\ : mm \ ^.-■ A, V IN WESTERN LEVANT. COPYRIGHT WELCH, FRACKER COMPANY 1890 C J^ >^ In IV est em Levant FRANCIS C. SESSIONS President of the Ohio Arch^ological and Historical Society £?^ r^ t illustrated by HENRY W. HALL New York : WELCH, FRACKER COMPANY 1890 / am indebted to a friend for the appendix^ and for some historical facts which add greatly to the interest of the book. Francis C. Sessions. COPYRIGHT BY WELCH, FRACKER COMPANY 1890 IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF MY FRIEND^ D R. /. G . HOLLA ND WHO KNCOURAGED ME TO WRITE MY FIRST BOOK. i\?.362691 Madrid I. SONETO HEROICO. A Unas Fiostas de cartas y toros en la pla^a de Valladolid. La Pla9a un jardin fresco, los tablados Unencaiia do de diversas flores," etc. Don Louis de Gongora y Argote. From Madrid Edition^ i(>S4- A Bull Fight at Valladolid. Behold ! A garden fair, a wide stockade Festooned with flowers of every royal hue ; Ten roaring bulls like tigers plunging through The ranks of lancers armed with flashing blade ! Applauding kings, queens, senators, arrayed In robes o£ gorgeous scarlet, gold and blue— A wondrou9 spectacle ! Roses and rue For victor and fallen. Ah, propitious shade Of Genii and Pisuerga ! here behold Our Andalusian gallantries and say Where now is all your Moorish boast of old ? Dead !— vanquished by the glory of this living day. <.. MADRID. I. Ever since reading Washington Ir- ving's "Tales of the Alhambra " ana " Conquest of Granada," and Prescott's '* History of Ferdinand and Isabella" and "Reign of Philip II.," I have had a great desire to visit Spain, and see for myself the country in which are laid the scenes of the adventures of the sprightly Gil Bias, and of the illustrious knight, Don Quixote. Very few persons visit Spain in the summer, and I had tried to make ar- In Wester 71 Levant. rangements to go in the fall or early spring ; but failing in that, concluded to try it in June, and was favored with de- lightful weather, cool and pleasant. The guide-books warn people against travel- ing in Spain on account of the difficulty in getting along with the people unless one can speak the language, the danger from brigands, and not getting enough to eat. Our Spanish guide-book lexicon seemed to contain just what we did not want to use, and we had to get along with what Spanish phrases we could pick up, and use the sign language for the remainder. We enter Spain at Irun, where the custom-house officer calls on us to open our baggage for examination. We had a hard time to make him understand that we did not have a trunk. He ^^v^ up in despair and went away, but re- turned in a little while with another passenger. We had picked up a little Spanish, so we tried it on him: ''^ No tango radoo sujito a derecho"" (I have nothing liable to duty), but that was not satisfactory ; our baggage was opened and his hands thrust in, but very In Western Levant. gently, and he politely closed it and bid us " Buenos dias " (good morning). Here the officers wear a different uni- form from the French, and the architec- ture of the building is different, and the people walk Spanish and talk Spanish; although only a line separates them. Our next stop was at San Sebastian, and our ride through the Pyrenees and along the Bay of Biscay was quite in contrast with the flat country through which we came from Bordeaux. All around is a grand and picturesque scene of mountain and water. I have rarely looked upon scenery more roman- tic than that about San Sebastian. It is a most lovely spot on the sea, with mountain and ocean views ; quite a cele- brated Spanish summer resort, where the Queen Regent of Spain has a palace. We enjoyed thoroughly our ride into the country, and our visits to the Spanish villages and country people. There are two interesting old cathedrals at San Sebastian — Santa Maria and San Vi- cente. We go while there to Santa Clara ; a grand scene meets our eyes here. Lomas says of it : " Let real In Western Levant. Spanish sunlight come glinting through the trees, lie hot on the white horse shoe of glistening sand that runs around Santa Clara, light up the blue waves that dash fiercely even upon ever so still a day, against the rocks below us, or the emerald green speck of La Isla, and make sleepy the old walls of La Monta that frown out on the world four hun- dred feet above, and it would be hard to say what is lacking to make a perfect picture." I cannot stop long to talk to you about Basques, who live on the two slopes of the Pyrenees ; you see them in San Sebas- tian, the capital, and other cities in the north of Spain as they come into market. There are no villages or large towns in the Basque provinces ; they occupy the mountain fastnesses, and their small houses lie scattered upon nearly all the heights. You cannot but stop and look at them in their long breeches, red jack- ets and sashes, long pointed hempen shoes and pointed caps ; the women wear head-dresses of gay colors over their braided or twisted hair. There is great equality of conditions and no In Western Levant. nobility, or but few who derive their origin from the time of the Moorish wars. Their language is entirely differ- ent from the Spanish or any other known tongue, and they hold on to it with great tenacity. One legend calls it " the lan- guage of the angels, with which Adam and Eve used to talk to each other." It is said the devil tried to learn it ; he studied it for seven years, but as he then only knew three words, he gave it up. The Andalusians say that in Basque you spell Solomon and pronounce it Nebuch- adnezzar. We must pass on, noticing briefly our visit to old Burgos, the birth-place and the burial-place of the great Spanish warrior of the tenth century, " The Cid." But the greatest attraction here was the grand old Cathedral, Santa Maria la Major, one of the finest Gothic cathedrals in Spain — indeed, in the world. We walked around it and through it, and after going through Burgos we returned again for a careful study of what is, after all, one of the noblest specimens of Gothic structure in the world. In Western Levant. II. The country between Es Escorial and the Spanish capital is dreary enough, and resembles the deserts of sage brush beyond Nebraska, as you approach Salt Lake City. Madrid is on a high level plain, with a gloomy country around it. As we first viewed it, from a distance, it looked bright, modern, and Paris-like. We drove up the hill from the station in a cab, to which three unruly mules were attached. The scenes on the street are truly foreign, and different from anything we have seen. Our quarters are at the " Hotel de la Paix," on the " Puerta del Sol," with a delightful out- look on a busy, bustling square, with a great fountain playing, while marching soldiers and martial music give added animation to the scene. Everywhere, in large cities, we see the military, march- ing by regiments in the streets, with their short, quick step, quite in contrast with United States soldiers. Our Courier, who was a professor, an In Western i^evant. educated man, informed us that Spain is now living under the constitution of 1876. Its prominent features are here- ditary monarchy in the person and fam- ily of Don Alphonso XII, and a legislative assembly of two branches, the Senate and the Congress. The Senate is an aristo- cratic body composed of three classes. First. — Senators in their own right, such as sons of the king, grandees of Spain, having a fixed income of 60,000 pesetas ; captains general of the army, admiral of the navy ; the patriarch of the Indies, archbishops, etc. Second. — A hundred persons nomin- ated by the crown for life. Third.— One hundred and fifty per- sons elected by the corporations and the larger taxpayers. The congress of deputies, founded on general suffrage regulated by the law of elections, consists of persons chosen for five years by electoral districts, in pro- portion of one deputy to every fifty thou- sand of the population. In its general provisions the constitu- tion corresponds in theory to the consti- tution of other monarchical countries. 8 In Western Levant. There is sufficient flexibility of language under Spanish precedents to allow am- ple room for the healthy play of parties, and during the twelve years of its exis- tence Spain has had, says Curry, '' the conservatism of Canovas and the libera- lism of Sagasta and Mont, has survived several military revolts, almost annihi- lated Carlism, and passed securely over the crisis of a transition from a Bour- bon King to the regency of an Austrian woman. In the Cortez there is no longer rule nor previous question. Each speaker can rectify, and with Spanish loquaciousness this system of oratorial ramifications makes debate tedious and an issue remote." Castelar once said, *'in the crisis of every party question in Spain the inquiry is, ' What controls the canons?'" The bayonet has super- seded the ballot box or a vote of the Cortez. Canovas, the great leader of the conservatives, said that " monarchy is anterior and superior to the constitu- tion." Senor Sagasta, the prime minis- ter, is the leader of the liberal party. The Catholic priests have great influ- ence. At the last election the Jesuits In Western Levant. and the monks declared from the pulpit and in the streets that it was a sin against religion and the church to vote for the liberal candidates. Some priests even came to blows with the Liberals. '* The conduct of the clergy," says a telegram from Madrid to the London News, *' in these elections is sufficient proof that the old spirit of intolerance and the Carlist propensities of the Bas- que Highlanders are not extinguished." The franchise is now confined, with cer- tain exceptions, to Spaniards who have three conditions ; of age, twenty-five years ; of domicile, and five dollars real property tax, or double that amount as industrial tax. Republicans seek to get rid of this last limitation. The registra law is managed so as to keep out as many of the poor as possible. Suffrage is given to all members of academies and ecclesiastical chapters, to all parish priests, and other curates, to all civil servants whose pay is over four hundred dollars a year, to all pensioners (and their number is legion), and to all pain- ters or sculptors who have obtained a first or second class medal. The excep- lo In Western Levant. tions have an aristocratic or class ring. The Republicans would place the Roman Catholic and the other churches on the same footing, and proclaim inde- pendence of State. III. On the streets and everywhere are pla- cards, and boys were selling programmes for the Bull F'.ght, which was to take place at 4.30 P. M. There were the pic- tures and names of the bulls and of the performers. Great crowds of well-dressed people, men and women of all classes ; even the Queen and a sister of her hus- band, the late King Alphonso, were on their way. The conveyances were of all kinds, and such a rush and excite- ment we have never seen. Men, women and children were all dressed in their best clothes, and looked as if going to an opera. In the boxes were ladies dressed in white, with a white mantilla thrown over their heads, and hanging gracefully down to their feet. The Bull Fight to-day was one of un- In Western Levant. ii usual attraction on account of its being given for the benefit of a city hospital "A Beneficenca." The usual number of bulls which are brought into the ring at a Bull Fight during the performance is six^ but at this fight there were to be eight. The Plaza de Toros which we en- tered with from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand other fools., is a magnifi- cent building, and must be nearly as large in area as the Colosseum at Rome. It is constructed like the Roman amphi- theatre. This has given us an opportun- ity of seeing the Spanish people in all their crazy enthusiasm in this favorite sport. They would cheer and clap their hands at the least success of the bande- rillas in the hands of the chulos^ who are men of great activity, avoiding the bulls with skill and thrusting their arrows in- to them as if educated to their nefarious business. They seem in constant danger of being gored by the irritated and ugly bulls ; sometimes they are killed, but this does not often occur. At a word given by the President a trumpet is sounded and in come the performers on foot and on horses ; the mules, three or 12 In Western Levant. six side by side, harnessed in gay colors, are there ready to haul out the dead bulls and horses at the end of each per- formance, which is done amidst great cheering. The performers salute the President, and then comes the bull through the gate, pawing and rushing at the men who irritate him by swinging before him red flags ; he soon approaches one of the horses, mounted by the man bull fighter, and then runs away to the other part of the ring, not caring to gore him. Then the great audience raised a terrible howl at his want of courage ; after being maddened by arrows thrown into his fore-shoulders, he again, with head erect and a determined manner, rushes at the horse and rider, gores the horse, and raises both horse and rider on his horns ; the horse falls over with the rider under him. The fighters rush at the bull with their red flags to draw him away ; the horse struggles in the last throes of death, while the rider is helped up and led away by two men. The great crowd cheered and clapped their hands, and men threw their hats over into the arena. For a long time the bull was In Western Levant^ harrassed and goaded by arrows and poinards and Toledo swords, and after killing four horses, he fell to the ground exhausted, when one of the fighters struck him with a sword and killed him. Then in came the mules with their gay trappings, and with a hurrah from the crowd and music by the band, the bull and the poor dead horses were drawn out. With variations according to cir- cumstances, the same awful fights with like results took place until the last of the eight bulls was killed. When the third bull had killed six horses, it was too much for me, and much to the disgust of our interpreter I left. I was glad to get out into the pure fresh air again and enjoyed a walk in the beautiful parks. On our way to Toledo the next morning, an intelligent Spaniard from Madrid, who could speak English, heard us discussing the horrors of the scenes of the day before, and tried to defend them on account of the early training of the women and children to such scenes as representations of the old Roman arena. I told him that the more slaughter and bloodshed there was the 14 In Wester 71 Levant. better the spectators seemed pleased, and unless a horse was killed there was no fun in it. The poor horses are the broken down ones from the cabs and tramways, and, he said, ''they would have to be killed anyway." The suffer- ings of the bulls must be intense, but one's feelings of pity are excited for the poor horses that are blindfolded and forced upon the horns of the infuriated animals, and are sometimes hauled out of the ring with their intestines trailing on the ground. To me it was a horrible scene, and yet it was one which beauti- ful women and children beheld with shouts and laughter. When I ask the guide what all the cheering was for, I could see nothing, he replied, " The peo- ple come here to have a good time, and a little girl in the gallery waved a flag which caused the cheering." The Queen and her sister-in-law used their opera- glasses continually on the horrible scenes. I was told to visit the bull fight as one of the national holiday enter- tainments, and see for myself ; that one "might as well see the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out as to go to Spain In Western Levant. 15 and not see the national entertainment." It was a remarkable experience ; the throngs of eager, excited people all making their way to one place, stirred as nought but the prospect of bloodshed can stir them ; the swaying of the ever increasing mass around the walls and barriers of the grim looking charnel- house ; and then to stand and look down upon the seething crowd of some twenty thousand souls around and beneath, all absorbed in the one desire, from the elegantly dressed dames and cavaliers of the upper tiers, (where we were) down the sloping rows of crowded benches below us. I brought to the hotel with me a daily paper with three column slang of the bull fight, and asked our courier to translate it; he replied "it is impossi- ble, as it is written in the customary slang of the arena and the editor manu- factures highfalutin words for the occa- sion." This national fiesta — disgusting, de- moralizing, cruel, bloody — is probably the most distinctive characteristic of Spain. Our traveling companion to To- 1 6 In Western Levant. ledo, who was a native of Madrid, said that some of the better classes, had tried to legislate against it, but the opposi- tion it provoked was violent and revolu- tionary. I \ ' ^ '''^*«»w'* *See Appendix, note I, on the antiquity of buU-tighting and bull-baiting. II. The Beauty of the As to the peculiar Madniiian Women, beauty and interest of Spanish women, the volumes that are filled with amenities and panegyric, leave volumes yet to be written, and even then the tale but half told. Every- where there are types — distinct, contras- ting, definitive. Moorish sagacity, Ro- man resoluteness. Oriental depth of eyes or mediaeval sensuousness, each distinct and dramatic upon the passing faces, malces the market-places and avenues of 1 8 In Western Levant. Madrid appear to be a sort of sympo- sium, to which are invited, not only the representatives of a living present, but the purest types of the past. The dark, sparkling eyes, rich jet black hair, grace- ful litheness of figure and movement, and above all, that undefinable art which so successfully conceals the con- sciousness of its own grace and beauty — all these combine to make the Spanish woman an admirable exponent of the science of pleasing, and a peculiarly interesting study to the thoughtful foreigner. The children and young maidens are particularly strong in the native characteristics, as are the aged, who have sunk back into elegant repose after a life of conven- tional hurry and tumult. Study the children and the aged, if you would know a nation's ruling character. The former have not yet learned, and the latter have long since discarded, the for- eign innuendoes which their contact with northern races has imparted them, and which affectation so ill becomes the conservative dignity of the true south- ern type. Then, too, before the battle In Western Levant 19 of life has buried the native character in a sort of cuirass of conventionality, and after this useless assumption for the benefit of trade and social policy is laid aside, the quality which m middle life is ^'mpenetrable, in childhood and old age lies upon the surface But commerce the great revolutionizer of nations, the destroyer of the conservative and the old, and the god-father of the progres sive the superficial and the new. is fast making inroads into the Spanish char- acter, the displaced southern nature yielding to a northern principle (admir- able in its place< but most ignoble out of it), and, like that of JapaU; the nationa! character will become assimilated with foreign substance till all distinguishing types sink to blend in a sort of universal composite and unvarying whole Com- merce takes the ends of a thousand threads, from as many peoples, and of the great dissimilar many-colored mass, each differing from the other in quality, virtue, and principle, weaves a solid, grey, neutral fabric, which, though it clothes well the universal, leaves naked the individual. This seems to be the 20 Ifi Western Levant. compensation of nature. We thank com- merce for uplifting the mass, while we ever recognize that it is a bounty which crushes all types The unit becomes complex ; the individual, composite; the accidental, the characteristic and the extraneous become the analogous, the uniform and the monotonous. In this spirit comes the sense of regret at the fall of the 7na7itilla or veil, which has graced the dark-haired Spanish head for so many centuries, and about which float so many delightful legends and the airs of lost arts, and which is fast being discarded in favor of the less becoming importations from France. Notwith- standing, the women of the older, more conservative of the Madrillians still re- tain the happy ornament, and revive in the heart the memory of Roderigo, the Enchanted Armor, and the perils and amenities of Gil Bias of Santillana. There is a period between childhood and womanhood however, when the young maiden is kept under strictest surveil- lance The Sancho Panza proverb has it, and rather dryly, it is true : " Que la Doticella honrada, la pie ma qtiebraday en In Western Levarit. casa,'' " the virtuous maiden and the broken leg must both stay at home." But though the study of this captive period of the Spanish woman's life is denied the unacquainted foreigner, the rest is delightfully interesting to one traveling from the North. From the lands of intense activities, dead, soulless, though sturdy, honest faces- that seldom beam as if the great blazing sun were reflected in them, it is truly a feast to observe the Southern female character, with its rich bequests of subtle distinc- tion and qualities of repose from the East, the eyes like the calm, steady flame of an altar lamp, passionate mouth, and soft Southern complexion, and re- call the dignity of a great past, which re- mains now but by tokens and hints, and which will soon disappear forever. In and About the We presented our let- City of Madrid. ^gr from Senator Sher- man to ex-Senator Palmer, of Michigan, now our national representative to Spain. We were received most cordially, and were afterwards presented to the minis- ter's secretary. Captain Hamilton, of the 22 * In Western Levant. United States Army, who is an Ohioan. The minister was received very gra- ciously yesterday by the Queen Regent Christiana, at her palace. Her address of welcome, and the happy reply of our minister, show the kind feeling that ex- ists between Spain and the United States. The generous ex-Senator gave me a letter to the honorable President del Congresso de las Cortez, Don Manuel Alonzo Martinez, asking him to grant us admission to the exciting debate which was to take place that afternoon. We were delightfully entertained, and not- withstanding the fact that great crowds of the elite of Madrid were unable to gain admission to hear the debate, we were escorted to the President's gallery. The plainness and narrowness of the congressional chamber rather surprised me. The hall is not as roomy as our Superior Court chamber in the Capitol at Washington, the seats are common cane settees, and the conspicuous ab- sence of the desk, that one thing essential to our Congressman's authority, was one of the first objects of remark. The Senate, or rather, the Congress, is com- In Western Levant. 