant. Away with the lot of them ! I prefer to govern myself." "Oh, that is Anarchy," interjected Clare, glad of an opportunity of putting the Literary Failure in his proper place. " Quite so," replied Jus, " or, more correctly speaking, Individualism." Clare was silent and sad. The Com. smiled pityingly and took up a newspaper. The Hon. Sec, personally hurt and offended, sauntered off, followed by Orlando. The latter was overheard to mutter just outside the door, " You never know where to have that man ; he will- talk good sense one minute, and the most abject drivel the next." Which is quite true — but on the present occasion he may have been talking sense. 269 Down the Stream of Civilization At Gallipoli we were beset with a snow-storm, which compelled us to put in for the night. This was in one respect fortunate, for, on the following morning the sun rose brightly and illumined the broad plains of old Troy. The weather and the season were against us, and we were unable to gratify our curiosity by exploring the classic region, because of the torrents, which render all the roads impassable in winter. But it was something to single out Mount Ida draped in snow, and to see with our own eyes the two promontories where Ajax raved and Achilles sulked in his tent. Not far from New Ilium we descried the masts of a big ship, which, bolder or less fortunate than ourselves, had run upon rocks during the snow-storm of the previous night, and lay some fathoms deep in a troubled sea. Our second voyage across the blue ^.gean was fairly lively, so far as the sea was concerned, but the descrip- tion of the lovely islands I leave, as in honour bound) to the Hon. Sec, our Minister of Art, well assured that my confidence will not have been misplaced. 270 CHAPTER XIII ATHENS After passing between Andros and the south coast of Euboia, a dense mist settled down upon the sea, and our cautious captain deemed it advisable to mark time all night long at the entrance to the Gulf of Athens. There are really too many islands in this sea. They want thin- ning. Most of them are picturesque, and many of them are fertile, as we know from the names of the old Greek wines. Touching wines, it must strike a modern wine- bibber as hardly credible that such artists as the Athenians should actually have desecrated the juice of the grape, not only with copious water, but also with honey and spices. Yet so it was. Alkibiades and Sophocles never sipped their Chian neat, but in the form of negus. When we look at the price they paid for their vin ordinaire^ say a bottle of Mendaean — one farthing, or, to be quite accurate, twopence a gallon — it becomes less surprising that they sought to improve its flavour by the addition of herbs, gums, spices, and even resin. Next to Chian wine, the Lesbian and Thasian were the most highly esteemed ; but nowadays, I was pained to find, the decadent descendants of the heroes of Marathon and Salamis are content to imbibe the wines of the Rhine 271 Down the Stream of Civilization and the Rhone, and of the vineyards of Champagne. Even at the British Legation, despite the otherwise genial hospitality of our British and Russian host and hostess. Sir Edwin and Lady Egerton, not a drop of cinnamoned Lesbian or be-musked Coan was forthcoming. Horace described Lesbian wine as " innocens," and Pliny says that it naturally tasted of sea-water — from which we may draw our own conclusions. It is nevertheless a fact that not only sea-water, but also lime and turpentine, were used to give the wine a bit of a fillip. And before the girls could be allowed to drink it, they had to cut their nails. Otherwise, says Catullus, they were liable to scratch their friends. Either the ladies or the liquors have undergone a change since those classic days ; for I myself have never once been scratched by any lady whom I have had the honour of taking in to dinner — not even in Greece, where they are allowed no time to smooth their ruffled feelings (as in England) before being rejoined by the non- scratching sex. Whether this danger is the origin of the British custom I do not know. I have heard it attributed to our grandfathers' hygienic custom of taking a nap under the table as an aid to digestion after dinner. But all this has nothing to do with the Piraeus, into which we steamed next morning, after the sun had dis- pelled the mist. We .were accompanied by a fellow sufferer who had rocked about at a respectful distance from us all night. She turned out to be a Greek battle- ship conveying the prisoners of war from Constantinople, where they had been well provided for, and even new- clad, but, oddly enough, in black. The crowd was not allowed to give them a welcome nor to make any demon- 272 Athens stration ; but, slipping into our launch, we succeeded in watching them land. Athens was visibly depressed at the time of our visit. The cost of the war was weighing heavily upon the Greek treasury. Buildings stood half completed and neglected, and the usual gay diversions of the prettiest city in the world were suspended. The entrance to the Piraeus is not in itself very striking — " not a patch on Constant!," as the Warrior phrased it, quite weary of using five syllables every time he mentioned the place. The Long Walls have entirely disappeared from view, though here and there the foundations may be found, and the harbour is neither vast nor well hemmed-in by beautiful buildings, nor crowded with fine ships. Its main interest lies in its vicinity to Athens, and in the old world scenes which it recalls from the dim past. Two days in particular will ever be associated in the mind with this historical port ; two days which are them- selves linked together, and also linked with the name of the strangest figure of all time — Alkibiades. The first was the day of his departnre in joint-command of the Athenian fleet, and the second was the day of his re-entry into the city. It was in the spring of the year 415 B.C. that the whole population of Athens swarmed down the broad road between the Long Walls, to watch the embarkation of the troops for the Sicilian battle-fields, on forty transport ships convoyed by sixty triremes of the fleet. At day- break the whole town seemed crowded together all round the harbour ; the army marched down in a body from the city, and before embarking, the men took farewell of their fathers, brothers, and friends, for it was a citizen army. 275 Down the Stream of Civilization The trumpet sounded, the herald offered up prayers to the gods and sang the paean ; bowls of wine were circu- lated, and the officers poured out libations from gold and silver goblets. Then the Keleustes chanted the oarsmen into motion, and, the signal being given, the fleet quitted the Piraeus in single file ; and, to testify their enthusiasm, started off" with a speed race as far as ^gina. The three commanders were men of very different stamp. Poor old Nikias may best be described by the echo of his name ; like the Burgomaster of Oberwesel on the Rhine. " Wer ist der Burgomeister von Oberwesel ? " shouts the German student as he glides down the river. And the echo supplies the answer. A like method will furnish a correct description of that good old woman Nikias. Lamachus was a born soldier, but nothing more. Alkibiades alone of the three was a general of the highest order. Destined by fate and fanaticism to fight for Athens and against Athens, for Sparta and against Sparta, for both combined and against both combined, this great warrior-philosopher, brave, handsome, athletic, clever, profound, and gifted with inexhaustible resource, never once lost a battle either by land or by sea. Yet hardly had he waved farewell to his fellow countrymen, and put to sea, full of his noble scheme of Pan-Hellenism and burning with patriotism, than political envy, priestly cunning, and parochial buffle-headedness, set to work to compass his ruin. He had made fun of the Eleusinian mysteries; the Hermae had been mutilated. He who had done the one was clearly capable of the other. He had attended the Olympic games, and taken the first prize in the chariot race. His tent was more magnificent than that of any other. He was worshipped by the 276 Athens Athenian ladies, and, what was worse than all, he had out-manoeuvred all the old parliamentary hands and brought about the Argeian alliance. As for the Hermae, they were merely a number of sacred sign-posts, about the height of a man. The upper half was roughly carved into the head and bust of Hermes, and the lower half was a quadrangular column peculiarly decorated. Handed down from a barbarous antiquity, they were a vulgar anachronism in a civilized city, and whoever mutilated them was worthy of praise. One of these figures has lately been unearthed and set up in the new Stadion; but it should be removed to the Museum. One fine morning while Alkibiades was pacing the deck of his trireme and maturing his grand plans before Syracuse, a summons was brought requiring him to present himself at once for trial before the High Court of Justice for sacrilege. Several other suspects having already been put to death under similar impeachmentsj he judged it prudent to decline the invitation. So, while affecting to comply, and setting forth in his ship with the bearer of the summons, he and a few companions quietly slipped off the vessel as they were rounding the corner of Italy, and eluding search, made off. And now the extraordinary determination and resource of this brilliant Athenian are brought prominently to light. On being informed that he had been tried and condemned to death in his absence, he exclaimed : " I will show them that I am alive." Athens had virtually declared war against the in- dividual Alkibiades; and the individual Alkibiades accepted the challenge. They had " the ships, the men, 277 Down the Stream of Civilization and the money too," but he had the brains. And the brains won. The Syracusan expedition fell hopelessly to pieces in the hands of dear old Nikias. Lamachus fell in battle, as brave soldiers do, and as wise generals do not — as a rule. The army was well-nigh annihilated. The fleet was captured, the colonies and islands were cut off, Attica itself was invaded, and Athens licked the dust. Every move in the game was the direct work of Alkibiades. The proud democracy which had condemned him to death now implored him to return, as the only man alive capable of extricating them from their miseries. His reply stands on record as the most magnificently insolent rebuff ever administered by an individual to a State. Said he, " The democracy which condemned me to death is now by me condemned to death." Firm as a rock under every temptation to comply — weariness of exile, the entreaties of friends, his yearning to revisit the old home, and his true patriotism — he would not cede an inch. The democracy must die. The Athenians must drain the last dregs of humiliation, or the convict would not return. So the democracy was abolished and an oligarchy set up in its stead. Thus did the haughty Republic grovel at the feet of its extraordinary citizen. And the Piraeus witnessed another spectacle in which Alkibiades, after an exile of eight years, was for a second time the central figure. The sun shone on a trireme covered with gold and silver, wafted by sails of Tyrian purple, and followed by two hundred captive ships of war taken from the enemies. The chief Athenian actor pronounced the rowers' chant (perhaps not unlike the chant with which our young Keleustes urged his Arab oarsmen through 278 Athens the Cataract), the ablest minstrels played the homeward- bound air, and the whole populace of Athens again swarmed down between the Long Walls to accord the Convict a national welcome. The sentence of death against him was of course cancelled, even the saintly Eumolpidae were forced to revoke the curse they had pronounced on his head eight years before, and to pitch into the sea the slab of lead on which it was engraven. His confiscated property was all returned to him, and more also, and finally he was proclaimed Commander- in-Chief of the Athenian forces with full powers. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. No trial of strength between an individual and a nation has ever before or since ended in such an overwhelming victory for the One over the Many. And the story of Alki- biades would be resented as an exaggeration even of the bare possibilities had it emanated from the brain of a romancer. As we wended our way along the road to Athens all through the quiet streets of the sorrowing city these thrilling scenes of twenty-three centuries ago were vividly recalled. Suppose that, untrammelled by petty jealousies and by the devious machinations of cancerous priestcraft, this great Wielder of Men had been permitted to complete his design, and to weld all the Greek States into a Pan-Hellenic Confederacy; would Philip of Macedon then have broken them like scattered arrows ? Would even the Roman legions have prevailed against the vanquishers of Xerxes ? Above all, would the early blossoms of Pure Reason have withered before the freezing blast from the East, and lain blighted and sapless for a thousand years ? 