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PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
Past and Present 
 
 IX 
 
 The East. 
 
 by 
 
 THE REV. HARRY JONES, M.A., 
 
 l'KF.BENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S, 
 AUTHOR OF " THE REGULAR SWISS ROUND," ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 56, Paternoster Row; 65, St. Paul's Churchyard, and 164, Piccadilly. 
 
10AN STACK 
 
 £oo7 F 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL. 
 
J>. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I have been asked to let these letters appear in a connected 
 form within the boards of a small book. They were written 
 in short intervals of continuous travel — some at my tent door, 
 with groaning camels and garrulous Arabs around me — and 
 thus do not pretend to convey thoughts which reflection creates, 
 many of which I have, since, been tempted to piece into their 
 course. 
 
 But, slight though these letters are, they record fresh im- 
 pressions made on one who had never visited the East before ; 
 and thus, beyond some connecting extracts from my journal, 
 and a few words it was desirable to interpolate, I have added 
 nothing to their contents. 
 
 876 
 
rREFACE. 
 
 They take a very humble place in the procession of learned 
 and laboured books about the East which is ever marching 
 from the mouth of the printing-press, and are only a hesitating 
 response to the kindly desire of some who have seen them 
 in The Guardian and in The Leisure Hour. 
 
 I add a short chapter of hints to eastern tourists, and 
 must say that I found much trouble saved by availing 
 myself of the help of Messrs. T. Cook and Son. 
 
 Harry Jones. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 To Egypt ; Cairo and the Nile 
 
 'AGE 
 
 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Upper Egypt : Memphis, Thebes, Syene . 
 
 *5 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Egypt: the Pyramids and the Sphinx; Suez 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Desert of Sinai 
 
 59 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Mount Sinai and the Great Wilderness 
 
 7^ 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 YKV.Y. 
 
 From the Wilderness to Hebron 87 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Jerusalem ; the Dead Sea ; Jericho 93 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Samaria and Galilee II5 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Coasts of Tyre and Sidon I2 g 
 
 A Few Hints to Travellers in the East, especially the Desert . . 142 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 TO EGYPT : CAIRO AND THE NILE. 
 
 Cairo, February*], 1880. — This 
 is the land of contrasts. For 
 many years I have longed to 
 visit the East, and, indeed, on two occasions made preparations 
 for my journey, but till last Friday had got no farther than 
 
PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 St. George's, which, though in the East, is not wholly Oriental. 
 I am now resting for a day or two here on my way to Thebes, 
 after seeing which we hope, please God, to journey to Sinai, 
 and then, by Beersheba and Hebron — -where we shall change 
 our camels for'horses — reach Jerusalem, and thence zigzag through 
 Palestine to Damascus. 
 
 This, I repeat, is the land of contrasts. I have plunged into 
 the Bible and the Arabian Nights. Sinbad rowed me ashore, Mus- 
 tapha carried my familiar carpet-bag, and I took a ticket in a Mid- 
 land railway carriage with " first class " printed on it in English, 
 and reached, at Cairo, a hotel which might be the Louvre, Fifth 
 Avenue, or Langham ; only the conductor of the omnibus was 
 orientally superb in dress and demeanour, the boots who took my 
 luggage had on a turban and a long white nightshirt, and Gehazi 
 answered the summons of an electric bell. The rail runs for a 
 long distance close by the side of a much-frequented dry mud road, 
 on which from the window I saw Joseph's brethren riding their 
 asses into the land of Egypt. Lines of Arab-led camels wobbled 
 slowly along without looking at the express which shot past them. 
 The country, flat as the sea, is all dry mud, apparently without 
 a stone, and profoundly fertile. It is tilled in little squares by 
 patriarchs, keeping their sheep, or ploughing with ploughs three 
 thousand years old, but always walking about their business with 
 picturesque deliberation. The line thus cuts its narrow modern 
 streak through this ancient and here unchanged land past mud 
 villages, which look as if they were built by beavers, and the in- 
 habitants of which saw Herodotus yesterday. I am much struck 
 by the appearance of the people. They are tall, well made, and 
 seemingly well fed. Though their houses are mere blisters of 
 clay upon the flat face of the earth, with a hole for the owner to 
 go in and another for the smoke to go out, the men are stately. 
 
TO EGYPT: CAIRO AND THE NILE. 
 
 ii 
 
 I had read so much about the pertinacity of the beggars in 
 these parts, and the Arabian hubbub on, say, the landing from a 
 steamer, that I was struck with the listless mode of their appeal. 
 They seemed hardly to venture on a repeated request, though I 
 
 EGYPTIAN RUNNING FOOTMAN. 
 
 declined, kindly enough, to give, when a donation would obviously 
 have brought a gang upon me. The only approach to peremp- 
 toriness was in the case of a man with a sad face and voice, who 
 held out his hand for a piastre, and with perfect unconsciousness 
 
PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAS'l. 
 
 of the imperative character of his summons said, " Now, mister, 
 look alive." Poor fellows, they get more kicks than halfpence 
 sometimes : as thus. The train was stopping at a country station. 
 A tall, picturesque Arab came up to the window, and, smiting his 
 breast, said something apparently courteous. He might have 
 been blessing me ; but the station-master, an irritable little Egyp- 
 tian, a head and shoulders shorter than my friend, came quickly 
 up and gave him such a sounding whack on his head with a stick 
 that I thought he would have slain him in return. But no ; he 
 calmly walked off the platform without the least expression of 
 surprise or resentment. It seems he was begging, which is not 
 allowed at the stations. 
 
 The genuine Cairo is a few hundred yards from this hotel. 
 You stroll in five minutes from, say, the Langham, into the 
 Arabian Nights. The streets laid with mud, full of holes, and 
 with houses nearly meeting overhead, seem to lead nowhere, and 
 reveal at every step wonderful interiors, with patriarchal figures 
 squatting in perspective. The people, moreover, apparently walk 
 nowhere, but wander about, as some one says, like mites in a 
 cheese. There are many street cries, but the calls to prayer 
 sometimes sound from the minarets clear above all the hubbub. 
 They are mostly given by blind men, who are chosen not merely 
 because this is an office which can be filled without eyesight, but 
 for the possession of two or three wonderfully penetrating notes 
 in their voices. I had never seen a mosque, and was deeply im- 
 pressed in visiting, with my travelling companion and brother 
 parson, Edgington, yesterday, that of Sultan Hassan. The words 
 " sombre," " huge," " barbaric," offered themselves in my mind to 
 clothe the thoughts which arose there. The middle is open to 
 the sky, and contains a covered tank where the worshippers wash 
 before they pray. Thus devout entry into the place of worship 
 
TO EGYPT: CAIRO AND THE NILE. 13 
 
 is marked by reiterated baptism. There are no "fittings" but 
 mats, and, of course, no seats. Clouds of pigeons flitted and 
 cooed about. This house of prayer is also a home, or resting- 
 place, for the poor. Men who have no other roof can repose 
 under that of the mosque. We found and left several asleep there. 
 The impulse to uncover the head as we entered it was corrected 
 by a little boy, who brought rush slippers for us to put on over 
 our boots, and thus carry in nothing that defiled. It is open all 
 day for prayer. Rich and poor pray side by side. The sun's 
 rays came slanting in, and the first thought was, " Here is a spot 
 where it shines with consecrated light upon the just and unjust," 
 so catholic seemed the place, with its pigeons, prostrate worshippers, 
 and sleeping poor. And then the thought came back, weighted 
 with the remembrance that those who built and used this house of 
 prayer had their sympathies and faith bounded by a wall as hard 
 as that which stood around this court. Some years ago we should 
 have been thrust away if we had sought to set foot within its 
 doors. And now, among the many mosques of Cairo, this is one 
 of the few into which the Christian is allowed to step. The wor- 
 ship of the ancient Egyptians was more generous than that of 
 these, for in some of its ritual hieroglyphs the husband and wife 
 are seen side by side. The mosque gives a side door and 
 gallery alone to women. 
 
 The view from the platform of that of Mohammed Ali, which 
 we next visited, has often been — described. That cannot be truly 
 done. It is magnificent. Cairo, with its countless minarets, lay 
 at our feet, broken by the desolate ruins or rubbish of the old city. 
 Beyond it stretched the plain towards the Delta. On the left 
 shone the waters of the Nile, and beyond them, standing apart in 
 sheer desert, were the Pyramids of Gizeh. This was my first 
 glimpse of them. They looked far larger than I had expected, 
 
14 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 and showed themselves as in calm contemptuous contrast to the 
 minarets of yesterday, beneath us. The mosque from the outside 
 of which this grand view is seen is built wholly of alabaster, and, 
 within, measures 300 feet square. It is hung with 900 lamps and 
 entirely spread with carpets. It was nearly dark, but while we 
 were there a thunderstorm came on, and a flash for a moment lit 
 up its huge interior. 
 
 We have hitherto seen, or rather visited, none of the monu- 
 ments of ancient Egypt. True, in Alexandria we saw the obelisk 
 which our questionable example has tempted the Americans to 
 take down — the last of Cleopatra's needles — and which was then 
 being packed up for shipment to the West. But Alexandria 
 itself is young compared with the Egypt of old, and Cairo — 
 chiefly built of stones from pyramids — is much younger than 
 London. We have, however, driven to Heliopolis, or " On/' 
 where Joseph's father-in-law was priest of the famous Temple 
 of the Sun. There, too, Moses learned the wisdom of the 
 Egyptians, and there, later still, Plato studied. All that re- 
 mains of it is the track of its walls seen in a dry rubble 
 embankment, which incloses fields of corn and beans irrigated 
 with a thousand rills. But within stands an obelisk which once 
 stood, not then alone, before the Temple and by the spring 
 of the Sun. There is a little rush-fringed pond which marks 
 this last. And this is all. True, on looking at that obelisk, 
 which has now stood there 4,000 years, which saw the mar- 
 riage of Joseph and Asenath, and is the oldest in the world, 
 we were glad that we had come alone, and that no other 
 tourists with their comments were then visiting the place. I 
 hope that no enthusiastic collector will turn his greedy eyes 
 upon it, and root up its grand solitary surviving spine. 
 
 Though his temple was gone the Sun was there, fierce 
 
STREET IN CAIRO. 
 
TO EGYPT: CAIRO AND THE NILE. 17 
 
 and hot over our heads, and men were scooping water from 
 his spring to help to do his work. 
 
 We have not yet visited the Pyramids, hoping to do so 
 on our return from Thebes, for which we start on Tuesday. 
 Meanwhile I have ventured to set down some of the first 
 impressions made by an Oriental town on one who has long 
 desired but never yet visited the East. 
 
 I might, perhaps, add a word about the way from England 
 to Alexandria. We came by the Indian express with the 
 mail which runs from Calais to Brindisi, with only one change 
 of carriage, at Bologna, when the passengers shift from the 
 Belgian sleeping-car to a Pullman, and go on without a break 
 to their land's end. It was touching to find ourselves, fresh 
 from the manifold last impressions of London, and home fare- 
 wells, met at once with talk about Peshawur and the " front." 
 The familiar life of India filled the railway carriage directly we 
 had left Charing Cross. Our train consisted for most of the 
 way of six trucks filled with letter-bags and one sleeping-car, 
 which we found dozing on the Calais pier. When we reached 
 Paris this crawled like a great beetle across streets, stopping 
 lines of early market carts, till it got into a main line again. 
 It is really the shuttle of the thread between England and 
 India, and is shot backwards and forwards once a week across 
 Europe. It was a striking run. After crossing freezing France, 
 where the white ground meeting the white sky left no horizon, 
 and showed little dingy cities as if they were hanging in the 
 air, and where distant rows of bare poplars looked like pins 
 stuck in a linen table-cloth, the Alps were disposed of in twenty- 
 three minutes. It is the burrowing rail, not the broad carriage 
 road over the pass, which has marked the great change 
 in their passage. The road, indeed, though a marvel of 
 
 9\ B 
 
iS PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 engineering skill, is longer than the old narrow track traversed 
 on foot time out of mind. It simply enabled wheels to cross, 
 which ground up slowly enough, and beat the walker, in speed, 
 only by being able to trundle down when the top of the pass 
 had been reached. There was not very much time saved by 
 the road to the sturdy traveller who used his own legs. But 
 weakly people and merchandise could be carted over when the 
 snow allowed a passage. Now all are shot through the bowels 
 of the mountain, summer and winter, and the very word " pass " 
 finds no place in the mention of this Alpine transit. It is 
 blotted out by the tunnel. I had hardly time to recall the 
 old grind over Mont Cenis before we found ourselves on its 
 other side. At last, after passing through the snow-covered 
 north of Italy, and then closely skirting a bright blue sea dotted 
 with a few red sails, we stepped out at Brindisi into a soft 
 spring morning, which soon grew into a day so hot that we 
 were glad to get under the awning of the steamer. The 
 Peninsular and Oriental Company must look to their character. 
 We never made more than ten and a half knots an hour on the 
 passage to Alexandria, and for a long time only some nine 
 and a half. Thus in this short run we were a day behind time. 
 I had no idea that Crete was so beautiful. As we steamed 
 past its snow-covered mountains it looked like, say, the Ber- 
 nese Oberland sticking out of the water. We carried a stray 
 pilot with us, a most unsailor-like official, in slippers, turban, 
 baggy trousers, and a brand new pair of kid gloves. The 
 crew was Italian, from Venice, and anything but smart. It was 
 comical to hear the English boatswain's orders. He generally 
 began in Italian, with a strong Devonshire accent, and ended 
 with, " Confound you, that's wrong again." I think the men 
 understood the last halves of his sentences best. 
 
TO EGYPT: CAIRO AND THE NILE. 19 
 
 February 9, 1880. — At last the day approaches for our voyage 
 up the Nile. How long have I looked forward to this ! and 
 how curiously the almost sacred sense of its arrival is dashed 
 with the utterly modern and Western character of the pre- 
 parations required. The ticket in English, the printed plan of 
 the boat, showing the number of your cabin, the price for the 
 business, set down in vulgar £ s. d., all press forward to blot 
 the sentiment of a near acquaintance with the mysterious river. 
 But the berth is secured, the fare is paid, the portmanteau is 
 packed, and we shall be off to-morrow. 
 
 During the two or three days spent in Cairo before the 
 starting of the steamer we have, however, had some experience 
 of shopping in the " bazaars " of this city. A " bazaar" is a 
 narrow, scent-laden, clay-floored street, with blinds hung over 
 it crosswise from housetop to housetop, and on either side a 
 row of small square rooms, with their fronts taken out, and 
 their interiors and fringes hung with goods in picturesque medley. 
 The turbaned shopman, often with painted eyes, and finger and 
 toe nails stained red with henna, squats on the counter, which 
 is flush with the street, smoking his pipe and sipping coffee, like 
 brown gruel, from an egg-cup. Here is a specimen of one 
 transaction. We wanted a number of coarse things used by 
 the people : spoons — apparently made with a pocket-knife — 
 rings, necklaces, etc., etc. Achmed, our dragoman, on this occa- 
 sion helped us. An old gentleman squatted a yard or two off, 
 who took, seemingly, no more interest in the matter than one 
 of the inevitable half circle of bystanders who always assist at 
 a purchase. He sat, smoked, rated an Arab, who drove too 
 near to him a donkey laden with vegetables, and otherwise 
 rather dissevered himself from the transaction. At last, when 
 we had to pay, we found that he was the proprietor of the 
 
 13 2 
 
20 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 establishment ; for he pocketed the price. The shopman, however, 
 asked for a douceur. For this Achmed silently and rudely gave 
 him a dig in the pit of his stomach with the biggest of our spoons, 
 at which he grunted. But that he could not help. 
 
 EGYPTIAN DRAGOMAN. 
 
 A purchase generally involves not merely deliberation, but 
 patience. A seller will sometimes treat you, even when a pro- 
 bable purchaser, with perfectly concealed interest, smoking his 
 pipe, and looking beyond you when he turns his face your way. 
 
TO EGYPT: CAIRO AND THE NILE. 
 
 21 
 
 Then you lay hold of the article you want, and ask its price. 
 The idlers close in to watch the approaching diplomacy. He 
 removes his chibouque from his lips, and says, " So much." You 
 offer much less. He throws it down on the counter, and resumes 
 his pipe without a word. But business is begun. You walk 
 away for five minutes, and lounge back again. By degrees 
 the proposals and rejections approach one another, and, possibly, 
 at last he holds the article out with an air which says, " Well, 
 I'll part with it to get rid of you." 
 
 After all, generally, I suspect that a European pays more 
 than the thing is worth, or what he would have got it for 
 after five minutes' more parley. But it is difficult to realise at 
 first the utter contempt for " time " which prevails among these 
 merchants. It is not money with them. 
 
 I have heard of an American, fond of making purchases, 
 but ignorant of any tongue besides English, who travelled in 
 Europe with a card, on one side of which was printed, in several 
 languages, " How much ? " When he had held this sufficiently 
 long before the seller to get an answer, he turned the card 
 round and exhibited, also in various tongues, " I'll give you 
 half." Had he visited Cairo he would have been wise to 
 alter the reverse of his ticket, and make a less extravagant 
 proposal. 
 
 On the Nile. — We are fairly afloat now, after some impo- 
 tent fraud, noise, and a curious exhibition of servility. The 
 fraud was the attempted stowage in our boat of some half- 
 dozen sacks of oranges which an enterprising but stupid Egyp- 
 tian thought he could smuggle up to Thebes, where the sale 
 of them would have paid him well. But he did the thing so 
 transparently that the agent on board pounced upon him and 
 them at once, emptying them into the river, while the "smuggler" 
 
22 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 pleaded as if for his life, and screwed up his face like a child 
 that had cut its finder. There was a wild rush of the crowd 
 into the water to pick up the confiscated fruit, which they carried 
 ashore in their laps, quite regardless of the recollection that 
 they wore only shirts. Directly they landed, a party of soldiers, 
 who stood watching the process, pounced on them. Then the 
 agent, thinking this unfair, borrowed a stout stick of a by- 
 stander, and fell single-handed upon these military gentlemen, 
 beating some, and knocking one or two down head over heels. 
 The curious thing was that they took this correction of their 
 greediness merely with a few yells, to show how much they 
 were hurt, and bundled off. The crowd meanwhile, on board, 
 and on shore, assisted in the general uproar, which conveyed 
 no expression of sympathy with either side, and was only an 
 increment of shouting. 
 
 At last the paddles began to turn, and we were off, with 
 a very picturesque pair of steersmen at the helm. Elsewhere 
 one has seen a notice desiring passengers not to speak to the 
 man at the wheel. Here such a direction would have been 
 often superfluous, for sometimes these two fellows talked to- 
 gether so vehemently that nobody could have got in a word. 
 At one or two apparent crises they quarrelled, and let the 
 wheel go, seemingly to scratch one another's faces. Our Arab 
 captain used the universal " Ease her!" " Stop her!" etc., 
 delivered in the queerest accent, for beyond these orders, he did 
 not know a word of English. . . . We have passed the young 
 Khedive, who has been, with five large white steamers, to visit 
 some of the sugar factories set up by his father, now at Naples. 
 As our boat is really a government one, all the crew manned 
 the paddle-boxes and bridge to M cheer " as he passed. It was 
 a curiously monotonous salute, reminding one of the sing-song 
 
TO EGYPT: CAIRO AXD THE XI I.E. 
 
 saying of the addition table by an infant school. The present 
 Khedive has only one wife. How many his father had is a 
 disputed point among Egyptians. I asked a gentleman who 
 had resided for some time at Cairo, and his reply was, "How 
 many ? Why, he doesn't know himself." Very little indeed 
 seems to be counted here. There is no real record of births, 
 deaths, or population. And, as might be supposed, the number 
 of sick, and the proportion of special diseases, is unknown. Small- 
 pox is very common. No care appears to be taken to isolate 
 such as suffer from it. I have seen a beggar pushing about 
 among the street crowds in the full bloom of a smart attack. The 
 prevalence of ophthalmia in Egypt is well known. There are 
 almost an incredible number of people here who have lost at 
 least one eye. They seem to accept this as an inevitable dis- 
 pensation. It is horrible to see children lying listlessly in the 
 sun with a cluster of flies, which carry infection, settled on 
 their faces. They don't seem to have energy enough to fray 
 them away. But, as has been remarked, though there are so 
 many blind, and the villages swarm with curs, you never see 
 a blind man led by a dog. 
 
 The " coaling " of the boat is done mainly by children, often 
 little girls, who carry heavy basketfuls of fuel on their heads, 
 and stagger on board in a dirty irregular procession, which is 
 stimulated at intervals by hulking fellows with big sticks. 
 
 But the labour of some of the men is severe enough. I 
 refer to that of the irrigators, fine chocolate-coloured fellows, 
 wearing a simple loin-cloth. They work with a sort of rough 
 balance or lever, having at one end a stone, or large lump of 
 mud, and at the other a shallow leaking bucket. This is 
 dipped into the water, and then emptied quickly into a small 
 clay tank, from which similar arrangements lift the bucketful 
 
24 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT TN THE EAST 
 
 till the level of the bank is reached, and the gardens or fields 
 are watered. A man at the top guides the resulting stream 
 into channels, mostly with his foot. Higher up the river the 
 water is raised by buffaloes, which turn a wheel over which 
 works a string of coarse earthenware jars, each as it comes to 
 the top emptying itself into a trough. These water-wheels are 
 made wholly of wood, neither the cogs nor axles being greased. 
 Thus a hum rises from them in the silence exactly like the 
 buzz of mosquitoes. The value of the property of the riverside 
 farmers, and the tax laid upon it, is judged by the number of 
 these buffalo-driven wheels which each owns. This is, naturally, 
 a much-disliked form of taxation ; but it is convenient for the 
 government, as there is no possible concealment of the items of 
 an income. A man of substance, however, has the questionable 
 gratification of making a noise in his neighbourhood, for the 
 
 creaking - of his machines fills the air. 
 
EDFOU. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Bg^ UPPER EGYPT : MEMPHIS, THEBES, SVENE, 
 
 Asyoot, February 14, 1880. — This is 
 
 the capital of Upper Egypt, and a place 
 
 of some 25,000 inhabitants. It is full 
 
 jB| of picturesque* interiors and groups, 
 
 especially in the camel fair — there 
 
 were hundreds of these beasts for sale, and I am beginning to 
 
 have my opinion about the " points " of a dromedary — and the 
 
26 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 bazaars. From the outside, the town, being built of mud and 
 sun-dried bricks of the same colour as the Nile, looks, with its 
 flat roofs, as if made of millboard. Behind it stands the Libyan 
 range of glaring limestone, pierced with countless square-mouthed 
 tombs, like port-holes. Here the old Egyptians were buried, 
 and hither, long afterwards, Christians fled and lived a hermit 
 life in the very early ages of their faith. Indeed, this country 
 may be reckoned as the mother of monks. We climbed the 
 range and looked across the narrow green strip of Egypt, whose 
 life is the Nile, on the opposite Arabian hills. It is a path of 
 grass through great beds of gravel, the mud villages showing 
 upon it like worm-casts on a lawn. Behind us lay the Desert, 
 yellow, scorched, empty, stretching into Africa. As we drew 
 near to the gate of the city on our return we met two funerals, 
 with their attendant crowds of shrieking women. The utterances 
 of these hired mourners struck me as conspicuously indifferent. 
 They seemed to walk in heedless chatter, occasionally giving a 
 professional scream, and then falling back into their gabble again. 
 But they got over the ground at a rapid pace, which lent a 
 fresh significance to the gesture — " He came and touched the 
 bier, and they that bare him stood still." Indeed, one here in- 
 evitably perceives new force in familiar words of Scripture. For 
 instance, I never before so apprehended the last clause of the 
 verse which ends with " A rod for the back of fools." The 
 bearer of a stick makes no scruple of thus emphasising his 
 estimate of folly. Our dragoman, seemingly a kind-hearted 
 fellow with a ready smile, is armed with a hippopotamus whip, 
 a fearful instrument. " Good for bad Arab," he says. And 
 sometimes he sheds this his goodness forth plenteously. A 
 village chief too, say a senior warden, will carry a pole six feet 
 long, and suddenly turn upon his fellow- ratepayers, and send 
 
UPPER EGYPT: MEMPHIS, THEBES, SYENE. 27 
 
 them all scampering in a moment if they show an indisposition 
 to take his view of the question. This, however, is an ugly 
 factor in the problem of Egyptian regeneration, be the Khedive 
 never so lavish in the provision of railways and sugar factories, 
 whose chimneys make great patches of defilement against the 
 blue sky with their smoke. 
 