23 posed of two hundred and fifty mem- bers, and a fine body of men they ap- pear to the stranger. Most of the mem- bers are young, and all are vigorous, able and strikingly military in their dig- nified bearing. Doubtless there was an additional degree of frictional heat firing the honorable body that day, for the majority, which is the liberal party, was being violently attacked by the conservatives, an occasion of great ex- citement in the Spanish capitol. Cas- tellar, the great liberal leader and or- ator, was present, but, to our disappoint- ment, he remained silent. He is a man short in stature, with a large, fine fore- head, strong features that indicate the impressible Spanish type, and a bearing of splendid dignity, giving one the im- pression of great mental and physical power. Madrid itself is a most attractive city, but our Spanish traveling companion to Toledo informed me that the ratio of mortality is higher than that of any other city of Europe, a fact that sur- prised me It is doubtless on account of the cold winds which sweep across the 24 • In Western Levant. plains from the snow on the Appenines, which we see all the way from San Se- bastian. Certainly the worst atrocity ever committed by Philip the Second, who was styled by Jovellanos " El Escurialense," after that gloomy monu- ment to his own fanatical and incon- stant career, was when he chose Madrid as the great Spanish metropolis. The water is very brackish, like that of the alkali country of Nebraska, and the dreary plains about it remind one of those western sage-brush deserts around Great Salt Lake. Spain abounds in splendid sites, accessible to navigation, interesting in picturesqueness, and noble possibilities ; and why this uninteresting spot should have been chosen, can only be accounted for by taking due account of the influence of Philip's mad grand- mother, "Crazy Jane," upon that un- fortunate despot, proudest of kings and devoutest of monks. Everything is ex- otic in this city, which stands as a swarn- ing oasis on a desert of low brush, which ought to be fertile, thus cheapening the products which now are brought from great distances. Mule trains ^rom In Western Levant. Asturias, some thirty miles, bring but- ter ; from Aranjuez, equally far distant, apricots, lemons and dates ; from Aragon and Toledo, further still, vegetables and olives. Every part of Spain pours into this great hole in the center of a wilder- ness its choicest and chiefest products. So the proverb that - " Pagan d las veces justos por pecadores^'' ^' the righteous often pay for the follies of sinners," becomes illustrated with vehemence when we behold the generations paying precious tribute to the stupidity of this ignobly dead and magnificently buried Philip. Velasquez and Mu- Probably the most riiio. noteworthy object of in- terest in Madrid to the foreigner is the Royal Art Gallery, which is said to con- tain more first-class works of the old masters than any other gallery in Eu- rope. I was particularly interested in those representations of Velasquez and Murillo, the former excelling in his por- traits, the latter in his mixing familiar nature with the most exalted objects — the idealization of the commonplace, the 2 6 /// JVestcrn Levant. etherealizing of fact. As for Velasquez, it was my astonishment that such a flattered and favored courtier of the fourth Phillip could do any serious work at all ; or, on the other hand, that such a versatile and laborious artist could have had any time to court and be courted. But whatever that tremendous mind undertook, it was performed a facile princeps, with a grace that con- ceals its toilsome and elaborate pains- taking. I doubt not that in Europe no works can be found which so admirably illustrate at once the impressibility and the individuality of genius. He saw a Rubens, the equestrian St. George, and immediately painted Philip the Third. He saw a Rizi, bearing all the intricacies of the chiaro-scuro, and immediately painted the Austrian portraits, the imi- tator always equal, and often superior to his prototype.* * See Appendix, Note II, Anecdotes of Velasquez and Murillo. Toledo II. The idle forge that formed Toledo's blade."— i5>r^«. A most sweet Spaniard-a confit-maker of Toledo— that can teach sugar to slip down your throat a million of ways."— .S"««'j Darling. y.0m p TOLEDO. I. The Regal City. It is with great interest that we approach the fa- mous old city of Toledo, once an empire within itself ; king, throne and realm, and with a weird, glowing history that filled volumes, while contemporary Eng- land's would scarcely fill a chapter. What a wonderful reliquary to attest the reign of the Roman dethronement of the Jew ; the Goth dethronement by the Roman ; the Moor, by the Goth ; and at last, with but the shreds and patches of a departed glory, the catholic Spaniard 3© /// ]Vc stern Levant. in the ascendency. Each conqueror and his followers left an imperishable his- tory, and a living landmark at every hand. The city seems to have been built upon the most sightly and imposing eminence in Spain, and is in striking contrast with Madrid in this particular. As we approach the city the sun brightens all the sharp pinnacles against the southern blue sky with almost a fierce glamor ; but later in the day, the hard lights soften and grow almost melancholy in the dull harmony of the tints and the shadows close about the city from beneath, till at last to an ob- server from a distance, the great " Im- perial Metropolis " seems to hang in mid-air, like the coffin of the Mahommet whose followers left such irradicable traces upon it. The city is like a mag- nificent sepulchre, silent as the chambers of the pyramids, and with its labyrin- thine streets, so narrow that oftentimes one must turn sidewise to pass a trav- eler, is like a monastery of some strange sect, the 1 ist of whose adherents has fallen. In Western Levant. 31 We were driven across the bridge over the Tagus through the ascending, narrow thoroughfares to our hotel, which we found one of the most interest- ing old interiors in Spain. In Moorish times it was a palace of a dignitary under the sovereign, with inner court and ancient surroundings and stone stables for the keeping of the Andalu- sian steeds. The gates of the city, to- gether with the great walls that rib the brow of the hill, are highly picturesque in their semi-dilapidation, the Piierta del Sol and the Puerta de Visagra, both of the purest Saracenic architecture. Like the old buildings, they are dignified and imposing. Upon our emerging into the narrow streets, and following the labyrinthine ways, which led through the most luxur- iant of ancient courts, and by the most dilapidated architectural relics, we are carried back in imagination a thousand years. The ancient doors, studded with huge nails, and the relics of ancient and unique design, the wide courts with crennelated walls and blooming ivies, — everything decorative bearing such an ;, \nf . -1 / < Til:..... In Western Levant. 33 individual stamp in design and work- manship, that the student of antiquity and comparative history finds himself herein his veriest element. " Few cities that I have seen," says Street, " can compete in architectural interest with Toledo, and none perhaps come up to it in the singular magnificence of its situa- tion, and the endless novelty and pic- turesqueness of its every corner. It epitomizes the whole strange history of Spain in a manner so vivid, that he who visits its odd nooks and corners carefully and thoughtfully, can work out almost unassisted the strange variety which that history affords." II. The Hospital. Our courier called our attention to the old foundling hospital of Santa Cruz, which he said was endowed by Cardinal Men- doza, who died in 1495. Its establish- ment was under the direction of Queen Isabella. Historians say that the Car- dinal ought to have given largely for 34 * /« Western Levant such a hospital, to atone for certain youthful indiscretions laid to his charge. Such an institution was needed in Spain at that time, judging from history. III. The bee^ars in the The Beggars. ^^ Streets were so numerous and so persistent that we could scarcely make our way along. Most of them are children trained to the profession, a most lamentable fact. Many of the older beggars would exhibit themselves with an arm or leg missing. Our guide caught one of these, and to our dismay, we found that he had a clever way of tying up the leg to appear as if he had lost it. All through Spain the beggars are more numerous than in any part of the world we have visited. In Madrid, girls from eight to twelve years of age clamor after the stranger, importuning him almost viciously ; and if one de- clines to give them anything, or attempts to drive them away, they shower upon him the vilest of invectives. Our guide reported the remarks of one of these m Western Levant. 35 pert Arabs of the street who said, " Go on, you are not a man ; you are half man and half woman," followed by an oath. IV. There are so many The Transito, etc. . buildmgs of such great interest here that I can only mention a few, and will not undertake to give par- ticular description of any. One was the Transito, a synagogue, built in the be- ginning of the fourteenth century by Samuel Levi ; also another synagogue, called Santa Maria La Blanca, built in the middle of the eleventh century by Israel David Forache. The imposing church of San Juan de los Reyes was built under the catholic regime of Fer- dinand and Isabella, after the surrender of Granada. The cloister of this church is carved and ornamented in the purest Gothic style. We visited the old manufactory of cutlery, where the famous Toledo blades are still made. We bought a small sword and a pair of scissors with the 36 In Western Levant. Toledo brand upon them. The work- men no longer possess the skill in this department, however, which their pre- decessors exclusively enjoyed. V. To the student of the Feminine Beauty. beautiful and true, in all these multiplied phases in nature human and material, the feminine face is the richest, and most joy-giving of all the varied texts for his reflections and senti- ment. And nowhere, it seems to me, does the nature simple, and withal, austere in its earnestness, come so close to the surface as in the clear, limpid countenance of the Spanish woman, who wears the reflections of her best qualities in the luminous depth of her very eyes, in the warm, sunny innocence of her smiles, and on the cheek that changes like the sensitive plant, giving emphasis to every passion or uncertainty of the heart, every perturbation of the mind. And it is marvelous how a few drops of foreign blood mixed with the clear quality of the ancestral nature will In Western Levant. 37 change the whole temperament, giving it an added grace oftentimes, but gener- ally, like the grafting of trees, where the limb of the coarser northern fruit is grafted upon the finer trunk, it is rather to the bane of the issue than to its refin- ing. The development of the human species is, after all, like that of the peach. Either by the most scientific or for- tuitous principles these very Arabs evolved the fine grained, downy-coated fruit of exquisite fibre — the real gentility of horticulture — from material of a grosser nature. The Andalusians are expressly the most refined. In a country like this, where the provinces bear from each other that distinctive quality which impresses the traveler passing from place to place with the fact that he has passed the frontier and is never allowed to forget it, certain provinces are prone to cultivate charms which, in the province adjoining, is dis- regarded ; or, if not that, at least unde- veloped in the zeal of perfecting one of its own peculiar attractions. For in- stance, in the north of Spain, can be found the most perfect figures and the 38 In Western Levant. most faultless hands and feet ; in Se- ville, by far the most graceful manners , in Madrid, the most engaging facial ex- pressions, sensitive to every light and shade of thought and mood, while in the south the women are adorned with the most perfect teeth and hair. But if the development of a painter was en- trusted to the most knowing collaborator with nature, he would rear his fine-heart- ed Murillo in Seville, just as by good for- tune or by the external fitness of things, was the case. Murillo could not have found nobler types nor more perfect sym- metry of feature than in the very streets of the place of his birth and maturity. Painter of Madonnas and beggars with equal superiority of touch, he had not to go beyond his own doorstep to study his theme. The times were ripe, the country was fruitful, the church with its zeal- ous spirituality in highest authority, and Philip a patron of arts. And now the traces, not altogether dimmed, of the womanly and manly nature which Mu- rillo so etherealized, remains as a di- vine link between the purity of the past and the joy of the present. In Western Levant. 39 VI. The Spirit of the H o w thoroughly in Place. keeping with the Spanish spirit is everything met in this city of departed splendor ! The old palaces, grim and spectral, like great skulls un- tenanted, with mouths that grin, and eyeless fronts down which a long black wrinkle zig-zags as if a flash of light- ning had struck it ; the leaning towers — not purposely aslant as in Italy, but made so by the slow change of the earth's formation — the great gates that lead into interminable depths that know no footsteps, and vaulting arches that beckon one into what was once the guarded bowers of the Moslem nobles, now overgrown with wild geranium, iris and poppy, which struggle so hard to keep up the ancient autocracy of ro- mance and beauty. But what seizes the mind more than anything in Toledo, is the unutterable sense of isolation — the solitude, the estrangement, the awful serenity of the sacred historical spot. 40 In Western Levant. What a refuge is this from the clamors of cosmopolitan Europe — for this seems not a part of the continent, indeed — what a place to possess one's self of the true spirit of Mohammedan days, shut out alike from all the consolatory faces of friends and the ignoring of the com- monplace ! Here is the rare spot where it is possible to be alone yet befriended most confidently ; to be " solitary, yet not desolate ; a unit in aggregate." The fragmentary statue, the dust- laden portrait, the crumbling inscrip- tion which gives one just a happy glimpse into some Eleusian mystery, that leaves to the weaving of the im- agination the rest of the solid fabric — all these are company, and what great company, indeed ! '' Silence, her sacred self, is multiplied and rendered more in- tense by sympathy." The very pave- ments that seem to yield beneath one's tread, the very moss-grown thresholds hollowed down by the soft sandal of the Moorish maiden and the burly matador^ the glimpses across the chasm of the Tagus, which but reveals another pic- ture of impressive solitude — all con- Tn Western Levant. 41 spire to give point and zest to the happy turn of Richard Fleckno's apostrophe : " Stillborn silence ' thou that art Flood-gate of the deeper heart ! " VII. The Alcazar stands on The Castle. . , , an eminence above the chasm of the Tagus like a solitary sen- tinel. The portals, venerable and tot- tering, but for all their age, the most commanding of our respect, leads us into a wide court, as in all oriental palaces. Here and there stand grim torsos, and unpedestaled effigies of kings unnamed, unsung by the present generation of vipers who sleep, sleep, sleep the live- long day in the shady nooks, between the cool walls and under the ruined porticoes, heedless even of a foreign footstep. The ban of the old Alcazar is lifted ! Let who will cross the thresh- old, he will be unmolested, unnoticed. No sly eunuch stands guarding the mar- ble lattice ; no scimetar, like the sword of Damocles, hangs over the head of the giaour for venturing upon the threshold of the chamber of the beautiful Florinda. He may enter where he will, surprised 42 In Western Levant. here and there by a lazy beggar, or a still more lazy workman, who pretends to be restoring — alas ! this pretending to pretensions — but neither the shade of Roderick, nor of Count Julian, whom his king so wronged, nor Alonzo, nor Charles, nor Philip— not even Napoleon, will interdict him. The grim Alcazar is a splendid setting to so fervent and exalted a piece of his- tory. Certainly the chronicles of no European country rivals it in interest. What hand can take up the pen in por- trayal of such magical, phantasmic dramas of war and peace which have so sturdy a foundation in fact, without more or less unconsciously imbuing the subject with a spirit that finds in legend and tradition with all their crowding ranks of warriors and fair women, such hearty champions ! So full of poetry, pathos, and that distinct coloring of the times so easy to feel, so difficult to de- scribe, is the story of Don Roderick, king of the Goths, and the beautiful Moorish captive, Elyata, who, cast upon the southern shores while on her be- trothel voyage to Tunis, was sent in In Western Levant. 43 great state as a favored prisoner to the king, and after remaining a long time in her magnificent captivity, changed her faith, and became the queen of all the Gothic realm. Then follows the story of Roderick's favorite courtier, Count Julian, who, '' as unto a brother," en- trusts his beautiful daughter to the guardianship and protection of his king, while he himself goes to the Straits to protect the country from Moslem inva- sion. Then comes the betrayal of the beautiful woman, even under the royal roof, to the dishonor of the entrusted king himself ; and that piteous wail from the innocent heart, penned in blood and tear-drops, which reaches the father who so loved and confided in his lord, whereupon, bent upon revenge, he allies himself with the Arabs, and the land of the Goths is changed to the '^ Imperial Paradise of the Faithful to Allah ! " Then begins that marvelous civilization, which is destined to throw Christian Europe into an eclipse, from which, belittling, barbaric twilight, it rallies only after the struggle of cen- turies. Repose. 44 In Western Levant. VIII. In this area of struggle for a certain happiness, which may be said to be artificial at best, when nations repose in the guarded vigilance of their neighbors, feeling security only in that peace which never forgets the imminence of war, and plac- ing confidence only in the compact with that neighbor whose military resources are less than theirs, to estrange one's self from this invidious secret tyranny of modern life, and find real repose and happiness in the contemplation of such classic and noble reliquaries as are here before us in the historical arcades and courts of Toledo, certainly gives weight and argument to the daring conviction of Emerson — that '' life is an ecstasy." And who, rather than an American, can take deep pleasure in such contempla- tions, since of all others he is a creature of the new, the progressive, the future ? We Americans live in the present, using the past only as incidents of precedence, to avoid errors and correct the evils In Western Levant. 45 which have been preserved to us ; but having so comparatively little history, we cannot realize the true spirit of wor- ship which clings about old ruins and long-time usages. We have a respect but for the material purposes in life. Yet, face to face with so splendid a relic of a splendid age of civilization, this oasis of culture and learning in the great dark desert of mediaeval Europe, who better than an American can understand the spirit which prompts this history-wor- ship in others ? We stand outside the circle, as it were, on an eminence look- ing into valleys whose ^magic tints and harmonies we enjoy as a whole, but we never can descend and become one of the people wb :> live, move, and have their being therein. The position of a thoughtful American abroad is a pe- culiar one, and one of true privilege. Unhampered by ancient prejudices, un- biased by the severe patriotism of jeal- ous nations, never warped in judgment by hard training in a single partisan hatred, nor suffering his opinions to re- ceive color from the solecisms of mo- narchial and hierarchial forms and pre- 46 In Western Levant. cedents, he surveys the whole field with the eye of a true reasoner. And here in the heart of Spain, of all countries the most highly luminous by the magic lights of history and romance, the heart is enchanted out of its dull prosaic world, and given privilege to revel at will in the superb fictions and realities of a departed glory. The very climate of Spain is conducive to contemplation and thoughts. The repose is so per- fect, the cities so full of sunshine and shadow in contrasting extremes, and the people everywhere seemingly so original and creative. Fact has gathered about it such a tinge of fancy, and sweet illusions have taken upon themselves such colors of reality, that he is a wise discriminator who knows the line where the myth ends and the stern actuality begins. Everywhere does history, ever superior to fiction, outdo even its own forerunner, and make fact more fanci- fully enchanting than legend. /;/ Western Levant. 