279 Down the Stream of Civilization All these vain reflections were cut short at a turn in the road where the little Temple of Theseus came sud- denly in view. A short ascent to the Areiopagus, and then — the Acropolis ! 1 will make no attempt to describe this the most hallowed spot on the surface of the earth. Beautiful, almost faultless, the ruins stand, majestic in death. The Parthenon, the Propylsea, the Erechtheum, the little Temple of Wingless Victory (for had she not come to stay ?) are not the herculean and sombre strength-feats of the Aryan race in its raw youth, like the pyramids of Gizeh and the Temples of Karnak and Luxor : they are the finished productions of its full manhood. Mind rather than muscle was the architect of these graceful structures. And the setting is worthy of the jewels. The view from the summit of the rock, even apart from its associations, is lovely, with the fair city stretched on the plain at its foot, and the far encircling hills. The distant glimmer of Akro-Corinth across the water reminds us how small these Greek City States really were. And their lamentably short though glorious history is another proof, if proof were needed, of the instability of communal government. For administrative purposes decentralisation is excellent, but for legislative purposes it is fatal. When the old Amphictyonic Council, lost its vitality, and the small Hellenic States had each its own College Green Parliament (if I may use the expression to save time), independent of central control, Hellas was foredoomed, as none foresaw more clearly than Alkibiades. On the other hand, the intense local patriotism fostered by administrative independence gave an immense stimulus to art. A large socialistic 280 Athens community will never create anything worth pre- serving. Whether the music of this imaginative people was on a level with its architecture, its poetry, and its philo- sophy I do not know. The score of a hymn to THE ERECHTHEUM Orpheus is said to have been discovered and rendered by modern executants, but I have never heard it ; and much doubt whether the modern performance would rejoice the soul of the ancient composer if he could listen to it. Certain it is that some of the older melodies and recitatives to be heard at St. Peter's in Rome vividly recall the weird wailings of the dwellers in the desert. Moreover, our own Arabs confessed they 283 Down the Stream of Civilization could find no pleasure in the European piano recitals of Orlando and the Banker : but there might be another explanation of that ! Music, such as we know it — what may be called the music of harmony — is probably of recent and comparatively local growth. "Come along,"' said the 'Varsity Man one day: "let us go up Hymettus." " I think," said the Hon. Sec, " that I shall go up Lycabettus." " Like a what? " inquired the Warrior. In the end — for it was wintry weather, and the heights were covered with snow — Clare had to accompHsh the ascent of Hymettus alone. But the pre-Homeric cricket-balls which he collected near the summit turned out, on further inquiry, to be mere modern imitations, manu- factured by shepherds out of a substance which abounds in the district. The material of which these balls were made is white, and possesses the singular property, when brought down into the plain, of transmuting itself into water. This is no traveller's tale. I witnessed it with my own eyes, and am convinced there was no deception. It seems to lend colour to a long discredited story of the days of DeukaHon, when stones are said to have been transmuted into flesh and blood. Whether is it more probable, I ask, that this simple although unusual pheno- menon should have taken place, or that the thousands of spectators present, including the ladies and gentlemen themselves who had passed their early days in the form of stones, should all of them have been liars? What motive had they for palming off an untruth on unborn generations ? And, after all, is the metamorphosis really more wonderful than the transmutation of a hard white 284 Athens ball, without visible agency, into running water ? The fact is, modern criticism is becoming far too captious. Hypercriticism and scepticism are dangerously rife in all departments of inquiry. The story of the Sphinx is older than Greek history CARYATIDES itself. By a strange coincidence, this monster with the face of a woman and the body of a lion, took up her dreadful abode at Thebes. Her modus openifidi was to ask a riddle. This in itself is a most vexatious pro- ceeding. Failing a correct solution, the Sphinx devoured the citizens one by one. Nowadays it is the propounder of the riddle who usually dies ; then it was otherwise. When at length CEdipus found the correct solution he 285 Down the Stream of Civilization of course married the princess — at least he thought she was the princess, but really she was his mother; and the Sphinx, flinging herself headlong from the Citadel, was heard of no more. Why cannot chess-problem composers follow her noble example ? The stories of the Minotaur and the Sphinx point to very early Egyptian invasions of Greece, but otherwise there is very little similarity between the ancient religions of the two peoples. Both were based originally on ancestor-worship, and both eventually developed, by the hyperbolic adulation of the dead, into the worship of the powers of Nature, and especially of the Sun, the Giver of Life and Happiness. Finally, as the thoughts of men were widened, the Sun itself came to be regarded rather as a symbol of the Deity than as the Deity Himself. And naturally on each step forward somebody had to be poisoned or exiled or crucified or burnt. This is the ransom which Ignorance invariably extorts from Wisdom. It is unsafe to draw hasty conclusions from pre-historic legends; but the fact that the heroes of Greek myth were adored and idealised by their mortal successors seems to show that they were regarded as of the same race ; whereas the Semitic peoples refer to the precursors of men as Giants and Chins, or Jins (they are called Genies in the fairy boo^s), who are described as having yellow faces and elephants' ears. Who else can these Chins be, yellow-skinned and elephant-eared, but the Chinese, who drove them out of their native paradise to prowl for a living among the peoples of the southern climes? Again, the name Hellenes means, I think. Whites as opposed to Darkies. The word "Greek" 286 Athens possibly refers to the older inhabitants — but this is mere conjecture. i\ristotle says the inhabitants of Hellas were in old time called Greeks. Among primitive tribes, even in our own day, when the youngest son attains to man's estate, it falls to his duty THE PARTHENON to "tap the governor on the knob," as the Warrior ex- plained; in other words, to put a stop to the father's unduly protracted career. In the kindlier age this custom takes the form of proximogeniture, or the succes- sion of the youngest son to the government of the house- hold. A relic of this custom still prevails in England under the name of borough-English. It seems to have been pretty extensive among our Aryan ancestors, and 287 Down the Stream of Civilization therefore it may be worthy of note that Uranos, the first of the gods, was succeeded by Kronos, his youngest son, and Kronos was succeeded by his youngest son, Zeus. This was the natural order of succession in the domestic circle, before Houses became aggregated into Gentes or Clans. Afterwards the need for a fighting leader led the Clans and Tribes to select, not the youngest, but the ablest member ; and the eldest male relative succeeded to the deceased chief ; and so, through all the variations of Tanistry, we come down to the modern custom of primo- geniture. The Turks still adhere to this transitional form of succession by the eldest surviving brother. Hence the necessity under which a new Sultan labours of having to assassinate most of his brothers and uncles. To us it seems a rather cruel proceeding ; but " needs must when the devil drives," and, as the Hon. Sec. pertinently inquired, " What would jj^^?/ do? " It is pleasant to find Athens and her priceless treasures in the safe keeping of the Greeks, who regard them as heirlooms. There is hardly a stone on the Acropolis which does not date from the golden age. Yet, not many years ago, the classic rock was half-choked with Frankish, Venetian, and Turkish ruins, all jumbled together with those of Greece. Were the modern pro- prietors justified in eradicating all traces of intermediate history ? To some it may appear that the relics of Early Chris- tianity, of the Crusades, of the great trading Republics, of the Ottoman conquests, and of the spread of Islam, are as well worthy of preservation as those of the age of Perikles and Phidias. Then let such persons select typical places where each and all these predominate. 288 Athens Let them weed out of such places all things calculated to distract the attention from the particular structures which illustrate and commemorate the selected type. Let them set apart Carthage for the study and worship of the Phoenician period. Let Venice be kept sacred to the age of the Doges. If a Roman bath should be found in Stonehenge, let it be dug out and cast away as a modern intrusion. Let the stones of St. Margaret's ugly church, with all its irrelevant associations, be reverently carted away and deposited in the dustbin, leaving West- minster Abbey free from its jarring disconformity. Malta might well be dedicated to the militant Catholicism of the Middle Ages, just as Pompeii is and ever will be maintained without addition as a souvenir of the early Roman Empire. Ismail's hideous incongruity at the foot of Cheops' pyramid will probably fall ere long before the blast of public opinion. The whole plain of Thebes (in Egypt) should be swept clear of all buildings of date later than the Ramesids ; right round by the old walls with their hundred gates. And, above all, nothing should be left standing on the Acropolis of Athens which was not there before the invasion of Philip of Macedon. Most cities are associated, not more with one age than with another or many others. Rome, Paris, and London recall no particular period, or rather they recall many stirring times, and the deeds of many races and many ages. Let them alone. Some enthusiastic wiseacre had been airing these admonitions to our matter-of-fact party, as we were sitting on the Areiopagos, when Clare, with a view to a diversion, and not without malice, asked, " And what would you do with Llanwyddlanellipontyfechan ? " 291 Down the Stream of Civilization " Oh," chipped in the Hon. Sec, " that is a simple matter enough. I would build a high wall round it, fill it with bards, fit up a museum for old harps, invite the Eisteddfod to a session within, put Orlando at the head of the lot, and forbid any one of them to show his nose outside the walls again, on pain of instant death." ^^^^MMHliHHjInn. ■ TEMPLE OF JUPITER "Dear, dear," said the Warrior in consternation; " wouldn't you allow us to take in the Fink Un or the Rules of the B.V.C., or any other decent brain-wash — nothing but Y Werin? I think I should commit /^/<9-^(?