 Talking of smoke, I must say a word about the Nile 
 steamers. Of course, there are epicures in sensation who 
 shudder at the thought of them. But yesterday as we passed 
 a richly equipped dahabeah, crawling against stream and wind 
 with fourteen long sweeps, pulled by grunting Arabs and 
 Nubians, I thought that the owner, in his secret heart, would 
 have liked to be taken in tow. Many long reaches of the 
 Nile are utterly uninteresting. You pass between endless mud 
 embankments, exactly like the sea walls in the Essex " saltings," 
 and from some of the dahabeahs see nothing else, except the 
 tops of the low limestone ranges which border the land. Now, 
 from the deck of our steamer we look over the country and go 
 swiftly through the dullest parts, making a fresh wind of our own 
 in the sultriest calm. Certainly we are fortunate on the present 
 occasion, as the boat, containing forty-five berths, has only eigh- 
 teen passengers on board. It is true, however, that we cannot 
 stop when and wherever we fancy ; but the steamer is run 
 ashore and tied to a stake or a palm-tree at the most famous 
 spots, where donkeys are always ready to take us to tombs or 
 what not, and our intelligent dragoman, who speaks English 
 fluently, saves us trouble in the matter of baksheesh, and, in 
 reply to questions, tells us what he knows. Ashore, you can 
 walk or ride apart from the rest of the party, if you please. 
 No doubt, for two or three months of perfect ease, a daha- 
 beah is much to be commended, and a crowded steamer 
 
28 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 might be very disagreeable. But, again, I do not think I 
 should thoroughly enjoy a repose in which calms or contrary 
 winds were overcome by a toiling crew, dragging, like slaves 
 in a trireme, at their heavy sweeps, just in front of the 
 cabin door. No. The perfection of progress here would be 
 in a roomy private steam launch, fitted with silent machinery, 
 and capable of being used under sail. As it is, we are com- 
 fortable enough at present. There is a small pleasant party on 
 board, and we have a French cook and a doctor told off for 
 the service. 1 He wants to see the hospitals in London, though, 
 as he says, the anatomical school in Egypt is good, since he 
 can get a body for dissection when he pleases. 
 
 The weather is most treacherous. A perfectly blue sky and 
 a fierce sun make you fancy that it is the height of summer. 
 But the wind is so keen that I have been glad to wear my 
 ulster on deck ; and directly the sun sets — -ruit nox. And it 
 often comes with cold so sudden, that unless you wrap up quickly 
 and thoroughly you run the chance of a dangerous chill. Several 
 of our few fellow-passengers suffered from a neglect of this 
 precaution. But the night sky is crowded with a multitude of 
 glowing, magnified stars, which throw tracks or patches of light 
 over the silent Nile. We always run the boat ashore when it 
 is dark, mostly by some palm grove, and paddle on at dawn. 
 One striking feature of the dusk is the " afterglow" which 
 remains in the sky, like a warm western aurora borealis, long 
 after the sun has set. 
 
 In glancing for a moment at the ground over which we 
 have passed, I must say a word on Memphis, and the great 
 
 1 These steamers are really in the possession of Mr. T. Cook, and I found 
 the arrangements for the treatment of tourists convenient, and the attendants 
 very civil. 
 
UPPER EGYPT: MEMPHIS, THEBES, SYENE. 29 
 
 necropolis of Sakkarah. Memphis, the magnificent city of the 
 Pharaoh whom Moses and Aaron went in unto v/ith their mes- 
 sage from the Lord God of the Hebrews, has had its ruins 
 pulled down for the sake of the building materials which it 
 provided, and that which may remain of it is now smothered 
 with mud — the last and greatest of Egyptian plagues. Nothing 
 is left but a huge statue of Rameses, flat upon its face in a 
 pool of mire. Its vast necropolis, with its millions of buried 
 mummies, is itself, in turn, buried beneath the sands which 
 have drifted over the Libyan range. Not many years ago the 
 head of a sphinx showed itself, like the top of a rock at low 
 tide. Then investigators dug a trench to the depth of seventy 
 feet, and disclosed a double row of sphinxes leading into some 
 of the sepulchral wonders of the place. The importunate sand 
 has filled it again now. But the entrance to the tombs where the 
 sacred bulls were laid in pomp has been kept open. They were 
 worshipped in Memphis, and buried here. We went down into 
 their graves. You traverse a subterranean gallery more than 
 200 yards long, on either side of which, in recesses, are huge 
 sarcophagi, in which the bulls were put. When discovered, 
 some quarter of a century ago, they were found empty. Every 
 lid had been shifted. But how familiar the Hebrews were with 
 the worship of the calf, as it is called, those thousands of years 
 ago ! The surface of the sandy soil which has buried this vast 
 burial-ground is broken into mounds and covered with fragments 
 of ancient pottery. A couple of Arabs were digging a hole 
 with hoes as we rode over this sepulchral site, and rudely 
 throwing out the skulls and ribs of mummies whose rest had 
 been unbroken, till that afternoon, through the mightiest changes 
 of history that the world knows. 
 
 It is curious to notice the contrast between the Western 
 
30 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 civilisation introduced by the Khedive and the conservative 
 habits of the peasantry. The railway has preceded the wheel- 
 barrow. The sole tool in the land appears to be a broad hoe, 
 which does the duty of a spade. But the bare hand and foot 
 are chiefly used. The " navigator " moves the soil in a basket 
 which he carries on his shoulder and fills with his finders. He 
 works more like a rabbit than a man. The corn is sown 
 broadcast, and when the crop is weeded at all it is weeded by 
 the hand. The corn is cut with a small sickle. The wheat, 
 now in ear, promises a magnificent yield. The wants of the 
 people seem to be very few, and if now we see their winter 
 dress, which generally consists of a single garment — though many 
 of the men at work wear only a loin cloth — they must be very 
 lightly clad in summer. The faces and figures of the people often 
 strikingly resemble those painted on the walls of tombs three 
 thousand years old. They have the same long eyes, square 
 shoulders, and strong legs, and their colour is unchanged. Among 
 them are Nubians, black as coal, but the Egyptian is chocolate; 
 and fine anatomical studies he presents. All have magnificent 
 teeth, which much smoking does not seem to harm. But 
 then they are water-drinkers, and though some " advanced" 
 Mohammedans transgress the Koran, you may look in vain 
 among the evening crowds of a city for a drunken man. 
 Talking seems to be the national recreation. Circles and 
 little groups of men squat about with very dirty-looking 
 long pipes and perpetual chatter. I have not seen the 
 devotion I expected — very far from it ; but some of the firemen 
 of our steamer come up and say their prayers upon the deck 
 at sunrise. 
 
 February 15. — We have just had service with our little party 
 of English. The boat was passing under tomb-pierced cliffs while 
 
UPPER EGYPT: MEMPHIS, THEBES, SYENE. 3' 
 
 we sang the hymn " O God, our help in ages past." With what 
 fresh truth did those familiar lines come : 
 
 "A thousand ages in Thy sight 
 Are like an evening gone; 
 * * * * 
 
 Time, like an ever-rolling stream, 
 Bears all its sons away." 
 
 Achmed, our dragoman, told me afterwards that he had been 
 listening round the corner, and, to prove it — an astonishing feat 
 for one of these unmusical Arabs — hummed the well-known tune, 
 out of " Hymns Ancient and Modern," which we had used and 
 he had caught. I read the hymn to him, and he said, pointing 
 up to the sky, " Good ; very good." 
 
 Assouan, February 23, 1880. — This is the land's-end, or 
 water's-end, of Egypt, the old Syene, counted once as the place 
 whence the Nile flowed north into the Mediterranean and south 
 into Africa. It was also reckoned as the spot where at the 
 summer solstice the sun shone perpendicularly ; and some old 
 geographers calculated accordingly. I don't wonder. The heat 
 this February day is tremendous, and swarms of Arab and Nubian 
 brats come about one like flies, screaming — they suggest at a 
 little distance the crisis of a successful school treat — " Baksheesh, 
 Ahoi." There is often no supplication in this cry. The other 
 day I was riding at the distance of some eighty yards past. one 
 of the native water-wheels, driven, after the fashion of a threshing- 
 machine, by two oxen. A boy sat behind them with a goad, 
 and as he came round every half-minute, like the lamp of a 
 revolving lighthouse, he flashed out the national petition. Even 
 when the boat passes swiftly up the river, promiscuous imps upon 
 the bank occasionally send forth the same cry. I believe that they 
 
32 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 would thus salute a balloon. Assouan is our turning-point, and 
 we have set foot into Nubia, which lies beyond it, by means 
 of a camel ride to the first cataract. It has been my first 
 experience of a camel, and an arrival of fresh sensations. You 
 sit down on a haycock, which rises, half at a time, into a stack. 
 It is like riding on the roof of a small house, which comes to 
 pieces when you have to get down. I had a very tall Nubian, 
 as black as a coal, in a blue sliirt and white turban, as my 
 attendant. Wanting to stop, I said so. He then addressed a 
 remark to my camel, who made a ponderous, slobbering groan, 
 and began folding up his legs in unexpected places, till at last 
 I found myself sitting on a saddle with my feet almost touching 
 the ground. He subsided as if he purposed to go on sinking 
 till he left only his head visible, like that of the sphinx. 
 
 The trot of a camel is prodigious; and as he' moves both 
 legs on the same side at the same time, it is something more 
 and else than, say, the exaggerated procedure of a rough colossal 
 dray-horse. After about half an hour of it, a German gentleman, 
 who bumped so hopelessly along by my side that I thought his 
 boots would come off, shouted out, as if he had been on the 
 rack, that he could bear it no longer, and got down to proceed 
 on an ass. But I soon found that by suitable management the 
 pace was bearable enough. This early discovery was promising, 
 since we have the prospect of a thirty days' camel ride in the 
 desert. 
 
 On reaching the " cataract" we found this word wholly delusive. 
 There is only a short rapid, up which the native boats can sail 
 at high Nile. Murray says that travellers are amused by seeing 
 the Nubian boys shoot it on logs of wood, True, there were 
 Nubian boys thus mounted who accompanied a cranky boat in 
 which we rowed across for a nearer view of the place, like black 
 
UPPER EGYPT: MEMPHIS, THEBES, SYENE. 2i 
 
 mermaids — of course singing " Baksheesh, Ahoi," all the time ; 
 but the "shooting" business was done by our crew of men, who 
 suddenly whipped off their shirts, within a few yards of us, and 
 jumped into the water as bare as so many bronze Adams. It 
 was not nice, especially as there were three or four English young 
 ladies in our party. The colour of the skin is, however, supposed 
 to make a difference. It was a poor business at the best. The 
 performers soon scrambled out, and came shining back to ask 
 for the eternal douceur. 
 
 Assouan is the " Beersheba " of Egypt, and its islands of 
 Elephantine and Philae are crowded with relics of the long past. 
 The first of these is sheer jumbled rubbish smothered in bright 
 yellow sand ; the latter picturesque — a word rarely applicable to 
 anything on the Nile, and studded with well-preserved, showy 
 temples, where the worship of Osiris expired. We noticed what 
 appeared to be an ancient stone Christian altar, three feet by 
 two feet, lying in one of them. It was no doubt natural, but 
 now, in an antiquarian sense, to be regretted, that the very 
 early Christians who made Egypt a home of their faith should 
 have left so many other records of their zeal in the defacement 
 of sculptures, especially in temples which they used for worship. 
 You constantly see the faces, and sometimes figures, of the old 
 gods and heroes which were within reach hacked out, apparently 
 with pickaxes. Occasionally, however, they are only plastered 
 over with clay, as if they had been pelted, as in fact they were, 
 with mud. 
 
 We have spent some time in riding about the Theban plain 
 from one monument of the past to another. It is eight or nine 
 miles across, the mountains receding on either side from the river, 
 which in the course of ages has left upon it a coat of Nile mud 
 some six feet thick. This is now sown with wheat just coming 
 
34 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 into ear. The first glance of the site of the famous Thebes was 
 disappointing. We climbed the Libyan, or African, range for 
 a general view of the whole place, and it struck me that a care- 
 less eye might notice little or nothing to indicate the presence 
 of the greatest ruins in the world. True, beneath us were the 
 famous Colossi, of which the vocal Memnon is one, still with 
 their huge arms upon their knees, gazing, or rather grinning — 
 for they are wofully defaced — over the scene of their ancient 
 fame ; but though more than fifty feet high, they looked no bigger 
 than two hares sitting up in the middle of a green meadow. 
 The patches of ruins too, once bright with colour, are now dull- 
 brown, and hardly to be distinguished at a distance from mud 
 Egyptian hamlets. It is when you enter and explore them that 
 you begin to realise the vastness of the temples of which they 
 are the relics, or mutilated survivors. For instance, the great 
 temple at Karnak is more than 1,100 feet long, and has still 
 standing in one of its halls a forest of one hundred and thirty- 
 four huge, perfect columns, some 60 feet in height. In another 
 court is one of the obelisks with which it was equipped, once 
 gilt and capped with solid gold, 92 feet high. The walls and 
 pillars of this skeleton of magnificence are covered with graven 
 life and hieroglyphic records. 
 
 The ancient Egyptians were the greatest chroniclers that the 
 world has ever known. They covered every square foot of their 
 buildings, inside and out, with picture-writing of the world and 
 its life which was around them. And they did this before anything 
 in the shape of a book had elsewhere been written. We were 
 able, in some measure, to realise what this Karnak temple must 
 have been by a visit to that at Edfou. This is only 450 feet 
 long, but, barring its paint and the lofty wooden standard poles 
 at its entrance, unchanged from what it was when built. It 
 
C 2 
 
UPPER EGYPT: MEMPHIS, THEBES, SYENE. 37 
 
 had been buried in sand and the rubbish of Arab huts, and 
 was revealed by digging only some thirty years ago. Its columns 
 and walls, within and without, are crowded with sculptures. Part 
 is, as it was at first, open to the sky, and when we climbed one 
 of its towers by two hundred and fifty steps, and looked down 
 upon the stone roofs or paved courts beneath us, it was easy 
 to fancy that the temple might be used again, at once, for 
 the old Egyptian rites. All around was the wretched village, 
 showing no more architecture than martins'- nests or mole-heaps, 
 but a wonderful foil to the grandeur of ancient Egypt. 
 
 To return to Thebes. We visited the temple where the 
 colossal statue of the great Rameses — he was the Pharaoh who 
 mightily oppressed the Hebrews — lies broken on its face. His 
 was the largest statue of one stone in the world. As he sat there 
 he looked over the city around him, and might have been seen 
 miles away in that clear Egyptian air. I was, however, I think, 
 most impressed by the Tombs of the Kings. You ride across 
 the bright wheat-sown plain, and enter a stone ravine in the 
 Libyan range. It is utterly barren, and glares in the sun. The 
 green site of the city is left behind. You wind on ' and on, 
 expecting at every corner to reach the head of this blasted cleft 
 in these mountains which fringe the desert. But no. I wish 
 I had counted how many turns we took ; each revealed more 
 profound desolation. At last we arrived at a sort of amphitheatre, 
 or ail dc sac, among the cliffs. Here lie "all the kings in glory, 
 every one in his own house" (Isaiah xiv. 18). Hither were they 
 brought from the life and magnificence of Thebes, with pomp 
 and procession, and hid away. But what hiding-places are these ! 
 You enter the mouth of a tunnel in the face of the cliff, and 
 after traversing it for hundreds of feet reach a succession of halls, 
 in the last of which the royal sarcophagus was laid. Both these 
 
38 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 and the sides of the tunnels are covered with sculpture and 
 painting, of which the colour in many places is still as fresh as 
 it was thousands of years ago. All the old Egyptian daily social, 
 domestic, and religious life is here set forth. The idea was to 
 surround the dead king with everything with which he had been 
 most familiar, so that at his awakening nothing, so far, might 
 be strange. There each king was laid in turn, in the sepulchre 
 which he had prepared, or begun to prepare, while alive, and then 
 the entrance to his tomb was built up, that all might be undisturbed 
 till the day of resurrection. But in no sarcophagus has the royal 
 mummy been found. The sculptures in a hall in one of these 
 chambers in Belzoni's Tomb, as it is called, from his having 
 opened it, are not begun. They are only sketched, very boldly, 
 in red lines. But this was done by some minor artist, for the 
 chief decorator had corrected them in many places with a black 
 pencil. One could imagine him going round and by torchlight 
 looking critically at the rough sketch of his assistant, here and 
 there stopping, and with a free sweep of his pencil giving the 
 true curve to a limb or a feature. But the engraver never 
 came. The king died, and there the simple corrected sketch 
 has been left for some three thousand years. 
 
 We rode across the necropolis of Thebes on our return. It 
 is underlaid with inglorious mummies. The Arabs had just 
 dragged one out and thrown it in our path. They tore it in 
 pieces, like dogs round a carcase, and offered its hands and 
 grinning skull for sale. The place is full of holes where these 
 ghouls have rifled the dead. But no one cares. No pains are 
 apparently taken to preserve even the priceless chambers of the 
 Kings. They are being smoked with the torches of explorers, 
 and many are scored breast-high with the scrawlings of travellers 
 and tourists. It must be admitted, however, that some of these 
 
UPPER EGYPT: MEMPHIS, THEBES, SYENE. 
 
 39 
 
 mscnp- 
 t i o n s 
 have now the in- 
 terest of antiquity, ^l|§i 
 divers of the 
 names being those of 
 old Greeks and Romans, 
 written one thousand five: 
 hundred or more years 
 ago. Unfortunately this 
 trick of travellers is 
 "posted" up to the latest 
 date, and though it is 
 strange indeed to see 
 the very handwriting of 
 the torch-bearer of the 
 Eleusinian mysteries who 
 visited the spot, as he 
 records, in the reign of 
 Constantine, it is not 
 touching to see also the 
 autograph of a "gent" 
 from Paddington added 
 in the last month. What 
 a curious phase of selfish 
 
 TOMBS OF THE KINGS. 
 
40 TAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 inappreciation of these wonderful relics is indicated, when a 
 man stares at a sculpture still fresh from the hand of the 
 workman who may have wrought it before Abraham journeyed 
 into Egypt, and then whips out his knife to spend the 
 remainder of his visit in cutting his name upon the best- 
 preserved surface that he can find ! A rascal was even 
 chipping pieces off the vocal Memnon, as we passed, for some 
 one to put in his pocket. 
 
 The condition of the Coptic Christians here makes one wish 
 to know more about it. They are supposed to be the purest 
 descendants of the ancient Egyptians who were converted in 
 the earliest ages of our faith. Outwardly they appear un- 
 distinguishable from the Arabs among whom they live and 
 work. Several times, however, a child has drawn up the sleeve 
 of its shirt to show the cross tattooed upon its arm. St. George 
 seems a popular saint here. In one or two places he is respected 
 even by Mohammedans, who tell their beads before his picture. 
 A special mixture of sensations, indeed, arose in my mind on 
 seeing the familiar representation of the saint on horseback 
 slaying the dragon in a St. George's very much in the East 
 among temples adorned by a Pharaoh with sculptures of him- 
 self and Osiris. There was an attendant in the building — say 
 a verger — in a turban and blue shirt, who came up to us with 
 a plate, in which we laid a small offering. I ought to have 
 called on the rector. He is certain to be chocolate-coloured, 
 and — dressed like his verger, with the sole addition of a pair 
 of red slippers — to be in the habit of riding about on a donkey 
 without a bridle or stirrups. Most probably he carries in his 
 hand a long chibouque, and sits on his heels, with his knees 
 up to his ears, when he smokes it at home. Talking with 
 gravity of impressions which in some sense are unexpected, it 
 
UPPER EGYPT: MEMPHIS, THEBES, SYENE. 
 
 4» 
 
 is strangely striking, while looking through some graven list of 
 victories in a temple crowded with records which, however 
 interesting, touch no associations, to come upon a sculpture 
 
 COPT PRIEST. 
 
 representing Shishak leading Jewish prisoners with cords and 
 presenting them before Ammon. This is very vividly portrayed 
 at Karnak, and gives a touching thrill of reality to these wonder- 
 
4 2 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 ful histories in stone. They are horribly real. Nothing can be 
 more grim than the agony in the faces of some captives with 
 their elbows tied tight together behind their backs, and the 
 calm cruelty in the countenance of the conqueror who is 
 engaged in slaying them. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 February 28. — We are now on our return voyage down the 
 Nile. Yesterday we visited Abydus, or Thinis, the cradle of 
 the Egyptian monarchy, and which, being the reputed burial- 
 place of Osiris himself, was to ancient Egypt what Jerusalem 
 is to Christendom. Even in the time of Strabo this city had 
 been reduced to the state of a small village. What a glimpse 
 into the dim vista of antiquity this thought suggests ! And 
 yet, quite lately, a marvellous temple has been here uncovered, 
 among the ruined heaps which mark the site of the place, with 
 beautifully sculptured and coloured chapels of seven of the great 
 Egyptian gods. Parts of them are as clean and bright as if 
 they had been finished yesterday. On our way — I rode there 
 on a lame white camel, with a villainous pack-saddle — we passed 
 through fields where lads were keeping watch with slings, which 
 they used with great dexterity. I bought one of a boy. Probably 
 it is much the same as that which David used. Soon, all well, 
 we shall reach Cairo, after a voyage in which we have been 
 filled with fresh impressions of the Egypt familiar to the Jews, 
 and which, with its ever-present water, deeply fertile fields, 
 sumptuous ritual, elaborate idolatry, and gorgeous cities brim- 
 
44 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 ming with life, was their immediate retrospect while journeying 
 in the "great and terrible wilderness" which we hope to enter 
 next week. 
 
 While, however, we are rapidly steaming down the river, 
 I beguile a hot afternoon by a retrospective attempt to realise 
 the relation of Egypt to the tourists who visit it. I ask myself, 
 "What is the charm which draws a yearly fleet of dahabeahs, 
 chartered by Americans and Europeans, up the Nile?" And, 
 without going out of my way to be cynical, I cannot help 
 thinking that one factor in this influence is an ancient flavour 
 of slavery which pervades the air, and enables a rich and 
 imperative soul to realise or revive a sense of indolent master- 
 hood without risking the vulgar charge of eccentricity, or being 
 officiously taxed with having a hankering after the tyrannical. 
 This sense of masterhood is provided by the contrast between 
 Western civilisation and Egyptian servility. 
 