47 IX. What a wonderful The Saracens. . . , - country and period 01 civilization was that which followed the successful conquests of Tarik and the Emir Musa, and how vastly in contrast with the barbarity of the Christian countries contemporary with the Sara- cenic rulers ! On one side, Italy, the picture of abject squalor and degrada- tion into which the ignorant shrine- worshippers had fallen ; above them, the strifes of Charlemagne and Pope Hadrian against all the opposing princi- palities, and within the enchanted pro- vinces a contrasting picture of art and culture that awes the student of com- parative history, and leads him to dis- credit the evidences were they not so luminously verified by these magnificent reliquaries at each hand. And now, wandering through the huge arcades and splendid courts, watching the clear southern sunbeams falling athwart the marble arches and lighting up the mo- saics and iridescent abrabesques as 48 In Western Levant. with a fond benediction, it does not seem that so many centuries of change and tribulation have intervened ; but that momently there must appear through the fairy vistas of alabaster and marble, the fair faces of the cor.rt favorites — the beautiful Zaras, Zaidas and Zelindas, of the great Emir — and then follow the low, whispering murmur of lutes, the song of the dancing girl before the sul- tana, the soft, gliding hiss of the eu- nuch's slipper on the cool mosaics, and the tinkling treble of the fountains of quicksilver beyond. From these varie- gated archives to wander forth into the surrounding gardens, it really seems that the white bournouses of the Faithful must still lie prostrate on the flagging, offering up their prayers and thanks for this the paradise promised of the exalted Koran ; and that we must meet ever and anon, pacing up and down the shady retreats, amid the bowers and hanging gardens, the wise Averroes, the philosopher, resolving in his mind the solution of his theory of the unity of souls though parted among millions of individuals ; or Avenzoar, the Nestor of /// JVcster.i Levant. 49 chemistry, discovering laws and sciences for which we ourselves are indebted to him, as the Arab words invented by him — in common use to-day, such as al- cohol, syrup, elixir, and countless others — will attest. Everything that the Arabs in their splendid civilization touched, they beautified, enlarged and perfected. Ben Musa, with the geome- try of the Ptolemies, deduces a system which he names Algebra. Almaimon, while the Inquisition at Rome threatened death to any who disputed the fact that the earth was flat, visits all the foremost philosophers of the East, and on the shores of the Red Sea, measures a de- gree and determines within a few miles the circumference of the earth. Sufi corrects the errors in the photometry of the stars. Alhazen discovers the law of terrestrial gravitation ; solves the great optical problem proving that, contrary to the Greek and Egyptian scientists, rays of light do not issue forth from the eye, but from external objects pass into it ; and, more wonderful still, proves the curvilinear path of sunlight by which the apparent illusion that we see the 50 In Western Levant. sun long before it rises and long after it sets, is made an indisputable fact. How marvelous is all this ! How little do we realize what we owe to these splendid usurpers, who, by long residence and magnificent achievements, made this land a garden of beauty, a seat of learn- ing, a school of civilization for the whole world. If you would know what the Arabs in Spain have done for us, at- tempt by Roman notation to multiply the days of the year by an equal num- ber, and see what an almost limitless task it is. They invented the cannon, and if they did not invent, they certainly were the first to effectively use gun- powder. They introduced silk and cot- ton from the East, and perfected its weaving, while half of Christian Europe were clothing themselves in skins and straw-coats. Among their achievements are the Toledo blades, the Morocco leather — the secret of which, when they were expelled, they took to Morocco, whence the name — the plants of the do- mestic garden, the peach, the plum and the perfection of the apple ; the intro- duction of the mariner's compass, rice In Western Levant. 51 and sugar from the East, and the perfec- tion of the latter's processes of manu- facture. Miles of street lamps, when Rome and Paris were benighted, graced their cities ; pavements, when the Pope stepped from the Vatican into the mud ; hot and cold baths, when Christian Europe wallowed in squalor ; perfumed halls of magnificient proportions, while Christian Europe lived in huts and huge stone castles unfit for stables. The Andalusian horses — the noblest breed that lends such a grace of chivalry to the times — the art which found in arabesques an opportunity to display the genius that the Koran denied in the pictorial art : all of these wonderful evi- dences of that noble civilization cannot be ignored, and when face to face with these marvels of architecture and science, become the more convincingly real. But farewell, Toledo ! grave, vener- able and full of sorrow— "thou that listenest to the sighs of orphans, and drinkest the tears of children, at length I am dismissed from thee. The time is come at last that I no more should pace 52 In Western Lev a fit. thy never-ending terraces," as the elo- quent De Quincy makes worthy note, " no more to dream," and wake thence into the captivity of the present with its rule of the common place. Adieu to thy blackened streets, narrow and hol- low-sounding as a sepulchre ; to thy courts, reverbrating in solitude the voice of eternity ; to thy empire of beg- gars, who, by the splendid dignity of their profession and faith, and in the re- ligious divinity of beggar-lineage blest them from father to son since the time of Philip — that beggar most of sovereigns, even in purple robes — make it an honor for a foreign barbarian like me to toss them a goodly handful of coppers. So we pass the threshold of the great gloom-city, the blackened portals yawn- ing like a toothless old centurion ; cross the great stone bridge which threads the chasm of the Tagus, the depressing si- lence and gloom of the mammoth old piles growing more penetrating with the lifting of the damp mists from the ravine where " flows fast by the oracle " the rushing waters which have run red from the hearts of nations into the great In Western Levant. 53 chalice of history. Everywhere the cold, sullen tints of the earth and the rocks that prop the fortress, along the verge of the cold abyss which sends up tlie white vapors as an incense of irony, the sombre tints of the west where the sun leaves but a ragged line like a flash of fire, intensify the rever- ence which so profound a historian in- spires. Then dies even the sound of the waters, and fades the higher lights along the low verge of the fortress, and one by one the pinnacles and towers merge into the melancholy distance, and we at last realize the force of the touch of an- guish in that poet of Andalusian mem- ories, when he speaks as from a broken heart — " Negra, ruinosa, sola y olvidada hundidos ya los pies entre la are alii yace Toledo abandonada, azotada del viento y del turbion arena ZORRILLA. In gloom, forsaken, sorrowing alone. Now do my footsteps falter in the sands, Where like a naked child Toledo stands. Lashed by the tempest answering moan with moan See Note III. Appendi Cordova IV. " Gold not so pure, nor pearls so fair, As God hath made thee, child divine ! No mines of Ind or Afric rare Hold gems that match this look of thine. " To Allah praise that of the earth No thing more beautiful can be Than maiden grace and woman's worth. United God wise as in thee." From the Arabic of Abdallah Xatnri.,poet to the Court of Abderahman. ' Oh, royalty ! what joys hast thou to boast to recom- pense thy cares ? " — Dowe's Sethona. * V. CORDOVA. I. On to Cordova, We had for our com- " The Beautiful." panions on the night- ride to Cordova a Spanish family, rep- resented by an aged grandmother, the grandson and children, whose charming native manners and mutual tokens of respect much pleased and charmed us. In parting at the depot there were great demonstrations of regret, with gesticula- tions and osculations enough to warrant the seriousness of a trip through to eternity. Provisions and wine in great 58 In Western Levant. abundance were their happy accom- paniments, and four times during the night the huge hampers were attacked with vigor and certain success, not even forgetting the good old lady of eighty who gave the several feastings a gravity of which none lost sight for a moment. They were exceedingly polite to us, and asked us to partake with them. The Spanish have the custom of saying to a stranger, '' I make you a present of my home ! " if you are to be their guest ; but it is not necessary to state, this generosity is given with certain clauses of modification. Their pert chattering reminded us of a flock of English spar- rows on a June morning. The Span- iards seem to me to be even more polite than the French. All expect courtesy from you, and are too well bred to notice the slight if by some little inad- vertence they do not receive it. Our hotel at Cordova was the Fonda Suiza, which can boast of a pleasant patio^ or court, paved with marble, and^ a stairway of marble quite as imposing as any we have seen. At each landing there is a different pattern of mosaic. In Western Levant. 59 All the inns of Andalusia have gar- dens of flowers, fountains and trees, to adorn the old palaces of the departed conservative aristocracy, which are now changed into hospices for the entertain- ment of strangers. II. The streets of Cordova About the City. , , , are so narrow and laby- rinthine that without a guide it would be quite impossible to make one's way about. One of the first objects of our seeking was, of course, the old Mosque, about which we have read so often, passing on the way several palaces and private hotels, through the open gate- ways of which we enjoyed glimpses of the beautiful gardens and luxuriant courts which, so attractive to the an- cients, seem to be no less so to those who have kept them unfading in beau- ty, with but the dignity of age and antiquity to ripen and mellow the con- trasting tints. One ancient Roman gateway in particular, led us through an open court and down a narrow path 6o In Western Levant. through a grove of old orange trees, which we were told were three hundred years old. The tops of these venerable trees were blighted by the cold and snow of last winter, a parallel of which, in severity, had never been known be- fore by the oldest inhabitants. The old Mosque, which was the particular ob- ject of our walk, almost bewildered us by the infinite number of columns of different colored marble, and the variety of the carved work around them. This marble was brought from Jerusalem, Morocco, Algeria, Alexandria, and many other contiguous countries. The pil- lars, as has often been said, resemble a forest. Though formerly they were twelve hundred, there are now only eight hundred in number, that look which way you will, seem to stand in rows. Various designs, worked upon some of them by prisoners with their fingernails, were almost as fantastic as the legend which would convince us of their truth. In Western Levant. 6i III. The Mihrab. The Mihrab, or sanctuary of the Mosque, was worthy of especial consideration; the mar- ble floor was worn round the outer edge by the Moslems walking about it on their knees as a part of their worship. Unfortunately for the artistic ensemble^ Charles V. had a choir erected in the center, thereby destroying the beauty and harmony of the interior. What a splen- did sight it must have been, the weird Moorish architecture, lighted up with thousands of gold and silver lamps ! The mosque has been so changed by vandals that one can only get a glimpse of its old splendor. Great preparations were being made in the mosque for the Corpus Christi holiday which occurs on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday. The great organ was being played by a monk, the most famous organist in Spain, and the voices of the monkish choir, blending the music of the organ, rever- brated through the great mosque some- times like the roar of distant thunder. In Western Levant. then as soft and sweet as a flute. As I walked around those great halls, I tried to picture to myself the pristine glory and splendid achievements of the Moors, almost wishing that they had never been driven from their paradise. Although Moslems are worshippers by the scrip- tures of the Koran, if they had lived and gone on in their wonderful achievements, would not Spain have been a much greater and renowned nation than to- day, with its bull-fights and priestly domination ? In this grand old mosque are found the Roman, Moorish and Gothic styles of architecture. The treas- ury in this church, containing many gold relics and precious stones, was robbed in 1870, and it is now constantly guarded by six sentinels of the cathedral of Cor- dova, who each hold a separate key to a separate lock. By permission of the Archbishop, we entered with three can- ons of the church, who had come from a distance, to see the treasures. One of the relics was a Corpus Christi gold tem- ple about ten feet high and three feet at the base, with a statue of the Messiah in the center, built, in 1494, of the pre- In Western Levajit. 63 cious ore brought by Columbus from the newly-discovered America. One arch- bishop and one hundred canons are de- pendencies of this celebrated mosque, now changed into a Catholic cathedral. Our companions said pertinently, ''There are too many priests in Spain. The priests and bull-fights are ruining the country by impoverishing the people. One-third of the income of the people goes toward the support of these, while the schoolmasters are ill paid or not paid at all, and many are obliged to leave Spain for South America." IV. _, _ . ,,, But not alone in the The Fair Women. Stately relic of the Alca- zen, or the Alhambra, has the Saracen left a like distinguishable and distin- guished mark. In the personal beauty of the lovely Madrilefias on the Prado, of the Sevillian water-carrier, and of the Cordovian coquette on the low balcony overhanging the garden, the Moor, with that quality manifestly his own, has left a trace irradicable, and as harmonious 64 /;/ Western Levant. with the surroundings as could be di- vined. The curve of the lips, the oriental perfection at the temples, the perfect tapering of the white, undimpled chin, and the speaking eyes in whose myste- rious mazes lie ' "^'-'^ . countless histories of the heart, each in itself a distinct trace of its noble lineage and in per- f e c t consonance with its counter- part, these quali- ties of the Spanish beauty are expres- sively redolent of the hign type of humanity which so splendid an era of civiHzation could but achieve. Gau- tier records from a French point of view, De Amicis from an Italian, Schmidt-Weissenfels from a German, and Sunset Cox from an American, the transcendent lovli- ness of the dark-eyed Spanish maid, and In IV est 67-71 Levant. 65 in a more or less degree of fervency and poetical spirit — for what man could write prosaically upon so trenchant and hearty a subject ? — attempt to commit to hard, cold paper the divine revela- tions of one glance of the Spanish maiden's eyes. But there is a delight- ful consonance of opinion with regard to the chief charms and the causes of their being. That exquisite, almost divine femininity, first of all, which gives the most noble of womanly dignity alike to my lady of the alameda promenade, to the peasant girl concerned with the homely duties of the husbandman's hut, and to the deft young toiler of the tobacco factories ; and second, the complexions, which are unparalled in clearness, text- ure and susceptibility, to the finest shades of feeling, betraying to the keen thought-reader the depth of the stir within the heart which is so archly dis- sembled. The cause of the first, that Murillo-like purity of heart, coupled with an aspect of womanly strength, is perhaps the excessive reserve of the sexes, and the lack of knowledge of men and the worldly side of life ; the source 66 /// Western Levant. of the second quality of beauty, the complexion, is without doubt the sun- shine, which in northern climates, with our modern caprices of artificial life, ruins complexions. V. The Fortress. We went from here to the Guadalquivir River, where it is crossed by an old bridge built by the Romans and reconstruct- ed by the Arabs. On the other end of the bridge is seen an old fortress, called Clalhora Tovv^ers. Several old Moorish mills were pointed out to us, one of which is still in use. The hills across the river, we were told, were once the site of a prosperous city, although now it is a desert waste and nothing re- mains of ancient Cordova, but the relics. On this side of the river is t^e new Cor- dova. '' If we are to credit the state- ments of Moorish chroniclers," says Mc- Clintock, '' at the end of the ninth cen- tury Cordova had a population of one hundred thousand, and was the success- ful rival of Bagdad and Damascus, and In Western Levant. 67 the home of literature and art. Where- as, now few traces of its former magnifi- cence remain." Of course, the morning found us anx- ious to visit the ancient Alcazar which is held to be little inferior to the Alham- bra of Granada. The Alcazar was re- paired, and the greater part of it was re- built, by Peter the Cruel. We walked through the halls and admired the wonderful Moorish ceilings and mosaic work, the combination of color and light being ever a source of new enjoyment. The gardens at the rear of the Alcazar were laid out in cinquecento style by the famous gardeners of Charles V., and are most beautiful. Through groves of flowering date palms one hundred feet high, down the narrow avenues of orange trees laden with fruit, and between beds of rare flowers and hedges of myrtle, we made our way, enchanted by the luxurious tropical plants, and the enlivening scenes about us. 68 In Western Levant. VI. Cordova as a Relic. One of the most ancient of cities, and abounding too in records of all the races that have made, fought for it, and dwelt in it dur- ing the last twenty centuries, it should be very picturesque, very delapidated, and full of artistic treasures. These last have almost entirely disappeared ; and for the rest, it is bright and clear, and at times indeed, quite ordinary, and as immaculate as prosaic whitewash can make it. They say that a thousand years ago it had a million inhabitants, with three hundred mosques, nine hundred baths, and six hundred fountains. It may have been so ; but there is now, oddly enough, but little evidence of any such greatness. The report reminds one irresistibly of the two millions of men of King Agrican's army, whom Orlando killed with his own hand, according to the ballad. The great bridge — the /*//- erte Viejo — one of the earliest records of the Moors in Spain, built upon old Ro- man foundations very soon after Rod- In Western Levant. 69 crick's discomforture at the Gaudclete, is of much interest. The heavy Doric gateway, that guards the entrance to the town from the bridge, is a charac- teristic piece of Herreros genius, and if the relics upon it are by Torrigiaro, they are in no way worthy of the man who wrought the San Geronimo in Se- ville museo, or Henry the Seventh's se- sepulcher in Westminster Abbey. The whole mosque is a marvelous building, and unique. It is huge and fairy-like withal, lovely in detail, and wonderful in the perfection of its avenues and lines of columns. In fact, it is anything you please, except just what it should be, as a great religious house — imposing. Now and then in some corner, where the view is contracted, and where a group of kneeling, black-robed penitents induces a much-needed dwarfing of humanity, there may be formed some notion of what the place was in its better days : after its enlargement ; that is to say, when the Mihrab, (meaning " place in- habited by the Spirit of God", as this was the holy spot to which the Moslems turned in prayer, and where the sacred yo /// We Steffi Levant. books were kept) had just been added, and the Pratio de los Maranjos finished ; when there was as yet no need of win- dows, but all these avenues of delicate columns within opened straight upon the even more lovely and exactly corres- ponding avenues of orange trees with- out ; before Ahnanzor had added the eight eastern naves ; before an obtrusive Renaissance had been thrust down in the center, and where in place of the bald, mean vaulting there was fine arte- sonado work of sweet-smelling woods. Now, however, when the place has been shorn of all its beauty of proportion, shorn too of the old rites and the old life, it is grievously hard to get over the no- tion that one is in an exaggerated crypt. VII. The Mosque of Cordo- The Great Mosque. . , ^ . ^ ^ va is the most important of the many examples of Moorish archi- tecture in Spain, for the reason that it represents the Alpha, as it were, while the Alhambra represents the Omega, of Saracenic achievements in art. The In Western Levant. 71 many rulers who held successive do- minion over the land upon which it stands, augmented the several parts of the main structure from time to time by specimens of the progress in the styles current in the realm, down to the over- throw of the dominion. With Caliph Abd-el-Rahman as the builder of its foundations, and the Christian kings who turned it into a sanctuary of Catho- lic worship, as vandals whose restora- tions need sorely to be restored, this Mosque is the Rosetta Stone — the key to all the intermediate reigns by which we interpret the evolution of the noble spirit of art, which produced the mar- vels of Granada. Hesham, Caliph Hakeem, El Mansour, down to the dis- covery of America and the overthrew of the Moorish provinces in the most bril- liant reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, scarcely one king missed an oppor- tunity of leaving an indelible trace upon this matchless testimonial. Not alone then as a noble archive upon which is enrolled the historical evolution of Moorish art, is the building of interest ; but as a living chronicle of the succes- 72 /;/ IVcstcrn Levant. sive eras contemporary with its many de- velopments. We walked through the Plaza Major, a public court where, formerly, Jews, heretics and atheists were tortured and burned in the Auto-da-fes. Bull fights used to be given here, and young noble- men, to show their valor, would attack ferocious bulls, in order to gain favor with their mistresses who looked on from the balconies above. In a book called *' The History of the Female Sex," the following is related : " The greatest and most dangerous proof of love in a man was to fight a wild bull in honor of his mistress. Ca- valiers begged permission of their ladies to engage in these fights. During the conflict the ladies waved their handker- chiefs in token of approbation ; and when the cavaliers had vanquished their antagonists, they made a low obeisance to the objects of their passion, and kissed the sword with which they had killed or mortally wounded the bull. These fights, in honor of their ladies, cost many a Spanish gentleman his life. A few days before Madam D'Ouroy visited /// Western Levant. 