- somebody elseT That is the worst of our fellows. You can never start a respectable, far-reaching, bed-rock argument, but it settles down into something like that. 292 Athens One day shortly after the above inane conversation we were dining in Athens, when by chance the Com. asked how it was that a British cruiser was left rocking about outside in a choppy sea instead of running into the shelterof the Piraeus. " Don't you know ? " replied our host; "why, British ships are not allowed to enter on account of the typhoid which has been raging there for weeks." This news required washing down with copious Chian, and next morning before daybreak we were steaming out of the old harbour, and making for the new Corinth Canal. A train dashed right over our mast as we passed beneath the bridge. The walls or cliffs, which are nearly as smooth and regular as school slates, would have offered a great temptation to our old friends the temple decorators of King Seti ; and even our modern mural artists, Pears and Beecham and Nestle and the rest of them, will not long leave them tabulce rasce. Ere long I expect to find Hector running round Troy pursued by Achilles in a pair of Waukenphast's boots, and Sappho quaffing nectar from an old Chelsea cup with a boiled ox in it. Even the Ten Commandments done on stone in Stephen's ink will not take my breath away; and if Cincinnatus is not discovered in the act of sowing Sutton's seeds I shall be positively disappointed. " For I dipped into the future far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be." The cruise from Corinth to Patras is what modern writers would, I suppose, call a symphony in blue and white. If they do not, they ought to be ashamed of themselves, for that is exactly what it is. 293 Down the Stream of Civilization On both sides the glittering white snow-peaks pierce the blue sky and the blue waves shake their white crests. Everywhere blue and white meet the eye, and no other colour disturbs its spiritual freshness — so different from the sensuous, iridescent glories of the Nile. Some- IN THE GULF OF CORINTH body made the usual remark about "nought but man being vile," and then we touched bottom off Cepha- lonia. The shock was only just enough to remind us that there was but a plank between us and eternity — just as though a plank were not as good as a hundred feet of granite on the top of an awakening earthquake —and to string up our nerves for the games which filled 294 Athens our saloon life, when " the curfew tolled the knell of parting day." When Jacko manipulated the curfew— which he frequently and joyfully did— both passengers and crew would look at their watches and shake their doubtful heads. 295 CHAPTER XIV THE VOICE OF VESUVIUS It was dusk when the Maria glided between Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla is a projecting rocky headland on the Italian side of the Straits of Messina, and Charybdis is a whirlpool near the Sicilian side. They do not now face each other precisely as in the days of Odysseus ; and the width of the Straits at the narrowest part is now over two miles across ; so that modern navigators smile at the Homeric bogie. But when the south east wind blew, Captain Smyth said he had himself seen several men-of- war whirled round on the surface of Charybdis; nor must we forget that straits are always widening or narrowing, and that whirlpools shift their positions considerably. It is, therefore, quite possible that in the Homeric age the straits were less than a mile in width, and that consequently Charybdis, nearly, or per- haps quite, faced Scylla, in which case the perils of the passage for ships of the period would have been formidable enough. The distant smoke of towering Etna, which we saw for miles, would lend an additional terror to the voyage, when you remember who was lying beneath. When we passed Stromboli, like a shadowy black 296 The Voice of Vesuvius pyramid standing in the sea, either it was closing-time among the giants, or Typhoeus, who owns the workshop below, had retired from business. No smoke was issuing from his furnace. One of the advantages of yachting is that you can choose your own time for arriving at a port, which you cannot do when you travel by the regular liners. Accordingly we contrived to enter the Bay of Naples at sunrise. The eastern sky was blood-red, and Vesuvius was a black silhouette outlined upon it. The volumes of smoke which issued from its summit were also black as jet. The pale green vault of heaven was still sprinkled with fading stars. Gradually the light increased and the colour changed. The island of Capri was bathed in a pink glow, and then the bay lay before us like a sea of sapphire. " Not bad," said the Hon. Sec, as he leaned over the gunwale. And it wasn't. "Duty first and pleasure afterwards," shouted the Com. some hours later. "Pompeii to-day and Vesuvius to-morrow." There is something inexpressibly mournful and eerie in wandering through the streets of this dead city. There stand the houses and shops on each side of the narrow lava-paved streets, the wineshops with holes in the counter for the pointed amphorae, the barbers', the bakers', the silversmiths', and the private residences of the rich. Pompeii was the Brighton of Rome. The waves of the sea once bathed its walls, now a mile away. Here is the house of Sallust; there stands the seaside villa of Cicero. This little temple was built by a gentleman 297 Down the Stream of Civilization named Celsinus, after the earthquake of 63 a.d. He dedicated it to Isis (heaven knows why), and sixteen years later he and his temple and the whole town were overwhelmed and buried by the boiling streams of water, ash, sand, and cinders which burst out of Vesuvius in the terrible year 79. Here we enter the Forum. It is paved with marble and adorned with marble statues. Near it stands the Temple of Venus— so it is called. Yonder is the Temple of Jupiter. In the oven of one bakehouse are some loaves of bread, still uneaten after 1820 years. Some people prefer stale bread. Many of the walls of the private houses are tastefully painted. Others are curiously painted ; but the fastidious are permitted to wait outside till everybody has passed, when they usually peep in alone. These are the County Councillors who feel it their duty to examine the backs of Zazel and Zeo in order to see that they are in proper repair ; and who put Boccaccio on the top shelf to keep it out of reach, but who forget to put the regulation layer of dust on its upper edges. Although Pompeii was covered only about fifteen feet deep in what the Italians call " lapilli," it is nevertheless true that its very site was absolutely lost sight of for many centuries, and was only rediscovered one hundred and fifty years ago. And it is even still more remarkable that the younger Pliny, who actually witnessed the eruption, nowhere mentions in his writings the destruction of this fashionable and populous place. Herculaneum, through which, or rather over which, we drove on our way from Naples, is never likely to be excavated, being covered with modern houses and warehouses. The very streets The Voice of Vesuvius of all the towns in the neighbourhood are paved with large quadrangular blocks of lava; and with such a reminder ever before their eyes, one would expect the inhabitants (if, indeed, there were any) to wear a sombre and anxious air, instead of which the Neapolitans are the A HOrSEIN POMPEII gayest people in the world. Yet why should dwellers near Vesuvius quake ? One old hermit lives in a hut on the very slope of the mountain. The mathematical chances against an eruption in his lifetime are far greater than against his death by old age or accident. The most ghastly and awful sight in Pompeii is the collection in what is most inappropriately called the 299 Down the Stream of Civilization Museum. Here the bodies discovered among the ruins are laid out just as they were found. They are of two kinds— skeletons and casts. At first, only the skeletons were exhumed; but it was afterwards found that the hollows from which they were abstracted remained intact in the lapilli, and that by pouring suitable plaster into the cavities through a small aperture, it was possible to obtain an accurate cast of the body with all its features and out- lines as completely modelled as on the day when it suc- cumbed to the cataclysm. Within these casts I need hardly say the skeletons are embedded. An old man lies on his face convulsively clutching at the rug on which he fell. A mother embraces her terror-stricken daughter. A little dog lies on his back writhing in agony. This model has frequently been used by sculptors. One figure stands there as sublimely grand as the burning mountain itself. It is that of a young Roman sentinel 071 duty, erect, unflinching, dauntless. The sculptor's art may give us numberless statues of fictitious heroes, but here is a petrifaction of living heroism, immortal as the gods. Although the streets of Pompeii were very narrow, the houses appear to have consisted of only one story, or at most of a stone ground-floor with a small wooden super- structure or garret for the slaves. Hence they were not gloomy. Equestrians, pe|-haps, might make their way along them, but for carriages it was impossible. At each crossing large stepping-stones are provided for foot- passengers, showing that streams of water probably flowed down the streets. We saw an old trough much worn away where the hands of many generations of water-carriers had leaned 300 The Voice of Vesuvius to draw water. The excavators were at work, well over- looked by officials to see that no new treasures find their way into wrong channels. But hardly half the town has yet seen daylight, and many more relics and mementos of the first century have still to be laid bare : though not perhaps the gold and silver which whet ihe appetite of the seekers. For there is reason to believe that the more valuable and portable works of art were exhumed shortly after the catastrophe by those who knew where to find them. And certainly no bodies have been discovered in the theatre, although it was full of spectators, when so dreadfully overtaken without a moment's warning. "Where was the tobacconist's?" asked the Warrior, looking ruefully at the fag-end of his last cigar. " The Romans did not smoke, sir," replied Louise : for that was the name of the intelligent and courteous gentleman who conducted us through the labyrinths of the city. " Why not ? " inquired the Warrior. " They had something better to do, sir," our guide answered, as he conducted us into a gaudy kind of tavern with a peculiar sign over the door. " Here, you see chalked up on the wall the score of some young Roman, who seems to have had a thirst somewhat longer than his purse." And there it was : and, what is still more realistic, on the walls outside may still be read the scribblings of the little vulgar boys, who then, as now, expressed their feelings and opinions on their neighbours' doorposts, but in Latin and Oscan. Centuries hence some spectacled archaeologist will be endeavouring to elucidate, with what knowledge of English he may possess, the meaning of " Bobby Smith is a cowrd an a orful bully," scribbled in charcoal on the 301 Down the Stream of Civilization recently unearthed portico of what is believed to have been the B.Y.C. or the Temple of Caissa. The curator of the Timbuctoo Museum will express the opinion that the last word clearly points to the worship of Apis in the England Isles ; and that Bobby was the mythical being supposed in those days to preside over the maintenance of law and order. A learned professor of ancient English will bring up his contingent, with the ingenious sugges- tion that " cowrd " is merely another form of the word crowd, and that the meaning of the whole passage is, " The God of Law and Order will disperse the crowd or populace to the glory of Apis." And there the matter will be left to rest. Next day was set apart for the ascent of Vesuvius — by launch across the bay to the nearest point on the coast ; by carriage as far as we could get ; then on horseback till the recent lava flow had rendered the bridle path im- passable ; then a short way on foot ; and finally (name it not in Gath !) by the funicular railway ! At the foot of the railway there is a refreshment-room, commodious and well supplied. But let that pass. We did not. Arrived at the summit, about 4000 feet above the sea, the pano- rama is said to be extremely fine. I say "is said to be," for on the occasion of our visit, though the mountain itself was bright and sunny, the far distance was dim and clouded. Vesuvius was distinctly restless, and vomited forth huge volumes of sulphurous smoke, or rather steam laden with scoriae and ash. The seismograph, however, indicated no immediate eruption. " By the way," said the Warrior, addressing the Lite- rary Failure, " that is your invention, isn't it ? " " I am not sure," replied Jus, " but if so, it must have 302 The Voice of Vesuvius been in a former existence ; for it is older than I am, in my present embodiment ; but perhaps you refer to the kinesigraph ? " " Ah ! " said Orlando, " I knew it was some kind of a graph. What is a seismograph when it is at home ? " VESUVIUS FROM POMPEII Jus kindly undertook to enlighten him. " I will tell you, if you will listen. It is a kind of instrument by which earthquakes forewarn people in time to make their escape. Man invented the instru- ment, but Vulcan obligingly makes use of it, I suppose Professor Milne knows as much about earthquakes as anybody; indeed, he may be said to be hand-in-glove with them. Ajid he says they are intimately connected 303 Down the Stream of