 The golden vein of luxury which threads the Nile has its 
 first obvious foil in the fringe of brown half-naked men who 
 labour on its banks to raise the water for their fields. This is 
 keenly striking to those who have just left Europe for the first 
 time, and, especially as the river is bordered in many places by 
 groves of palm trees, suggests a sudden introduction to tropical 
 scenery, and its accompanying sentiment of African bondage. 
 But this is not all the testimony to its presence. There is 
 more. A whiff of it floated so distinctly into my cabin one day, 
 while our boat lay at Thebes, that I made a note of it in my 
 journal, which now lies open before me. The afternoon was 
 fiercely hot. Even the baksheesh-shrieking children, who cluster 
 like flies at every landing-place, were silent. There was no 
 native idler, munching sugar-cane, on the bank. All the dogs 
 were asleep. The little rags of ensigns at the Consulates hung 
 
EGYPT: THE PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX ; SUEZ. 45 
 
 down limp under a white and blazing sky. The Nile was 
 melted copper, when I heard the plaintive rowing chorus of a 
 boat's crew, which our dragoman had once translated to us. It 
 is a sort of religious love ditty. On this occasion it came into 
 my open window as I lay in my cabin that scorching day at 
 Thebes. Looking out, I saw a young gentleman reclining 
 under the awning of his boat, with a cigarette in his mouth. 
 He was being rowed up stream by his straining chocolate- 
 coloured crew. It was something to create both a breeze and 
 this masterful sensation so near grumbling London. You may 
 get into a railway carriage at Charing Cross, and in a week 
 find yourself the lord of a dahabeah, on whose shaded sofa- 
 cushioned upper deck you can lounge, looking down upon 
 the double bank of swarthy oarsmen who drag at their 
 weighty sweeps. 
 
 I don't mean to say that they mind it, or vex their souls 
 about the contrast between the lot of the master and the man. 
 Indeed, they are glad of the job, and are ever ready to show 
 their magnificent teeth in a smile at a kindly word or the 
 donation of a little tobacco. 
 
 But still, the contrast exists, and is so constantly and 
 importunately present as, surely, sometimes to touch the mind 
 of the sensitive traveller with uneasiness, or to gratify mis- 
 chievously the consciousness of any one with slave-driving 
 instincts. 
 
 Moreover, I may be wrong, but I fancy that the reiterated 
 representation of colossal imperiousness on palace and temple 
 walls, where calm-faced Rameses for three thousand years has 
 held his shrieking captives by the hair, or, big as Gulliver 
 among the Lilliputians, driven his chariot over heaps of slain, 
 still sheds a savour of unfeeling masterhood on this land, so 
 
46 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 utterly, in its social and historical atmosphere, unlike that which 
 its modern visitor has left. It is a land in which life is cheap, 
 and inquiry about death sluggish. One day, not very long ago, 
 a well-dined gentleman, desirous to greet a passing galley some- 
 where about Luxor with a salute from his revolver, shot a man 
 dead upon the bank. What was done ? we simply asked. " Oh ! 
 it was only an Arab," said our informant. 
 
 No doubt there is learned appreciation of Egyptian an- 
 tiquities, and a genuine realisation of the marvellous history 
 cut upon its ruins and crowding the walls of its tombs, in 
 divers of those who come here. There is a tender perception 
 of docile native contentment in those who are able to converse 
 with the peasant and boatman, but the sheer pelican-shooting, 
 stick-flourishing sentiment often seems to prevail. I lack, too, 
 sufficiently respectful appreciation of that appetite for display 
 which sets the hirers of some boats to offend the mellow after- 
 glow of Egyptian evenings by hanging stinking coloured oil 
 lamps in their rigging and spurting rockets from their decks. 
 Indeed, the prevalent spirit of authoritativeness is not stately 
 enough in divers of these travellers. It is too aggressive 
 and importunate, and lacks the true scornful flavour of 
 imperious repose. 
 
 Another class of tourists exhibits a different attitude, but 
 one still curiously wide of the influence which Egypt might be 
 expected to shed. They affect no sublime indolence, but show 
 the liveliest and most bustling good humour ; and the comments 
 one hears perpetually suggest the questions, " What did these 
 good people expect, and what did they come to Egypt for ? " 
 One says, u The Nile is not nearly so pretty as the Rhine." 
 Pretty ! this is about the last epithet applicable to the ancient 
 and mysterious Nile. Though bordered by limestone ranges 
 
EGYPT: THE PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX ; SUEZ. 47 
 
 which sometimes draw near and present grand phases of 
 contrast between palm groves, vast breadths of corn, and tomb- 
 pierced rocks, the river is very often, for miles upon miles, a 
 canal with high banks between perfectly flat fields. Another 
 says, " I wonder where they get all these salads that we have ? " 
 as if our distance from Covent Garden made their presence 
 a problem, or as if any place in the world, historically and 
 horticulturally, could be more productive of succulent vegetables 
 than the edge of the Nile. A third remarks, with an air of 
 surprise, "Another fine day!" Why, there are nothing but fine 
 days here. 
 
 The cream of enjoyment, however, to many of these good 
 folks rises in moonlight excursions to ruins. These are in- 
 evitably made on donkeys. Now Karnak, under a full and 
 silent Egyptian moon, is a solemn sight. But these worthy 
 people get up a " party," and invade it full gallop with uproar, 
 to which a gang of Arab boys contributes with hideous generosity. 
 The result is a mixture of Osiris and Hampstead Heath, enough 
 to make mummies turn in their graves. 
 
 I suspect that this phase of the tourist treatment of Egypt 
 and its grey historical wonders will be intensified when the rail- 
 road has crept up by the Nile-side to the first cataract, and 
 perhaps farther. Then it will be possible to run from London 
 to Philae in ten days, and spend a slice of three weeks' Christmas 
 holiday in the land of the Pharaohs. 
 
 As it is, the ordinary Egyptian touter, with his shouts, 
 donkeys, and handfuls of spurious antiquities, does much to mar 
 the calm of any visit to his land. He thinks he can be under- 
 stood if he talks loud enough, and so bawls close to your ear 
 in a voice that might be heard across the Nile. This Babel 
 of importunity will be worse when trains deposit their sight- 
 
4 8 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 seers for a few hours at the most famous and sacred spots, 
 till the whistle of the engine calls them back from a peep inside 
 temples and tombs haunted by Osiris, Isis, and Typhon. I 
 suppose it is all right. But to those who have visited Egypt 
 in a reverent and quietly receptive spirit it will be another land, 
 and become something like a diffused and magnified Egyptian 
 department of the British Museum, with Arabian attendants. 
 
 Cairo, March 3, 1880. — We have paid our visit to the 
 Pyramids of Gizeh. They are, and are not, what I expected. 
 One has so long read accounts of this expedition, with occa- 
 sionally somewhat exaggerated pictures of the " adventures " 
 encountered by the way, that it is rather a disillusion to perceive 
 how the business is done. There is a broad road from Cairo 
 all the way to these famous monuments. If you want to see 
 them close you tell the waiter at the hotel to call a cab, and 
 when you get into it you simply say, " Pyramids." No doubt 
 the driver is an Oriental, and the " cab " is an open " victoria," 
 like one in Paris, but the procedure is very prosaic so far. The 
 road, when you get out of New Cairo and cross the bridge 
 over the Nile, is simply dirt, and full of great holes. It runs 
 for a considerable distance through an avenue of trees, between 
 wide breadths of sweet-smelling clover. We met hundreds of 
 camels and donkeys carrying loads of this into the city for 
 forage. Some of the latter beasts were so hideously lame as 
 to show what, I fear, is the natural cruelty or indifference of 
 the Egyptian. Indeed, the way in which even well-fed 
 donkeys are treated here is ingeniously unfeeling. However 
 gaily caparisoned, a " raw " is considered an inevitable part of 
 the poor creature's equipment. It is neatly cut out on his 
 loins. Some English having remonstrated at this, divers 
 donkey-boys scoop the raw out under the broad breeching 
 
EGYPT: THE PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX ; SUEZ. 51 
 
 which each donkey wears, and then hit or prog the leather 
 where they know the tender spot is concealed.. 
 
 But, to return to the Pyramids : the scent of the blossoms 
 on both sides of the road filled the air and made the drive 
 delicious to us. At the end of the clover region the desert 
 begins suddenly. The line between its stony glare and the 
 soft green of the fields is as abrupt as that between the grass 
 of a lawn and a gravel walk. The Pyramids themselves are in 
 sheer desert, and directly you have reached this you seem to 
 enter conditions which enable you to realise them better. Indeed, 
 though they looked larger than I had expected when viewed 
 from the high ground by the citadel in Cairo, they appeared 
 to shrink when seen from the clover-fields. 
 
 As, however, we emerged into the desert and approached the 
 Pyramids still closer, they seemed to rise again. A final sweep 
 of the road, between two stuccoed stone walls, leads the visitor 
 to their very edge. Some indolent people are driven up this 
 slope as near to the Pyramid platform as a cab goes to the 
 entrance of a railway-station ; but the soil had changed from dirt 
 into sand so deep and loose that we left our vehicle a few hundred 
 yards below, and walked the rest of the distance. We had 
 heard much about the importunity of the Arab touters here, 
 but we saw very few, and only two accompanied us, a little 
 way off, as we wandered about the place. The Great Pyramid 
 is a shell, or core, of one originally much larger. Indeed, it 
 has been a quarry for the architects and masons of Cairo, who 
 have built much of the city out of its stone skin and other 
 relics around. Still its size grew upon us marvellously. The 
 dull heat of the day was so great, and the haze so thick, that 
 we, somewhat lazily, did not ascend it. The view would have 
 been very imperfect, but the ascent itself is obviously easy 
 
 d 2 
 
^ 2 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 enough, and we could distinctly trace the steps by which it is 
 made. Round the base of the Great Pyramid are huge heaps 
 of rubble. These are the crumbs of the meal which the Cairo 
 builders left when they devoured its case of stones already squared 
 for the houses and mosques they were erecting. A mark in the 
 eround shows the old extent of the structure, and indicates 
 the vast amount of material which these Egyptian Goths have 
 carried off. What a mighty burial-place that of Memphis must 
 have been! It stretches hence, miles and miles away towards 
 Sakkarah, these great Pyramids of Gizeh having been built upon 
 its edge. How much is still discoverable there it would be hard 
 even to guess. 
 
 The Sphinx is grandly pathetic. Battered and worn, it still 
 looks calmly out over the wreck of its old world. It is a mighty 
 skull of a survivor among stone giants, but without any of the 
 horrible grin which the bare bone of the human head ever 
 presents. Indeed, there is a sentiment of antique humour about 
 his ancient face, as if he did not miss the perception of the 
 contrast between the priestly processions of old and the chat- 
 tering train of yesterday tourists who gape at his blunt nose 
 and great stone wig. "What do they know," he seems to be 
 thinking, " of what / have known and seen here ? " To me 
 the Sphinx was fuller of mysterious meaning than the Pyramids, 
 as the echoes of life still seemed to cling about it. While they 
 are peeled and gutted cores of tombs, impotent to hold the 
 mighty dead once put under their care, the Sphinx has held his 
 own with a marvellous tenacity of reserve. 
 
 How strange it is that, although the Sphinx reappears through- 
 out Egypt, Pyramids, including the groups bordering on the 
 necropolis of which these form the most conspicuous northern 
 or western monuments, should never have moved beyond this 
 
EGYPT; THE PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX; SUEZ. 
 
 THE SPHINX. 
 
 region. How strange, too, is the contrast in the form of royal 
 sepulture, if this be such, which is presented by the importunate 
 
54 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 Pyramid, challenging the eye from afar, and the secret graves 
 of the kings dug into the cliffs beyond the necropolis of Thebes. 
 There the purpose seemed to be to hide the kingly corpse away ; 
 here to hold it up before the world. Was it a shifting of theo- 
 logical sentiment, or the dawning of a perception that publicity 
 was not surely safe, which caused this contrast or revulsion in 
 sepulchral treatments in the two great burial-places of Egypt ? 
 
 After visiting the Pyramids we went to the Boulak Museum. 
 It is small, but wonderfully interesting, some of the choicest 
 bits of Egyptian sculpture, etc., being gathered here. There, 
 is, moreover, something intense in the perception that while 
 Egypt appears as a distant land in those departments of European 
 collections which represent it, here the statues are at home. The 
 Boulak Museum is a condensed focus of the country, and though 
 other museums of Egyptian antiquities reveal seemingly incal- 
 culable glimpses into the dimness of the past, here the view is 
 carried still farther back, past the familiar long-eyed square 
 shouldered sculptured profile, past the statue with its full, strong 
 lip, its calm gaze, and hands reposing flat upon its knees, into 
 a region of wholly dissimilar Egyptian art. This looks so 
 modern as to make it difficult to realise that, say, the famous 
 " Wooden Man " represents an age anterior to those which pro- 
 duced what are popularly considered the oldest works of the 
 Egyptian chisel. The "Wooden Man" is, in conception, style, 
 and execution, utterly unlike the typical Egyptian statue, and 
 exhibits such a realisation of the human figure as even to suggest 
 the hand of a European sculptor. One is almost aghast at this 
 door being opened in the background of remote antiquity. When 
 did Egypt begin ? This statue intensifies the question, and 
 leaves the answer in a bewildering hopelessness of conjecture, 
 for it must represent no mere whim of an artist who chose 
 
EGYPT: THE PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX; SUEZ. . 55 
 
 to depart from the conventional style of his times, but the 
 result of a long period of careful craft. 
 
 To pass to a later section of antiquity, we were much struck 
 with two statues purporting to be those of Rameses n. and his 
 son Menephthah — the two later Pharaohs of the Bible — the 
 former oppressing the Hebrews and the latter pursuing them. 
 Rameses, the great conqueror, one of whose statues lies in 
 colossal fragments at Thebes, here shows in mighty force, with 
 great muscles in his arms and legs, and a terribly strong and 
 scornful face. His son Menephthah, who succeeded him, appears 
 as a delicate-featured, effeminate young man, with a weary air 
 in his face, which seems to indicate that he hardly knew how 
 to make up his mind about Moses and Aaron, and, had not 
 some pressure been put upon him, and an influence alien to 
 his nature descended on his mind, would willingly have let the 
 Hebrews go. He shows in the Scripture record a curiously 
 vacillating temper, and, not looking beyond the day, departs 
 from his word directly he is relieved from vexation. One studies 
 the two faces, and fancies that " Rameses " would have made no 
 concessions whatever, nor would have needed to have " his heart 
 hardened." The end would surely have been reached much 
 sooner with him than with his temporising son, who often feared 
 Moses as much as he disliked him, and was again and again on 
 the edge of granting his petition. He looks like a man who 
 would wish to have been left with his palaces, courtiers, and 
 wives, and who would have satisfied himself with any promises, 
 provided he were not compelled to respect them. 
 
 Suez, March 5, 1880. — I am now sitting in the whitewashed, 
 matting-floored bedroom of a very Anglo-Oriental hotel, where 
 the clapping of hands for attendants — of course there are no 
 bells — gives the impression of perpetual applause. A boat-load 
 
56 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 of Indians has perched here on its way to the East, and another 
 is waiting to flit West as soon as some little block in the canal 
 is got over. The result is that the two streams have filled the 
 house, and everybody wants everything at once. Certainly, 
 some domestic processes don't take long to do. Just now there 
 was a knocking at my door. Two black he-chambermaids 
 in white robes have now glided in to "make" my bed, which 
 they have done while I have been writing the last ten words. 
 They have simply thrown the clothes back and walked out. 
 The bed is made, and they are gone, with polite obeisance. 
 
 We are getting nearer to the Desert phase of our journey. 
 The Red Sea makes a quiet lapping on the quay about ^v^. 
 yards from our door. The stars look very big, and my eye 
 rests for the first time upon the outline of desert hills across the 
 gulf. A solid-looking boat is bobbing about in the clear water 
 not far off, and will take us presently over to join our camels on 
 the other side, when we shall mount them for a month. Achmed 
 says that the Bedouin are making a great fuss about the luggage, 
 which I believe they always do ; but we have left him to settle 
 with them. They will go round by the bridge over the canal. 
 Anyhow they can't be more remonstrative than camels. These 
 have their wholly separate opinions as to the share of burden 
 which comes to each, and, from my experience of them in Egypt, 
 always criticise unfavourably the advent of a rider. Once on 
 his back, the camel turns round and looks at you, first on one 
 side, and then on the other. After this, in total disregard of 
 any want of courtesy in the remark, he heaves another prodigious 
 groan, and looks straight forward. But as he moves on he every 
 now and then seems to be anxious that his two stomachs should 
 be in tune, and occasionally they appear to join in a duet ; and 
 the result should be heard. Some beguile the time by demands 
 
EGYPT: THE PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX; SUEZ. 57 
 
 upon every gurgling faculty they possess as they go along. 
 Others, however, are silent enough on the journey, and keep 
 their remarks for the loading hour. 
 
 We have had to-day the dustiest journey I ever took, except 
 perhaps in part of the saline district of Central America, where 
 the " Atlantic and Pacific" crosses the bitter plains, and the 
 soda makes the finger nails brittle. The old overland route 
 which travellers to India once took begins just outside Cairo, 
 but when a railroad was attempted across the desert the want 
 of water beat the engine, which is more thirsty than a camel. 
 Now the line at first skirts fertile land, entering a barren part 
 some time before you get to Ismailia. Then it runs for a time 
 by the fresh-water cutting made by Pharaohs — now in places much 
 choked with rushes — and the Suez Canal, threaded with ships. 
 It is very curious to come on steamers with the desert all around. 
 The scene at a station just out of Ismailia is such as cannot be 
 found elsewhere. Bedouins, villages of mud, Egyptian girls 
 offering drink from their water-pots, Indian travellers with wide 
 pith hats like mushrooms, native porters, engines made at 
 Manchester, with their names written on them in Arabic, a train 
 painted white because of the heat, smart bustling officers 
 of P. and O. boats, Orientals on donkeys, with a Babel of 
 languages, all together make a scene to be remembered in 
 the midst of a glaring waste of sand stretching on all sides out 
 of sight. The heat in the train to-day was tremendous. A 
 native Indian gentleman, who travelled in our compartment, said 
 it was worse than Bombay in May. I don't wonder that the 
 mosquitos were so abominably alive as we found them in Cairo. 
 Of course we shall find none of these in the desert, for they 
 want water ; but no doubt, by some principle of compensation, a 
 sufficiency of dry vermin will be discovered there. 
 
58 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 Friday Morning, 5.30. — There is the first church bell I 
 have heard since I left Europe ! No bells, or clocks that strike, 
 are found in Egypt, and now that I think of it, I don't recall 
 any public clock at all, however silent, except it may be in a 
 railway station. The natural changes in the day, and the voices 
 of the Muezzin, summon to prayer. Perhaps, too, time is a 
 matter of such small importance to Egyptians that such a punc- 
 tual division of it as is made by clocks is resented or despised. 
 Anyhow, here is a church bell, marking some early Christian 
 service. A good omen, as we set off for Sinai to-day. The 
 next bells we hear will be those of the Convent of St. Katherine, 
 under its cliffs. 
 
CROSSING THE DESERT. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DESERT OF SINAI. 
 
 Wady Feiran, Thursday, March n, 1880.— We are stopping 
 here for a day's rest in what is confidently, and I believe rightly, 
 reckoned as the Rephidim of Scripture, where the Amalekites 
 challenged the entry of the Jews into their lovely oasis. It is a 
 winding valley, skirted by high, dark, rough rocks, and crowded 
 with palms, through which flows a little stream, pleasanter to 
 
6o PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 the eye than to the taste. This rivulet is about three inches 
 deep and some four feet wide, losing itself, at last, in sand. Close 
 by our " camp " is a mound, or low hill, covered with the ruins 
 of the old episcopal city of Paran, the relics of its church showing 
 conspicuously. The rough slopes around are burrowed with 
 holes in which hermits once lived, and the sky-line of some of 
 the cliffs is jagged with the remains of u stations," or chapels. It 
 is supposed that the mound of which I have just spoken is that 
 on which Moses sat watching and praying while the battle went 
 on about him. An opening in the cliffs gives us a grand view 
 of the heights of Serbal, the finest mountain in the Sinaitic 
 peninsula, which some have thought to be the Mount of the Law. 
 But it lacks the essential condition of a plain stretching from its 
 foot. There are, no doubt, plains or broad openings among the 
 valleys around, which give a bold view of its summit, but 
 they are separated from its base by miles of intervening lower 
 ridges. 
 
 While here I must add a few words about the famous " Sinaitic 
 Inscriptions," of which we saw a considerable number as we 
 passed yesterday through the Wady Mukatteb, where they most 
 abound. They are sprinkled, explorers say, over the whole 
 Sinaitic peninsula, but are thickest here. The first thing that 
 struck me was the meanness of these writings which have 
 exercised the world of experts. Indeed, continued research 
 proves that they are merely the idle scribblings of the " Bil 
 Stumpses " of their day. That "day" seems to have begun in 
 Pagan times, and to have overlapped the Christian immigration. 
 
 The inscriptions, though shallow, are nowhere scratched, but 
 apparently made by " tapping " with a sharp stone. In " meaning," 
 they are all pronounced to be " equally worthless and unimportant." 
 Indeed, they record nothing but a long fit of sheer scribbling. 
 
THE DESERT OF SINAI. 61 
 
 It is, however, very singular that no ancient gathering, such 
 as the Jewish host led by Moses, should have left any such 
 engraved records behind them, though they were familiar with 
 the Egyptian fashion of writing contemporaneous history, down 
 to its smallest current details, on stone. The central Sinaitic 
 cluster of mountains was, moreover, once tenanted by thousands 
 of monks ; but, though they might see divers of these old " Sinaitic 
 Inscriptions" upon the faces of detached rock fragments near 
 the mount in which they swarmed, they spent no idle hours — 
 of which they must have had many — in adding their crowd 
 of names. Nor does it appear that the large yearly assemblage 
 of Arabs in the " Wady es Sheykh," continued up to the present 
 day, leaves any marks on the rocks and stones around them. 
 
 During one period, and — though it was prolonged — one period 
 only, the people in these parts amused themselves with scrawling 
 upon the flat faces of the handiest slabs. One might well wish 
 that the fashion had gone out with these remote generations 
 of scribblers. 
 
 We have entered a trying phase of our journey. Egypt 
 was an arm-chair business compared to this. There we had 
 our cabins, and comfortable lounging seats on deck, under an 
 awning. The first few days of camel riding do not bring 
 comfort, and, in places, the blowing sand is excessively tiresome, 
 and the sun terrible. But we have found the desert more 
 gravel than sand, especially when, on the course of the Mecca 
 pilgrims, there is a broad track or set of parallel tracks, made by 
 camels' feet, about two yards apart, and some twenty in number. 
 This highway in the desert showed before and behind us like 
 a long waving line of threads laid side by side. We met several 
 dislocated joints in the tail of the Mecca caravan, the body 
 of which had passed by some time before. These were mostly 
 
62 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 batches of pilgrims who had hung back weary and footsore. 
 Salem, our foremost man, saluted each party that we met, shaking 
 hands, kissing, and touching heads, as their respective leaders 
 
 A BEDOUIN. 
 
 came close up, after showing like little dots in the long distance 
 before us. He told us that they were chiefly Algerines, who 
 
THE DESERT OF SINAI. C3 
 
 would walk all the way home along the African coast. What 
 a trudge ! Some limped, but most marched bravely on, dry, 
 hard, and dark, clothed in scanty whitey-brown rags. A few 
 wore sandals : others were bare-footed. Occasionally, by the 
 side of our course were rough, low mounds. " What are these ?" 
 we asked. The reply was, " The graves of those who die by 
 the way." It brought home to us the shrewd aspect of sickness, 
 and the suddenness of burial here. There would be no time 
 to wait. Within literally a few hours a man might be sick, 
 faint, dead, and buried ; and in an hour more his friends would 
 be far away for ever. 
 