73 Spain, a young cavalier heard that some of the most ferocious bulls of the moun- tains were taken and were kept for an approaching fight. This intelligence inspired the intrepid youth with the wish to acquire honor for himself and his intended bride in an engagement with one of these formid- able animals. He acquainted his mis- tress with his design, and she by the most affecting entreaties, endeavored to dissuade him from his purpose. All her prayers and all her remonstrances were in vain. Athirst for glory, the lover entered the lists with others of his own rank and age, and encountered one of the first bulls that were let loose. The fight had hardly begun, when a stranger ad- vanced in the dress of a peasant, and with a dart gave the bull a painful wound. Quitting his first antagonist, the furious animal rushed upon his new adversary, whom he immediately over- whelmed with a mortal blow upon the ground. In falling, the long and beauti- ful hair of the youth was exposed by the loss of his cap, and it appeared that the uninvited enemy of the wounded bull 74 Jfi Western Levant. was a young female, and the bride of the cavalier who had determined to fight in honor of her. The bridegroom, rendered desperate by this spectacle, de- fended his mistress, bathed in blood with astonishing heroism. He likewise received several mortal wounds. The unfortunate lovers were placed in the same chamber, where, at their request, the nuptial ceremony was performed, and in a few hours they both expired. IX. The Cordovan beg- T he Beggars. gar, like the Cordovan beauty, is a part and parcel of glory and the distinction of the realm. What would be these narrow, murky streets, were it not for these qualifying and characteristic sweepings of the society — the outcast sons of nobles in rags, that bear out the dignity of princedom, the metropolitan daughters of the great queen of loyal consistency with her sur- roundings : Ruin? These tattered and unsandaled courtiers at the great shrine of beggary, these kings turned paupers /// IVcstcni Levant. in fact, yet king were in nature, these splendid usurpers of the clean, clear air which they deem that even God thanks them for exhaling, these keen-witted, diplomatic, legendary dogs in the foreign footsteps, who follow and solicit alms as if they but sought to do the stranger honor in accepting his gratuities — surely here does mendicancy wear a most in- teresting feature, and to be interesting in our time is to be inspired. I have never been annoyed by beggars, never allowing myself to lose my temper for their impertinence, nor to lose my in- terest in the refined arts and happy siz- ing up of human nature to know just where to strike, and when. But here, I am often astonished at the finesse of the science of exhortation, delightfully in- sulted now and then, but never weary of watchmg the rapidity with which role after role will be assumed by the mendicant, all equally effectual, yet seeming to the unfortunate beggar equally unavailing. The beggars of Spain — witted, manly rascals that they are — while not escaping my maledic- tions, do not escape my interest, my ad- 76 /// Western Levant. miration, and — my pennies. I would wish to endue them, but at the same moment wonder what would become of Spain without its beggars? — disgust- ingly commonplace, like a flat country with but here and there a flower, a tree, or a cloud to break the neutral monot- ony, but no mountains, no lowlands, nor icy peaks, nor broad rivers, and alas ! — more noble and inspiring than all — no lustre in the eyes of the mendi- cant at the wayside, nor compassionate beauty of soul in the face of the fair young Cordovan maid who halts her chaperon long enough to drop a bless- ing into the heart, and a penny into the hat, of the crouching caricature she brushes with her tiny slipper. Seville III. Dic^r y panchabir,' sata penda Manjaro Lillar,"— Gypsy proverb. To see and to believe.' as St. Thomas says." " The sword ! the sovereign sword !— By Allah does it lift the plain, By Allah and the holy word, Crush mountains to the vales again. ' The sword ! the sun-bright sword ! Go ask the East, the South, the West, Who rules? 'Tis I, thy sovereign, lord — Right hand of God, by him thrice blest ! " From the relics of the unhapPy King Alkahem. In Western Levant. 79 SEVILLE. Seville bears the The Classic City. , , , , wholesome resemblance to an oriental city which one looks for in this land of the departed Moor. One feels that he is approaching Bagdad, the spires and minarets of the Cathe- dral, once a mosque, the Alcazar, and the dotting of fiercely blazing domes every- where, give evidence of a city of impos- ing interest. The city of Murillo ! is not this m itself enough to touch the heart to new activity ? For once the enthusiasm which is inspired of Velas- 8o /// Westcrji Levant. quez, and the famous studio in the palace of his sovereign, and the recalling with delight the handiwork of the great master, is forgotten in the thought that here, in the very place of his birth and hermitage, the genius of Murillo shall meet face to face. Seville is the most versatile of cities in the character of its attractions. First, its great mosques, admired by Longfellow ; its museum of Murillos, admired by Cunningham ; its fruit, extolled by Byron ; its Roman ruins, expatiated upon by de Amicis ; and last of all, the chiefest delight which should have been first in our catalogue, the Sevillian ladies, extolled, admired, written and talked about, under every star of the firmament. All night and early morning, along the winding Guadalquiver, through orchards of olives and great hedges of cacti, the whole distance from Cordova, and occasionally an orchard of pome- granates in bloom. Our guide, a native of Morroco, takes us through the nar- row streets, which are covered with awn- ings to keep them in shade and protect them from the hot sun. Every where we In Western Levant. see great crowds of people filling the streets, coming in holiday attire from city and .country, to see the procession and celebration of Corpus Christi day. Excursions have come in from the country and cities adjoining, as Seville has the reputation of having the grandest Corpus Christi celebration in the world. There were four thousand soldiers in line ; the archbishop and all the canons, priests and students, the city governor and officers, twelve men bearing the different saints upon massive silver and gold altars, and caskets and orna- ments loaded with beautiful flowers, started out to march through the nar- row streets from the cathedral at ten o'clock, and they must return to it pre- cisely at twelve o'clock. The balconies and windows on the high buildings were full of people, and flowers and evergreens were stretched upon the pavements below, so that the streets were literally covered with them, and after the procession had passed, men were engaged in sweeping the streets and gathering the flowers in bunches. The ladies all wore black silk dresses, S2 In Western Levant. with veils or mantillas thrown over their heads. After the procession comes the bull- fight, for which great preparations are made, as the bull-fights of Seville are noted on account of the great dexterity of the performers. The champion bull-fighter of Spain was a fellow passenger on our train, and he seemed to draw a crowd around him just as any of our noted prize-fighters would in America. Our guide showed us the street on which the bull-fighters live. They seem to form an aristocracy of their own. Some of the most skilful get very large salaries for their ser- vices. A daughter of one of these bull- fighters was married in the cathedral a short time ago, and the Bishop and aris- tocracy of the city were present. II. Our first explicit duty The Cathedral. . . , ^ , was to Visit the Cathe- dral, the site of which was once occu- pied by a temple of Venus Salambo, at one time the fashionable deity of the /// IVestern Levant. d>T, Sevillians. This gave way to a splendid Mosque, on the plan of the one at Cor- dova. After this came the second and last Mosque, built by Emir Yusuf in 1 184. The chapter then met and de- cided on erecting a church, " so large and beautiful that coming ages may pro- claim us mad to have undertaken it." The old building was converted into a cathedral by St. Ferdinand. It is fast going to ruin, and last August a large part of the ceiling fell. The old cathe- dral is underpinned and braced up by heavy framework. The government is trying to restore it, which, it is said, will require thirty years. Nothing remains of the old mosque but the lower part of the beautiful Giralda Tower, the Court of the Oranges, and a portion of the outer walls. III. The Giralda. Not the least pleasing architectural surprise of Seville is this famous Giralda, the cam- panile which either celebrates the vic- tories of King Yousouf, at Alarcos, in ■-;.'^^-/ <««% In Western Levant. 85 the year 1159, or else an observatory of that distinguished patron of the astrolo- gists, history disputes which ; but stand- ing quite alone amid the superb flower- ing palms, which, although of immense height, only prove the loftiness of the tower itself, it is a noble piece of Sara- cenic art. The Pseudo Saracenic clas- sicism of the belfry only bewilders us in our endeavor to restore, with certainty, the original termination which was dis- placed by this stupid caprice of Fer- dinand Riaz in 1568, which, though it increases the height of the tower some ninety feet, leaves us in doubt as to what skill the Saracens may have displayed thereon. Compared with this tower, the companile on the piazza of St. Mar- co, at Venice, which was distinctly con- temporary, is very bald, and without those engaging qualities of religious en- thusiasm with which the Moslem in- spired the perfection of his places of worship or monuments of religious war. The outskirts of the city present the more truly Spanish spirit of the place, for there, by the huge, gloomy walls, the i^^ •f-.# city and country meet and exchange wares and little glimpses of each other's world. Little groups of countrymen, with their lazy donkeys at their heels, stand here and there, bickering over some trifle, and then exchanging the latest gossip, or expatiating upon some political event in which they all make severest effort to be considered learned. These little groups represent the forum and debating ground of the Radical or Conservative who justifies his cause by the success of his donkey-load of pro- duce, and for pictures of true Spanish life, are unequalled. Granada " Helo, helo por do viene El Moro por la calzada," etc. " Look you ! hither on the highway Comes the mounted Moorish knight ; Rising in his golden stirrups, On his palfrey, snowy white. Buskins of morocco leather. Spurs of silver, mien severe ; On his front a stately emblem, In his hand a flashing spear ' " From an old Ballad of the Cid. Wnere in the proud Alhambra's ruined breast. Barbaric monuments of pomp repose." Scotfs Don Roderick. GRANADA. The Renowned City Granada at last ! What an absorbing pic- ture ! — what a detailed legend, sweeter in its impressive mystery — the mere hints and glimpses of a most lustrous age — than all the chronicles of the eras. The lofty walls, the eyeless watch-ports, the worm-eaten portals which swmg back with a groan that proves us favored, the silent ramparts with the happy spread of wild anemone, and poppy, and iris at their base, all opening out to the ap- plauding sunshine ! Qo In Western Levant. II. The Scenes. Our hotel,*' The Wash- ington Irving," which in- stantly flatters the American heart with a sense of nearness, and breaks down the barriers of formality, as it were, stands at the base of the very Al- hambra walls. In the cool of the morn- ing, awakened by the swallows and the cries of the ware-mongers in the still streets, we throw open the blinds, for the first time surveying the old walls of the famous citadel at our right, while on the opposite side stretch away the fair gardens of the ancient villa. In the luxuriance of this almost tropical morn- ing, we hasten along the wide avenue, where the waters of the mountain rush down on either side and leap a cascade with a roar of triumph, and pass through an old Moorish archway. Beyond us the walls of grayish neutral tints stand ragged and toothed against the lumin- ous sky, and below, the gardens, where the early sun makes more resplendent the ancient palaces which, through all In Western Levant. 91 the dust and ignoble dissuetude of ages, bear the impress of their nobility. Then the great palace of the Alhambra itself greets us, and from this distance, in the clear light, we note the wild flowers and trailing garlands wreathing about the base of the dignified old portals, as if conspiring to conceal the wounds in the side of this noble testament of history. Then we happen upon a cluster of little children, dressed like pretty puppets ready for some kingly pantomine, and we step back to observe them in their happy naivete, which our presence would quickly dispel. How bright and ani- mated are the pretty "joy-children " in their gorgeous jackets of such sparkle and color, against the cold, clammy tints of the venerable monuments at each hand, of which they are so heed- less ! Then pressing on, with an eye to the surprises of the solemn place, we come upon the great portal which con- fronts us like a revelation. Above and about it are those interminable mazes of arabesques, mosaics of wreaths, cuni- form tracings, rosettes and hundred- cornered stars — all spread out like a rich 92 In Western Levant. mantle hung over the portal in honor of the great king who first passed the threshold, and which convinces us that we are about to press the most sacred and historical stones of the whole Sara- cenic dominion. Then from hall to hall, from court-room to the baths, from harem to assembly, we loiter at will, en- chanted with the ever-changing vista through the bewildering mazes of mar- ble and mosaic : the old city, the distant valleys, dotted here and there with the white villas, and the two torrent rivers rushing down through the great city, the. whole dazzling picture framed by the fiercely white peaks of the ice- clad Sierra Nevadas, which stand bold and ragged against the transparent blue heavens. How perfect the ensemble^ how exquisite every detail ! What an art was that of the Arab, and what a de- votion brought out its absolute perfec- tion, whereby, excluding nature in her outward forms, the whole sense is feasted with these intermingling fan- tasies of arabesques, dazzling with their flashing contrasts, yet never forcing in- harmonies upon the eye ; and all set in /;/ Western Levant. 93 a frame of such massive, neutral ma- sonry, that it gives full force and beauty to each of the several parts, uniting them into a concrete and perfect whole. III. TheFesta. Feasted to satiety at last, we go down into the old city, to return again to the noble structure when the novelty has some- what worn away, and the enthusiasm of first impressions may yield to an intel- lectual survey of the period contempo- rary with this perfection of Moorish art. This is a. festa-d3.y, as they would say in Italy, and crowds from all quarters are congregating, preparatory to holding two important events in Spanish life — a fair and a bull-fight. In a dark, narrow street we stumbled fortunately upon the old cathedral where Ferdinand and Isa- bella lie side by side, beneath their elab- orate monuments. We were not a little impressed with the solemnity of the place, in view of the fact, that they who were paying respectful deference to the shrine of the monarchs, were sons of the very land whose discovery was consummated 94 J^n Wcstei'ti Levant. by the largess at their hands — the very land upon which they never set foot. If they could see their developed prodigy to-day, with her sixty-five mil- lions of free souls, with her republican independence of all the world else, with her wealth, her educational resources, her religious and material interests, what wonder and surprise would over- whelm them ! The crowds about the streets that lead to the fair and the bull-fight are motley and picturesque in the extreme, the women in most strange incongruities of color, with crimson or yellow shawls thrown carelessly over their black hair, and the men in peasant costume, with scarlet sashes at the waist. IV. The Gypsies. C)n Monday morning we were conducted down the fine avenue which takes us around Mount Sacro, where the scene is most impressive, the Vega winding through the valley below, and beyond us the nu- merous villas, or carinenaSy as they are In Weseirn Levant. 95 called in Granada, with their gardens of roses, cypress and myrtle, with the old city and its cathedral at our right. Shortly we come upon those character- istic portions of Spanish life — the caves in the mountain rocks, which are inhab- ited by the gypsies. Upon the invita- tion of a rather pretty young gypsy girl, we entered one of their hovels, but were satisfied with a superficial glance, and were content to beat a hasty retreat to the tune of a yelping cur at our heels. The bed was in a dark room, close to the damp rocks, and beyond these small 96 In Western Levant. ■■\ chambers were innumerable others, ap- parently, with plenty of children, curs, pigs and chickens, holding one another in terms of great familiarity. I was told that our entering the caves was rather a dangerous proceeding, as the occupants are notorious for their thiev- ing propensities ; but I treated them with courtesy, and gave them ih^paseta, which put their acquisitive passions to rest. V. The A I ham bra. Again and again we visit the Alhambra, never tiring of its splendor, but rather more and more seriously impressed. Through the massive halls, so silent and impos- ing, we press, ever more and more as- tonished with the perfection of every de- tail. One large, magnificent room, which looks out over the city and the stretch of hills beyond, is the " Assembly Room," where was discussed, four hun- dred odd years ago, the momentous subject of Columbus' discoveries, and the consent of the king and queen given In Western Levant. 97 to the brave explorer and his followers. Then comes the harem — enchanting spot, so full of romance, misery, and un- bounded interest, where the dark-eyed favorites of the Caliph peeped through the open lattice ; and then, too, the marble bath-rooms beyond, where those aspiring gallants, who were ambitious to gaze upon the faces of the beautiful maidens in captivity, expatiated their crimes at this very fountain-side, where the discoloration, they would have us to believe, marks the flow of their life- blood. Well said Charles the Fifth, that inglorious vandal, who, like the rest of the ignoble Spanish kings, could not bear to die and leave no finger-marks on this magnificent testament to keep his memory green — a royal autograph fiend — well said he of Boabdil, the Moorish king, *'I would rather have made this Alhambra my sepulchre than to have lived without a kingdom in the Al- puxarras ! " As for history, the Alhambra was be- gun in the year 1248, with a view to ri- valling the architectural splendors of Bagdad and Damascus, and both were 98 In Western Levant. finished by Mahommed II. Under Ferdinand and Isabella, the monks and soldiers who were left in and around the Mosques and fortresses of the hated Moors, vented their spite upon this splendid treasure which the fleeing owners could not bear away with them. This, with the vandalism of the fifth Charles, and that of the French under Napoleon, who turned the magnificent structure into barracks for their troops, has left many parts hopelessly despoiled. To Signor Don Rafael Coutreras, the celebrated architect, a native of Granada, who still lives in the palace, is due the legitimate restoration of many parts, at the instance of the court. " In the Al- hambra everything interests us," says Lomas, *'for besides the intrinsic value as a monument, how many poetical le- gends of love and war, how^ many as- sociations has it, with stirring scenes of harem dramas, political intrigues and bloody executions ! " The taste, the re- fined elegance, the wonderful variety, the airy lightness and veil-like trans- parency of filagree, stucco, contrasts of color and gilt, like the sides of a Stam- In Western Levant. 99 boul casket — all this proves that the caliphs of Granada who held dominion over the sunny land which their poets defined as a " terrestial Paradise," were of a race of men of high and well-bal- anced intellect. VI. Arab Genius. And while resting our- selves by the beautiful fountain in the famous Court of Lyons, let us dwell for a moment upon the striking illustrative qualities which this facile, brilliant, yet skin-deep beauty of architecture and design gives evidence ^qualities so consonant with the Moor, so impossible to the Egyptian, the Bud- hist, the Japanese. How does this sur- face brilliancy pale before the vast men- tal picture of the ruins of Sarnac, of the temple of Ai at Baalbek, of the great Taj of Agra — all massive, ponderous pieces of engineering, which endure with the ages ! The Mahommedan is a fatal- ist — eminently so. " Now ! " is his holy watchword. He is of all else a creature of to-day. His arts are the fine arts, the loo /// Western Levant. delicate arts, the perfect arts. He can carve a cameo, dares even " To paint the lily Or throw a perfume on the violet," but he never attempts the mighty, the heroic, the Titanic. He leaves that for a northern race, whose foremost men have less delicacy, less refinement of touch, but a more extended view of the world, of the universe, of God, of nature — a more expansive idea. The Arab was content to embrace with his perfect art a single idea ; for the northern type — the Newton, the Goethe, the Carlyle — the bounds of heaven and earth are confines indeed to their splendid presumptions and their achievements. The circle of the former's intellectual idea was as a nutshell to an apple. His horizon was the bounds of his courtyard, while the man's of the North was the nineteen miles of the manner's at sea. Yet, how well — how transcendently perfected was this lit- tle talent ! The court of Lyons in marble — how absurd! To cover over rich and perfect stone, dignified enough in itself, with these dazzling arabesques, would be " wasteful and ridiculous excess." The '1 In Western Levant. stucco demanded this embellishment to give it a dignity equal to marble — not to imitate it, indeed, but to produce some- thing wherein the labor of the hand would vie with the ponderous and per- feet simplicity of stone. This marvel- ously embellished stucco can no more be compared with marble, than the illumi- nated parchment of the Benedictines can be compared with the stone hiero- glyphics of Thebes; each is characteristic of the distinctive period, and is perfect in itself. Fatalism. 