Civilization with a variety of things, and notably with the marriage market and the drink bill. Says he : " Now suppose you land in Japan. You arrive at an hotel, where you find every comfort, and you see around you a number of globe-trotters, like yourself, from every country under heaven. They are mostly wealthy persons — globe-trotters generally are — here a millionaire New Yorker with his wife and daughters, here a German baron with his daughters, and here, perhaps, an Englishman with a similar retinue. You would like to know more of these people, to become more intimately acquainted with them. You go to bed, and fancy that you are still on the ocean wave, and that the vessel in which you are is rolling to an outrageous extent. Then you wake, and, as bits of the ceiling fall upon you, you scramble to your feet, and suddenly realise that you are enjoying an earthquake. Out of the door you rush, and you find in the corridor people as frightened as yourself, and in similar undress uniform. You go for the millionaires, and for their daughters, and perform prodigies of valour, and are ever afterwards regarded as a hero, and — if matrimony doesn't result from all that, it's your own fault. Again, earthquakes are directly responsible for the consumption of alcohol in the club at Tokio. You may be there enjoying a game of billiards, when sud- denly the balls begin to gyrate on the table, the lamps swing, the cues hanging in their tin cases on the walls are turned into pendulums, and there is a general stampede outside. Nerves, a.s well as walls, are shaken, for this is an earthquake, and no one knows what will happen next. Presently all is quiet once more, and the visitors gradually resume their calm and return to their 304 The Voice of Vesuvius quarters. But, before they can once more settle down into a contented frame of mind, immense quantities of stimulants are disposed of." You see, therefore, how important it is that we should be forewarned of approaching seismic convul- sions, and what a useful instrument the seismograph must be. " Dear, dear," exclaimed the Warrior, " that Professor seems to be pretty fly. Louisa says there have been a lot of modish weddings in Naples this week. Do you think we ought to be hurrying down ? " " We will have a look down the crater first," said Jus. All around us the ground was spread with primrose- tinted snow. So it seemed, but in reahty it was fine sulphur, which drifted and rippled, and in all ways be- haved exactly like snow. Underneath was a soft powdery dust or ash of a dark brown colour, into which our feet sank up to the ankles. The slope of the mountain is the natural mechanical angle of this substance ; so that although the incline is steep, any one disposed to do so can run from top to bottom without fear of a change of slope. I have marked the roll of distant cannon ; I have listened to the rumbling of thunder overhead, and to the moaning of the wind through the swaying pine-wood ; I have heard the muffled drums in the Dead March at a warrior's funeral ; but the solemn voice of Vesuvius sur- passes all. The melodious roar of the crater, as you bend over the brink, is like the thunder-pedal- note of a mighty organ, or the angry wrestling of the winds pent up in the cavern of ^olus — immense, mysterious. How 305 u Down the Stream of Civilization long we should have lingered there, spell-bound by that Titan oracle, I cannot say, for the fitful breeze veered about, and we had to hurry back to escape suffocation. Small stones, varying in size from marbles to eggs, fall from the sky and make little black holes in the yellow sulphur carpet. If one of the smaller ones should chance to fall on your head, you will regret having made the ascent ; but if you should be struck by one of the larger ones, you will experience no regret. In the words of the poet : " He smole a sickly sort of smile, and curled up on the floor, And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more." The descent was more rapid than the up-climb. After debarking from the funicular, we ran down the winding path through the rugged lava, and found our carriages in readiness. The drivers urged on the horses at a brisk canter, and we were pursued from top to bottom by a crowd of handsome boys on horses, donkeys, and legs. Those on foot took short cuts, tumbling down precipices, and bobbing out of unexpected crevices, when we thought them far behind. They were a joyous, boisterous gang, in glorious health and spirits, and quite willing to dis- encumber us of any superfluous small-change that might be burdening our pockets or our consciences. After dinner that evening we entertained on board the Maria a troupe of seventeen Neapolitan dancers and singers in their picturesque native costume. Or perhaps I should say they entertained us. There is plenty of go and spirit in the music of these Southerners ; they never sing or play out of tune, and their movements are naturally graceful, and at the same time dramatic. I could not help contrasting them with the " waits " of dear, dreary 306 The Voice of Vesuvius Old England. And now the question arises, " Are the English a musical nation ? " I have seen this question propounded in so many newspapers and magazines, in season and out of season, that I am heartily sick of it, and ashamed even to state it. I will, however, undertake to furnish the answer, and set the matter at rest once and for ever, on one condition. Let me see a scratch com- pany of English peasants or artisans sing, dance, and play as well, or half as well, as the Italians, and I will consent at once that we are a musical nation. Till then I say nothing, while readily admitting that " the waits " have many merits and even virtues — so long as they keep quiet and don't make a noise. I have no doubt there is much to be said for the howling dervishes— when they are fast asleep or well out of hearing. Next day we sailed across to Capri to see the wonderful blue cave. It is a cave, but it is neither wonderful nor blue. Still it is well calculated to amuse the frivolous ; and therefore Jus raised no objection to the expedition. " It will cheer the boys up," he said. " They cannot always be studying archaeology and ethnography." The yacht was stopped by the demons of the cave about a mile from the entrance, in order that the visitors might sample the nice little Caprian boats which ply in these waters. They are great fun. The sea was rough — that is for the small rowing boats, which playfully capsize unless you are careful in getting in and out, and which rapidly fill with water in any case. After a mauvais quart d^heure, the cave is entered. Any one with a stream or pond in his garden can make one with the like wonderful properties. He has only to build himself a grotto or shed on the margin, into which little or no light 307 Down the Stream of Civilization is permitted to enter through the air. Let him whitewash the walls of the grotto or dungeon, and allow the water to flood the floor to the depth of some feet, and the thing is done. The sunlight, bafiled in its efforts to get inside in the usual way, will dive in under the water. The law of refraction will operate in its ordinary prosaic and hum- drum fashion : the lower rays of the spectrum will wait outside, while the more flexible and frivolous blue and violet rays will duck under the doorway and tint the bathers within. Everything above the water will appear black. The bottom edge of the door should dip into the water only an inch or two. I have reason to believe that the peep-show rather pleased the younger members of the expedition. 308 CHAPTER XV THE ETERNAL CITY On New Year's Day the Com. transferred the command of the Maria to Jacko. We all bade farewell to the sea, and proceeded, like Lars Porsena, on our way for Rome. I do not remember how many gods we swore by, but somehow or other our provision hamper got left behind on the landing-stage. The Hon. Sec. said it was all the Warrior's fault, but the Warrior declared it was entirely due to the carelessness of the Hon. Sec. Seeing that one of the two must be sinning, the rest of us were naturally grieved and a little depressed. The steward of the Maria is good at making up luncheon baskets. We reached the Eternal City at precisely A f b, Roman time. Let A stand for the hour, and b for the number of minutes past the hour ; and the answer will give you the right time. Having worked out this easy "sum," you will see that it was too late to explore anything more venerable than the Grand Hotel, which, although not so ancient as the Temple of Remus, is nevertheless the best and most comfortable inn in the world. I use the word inn advisedly ; for to my mind it savours of all that is good in the resting-house of the wayfarer, while hotel recalls 309 Down the Stream ot Civilization everything that is odious. At the Grand nothing is odious. In the days of our grandfathers and Charles Dickens, inn-life was pleasant and picturesque. To-day hotel-life is the type of the pessimist's world of shams, swindles, and racket. Next morning we were up with the woodpecker. In our country the lark is the bird by which we time our uprising; but in Rome it is the woodpecker. Had it not been for the woodpecker, Rome would never have existed. The wolf had suckled Romulus and Remus and done her best for them, but she was a poor judge of farinaceous food, and the weaned kinglets required bread-and-butter. Perceiving this, the woodpecker brought their meals regularly until the old farmer found them and took them home to his wife. As that lady already enjoyed the privilege of providing for a dozen sons of her own, she deserves great credit for accepting the care of the twins from the wolf's lair. Their real mother was Rea Silvia, or Naughty Silvia. She was one of the Vestal Virgins and was flung with her twins into the Tiber, when, nothing daunted, she married a merman and lived happily ever after. The twins were washed up at the foot of the Palatine Hill, where they were rescued by the good she- wolf. The boys grew up so brave and beautiful that when they accidentally^ appeared one day before the father of Silvia, he naturally recognised them as his own grandsons, and they went and built Rome. The old man dwelt at Alba. Him they placed upon the throne in the stead of his brother, whom they slew. Then Romulus slew Remus and set up two thrones : one for himself and the other for his brother's ghost ; 310 The Eternal City and that is the true origin of the kingdom of Rome. Modern historians throw doubt on its accuracy. They affect to disbeheve that Mars was the father of the twins. They pretend that Naughty Silvia, not being supplied with gills, could not have lived under water — ^just as DAUGHTERS OF REA SILVIA though there were not myriads of mermaids in the sea to this day. They declare that no wolf would regard a couple of babies as other than a providential breakfast ; and I hey even go so far as to hint that the farmer knew more about them than he cared to disclose. I have no patience with these carping wiseacres. They have robbed us of King Arthur and his Round 311 Down the Stream of Civilization Table, of bold Robin Hood and his merry men, of William Tell and the apple ; and unless something is done to put a stop to them, they will some day make away with Moses and the bulrushes. I like old Romulus : he is the first Roman I ever heard of; and I used to think, and still think, it was very nice of him to build a throne for his brother's ghost. Slaying him was perhaps not so brotherly ; but what are you to do when you are building a wall (Romulus murum edificabat), and your brother comes and jumps over it just to show what a potty little wall it is ? Besides, we must not forget that Remus was the best king the Romans ever had. Ghosts are. They never do anything wrong. They leave their subjects free to manage their own concerns without interminable State interference. If I were the Russians, I would have a ghost for the next Czar. Even the Nihilists would respect him ; and even if they rebelled, what could they do ? Dynamite is powerless against ghosts. And as for our English Socialists, my own belief is they would all skedaddle if they saw a ghost gliding after them. One thinks of these things in the old Forum by moon- light ; and in the shadowy Colosseum. The gigantic pile, 1 60 feet high, with its eighty doors, or voffiitaria, as the Romans inelegantly termed them, is an ellipse about one stadium in length and somewhat less in width. It was at one time rapidly disappearing owing to the greed of a people who had no further use for it, except as a stone-quarry, when a wise pope arrested its destruction by dedicating what