 Our start from the Wells of Moses was not very propitious. 
 After a lovely boat-sail across the gulf we landed, and walked 
 up to them, expecting to find our camels. But they had been 
 delayed at the bridge over the canal, and did not arrive till 
 it was quite dark. We had begun to contemplate a night on the 
 bare sand to begin with. And when the tents did come, and 
 were pitched, a little brown dog, with a dark frown on his face, 
 presented himself at our tent door, and looking round with an 
 air of experience, said, distinctly, " Humph!" He then walked 
 slowly off, as much as to add, " I don't think much of your 
 arrangements." If he had confined himself to this remark 
 we should not have minded so much, but afterwards he took 
 it into his head to tell what he thought to five or six other 
 curs at the top of his voice, and the delivery of their verdict 
 lasted all night. However, this was the last of dogs that we 
 shall see or hear for some time. Our Bedouin, though, are often 
 needlessly noisy, and the man told off to watch the tents at night 
 is likely to forget that if he sings to keep himself awake, others 
 hear him as well. And an Arab song is more noisy than musical. 
 I should call the singer, perhaps, more tiresome than noisy, 
 for he does not open his mouth, but hums loudly within himself, 
 
64 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 like a hurdy-gurdy in a cupboard. The quarrelling and chatter 
 of the Bedouin, too, is sometimes intolerable by day. They talk 
 at the top of their voices, and find an astonishing number of 
 assertions to contradict. Once on our way here I innocently 
 stopped my camel-leader, a particularly noisy fellow, with a pinch 
 of snuff, which he had never taken before. Perceiving a pause 
 after a long unbroken babble, I offered him this pinch. He took 
 it, copiously, in his brown finger and thumb, and was about to 
 tie it up in the corner of his shirt, where he carried his valuables. 
 So I instructed him as to its proper application, and he was 
 surprised. Being a " gentleman," a camel-owner, and carrying 
 a huge sword, he was too high-minded to sneeze, but he went 
 through a rare combination of moral and physical efforts of 
 restraint lest he should commit himself, and for a couple of hours 
 walked in perfect silence, furtively divesting himself of the 
 mischief he had got. It is curious how odd little passages come 
 into a tour which might be designated as a pilgrimage, but 
 there is a humorous side to most life, and I defy any one to 
 travel with these sons of the desert without having his gravity 
 occasionally upset by some queer phase of custom, or by the 
 unexpected importance attached to small matters. 
 
 Of course one ought to be impressed by the consciousness 
 that we are in the antique society of a people who have been, as 
 they now are, time out of mind, sublimely superior to the profit 
 and pleasure of civilized life. They have ever simply disdained, 
 or failed to realise the existence of such a thing as " progress." 
 They have stood aloof from the ways of an anxious world, and 
 present the spectacle of a unique and haughty contentment. 
 But this contrast to the fussiness and schemes of humanity, 
 with the rebuke which it involves, is much more striking when 
 read and thought of at a distance. It is profoundly impressive 
 then. Now that we are travelling with Arabs, day and night 
 
THE DESERT OE SIN AT. 65 
 
 bring their disillusions. The august sense of being in a society 
 virtually unchanged since the days of Moses, and which, indeed, 
 had existed long before his time, is sadly marred by its disputes 
 and dirt. One night, e.g., wishing to reciprocate the bowing 
 courtesy of our sheykh, I asked him into our tent to smoke 
 a pipe, when Achmed, our dragoman, himself an Egyptian Arab, 
 cried out, with rude but not incorrect perception of the possible 
 consequences of my civility, " Master, you will be covered with 
 fleas." This was an embarrassing interruption of a mood in 
 which I was making a little attempt to realise Oriental politeness, 
 let alone a sentiment of some small equivalent to Scriptural 
 hospitality. 
 
 Though ceremoniously civil to us, these Bedouin quarrel 
 furiously among themselves, giving, apparently, the lie to one 
 another, face to face, at a range of six inches ; and they are dirty. 
 Neither at Gharandel, where there was water — brackish — nor 
 when we came here, where a little stream flows down the wady, 
 did l\ see any of them make any attempt to wash even their 
 hands ; and when I got them to fetch water to fill my bath, 
 they did it with polite scorn. 
 
 To return to the graver aspect of our tour, I shall, all well, 
 find occasion to speak somewhat of the track of the Israelites 
 when we have gone farther in, or finished, our desert march. At 
 present fact finally upsets the picture formed in my mind when 
 I first began to hear of their journey in the wilderness. Of 
 course it was a mere childish impression, and has been corrected 
 by books of travel ; still it was not till I arrived in the country 
 itself that this early-formed picture wholly faded away. Moses, 
 standing on a rock, and looking down on the drowning host 
 of Pharaoh, is an impossibility, untrue as can be conceived. 
 All along the Red Sea, from the head of the gulf, for days, 
 according to the rate of camel travel, the shore is quite flat 
 
 E 
 
66 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 the cliffs of the Et Tih being some miles inland. Then, the 
 approach to Sinai, now only a march and a half off from us, is not 
 over an inland plain, but chiefly by the sea, till the valley leading 
 up to Rephidim, where we now are, is reached. This is terribly 
 dry, the little stream which flows through the oasis losing itself, 
 as I have noticed, in the sand as soon as the palm-trees cease. 
 The distance, moreover, that the Jews traversed after leaving 
 Egypt, and before reaching Sinai, strikes one as unexpectedly 
 short when the little ground really covered by each march is 
 taken into account. Modern pilgrims in, say, France, could 
 accomplish a journey of such a length in half a day, being able 
 by train to visit an oracle no farther distant from their starting- 
 point than Sinai is from Suez, and return to their homes between 
 one summer sunrise and sunset. But the tail of the Mecca 
 caravan, crawling slowly on foot, enabled us in a measure to 
 realise the slow Jewish march ; and long pauses at several 
 encampments would be necessary in order to get the host 
 well together. 
 
 When the Bedouin are not quarrelling the silence ot the 
 desert is profound. Once I was riding considerably in advance, 
 and heard my companion say to our dragoman, Achmed, " Ride 
 on and ask Mr. Jones for his umbrella." His own had been 
 carried off from his side by the wind one day as we sat at lunch, 
 and after leaping on for apparently about a mile in advance, 
 jumped over a sand-hill and disappeared for ever. Well, hearing 
 his request far behind, I threw mine down from my camel and 
 rode on. When we joined company an hour afterwards he 
 remarked, " Do you know that you have lost your sunshade?" 
 Neither he nor the dragoman had noticed that on hearing 
 what he said I had thrown it down for them to pick it up ; 
 and yet I had heard his direction to Achmed to ride on 
 and ask me for its loan as plainly as if he had been a few 
 
THE PES BR T OF SIX A f. 67 
 
 yards behind me. In these noonday periods of silence the 
 heat appears to gather special force, the black shadow of 
 the camel seeming to fall exactly under the animal, the whole 
 surroundings being covered with unbroken glare. It is, how- 
 ever, I think, in the morning that the heat is most felt by the 
 traveller. I never before realised the words, " The sun is no 
 sooner risen with a burning heat." 1 Here in this part of the 
 East it rises white hot, and it no sooner looks over the 
 horizon than it scorches. Then, at once, the whole body, from 
 heel to ear, catches its rays, whereas, in the middle of the day, 
 the shoulders, in some measure, shade the rest of the person ; 
 and an umbrella, best when white, held over the head, pro- 
 vides a completely covering shade. What I have said about 
 the burning heat of the early sun applies with less force to 
 that of the afternoon, for then the coolness of the night has 
 long been left behind. It is the sharp hot shock after cool 
 darkness which makes itself most felt. 
 
 When, however, I talk of cool darkness, I do not convey 
 the true idea of some of our nights. After our baking ride 
 here it came on to rain, with an occasional u blash " of sleet 
 and snow. It is now drearily cold. Last night, after riding 
 during the day with even my shirt unbuttoned and thrown 
 back, I lay down in my long boots, all my clothes, two coats, 
 and my ulster and railway rug over me, as well as the counter- 
 pane, etc., and now I have put on my macintosh leggings in 
 the tent, simply to keep my legs warm. The poor Bedouin ! 
 no wonder they have coughs ! There are holes enough in the 
 adjoining rocks to hold a tribe, but most of them seem to 
 have lain down on the ground in the wind and rain all night, 
 and not one in the company has a pair of breeches. I had 
 
 1 These have been changed in the Revised Version, though the older translation 
 best fits the natural fact. 
 
 E 2 
 
68 PAST AND PRESENT IX THE EAST. 
 
 heard that a man here owned a little patch of such tobacco 
 as these Arabs smoke, so I have bought some five shillings' 
 worth of it for them, and it has been brought to me, for 
 inspection, in a sack, and is green— almost exactly like Brussels 
 sprouts. I hope they like it. The sheykh has touched breast, 
 mouth and forehead, in polite gratitude, and blown me kisses in 
 the air. If ever I came here again I would bring good store 
 of " Cavendish," or a coil of " nigger-head," and see what 
 they thought of that. As it is, they are making alarming 
 inroads on my stock of bird's-eye, which I cannot help filling 
 their pipes w T ith sometimes, whereof comes much grateful 
 sniffing, rolling of eyes, and obeisance. Talking of eyes, I 
 have washed those belonging to one of our gang with a solu- 
 tion of sulphate of zinc, to his comfort, and now there approaches 
 our tent a man with an old broken leg. Will I cure him ? 
 Poor fellow r , he is so politely disappointed when I tell him, 
 through Achmed, that I cannot do him any good. A " back- 
 sheesh," however, has made him look a little less dismal. 
 There is a small Bedouin hut hamlet in the valley ; but even 
 in this little community I understand that there is more than 
 one blood-feud going on. Those rusty matchlocks our friends 
 carry come into use for settling grave home scores. 
 
 Head of the Wady Solaf, Friday, March 12, 6.30 p.m. — 
 We have just pitched our tents at the threshold of the plain 
 before Sinai, which stands on the other side of a range on 
 which we have now seen the sun set. Some six hours' walk 
 would bring- us to the foot of the mount before which the host 
 was encamped. We shall begin to cross the range early to- 
 morrow, and soon look down upon the scene which I have 
 pictured to myself all my life. The air tells us that we are 
 high up, and it is biting cold. 
 
 I am surprised at the amount of vegetation which we 
 
THE DESERT OF SINAI. 
 
 have seen between this place and Feiran. Looking from my 
 camel along divers parts of the wady we have traversed, it 
 seemed almost entirely covered with shrubs, and a very little 
 observation showed that there was a considerable amount of 
 pasturage on the mountains. But many of the tufts of herb- 
 age are so nearly the colour of the rocks, that they are imper- 
 ceptible at a little distance. They are all aromatic, and the 
 air is full of spice. This district is far more furnished with 
 vegetation than any we have seen here, and three thousand 
 years ago it may have been still more fertile in food for flocks 
 and herds. There do not seem to be enough now to eat what 
 is provided. Such sheep and goats as we see appear to be 
 in excellent condition, and our camels snatch at the scented 
 shrubs as they pace along. But their breath does not seem to 
 be improved thereby, that of this beast being very offensive. 
 Beyond the rare sheep and goats, little life is seen here. There 
 is the universal bird, the familiar wagtail, and a cloud of white 
 eagles showed themselves in the course of our day's ride, 
 probably drawn by the dead carcase of some camel or sheep. 
 We broke up their conference with a shot from a revolver, 
 which brought a hundred echoes from these lonely cliffs. 
 
 I have just been out of our tent to look at the night. 
 The sky is crowded with enormous stars, while the veil of 
 rock before Sinai seems as if it were ten yards off. Our gang 
 of Bedouin are sitting around their bivouac fire, making a 
 Rembrandt group ; and my companion, reading some doleful 
 book, remarks that there are five kinds of scorpions, that 
 hyaenas often prowl around a travellers' camp in these parts, 
 and that venomous snakes are abundant. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MOUNT SINAI AND THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 
 
 Convent of St. Katherine, Mount Sinai, March n, 1880. — 
 We are weather-bound here, having been driven from our 
 camping-ground at dawn by a tremendous north wind, w r ith 
 sleet, which gave us such a night of flapping struggle with 
 ropes and canvas, in a bitter biting tempest, as we shall 
 remember, but I hope not experience again. So here we are, 
 having hired two stone rooms of the monks, who leave us 
 entirely to ourselves. Perhaps they are asleep. They had two 
 services, one at 1.30 and the other about 4 this morning, and 
 the sound of their church bells came weirdly to us in the intervals 
 between the gusts, as we were fighting with our tent in the 
 dark under the cliffs of Sinai, where we had pitched our camp. 
 
 Yesterday morning, however, was magnificent. Beneath a hot 
 sun and an intensely blue sky we crossed the pass which leads 
 into Er Rahah, the great plain where surely the host stood before 
 the mount. Ten paces in our path, which had led up between 
 wildly rugged sloping cliffs, revealed Sinai to us. It was the 
 arrival of one of those instantaneously photographed impres- 
 sions which come rarely in a life. Sinai is much smaller than 
 I expected. Indeed, any one who knows Switzerland might 
 even hesitate before he called it a mountain. It is about half the 
 
MOUNT SINAI AND THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 73 
 
 height of Snowdon — u, above the surrounding levels. Nor is 
 it so seamed with igneous record as half-a-dozen other moun- 
 tains we have passed on our way hither. But it is grandly, 
 silently alone ; St. Katherine, which is considerably higher, 
 being separated from it by a valley. Its relation to the plain, 
 which begins — in its flatness — some half-mile or so from its 
 actual base, is such as I do not remember to have seen In any 
 mountainous region I have visited. It is unique. A pile of 
 granite cliffs, with a huge flat spread of yellow sand, not falling 
 away from it, but, on the contrary, sloping upwards from near 
 its foot like an enormous beach. My first thought was that 
 this would hold a million men looking over one another's 
 heads upon the mount ; and my next thought was that they 
 might all, in the singular silence of the desert, be spoken to 
 with a trumpet from its summit, if not with the bare human 
 voice. There was not a sound. I was for some time in advance 
 of our caravan, and could distinctly hear the soft crush of my 
 camel's foot in the sand. The air helped the eye as much as 
 it did the ear. We were unexpectedly long in our silent 
 march down the plain to the foot of the mount. Those who 
 have, after patient comparison of the testimony of various 
 claimants to the grand title of Sinai, decided on giving it to this 
 " Ras Sufsafeh," must, I cannot help thinking, be right. Serbal, 
 Jebel Musa, and Jebel Seneh do not combine the necessary 
 conditions. This mighty yellow theatre, sloping up before its huge 
 oulpit of granite, might well have been in the eye of Moses as he 
 led the people over plains and between precipices onwards to the 
 spot which he knew so well, this pulpit and theatre built in the 
 highest, most secluded part of this barren, isolated peninsula. 
 
 March 13. — We have ascended Jebel Musa, the traditional 
 Sinai, and Ras Sufsafeh, considered by an influential majority 
 
74 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 of travellers, experts, and scholars to be the true Mount of the 
 Law. It seems, indeed, impossible to look down from the 
 summits of these two and doubt which of them has the best 
 claim to be considered the real Sinai. The view from the 
 former is very grand, embracing, as it does, mountains in 
 Arabia, across the Gulf of Akabah. One looks, however, in 
 vain for a sufficient place in which the host of the Hebrews 
 could be collected beneath it. There is, indeed, a valley 
 immediately across which the slopes of St. Katherine, and the 
 group in which it stands, begin to rise ; but the moment you 
 set foot on the summit of Ras Sufsafeh, the plain below reveals 
 itself in all its marvellous extent. It was, when we looked 
 down upon it, empty and silent. A solitary Bedouin, on his 
 camel, was creeping like an insect across its great yellow expanse, 
 and two or three Arab tents on the rough ground nearer the 
 base of the mount suggested that a camp might be pitched 
 there, and presently the people be bidden to move farther off, 
 when they would at once pass into the plain commanding a 
 clear view of the mountain, and entirely visible from its summit. 
 Surely we w T ere on the top of Sinai. 
 
 We descended by a steep, rough — path it could hardly be 
 called — towards the hillock on which it is supposed that Aaron 
 exhibited the golden calf. By such a one Moses came down, 
 hearing the shouting of the people, before he could perceive 
 its cause. Here, I may remark, is still a small brook, flowing 
 down from the mount towards the hill on which the Israelites 
 are said to have committed idolatry, and which stands at the 
 entrance of the valley in which the monastery is situated. 
 
 I happened, while near, to ascend it alone, and lay down, 
 pondering, for some time on its summit. My attitude was so 
 still and prone that a large white eagle seemingly mistook me 
 
MOUNT SINAI AND THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 75 
 
 for a dead corpse, and came sailing down from the skies to 
 investigate or eat. On, however, my moving my hand to the 
 butt of my revolver when he was quite close, he rose with a 
 magnificent " swish," which, apparently without further pulsation 
 of his wings, carried him clear over the cliffs of Ras Sufsafeh. 
 
 Travellers have often recorded how the monks have 
 daringly raked together around the base of Sinai whatever 
 they thought would add to the sacred "attraction" of the place. 
 Here is shown not only the mould in which Aaron cast the 
 golden calf, and the rock which Moses struck, with the marks 
 of his rod upon it, but, in buoyant reliance on popular 
 ignorance of geography, the spot where Korah and his com- 
 pany were swallowed up. I do not think, however, that any 
 one has mentioned the odour of Sinai. It so abounds with 
 aromatic herbs that the air is filled with their scent. [I 
 gathered a few handfuls, and — interpolating this remark on 
 my return to England — I found that they had strongly per- 
 fumed the portmanteau in which they were placed, and thus I 
 can now set before my friends the smell, though not the sight 
 of the Mount of the Law.] 
 
 While sitting in the stone room where the monks have lodged 
 me, and glancing over the little journal which I have kept since 
 we left Egypt, I notice that I have failed to record several impres- 
 sions which I received about the march of the Israelites, and 
 thus set them down, while they are still fresh, in a few more 
 retrospective words. In following it day by day we have, of 
 course, been frequently consulting and comparing the conjectures 
 made about their halting- places. Professing no other knowledge 
 of the matter, there seemed to me only two or three spots which 
 could be identified with the localities mentioned in Scripture. 
 
 'Ayun Miisa, or the Springs of Moses, just opposite the 
 
76 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 traditional passage of the Red Sea, was a disillusion. It was, as 
 I have said, our landing-place in the desert on crossing from Suez. 
 Probably the Hebrews halted there ; and it is still an oasis of 
 palms, with scum-covered pools, in the yellow Desert of Shur. 
 But it is the " Rosherville " of the Suez people, who picnic there, 
 and leave their broken bottles of Bass's beer and other offensive 
 wreckage behind them. They go to it by boat, having to walk 
 only about half an hour from the beach to the springs. 
 
 But once on your camel, looking southward from this spot, 
 and pacing slowly on, this part of the Desert of Shur, where 
 the people " went three days in the wilderness and found no 
 water," is revealed, and presses itself upon you. On the left 
 are the cliffs of the Et Tih ; on the right, across the water, 
 the mountains of Africa. Thus, as the Red Sea is frequently 
 lost sight of in passing over the undulations of the desert, 
 these two blasted-looking ranges must have often reminded 
 them of the long strip of Egypt, only without its central 
 Nile, and with all its bright green fields changed into glaring 
 yellow sand and gravel. 
 
 Gharandel, with its trees and creeping little stream, reached 
 at the end of their first three days' march, must be Elim, with 
 its " threescore and ten " palm-trees, so familiar to the Jews in 
 Egypt, and counted thus carefully when they set eyes on such a 
 welcome cluster after the passage of this wilderness. I reckoned 
 thirty-one there now, and there were more. Once arrived at this 
 spot, they surely would have stopped " and encamped by the 
 waters." They could hardly have been got to move on. 
 
 The next halting-place where one felt to be on Scripture 
 ground which might be identified with the surroundings, would 
 seem to be the camp by the Red Sea (Numbers xxxiii. 10). We 
 approached it by a winding " wady." A " wady " is mostly a flat 
 
MOUNT SINAI AND THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 77 
 
 white or yellow dry bed of a watercourse between broken cliffs, 
 sprinkled with water- worn stones, and seamed with the rush of 
 torrents. We paced on through such a winding defile under a 
 sun so hot that the raising of one's blue spectacles from the 
 eyes was like lifting the door of a furnace. Conceive a crowded 
 host creeping slowly along such a course, with signs of water 
 all around, but not a drop to be seen ! The sides of this blasted, 
 flat-floored valley revealed no welcome patch of green, and no 
 little leaping thread of mountain stream. All was baked as 
 dry as a heap of bricks in an August sun. These cliffs on either 
 side showed the strangest bands and masses of colour — black, 
 white, green, orange, red. YVe passed along, thinking of what 
 that march must have been thousands of years ago, when, turning 
 a corner, in a moment, as by the flashing back of a blind, there 
 was the Red Sea beneath us, utterly blue, with the African moun- 
 tains showing, in the clear air, as if close by. This would appear 
 to the Hebrews as another glimpse of Egypt. Beneath us lay a 
 broad beach. Here surely they "encamped by the Red Sea." 
 
 Beyond this lies what may possibly be identified with the 
 Wilderness of Sin. It is a large sweep of wide barren beach, 
 bounded on the left by many-coloured cliffs, dotted with aromatic 
 herbs, and sprinkled with small broken flints. Several u wadys " 
 lead off from this. It is most probable that the bulk of the host 
 followed the sea coast and turned up the Wady Feiran, which 
 winds its long, dry, flat course upwards between sun-heated rocks, 
 till the Oasis of Feiran is reached. This was another terrible 
 march over the wide boulder-strewn torrent-bed. The Oasis of 
 Feiran, as I have said in my letter written from it, should be 
 Rephidim, a most precious spot, with its stream and long groves 
 of tall palm-trees, and would naturally be held by the Amalekites. 
 It is a wonderful revelation, at a turn in the defile, after long 
 
78 TAST AND PRESENT JN THE EAST. 
 
 hours of dusty watercourse. The Bible speaks of there being 
 no water at Rephidim. The Hebrews, however, might then 
 hardly have got into the oasis itself, held by the Amalekites, 
 and up to its mouth not a drop is to be seen, for the little shallow 
 rivulet which flows down the valley loses itself in the sand at its 
 lower end. Here lies the " traditional rock," or rather one of 
 the traditional rocks, another being shown by the monks near the 
 monastery of St. Katherine. This at Feiran is a large fragment, 
 some 30 ft. by 15 ft., and 12 ft. high, detached and rolled down 
 from the mountain above on the left-hand side as you ascend, a 
 little short of the entrance to the well-watered oasis. Thus they 
 got to Rephidim, and yet there was no water. Once having 
 defeated the Amalekites, they would abide for a while in their 
 shady, stream-traversed stronghold. Here we camped in view 
 of Serbal, which, however, it was useless to ascend, as it was 
 covered with clouds which left next morning a sprinkling of snow. 
 