02 /// Western Levant. VII. And so, everywhere through this gorgeous land of the displaced Moor and the Goth, triumphant fatalism takes prece dence. The Romans were the last to believe in the absolute perpetuity of their dominion. Before them, the Greeks believed it, and so did they of the *' chosen land," when Ezekiel pro- phesied that the Jews " should never be without a king." We, in our times, are convinced of the perpetuity of our re- publican forms, and lay plans accord- ingly, like those in the far past ; but they of the middle ages were of no such theory. The past they held in little reverence, despoiling the cherished tem- ples and palaces of their conquested countries to heap up the incongruities that the Alcazar of Cordova, and St. Marks, of Venice, are specimens — con- glomorations of vandalism from all captive climes. Neither had they a thought of the future, as the Court of Lyons bears witness. Christianity and In Wester 71 Levant. 103 climate has much to do with our rever- ence for the past, with our vital regard for the future. The Arab is a creature of superb illusions, and what is more, he is perfectly aware that they are illusions. I merely venture this much to make plain the difference between the Arab who makes and enjoys, and the Ameri- can who criticises, and thinks he enjoys the exquisite sensualism of these sur- roundings. We are altogether too serious as a nation ever to give rein to our imaginative faculties in real life. The Arab would come into this beauti- ful place with his robe and pipe and hashish, and dream away the years of a Methusalah in perfect serenity. Lock up an American here with the spectre of the stock markets haunting his mind, and he would be one of the most miser- able of men. VIII. The Generaiife. ^e visited the Celebrat- ed summer-palace of the Caliphs, the Generalife, which at the end of an ascending avenue of tall I04 In Western Levant. cypress trees, overlooks the city from an imposing eminence. The waters from the Sierra Nevada come rushing down through the gardens, keeping up the ceaseless gush of fountains, the luxuriant In Western Levant. 105 foliage of the tall evergreens above form- ing an arch of matchless beauty. Orange trees, laden with fruit are deftly trained to spread their branches over the walls — an uncommon horticultural conceit, and very attractive — and beyond is the famous court of cypresses, in the midst of which a beautiful fountain is playing. IX. In the afternoon we An old Convent. took a carnage to visit the old convent La Cartaja. On our way we stopped at the " mad house," as our guide calls it, built by Charles V., though we did not care to enter it. It was enough to see the wan, pinched faces of the wretched inmates through the grated windows, and hear their mournful ravings. We met a group of boys in the court, who beset us as only Spanish beggars can, and could scarcely make our way through them to the foundling hospital, with its sixty babes, which have been received into the care of the institution without any questions being asked. Shortly before our visit io6 In Western Levant. the little ones had been weighed, bathed, dressed and nursed, and put into tiny little cradles, covered with clean white linen and mosquito bars, and at our ap- proach were apparently asleep ; but as soon as good Mother Superior entered, quite a number made their wants known in a vigorous way. From this point we climbed a steep hill to the old church and monastery, and were shown a large number of paintings of great size by Cotan, the celebrated Monkish painter and sculptor. Most of these atrocious things represent the persecution of the Catholics by the Protestants in England. We went into the chapel and saw a gorgeously fur- nished hall, equal to anything in the Alhambra. On all sides were variously colored marbles from the Sierra Nevada mountains, precious mosaics and various pieces of furniture built into the wall and inlaid with silver, ebony, mother-of- pearl and precious stones. All this pro- digious work, we were told, was done by the artist monk Cotan. We were in- formed that there were ninety-one churches and chapels in Granada. In Western Levaiit. 107 They are located on the steep hills, and are most difficult of access, but they are very attractive in their location and old style of 'architecture, and while com- manding beautiful prospects, are them- selves most flattering to the surround- ings. From thence we went down into the city to see the illumination of colored lamps, it being fete time, and the city was decorated with arches, festoons, flowers, and other ornamentations. The grand promenade is boardered by arches and colored glass globes, illuminated from within, the contrast with the green leaves being very beautiful. X. We were very much The Cathedral. . , . 1 .-> , interested in the Cathe- dral Capillo de los Reyes, where are the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella, to see the casket of beautiful jewels which the good queen, who had so fierce a fight to assist Columbus, had pawned in order to enable the explorer to venture out into the great unknown West. The king was a devout Catholic, desiring to do io8 In Western Levant. everything for the glory of God ; but he could see no glory in so apparently fool- hardy a project as that of the pauper Columbus. In the Sierra Nevada moun- tains we were shown the pass where Co- lumbus was intercepted after the refusal of the ambassadors to assist him, and from which place he was brought back to court at the instance of the queen. It gives a startling reality to the horri- bly capricious times of the reign of the priest-yoked Ferdinand and his well- meaning queen. Had Columbus not accomplished his will with the vacillat- ing queen, and had left it to others to make the discoveries, who can say what form of government, religion or social state would now be the existing fact in the place of our glorious commonwealth ? XL The donkeys are a The Donkeys. . . . great '' mstitution m Spain ; we see them evervwhere loaded with brick, stone, gravel, lumber, mar- ket stuff, or wood, and the great lazy Spaniard rides up the steep hills on his donkey's back, with his legs reaching to In Western Levant. 109 the ground. On Sunday we saw a model soda fountain. We met a Span- iard on the back of a donkey covered all over with evergreens. On meeting a girl who asked for his wares, the pur- veyor dismounted, and we stopped to watch the proceedings. He took a little box out of his pocket, opened it, and poured out into the , young girl's hand a white powder resem- bling soda. This the girl put into her mouth, while the man touched a faucet which seemed to protrude from the donkey's side, and drew water from the pig-skin demijohns — there was one on each side of the donkey — and handed it to her to put into her mouth to dissolve the soda. She gave him two cents. The water for the cities is carried about in this way to sell, and the street women cry out " Aqua ! Aqua ! " This water is drawn from the Alhambra wells. agi,.*' A.. no /// Western Levant. XII. The Flowers. On our way southward, the usual inundation of wild flowers along the valleys gave way to hedges of tall cacti in infinite varia- tions of form and color, often conceal- ing the tracts they enclosed so effectively and shutting out our views of country life as we advanced. The farmers were harvesting their grain, in the manner which might not have surprised their quiet grandfathers a dozen removes back, so primitive and laborious it seemed to me after the wonderful machines we have in America. Still, the glimpses we were privileged now and then were highly picuresque, the women in their gaudy short frocks, and the men with crimson sashes, both plying the sickel with regular stroke and a movement which is so characteristic, that it is doubtless handed from father to son, like the sweep of the oar of the Venetian gondolier. It is with regret then, heatfelt and earnest, that we take our departure for the south, leaving the marvellous old In Western Levant. Ill cities of the painters, the poets, the his- torians, and the knights of romance and fact, bearing away with us a reverence for the brilliancy of Velasquez for his treasures in Madrid ; for Murillo for his treasures in Seville ; the Alhambra and its treasures in Grenada, and for the Cid, that marvellously clever knight, for his treasures in the coffer of Burgos — the coffer which secured him a huge loan from the Jews to pay for his daring ex- ploits, and which, upon being unlocked, was found to contain, not gold and sil- ver, not diamonds and lapis-lazuli, but an armful of bricks carefully pillowed on a bag of sand. 112 /// IVcsicrn Levant. IV. " In the dimmest northeast distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray ! "—Browning. From Granada to the Our j o u r n e y from South. Granada to Malaga, save a delight in the scenery, was not the oc- casion of any special mental note-taking. We halted for a few hours at the City of Boabdilla, named after the last great king of the Moors, Boabdil, who was overthrown by King Ferdinard in 1492. By alleged infringement of compact entered into at the time of his captivity, he gave up all his rights and possessions for a sum of money and repaired to Morocco. He was accused of treachery by the Moors, and of having been bribed by Ferdinand ; but Washington Irving defends him from anything of this kind, and finds nothing in all history to authorize these imputations. This king, however, was the last of the Moors in Spain after centuries of rule. To quote hi Western Le%'ant. 113 the eloquent passage from Irving apropos of this interesting period : " The Moslem empire in Spain was but a brilliant exotic, that took no permanent root in the soil which it embellished. Never was the annihilation of a people more complete than was that of the Morocco Spaniards. Where are they ? Ask the shores of Barbery and its desert places. They have not even left a dis- tinct name behind them, though for eight centuries they were a distinct peo- ple. A few broken monuments are all that remain to bear witness of their power and dominion, as solitary rocks left far in the interior bear testimony to the extent of some inundation. Such is Alhambra ; a Moslem pile in the midst of a Christian land ; an oriental palace amidst the gothic edifices of the West ; an elegant memento of a brave, intelli- gent and graceful people who con- quered and ruled, and passed away." On the way to Malaga the road is marvellously circuitous and full of sur- prises at every bend. Tunnel after tun- nel we rushed through to be greeted suddenly with a new and charming vista 114 ^^ Western Levant. of gardens and vineyards, and sweeping groves of orange, lemon and pome- granate. How in contrast were these fair Edens to the waste, solitary deserts of the wilderness of Spain! At Malaga, the quaint Spanish seaport, we were pleased to meet Col. Marston, the popu- lar American consul. He is a brother- in-law of Judge Lawrence, of Ohio. The consul delighted us by taking us to the villa of the Marquis of Loring, a Bostonian, who received his title from the Spanish government on account of his success in building railroads in Spain. He married a Spanish lady, and has ac- cumulated a very large fortune. His villa is most delightfully situated on the mountain side, the water rushing down over murmurous cascades through his immense gardens, watering his tropical plants which are rare and in great pro- fusion. Nearly every plant which we at home nourish with great care in our greenhouses, here grows to immense height in the open air. /;/ Western Levant. 115 The Keep of GibrcA- The great rock and *«''• impregnable English fortress of Gibraltar was a point that gave us much pleasure. The approach to the island is imposing indeed, and I can vouch for the enthusiasm of the early Moorish writers when they affirm, as did Al Makkari, " That it looks like a watch-tower in the midst of the sea," or, as another writes, " like a mountain of fire set in the blue waters." We sailed about the bay, surveying the great rock from all points. The thickly populated hamlet that clings to the base of the rock, looks like a terraced city, streets reced- ing one above the other. The red coats of the English are everywhere, and we wonder not that old England feels proud of her possession of such an invincible fortress for the protection of her ships en voyage to and from India. We met Eng- lish faces constantly — faces so coldly in contrast with the dark, Spanish counte- nance of the people across the straits, and the angular, Moorish feature of the African beyond. The great rock is tun- ii6 III Western Levant. neled with winding passages which they call galleries. They are several miles long, and along the outer edge the huge guns, some weighing a hundred tons, point in every direction through holes in the rock. The gunners are thus per- fectly safe in case of attack. This imposing old natural cathedral has seen many great wars and triumphs. To the Moor and Spaniard is it particu- larly redolent with charms of old recol- lections, and to English eyes it is not a little monumental of their victories. Within sight of this huge sentinel the renowned Trafalgar was fought ; to the east, Sir George Rooke was whipped ; to the west, Rodney overturned the Spaniards, and then came Earl St. Vincent's victory later, and last, almost as renowned as the first, the triumph of Admiral Napier in 1833. ^o the im- aginative mind what may not be seen floating on the troubled waters that leap up the great monster's side ? The Syrian bark from Tyre ; the Roman trireme from the Tiber mouth ; the galleys of Carthage ; the caiques of the Turk, and even the clumsy boats of the In Western Levant. 117 Northmen going on pilgrimages to Israel in the twelfth century. Heroditus refers frequently to the Pillars of Her- cules, as does also Strabo in his work on the Mediterranean^ written contempo- rary with Christ. From Cadiz, so near distant, Columbus himself set sail on his second voyage for America. Thus from the earliest period this great natural fortress has been an object of historical importance. The monkeys were doubt- less the first inhabitants, and there are still old conservative families of the species making sport for the in- habitants about the island. Hanno and his Carthaganian galleys on the long voyage of discovery, Timosthenes, the ally of Strabo and admiral of the fleet of Ptolemy, the merchantmen of Sidon, Tartessus and Gades, down to the men- of-war which float the flag of a newly discovered country at the huge base of the pillar — these have the generations of apes and sea-gulls, which, as in the past, now hold portions of the rock in absolute tenure, seen come and go. From Sigurd, King of Norway, who in 1 109 fought here a battle with the ii8 /;/ Western Levant. Pagans, while on his way to Palestine, through all the wars of the Vigoths and barbarians, and the later sieges in which Nelson, Blake and Rodney distinguished themselves severally at divers periods, down to the last shot of the sunset gun on the cliff and the salute of the " Lan- caster," which lay at anchor as we came down from the interior galleries of the rock at evening, the monkeys, the genii loci of the gray monumental fastness, have been granted a peculiar privilege. During the beautiful moonlight night, as we lay at anchor in the harbor, we could catch the strains of martial music coming from the war ship in the dis- tance. The " Star-Spangled Banner " roused our enthusiasm, and we gave the good flag a cheer. We were rowed over to the " Lancaster," and were shown about the ship by Ensign Clark, of Ohio. The " boys," over four hundred in number, were happy because they were ordered home after a three years' cruise. They had been buying Moorish trumpery with the proverbial prodigality of the sailor on land. Morocco VI. The world is a mirror • show thyself in it. and it will reflect thy \TS\2>.'g&.''''— Moorish Proverb. Live with him who prays, and thou prayest ; live with him who sings, and thou singest."— /^« Asad. First glimpses of We entered the bay of the Moslem Country. Tangiers, and upon our steamer casting anchor, it was surround- ed by scores of small crafts, and a mot- ley and wrangling crowd of Arab boat- men who set up an unearthly yell, and importuned us to engage their services to bear our persons and luggage to land. They were dressed in black leather, were swarthy and characteristic in complex- ion, and looked to us to be a totally differ- ent people from any we had seen in any part of our travels. Fortunately for us, 122 In Western Levant. there was an American lady on board who had apprised the American Consul by telegram of her coming, and soon in the distance we saw riding over the waves, a trim barque bearing the stars and stripes, approaching the ship. The sea was running so high that it was with the utmost difficulty that we managed to get to shore, and not until we were well soaked with the spray, but without serious further injury. A great crowd of Moors and Arabs from all parts of the coast and interior were encamped on the shore, awaiting the word of their com- mander to start on the pilgrimage to Mecca. It was an interesting sight, and the enthusiasm was imparted to the for- eign observers from the native enthusi- asts who swelled with religious fervor and praise. Over a thousand pilgrims had started the day before. Even in these days of steam and of French and English rule in Africa, the pilgrimage to Mecca is a long, tedious and dangerous course. The path to the honorable desig- nation " Hadji," which is coveted by every pious Moslem, is far from being a way of roses. The time of departure is In Western Levant. 123 as soon as possible after the great feast which celebrates the close of the Rama- dhan. Like other Mahommedan feasts, this is moveable and occurs about eleven days earlier each year. The steamers from Tangiers eastward are loaded with these Moslems. They are carried on deck and in the hold, and as the fare does not include provisions, much hardship must be endured by many of the poorer pilgrims who often sell about all their worldly possessions to raise the compara- tively large sum required for the pas- sage. On account of their filthy con- dition, they are not favored by the offi- cers and cabin passengers of the vessel, as we had many occasions to note. They do a little traffic on their return in retail- ing to the faithful at home, sundry little curiosities of worship, scented aloe-wood and incense from the Holy City. The pilgrimage may now be accomplished in four months, from this point. Many of the older and weaker of the pilgrims die of the hardships on the road. In years of famine, or when there are re- ports of a quarantine in the East, few pil- grims venture; and also when the time 124 In Western Levant. of the feast falls before the completion of the harvest, for but few of those engaged in rural occupations can leave home to go abroad on a pious pilgrimage. I notice by the American papers that there is a large emigration into the Unit- ed States from Algiers and Morocco. I cannot be persuaded, however, that they would make good American citizens. We were, fortunately, not long de- tained at the Custom House. The sol- emn, sober-browed Moors, squatting on their mats, took things with marvelous leisure, and only glanced at the contents of our bags, allowing us to pass on. Donkeys were brought us to ride through the narrow streets to the hotel, and the experience was anything but an exhila- rating one. Oh, the dirt, the confusion, the Babel of tongues, and that peculiar ever-prevailing shriek of the Arab! Our room at the hotel overlooked the bay and the Moorish encampment so wildly picturesque on the shores, and we could see the devout Mussulmans on the housetops holding up their arms, and with face toward Mecca, bowing, then falling prostrate and then rising a mo- In Western Levant. ment after, like curious puppets in some Eastern passion-play. We watched them interestedly for some time, and were sur- prised to remark the length of their de- votions, which seemed interminable. Guides and mules were procured us, and we started at once through the tortuous streets, so narrow that often those who confront us can scarcely pass. The costumes and customs of the Moors are peculiar indeed. The men in long flowing robes, white turbans, bare legs and feet, wear that patient, resigned aspect of devout persistence, as if each curious personage were revivified from the scriptural archives of the book of Job. It seemed as if it were impossible for them to carry anything in their hands or arms; for, with this neglect of their robes, the breeze would expose them at full length. The Moorish type is very pronounced, but it does not seem to me that in facial expressions they differ very strikingly one from another. Perhaps this is a noticeable fact with re- gard to nations so individual, and by cli- mate and instinct so conservative — the Hindu and the Chinese, for example. II The Arab Women. The women are exceed- ingly reserved, sublimely innocent, and indolent to a degree un- surpassed by a tombstone, to which each of them bears so somber a resemblance. They wear the long white robe, very dignified and graceful not unoften, full white trousers fastened at the ankle, and high-heeled slippers clinging to the toes. Their faces, of course, are covered, but now and then one will favor a stran- ger with a glimpse of the upper half of her countenance with most bewitching 128 /// Western Levant. archness in the pose, leading the behold- er's imagination to portray mentally the rest of the face consistent with the warmth and lustre of the eyes — not un- often an illusion fatal to the enchant- ment. The veil is most consistent with nature, feeding by ruse and art the very flame the most impressive feature kin- dles. The young wear the veil to conceal their beauty, making it all the more a prize to behold and possess; the old wear it, likewise, that they may con- ceal the wrinkle s and most quickly fad- ing features, and only by that last dim- ming grace of the human physiognomy, the eyes, be judged. Still, one naturally divines youth by other characteristics — the sprightliness of the step, for in- stance, and shapeliness of the fingers. Old women have, too, a set, certain way of doing things, allowing their manners to betray their maturity. Both old and young among the women ride man-fash- ion on donkeys, and certainly would not be impressive in the ranks of cavalry. Among the rich, woman is the certain slave of her lord's pleasure; among the poor, she is the household drudge and /// Western Levant. 