was and is left of it to the memory of the Christian Martyrs who perished within its walls in the days of l^iocletian. The worst of Rome — or the best of it — is that you cannot turn a corner without 312 The Eternal City running up against some relic of bygone times. Here is a temple of the days of the kings, when Mars and Minerva ranked above Jupiter. Here is a monument to Victor Emmanuel and his entry into Rome after centuries of dismembered Italy. Here is the square where some modern martyr was burned alive to satiate the implacable hatred of those who could not endure his astronomy. Here is the spot where Tiberius Gracchus was butchered by the Senators in broad daylight ; and there, across the river, the little temple where his brother Caius fell by the hand of his obedient and faithful slave. As we wander along the Sacred Way, we pass the Tarpeian Rock on our left. Tarpeia lived at the wrong time. The Sabines and Romans of her day did not admire young women who sell their country or their honour — or both— for golden bracelets. " If," said she to the enemy outside the gates, " you will promise me the ornaments you all wear on your left arms, I will open the gates to you by night." They agreed, and she opened the gates and demanded her reward. They seem to have mistaken her meaning, and flung to her, not their bracelets, but their shields, under the weight of which she died. And a good riddance ! The Romans were rather rough as lovers, as we know from the story of the thirty Sabine ladies, but they made excellent husbands, or the brides would not have rushed in at the peril of their lives between raging brothers and furious husbands to save themselves from being rescued. They no more wanted to be rescued than Emin Pasha did when Mr. Stanley dragged him out of his com- fortable African home by the hair of his head. Touching 3^3 Down the Stream of Civilization marriage, I wonder what English wives would think if a distinguished Cabinet Minister got up at a public meeting and harangued the crowd in the words of Q. Metellus Macedonicus thus : "If, Romans, we could do without wives, we should avoid much trouble ; but since Nature has so arranged that we can neither live happily with them, nor live at all without them, we ought to consider the lasting welfare of the State rather than our own brief happiness." Tolerably matter-of fact this for a Roman Censor at a solemn lustration over two thousand years ago! And now we are passing the spot where Virginias stabbed his pretty little daughter to save her from the evil eye of Appius Claudius. " Then clasp me round the neck once more and give me one more kiss ; And now, mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this. With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the side. And in her blood she sank to earth and with one sob she died." But that one blow overthrew the Ten Tyrants. I went to see the place where Horatius kept the bridge in the brave days of old. It is wofully disappointing. I almost wished I had notsgone. A narrow sluggish stream gurgles along where once the swollen Tiber dashed. I suppose the water has been drawn off to supply the needs of a great city. Now to the sacred spot where Ceesar fell. " If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle. I remember The Eternal City The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 'Twas on a summer's evening in his tent, That day he overcame the Nervii." I vSuppose Mark Antony's speech has indeUbly coloured this part of Roman history for EngHshmen. Was Brutus right or wrong ? Patriot or assassin ? The great dramatist has for the majority of us answered it for all time. On Sunday we attended the service at St. Peter's. In no other temple on the face of the earth have the arts so powerfully combined to exalt the religious sentiment. The magnificent architecture, the gorgeous frescoes, marbles, paintings, and stained glass ; the solemn music, the sensuous incense, the rich vestments of the sacer- dotal hierarchy from pontiff to acolyte; the majesty of the whole combination, together with the old and splendid associations of the heart and throne of Catholicism, are overwhelmingly impressive. Modern philosophers and men of science, with all their logical acuteness and profound reasoning, will never subjugate the minds of the people until they learn to appeal not only to the intellect but to the emotions and even to the senses of their hearers. What chance has the dull cold tongue of sober Truth against the eloquent influences of " The high embowed roof With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light ; There let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced choir below. In service high and anthems clear As may with sweetness through mine ear Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heaven before mine eyes." Down the Stream of Civilization Who that has paused to listen to the prattle of the clear-headed and honest sophist in Hyde Park with greasy coat, tall hat, and outstretched, disputatious arm, has ever felt his soul stirred within him, as when wandering through thi^ sumptuous fane, his eye is held captive by the godlike face of Jesus Christ raising Lazarus — the masterpiece of Maratus, and, as I think, of his age. The mind of man is complex. The Vatican (as we briefly call it) is an oppressive mixture of beauty and ughness, of wisdom and folly. Many of the paintings have nothing but their moderate antiquity to recommend them. Some of them are both stupid and vulgar, while others are execrable drawings redeemed by exquisite colouring. There is something incongruous in the transformation of the palace of the High Priest into a workshop for the rather common- place manufacture of cheap mosaics. Still the craft is an interesting one, the workers are skilful, and the trade is lucrative. The Sistine Chapel is like '34 port. It doubtless deserved all that was said about it by those who knew it in its prime, and by those who sheepishly rave about it now that it has lost its savour. Weather and economy have together made havoc of the wonderful work of Michael Angelo. The orange-trees in the Pope's garden are all blood oranges. His carriages, some of them the gifts of emperors, are costly and gorgeous, but whether the Galilean Carpenter would have found them to his taste is another question. Autre temps^ autres mceurs. It is the poor who declaim about the poor man's rights, and the down- trodden who believe (honestly believe) in liberty. But there is an old saying, " Set a beggar on horseback 316 The Eternal City and he will ride to the devil." Let but the masses climb into power and all the old shibboleths about freedom are cast to the winds. The tyranny of the One is a feather- weight compared with the tyranny of the Many. In the hour of prosperity how many of us profit by the lessons of THE VATICAN GARDENS adversity? If Tarquin chastised his people with rods, the Republican leaders thrashed them with scorpions. If Louis, the self-beloved, slew his tens, Robespierre, the Man of the People, slew his thousands. Look to it, you Britons, who will never be slaves : you can hardly chop faggots now without a licence or plough a furrow without a Government certificate. The history of the rise and triumph of the Christian 317 Down the Stream of Civilization Church is the history of the decHne and fall of the Roman Empire. Of the early days of the new sect we know next to nothing, except that they adopted the princi{)les of communism or socialism. No Christian could call anything his own, " but they had all things in common," as we read in. the Acts of the Apostles. How far this communistic principle was carried- we gather chiefly from their enemies, but also to some extent from themselves. The learned Christian Tertullian describes the love-feast (Agape) in language which must not be repeated. St. Chrysostom says, "When that equality of possessions ceased, as it did even in the Apostles' time, the Agape, or love-feast, was substituted in the room of it." We are told that " these love-feasts during the first three centuries were held in the church without scandal or offence, but in after times the heathen began to tax them with impurity. This gave occasion to a reformation of these Agapes : the kiss of charity, with which the ceremony used to end, was no longer given between different sexes, and it was expressly forbidden to have any beds or couches. Notwithstanding these precautions, the abuses committed in them became so notorious that the holding them (in churches at least) was solemnly condemned at the Council of Carthage in the year 397." I decline to cite any but Christian evidence in support of these charges. But I may be allowed to quote a passage from the great historian Tacitus, and an edict of the Emperor Hadrian. According to the latter, any person falsely charging a fellow citizen with the crime of Christianity was to suiTer the capital penalty. What must the charge have amounted to? Says Tacitus, describing the punishments inflicted on a few members 3'8 The Eternal City of the sect by Nero — it will be remembered that they were not unreasonably suspected of setting fire to the city, with fearful results— "Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and exposed to the fury of dogs; others, again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The guilt of the Christians deserved, indeed, the most exemplary punishment, but the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration." In those days the majority of the Christians were members of the Jewish race, and branded with the mark of the Jewish faith. Tacitus is universally admitted to be a cultured and impartial contemporary historian, and he describes how "for awhile this dire superstition was checked ; but it again burst forth, and not only spread itself over Judaea, the first seat of this mischievous secty but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum of whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. ^^ Suetonius also refers to Christianity as "a new and maleficent superstition." With such external and internal evidence before him, the candid critic will hesitate before passing a sweeping condemnation on rulers who were conspicu- ously tolerant of all religious creeds and practices except such as tended to undermine the morals and the social life of the people. Moreover, we are forbidden to do so by the Christian victims themselves, who have expressed in the strongest and most emphatic terms their own unqualified approval of the " persecutions." " Had we been in Nero's place," they have told us, " or armed with the powers of Decius, we would have behaved as Nero and Decius behaved." " Impossible ! " cries the reader. " When and where did 319 Down the Stream of Civilization the Christian Church ever give utterance to such impious folly?" We shall see. Actions, it is admitted, speak louder than words. Well, the Church did climb into Nero's place ; in his very garden stands the palace of the Vatican. Let us gUde quickly down fifteen centuries and look around. It is now the 17th February i6oo. "A vast concourse of people is assembled in the largest open space in Rome, gathered together by the irresistible sympathy which men always feel with whatever is terrible and tragic in human existence. In the centre stands a huge pile of faggots ; from its logs and branches rises a stake. Crowding round the pile are eager and expectant faces, men of various ages and of various character, but all for one moment united in a common feeling of malignant triumph. Religion is about to be avenged ; a heretic is coming to expiate on this spot the crime of open defiance to the Church — the crime of teaching that the earth moves, and that there is an infinity of worlds. The stake is erected for ' the maintenance and defence of the Holy Church, and the rights and liberties of the same.' Whom does the crowd await ? Giordano Bruno, the poet, philosopher, and heretic, the teacher of Galileo's heresy, the open antagonist of Aristotle. A hush comes over the crowd. The procession solemnly advances, the soldiers peremptorily clearing the way. His face is placid, though pale. They offer him the crucifix; he turns aside his head ; he refuses to kiss it. The heretic ! They show him the image of Him Who died upon the cross for the sake of the living truth ; he refuses the symbol. A yell bursts from the multitude. They chain him to the stake. He remains silent. Will he not pray 320 The Eternal City for mercy? Will he not recant? Now the last hour has arrived, will he die in his obstinacy, when a little hypocrisy would save him so much agony ? It is even so. He is stubborn, unalterable. They light the faggots : branches crackle ; the flame ascends ; the victim writhes — and now we see no more. The smoke envelops him, but not a prayer, not a plaint, not a single cry escapes him. In a little while the wind has scattered the ashes of Giordano Bruno." It is but a short walk from the palace of the Vatican in the old gardens of Nero, stained^ with the blood of the first Christian martyrs, to the square where now stands the statue of Bruno. As we gazed on his steadfast countenance we could hear the groans of the human torches which illumined Nero's chariot race, and the malignant yell of Bruno's murderers, " Well done, thou good and faithful Nero ! May we do likewise, standing in your place ! " "Where shall we go to-night?" asked the Com. on the last day of our sojourn in Rome. The question was a difficult one to answer. Rival attractions were manifold. " The Colosseum by moonlight would be my choice," said Clare. "I think," said Jus, "I shall go to the service at St. Peter's." "Oh, let us all keep together," chimed in the Hon. Sec. It was now the Warrior's turn to speak. He was evidently bursting with zeal. He had a proposition to make. Usually he allowed himself to be guided by others in the selection of the subject of antiquarian or other research. But this time he was evidently bene on showing his power of initiative. 