 From Feiran, or Rephidim, the host would have gone by the 
 Wady Solaf towards Sinai, and, though a station is not mentioned, 
 could hardly have marched there in a day. Though furnished 
 with riding and baggage camels, we were, counting rests, some 
 thirty-six hours on the road. After traversing the Wady Solaf 
 they would enter the Wady es Sheykh, and so reach the plain 
 before the mount, which, as I raise my eyes from this page 
 and look through the barred window of my convent room, I 
 can see rising up in a huge yellow slope from the foot of Sinai. 
 
 Much as one would wish to do so, it seems difficult, if not 
 impossible, to identify any of the halting-places of the Hebrew 
 host beyond those which I have mentioned — i.e., on their way 
 here. Their march from Sinai is, it would seem, still harder to be 
 traced. Here, however, they must surely have been, and once they 
 blackened that great rising plain of sand like ants upon a beach. 
 
MOUNT SINAI AND THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 81 
 
 There is a much greater amount of verdure in several parts 
 of the country than I had expected to see. I have already 
 noticed this, but the fact struck me so forcibly that I may be 
 pardoned for referring to it again. In some places, especially 
 nearer Sinai, the horizon of plains is covered with shrubs, and 
 aromatic verdure may be found on close inspection in surprising 
 abundance among the rocks. I say on close inspection, for it 
 is often of almost the same colour as the stones among which 
 it grows, and at some distance is imperceptible. The flocks of 
 sheep and goats we passed, belonging to the Bedouin, seemed 
 in very good case. These Bedouin, though calling themselves 
 Mohammedans, seem to be an irreligious and quarrelsome gentry, 
 though civil or polite to us. I have not noticed one of our troop, 
 except " Salem," who leads the march, say his prayers. They 
 are ferociously and antiquely armed. I never saw such guns — 
 matchlocks and flintlocks — as they carry, swathed in rags, like 
 mummies. But Salem salutes the leader of any little party we 
 meet as Jethro did Moses. He makes obeisance, touching fore- 
 heads, taking hands, and blowing kisses. Talking of salutation, 
 on approaching Sinai we chanced on a superb Bedouin. I was 
 riding first. He came up and greeted me most courteously ; 
 then, kissing Salem, he asked us into his dark brown flat tent, 
 pitched by the wayside. We returned his salutations, but were 
 compelled to decline his hospitality. As with a fine sweep of 
 his arm he seemed to ask us all in, it was well to do so. What 
 with hangers-on, our troop numbers twenty, so we took the will 
 for the deed. " Who is he ? M I asked. u This," was the reply, 
 M is the Sheykh Moses, the Sheykh of Sinai." A magnificent man. 
 
 We have met with extremes of climate on our march, and, 
 worst of all, with gales. The experience of the night before we 
 were taken into the shelter of the convent I have already men- 
 
 F 
 
S2 PAST AND PRESENT JN THE EAST. 
 
 tioned. Once — it was when we were at Gharandel — at two in the 
 morning, our tent was crushed flat by a sandstorm. It was cer- 
 tainly unpleasant to have one's eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth filled 
 with fine, fiercely-driving sand. We stuffed our heads under some 
 flapping portion of our fallen tent and " wished for the day," which 
 was a long time coming, and it was very cold about the legs. When 
 the dawn arose we were naturally in a terrible mess. Our luggage 
 was filled with sand ; our revolvers, which we are advised to carry, 
 had an extra charge of sand ; and, having been comfortably warm 
 when caught, next morning, putting my hand to my face, I found 
 it gritty as that of a rough stone statue. This business somewhat 
 dissipated the sentiment of our journey for a few hours. But 
 there is a grotesque side to most situations. 
 
 A word on this convent, or rather monastery, in which we 
 are lodged. It is a curious jumble of buildings and rooms, which 
 lie within its four walls as if they had been packed one upon 
 another in a box. In the midst, close together, stand the minaret 
 of a mosque and tower of a church, in strangely catholic com- 
 bination. But I did not see the former used, though it was 
 close to the gallery into which my stone room opened. The 
 church, on the contrary, has incessant services. We attended 
 one, but could make very little of it. The intonation of the 
 monks, who took it up from their stalls, in what seemed to be 
 sudden caprice, was very nasal. The service was long, and 
 seemed to be done in the most dogged and perfunctory way 
 possible. The church, with its antique and barbaric air and 
 equipment, has been often described. There was one contrasting 
 item of its furniture in the shape of an old English eight-day 
 clock, which might have been bought in Wardour Street. The 
 mosaics in the apse are wonderfully fresh, though supposed to date 
 from the sixth century. Once this monastery was the centre of 
 
MOUNT SINAI AND THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 83 
 
 an anchorite Christian community, which crowded in thousands 
 around Mount Sinai, living mostly in caves and holes of the 
 rocks. Now there are some score of Greek monks in the place, 
 stolid, listless, ignorant, who grind through their nightly and daily 
 devotional routine, but give shelter, for which we were most grate- 
 ful. They did not, however, address or come near us, though the 
 secretary was good enough to show us about the place and exhibit 
 the two precious and most beautiful mss. it is known to contain. 
 What others may there not be, still un revealed, in its library ? 
 
 March 20, 1880. — We have now pitched our tents for the 
 first time after climbing the cliffs of the Et Tih, and entered 
 on the elevated plateau which they border on the east and west ; 
 and our surroundings have been neither cheerful nor picturesque. 
 Imagine a hundred thousand acres of ploughed field where every 
 clod is a sharp yellow stone. This was the impression I received 
 when we had fairly got upon the plateau of this inner wilderness. 
 The surface is, indeed, not perfectly level, being broken by 
 occasional steep narrow clefts, in the bottom of some of which 
 lay a few green pools of brackish water. We wound our way down 
 into one of these, and let our camels have their fill while we ate our 
 lunch. This lone and blasted land, with its millions of sharp 
 stones strewing the ground, is the most desolate we have seen. 
 
 I must, however, look back and say a word about our course 
 from Sinai to this place. Our way from the monastery soon lay 
 down the great Wady es Sheykh, so named from some famous 
 chief, but who he was and what he did, and when he lived and 
 died, is not known. He gives, however, the name of " Sheykh " 
 to the wady, and the Bedouin keep his memory in great respect. 
 They hold a yearly gathering about his tomb, which lies a little 
 way on the right hand as you journey northwards, and thence 
 they make an expedition to sacrifice to Moses on Jebel Musa, 
 
 F 2 
 
84 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 the traditional Sinai. What a mark the great lawgiver made on 
 this land ! There is, as some one says, a sort of " Mosaic atmo- 
 sphere " throughout it. And out of any three or four Arabs 
 one is sure to be named Moses. We turned aside to, and entered, 
 the tomb of the unknown but famous sheykh. It is a rude stone 
 hut, some twelve feet square, with a stone coffin in the middle, 
 covered with rags, the floor of the sepulchre being the floor of 
 the desert. It is reckoned as a very sacred spot, and travellers 
 tell how T the Bedouin do not pass it without stopping to pay 
 their devotions at this tattered shrine. I am afraid that our gang 
 is a godless lot. Old Salem alone stopped in his march for a 
 few minutes of prayer within the tcmb. The rest plodded on 
 grumbling and quarrelling amongst themselves over some minute 
 division of the pay which they had received when we halted at 
 the monastery. I should say, however, that Salem is held in 
 special respect by our troop. He has the ear of the House. 
 When he speaks, after a noisy palaver, he is iistened to at once, 
 and his word carries apparently more weight than that of our 
 sheykh. He is a wonderfully cheerful old man, withal, and 
 during the last few days of our march has been the subject of 
 much concern. A stray Bedouin brought news to the camp that 
 a favourite son of Salem was dead ; and as he had, all along, 
 purposed to diverge for a night from our course and ride off to 
 his home some miles distant from one of our halting-places, our 
 men thought it was best not to tell him of his loss, but leave him 
 to discover it for himself. W 7 hen the afternoon came for him to 
 turn aside for the visit to his tents he got on one of the camels, 
 and, humming merrily, set off at a bumping trot homewards. We 
 expected to see him come back next day in a desolate state, but 
 he made his appearance smiling as usual, with two coflee-coloured 
 little grandchildren, and a woman to lead them home again. No 
 
MOUNT SINAI AND THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 85 
 
 one there had told him of the loss. We had been touched by 
 the phase of domestic tenderness which the anxiety of our men 
 indicated ; but another factor had entered into the matter. It 
 appears that old Salem has several wives, and that, lately, he has 
 summarily divorced the mother of his loved son, and thus has 
 wholly kept clear of her tent during his short absence, and 
 abstained from asking any questions about her and hers. So 
 he is still in ignorance of his loss ; but the men are plotting how 
 to tell him of it when they return from Nuklh, where their 
 territory ends, and they leave us to be escorted by another tribe. 
 And they have settled to make him such a cake as he loves, and 
 then, when he is full, break the bad news. Curiously enough, 
 the contriver of this project is my camel-leader, who hails from 
 Salem's home, and is thinking of returning with him in order to 
 come unawares upon another neighbour with whom he has a 
 blood-feud, and shoot him. He carries, bumping on his back, the 
 matchlock with which he proposes to avenge himself. I offered 
 him half-a-sovereign for it. His reply was, " Can I shoot a man 
 with half-a-sovereign ? " But I got it, nevertheless, by a little 
 increase in my offer [and — I add this line on looking over my 
 journal in London — have brought it back with me. My camel- 
 leader will have provided himself with another tool for his deadly 
 business, and put a few shillings in his pocket besides. The 
 matchlock is a villainously sandy and battered instrument]. 
 
 Let me return to our march. We occasionally met a wandering 
 Bedouin. One brought us an ibex which he had shot, and which 
 our sheykh bought for his men. Another came up with a kid, 
 which our dragoman, after long parley, bought for us for a price 
 amounting in English money to about three shillings and sixpence, 
 As soon as the bargain was completed the seller set the poor little 
 beast down on the ground, and it scampered off at once. We 
 
86 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 thought, at first, that we should not have got it after all. Our men 
 had a rare hunt. They were to have some of its flesh, and presently, 
 in the space of an hour, the kid was bought, nearly lost, caught 
 again, killed, skinned, and cooked, and the Bedouins' share eaten. 
 I thought of the calf that was fetched, tender and good, and which 
 the giver hastened to dress. Our beast was as lean as a toast-rack. 
 
 Before we arrived at the cliffs of the Et Tih, we had, from a 
 wide opening among the valleys, a most magnificent view of 
 Mount Serbal, the summit of which, thence, showed itself as 
 even more " alone " than Ras Sufsafeh. But between us and its 
 base were several miles of minor ridges, which made the mountain 
 unable to fulfil one of the conditions required by the Scriptural 
 record about the Mount of the Law. There was no plain reach- 
 ing from its foot. After emerging from the wadys which led 
 northwards we came on part of the flat wilderness which lies 
 round the cliffs of the Et Tih, and across the sandy level of 
 which we had a grand view of them, stretching away right and 
 left. Traversing this level for some hours, we encamped at their 
 base, in the most golden and rose-coloured sunset that we saw in 
 the whole of this part of our march, and climbed them the next 
 morning under a flaming sun by a series of zigzags. 
 
 The view from the top as we looked back was superb. Serbal 
 stood up grandly. On our right was the Red Sea, with the 
 mountains of Africa on its other side. On our left we could just 
 discern those of Arabia, to the east of the Gulf of Akabah. 
 Straight before us, across the great plain of sand which we had 
 ridden over the previous day, was the wild, rent, and brightly- 
 coloured igneous region of the Peninsula. In the far distance 
 beyond this we could discern Sinai, with a light cloud upon its 
 summit. Then we turned our faces northward, and saw it no 
 more. 
 
85 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 the tent door at which I sit and write I see a few dead camels 
 lying about, which dogs and carrion crows are eating. The 
 commandant, or whatever he is, of the fort, has had us in for 
 coffee and pipes, with bows, shrugs, and dumb show, while his 
 harem peeped furtively at us round a corner. He looks to be a 
 dirty old rascal, but seems pleased at the break we have made in 
 the monotony of his life, and the inevitable backsheesh with 
 which we have presented him. He has furnished us with a guard 
 of superbly-dressed Bedouin soldiers, who marched up led by 
 an officer in a long bright yellow dressing-gown, holding a drawn 
 sabre before him, as if saluting. The guard then piled arms before 
 our tent door. They walked up with an air of fierce indolence 
 which is indescribable. Being in long robes which sweep the 
 ground, they look seven feet high. There are a dozen of them. 
 Three at a time profess to take charge of us ; the rest squat and 
 talk, our sentinels every now and then contradicting them loudly 
 from their posts, and making the most of their time in so doing, 
 as night is coming on, in which there will be nothing to "deny" 
 but Arabic snores. But I dare say that they will join in these. 
 
 The journey, after ascending the cliffs of the Et Tih to 
 the desert plateau above them, in which we now are, has been 
 glaring and lonely. We have seen only ravens, who are a 
 sort of camp followers to caravans, wishing us ill. Being, of 
 course, obliged to move on, we spent a strange Palm Sunday 
 in a march of nine hours over an undulating plain, mostly 
 as hard as concrete. All around us played the mirage. Now 
 there seemed to be a bright pool a few hundred yards off, 
 which gave a shudder and vanished as we drew near. Then 
 there appeared a lovely lake with promontories, islands, and trees 
 reflected on its surface. These last were the sparse magnified 
 tufts of dry desert shrub. The illusion was perfect^ and then 
 
FROM THE WILDERNESS TO HEBRON. 89 
 
 it was gone. Thus we moved on silently, under a broiling sun 
 all Palm Sunday, the mirage making our course like that through 
 an enchanted land. Counting the region to be traversed after 
 this our short pause at Nuklh, we have a w r eek of this 
 weird and desolate progress. Murray speaks of the Desert 
 of the Et Tih as sprinkled with ruins of villages, fountains, 
 and old wells. It may be so when we reach the borders of 
 Palestine, but here, barring the fort, no trace of building, old or 
 new, appears, and we march for days without water. This 
 desert journey is wearisome, but I am not sorry to realise 
 such a phase of life — or, I was going to say, death, for the 
 place is fit to crush hope out of a human soul. We wished to 
 have gone to Hebron by Petra, but "war" prevails there. So 
 we cannot pass that way, and are crawling like snails straight 
 across this repulsive wilderness. Indeed, with a seemingly 
 endless horizon before us, we seem hardly to move, for a camel 
 combines the longest legs with the slowest pace. 
 
 We have been hearing, through a stolid literal dragoman, 
 the gossip of our gang. It is horrible. Murder and robbery 
 are talked of among them freely* My camel-leader is, as I 
 have said, an "avenger of blood. " His father was shot a year 
 or two ago by a neighbour. He has shot the neighbour, and 
 the neighbour's son is going to shoot him, unless he can be 
 killed first. My man's companions speak of the deed as if it 
 were the execution of a lease. He is a smiling fellow, and 
 kisses his hand to me when we start in the morning. Indeed, 
 he is simply taking in its literal, personal sense, " Whoso sheddeth 
 man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" and as there 
 is no judge and hangman to do it for him, does the awful 
 business himself, and is thought none the worse of by his friends. 
 
 To-morrow we enter the territory of the Tiheyah tribe, 
 
9 o PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 on the borders of which we now are, and proceed under the 
 escort of its great sheykh, who conducts the Mecca caravan 
 itself through this part of the desert. He is a fine gentle- 
 man in his way, rides his own camel, and wears a coat 
 of many colours. On our introduction he said, " Goorartnun- 
 noarab,' ; by which he meant to indicate that he was not 
 speaking Arabic, but was wishing us a good afternoon. Then 
 his English came suddenly to an end. He is a singularly 
 handsome little man, and has, they say, such a position in the 
 desert as to be able in a short time to gather a thousand warriors 
 on camel-back around him* 
 
 Beersheba, March 2 8. -=We have at last reached this place 
 of familiar name ; but I can say nothing about it, as the nio-ht 
 is very dark, and we have only the assurance of our sheykh 
 that it is Beersheba. Our leading Bedouin, inappropriately called 
 Solomon, lost his way in the wilderness which bears its name, 
 and we thought we should have to sleep out all night. The 
 sun got low, and then set, leaving us entangled in a region of 
 small rounded hills, exactly alike, which prevented any extended 
 view. We rode up one after another, hoping to catch sight 
 of our tents, which had somehow passed us without being 
 perceived ; but there was nothing to be seen besides more barren 
 mounds, and these were soon undistinguishable in the deepening 
 gloom. It was into this wilderness that Elijah went a day's 
 journey, leaving his servant behind him. Here he would hardly 
 be found by any pursuers. Here he slept ; and hence he went 
 to Horeb, the Mount of God. The forty days and forty nights 
 which he spent upon this journey may indicate his extreme 
 weariness, for the Bedouin who walked by the side of our 
 camels performed it easily in some eleven days. According to 
 the record Elijah travelled very slowly. 
 
FROM THE WILDERNESS TO HEBRON. 91 
 
 To return to our own experience in the Wilderness of 
 Beersheba. We had missed our way ; and presently our 
 camels were thoroughly done up. Mine, after blundering 
 about, came down with such force as to throw the saddle 
 from his hump, and pitch me upon his head, which I 
 suddenly found in my waistcoat. However, I did not fall off; 
 so, alighting, I rigged the beast up again, and we pounded on 
 in the dark. At last we saw some lights, which turned out to 
 be the fires of an encampment of, fortunately, friendly Bedouin, 
 who told us that " the sheykh " had gone by with the " camp." 
 Presently we saw his fire too, and were not sorry to reach it. 
 He was sitting quietly by the tent door smoking a pipe, and 
 wondering why we had not come. 
 
 We have had a trying ride since we came under his jurisdiction, 
 and have taken his detachment of the Tiheyah tribe as our 
 escort. Our march from Nuklh lay at first for three days 
 through barren parts of the Desert of the Et Tih. It is indeed, 
 as I have said, a dreary region, and the more exhausting this 
 year as the usual climatic conditions of the desert are intensified. 
 Generally a cool breeze and bright sky are found here, but in 
 our case these have frequently passed into a flaming sun and 
 icy wind. I do not know how else to express the combination. 
 The wind, moreover, was sometimes so strong that the camels 
 staggered against it, and I was obliged to tie on tightly the 
 Indian helmet which I wore, lest it should be blown off. This 
 mixture of heat and cold is very trying, and so the Bedouin 
 seemed to find it themselves. One of our party, himself a 
 minor sheykh, became so ill that he was obliged to stop. 
 Happily, about three hours off, there was a tent belonging to 
 his family, so he got on his camel, paced slowly away towards 
 it, and we saw him no more. He was a singularly handsome 
 
9* 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 man, with a face like a mediaeval saint. Before he left I felt 
 his pulse. It was 130, accompanied by rapid respirations and 
 keen pain in his side. He was obviously suffering from acute 
 inflammation of the lungs, and believed himself, I fear too 
 truly, to be dying. He shook his head, and pointed up into 
 the sky. But, gasping as he was, he did not forget to ask me 
 for a special " backsheesh " before he got on his camel to go. 
 His fellow Bedouin thought less of his plainly-fatal symptoms 
 than of an act on the part of a woman he had lately declined 
 to marry. She, to avenge herself, had secretly mixed human blood 
 with some water, and given it him to drink in the dark. Then she 
 told him what she had done, and he took it as his death-stroke, 
 such a draught being counted deadly. "He must die," said his 
 companions. Some of them, moreover, were keenly touched by 
 the sudden changes from heat to cold, and the rare mixture 
 of them which are often encountered, for they coughed terribly. 
 
 The Tiheyah professed to give us better camels than the 
 tribe we had hitherto travelled with, and I found a " Mecca drome- 
 dary " told off for my special riding, a capering, kicking brute — 
 and the kick of a dromedary is a very extended business — which 
 made me think I should be left behind too, with a broken neck. 
 So I picked out an enormous good-natured mare from the drove, 
 and rode for the rest of the journey at an immense height up 
 in the air. We had here an unexpected addition to our troop 
 in the shape of a woman and her baby. " How is this ? " we 
 asked. " Oh," was the reply, " her husband is shot, and so she 
 is going home to her friends at Gaza, and intends to go with 
 us." She had only a little bag of flour, no water, and merely 
 a few rags on her back. " Who shot him ? " was our next query. 
 " His brother," replied the Bedouin. "He had several camels, 
 and his brother wanted them, and so he shot him." And we 
 
FROM THE WILDERNESS TO HEBRON. 93 
 
 hcid the widow on our hands for a week. Of course we gave 
 her water and food, and dressed her and the baby out as well 
 as we could. At first, not being quite sure about the disposition 
 of some of our gang, she walked for hours under the shelter 
 of my monster camel, and every night lit herself a separate 
 fire, and squatted for safety just in front of our tent door. But 
 before she left us to branch off to Gaza she made friends with 
 our troop, and eventually departed under the escort of a man who 
 had suddenly joined us, and had the character of having been a 
 distinguished robber. Verily, this desert society has queer phases. 
 
 The wilderness began to die out at Muweileh, or Beer- 
 la-ha-roi, where Isaac dwelt, and where we began to crawl 
 into signs of human life, and to scent Palestine. It is a 
 sort of oasis, and presented us with a few patches of corn and 
 two or three fig-trees. The region, however, grew barren 
 again for a while. Then the sand began to change into soil. 
 Occasional beds of small separate flowers grew straight up, 
 exactly as I have seen them represented in some early pre- 
 Raphaelite pictures, casting clear tiny shadows on the yellow 
 ground. I shall not forget, too, the first little patch of grass, 
 seemingly no bigger than a hearthrug, set with daisies. It 
 was in a sheltered hollow, and like a jewel after the long 
 desert glare. I could have got off my camel and rolled in it. 
 
 March 29. — This morning has revealed Beersheba to us. 
 It has nothing in the shape of what may be called a ruin, but 
 extensive foundations mark the site of a considerable village or 
 " city." We had passed several larger sites on our way after 
 leaving Beer-la-ha-roi, but they are nameless. No doubt, how- 
 ever, is felt by experts as to this having been Beersheba. Its 
 wells are still here, and are still used. They are some nine 
 feet across, and their stone rims are worn into deep furrows 
 
94 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 with the ropes of long-distant generations ! Grand old wells ! 
 Standing by them we look northward over miles of bright-green 
 pasture dotted with flocks of white sheep and black goats. But 
 the inexorable hour of camel-loading has come, and we must be off. 
 Hebron, April i. — I add a few more words to my letter 
 on reaching the first city in Palestine, for though I might 
 properly have closed this little record of our desert journey at 
 
 WELLS AT BEERSHEBA. 
 
 Beersheba, it is at Hebron that we part with one of its prominent 
 features, our sheykh, his Bedouin, and train of camels, and have 
 prepared for us horses, mules, and a wholly different set of 
 attendants — men in baggy trousers and shabby finery. 
 