129 the manufacturer of almost every con- venience for daily use. Every thing is Eastern; Eastern in climate and scenery, in architecture, in language and conven- tional life. Moslemism amalgamates — unifies. It does not permit the disunited parts to become estranged. The great religion is the heartstone about which gather the tens of thousands of divers lands and climates, yet this great lamp permeates the depths of their individual natures, making the dissimilar the com- posite. Whether in the little mosque, crouching timidly in one corner of the great walled city of Shanghai, or in the superb palaces of Penang, in the rich mosques of Colombo, Benares or Scu- tari, there is no difference in spirit, what- ever diversity of physical individuality in the adherents — Mahommedans the world over all turn their faces toward Mecca. It struck mc forcibly that although it was the Moors — the forefathers of these very people, perhaps — who built the 130 /// Western Levant. superb monuments of the Alhambra and the Alcazar, here in Morocco, their own land, no vestige of a possible glory re- mains, and no evidence that such a glory once existed. The houses are absolutely without form or comeliness ; square blocks of whitewashed stone with small windows and stout, prison-like doors, like long rows of polished cubes piled one upon another, despairingly monoton- ous. But, however much one's eyes are re- pulsed by the ugly setting of the picture, the Moor and his family are interesting and sober studies. The Snake-charmers We rode OUt tO the and Sorcerers. market, or Sok, as it is called, and another typical African scene met our eyes — a recalling picture which brought out of the illimitable past the true spirit of the soil. It was the spec- tacle of the snake-charmers and the fire- eaters — marvellous magicians who call from the farthermost parts of the desert an audience of most picturesque and motley consistence. Their strange music, /;/ Western Levant. 131 more in the nature of a funeral wail, their wild chanting and barbaric manoeu- vers of hands and arms — these, together with the astounding feats that they per- form, found the audience, ourselves in- cluded, in a most applauding and marveling mood. Notwithstanding the fact that the open mouths of the snakes look so ferocious, the feat loses some- thing of its illusion by the evidence from good authority that the fangs are torn 132 /// Western Levant. from the serpents ere the magicians at- tempt any feats of peril with them ; and doubtless some qualifying clause of a like order enters into the statement that the fierce, bronzed fire-eaters really did gulp down the livid flames which they were advertised to do, and apparently did with such astonishing ease. After a late dinner, the Cafes. ' same day, an Arab in- terpreter, lantern in hand, led the way through the narrow streets where we were stared at immeasurably for either our impertinence or our bravery in ven- turing out at night, and finally found ourselves in a curious little Moorish cafe, silent, rather plain, but full of character, where, with a number of natives seated on mats about, we partook of a kind of tea served in glasses — a beverage somewhat resembling mint, and very sweet. The Moors were smoking hashish, which they carried in little pouches, in the natural hempen state, \. ith which they stuffed the little bowls c.f tlieir pipes. The newcomers, on ar- In Western Levant. 133 riving, kicked off their slippers, as if entering a sacred enclosure, a bit of courtesy which corresponds to our doff- ing our hats ; and then doubling up their legs lazily on a mat, with scarcely a word, save an occasional " God be with you," to an acquaintance, they be- gan their reposeful smoke. 134 ^'^ Western Levaitt. From this familiar A native Musicale haunt of the Moor we went to one of his festivities which doubtless in our country would be called a Musieale. Five musicians, seated about an ancient looking court bearing all the dilapidation of a primeval temple, composed the orchestra with tambou- rines, a sort of mandolin, a two-stringed fiddle cut out of a single block of wood, and another instrument resembling a violin ; while another, a familiar face which we had seen at the Custom House, clapped his hands as an accompaniment. All in the room sang, accompanied by these wild instruments. The low, wail- ing, sighing chant of the wild Arab rose and fell with seemingly interminable cadence and repetition ; more suited, it was my thought, to the wild hills beyond the sight and roar of cities, around the camp fires of the Faithful. The musi- cians swayed their bodies with the undu- lations of the weird falsetto, now and then raising their eyes heavenward, as if in the keenest ecstasy of enjoyment. We cheered them lustily at the close, and received an encore in genial tribute. I 71 Western Levant. 135 The visiting of one of the Arab schools was another enjoyable feature of our stay in Morocco. The master, a solemn- faced, gray old Signor, who might have been taken for father Abraham himself, was possessed of two indispensables to his dignity as preceptor — a long, white beard and a long black stick. Every now and then he would stroke his beard with his hand, and then stroke the head of a pupil for inattention. Huge lettered quotations from the Koran were hung up near by, which scriptural in- junctions were repeated in a stupid monotone by the pupils. A review of these scriptures is nearly all the educa- tion they receive. Yet they yearly turn out upon the inoffensive world, scores of young doctors of all eastern sciences, from geometry to gymnastics, and arm them with huge sealed diplomas, after the fashion of the Paduan universities. P^: III. The Infidel City. Tangier the White has the appearance of being the outpost of some Mahommedan heaven, that has been abandoned by the faith- ful to the merciless glitter of unre- 138 /;/ Western Levant. specting foreign diplomacy and cant. The Sultan abhors it, the Mahommedan deplores its subjugation under these con- quests of foreign conventions, and the native has the audacity to abandon a portion of his daily prayer-time to the inveigling of foreign gullibility. From the sea the city presents a highly pictur- esque appearance, the minarets of the mosques and the kiosks of the several harems standing out bold above the white square houses so like piles of chalk blocks freshly mined from the mountain- side, and contrasting strongly with the foreign-looking villas surrounded by pretty gardens on the outskirts. Within, the city loses much of its glory, as does every southern seaport which has the clear atmosphere, the intensely blue sky, the green and luxurious hills beyond, and the dark wild sea beneath for a handsome setting to so capital a picture. Once within, the eye is always interested, seldom excited, and never enchanted. The glamour goes, the flavor of the wine not proving its quality. Once Within the City. in the city of Tangiers " a change comes o'er the spirit of our dream" — a change which in- sinuates something of a disillusioning of our admiration of the Moroc- can. The old spirit of Spain and kindred Eu- rope has passed into a still more ancient quality. How changed is all the present 140 In Western Levant. world from that which occupies the lit- tle blue strip of land beyond those wa- ters that lie like a broad, blue river be- tween Andalusia and the land of the cres- cent! The onward march of secular af- fairs seems suddenly halted, and the past has found a living expositor in the dark- brown bournouse and the white turban. The estranged look of the eye, the quiet shuffle of the sandal along the stone flag- ging, the dull passing interest with which strangers are regarded, the shrill pipe of the religious fanatic at the road- side, and the grim airs of the patriarch who salutes us with a " God-will " — all seems more and more demanding of the moment, and proves how removed from, and ignoring of, the great leaping activi- ties of our country and time, is the liv- ing present in this land of the Sultan and the Bey. Not even the ungracious interloping of foreign charlatanism, or the boister- ous innuendoes of modern life in this re- poseful world so full of character and color, has deposed that which in every country of the East is supreme, the spirit of mysticism and the noblesse of the con- In Western Levant. 141 servative Moslem. We see French floun- ces, English cork hats and American slouch-caps intermixed in incongruous promiscuity with the very crowds of turbans and veils which lend such char- acter and color to the neutral tints of white-washed walls and opaque sky, and drown effectively our own inartistic pres- ences. What a creature of pure and un- assimilating nature is the Arab! Bare arms of light bronze thrust out of the folds of a sombre bournouse, cheeks thin and Cassius-like in their hungry look, eyes sleepy and perfect in token of the mysticism of his race, except when intensely roused to action, and then fierce and dancing, like two leaping flames in the depth of the bronze twi- light. His very walk betokens the child of the wilderness, his very bearing mid these low burnished walls like that of a cap- tive who hates the confines of the village and longs to return to the place of wider latitude and more complete existence. In the city, the Arab is but a fragment of his free and native self under the blazing sun, mounted on horse and scanning a far horizon for the fear that his domin- 142 /;/ Western Leva fit. ion be invaded. How splendid in soli- tude, how ignoble in the crowd! The prevalent odor of the Bedouin en- camped in the outskirts, the camels kneeling about upon the scanty pastur- age, the little knots of women and chil- dren singing in shrill falsettos the song of their early fathers, the quiet that al- ternates the confusion of tongues when Ill Western Levant. 143 the head of a family comes and goes, all seems to betoken captivity, yet it is that thought which perhaps the freest tribe of the wilderness would inspire. ^, ., . , . The Arab is a creature The Native as he is. of wildest Utopianism, of the most fertile ingenuity with regard to effect in color, in language and in the finesse of war. He rides his inspired horse through all the realms of airy abstraction for the sole delight of the dream, not once looking to the value of the grand finale. The end of a great dream with him is seldom the beginning of a great deed. Begotten of a barbaric race of which women held all the vitali- ties of character and represented the higher values of the people, there is more of the woman in the man than he would lead us to suppose. The most manly men are those who admire, re- spect, and endeavor to broaden the in- fluence of women, and who outwardly, as well as secretly, crave their society. The man who professes to ignore women, yet whose intense affinities with them 144 ^f^ Western Levant. demands polygamy and a harem, rather than monogamy and a home, is too much of the woman to allow dispute. Such an one has all the faults, and but few of the virtues, of his mother. It is everywhere glaringly evident, this constant ignoring of the influence of women upon the whole social regime of the East, but it is confessedly the menial position of woman, as a national factor, that accounts for the social organization, or, better, disorganization, of the race. As soon as woman is emancipated, the nation breaks the bonds that wrap it in its swaddling clothes. The Arab is too much of a woman, however splendidly his outward bearing belies him, ever to give women their freedom ; ever to admit that he loves, respects and cherishes them for their justice, their judgment and innate nobility. We, out of no strained effort to play the gallant, accord good women the highest places of na- tional honor ; honor nobler than State or Church can give them. We recognize the fact that their intuitions are keener, less blunted by the ignoble contact of the hard, passionless business world ; In Western Levant. 145 that, consequently, they are more honest and more reliable in times of extreme peril. The harshest judges are former criminals; the most brutal police, those who have themselves felt the club. Thus is it that when we find one who hates things womanly as much as a Moslem, yet who keeps a gorgeous harem secret from the eyes of the world, he has too much of his mother's faults and too few of her virtues ever to assume the title of superior manhood. Upon this theory is built, practically, all the weaknesses of a race. The child that abuses its younger and less rugged mates, is itself the vic- tim of parental abuse. The reformed drunkard knows no tolerance of the drunkard unreformed; the man unfor- given, the last to forgive. We can read- ily account for the beggarly, measly, unheroic condition of the people of the Levant and India by the unmanly disre- spect in which they hold their women, even as we may judge of their fortunate conquerors by their esteem of them, and their proven reliance in womanly intuitions when in times of extreme peril the man falters. 146 In Western Levant. Moslem Social and In most scrcne compla- Reiigious Law. ccncy, the Arab works out his traditional scheme of spiritual econ- omy. The Moslem is religious for a greater reason, and, at the same time, a less reason than reason itself — is a natural hater of any other than his own system, abhoring above all things the question- ing of preconceived and pre-established convictions. While western Europe is sleepless in the broil of solving ethical and spiritual problems by the aid of a sort of rule-of-three science ; while America is agitated to the core by the invasion of French fatalism on the one hand and esoteric mysticism on the other; while Italy holds the infallible Pope a prisoner, and the Archbishop of the Greek Church of Russia endeavors to reconcile the Slav spirit of freedom with the Christ of the state religion, the Mos- lem sits regardless, heeding nothing of the current perturbations that shake to the roots the stunted growth of religious fervor in other lands. Superior to rea- son, in that to him one inspired word is /;/ Western Levant. 14"] worth ten thousand deductions of sci- ence, he is ever beneath reason in that he tolerates no inspiration from sources other than his own. But if he is a fanatic without science or art to endue with an attractive grace the worship of his fathers, he has the rare power of abandoning him- self to the spirit of his religion beyond all others. It would coon prove the depth of our religious fervor to exact of chil- dren and men the severe interest of the Mahommedan, Build a minaret in Soho or in Madison Square, and from the top of it let one of the more devout clergy call all hearers to prayer ; he would be regarded with amusement, and finally wnth contempt. Yet the Moslem in the midst of a business transaction will sud- denly cut matters short at the cry of the muezzin in the distance — a cry which is to his trained ear as the cry of a babe to the ear of the mother — and, laying aside his outer garments, he prostrates himself toward Mecca, eyes dilate and far- estranged, non-present in the spirit, en- wrapped in the most ecstatic religious trance. No king so preoccupied or ma- jestic, no business man so absorbed in /// Western Levant. his commercial struggles, no child so en- grossed in his play that he hears not the voice, and, what is more, heeds it. The Slave Markets. Slavery Still exists in Morocco, but the slaves' power of attaining liberty is not im- possible, and as they are distinguished by fidelity and zeal for their masters, superior rank is accorded them. They may possibly enter the ranks of the body-guard, or swell the retinue of the Sultan's court. Slaves are generally brought from the interior of Soudan in childhood, and bred in the fami- lies of their owners. Much has been written and much excess of sympathy has been wasted upon these unfortunates whose greatest misfortune oftentimes is to buy their freedom. It is undeniably a fact that the slave in the Moroccan family, with plenty to eat, little to do, good substantial clothes and treated almost on equality with the children of the household, is in a much more en- viable position than the starveling sav- In Western Levant. 149 age in the forests of Soudan. Though no sensible nor humane man would ad- vocate slavery, however it be counten- anced by the Koran and by our Holy Scrip- tures, slavery in a Moroccan family is in no way to be compared with the slavery in the Cuban sugar plantations, or the cotton-fields of America. By law slaves can demand to be sold if their mas- ters are at all cruel, and are seldom sep- arated from parents in slavery, except in cases when the master loses his property. The word " slave," in its wrong signifi- cance, considering him as a prisoner of war or an innocent criminal, is doubtless half the cause of the ferocity of our war 150 In Western Levant. of the rebellion. Here there is no direct servitude; the slave is more of an attend- ant — a servant, or apprentice ; more in the light of a young man bound out to learn a trade in England to-day. Were the slaves of Morocco liberated, nine- tenths would not leave the houses of their masters, and the majority of the freedmen would certainly starve. Still, as may be imagined, the primitive sys- tem has many serious and pathetic pictures, one of the most spirited and vivid that we have ever read being from the pen of Pierre Loti in his lately trans- lated publication, " Into Morocco," the verve and charming grace of the author being admirably retained in the trans- lation : — " This evening, accompanied by my usual companion. Captain H. de V., both of us dressed as Arabs, I took my way to the slave market The desolate courtyard was untenanted. To our in- quiry as to whether there would be any business done this evening (for It is gen- erally at nightfall, after the hour of the Moghreb, that the slaves and the buyers and sellers resort to this place) the an- In Western Levant. 151 swer was returned : "We do not know; but there is still that negro wo7nan in the corner there ^ who is for sale."" " The negress was seated at the edge of one of those recesses which are exca- vated in the thickness of the old walls, like dens of animals; her attitude was one of great dread and terror, her head, enveloped in its grayish veil, and her closely covered face falling forward upon her breast; as she saw us upproach- ing, fearful, no doubt, that we were com- ing to buy her, she seemed to try to make herself smaller still. We made her arise so that we might look at her, as it is the custom to do with this kind of merchandise. We found that she was a little girl, sixteen to eighteen years old, whose tearful eyes bore an expression of resignation in the midst of a limitless despair; she was twisting her veil in her hands and kept her eyes directed toward the ground. What a pitiful sight it was, this poor little creature, who had meekly arisen to allow us to examine her, and who was awaiting her fate in this gloomy place. Beside her, seated in the same recess, was an elderly lady, her face 1^2 In Western Levant. carefully concealed in her veil, who, not- withstanding her unpretending dress, was evidently of the upper class. This was the mistress, who had brought the girl here for sale. We enquired the price; five hundred francs. And the poor old lady, with tears in her eyes and an ex- pression almost as sad as that of her slave, explained to us how she had bought the child when very young and brought her up, but that now, being re- duced to poverty by the death of her husband, she could no longer support her and was obliged to part with her. And thus it was that the two women were here waiting to find a purchaser, with a shrinking, humiliated air, both equally disconsolate. It was like a mother offering her daughter for sale." But more reprehensible in the eyes of the foreigner is the proverbial, ubiqui- tous wife-beater, who, be he Arab or Jew, is sure to bring down the aspersion of the Christian, who loves and reverences the sex, upon his head with certain pre- cipitation. While here in the city of Tangiers there was great excitement on account of the arrest and public whip- In Western Levant. 153 ping of a Jew wife-beater, by our Consul, Mr. Lewis. The wife had gone to the Consul and complained a number of times, and with her black and blue bruises and welts has enlisted the Con- sul's sympathy, perhaps a little further than diplomatic policy justified. At any rate, repeating the offense, the Jew was lashed, deservedly, no doubt ; but it was the occasion of a serious outbreak amongst the Jews, who demanded the recall of Mr. Lewis. Secretary of State Blaine severely reprimanded the Consul for taking the law into his own hands and the result, hastened by numerous other disagreements betv/een the Consul and his constituents, has occasioned his recall. Thecountr, Life. Nothing gave me quite the swell of rapture that the great valleys of wild flowers of Mo- rocco inspired. Such a luxury is it to go out into the fields and find the measure- less waste now gay as a vast garden and of infinite variety. Violet, iris and wild geranium of a peculiarly hardy variety. 154 ^^^ Western Leva?it. gladiolus, crimson as blood, and daffodils, all to me more beautiful in their na- tive wildness than those which care and rich science had helped to be beau- tiful at home. Out beyond the cities the rich plains seem uninhabited quite save by the birds and flowers, and what contentment does not this rich solitude bespeak! I have always been friends with the lovers of flowers. Like the poet who fears the man that has no music in his soul, and as a child drawn to those who, it feels, will be kind and indulgent, so do I delight in the flower-lover, and lose no opportunity in proving my belief in his personal honesty and nobility of character. So, too, do we return to na- ture, and through one of her infinite lenses read ihe human heart, interpreting more reverently, more truly. I do not wonder that the Arab's sense of color is so distinguished, though to the abso- lute disregard of all theories of form. His taste runs to the decorative rather than In Western Levant. 