321 X Down the Stream of Civilization "I say, you fellows," he began, "have you ever seen Fregoli ? I see from the hoardings that he is on at the theatre. He's rippin' if you have not seen him. I saw him in London, and I would not miss seeing him again for a jorum of Monopole. I'll stand the box." Unfortunately for Clare, the moon was too young to be of much use, and the clouds were dripping wet. Jus's plan did not fit in with the dinner-hour. Len's lens went to bed at sunset, after which its owner was indiffe- rent; and the Com., as usual, was compliant. So we actually spent our last evening in the Eternal City at a music hall, listening to the prattle of Fregoli, and watch- ing him change his clothes with lightning rapidity. True, Orlando stood the entertainment, as he promised. No- body else could stand it. But somehow the price of it got mixed up in the general account, as such things do. However, it came to an end ; and the only question is whether I am morally bound to record our lapse and shame. I do so as a warning to Other philosophers to be careful in what company they travel in search of wisdom and beauty. 322 CHAPTER XVI HOMEWARD All the members of the expedition were now agreed that if, after this, they did not know all about civiliza- tion they never would; and it was therefore decided to return by easy stages to the mother country for the preparation of the Departmental Reports. At Pisa we tarried one day in order to ascertain, if possible, why the tower does not obey the law of gravitation — a law imposed by the Tyrant Newton on falling bodies, such as the moon and the House of Lords. We came to the conclusion that the tower was the exception which proves the rule, thereby vindicating the honour of Newton against the attacks of engineers, scoffers, and other architects. It was at Pisa that Galileo imposed a law on falling bodies which, though not so drastic as that of his English successor, was yet felt to be an invasion of the liberties of the object, if not of the subject. His modus operandi was to drop stones of various sizes on to the heads of passers-by from the overhanging battlement of the tower, and to watch the effects of the impact. I myself, when a mere boy, independently devised this experiment, for which I take some credit to myself; but my position of vantage was the bough of an oak-tree 323 Down the Stream of Civilization overhanging a deep lane in Yorkshire. The results were eminently satisfactory, but I have since learnt, on the authority of Charles Darwin and Sindbad the Sailor, that the process was well known to our remote ancestors. Says Sindbad : " We came to a great forest of trees, extremely straight and tall, and their trunks so smooth that it was not possible for any man to climb up to the branches that bore the fruit. All the trees were cocoa- trees, and when we entered the forest, we saw a great number of apes of several sizes that fled as soon as they perceived us, and climbed up to the tops of the trees with surprising swiftness. . . . The apes threw cocoa- nuts at us so fast, and with such gestures, as sufficiently testified their anger and resentment." * It appears, there- fore, that neither Galileo nor myself can claim originality in this process : but then it is said that some of the greatest modern discoveries and inventions have been anticipated by the ancients and afterwards forgotten. According to the eminent theologian, Mr. W. B. Wood- gate, gunpowder was employed by Joshua in the overthrow of the walls of Jericho. Joshua is said to have borrowed the material, together with the knowledge of its use, from the Chinese. Printing, again, though vulgarly attributed to Gutenberg, was a flourishing industry thousands of years ago on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris. Among the ruins of Babylon have been discovered numerous tablets printed — that is to say, manifolded from a single block — all over with hieroglyphics. After a busy day at Genoa we crossed the frontier at Ventimiglia, where we all had to get out of the train to * Scheherazade's Eighty-fourth night. 324 Homeward see to the examination of our luggage by the cunning Frenchman whose business it is to take care that none of his fellow countrymen import foreign wares without paying his own Government for the privilege of paying the foreign manufacturer. This looks like a subtle GALILEO'S POST OF VAXTAGE method of cheating oneself, but as the French seem to like it, I have no right to complain. They also have an amiable trick of giving us Englishmen a small present ot money with every pound of sugar we buy from them. This is distinctly kind, and entitles them to the thanks of all classes in our country — except perhaps the sugar merchants and West Indian planters. But these make noise enough for the whole island. 325 Down the Stream of Civilization Sometimes the douane authorities are in a hurry ; and so it was on this occasion. One bag only was singled out for inspection. It happened to belong to the Warrior. Then one portmanteau was singled out. It also happened to belong to the Warrior. We were happily privileged to listen to, and profit by, the disquisition on justice to which he treated all concerned. Being deli- vered in English, it was, I fear, lost on the smiling gentle- man chiefly responsible for it. Both packages proving innocent, all our effects were promptly whisked into the train for Mentone without more ado. Perhaps, by way of pointing a moral, I ought to mention that one of the unexplored trunks contained no less than fourteen pounds of English tobacco ; and if I refrain from doing so, it is simply because it is not true. Our boxes contained no tobacco, nor any other dutiable article. Hence the desired moral could be drawn from the facts only at the expense of veracity. Whether morality is worth what it costs formed the subject of one of those luminous debates between the Warrior and the Hon. Secretary which want of space alone compels me to suppress. Suffice it to say that no unanimous conclusion was reached. Each dispu- tant clung to the opinion with which he set out. How different it is when Jus and the Com. dispute, or rather reason together ! So strong are their respective arguments that each converts the other. Consequently they are constrained to begin it all over again, with the final result that both are again convinced, and so end where they started. Why cannot the baser sort profit by this beautiful example ? It is a pity that we stayed ten days at Mentone on our return, for that fair retreat is in dangerous proximity to 326 Homeward Monte Carlo, the temptations of which exercised a bane- ful effect on the Warrior's studies. The Hotel Cap Martin is situated amid bewitching scenery. The soft sensuousness of the sweet South pervades everything, even its vegetation. The smooth, rounded limbs of the RIENTONE FROM THE SEA plane-trees and acacias, and the listless droop of the palm-leaves contrast strikingly with the gnarled oaks and rugged pines of the North. But a prolonged diet even of nectar and ambrosia palls, and in the luscious orange- groves one is apt to yearn for the robust waywardness of the apple-trees of Old England's orchards. It is impos- sible to exaggerate the blueness of the great midland sea. Painters have been charged with the offence, but only by 327 Down the Stream of Civilization those who do not know. Even the transcendent posters of the starch-vendors must be acquitted, although, if it is not actionable to say so, their blue is of the wrong tint. The peasants of the Mediterranean lands are mostly picturesque and always lazy. Some of them, I regret to say, are also dirty — though not quite so dirty as the corduroyed rulers of England. Perhaps the Riviera, take it for all in all, has but one fault, and that is the pardonable fault shared by toffy and Tom Moore — it is too sweet. Sweet blossoms, sweet wines, sweet faces — all is sweet in these lands of milk and honey. But the reader is not concerned with our lotus- eating days of lazy dreaming. Science is his aim in perusing these didactic pages. It is enough to say that, retracing our steps to Genoa, we went to Milan, and thence, without a single halt, to London. Thus ended in the year 2651 a.u.c. a scientific expe- dition planned with the utmost sagacity, carried through with conspicuous ability, and fraught with inestimable benefit to unborn generations, more especially to all such as may be endowed with the intelligence to demand, and the means to buy, this Record of its Transactions. The reports of my learned, gallant, and more or less honour- able colleagues are in course of preparation, and will be laid before the public in the fulness of time — that is to say, as soon as the butterman's stock of wrappers is run out. They comprise, as I have already forewarned my readers, a rapid but exhaustive analysis of the world's art, by the Hon. Sec, illustrated by Len's lens ; a novel and compendious review of the world's laws, from the first law of motion to the last by-law of the B.Y.C., by our Legal Luminary; a bulky volume of statistics showing 328 Homeward the population of the world at the most important eras,* and furnishing an answer to the question, " Is life worth living ? " by the Com. ; a thrilling economic monograph by the Rich Banker, explaining how money circulates, has circulated, and ever will circulate, under varying THE LAST COMMITTEE MEETING conditions, and more particularly in periods of panic, poker, and other commercial crises ; a synoptic view of the evolution of sport, by the 'Varsity Man ; and, finally, a complete military atlas, by the Wily Warrior, containing * He is of opinion that the population of the world at the Adamite era may be roughly estimated at One ; and that at the present day it probably amounts to considerably more. Other eras he regards as of no importance. — Ed. 329 Down the Stream of Civilization plans of all the great battlefields of civilization, from the Trojan War to the fight between Peter Jackson and Jem J Jeffries in the present year. 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The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels ; And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down. The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge. Hor. Is it a custom ? (3 Ham. Ay, marry is 't ; *^ But to my mind, though I am native here ':S And to the manner born, it is a custom *§ More honour'd in the breach than the observ- ^ ance. '** This heavy-headed revel east and west [blamed '§ Makes us traduc'd and tax'd* of other nations : ^^ i They clepe* us drunkards, and with swinish [call ^ "^ phrase § "^ Soil our addition*; and indeed it takes [title "^ § From our achievements, though perform'd at "^ ^ height, *v5 "^ The pith and marrow of our attribute. .« g So, oft it chances in particular men, ^ That for some vicious mole of nature in them, ^ 1:2 As, in their birth— wherein they are not guilty, § Since nature cannot choose his origin— "^ 2 By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,* [natural disposition Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason. Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens The form of plausive manners, that these men, Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect. Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,— Their virtues else— be they as pure as grace. 