 The flowers were opening and the larks singing as we set 
 forth from Beersheba across the pastures towards the grey line 
 of hills which marked the ascent of Hebron ; Abraham had 
 
FROM THE WILDERNESS TO HEBRON. 95 
 
 traversed these when he went with Isaac to Moriah. But the 
 sentiment of our course was soon marred by a rush of armed 
 ill-looking Bedouin from an encampment, who demanded black- 
 mail. A little sent them grumbling back. We had overstepped 
 the territory of our sheykh, and when we had for some time 
 wound our way among the bare limestone hills which led up 
 to the high land of Palestine, we found that a serious quarrel 
 existed between him and his next neighbour. We had because 
 of this to send him back to his own land under a military escort 
 from Hebron, or he would probably have been shot by the way. 
 Poor fellow! he was bound to conduct us to that place, but 
 it was sad to see the sense of authority and safety fade out 
 of his face when he had left the border of his own people. 
 Those green pastures are a lawless region. A man was robbed 
 that night not far from our path. We met two mounted 
 Bedouin, armed with immensely long spears, hunting for 
 him. " What will they do ? " we asked. The reply was that 
 if they caught him they would take him to Hebron, and get 
 him imprisoned for a year, but that afterwards, when he came 
 out and went home, they would take an opportunity of finding 
 him alone and kill him. This was told us quite openly. It 
 was an ill approach to the " Holy " Land. 
 
 While resting here in Hebron, for a few hours, in the interval 
 between Bedouin and Syrian escort, with a squad of squatting- 
 fair-skinned Jewish children staring steadily into my tent door 
 a few yards off, I glance back on the fresh memory of the 
 wilderness which we have now left, and ask myself what has 
 struck me most forcibly in the aspect of the region we have 
 traversed, especially during the last ten days. I think first of 
 the scenery. In part, it was very remarkable from the shape 
 of divers isolated hills or mountains which we passed. They 
 
96 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 were round and white. The upper portion of each was clean- 
 shaped, like the top of a huge circular pavilion. Its sides below 
 the circular cap sloped evenly outwards at an angle of about 
 forty-five degrees, like tent walls. These were deeply seamed 
 by the rain of ages, and at some distance presented the 
 appearance of sections, or "gores" of canvas. "Tents of 
 Anakim " came into my mind directly we reached the first 
 group of them. They were perhaps about seven hundred feet 
 high. The slopes of several lines of cliffs were furrowed in the 
 same way as those of these strange isolated hills. We passed 
 also some grand clusters of dark mountains, which, from the 
 apparent craters among their peaks, might have been volcanic. 
 These were not marked in any maps that we had. Murray 
 and Baedeker simply dismiss this journey across the Desert of 
 the Et Tih ; they consider it to be such as no travellers would 
 care to take, if possible, being too monotonous and wearisome ; 
 and I am not surprised at their verdict. Indeed, it was not 
 the nature of the scenery which impressed me so much as the 
 sense of being, as it were, at the caprice of mystic and enormous 
 powers. The mirage, which occasionally filled the distance with 
 huge lakes, or for a few minutes laid a bright pond in our 
 nearer path — to vanish suddenly, as if scooped up by an in- 
 visible hand — helped to create this impression, and suggested 
 the presence of some mighty and mysterious influence. There 
 was, however, something else in our surroundings which touched 
 us with an indefinable sense of solitude. Of course, every 
 traveller in these parts expects to realise their emptiness. But 
 we felt — though I speak for myself — so lonely and infinitely 
 small as we crept through the day's march, our caravan was 
 such a feeble little speck on the huge breadths of desert, that 
 one fancied obliteration easy. It was not like being at sea, out 
 
FROM THE WILDERNESS TO HEBRON. 97 
 
 of sight of land or sail. There is life in the movement of 
 mid-ocean, but here all was as lonely and barren as the sea, 
 and yet so hard and fixed as to suggest the final rigidity of 
 death. We crawled over the corpse of a country, left to lie 
 there while the rest of the world was alive. There were in the 
 chief course of our march no ruins to tell of man's presence, 
 however remote. The ancient central fort of Nuklh, with its 
 little company, appeared almost modern. Its surroundings might 
 have been " stillborn " offspring of the creation. I cannot express 
 the sense of desolation which brooded over this — I can hardly 
 call it "abandoned" — land, for it seemed as if it had been for 
 ever unused in the provision of a habitable earth, and never 
 planted with human life. It was with a strange sensation of 
 unaccustomed interest that I looked at a group of dirty children 
 in the first village of- Palestine, after creeping up among the 
 hills which led towards Hebron ; and when this old but small 
 city was reached its population seemed to be immense. 
 
 I somehow expected Hebron to be set on a hill, but find 
 it in a hollow among a circle of round bare limestone summits, 
 among which we have steadily ascended shortly after leaving 
 Beersheba. This ancient city, with the Cave of Machpelah in 
 its midst, is hardly distinguishable from the ruined terraced 
 stone slopes which rise around it. It is true that there are 
 some olive-trees, but the first glance at the place was that 
 of a cup of glaring limestone, with a crowd of square lime- 
 stone houses huddled round the famous mosque which stands 
 above the dust of Abraham, and probably the mummy of Jacob. 
 What a rush of Bible records come into the mind at this 
 focal Scripture spot! Here — but I will not try to write out or 
 separate the thoughts which crowded up as I got off my 
 camel and sat down on a stone with Hebron before me. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 JERUSALEM ; THE DEAD SEA | 
 JERICHO. 
 
 Jerusalem, April 12, 1880. — It is impossible to disentangle 
 the crowd of impressions made by the approach to and the 
 arrival at Jerusalem from the Desert, but such as I now venture 
 to set down have at least the merit or demerit of freshness. 
 
 Palestine strikes me at present as a land of white stone hills, 
 
JERUSALEM; THE DEAD SEA ; JERICHO. 99 
 
 roads, walls, houses, ruins, villages, and often, apparently, fields. 
 The highways are execrable, often no better than dry torrent 
 beds, along which even the surefooted pony of the country picks 
 his way with circumspection and care. 
 
 Jerusalem is very small. The other day I rode quite round it, 
 necessarily at some distance from its walls, at a foot's pace, indeed 
 often slower, because of sharp rough ascents and descents. More- 
 over, we turned aside to see this or that spot, and frequently stopped. 
 Then we visited Bethany, coming back by the longer route through 
 the vale of Bethphage, pausing to descend into the traditional grave 
 of Lazarus, and to gather flowers by the wayside. And all this 
 deliberate circuit, with its "journey/' was made within three hours. 
 
 The view from the summit of the Mount of Olives towards 
 Jerusalem is, as familiar to our readers as description can make it. 
 In a few steps the city lies at one's feet, with the platform of the 
 Temple in its foreground. The air is so clear that you can not 
 only distinguish every figure moving about this platform — of 
 which the famous mosque which hides the bare top of the rock 
 covers only a very small portion — but you can hear the voices of 
 people in the city. How plainly and how often the slopes of 
 Olivet have heard the shrieks of those within, while Jerusalem 
 was being sacked ! Again, this clearness of atmosphere may give 
 fresh force to the words, " And when He was come into Jerusalem 
 all the city was moved, saying, Who is this ? " From the balcony 
 of the room in which I am now writing, on the opposite side of 
 Jerusalem, near its wall, I can lift up my eyes and see distinctly 
 every figure on the white paths of the Mount of Olives which 
 lead to Bethany. The mount, indeed, is visible from many parts 
 of the city. It " dominates" Jerusalem, and most especially the 
 Temple platform. Thus the crowd and its cheers, and the fact 
 that these arose round some one central person, would be plain 
 
 G 2 
 
PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 some time before the gate was reached : " All the city was moved, 
 saying, Who is this ? " 
 
 The triumphal entry of Jesus would seem to have been 
 made along the south-east path over the mount, by which a 
 partial view is had of Jerusalem from a spot near Bethany, which 
 is then lost and recovered near to the city. But neither of 
 these views is to be compared with that revealed by the direct 
 path over the summit of the mount, nor does the second " burst " 
 upon the traveller. We have studied the routes carefully, and 
 twice gone over that by the south-eastern path from Bethany, 
 On the last occasion I found by my watch that at a foot's pace 
 the city was lost sight of in the dip for exactly eight minutes, and 
 that the view of the city, after the dip was passed, took six and 
 a half minutes for its full revelation. In this view, moreover, 
 there is no sight of the floor of the Temple platform. Still, inferior 
 though this view is to that from the top of the mount, my com- 
 panion and myself both believed it on the spot to be that which 
 met Jesus and the crowds when He made His triumphal entry. 
 
 I was much struck by the scene which lies before the wayfarer s 
 eyes when he walks from Jerusalem over the top of the mount 
 towards Bethany, and which was unquestionably familiar to our 
 Lord. The winding path drops rapidly down towards the village 
 of Martha and Mary, which, however, is not seen until the 
 traveller is close upon it. On either side are slopes with sheep 
 and goats, olive and fig trees. Beyond is the deep gorge, down 
 which the road falls from Jerusalem to Jericho. Far below lies, 
 visibly, the Dead Sea. Behind all rises the huge purple wall of 
 the mountains of Moab. This great sight was often before His 
 eyes as He went out to Bethany. Then, at a turn of the road, 
 He would see, close by, this little village of stone set upon a spur 
 of the limestone hills. 
 
JERUSALEM; THE DEAD SEA; JERICHO. 101 
 
 Jerusalem is not clean. Nay, it is dirty ; not to say — in many 
 parts — filthy. And of all the foul, scum-covered pools, thick with 
 unutterable refuse and garbage, among which the mangy dogs crawl 
 and snarl, the supposed " Pool of Bethesda " is the vilest I have 
 ever seen. " Bethesda," said our guide. I turned away sickened. 
 
 I will not essay another description of the oft-described mosque 
 upon Mount Moriah. It is said to be built and adorned with 
 materials dug from the ruins of Herod's Temple. I will only say 
 that I seemed never to have seen mosaics before. We visited the 
 place under a double-armed guard from the British consulate and 
 the Turkish barracks, or we should possibly have been " stoned," 
 so we were told ; and we were especially requested to make our 
 visit early in the day, when there are fewer people about the 
 mosque and its precincts. Indeed, entrance is forbidden to 
 Christians without a military escort. 
 
 Pilgrims, mostly Russian, are fast arriving for the Greek Easter. 
 Some of those from Siberia have spent three years in walking 
 here. I was inclined to doubt this when it was first told to me, 
 and asked the English Bishop at Jerusalem, who has long known 
 the place and its ways, whether it was likely to be true, and he 
 said it was. These pilgrims come in weather-worn and footsore : 
 but once within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, inside whose 
 doors sit the Turkish guard smoking and chatting, they fall upon 
 their faces and kiss its stones with sobs of joy. It is nothing to 
 them that the traditional sepulchre is placed in the middle of the 
 city, or that Calvary is set within a few yards of it, or that the 
 Tomb of Adam is pointed out by the side of the hole in which 
 the cross was placed. 
 
 One's faith — if, indeed, such a word can be rightly used in 
 regard to belief in localities — is often cruelly, or grotesquely, 
 assailed by demands made upon it to look at sacred or ancient 
 
PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 spots. You are deliberately shown the " House of Dives," and 
 five yards from it, the " House of Lazarus," which is rather the 
 better of the two. But modern Jerusalem is merely the last thin 
 crust upon a manifold and wonderful honeycombed heap of ruins 
 into which, as yet, few glimpses have been had. The furthest 
 and fullest is that of the huge lofty arcades under the platform of 
 Moriah, which are believed to be, not without reason, some portion 
 of the original substructure of the Temple of Solomon. They are 
 cleared only in part, and the work of excavation is stopped ; but 
 they are already seen to be enormous. It is confidently held 
 too, by experts, that the pavement lately discovered beneath the 
 Convent of Zion is "Gabbatha." We descended to it under the 
 kindly guidance of one of the nuns, who use it as a cellar. Casks 
 of wine were being let down on the occasion of our visit. Our guide 
 then sold to us little dried bunches of flowers from Gethsemane. 
 
 While at Jerusalem we have occasionally passed, and one day 
 deliberately set ourselves to visit, the place which claims to be 
 the " Garden of Gethsemane." They say that in this case tradi- 
 tion is probably right. The garden is situated at the foot of the 
 Mount of Olives, and is inclosed within a white wall of stone and 
 plaster. We entered, to find its interior laid out in prim squares, 
 surrounded by a " neat " railing, and ornamented with importunate 
 rows of the most common-place flower-pots, while gaudy little 
 wall-pictures professed to set forth the successive incidents of that 
 awful night. We went a few paces within this inclosure, and 
 stopped. A grinning gardener laid down his hoe at the prospect 
 of a fee. We turned and walked out in silence. And yet this 
 may have been the " Garden of Gethsemane." 
 
 Bethlehem is a village of small square stone houses on a 
 ridge, the sides of which are so terraced with walls holding up 
 strips of soil as to make the hill on which the city is set look as 
 
JERUSALEM : THE DEAD SEA; JERICHO. 103 
 
 if it were all stone. But there were manifold signs and promises 
 of life at Bethlehem. It is full of beautiful children, and its in- 
 habitants seem all bright and busy, building and gardening. 
 Many shepherds keep their flocks hard by. The traditional 
 " Cave " of the Nativity is, of course, shown — lamp-lit. I con- 
 fess I cannot feel the pulse of sentiment when led to look at 
 these tawdrily-decorated " Holy Places," with their floors dotted 
 with the wax of tapers, their stones polished with kisses, their 
 air heavy with the saturating incense of centuries, and their 
 silence broken by the patter of the sacristan, who trims his 
 candle with his fingers as he gabbles out the familiar sacred 
 names, and scowls if, ignorantly, you do not pay him the full 
 accustomed fee when he blows it out. Give him another franc, 
 and let us get away into the sunshine. 
 
 My heart indeed beat when, on our way from Hebron here, 
 I knew that I was drawing near to Bethlehem. I came on it 
 suddenly, while turning between two bare limestone hills, its 
 outline showing clear on the ridge on which it is set. And so 
 with the sight of Jerusalem. I caught my first glimpse of it 
 riding over an ascent in a road bounded by two walls, over 
 which, on either side, hung olive-trees. It came in a moment, 
 thus framed. We stood still, silent. There needed no one to 
 say, "This is Jerusalem." 
 
 Of course we have been "down" to Jericho. The road is 
 still considered the worst in Palestine, and is beset with thieves. 
 Thus we were provided with an armed guard, and advised 
 to carry pistols ourselves. Our party included some agreeable 
 American ladies and gentlemen, and we travelled under the 
 escort of the " Sheykh of the Jordan "—a magnificent personage, 
 in white, blue, and yellow robes, all tag, tassel, sword, and 
 revolver, who rode his own Arab mare, with stirrups like fire 
 
104 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 shovels. He smoked his cigarette with a tube, and said, " Thank 
 you very much," when you gave him a light. 
 
 As we wished to visit the " Dead Sea " before going to 
 Jericho, we descended by the curious old monastery of Marsaba 
 and came back by the road of evil repute to Jerusalem. But, 
 so far as its bad character goes, this route vies with the other. 
 Our dragoman several times requested us to keep together, as 
 rascals are apt to come round a corner and cut stragglers off. 
 
 The approach to the Dead Sea, which is far below the level 
 of the Mediterranean, and thus very much beneath that of Jeru- 
 salem, lies, especially in this latter part, through a wild jumble 
 of cleft, waterworn limestone debris — so it seemed to me. The 
 hill-sides, however, are covered with small shrubs and flowers. 
 We occasionally caught a glimpse of the u Plain," and at last 
 came out on the level land at the head of the sea. Was it 
 what I had expected ? No. Shrubs and flowers accom- 
 panied us almost to its shore — a clean shingle beach, on which 
 the clear little waves lapped under a bright sun and a delicious 
 breeze. No doubt there is a weird-looking feature in the scenery 
 from the fringe of dead branches of trees brought down by the 
 Jordan and mountain torrents. These are whitened by the sun, 
 and lie a little above the water-mark along the shore. But I am 
 bound to confess that, standing close to its margin and looking 
 on the sea itself, with its twinkling ripple and projecting head- 
 lands, there was nothing deadly in its aspect. I counted five 
 different kinds of flowers just beyond the beach, and saw, shortly, 
 swallows, pigeons, and a species of jay. True, on turning our 
 backs to the water, and striking across the plain to that part 
 of the Jordan which flows opposite the supposed site of Jericho, 
 we crossed a dreary waste of sun-dried clayey soil, in the inden- 
 tations of which some saline deposit might be seen ; but there was 
 
JERUSALEM ; THE DEAD SEA; JERICHO. 107 
 
 not more than in some parts of the Essex marshes, and it was not 
 nearly so abundant as on the shores of the Salt Lake in America. 
 
 In about an hour we reached the Jordan — for the first glimpse 
 of which I looked eagerly. It is the muddiest yellow river I 
 ever saw, and so small that I thought we must have come 
 upon some lesser branch divided off from the main stream as 
 it entered the Dead Sea. But no. It was the Jordan itself, 
 apparently some twenty-five yards in width. Indeed, it could 
 hardly have been so wide, for when at our halting-place I " chucked " 
 a little cake of dried mud, about the size of an oyster-shell, across 
 it, it struck the rock smartly on the other side some six or 
 seven feet above the bank. The course of the river is marked by 
 low trees and " reeds shaken with the wind." I was disappointed. 
 I had come up brimful of consciousness that this region was in- 
 evitably crowded with memories of Holy Record, and had found 
 myself humming the hymn, " On Jordan's bank the Baptist's 
 cry." But the whole fabric of sentiment was peremptorily 
 dissipated by the mud and the mosquitoes. 
 
 From this part of Jordan to the foot of the mountains 
 which make the Wilderness of Judaea is a plain about six miles 
 across. The first part is covered with scrubby vegetation. In 
 the latter were fields of corn, trees, and gardens, belonging to 
 the inhabitants of the wretched mud and stone village which 
 stands on or near the site of Jericho. These people are said 
 to be all robbers, and the tattooed, wild-eyed women, and armed, 
 scowling men we met, looked as if they were not thus libelled. 
 We camped on a level spot, slightly elevated above their haunt, 
 and set guards round our tents. But I think I never saw 
 a more lovely, peaceful-looking sunset than that which soon 
 closed the day upon the mountains of Moab across the 
 Dead Sea. 
 
ioS PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 When it was dusk our dragoman came to say that the 
 people of Jericho wished to " dance " before us. Presently 
 they came and performed by the light of our camp fires. It 
 was a dull, slovenly exhibition. The men stood in a half- 
 circle, swaying about and bobbing curtseys, while another 
 flourished a sword before them, and pretended to make cuts 
 at their shins. And that was all. Next, the women appeared. 
 Their part in the show was to scuffle about in smocks too 
 long for them, and scream, or rather whine. Then they retired, 
 and a gipsy stepped forward, exhibiting extraordinary contor- 
 tions. He appeared to be made of two parts screwed together 
 at the waist, like a wooden toy. The curious thing was that 
 he seemed to unscrew himself, his lower half remaining sta- 
 tionary while the upper turned round. Thus he wrung his 
 body about for some time ; and we turned into our tents, 
 hardly impressed with the native grace of Jericho. But the 
 unscrewing of the gipsy was a puzzle. 
 
 Next morning we ascended from Jericho to Jerusalem. 
 Here was another disillusion. The road itself, sometimes 
 called " The Bloody Way," winding among the limestone 
 hills, is glaringly white, and often rugged. One could conceive 
 no more disastrous plight than to be left by it naked and 
 wounded under the burning sun. But it was a pathway of 
 perfume. For a long time, on either side, the slopes were 
 bright with millions of flowers whose smell filled the air. In 
 some places there seemed to be more blossoms than blades 
 of grass. White, yellow, purple, orange, crimson, they carpeted 
 the soil right and left. This was the aspect it must have 
 presented to those who came up from the other side Jordan 
 to Jerusalem. Halfway up are the ruins of a large inn or 
 courtyard — the only one. Probably this was in the eye of the 
 
JERUSALEM ; THE DEAD SEA ; JERICHO. icq 
 
 Lord when He told the parable of the Good Samaritan. Many 
 Russian pilgrims were creeping up. They had been to bathe 
 and wash their shrouds in the Jordan, bundles of whose reeds 
 they were bearing back. We met suddenly one striking group, 
 not Russian, but antiquely Oriental — a man leading an ass, 
 on which sat a mother with her child, a beautiful boy. Pre- 
 sently we rose into the sterner air and stonier surroundings 
 of Jerusalem, and saw Bethany above us. But here, too, the 
 crevices and hollows had their blooming crop, and the goat 
 and the bee testified to a land flowing with milk and honey. 
 
 Let me mention two touches illustrative of Scripture words. 
 The other evening, about sunset, I was riding into Jerusalem 
 from Mizpeh, where the tribes were wont to gather, and passed 
 several small flocks of sheep and goats, each following its 
 owner, close at whose heels they huddled as he turned round 
 and spoke to them. But the point of the touch is that he 
 was leading them home, into the city. This is a common 
 custom in regard to the flocks which feed in the desert close 
 to Jerusalem, and it gives fresh force to the parable. The 
 owner had probably missed his one sheep for some days. The 
 boy or hireling with him would have kept the sheep near 
 the walls, and yet in the wilderness, while he looked for the 
 lost one. His supposed loss would be known. At last he 
 finds the wanderer. w And when he cometh home, he calleth 
 together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice 
 with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost." The 
 other touch is as follows. The door to an ancient Jewish 
 sepulchre — miscalled the Tomb of the Kings — close to Jeru- 
 salem, is closed by a large round stone, like a rough mill- 
 stone, between 3ft. and 4ft. across and i6in. thick, which 
 works in a groove in front of the entrance to the tomb. 
 
no PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 Here we may see a clearer meaning in the words, " He 
 rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre and departed." 
 
 A line about Mizpeh, the gathering place of the tribes. 
 Any hill more strikingly suited to such a purpose it would 
 be difficult to imagine. You seem to see the whole of the 
 Promised Land from its most accessible summit. The eye 
 takes in not only Jerusalem, but a large number of famous 
 cities. To the west is the Mediterranean, to the east are the 
 mountains of Moab. In the south, through an opening among 
 the hills above Hebron, is a glimpse of the " great and 
 terrible wilderness," a distant faint line, while, on the north, 
 part of Carmel can just be discerned. What a focus history 
 is brought to in the view from this beacon ! 
 
 I may say here that nothing impressed me more constantly 
 than the smallness of Palestine. From one elevation after 
 another the entire breadth of the country can be seen. The 
 high land across the Jordan, having the appearance of a wall, 
 and glowing marvellously at sunset, was continually on our 
 right as we worked northwards, while the sea frequently 
 revealed itself on our left. I was struck by the thought that 
 these two prominent features of the place do not appear in 
 the numerous illustrations and parables of our Lord. I do not 
 recall any in which they are used, unless the "sea" may be 
 sometimes not the Lake of Gennesareth, as is commonly 
 thought, but the Mediterranean itself, on whose shelving sand 
 beach He must have seen the fishermen drawing - their nets to 
 
 o 
 
 land when He went down to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. 
 