155 pictorial art ; to carpets, rich, warm and full of sympathy in color, like their own variegated plains and valleys, and to ar- abesques — those nameless, varied and concrete abstractions, which are rarely heroic or dignified, yet always decora- tive, and to illuminations on the margins of the Sacred Chronicles in the manner of the Anglican monks. The Moorish villasfes, Villages. * ' although distinct in char- acter from those of the people further east, are unvaryingly upon the same fixed plans of site and arrangement. See one, you see all. The unit is the ex- act prototype of ten thousand, and visit- ing any other of this number, can find the same trades and shops upon the re- lative spots ; at least, this was marvel- ously convincing to me, be it but an illu- sion. That square, monotonous mud hut, thatched with reeds and protected from nightly invasion by huge, ugly hedges of the blue cactus, the tiny high win- dows, the open door, the rough carpet 156 J^ii Western Levant. at the threshold, and the noisy whistling storks on every roof — democracy with all its picturesque intensity, but dispirit- ing monotony. The greater number of these interior villages are the homes and haunts of thieves by religion — magnifi- cent fellows, in whom the fine arts of vil- lainy have reached a cultivated climax. The male members of the household are generally out on the forage, while the female members, guarded by a few straggling village parasites, remain to protect the scanty huts and their mis- erable, half naked young tigers of the desert, who so soon follow in the foot- steps of the father. There is a certain dignity in the presence of these mounted marauders, men of the desert, who pil- lage caravans and overturn whole tribal empires now and then. They stand in their stirrups like bronze images of chiv- alry, flowing head-dress and mien of se- vere certainty of purpose, fleet, agile, in- vincible, splendid cowards. Like all barbarians, they hate the sight of civili- zation or any hinting thereto, save when the opportunity presents itself for plun- dering some straggling representative In Western Levant. 157 of it. Even the Sultan of Morocco is completely the tool, by fear, of some of these interior tribes, and never ventures his ambassadors, to say nothing of his own precious person, in their midst. To us, who have known every species of outlaw, from the Missouri guerilla to the Sierra Nevada stage-robber, these splendid pirates of the desert bear some- thing of the heroic and chivalrous withal, and the fierce, tigerish manner of cap- turing their prey, leads us to somewhat soften the rigor of our judgment in their favor. Men despise the sneak, the crawl- ing, cringing, snake-like dastard who watches the victim's departure to rob him of that which he has left unguarded ; but there is such a thing as a dignity of villainy, which, even if we are not bound to respect, we can consider with softened consciences. It must not be forgotten in extenuation of the Arab outlaw, that it is his heredity, his breeding, his very re- ligion, to crush his natural enemies: the usurper of his lands and the subverter of his faith. The North American In- dian has all the justifications of self-de- fense on the former score — that of pro- In Western Levant. 159 tecting his hunting-grounds from mer- cenary invaders, who are no respecters of the property of those not their equal in war — but the Indian has not this great natural force beneath and beyond all thought of material gain : a fanatical re- ligion, to make him fierce and vindictive. The cold, barbaric heroism upon which Cooper founds his plots of American no- mad life, and which lends such verve and interest to Hiawatha and the legion of Indian heroics, is not to be compared with this vast unwritten series of legends of the plains beyond the belts of civilization in Morocco, where the barbarian is still in power, defenseless in a way, yet per- sonally invincible, with all consciousness of high duty in murdering to save his own, and, above all, to apotheosize his whole family, by dipping his hands in the blood of a giaour. Of all wars, the re- ligious war is the most spirited, aban- doned, heathenish. Each cries to God, believing that the one all-seeing Eye is upon him, and him alone. i6o /// Western Levant. Language Corrupted by the suc- cessive innovations of for- eign idiom and trade colloquialism, the early purity of the language, since the time of Ibu Khaldum, like the tongues of all the Orient, has passed out of its condition of purity, and remains only a thread of gold, as it were, running through a conglomerate fabric of dia- lects. Philology is a most dispiriting study in this land of linguistic dissipa- tion, where there is really so little held in the rigid bounds of philological law, and so much the accidental and the ar- bitrary. The dispersion of the Jews in their own lands, and their scattering set- tlements along the north coast of Africa and forthwith assuming the monetary dominion of the country invaded, has been much the cause of the decadence of the pure, natural Arab language, while the successive, and not unoften successful Spanish invasions of later centuries, have left a perceptible Spanish infusion of idiom in the current coin of In Wester ji Levant. i6i the tongue. This accounts for the di- versity of rehgious opinion, even in the most lanatical ranks, and also in a measure accounts for the poverty of any- thing bordering upon an established lit- erature. Ci^urch and state. ^he present condition of Morocco, considered politicaliy, could hardly be worse. The quasi-hereditary Sultan is a despot su- preme, having power of life and death over his subjects at any and all times — in war, or peace; in times of religious fanaticism, and in times of religious apa- thy. The meting out of justice is most arbitrary, and the administrative func- tionaries of the State attend to their duties with appalling laxity and with extreme inconsistency at times. The punishment of criminals is, as a rule, most shockingly cruel, recalling the mediaeval barbarities of the early church which inherited that certain quality of inflicting pain without conscience or mercy, from the persecutions of its own adherents 1 62 In Western Levant. by the Romans. The feudal doctrine of the North, which happily has passed away, has here an expositor on every tract, and the very shepherd and plow- man carries a weapon of self-defense slung across his shoulders. The army, most inadequate, unreliable and ill-paid, the navy, rotting in the harbors of Carash, slavery in full license, country roadless, untraversable save by camel or horse single file, no bridges, no inns, and the danger of travel for even the Sultan be- yond the nearest borders to civilization — all this, as may readily be conjectured, conspires to keep Morocco in the dark ages, and, if possible, plunge her into more direful ignominy. . , That this fertile, beauti- Comparisons. ' ful region should be called the China of the West, is prepos- terous indeed, for two reasons: first, that in no manner, either with regard to cli- mate, or to topographical position of country, or fertility of soil, doesitresem- In Western Levant. 163 ble China, or in any way does the high state of civilization in some parts of China resemble the barbarism here. There is no native civilization here, while there is in China. The civilization that skirts the borders of the Mediterranean is the reflection — an infusion of the civili- zation of Europe. It is not native, it is not indigenous. That Morocco is infested with tribal factions which, as long as they hold control of the most valuable portions of the country, will keep the people in abject barbarism, is most true; that there exists anything of this state of affairs in China, is not true. To re- proach China with being the Morocco of the East, would be stigmatizing the former most brutally. To call Morocco the China of the West, is senseless flat- tery. The land of the iris and daffodil, where great valleys and mountain passes are filled with marigold and heather, one may naturally expect to find rich in fruits. No country of the world could yield such fruits, were it only under proper cultivation. As it is, heavy ex- ports of figs from Fez and other interior 164 In Western Levant. towns, famous oranges from Tetuan, pomegranates from Morocco, and dates from Akka, besides almonds and olives from divers provinces, attest the fact, that with so much of nature on their side, such a people could accomplish the mar- vels in horticulture that were achieved in the reign of Abderrahman of Spain, One thing that shows remarkable barbarian sagacity is the underground graaeries, which everywhere are to be seen in the country. These graneries hold vast amounts of grain often, and preserve it in good condition for years. They resembled, in my mind, the dug- outs of Nebraska, where a man cuts a hole in the hillside and runs his chimney up grotesquely to the top of the hill, sat- isfied with the light and ventilation af- forded by a door, and a window over it. I have also seen cellars in the West for the purpose of shelter in case of the ap- proach of cyclones, when there is danger of the high winds of the blizzard blow- ing down the frail frame house. Of these, too, the Arab underground gran- eries — one of the best feats of barba- rian engineering, by the way, which I In Western Levant. 165 have been privileged to compliment the race upon — reminded me forcibly. I have used the terms Moor and Arab controvertably, for, although there is a distinction, and a strong one, it is rather a distinction resulting from contact with civilized life, rather than a distinction of race. The Moors, of course, mainly oc- cupying the cities on the coast, are con- sidered the superior people, and from his preferring a home to a tent, which the Arab does not, he assumes his nobility. The Berber, doubtless the descendant of the aboriginal races, is the mountain- eer, who occupies a social position dis- tinct from either the Moor in the city, or Arab on the plains and in the valleys beneath them. The Berber builds houses of clay, and sometimes substantially of stone. Doubtless, what really native civ- ilization the inhabitants of Morocco can boast, the Berbers possess and will re- tain. They are conservative and in- dustrious, and beingof a hardier clime — the difference between the highlands and the plains being so great as to produce a distinct race of people — take the value for the little heroism the country affords, i66 In Western Levant. be it the heroism of defensive warfare, or the ferocity of the outlaw. Algeria VII. And when thou enterest thy tent, let every evil retire ; praise God and the Prophet, and prosperity be thy lot." — From a Bedouin Foevi. A good traveler will not be blind to a people's good qualities, and only point the linger at defects." — An Arab Adage. ^\ 'n"i I. Off for New Scenes. ^e left Tangiers by Steamer "Malverna,"stop- ping for a short time at the ports of Gib- raltar, Malaga and Malilla^the latter place a well-fortified Spanish town which is the prison city of the kingdom. Ne- mours, the first French town that we stopped at in Algeria, is a strongly forti- fied military seaport, and again we meet the trim attire and dignified bearing of the French infantry officer. Oran, the next Algerian city visited, is of some considerable size and commercial impor- tance, being the nearest of these several ports to Spain, besides being a pictur- esque study from the sea as well as an exceedingly rich repository of legend lyo In Western Levant. and antiquity. In contemplating the fierce period of war under Ferdinand of Spain and the later overthrow by the French, this little town occupies a posi- tion of no small importance. Its shel- tered location offers a favorable port of refuge for ships that are caught in the sudden and treacherous white squalls of the Mediterranean, and the healthful and vigorous condition of the natives attest the fact that it thrives as much by ad- verse winds as by the calm of prosperity. The city rises like a Roman amphithea- tre from the calm waters, the larger portion resting upon the two wide pla- teaux divided by a ravine, deep, shady and most enchantingly picturesque. The houses are corniced in the Morisco style, with flat, terraced roofs, and colored awnings and curtains to relieve the quiet monotony. The ravine that divides the city is the home of the foreign popula- tion, as might be inferred, and is beau- tified with a series of most enchanting gardens. Through it a stream flows, on its flanks the pale green of the plantain-tree standing bold against the riper contrast- ing tints of the pomegranate and citron. m Western Levant. 171 _, - At Oran we took the The Caravan. train for the city of Al- giers, and were delighted with the com- forts afforded by a palace car, small, but with seats at the sides, leaving a roomy space in the center. One of the first pleasures on leaving the city was to pass very near a caravan of camels coming into Oran from the southeast, loaded with various products of the fertile pla- teaux beyond. There is a somewhat in- definably inspiring in the sight of these great, moving repositories of commerce, legend and oriental character, which strikes the beholder fresh from a world of steam and telegraph, with a sense of repose and calmness truly pleasing. The camel, most picturesque and patient of all burden-bearing animals, gives a qual- ity to all he bears, and to all his sur- roundings. Transport him to Poland, and his Polish keeper is suddenly trans- formed into an Arab, and all the dull avenues of a conventional northern life, become tropic and replete with qualities of vigor and color. Without his camel, what an unsightly pirate has the Arab 172 /// Western Levant. become — out of his sphere, like an un- horsed jockey, with cap, and whip, and stirrup, — all that which dignifies the man, severely wanting. The instant the camel is at his side, the picture becomes complete; and what was dead and color- less is now animated and interesting. After all, our machines for quick transportation and labor-saving conven- ience are most characterless. Mechan- /// Western Levant. 173 ism awes us, but inspires the interest of the intellect at the expense of the affec- tions. Faithful dogs, wise and noble horses and camels, quicken our admira- tion, and not unoften inspire our genu- ine love. Now, surely, that which so fervently quickens our love, has the power of begetting true character — no- bility. The day approaches when cables and dynamos supersede horses, and rail- ways, the camel, even as guns have su- perseded the cross-bow and the falcon, and the telegraph the carrier-pigeon. But by a law of compensation, what we gain in speed and mere material conven- ience, we lose in that indefinable, yet in- estimable quality, called character. Fast living and slow thinking — and what true thought but is profoundly deliberate — never go hand-in-hand. The caravan is an open history; a living illustration of a dead legend, a forgotten era. It will soon pass away, and, though more con- venient burden-bearers will take the place of it, the character that gives it its distinguishable charm, will fade away with it, and nothing so inspiring of our reverence take its place. 174 ^^^ Western Lev a7it. Soon ai^^ain we pass An Incident. ,11 r 1 down the valley of the river Chelif, the low river-bottom brown and parched under the fierce tropic sun. The Arabs are cutting grain, and we pass through a large section where the rye is standing in stacks, one of which has taken fire, perhaps from the sparks of our locomotive. From all directions, on foot, on horse and camel- back, the poor natives are flocking to the rescue, and with blankets and flails begin the almost futile fight with the de- stroyer of their whole year's labors. It is but a momentary scene of excitement and peril, and as if ignoring the suffer- ings of those we leave behind, we plunge up the valley and cut into the heart of the mountains. The fertile lowlands through which we have passed, now so hard and parched, in the Spring and Winter are spread out like a series of gardens of richest verdure and bloom. The only relief of the hard In We sterol Levant. 175 steeps and the fierce sky, is the dotting here and there of Moormen's tents and huts, and the white cottages of the for- eigner that cluster about the mineral springs on the mountain eminence be- yond. From the desert vales of the river Chelif, out of this region of dry and parching summer, we pass into an atmosphere of Spring, the rich verdure on every hand attesting the fact that even a small country like Algeria, has the advantages of a diversity of climate. As we emerge from noisy tunnels, new views of beauty and interest greet us, and until night closes in and the sunset grows sombre and vague ; we watch the chang- ing scenes, and then with the two Moors who have joined us in our snug cabin, and who by their dress and general bearing indicate all the refinements of their strange race, we take our sleep until we arrive at the city of Algiers, ^ II. Algiers. The windows of our rooms in this snug and scrupulously clean hotel — de la Oasis — command a fine view of the bay, upon whose clear, beautiful waters numerous French and foreign ships and contrast- ing barques of oriental hull and sail, move lazily about or lie sleeping at an- chor. We took an early walk through the business part of the city which looks bright and attractive, the bazaars and shops inviting and full of interest to the searcher after the picturesque and the characteristic. It is Saturday, and con- 173 /;/ Western Levant. sequently the Jews have closed their shops, leaving the dupeable public to the less tender mercies of the Mahomme- dan and the Christian. In Algiers, quite contrary to the ancient rhyme, three Sundays come together. Friday the Mahommedans, Saturday the Jews, and Sunday the Christians, celebrate their Sabbath. Later in the morning we en- joyed a carriage ride into the country, taking the winding road that leads up the steep hill-side, the palaces and less pretentious homes looking like terraced streets from above. The city reminded me from the first of Genoa on the bay of Spezzia, the coloring, perhaps, a little richer in depth and feeling. The view from the summit of the hill behind the city is inspiring indeed; the bright blue bay beneath and beyond, flocked with queerest barques and gorgeous sails like skimming butterflies touching lightly the brim of the sea, to the south, the Moorish palaces, fantastic and enchanting, the French villas dotting the hillside, and here and there a green vineyard flanked by hedges of cacti and blossoming wil- low, and yonder a high kiosk of some /// lVcster7t Levant. 179 dignitary's harem, and on either side the bright dome of the Mahommedan place of worship. We were driven out The Trappists. . . , . over the plateau beyond the hill, which so benignantly overlooks the city, and came upon a remarkably well cultivated section, well fenced, and with every indication of prosperity and thrift, and learn that it is the property of a colony of religious anchorites, called the Trappists, who were granted this tract of twenty-five hundred acres, which they have transformed from a desert wilderness into a most luxuriant garden. Orange, olive, apricot trees in profusion, thrifty and attended with all the science of careful horticulture, stand on our left, while vegetables and flower-gardens of every variety sweep down the valley to our right as we pass up toward the mon- astery. Here we are met by the most hospitable of men — an old monk, with a strong, characteristic face, and the man- ners of a nobleman. After all, the con- servatism of even an Algerian monk be- i8o III Western Levant. gets a certain repose of manner and dig- nity of presence, which the cosmopolite, whose manners are moulded by the force of ever-changing contact, can but ad- mire. The long, brown, woollen robe of the order, the snowy white hair, the san- daled feet, and the great bunch of keys hanging at the belt — all this seems to give a nobleness to the hospitality so generously extended us, and we feel a pleasure in bestowing reverence upon this calm despiser of the world which we ourselves so deeply and constantly enjoy. " You must not come with us," said the venerable Trappist to a lady who had accompanied us hither, a bow of pro- foundest apology mitigating the rigor of his command, "for none but men are admitted into the inner court." Then, with expressions of regret to the disap- pointed one, we were ushered through the great stone corridors, so silent and cold, and were shown the monastery from turret to foundation-stone — from gran- ery to the huge wine-cellar. From well- filled barns and sheds, which indicate such commendable thrift, out to the ma- chine shops, we passed, and at the latter In Western Levant. i8i place were surprised to find an Ohio threshing machine at work by the side of an ancient stone grinding-mill which might have been handed down from the graneries of Solomon. The little chapel was of all other solemn places in this place of perpetual worship, the most dismal, and to me, seemingly the least inviting of religioQs enthusiasm; but the sight of the careworn, pale and emaci- ated features of the monks who knelt about and chanted their doleful Mis- erere^ was surely most impressive. The fact that the monks are never allowed to speak to one another upon the passing events, and that there are other equally inflexible rules which increase the hard- ship of the severely plain surroundings, the Trappist's life is assuredly not a happy one. They are allowed to salute one another at morning, however, with the chilling phrase, " Good morrow, brother, remember that wx must die ! " crossing the hands upon the breast with the solemn greeting. Their bed-rooms resemble cells in the severest aspect of prison life. Small, bare, with beds so narrow and hard, surely very little com- 1 82 In IVesfern Levant. fort is enjoyed even there. The dining room is furnished quite as uninviting to the appetite as the bed-room is to the tired body. Bare tables, long black benches, and a crust at each place, is the banquet hall and the repast ; and while even this intensely frugal meal is being enjoyed, a brother in the pulpit at the end of the room reads prayer after prayer in the most maddening mono- tone, which doubtless adds dryness to the crust. All this is in unwholesome contrast to the rich gardens of flowers which skirt the dismal monastery, and the wide groves of orange, lemon and citron which flank the south wings. Our ad- miration for their genial hospitalities to strangers was again renewed with their spreading before us a refreshment which was truly luxurious, even if it was far more worldly than the spiritual repast we refrained from partaking in company with the anchors within the grim dining hall. Fine white bread, cakes, and two kinds of wine of their own successful, and, indeed, famous make — these most unmonkish refections, together with de- In Western Levant. 