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Small ^vo^ cloth, price is. each Volume, post free is. 2d. ' ' The more Science advances, the more it becomes concentrated in little books." — Leibnitz. I. THE STORY OF THE STARS. By G. F. Chambers, F.R.A.S., Author of " Handbook of Descriptive and Practical Astronomy," &c. With 24 Illustrations. ' ' Mr Chambers writes in a vigorous and attractive style, and shows himself able to combine to an uncommon degree scientific accuracy of statement with a clear and attractive exposition. Beginners in astronomy who wish to acquaint themselves merely with the outlines of a noble science will find this volume of real service." — Speaker. "Told in a pleasing and attractive manner." — Athenceum. II. THE STORY OF PRIMITIVE MAN. By Edward Clodd, Author of " The Story of Crea- tion," &c. With 88 Illustrations. " It possesses the chief qualities that go to make a good book for the average man." — Nature. "Well printed, well bound, profusely illustrated, and in every respect capital material, on one of the most progressive of sciences." — Daily Chronicle. III. THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. By Grant Allen. With 49 Illustrations. ' ' A brightly written, clear and accurate summary of the functions and habits of plants." — Daily Chronicle. "The whole book is excellent, but special praise is due to his exposition of the relations existing between plants and insects. Many chapters of the story he tells must prove to the uninitiated as exciting as a romance." — Aberdeen Free Press. IV. THE STORY OF THE EARTH IN PAST AGES. By H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., Professor of Geology, Geography, and Mineralogy in King's College, London. With 40 Illustrations. " A simple and popular summing up of the results that have been reached by geological science." — Scotsman. "Told plainly and pleasantly for a popular audience." — Bookman. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. The Library of Useful Stories. V. THE STORY OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. By G. F. Chambers, F.R.A.S. With 28 Illustrations. " His descriptions possess the double quality of simplicity and at- tractiveness," — Nature. " He repudiates the idea that unless a man can command a big telescope he is not in a position to do useful work in astronomy. . . . The little volume is an admirable example of science made easy with- out the sacrifice of strict accuracy of statement." — Speaker. VI. THE STORY OF A PIECE OF COAL. By E. A. Martin. With 38 Illustrations. " Treated with wonderful skill, simplicity, and thoroughness." — Bookseller. ' ' Explains in simple and delightful fashion what coal is, whence it comes, and whither it goes, and in the concluding chapters shows how intimately it is connected with the interests of the botanist, the geologist, the physicist, the chemist, and the merchant." — Bradford Observer. VII. THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY. By J. MuNRO, Joint Author of " The Pocket-book of Electrical Rules and Tables." With 100 Illustrations. ' ' Just the kind of book to give the general reader more correct views of the subject than many a pretentious tome." — The Electrical Engineer. ' ' For general interest we must pronounce the little book without a peer, style and matter being alike excellent." — Glasgow Daily Mail. "A handy little book which has certainly the great merit of being up to date. We anticipate a large demand for the book." — Electricity. VIII. THE STORY OF EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. By R. E. Anderson, M.A., contributor to Chambers' Encyclopaedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Dic- tionary of National Biography, &c. With Maps. ' ' The author has performed a much needed service in a masterly manner. . . . We have nothing but praise for the work." — Literary World. ' ' An admirable compendium of a department of knowledge which has been greatly advanced by the research of recent years." — Aberdeen Free Press. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. The Library of Useful Stories. IX. THE STORY OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. By M. M. Pattison Muir, M.A., Fellow and Prae- lector in Chemistry of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. "One of the most perfect popular introductions to science extant," — British Medical Journal. ' ' Prof. Muir tells an enthralling story of the wonderful transforma- tions of matter under the chemist's magic wand. Ignoring formulae he appeals in homely phrase to the imagination of the reader." — /fi'nowlecl^e. X. THE STORY OF FOREST AND STREAM. By James Rodway, F.L.S., Author of " In the Guiana Forest," &c. With 27 Illustrations. "Contains a short description of a tropical forest, together with some elementary lessons which can be learned by studying the in- cessant struggle for existence of its varied flora." — Academy. "A noteworthy addition to the series in which it appears." — Scols- man. XI. THE STORY OF THE WEATHER. By G. F. Chambers, F.R.A.S., of the Inner Temple, Author of "Story of the Stars," &c. With 50 Illustrations. "An interesting volume about weather, and especially English weather, and presents facts, ideas, and suggestions which ordinary people will be glad to know." — St James s Budget. " Shows how the weather forecasts are drawn up at the Meteoro- logical Office, explains the construction and use of the various meteorological instruments, describes the nature and causes of such phenomena as the aurora borealis, and gives a collection of weather facts and signs." — Literary World. XII. THE STORY OF THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE. By Douglas Archibald, M.A., Fellow and some- time Vice-President of the Royal Meteorological Society, London. With 44 Illustrations. ' ' One of the best of the Story series that we have read . . . the author is frequently able from his wide travels to illustrate his remarks from his own personal experience in climates where meteorological manifestations can be witnessed on a grander scale than in our own country. " — Nature. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. The Library of Useful Stories. XIII. THE STORY OF GERM LIFE : Bacteria. By H. W. Conn. With 34 Illustrations. "Though a popular work, the Story of Germ Life, as told by Prof. H. W. Conn, is so admirable for its lucidity, terseness, and the author's grasp of the subject that it may be recommended to anyone who is desirous of becoming acquainted with the general features of bacterial life and the baneful and beneficial results of microbic growth and development. The Story of Gerrn Life is told in six chapters wherein, after dealing with their morphology, the uses of bacteria in the arts and industries, their importance for dairying and agriculture, and their relation to disease are described. Not the least interesting and important part of the work is that which touches on immunity, antitoxins, and preventative medicine." — Journal of Royal Microscopi- cal Society, XIV. THE STORY OF THE POTTER. An account of the rise and progress of the principal manufactures of Pottery and Porcelain. By C. F. BiNNS. With 57 Illustrations. " One of an admirable semi-scientific series, and describes the development of one of the oldest and most picturesque industries in the world." — Bradford Observer. " Instructive and useful little book." — Western Mercury. ' ' We can recommend the whole volume to all who care to know something of one of the oldest and most universal of human arts." — Guardian. XV. THE STORY OF BRITISH COINAGE. By G. B. Rawlings. With 108 Illustrations from Coins in the British Museum. ' ' An excellent little handbook of a subject which should have an attraction for many Englishmen, even though they are not very ardent students of numismatics in general." — Times. "An admirable book, for which no praise could be too high. It would make a capital comment on the history of England." — Scotsman. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS, The Library of Useful Stories. XVI. THE STORY OF LIFE IN THE SEAS. By Sydney J. Hickson, D.Sc, F.R.S., Professor of Zoology in the Owen's College, Manchester. 42 Illustns. ' ' Prof. Hickson is assuredly to be congratulated on the very able manner in which he has acquitted himself of his task. In the course of eight chapters, written in pleasant and unaffected style, he gives a fairly complete sketch of the vertebrate and invertebrate fauna associ- ated with different marine regions, the surface, the shallow water, and the depths." — Saturday Review. ' ' Such books as these lay the reader under a deep obligation to writers of Dr Hickson's eminence in the scientific world." — Spectator. XVII. THE STORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY. By A. T. Story. With Illustrations. "An interesting popular sketch of a subject the more common books about which are generally of a purely technical character, de- signed to inform amateurs. Mr Story does not profess to give instruc- tions in the art ; but his history of its progress, his description of the various forms of apparatus and the various processes, and his state- ments of the relation between photography and the finer arts cannot but impart an intelligent interest in this versatile handmaiden of science. " — Scotsman. XVIII. THE STORY OF RELIGIONS. By E. D. Price, F.G.S. XIX. THE STORY OF THE COTTON PLANT. By F. Wilkinson, F.G.S., Director of the Textile and Engineering School, Bolton. With 38 Illustrations. XX. THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY. By Joseph Jacobs. With 24 Maps, etc. XXI. THE STORY OF THE MIND. By Professor J. M. Baldwin. XXII. THE STORY OF THE BRITISH RACE. By John Munro. With four Maps. LONDON: GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. Conan Doyle's Stories. THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD. With 24 Illustrations by W. B. Wollen. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. " In these days of pessimistic problem novels, when the element of romance seems to be fading out of fiction, it is delightful to come upon these tales and glories of a soldier's life. They are buoyant, vital, steeped in the stir and freshness of the open air, abounding in tragedy and gaiety. ... It is a fascinating book, and one to be read." — Daily News. ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. With 25 Illustrations by Sidney Paget. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. "For those to whom the good, honest, breathless detective story is dear, Dr Doyle's book will prove a veritable godsend." — Athenceum. LAST ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. With 25 Illustrations by Sidney Paget. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. " Should become a favourite gift book." — Liverpool Mercury. THE SIGN OF FOUR. An Earlier Adventure of Sherlock Holmes. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. "The ' Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ' should be read by all who desire to improve their faculty of observation. Fathers would do well to make it a birthday present to their boys, and if they do this, they certainly may have the comforting thought that the book will be read from beginning to end." — Glamorgan Gazette. THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY. By Herbert Greenhough Smith. 292 pp., crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. A series of graphic sketches of the leading incidents in the lives of Masaniello, Prince Rupert, Marino Faliero, Bayard, Lithgow, Jacqueline de Laguette, Vidocq, Lochiel, Casanova. The volume is printed on antique paper, and bound in old style with uncut edges. ' ' Seldom has the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction been better exemplified than in some of the incidents related in 'The Romance of History. ' The book is well written and both the subjects selected and the way in which they are treated leave little to be desired," — Morning Post. "Pre-eminently interesting, bright, clear and attractive." — Daily Chronicle. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. Popular Novels. AT THE SIGN OF THE GOLDEN HORN. By John K. Leys. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. SHAFTS FROM AN EASTERN QUIVER. By Charles J. Mansford. With 25 Illustrations by Alfred Pearse. Cloth, 3s. 6d. "Mr Mansford has the gift of a story-teller, and he uniformly writes like a scholar. . . . The illustrations, though small, are ad- mirably executed, and enhance the piquancy — though that was hardly needed — of the letterpress." — Spectator. THE BEECHCOURT MYSTERY. By Carlton Strange. Cloth, 3s. 6d. "A novel and well-constructed plot." — Liverpool Courier, WHAT'S BRED IN THE BONE. By Grant Allen. Cloth, 3s. 6d. HEARTS OF GOLD AND HEARTS OF STEEL. By the late Henry Herman. Cloth, 3s. 6d. FOR GOD AND THE CZAR. A Story ot Jewish Persecutions in Russia. By J. E. MuDDOCK. Cloth, 3s. 6d. ONLY A WOMAN'S HEART. The Story of a Woman's Love : A Woman's Sorrow. By J. E. MUDDOCK. Cloth, 3s. 6d. " Has an air of heartiness about it, and its plot is well worked out." — Academy. THE RUBIES OF RAJMAR ; or, Mr Charlecote's Daughters. A Romance. By Mrs Egerton Eastwick (Pleydell North). Cloth, 3s. 6d. " Throughout, the plot is well conceived, its treatment is terse and vigorous, and the series of exciting incidents by which the denouement is reached, form a narrative well worth reading." — W. Le Queux in The Literary World. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. Popular Novels. THE KING OF THE BRONCOS, and Other Stories of New Mexico. By Chas, J. LuMMis. With Portrait and 8 full-page Illustrations. Cloth, 5s. " The author has fallen under the spell of the wilderness, and writes of it with affection. ... All the stories are excellent reading, and some of them are dramatic." — Manchester Guardian. " All boys will enjoy ' The King of the Broncos ' . . . truly exciting stories of a West which is still largely deserving of the title of wild." — Daily Telegraph. THE KING'S OAK, and Other Stories. By Robert Cromie, Author of "The Crack of Doom," &c. 130 pp., IS. Cloth, 2s. " Five well-written and entertaining stories." — Literary World. " Short stories, bright and dramatic." — To-day. " A capital collection of short stories." — Black and White, THE LOST LINER. By Robert Cromie. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. STORIES FROM THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR. By L. T. Meade and Clifford Halifax, M.D., Authors of " The Medicine Lady." With 24 Illustra- tions by A. Pearse. Cloth extra, 6s. " Cleverly-planned and brightly-told stories." — Bradford Observer. " They are well told and salient in every feature." — Leeds Mercury. MEMOIRS OF A MOTHER-IN-LAW. By George R. Sims. Cloth, 2s. 6d. ' ' This is a pleasant sample of ' Dagonet's ' semi-humorous writings. He has a peculiar talent of finding amusement in experiences relating to dwellings, servants, shopkeepers, tradespeople, and other folk con- nected with the domestic household, and the ' Mother-in-Law ' in his new book deals in a very masterful way with all the foregoing subjects, and many more besides." — Freeman' s Journal. TWO GIRLS. By Amy E. Blanchard. With Illustrations by Ida Waugh. Cloth extra, 3s. 6d. "A delightful addition to the girls' bookshelf." — Gentlewomati. "A bright sparkling story for girls, brimful of innocent fun." — Liverpool Courier. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. The Queen and her Reign. PIONEER WOMEN IN VICTORIA'S REIGN. Being short Histories of Great Movements. By Edwin A. Pratt. Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. "A survey given with great skill and effect," — Times. "His chapters on Women's Work in Emigration and in Medicine are admirable." — Pall Mall Gazette. ' ' The nursing record of Queen Victoria's Reign, ably told here, will interest so many people just now." — St James's Gazette. A WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMEN. Being an account of the Philanthropic Work of Miss L. M. Hubbard. By E. A. Pratt. Small crown 8vo, cloth. QUEEN VICTORIA'S DOLLS. By Frances H. Low. With 40 Full-page Coloured Illustrations and numerous Sketches and Initial Letters, by Alan Wright. Cheap Edition, crown 4 to, 5s. ' ' No one who has not perused this entertaining record can in reality appreciate the diligent, alert child-life of Britain's truest gentlewoman. The full-page coloured illustration, showing the dolls in their gorgeous costumes, and wooden attitudes, are almost as naive as they are excellent." — TAe Gentlewoman. THE PRINCESS OF WALES: A Biographical Sketch. By Mary Spencer- Warren. With Portraits of the Princess at various periods, and Illustrations from Photographs taken in Denmark, and at Sandringham, Marlborough House, &c. With 53 Portraits and Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 5s. "An excellent biography . . . narrated with admirable simplicity and lucidity." — Westminster Review. HEROES OF THE VICTORIA CROSS. By T. E. Toomey, late Colour-Sergeant. A record of the "Cross" and its Wearers, with Narratives of Daring Deeds, and 228 Portraits. Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. "The value, utility, and interest of the book are obvious." — Liverpool Courier. THE VICTORIAN ERA : A Graphic Record of A Glorious Reign. By R. E. Anderson, M.A. With 136 Illustrations and with Photographic Portrait of the Queen. Cloth, 2s. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. THE ORACLE ENCYCLOPEDIA. Profusely Illustrated. Edited by R. W. Egerton Eastwick, B.A. (of the Middle Temple), complete in 5 vols., price 30s., or in half morocco, 52s. 6d. SONGS OF CHILDHOOD. Verses by Eugene Field. Music by Reginald DE KOVEN and others. Music 4to, cloth extra, gilt leaves, 7s. 6d. " It is the best compliment to the music to say that its pretty tune- fulness is not unworthy of the words. 'There are songs here that will go straight to a child's heart, and not one that will miss the child- lover."— Pa// Mall Gazette. A LITTLE BOOK OF PLAYS, FOR PROFES- SIONAL AND AMATEUR ACTORS. Adapted from the French by Constance Beerbohm. With 22 Illustrations of Scenes. Paper covers, is. "An excellent collection of short dramatic sketches, suited to the requirements of amateurs." — Black and White. AIDS TO HEALTH AND BEAUTY. A Complete Toilet Guide. By Miranda. Long 8vo, IS. WRINKLES FOR CYCLISTS. By G. Lacy Hillier. Small crown 8vo, is. THE HUB CYCLING MAP OF ENGLAND AND WALES. By J. Bartholomew, F.R.G.S. Printed in colours and folded in pocket case, 6d. ; mounted on linen, is. > THE COAST TRIPS OF GREAT BRITAIN. Prefaced by a Description of the Thames Scenery from London Bridge to the Nore. Compiled by Milton Smith, and profusely illustrated with Original Sketches by W. T, Whitehead. 6d. net. 6,000 TIT-BITS OF CURIOUS INFORMATION. Being 6,000 Answers to 6,000 Questions from the Enquiry Column of Tit-Bits, in 6 vols., price 2s. 6d. each. [Vol. i out of print.] '''^ Each Volume complete in itself. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. A New Series of Popular Books by Popular Authors. Crown 8vo, cloth, is. 6d. each. MR MIDSHIPMAN EASY. By Captain Marryat. JANE EYRE. By Charlotte Bronte. JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN. By Miss MULOCK. THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. By Fenimore Cooper. SHIRLEY. By Charlotte Bronte. Sunday Books. i6mo, doth extra, Sd. each. THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS and THE OLD MAN'S HOME. Two Allegories by the Rev. William Adams. With Frontispiece to each Allegory. THE KING'S MESSENGERS and THE DISTANT HILLS.^ Two Allegories by the same author. With Frontis- pieces. THE COMBATANTS. An Allegory by the Rev. Edward Monro. With Frontispiece. A YEAR OF MIRACLE. A Poem in Four Sermons. By W. C. Gannett. With four Illustrations. Other volumes in due course. Under the title of ''Sunday Books" we propose to publish from time to time a number of attractive and interest- ing books suitable for family Sunday reading. Although the majority of the books selected will appeal chiefly to the younger members of the family we hope that they will all be of such a high standard as to deserve the attention of parents and teachers, and to be suitable for small gifts and school prizes. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. Serials now in course of Publication. THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 6d. monthly ; cases for binding, is. WIDE WORLD MAGAZINE. 6d. monthly ; cases for binding, is. 6d. TIT-BITS. id. weekly ; cases for binding, is. HOME MAGAZINE. A Journal for Sunday and week-day reading; id. weekly ; cases for binding, is. 6d. WOMAN'S LIFE. id. weekly ; cases for binding, is. THE HUB. id., an Illustrated Weekly Journal for Wheelmen and Women ; cases for binding, is. THE NAVY AND ARMY ILLUSTRATED. 6d. weekly ; cases for binding, 2s. 6d. COUNTRY LIFE ILLUSTRATED. 6d. weekly ; cases for binding, 2s. 6d., cloth ; 6s., half morocco. LADIES' FIELD. 6d. weekly. THE CITIZEN'S ATLAS AND GAZETTEER. 6d. fortnightly ; cases for binding, 3s., cloth ; 4s. 6d., half morocco. HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES. With upwards of 400 Illustrations by Helen Stratton. In fourteen fortnightly parts, price yd. each. THE PENNY LIBRARY OF FAMOUS BOOKS. id. Weekly. Notable Books. I. THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN. With Map and 250 Illustrations. In 12 Fortnightly Parts, 6d. each. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. Sixpenny Editions of Copyright Novels. Well printed^ on good paper, Svo, sewed. THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. By A. CoNAN Doyle. LAST ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. By A. CoNAN Doyle. THE SIGN O^ FOUR: AN EARLY ADVENTURE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. By A. CoNAN Doyle. ROBERT ELSMERE. By Mrs HUMPHREY Ward. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. New Popular School Books. Tit-Bits Copy Books. A New Series of Copy Books designed to produce clear, bold, and rapid writing. There are no flourishes or fanciful peculiarities. The style is simple, uniform, and entirely without exaggerations. The slope is 1 5° from the vertical. The Series consists of 15 Books of 24 pages, price 2d. each. 1. LARGE HAND.— Elements. Easy Letters. Short Words. With aids in the form of outlined letters, space marks, etc. 2. LARGE AND HALF-TEXT. — Elements. Long Letters. More difficult Short Words of Long and Short Letters. With aids. 3. SPECIAL ARITHMETICAL NUMBER. —Arith- metical Copies and Exercises. Half-Text Hand. With Easy Capitals. 4. LARGE AND HALF-TEXT.— Short Words and Easy Capitals. Grammatical Definitions. Simple Poetry. 5. LARGE AND HALF-TEXT.— Capitals and more difficult Words. Elementary Geographical Definitions and Information. 6. SPECIAL ARITHMETICAL NUMBER. —Arith- metical Copies and Exercises in the Four Simple Rules. Tables. 7. INTRO. TO SMALL HAND.— Grammatical Defini- tions and Poetry. 8. FIRST SMALL HAND. — Physical and Political Geography of England and Wales. Facts and Dates in Early English History. 9. SPECIAL ARITHMETICAL NUMBER.— Arith- metical Copies and Exercises. Four Simple Rules, with Long Division, Addition, and Subtraction of Money. ID. SMALL HAND. — Grammar Parsing Models. Geo- graphical Terms simply explained and illustrated by reference to the Map of the World. 11. SMALL HAND.— British History and Biography down to 1603. 12. SMALL HAND.— British History and Biography from 1603. Physical and Political Geography of the British Isles. Advanced writing. 13. SMALL HAND. — Ordinary and Commercial Cor- respondence, Letters, and Addresses. Invitation and other Forms. 14. SMALL HAND.— Modern English History. The reign of Queen Victoria. 15. SMALL HAND. — The Colonies and foreign posses- sions of Great Britain — acquisition and growth. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. New Popular School Books. Systematic Moral Instruction. The Golden Rule Readers. Book I. — Crown 8vo, Cloth, 212 pages, is. 3d. Book II. — Crown 8vo, Cloth, 236 pages, is. 6d. Just what Evening School Teachers want, "Confound That Boy!" A Manual of Book-Keeping and Office Routine. Crown 8vo, Cloth, price is. ^Tit-Bits Monster Table Book British, Foreign and Colonial Weights, Measures and Money. Tables of Distances, Tables of Quantities, and a variety of Useful Information. Uniform with the " Penny Library." The Biggest and Best Table Book on the Market. 80 pages, id. Tit- Bits Monster Cookery Book 80 pages, id. No foreign phrases or fanciful concoctions. Tit-Bits Monster Recitation Book 80 pages, id. Gives a splendid selection of poems for recitation suitable for all ages, together with hints on Elocution — how to stand, what to do with the hands, etc. LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. FISH ■ DOGS HORSES TENNIS GOLF RACING SOCIETY HUNTING AND ALL SORTS OF OUT-DOOR SPORT ARE FEATURES OF Country Life The Most Beautifully Illustrated Paper in the World Price Sixpence LONDON: GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED, PUBLISHERS. 14 DAY USE RETUKN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. Renewals may be made 4 days ijrior to date due. vTaZVi Ss are subjea to immediate recall. LD2lA-50m-2,'71 (P2001sl0)476 — A-32 General Library . University of California Berkeley