 In default of ability to describe the scenes and spots which 
 importunately claim exactness of sacred site, and which throng 
 around one here, let me add a few more words of general im- 
 pression. Visitors to Jerusalem are advised in guide-books not 
 
JERUSALEM; THE DEAD SEA ; JERICHO, in 
 
 to wander aimlessly about, but to see the sights in due order 
 at the heels of a showman. Thus, however obviously, one 
 misses the strange mixed charm, awe, and bewilderment which 
 brood over this centre of holy and historical ruin. It is advisable, 
 indeed, to have a man in tow, as it were, to save the trouble 
 and interruption of constant reference to the map. But it is 
 well to " prowl," every now and then, making your attendant 
 conduct you silently to some spot which the whim moves you 
 to visit. The way in which you thus wind through narrow 
 rough stone passages, creep under arches, and plunge up and 
 down steps, with glimpses into or under the present life or death 
 of the place, is full of the strangest contrasts. You thread 
 your way through a group of dirty stone houses, which seem to 
 have been huddled together as if there were no room to spare 
 within the walls ; and then, still inside the gates, come on little 
 fields of corn, or suddenly face great bevelled stones on which 
 the shadow of Christ Himself may have fallen. Then what a 
 study of faces is here ! It looks as if the ancient and modern 
 world might have come together to be disappointed of a Pentecost. 
 There is an air of sadness in a Jerusalem crowd. Then you 
 think what a unique focal gathering of old forms of faith and 
 ritual rites is here, from the group of altars under the roof of 
 the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to the rites of Melchizedek, 
 the sacrifice on the threshing-floor of Araunah, the idolatry of 
 Solomon, and the glory of the Temple. And then you remember 
 how the train of reflections touches only a few items in the long 
 procession of its devotional renown, and leaves the greatest 
 out. What beginnings and clusters of history are crowded 
 within and about these walls! Not far off Joab climbed the 
 heights of Jebus. Somewhere beneath your feet may be the 
 great cave in which the kings lie buried even now, in the City 
 
112 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 of David. In that valley children were passed through the 
 fire to Moloch. On that site, now green with grass, but giving 
 
 A STREET IN JERUSALEM. 
 
 awful glimpses into dark arches beneath, was a home of Crusading 
 knights. On another, in these last days, Russia lodges her 
 
JERUSALEM ; THE DEAD SEA ; JERIC.'.O. 
 
 multitude of weary, creeping pilgrims. Then you find a man 
 washing- at a deep, cold, stone reservoir. It is the Pool of 
 Siloam. There is the Valley of Jehoshaphat, paved thick with 
 the gravestones of those who thought to wait on the very spot 
 of the Last Judgment. Here is a miserable community of 
 lepers, who raise their voices as they did to Jesus. There is 
 a peasant coming out of the country, brown and sinewy, just 
 such a man as Simon, on whom was laid the cross. Here is 
 a group of gaberdined, yellow, modern Jews. There a guard 
 of Turkish soldiers, marching to the Church of the Holy 
 Sepulchre, which, with its prostrate worshippers they call " The 
 Place of Dung." Next comes a party of American tourists. 
 There squat a dozen camels, taking or discharging loads. And 
 every now and then you catch sight of the Mount of Olives, 
 with its white paths leading to Bethany, or the great wall of 
 the mountains of Moab across the Plain of the Dead Sea. Then, 
 maybe, you are shown a vaulted room, which the city plan, printed 
 in London, tells you is called the Ccenaculum, the. scene of the 
 Last Supper. It might have been there, and you are strangely 
 touched. No decorations or incense-shedding lamps are to 
 be seen, for it is Turkish property, and some little Moslem 
 children are playing on its bare stone floor. You think it almost 
 profane to try to realise that the Holy Ghost descended upon 
 the disciples — they say that this was the upper room — so near 
 to the hotel in which you dine and sleep. And then as you 
 look over the city with its surrounding hills, from some house- 
 top or tower, behind all these thoughts comes a crowd — 
 Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Roman, Crusading — all con- 
 cerned in this little place, and all gone ; but leaving the 
 Jews still creeping about and kissing the great foundation-stones 
 of their Temple wall. 
 
 ii 
 
14 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 To let the influence with which Jerusalem is penetrated and 
 overhung anywise reach the mind, the visitor should give some 
 time to aimless receptive wandering and gazing. Conventional 
 guidance, with its pert monotonous chatter, is almost sure to 
 prohibit them. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SAMARIA AND GALILEE. 
 
 Es-zib, April 25, 1880. — Since writing my last letter I have 
 zigzagged about the northern portion of Palestine, and date this 
 from my tent on the beach at Es-zib, close to the point where 
 Phoenicia begins. We enter it to-morrow, hoping to traverse 
 the M coast of Tyre and Sidon " on our way to Beyrout. 
 
 I do not offer my readers a journal, but only a wprd on a few 
 of the principal places we have visited. I am now travelling with 
 Dr. Hoge, a distinguished Presbyterian minister of Richmond, 
 Virginia, and a lady and gentleman, members of his congregation. 
 He is a large-hearted Christian gentleman, well versed in English 
 literature, keenly interested in his tour, and a pungent talker. It 
 would be difficult to find more agreeable companions. We have 
 a paragon of a dragoman, too, one Bernhard Heilpern, who is 
 a concordance on horseback. He has a thumbed Bible in his 
 pocket, and is always ready, if required, to read a- passage suited 
 to the scene ; and he reads excellently. Besides English, he 
 speaks eight languages, and knows the country well. I must say 
 that we have to thank Mr. Cook for providing him. 
 
 Bethel is the stoniest place I ever saw. Indeed, as the Doctor 
 drily remarked, Jacob could not have lain down anywhere there 
 without having a stone for his pillow. The hills and valleys 
 around are covered with white jutting slabs of rock or pieces 
 which have been detached frcm them. Verily this is a land well 
 
 h 2 
 
u6 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 fitted for punishment by stoning. In its southern part every held 
 and road has a ready store of missiles, and every hill is an inex- 
 haustible arsenal. In the interstices of the limestone rocks, 
 however, much excellent soil may be found, and under a decent 
 government it would be utilised. Bethel is now a poor hamlet, 
 with some Crusading ruins, fig-trees, and children who, run out of 
 their holes for backsheesh. I had longed to see it, but the 
 memory of the rank it takes in sacred history came into my mind 
 with the faintest flavour of solemnity. 
 
 The next place which I felt an ardent desire to visit was Shiloh. 
 Its site is surely fixed. We had seen it in the distance from our 
 camping-ground — a small hill surrounded by a number of low 
 summits. It is "Shiloh ; " but presents no feature to the eye on 
 a nearer approach — nothing beyond a ruin of ruins. There is 
 no hut or hamlet near, but some shepherd lads hard by cursed 
 and threw stones at us, like Shimei, as we paced slowly away. 
 
 On moving farther north the character of the country changes 
 rapidly. Plains of rich deep soil succeed one another, and none 
 is richer than the parcel of ground which the wise, provident 
 Jacob bought, and in which Joseph wandered, looking for his 
 brethren, who had moved on to an equally fertile flat, Dothan. 
 His tomb, lately " restored," is pointed out, and very possibly the 
 mummy of Joseph still lies beneath it. Not far from the tomb is 
 Jacob's Well, on a slight elevation which commands his " field." 
 It 'was on a still sunshiny afternoon that we reached this focus of 
 sacred record, and sat down by the well. It is yet seventy feet 
 deep, but having some cord, we borrowed a waterpot of a 
 Samaritan, and letting it down, drank of the water — which, now, 
 is bad. 
 
 When Jesus sat here He would see the long, hot, and dusty 
 path across the plain which He had traversed. On His right 
 
Samaria and calilee 
 
 JACOB S WELL. 
 
 hand, as He looked back, stood, close by, Gerizim, the most 
 prominent object in sight, to which the woman would surely have 
 pointed as she spoke. We saw the site of its temple from the 
 place where we rested. Ebal rose behind us, the white road 
 
u8 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 between it and Gerizim leading straight into Shechem, now 
 Nablous, about half an hour off. We spent a day there, and 
 after ascending to the summit of Gerizim, tested the acoustic 
 property of the valley between the two hills on which were set 
 the blessings and the cursings. I was on the slope of Mount 
 Gerizim, while Dr. Hoge went some distance up that of Ebal, the 
 space between us being between half and three-quarters of a mile. 
 Indeed, as I saw the Doctor ride down from the spot on Gerizim, 
 where we stood, cross the valley, and creep up the side of Ebal 
 till his horse looked no bigger than an ant, it seemed almost 
 foolish to make the experiment we contemplated. I fancied that 
 it would be impossible even to hear his voice over the chasm 
 beneath us. We had arranged to give signals. He was to take 
 off his hat, which was covered with a large white puggery, for me 
 to begin ; but the distance between us was too great for me to dis- 
 tinguish any such indication. However, at last, seeing that he had 
 fairly stopped, I read aloud, slowly, one of the Psalms for the day, 
 feeling all the while that I might just as well have addressed the 
 House of Commons from Lambeth Palace. Then I paused. I 
 had understood the Doctor to say that he would recite the 31st 
 Psalm, and turned to it in my Prayer-book. Great was my sur- 
 prise when, from that little dot on the hillside, I heard, in his 
 voice, across the valley, u The Lord is my shepherd," etc. u It 
 is the twenty-third ! " I exclaimed to his friend, who had remained 
 with me. This was a severe test. And it was made more so by 
 a party of Turkish soldiers who, hearing me, came out of some 
 barracks which lay beneath us and began talking. 
 
 When I rejoined the Doctor I found that he had heard me 
 plainly. Indeed, he remarked on the difference between the 
 version of the Psalms I had read and that which he was fami- 
 liar with in America. Two companions who remained in the 
 
SAMARIA AND GALJIEE. 119 
 
 valley between us distinguished every syllable with the greatest 
 ease. 
 
 What a scene and " service " it must have been when the 
 blessings and the cursings were said by the thousands under 
 Joshua from those hills ! 
 
 Of course we went to see the famous Samaritan Pentateuch, 
 which was shown to us by the high-priest — after some negotiation, 
 fuss, and backsheesh. He led us through a labyrinth of narrow, 
 dirty, stone courts, till we reached the synagogue, an unpretending 
 room, with a recess screened by a curtain on one side. We had to 
 take off our boots, and then from behind the curtain he brought out 
 three rolls, one of them in a silver case, which, we were assured, 
 was the original. We were permitted to feel and examine it 
 closely. It is backed in many places with vellum, being some- 
 what torn, and its case is different to those of the copies, having 
 a medallion under its central rod. A Mr. Karey, a missionary, 
 and native of Nablous, who accompanied us, said that he knew 
 the original, and that it was honestly shown to us. I believe 
 it was. 
 
 The dress of the people, perhaps, rather, I should say the men, 
 in this part of Palestine, is very striking, their burnouses, or 
 cloaks, being not merely striped, but having bright colours worked 
 in them. Almost every man and boy wore Joseph's coat. No 
 one fashion seems to be followed by the women in this little land. 
 That at Bethlehem is perhaps the most picturesque, with much 
 embroidery of red and yellow, or blue, and display of coins in 
 necklaces. Elsewhere they wore their money on their heads in 
 heavy rolls. These were the " pieces of silver " that the woman 
 in the parable had. She who possessed only ten must have been 
 so poor that the loss of one would be specially serious. In some 
 places the women were dressed in jackets and trousers. But in 
 
PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 every case, from carrying burdens on their heads, they were superbly 
 upright. The faces of the men were handsome, and singularly 
 alike. In this they differed much from the Bedouin of the desert, 
 
 CHIEF OF THE SAMARITANS. 
 
 who showed every kind of feature. Some of those were as 
 striking for their ugliness as others were for their good looks. 
 Talking of features, I never saw a face more convulsed with rage 
 
SA.VAAVA AND GALILEE. 
 
 than when we rode out of Shechem. It was that of a woman. 
 A little boy had accidentally upset her pot of milk. She turned 
 upon him with a yell of passion. As he ran screaming past us 
 our dragoman stooped down, and catching him by the neck of 
 his shirt, swung him up on the pommel of his saddle. " That 
 boy would have been killed," he quietly remarked, "if she had 
 caught him." So we carried the panting little fellow with us for 
 some distance. He told us, amid his sobs, that his name was 
 Hassan, and that he was carrying a pipe for his father to a village 
 a little way from Nablous. When we got there, and set him 
 down, he was off in a moment, like a rabbit, into some shrubs by 
 the road-side. No doubt the milk he spilt was precious. I am 
 afraid that many of the people here are half-starved. The way 
 in which they sometimes gather round us when we sit down for 
 our lunch in the middle of the day is piteous. They watch us 
 like dogs, pouncing upon scraps, licking empty sardine tins, and 
 gobbling up squeezed lemons. We did not need to be told, as 
 we were again and again, that the people were in a miserable 
 state. It has saddened for me many a ride and halt. 
 
 From Shechem we went to Samaria, or rather to its site. It 
 was once spread over an extensive, isolated, oblong hill, com- 
 manding, through a gap, a fine view of the Mediterranean. On 
 one side of it a modern village clings like a patch around the 
 remains of a church built by or for Knights of St. John. This 
 contains some white marble mural tablets of Crusaders, which 
 have been defaced by the Mohammedans, who have, of course, 
 converted the church into a mosque. As we walked round they 
 moved the mats out of the way, lest our tread should defile them. 
 
 The site of Samaria is now covered with gardens and cornfields, 
 amidst which are still standing a large number of the columns 
 which lined the streets and adorned the palaces of the city. It 
 
122 TAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 struck me that this city must have been larger than Jerusalem ; 
 and its site is in some respects even more striking, as it is wholly 
 encompassed with valleys, and could be seen in all its glory from 
 each of the rinor G f hills around it. 
 
 We thought of Jehu as we rode across the plain of Esdraelon 
 towards Jezreel, which is set on a long low spur of the mountains 
 of Gilboa. It could be seen plainly across the flat for some hour 
 and a half before we reached its ruins. A watchman on the tower 
 of Jezreel might spy a company miles away, creeping like an 
 insect over the green or brown grass, before he could distinguish 
 what it was made of, or determine the pace at which it moved. 
 We were, indeed, much struck with the ease with which any one 
 on the neighbouring mountains could witness, as in the arena of 
 a vast amphitheatre, the scenes for which the plain of Jezreel or 
 Esdraelon is memorable. As we skirted the mountains of Gilboa, 
 which stand out in the plain, and looked at its steep, barren, stony 
 slopes, up which Saul was driven, and on which he was slain, one 
 felt how wearied he must have been with that loner march the 
 night before to Endor, from which he could have returned only 
 just in time to enter into the battle. And Sisera, too ; there was 
 the wide open level along which he ran, with no shelter, no cover 
 whatever, till he came to the tent of Jael. We looked straight 
 away towards the flats through which the Kishon flows, and 
 thought how hour after hour he would have hurried on without 
 a rock behind which he could have crouched. The only elevation 
 visible to us in the direction of Tabor was, appropriately enough, 
 a little cluster of Bedouin tents. The country all along was 
 cruelly bare ; one could see miles away a man and his ox at 
 plough like two dots. 
 
 Here I had one of those touches which come, as arrows in 
 the air, smiting suddenly. I was looking idly at a white, shining 
 
SAMARIA AND GALILEE, 123 
 
 little city, nestled in the hill-tops across the plain of Jezreel, when 
 our dragoman said, u Nazareth." I was strangely affected. The 
 exceeding smallness of Palestine makes the traveller realise how 
 very close together the surroundings of scenes occur which seem 
 to be remotely severed in Scripture. I had never thought of 
 Jesus daily looking over the plain of Jezreel towards the Little 
 Hermon and the mountains of Gilboa, with Carmel and the sea 
 in the background. But what a view is that from Nazareth ! 
 Set in a cup among a crowd of summits, you have merely to walk 
 for a few minutes above the city and look round, not only on this 
 plain and the mountains which border it, but beyond them to the 
 hills about Jerusalem and Hebron. Turning a little to the right 
 is seen the Mediterranean. Farther on, the great snow-capped 
 Hermon, then the high land beyond the Jordan. This was a 
 view perpetually familiar to our Lord. But I must not anticipate. 
 Round a shoulder of the mountain, after this my first view of the 
 distant Nazareth, we came full on Nain, plainly to be seen from 
 the home of Jesus, now a very little village, but apparently once a 
 place of considerable size. After this march we camped at 
 Tabor, and the next day rode for hours knee-deep through a 
 sea of blossoms, to a ridge in the far distance. The last twenty 
 yards of our progress — I confess that my heart beat as I drew 
 near to that edge — revealed the Lake of Galilee — turquoise blue 
 — at the first glance much smaller than I had expected it to be. 
 It lay about 2,000 feet below us. Across were the black-looking 
 cliffs of the Gergesenes, at our feet Tiberias, the only city on 
 its shores, like a tiny cork model of a town. One boat — a spot 
 upon a mirror — was slowly creeping across. How often had I 
 pictured that scene to myself! I stood apart and gazed long 
 in silence, w T hile my pony plunged his head up to his neck into 
 the flower-crowded grass, little thinking of my thoughts. The 
 
124 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 Sea of Galilee ! We crept slowly down, got one of the four 
 boats to be found on the lake, and for some five hours sailed and 
 rowed along its shores. All were bare of human life, with the 
 exception of one man " casting a net," but cattle came down from 
 the green slopes and drank the water. I looked in vain for the 
 white beach and fringe of oleanders. There were some, no 
 doubt, but I did not observe them at first. 1 noticed rather 
 
 ~^> 
 
 1 
 
 
 ORIENTAL AT PRAYER. 
 
 that the lake was edged with black broken rocks, and thousands 
 of huge thistles. There is a bit of shingle by Tiberias, but no 
 sand, and all along by Capernaum and the parts of Dalmanutha 
 was the same dark and prickly edge. There is one ruin of a 
 synagogue, perhaps that which the centurion built, at Capernaum. 
 But at the least the view thence was familiar to our Lord, so 
 
SAMARIA AND GALILEE. 
 
 far as the great outlines of nature are concerned. On the right, 
 through a gorge, over the plain of Gennesaret, stood, clearly 
 framed, the so-called " Mount of Beatitudes," and one could not 
 help believing rightly so called. It offered itself daily as a 
 "mountain apart" to the eyes of Jesus. There is no other, 
 fulfilling similar conditions, within sight. We met a strong gust 
 of wind as we returned, and immediately were " toiling in rowing," 
 while the waves splashed over our boat. 
 
 I must pause for a moment to say a word more here about the 
 Mount of Beatitudes. It is of considerable height. My pony 
 was some half-hour ascending its slope from the plain. At the 
 top it is level, or rather presents two platforms, as it were, from 
 the upper of which a crowd could most fitly be addressed. I 
 was, somehow, disappointed by the exceeding coarseness of its 
 grass, which, with its thistles and rank growth, brushed my 
 stirrups as I rode. Indeed, this is one of the almost repellent 
 features of Palestine. When we halted for our midday rest and 
 meal, we never found a mossy shaded bank on which to sit. We 
 got shade, of course, but the ground was almost always rough or 
 stony. We must not use English experience to realise the 
 verse, " Now there was much grass in the place, so the men 
 sat down." There is a want of u finish " in the pleasantest- 
 looking nooks, and in the sweetest spread of blossoms. This 
 incessant phase of minute discomfiture or disappointment often 
 presented itself to help in creating a disillusion. The ants 
 were prodigious, and the flowers which "carpet" much of 
 Northern Palestine are often appreciated best from a little distance. 
 
 Again, I expected to see specially gorgeous sunsets, forgetting 
 how much these owe to clouds, of which there are few here in 
 spring or summer time. The dews were very heavy. Some- 
 times, after a cloudless night, our tents were so soaked that we 
 
126 PAST AND PRESENT JN THE EAST. 
 
 were obliged to let them stand for a while to dry, or their weight 
 would have been doubled for the mules. Indeed, the dews 
 occasionally made our belongings wet, even under canvas. 
 
 But we must return to our route from Tiberias. After ascend- 
 ing the Mount of the Beatitudes, we rode past Cana of Galilee, 
 to Nazareth. The growth of Jesus tilled my mind. I had an 
 eager wish to set eyes on the children and youths of His home. 
 I thought more of them than of the place which we were approach- 
 ing. About a quarter of an hour from the city we met a lad, 
 dark-eyed, thoughtful-looking, walking slowly alone. He looked 
 up and kissed his hand to us. I am sorry to say, however, that 
 the first little boy I met in Nazareth cried " Backsheesh ! " and, 
 because I did not give it, threw a stone at me. If he had known 
 how full my heart was ! He was a handsome boy, too. 
 
 Nazareth is made up of Western churches and Eastern stinks. 
 Its most conspicuous building is Miss Dickson's English school 
 for native girls. This is the " Orphanage of the Female Education 
 Society." I went over it, and was delighted, charmed. There 
 were some fifty smiling, dark-eyed damsels, evidently under 
 genuine wholesome influence. . And all their surroundings, with 
 the equipment of the institution, were English. Nor did this 
 jar in the least with Nazareth. Here was one bright healthy 
 spot in an ill-governed, oppressed land, well found at Nazareth 
 — a light shining in a dark place. We got a guard of soldiers 
 to keep our tents from being robbed at night. 
 
 There are two features, however, of Nazareth which belong 
 to the age of our Lord. One is the fountain just outside the 
 town, where all the women go to draw water, and where Mary 
 often went, leading, may be, her Boy by the finger, as a mother 
 did while I looked on. The other is a steep, bare rock or 
 precipice, within, but not far from, the outskirts of the present 
 
SAMARIA AND GALILEE. 127 
 
 city. It was probably outside the ancient one. Down this very 
 stone cliff, may be, they sought to cast Jesus. It is now — well 
 — from thirty feet to forty feet high. 
 
 The next day arrived a revelation. As we drew near the 
 sea we crossed a tract of "dunes," loose sandy shrub-spotted 
 undulations, which carried us at once to Holland. It was after 
 passing these, however, that the revelation to which I have 
 referred was presented. We rode on to Carmel, or rather the 
 little town of Caifa, at its point. Here is a German colony. 
 After threading the dark narrow street of the oriental part of 
 the place, with its Eastern dresses, outdoor shops, picturesque 
 deliberation, and smells, we came out suddenly on a good road, 
 with good vehicles upon it, drawn by well-equipped horses. On 
 either side were neat detached tiled houses with chimneys, texts 
 over their doors, painted signs of beer and hams, flaxen-haired 
 children at play, boys in jackets, girls in aprons, a steam-engine, 
 windmill, waggon loading barley in the field, men in straw hats 
 and European dress who greeted us cheerily, trim gardens and 
 workshops. Palestine had vanished like a dream. *' I was 
 there last year," said the Doctor, who was riding by my side. 
 And yet we had just left Nazareth, and were under the shadow 
 of Carmel. One indelible impression I received here. These 
 Germans have got possession of a part of Carmel — bare, stony, 
 forbidding. And yet, nearly up to its summit, they have 
 terraced it and set it full of vines. I could hardly believe 
 that so much good soil could be found in this rock-side. We 
 saw what could be done with Palestine, and what probably it 
 once was in part when the spies brought back the grapes. 
 These limestone hills, repellent as they seem, brim with all 
 the possibilities of life. They might be covered with hanging 
 gardens and threaded by good roads. Now there is not — 
 
12S PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 except for a little way out of Bethlehem, and an apology 
 between Jaffa and Jerusalem — one real road in the place. 
 Of course a beaten path over a plain gives good going in 
 dry weather, but there is no real road. Some of the 
 tracks are mere dry torrent beds, others are strewed with 
 rough stones, each as big as your hat. Nor have I seen a 
 single cart, carriage, or barrow. There is not a wheel nor 
 axle, nor, as far as I could see, a spade. A little crooked 
 plough, like a dibble fixed across the end of a crutch, which a 
 man takes out of the soil and swings round for a new furrow 
 with his left hand, represents the agricultural implements of the 
 country. I have not seen a beehive, moreover, though the 
 Germans have plenty. Huge tracts of the richest soil are 
 allowed to grow what they please. Miserably beaten donkeys 
 carry loads between mud hamlets where, in windowless rooms, 
 set amidst the vilest odours, picturesque families pig. Thus 
 the German village was, morally, like a whiff of fresh air, and 
 a proof of what the whole of Palestine could be. Some parts, 
 especially round Bethlehem, show signs of industry ; but mostly 
 elsewhere, despite the green corn which must grow in such 
 places as the plain of Esdraelon, the land sits in darkness and 
 the shadow of death. 
 
 The way from Carmel to this little spot at which we are 
 camped lies mainly over the bright sandy beach of an ultra- 
 marine sea which makes the Bay of Acre. In riding along it 
 we forded the Kishon, that ancient river. But Eastern habits 
 give one shocks. Horrible dogs covered and gnawed at half- 
 eaten dead horses by the sweet ripple on the shore. Some 
 had gorged themselves, and sat in the sun, blinking lazily ; others 
 had only just come up, and were having a battle with hunger. 
 This, however, is no new thing. I thought of Jezebel. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE COASTS OF TYRE AND SIDON. 
 
 Port Said, May i, 1880. — I am stopping here on my way 
 back to London from Palestine, and use the pause to set down 
 something about the last days of my tour before I sailed from 
 Beyrout. Let me first notice how far, in fact, the little country 
 I have just left is from England. It takes, ordinarily, much 
 the same time to get from Jerusalem to London as it does 
 from San Francisco — i.e., about fourteen days ; and if the 
 traveller goes straight to the sea from Jerusalem, it is possible 
 that he may find weather too bad for the boats to pick 
 up passengers, and thus really be still longer on his way to 
 England. 
 
 I have come by an Austrian Lloyd's boat. It is roomy 
 and clean, the table and service being also good. But our 
 procedure is provokingly deliberate. Leaving Beyrout at about 
 10 p.m. on Wednesday — the hour of departure was stated to be 
 four — we spent the night in getting to Jaffa, where we stayed 
 twelve hours, taking on board a prodigious quantity of oranges. 
 Boatsfull after boatsfull came plunging out to us. All the boat- 
 men and boys ate oranges all day long. The air smelt of 
 them, and the sea was speckled with their peel. At last we 
 got off, to spend thirty-six hours in the jaws of the Suez 
 
 1 
 
130 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 Canal, just off this mushroom town of shops and coal stores. 
 The steamer was of course besieged by a fringe of excited 
 boatmen, who fought for the chance of sixpence for taking 
 passengers ashore. Many thus killed part of a tedious day, 
 wandering about on the shady sides of some very hot straight 
 streets. Port Said is about the last-born child of old Egypt, 
 and is full of pickles, white helmets, potted meats, umbrellas, 
 and all the miscellaneous goods sold by " ship-chandlers," with 
 a liberal sprinkling of drinking places. Here, as at Suez, 
 travellers to half the world may buy the trifles forgotten on 
 leaving Europe, or, returning, taste the first sips of Western 
 convenience. 
 
 Mentioning sixpences, as I did just now, I might remark 
 that English money is the best to take to the East — at any 
 rate to Egypt and the Desert. The Bedouin profoundly believe 
 in British gold. We thus paid our tattered escort. But they 
 are very sharp about any coins. Once, after paying them with 
 sovereigns, which they counted twice over as they were put into 
 the sheykh's hand with the greediest and keenest eyes, the three 
 first hours of our next march were disturbed by an exceptionally 
 loud quarrel, in which every one seemed to take part at the 
 top of his voice. At last I asked our dragoman what the 
 matter was. " Master," said he, " they have got a penny 
 which they can't divide." I then inquired what each would 
 do with his share of the gold, and the answer was that he 
 would bury it somewhere in the sand till it was wanted. An 
 English sovereign has a special charm for the Bedouin of the 
 desert. But at Jerusalem the commonest currency was Russian, 
 in pieces of twenty kopecks, which make half a franc. 
 
 I must return, however, to the immediate subject of 
 my letter. 
 
I 2 
 
THE COASTS OF TYRE AND SIDON. 133 
 
 In my last I said we had encamped on the beach just 
 short of Phoenicia proper. Here, indeed, we spent a Sunday, 
 which was not only a grateful respite for man and beast, but 
 a protection from the storm. It was our one thoroughly wet 
 day. The rain descended and the winds blew, but our tents, 
 though they shivered, stood well, and we thus specially enjoyed 
 our determination to rest on the Sunday. Other considerations 
 apart, it is generally bad economy to travel then. The beasts 
 and attendants obviously go on afresh after the pause. Of 
 course, in the desert it is mostly impossible to stop. Perhaps 
 you are a couple of marches from water, and the caravan must 
 move on. But, as a rule, the journey thrives all the better for 
 the day of rest. 
 
 Phoenicia is barred off from Palestine by one of the spurs 
 of the Lebanon which runs down into the sea, and is there 
 broken off short — a white cliff which descends into the water 
 marking the fracture. Climbing over this we entered the little 
 strip of land which slopes from the hills to the beach, and was 
 the most notable cradle of commerce, containing " Tyre and 
 Sidon," through the coasts of which we had a wonderfully 
 interesting ride. Our horses' feet were often washed by the 
 waves upon the shore. Talking of waves, I have to be thankful 
 for a narrow escape from being swept out into the sea. We 
 had, of course, to ford the divers rivers which flow down from 
 the hill country, and which had been somewhat swollen by 
 rain in the mountains. One looked very ugly — the Leontes, a 
 broad, sand-laden stream, running with force, and carrying out 
 a long line of yellow water into the Mediterranean. Dr. Hoge, 
 my excellent American fellow-traveller, and I made an attempt 
 to ford it after we had stopped for some time on the bank, 
 and looked about for the least unlikely spot. He was about 
 
134 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 a couple of yards in advance of me when, not liking the look 
 of things, I drew rein. That moment he plunged into what 
 we had reason to believe afterwards was a channel in the sand 
 some twelve feet deep at least, and for a few seconds — it 
 seemed much longer — the picture presented itself to me of his 
 being carried out with a rush into the sea. No horse could 
 have swum in such a torrent. Being an experienced rider, 
 and not losing his presence of mind, he at once turned his 
 animal's head up stream, and, with a desperate struggle, it got 
 its fore feet on the edge of the bank, which was hidden under 
 the yellow water, and drew itself out. It could not touch ground 
 with its hind legs. I had some cumbersome saddle-bags, etc., 
 on my horse, besides not being, what he is, a " light weight." 
 If I had happened to go another two yards this letter would 
 not have been written. We traced the river up till we found 
 a bridge. The next stream was " nasty," but we got through 
 all right. The Kishon, which we had crossed early on the 
 ride from Carmel, was not flooded, but above its mouth the 
 torrent-channelled marsh, in which was a herd of buffaloes, indi- 
 cated plainly enough how, after heavy rain, it could sweep men 
 and horses utterly away. We drew rein for a short time only 
 at Acre. In this, one of the foci of history, ancient and 
 modern, a passing picture stepped in front of the crowd of 
 reflections which might have been expected to present them- 
 selves there. 
 
 It seemed to be market-time, and I noticed a number of men 
 shut up in a large pound, through the bars of which people 
 were talking to them and handing them food. I asked who 
 they were and what they did there. The reply was that they 
 were prisoners, and that they depended much for their support 
 upon the gifts of friends. I had suddenly come upon, in the 
 
THE COASTS OF TYRE AND SIDON. 135 
 
 unchangeable dress and portraiture of the East, a living pre- 
 sentation of the words, 4< I was in prison, and ye visited Me." 
 This stopped the reception of the historical impression which 
 ought, perhaps, to have arrived at Acre. But it is not always 
 that the appropriate stream of thought is so well crossed. 
 Again and again, while standing in an atmosphere charged 
 with sacred associations, one wholly fails to breathe it, and 
 perceives, instead, a whiff of some paltry matter. 
 
 You may, e.g., have ridden north from the Dead Sea and 
 come to a place where you say to yourself, " Here, probably, 
 the Hebrews crossed the Jordan, and saw across the narrow 
 plain the stone towers of Jericho standing up above the palms 
 around it." Then your horse stumbles, and you have to pick 
 a pebble out of its shoe with an implement bought in Piccadilly ; 
 and you recollect that it cost three-and-sixpence. 
 
 When I first came suddenly in sight of Jerusalem I stopped 
 and took off my hat. There I stood for a few minutes in rare 
 deep silence, which was broken by Achmed, who touched me, 
 saying, u Master, you have dropped your puggery." I could 
 have knocked him down. 
 
 It is afterwards that the most vivid impressions arise ; and 
 then, especially to one who has seen the Holy Land, every 
 copy of it becomes an illustrated Bible. The very places 
 present themselves behind the words of the book. I see 
 Gerizim and Jacob's Well as I read the fourth chapter of St. 
 John's Gospel ; and when the Old Testament verses tell me 
 of Elijah running before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel, there 
 rises before me a picture of white stony Carmel and the hot flats 
 at its foot stretching to the city, which to the eyes of Elijah would 
 show, afar off, like a brown cluster beneath the slopes of 
 Gilboa, much as the ruins on its site now appear to the traveller 
 
136 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 who rides across the plain of Esdraelon and sees them long 
 before they are reached. 
 
 To return to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. There was 
 something specially and antiquely — I don't know what word to 
 use, but will say " weird " — in the nameless ruins and relics 
 of ruins which we passed. One could imagine how the whole 
 coast was fringed with cities and palaces looking out over the 
 sea, along the side of which we occasionally struck upon the 
 foundations of an ancient stone road. The slopes of the hills 
 on our right were streaked with the remains of terraces and 
 hanging gardens, showing how every inch of the soil had once 
 been carefully cultivated. Many a fine Phoenician country house 
 had stood there among its vineyards and oliveyards. Every 
 inch of ground was once utilised, and seemingly studded with 
 villages and buildings. Even the present fields were spotted 
 with fragments of marble columns, etc., and the stones around 
 us continually showed marks of the tool. One felt that the 
 view of many parts of this " coast '' from the sea must have 
 presented a continuous succession of grand structures, from the 
 long sweep of which Tyre and Sidon stood out among the 
 waves in all their ancient grandeur. They even now present 
 an appearance which may be called " imposing " from a little 
 distance ; and while we were there some thirty vessels, mostly 
 two-masted schooners, lay in the harbour of Tyre. The trade 
 of it, however, has dwindled into something very small. Fisher- 
 men, many of whose nets were spread to dry upon the ruins 
 of the place, were busy in the water, chiefly with common 
 casting-nets, which they carried on their arms ready to throw 
 at any shoal of fish they could discern in the clear waves 
 which washed them to the middle. But the chief business of 
 the place seemed to be in millstones prepared there. Once 
 
THE COASTS OF TYRE AND SI DON. 737 
 
 these masons helped to cut the blocks which made the foundation 
 of the Temple at Jerusalem. 
 
 Decayed though it be, I could not help being struck with 
 the reserve of life still to be seen in Tyre. They were ruined 
 columns which stood in the surf, but the people were singularly 
 "alive." 
 
 We pitched our camp at the extremity of the peninsula of 
 the city, approached by the mole which Alexander made in 
 order to take it, and a few yards from our tents we looked over 
 the outermost seaward wreck of this ancient place. I could not 
 set my impressions anywise in order on finding myself at Tyre. 
 It is apparently out of the usual course of tourists in these parts, 
 who mostly confine themselves to Palestine, for the moment we 
 had got off our horses we were surrounded by a gazing, chattering 
 group of curious inhabitants. Swarms of children, and elders 
 too, ranged themselves in a circle about us, and stared with un- 
 flinching eyes. And a handsome, loose-limbed, broad-shouldered, 
 swarthy race they were. The faces of some of the children 
 were remarkably fine. They were unlike any we had seen, the 
 present Oriental phase of feature being touched by a dash of 
 daring freedom in their looks, as if their ancient vigour had 
 been too strong for its traces to have died out even after all 
 these years, and the repeated periods of assault and ruin which 
 Tyre has gone through. A spice of freedom seemed to sever 
 the spot from the crushed and hopeless look of many other Syrian 
 places. And yet — as I have said — they were surrounded with 
 disastrously jumbled relics. Among these, however, the grandest 
 of the Crusaders' churches still shows some of its walls and 
 columns here. The present houses in the city are built of ruins of 
 ruins. What might not be discovered by judicious digging here ! 
 These shapeless heaps surely cover some rare stores of Phoenician 
 
138 PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST 
 
 art, and the mole hurriedly made by Alexander's troops, out of 
 materials of the old Tyre which they had just taken, in order 
 to reach the island, must be rich in architectural relics. This 
 "causeway," originally much narrower, when built of the stones 
 and timbers of that part of the city which stood on the shore, 
 is now some half a mile wide. The sand has drifted on it heavily, 
 and kept its treasures as in a safe. Great parts of the once 
 crowded peninsula are bare ; and yet, as I have said, the look 
 of the people somehow seemed to assure one of latent vigour 
 in Tyre. In one respect, however, it presents a remarkable 
 and significant contrast to Sidon. Sidon, like its sister city, 
 thrust out into the sea, is yet more full of life. And to a 
 marked extent it is Christian life. At Tyre, the free-spoken 
 wild-eyed brats were fiercely importunate for " backsheesh." 
 They ran after us with its shout as we rode away. But at 
 Sidon not a single request was made to us for what we had 
 come to consider an inevitable Oriental demand. I had no 
 sooner got off my horse in the cemetery, where we found our 
 tents pitched in advance, than a smiling young man, in Eastern 
 dress, came up and said to me in English, " I am glad to see 
 you, sir. I am one of the teachers in the school here, and 
 these are some of the boys in my first class," bringing up two 
 or three bright-looking lads. He belonged to a branch of the 
 American Presbyterian establishment, which is doing most 
 excellent work at Beyrout. We visited his school later on, as 
 well as another of girls who were all assembled — the boys had 
 dispersed. These girls were busy preparing what might be 
 called their " home-lessons," and were learning by heart a portion 
 out of the Acts of the Apostles. I forget the passage, but they 
 were then nearly perfect in their task, and repeated some verses 
 to us, of course in Arabic. Dr. Hoge then tested them in the 
 
THE COASTS OF TYRE AND SIDON. 139 
 
 Psalms, through their teacher, but they caught the first words 
 in a moment, and gave out in chorus the remainder of the 
 portions he had chosen. 
 
 The most remarkable feature of the Christian work going 
 on here seemed, however, to be in the air of the place. 
 Christianity had obviously shed its influence beyond the walls 
 of the schools and the circle of the scholars. As I have 
 remarked — and it was most remarkable — there was not a single 
 cry for " backsheesh," but rather a tone of Western civility 
 about the people. The streets, too, were cleaner than any we 
 had seen in an Oriental city. And yet there were Oriental 
 tokens enough within it. The hour of prayer was being called 
 from divers minarets. I did not, however, see even a solitary 
 worshipper respond to the summons. The cry came audibly 
 enough, but no one heeded it as we walked about the town 
 with our Christian guide. 
 
 Moreover, wonder of wonders, numbers of workpeople were 
 busy in the making of a new broad stone road, which is to run 
 along the coast. I should not be surprised if, before long, Sidon 
 had its shore railway, or at least its track of trams. No doubt 
 this prospect is shocking to some who would have these " coasts " 
 still openly retain the antique colour of religious historical associa- 
 tions, and remember how Tyre and Sidon were chosen with 
 Sodom and Gomorrha to be a foil to Capernaum " exalted unto 
 heaven " ; but, nevertheless, I must speak of what I saw. Sidon 
 showed a marvellous contrast to most of the cities of Palestine. 
 The people seemed touched with a spirit of enterprise and 
 progress. True, the "navvies" on the new road were, many of 
 them, women and children, and the men among them showed 
 signs of the Oriental, deliberate, cigarette-smoking procedure of 
 the Eastern workman : but the business was going on, and a 
 
i 4 o PAST AND PRESENT IN THE EAST. 
 
 " road," which promised when finished to become a really good 
 and level one, was in genuine progress. Sidon was an unexpected 
 revelation to us. 
 
 The ride from it to Beyrout is, nevertheless, grievously bad. 
 We came again on the vilest stone tracks that a horse ever 
 could be expected to traverse, and then emerged near the shore 
 on a course of deep red sand, in which my poor pony must 
 have wished himself a camel. Hour after hour he ploughed 
 through it, but bravely finished with a vigorous "neigh" and a 
 canter when — so it seemed — he knew that he was drawing near 
 the end of his day's toil. It was, indeed, toil, and I never pitied 
 a horse more as, under a broiling sun, he sank into sand far 
 worse than a " heavy " ploughed field. 
 
 Beyrout is the most flourishing city in Syria. Its numerous 
 English day-schools for Mohammedan children, and its distinguished 
 American Presbyterian educational institutions, make it a wonder- 
 fully promising centre of Christian influence. We seemed to have 
 left Palestine far behind us, with its ground-down social look, its 
 wretched hovels, its neglected opportunities for the cultivation 
 of the soil, of which its wide breadths of blooming wild flowers 
 were a picturesque but yet significant sign. Here, at Beyrout, 
 were smart carriages with ladies and gentlemen driving about, 
 a broad diligence road leading to Damascus, thriving shops, and 
 numerous buildings in progress. Palestine was far away. Europe 
 touched Asia. Steamers waited off the city. Waiters at the 
 hotel ran about with trays, and when our " camp " arrived after 
 us — with its tents, " canteen," its queer portable stove, in which 
 our meals had so long been cooked under the sky, battered 
 luggage, sun-browned attendants, and mules with their bell-hung 
 trappings — and unloaded itself before the European-dressed land- 
 lord, one felt forcibly that the tour was over. Far, far behind 
 
THE COASTS OF TYRE AND S1D0N, 
 
 141 
 
 lay the recollection of the desert, its long parched marches, its 
 train of dromedaries and Bedouin. Europe lay at anchor in 
 the roadstead, and touched the Syrian shore. The tent life died 
 away. Turbans and bernouses began to fade. People were seen 
 in patent boots, tall hats, and cloth coats. It was all over. 
 Charing Cross seemed to suggest itself beyond the sea-line, and, 
 though in some respects I was sorry for it, I did not regret, 
 as perhaps I should, that " circumstances " prevented my making 
 fresh arrangements, and going on to Damascus. 
 
 I must therefore now say farewell to those who have any- 
 wise cared to accompany me in Egypt, the Desert, and 
 Palestine. 
 
A FEW HINTS TO TRAVELLERS IN THE EAST, 
 ESPECIALLY THE DESERT. 
 
 Food. — Take good store of captains, or other biscuits, for the Desert especially. 
 Arab bread is bad, and that the traveller starts with soon gets hard. Compressed 
 soup, with plenty of vegetables in it, is very acceptable j so is Irish stew in tins. 
 A cup of cocoa early in the morning is a good thing. It is made much more 
 readily than coffee. That in powder, ready sweetened, etc., is best, as only some 
 hot water is needed. The dawn, when the tents are being struck, is often very 
 cold in the Desert. A spirit-lamp, which enables the traveller to make a cup of 
 hot cocoa for himself while the " camp " is in an early uproar, is very handy. When 
 the tents are pitched for the night the cook should always be ready with tea some 
 time before supper. Condensed milk should be taken. The Arabs sometimes 
 come across a Bedouin encampment which may profess to furnish milk, probably 
 sour. Let the thirsty traveller be cautious when he is offered a bowl of buttermilk, 
 and taste it first. Cancel's milk, too, generally disagrees with Europeans. Water, 
 of course, has to be carried long distances. It is good at Sinai. Some recommend 
 claret for Desert drinking. A small keg of good whisky for a glass of toddy before 
 turning in after a hard day's march is desirable, especially as the Desert traveller 
 may chance on some nights of cold rain. We had very little M spirit" with us, and 
 wished we had brought more. Good bitter beer is got at Suez, and a case of it 
 might well be put on a camel. Each traveller should have a small skin of water 
 hung to his camel ; the surface of the skin remains moist, and the evaporation 
 keeps the water cool. A skin is better than a tin, but an ordinary workman's quart 
 bottle of block-tin is very useful for cold tea, etc. See that the corks are of the 
 best, and have a few to spare. The dragoman will be sure to take live fowls and 
 pigeons. He is certain also to provide plenty of jam, etc., which the Arab thinks 
 the European delights in; but preserved soup, Trish stew, and biscuits should be seen 
 
HINTS TO TRAVELLERS IN THE EAST. 143 
 
 to. Too much reliance is apt to be placed on maccaroni, which the Eastern does 
 not always know how to dress. It is more easily carried than cooked. Care 
 should, moreover, be taken that all the " eggs " are not carried in the same basket, 
 that the camp-stools provided are strong, and that the knives cut. Have a private 
 store of cocoa, biscuits, sugar, spirits, etc. 
 
 Presents — Strong Tobacco.— The Bedouin smoke poor stuft, and are grateful for 
 something they can taste— never mind how strong it is. They will probably mix it 
 with their own. String.— We found them honest, but really good English string 
 tempts them. Take a store of the best string, such as water-cord, and give them 
 some hanks. Also shilling knives would be much prized, and common burning- 
 glasses. A few presents such as I have mentioned take very little room, but are 
 immensely valued. I doubt if the Bedouin care for mere toys. 
 
 Clothes. — Easy-fitting stout brown or grey serge is best, with plenty of pockets that 
 button. A thin white overall might be useful in the sun. For the head an Indian 
 helmet with puggery, and a fez or cap to wear at odd times and in the evening. 
 Avoid lace boots, but wear those that come up to the knee and keep out sand. Take 
 a heavy ulster and two or three railway rugs, which are useful on camels. But see 
 first that the camel saddle is good, and especially that it has a large leather pillow 
 before its high pommel, on which to rest the leg when riding, as an Eastern does. 
 But certainly take stirrups, and see that the leathers are strong. A hippopotamus 
 whip, to be got in Cairo, should be taken ; also a hand-bag and haversack, which may 
 be hung from the pommel of the camel's saddle. Take a very strong white 
 umbrella. Let the luggage, moreover, be very strong. Bedouin are rough. They 
 fight for favourite packages which are supposed to be lightest. I have seen two 
 or four of them playing at "the tug-of-war" with a carpet-bag of mine for five 
 minutes together. Take some cord and string for your own use, and a few bags or 
 tins " to put things in," even if you be not a collector. Carry a pocket-knife with 
 a " catch," you may have to carve with it, and will want, moreover, a longish blade. 
 Pistols are carried — loaded. If I went again I think I should take a repeating rifle. 
 Blue spectacles are very useful, for the glare is sometimes great. 
 
 When riding on horseback have a spur for the left heel ; sometimes you find 
 things tied on behind the saddle which might catch a right spur in mounting or 
 dismounting. But have a spur, anyhow, for a horse ; they are not used with 
 camels. Learn the trick of making a camel kneel, if you can. It involves a 
 peculiar sound and touch. Certainly look out for its use on the part of your 
 camel leader, at whose hint the beast plumps down suddenly. 
 
 Avoid iron in the framework of luggage, as also iron pins, buttons, etc., 
 
144 
 
 HINTS TO TRAVELLERS IN THE EAST. 
 
 remembering that luggage is often pitched down on the stone from the camel's 
 back. 
 
 Take store of large stout " carpet " pins and those which are known as 
 " nursery"; they are a sort of pin brooches, and may be very useful in pinning 
 from inside the flap of the tent to the " wall " of the tent on a blowing night. 
 I had a parcel of these with me, and found them thus very useful indeed. Of 
 course they must be removed before the Arabs come to take the tent down in the 
 morning, but while in use they may prevent the first encroachment of a wind 
 that might eventually lift the tent bodily up. 
 
 !9HHPlnl : "I 1 "! 
 
 LONDON I R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.