183 licious large strawberries, and apricots fresh from the boughs, were our boun- ties, of which, fortunately for her, the lady who accompanied us hither, was permitted to partake. One old monk, who particularly interested us, and who plied us with all conceivable questions, relating to the outer world which, though he so despised, he was willing to hear about, surprised me by taking down a map of the United States and telling us of a colony of the Trappist order in Louisville, Kentucky, and also of one in Iowa. These facts brought the vener- able body into a somewhat nearer focus, as it were, and was the occasion of not a little interchange of compliment. The lady remarked with a delicate shrewdness : " Generally the monks whom I have visited in Greece and else- where seem to be very contented and happy in their several monasteries; but here they all look so sad. Are they not happy then ? " "Why should they not be happy, serv- ing God so faithfully ? " was his sagac- ious counter-question. The monks who showed us these par- 184 •? . In Western Levant. ticular favors, and who were doubtless deputized to entertain strangers, seemed to want to hold fast to us till the last moment, and learn of the outside world. The reason was that they are only allowed to talk to strangers, hence their anxiety to retain them to break the long and certainly most stupid monotony of their rigorous anchorage. Even our American watches interested them greatly, and the merest trifles of our con- ventional apparel and manners were ob- jects of scrutiny and interest to them. Here we found the famous motto: "6" il est triste de vivre a la T7'appe qu' il est doux dy mourir.'' — If this be a hard place to live, it is a good place to die ? The order was founded in the twelfth century, by Rotron Comte de Perche, who built the first monastery of the order in the department of Orme in France. In 1845, the French govern- ment granted the Trappists this land, then the desert hiding-lairs of the wild boar and the tiger, and from a wilder- ness of brushwood and palmetto, they have changed it into a garden of rare beauty and prosperity. In Western Levant. 185 street Scenes. ^he grand city prome- nade passes in front of our Hotel I'Oasis. It is the " Boulevard de ia Republique," and runs along the sea, overlooking the broad and busy har- bor some four thousand feet. In the evening this attractive breathing space is populous with a curious crowd of French, Arabs, Moors and Jews, the latter three seemingly glad to receive an hour of immunity from the prison slavery of the dark inner alley-ways of the thronged and silent city. The Jews are a particularly interestmg feature of Western oriental life. Somehow this ubiquitous, irrepressible child of Israel seems to thrive on the insults and inhu- manities of barbarian tribe and civil- ized race alike. The warm, tropic sun and the dull sirocco have moulded these other tribes of the Semetic race into a distinct type, although the characteristic features to be met with in Palestine, Po- land and Mulberry Street, are preserved irradicably ; the aquiline nose, small, keen, brilliant eye, clear, almost pallid complexion, and beard of formal cut, 1 86 In Western Levant. black as night. Stooping under the weight of oppression that is never lifted, severe intent upon making up in the viles of business the social stigma he has borne for ages, quarreling, snarling, dogged, acquisitive, here as everywhere else, they manage to encircle the whole commercial regime. Active, quick-wit- ted, versatile, all inroads into the heart of trade are commanded by them, and with the semblance of enjoying life, are in reality the most miserable of peoples. ^, ,,, The Jewish women do The Women. not cover the face with veils, and the striking beauty of the younger matrons and maidens is a redeeming feature of the noisy, dirty Jews' quarter. The artistic sarmah — very like the ancient Biblical hennin — the full gown unconfined at the waist, short sleeves, bare feet, and beautiful hair which in the younger members of the family is allowed to fall unbound over their shoulders, the feminine half of the Algerian Jew is interesting and fair. The Turks, who were their rulers before the In Western Levant. 187 French entered harsh, cruel and upon the stage, were merciless. Hence, the Israelites hailed the ad- vent of the French with delight, andin consequence , have turned the tables on thelsh- maelites, whom they treat with the cruelty oftentimes that they themselvesexperienced at the hands of the Mahommedan. The Cathedral. On Sunday morning we went to the famous Ca- thedral of the Black Virgin, or Notre Dcunie d' Afrique where a Bishop was to receive consecration, and where, conse- quently, we found standing-room at a premium. The pontifical robes were gorgeous indeed. We noted above the In Western Levant. 189 altar the famous Black Virgin, and this inscription, " Our Lady d'Afrique prays for us and for all poor Mussulmans." The church occupies a striking eminence on a spur of the Mount Bou-Zarea, and commands an extraordinary breadth of view : the great city, the sea, and the far mountains of Djurdjura. It is Byzan- tine in style, with high central dome lifting from a cluster of smaller ones, and flanked by a tall minaret, reminding me much of the Greek church in Fin- land. As this is peculiarly the sailor's church, votive offerings in most incon- gruous profusion, hang about the walls ; small ships, crutches, war arms, legs, eyes, and other freaks attesting the mi- raculous restoration of these members in the superstitious votaries of this black patroness, and every Sunday afternoon the impressive ceremony for the repose of those buried at sea takes place at the edge of the cliff overlooking the Medi- terranean. 190 /// I Vc stern Lciant. III. The Natiue Quarters. ^e paSSed through the Arab quarter on our re- turn, visiting the more famous of the mosques. At Tangiers, we were not permitted to visit the Mahommedan place of worship, and the giaour who un- dertook to pass the threshold, would have done so at his extreme peril. But here, by taking off our shoes and retain- ing our hats, both in token of respect, we enter the court where a picturesque group of Moors are bathing at the mar- ble fountain, and, their ablutions done, we follow them as they pass into the great mosque. There, lifting their hands, they prostrate themselves in profoundcst hu- mility, face toward the East, eyes dilate and almost closed in the ecstasy of divine revealment, lips uttering passage after passage of the Koran, punctuated by repetitions of the humble obeisance to the " Allah who is good, and to Mahom- met who is his prophet." /// I Tester /I Levant. 19" ru u, I ' n *■ The devotion of a Ma- Tfie Moslem s Devotion. hommedan to his relig- ion furnishes a foreigner with a subject for contemplation. The laws of the church are very strict, and are adhered to with astonishing rigidity. There is a fascina- tion in this ecstasy for most of the devo- tees, and nothing will induce a worship- per to neglect his devotions for an in- stant — not even the threat of death, or what is worse, the threat of losing the sale of a trinket to a European for twenty times its value. At home, it would, indeed, seem queer to punish a bad boy by keeping him home from church of a Sunday morning; yet this is the worst punishment inflicted by the Mahommedan father upon his refractory son. The Bazaars. ^he old Arab quarter with its narrow, charac- teristic streets, shops invitingly decked, with overhanging balconies and fine lat- tice windows, is a place of great interest. 192 /// Western Levant. The principal avenue, narrow at best, ascends the hill step by step, and is a se- ries of surprises. Here is a tibeel, or apoth- ecary, with his little booth filled with . 1^1 - — -,- . — __^ nostrums and roots .m^* i concealed in quaint old jars and odd- shaped flasks, a little forge for heating red hot the irons with which they heroically puncture the flesh in rheumatic and pleuri- tic cases, boxes of knives for cupping — an ancient barbarity still in vogue — and other oddities of med- iaeval times. Here, also, in various recep- tacles of odd design, prickly pear leaves for bruises, ground pine for fevers, scabious for ague, birthwort for colic, alkermes for small-pox, and rows upon rows of little specifics which have received the sanction of domestic home- doctoring in the Moorish circle, and as a last resort, perhaps — alas ! how futile is In Western Levant. 193 even science in times of peril — little boxes of magareah^ or amulets, which, when all else has failed, will purge the infected body and soul as by the touch of mir- acle. There sits a lazy dreamer over his box of childish trumpery, and at our approach he waxes himself into a spirit of aggression, till his brown robe falls from his shoulders, exposing a withered, tawny physique made proportionless by the hardship of repose rather than of severe labor. Beyond him, a pair of fair Jewesses, leading picturesque little urchins with pink complexions and tiny sprouts of curls dangling before their ears, the young damsels with narrow eyebrows and waxen features, and a step with all the stealth of a captive gazelle. We pass another booth of a well-to-do silk merchant, and catch a glimpse of his favorite wife as she turns to glance at us and then glides up the stone steps out of sight, her rich dress, embroidered sandals and profusion of jewels adorn- ing her perfect limbs, attest her favor with her lord. What a dignified bear- ing ! What a look of content and ease ! Our friend, the guide, warns us to be- 194 ^^^ Western Levant. ware of the sly, knowing glances of the solemn Moor at the entrance of the booth, assuring us that these savage fellows are very jealous and revengeful. Then we come upon a marble fountain in the middle of a small court whose enclosing walls are overhung with jas- mine, ivy, and beautiful trailing vines, in which enclosure a flock of impish little urchins are playing noisily and happily. A shower of pennies brings them about us, and their bright, gro- tesque little faces and outstretched hands make a series of pictures illustrating, perhaps, the most interesting phrase of Algerian life — the only really happy period — that of childhood. Their musi- cal trebles, like the chatter of so many jackdaws, makes the language appear so easy and natural that one is tempted to take up the study of a literature at once so simple, rich and resonant, and fitting the lips with such felicity ; but doubt- less this illusion, like many another Eastern paradox, vanishes upon closer observation. In Western Levant. 195 ,, . ,„ This leads me to ob- A I gen an Women, serve that of all slavery, that of the Algerian woman is not the least enviable — if one may be privileged to envy a slave in any : condition 01 country. The better class of Moors and Arabs take pride in keep- i n g their women care- fully housed and fed, and incidents of cruelty to wives, with which the French courts have of late so summarily dealt, all occur among the lower orders. Per- haps if cruelty did exist within these perfumed gardens and luxurious palaces of the native rich, no one without would t 196 In Wester 71 Levant. ever know of it ; but from the glimpses of native life with which one is now and then rewarded by glancing through an open door, between curtains drawn aside at the lattice, or by contemplating this luxury from the low terraces, the women seem to be immeasurably happy, the care-worn, painful look of despair which we see upon many refined faces at home, never once greeting us. The veil over the face is a happy invention, for the eyes of the native Moor or Arab are the most expressionful of the features, leav- ing to the imagination the picturing of a beautiful mouth and pink cheeks be- hind the ruse which but conceals, prob- ably, a degree of ugliness. The women spend their pretty lives spinning, em- broidering, and listening to the tales of a hired story-teller — a female of vast re- sources, and generally better versed in the intricacies of successful gossip than in the legends of the Mahommedan heroes. /// Western Levant. 197 V. The Fatalism of the The Arabs are, by their Moslem. nature and breeding, fatalists, and hence we seldom see ob- jects of stern solemnity treated with what, in the Occident, we would esteem true reverence. Even the dead, as may be seen by the indifferent manner in which they are borne away on the shoulders of the twelve pall-bearers, are not exempt from the chilling lack of in- terest with which the presence of mo- mentous facts inspires men the world over. The cemeteries, so picturesque with their creeping vines, weeping wil- lows, cypress and wild flowers, are places of repose for the soon forgotten. It is seldom the graves of the departed are revisited with a renewing of tears and recalling of tender memories. They are dead. That means, to the Arab, that they never lived. With the death of the wife, father, brother, the memory of each of them perishes. So cruelly cold are the majority of Arabs that not even in times of great peril, when buildings fall 198 In Western Levant. and people are imprisoned beneath the ruin, or a ship is foundering at sea, will the Arab risk his own life to save those of his own family. Allah desired to call them to heaven for a purpose. Why- should he interfere with the great God, and possibly incur His displeasure ? In Western Leva?it. 199 VI. The French Colo- The French occupation nization. ^f Algiers and other north African countries, strikes the dis- interested observer, foreign to both France and these countries, with a pe- culiar sense of the injustice of this sort of aggression. To a country with an overburdened population, wholesale land-grabbing holds something of an extenuating clause; but where there is land and law, wherein every one who wills can set up his household gods and not feel his neighbor crowding him, this splendid modern piracy is unchristian in a pitable extreme. The Dey Hussein slaps the face of the French consul- general — a wantonly familiar thing to happen even in a hut — and because it oc- curs in a palace, the French answer with cannon and shell. It is the old school- boy trick, when the booby has the apple which the bully wants, and justifies him- self in forcing a quarrel to gain. It is well to argue the fact that, previous to French occupation, the country was in- fested with pirates and bandits, which 200 In Western Levant. . their presence has effectively extermin- ated. But this only adds weight to the fact that therein the French demon- strate their own superior capabilities as banditti. The French at home, however, are acute and courageous in their judg- ments, and none criticise the blunders of French colonization with keener scrutiny than do they themselves. But it is a pretty, convenient fiction of law, which has already become a reality, that possession is nine-tenths of the yard stick of justice wherewith we would mete the disputed possession, and that twenty years of occupation brings into conven- ient leverage a statute of limitations ; hence, doubtless, it is well to yield the point to the tenant, who once held in trust for another, but now holds treasures for his own. What strikes the heart of the well-fed, warmly- housed American, fresh from a land of plenty and prosperity, is the overwhelm- ing amount of misery that silently pleads for succor at the hands of foreigners. Silently, for the most deserving are in- In Western Levant. 201 deed not the loudest in their prayers, though by far the sincerest in their gratitude. At all hours of the day I met on the outskirts of the city, poor, emaciated forms of cast-out humanity, like an old shoe that has outworn its usefulness, thrown into the great city's garret — the outskirts. If such is the misery in time of peace, what must it be in time of war, when even water is so precious, and when the scant supply of food is scantier still ? Every day and even every hour of the day, it almost seems, my sympathies are called out, and a grovelling wretch with the grimy burnous about his shrunken shoulders, his hollow eyes and parched tongue, and voice like a judgment from the under world, staggers me with the keenness of this picture of misery, and the gratitude of his heart in response to my trifling benefactions almost haunts me with its fervency. Gorgeous sunsets over waters that sleep so placidly about the tropical peninsula, fair faces of young girls at the fountains, filling their amphora, with waterj and carrying them away again upon their white, round shoulders, 202 /// Weste7'n Levant. palaces and mosques that tempt the eye and feast the sense to satiety — all these gentle regalements continually intermix with scenes of the most coarse and abandoned realism, and prove that even the advent of Christianity, and the refinements of French civilized life, have not eradicated the traces of a fallen, de- graded, outcast people, whose holy Prophet has done what little he could to make fanatical and worthless the small residuum of the primitive man who cer- tainly was endowed with something that begets prosperity — be it by labor of the head or hand — else we ourselves should not be a race to-day. Something must be done to make the Arab and the Moor self-supporting. There are thousands of acres of arable land, yet no one ventures to turn the soil. The Moor has emulated the Jew whom he pretends to despise — emulated him by attempting to live by his wits as the child of Israel does, yet not possessing the profound subtilty in business caution that is the very source of the Hebrew's success. He leaves the farm for the jewelry-shop, only to find that these trinkets can be In Western Levant. 203 manufactured in Birmingham for less than they can make them ; and, conse- quently, another pauper rides the Jack- horse of Christian charity, which poor steed appears to be something of a spavined old jade here in Algeria. VII. Conservatism of the In the gradual but Moor. effectual desuetude of old and cherished rites and observances all about him, the Arab remains what Peacock would call a Statue-quo-ite. He is a child of the past, of barbaric fanati- cism, with fervent religious veneration for anything and all that is force — a power temporal as well as spiritual. He is a splendid dreamer, whose dreams have flattered him with dominions which were rather a trust-fund than a real possession ; and he has seen the precious charge wantonly wrested from his grasp by a people whose religion he despises, whose morals he abhors, whose temporal force he covets. When from the principal avenues of the French quar- ter so bustling, modern, extraneous to 204 In Western Levant. the land, and apparently to the times, the observer turns up the alley that leads like a pilgrim's stairway through the dark, silent city of the Arab, he plunges into a sepulchre, as it were — a whited prison-tomb, gloomy, ghostly without, and rich, resplendent, full of ancient grace within. But the whole is a sealed book to him. A door ajar, a glimpse of the marble court, a lattice aside, disclosing a divan whence its fair occupant has just fled, and a pot of flowers on a queer pedestal by the em- broidered curtain: a glimpse here, the merest inkling of the mystery there, and the great enigma of Moslem life remains unsolved. Even while we stand in con- templation a moment in the early twi- light, a queer figure darts out of a secret door, passes along and fades away like a spectre in the mazes of arched alleys and impenetrable depths where all is life and activity shrouded in utterest silence. The short cry of a babe and hiss from the mother's lips, as if it might betray the secret hiding; the quick yelp of a dog that would break the monotony through fear; the rustle of the silken /// Western Levant. •.205 robes of some passer-by who for but one single instant is outlined against the gloomy wall — these are the only sounds to make merry the awful spell which hangs like a curse upon the fallen city. The great gulf between the past and the present, between the Mahommet and Christ, between the successful invader and the fallen invaded, seems to lie placid and calm at our feet, growing ever wider and wider, till at last the few sympathies that are left^and they, alas, are only the affinities of vice — will cease, and the Arab will merge into a concrete type, having " suffered a sea- change " as it were, into something less of himself and more of him whose vices now, and soon his virtues, he would emulate. VIII. „ ,.^. ,,.. There is a cosmopoli- Political Life. '^ tanism in these Moorish diplomates and men of affairs which io quite in contradistinction to the reserve of these conservative people. There is an undeniable dignity which the thin 2o6 In Western Levant. white veils and the at best rude civili- ties of Moslem genuflection will not dis- guise, nor permit one to altogether lose sight of in the study of events and the personages that have their being in them. The scholarly indolence which so admirably gives character to the Mos- lem, is not wanting ; but he who has the affairs of the market upon his mind, must necessarily mix with men of other times and of other temperaments, and receive no inconsiderable infusion of their habits. It seems at times strange that these superb men of the desert — wild native outcasts, so fanatical, so wild, could ever stoop to the machinations of diplomatic courtesies, and assume the intelligible role of the high-binder in eminence. But the thirst for wealth and influence has broken down the conservatism of the race, and schooled men in the corrup- tions of political life, into which their sons shift so ill-advisedly, embracing all the intriguing vulgarities of politics, with scarcely a redeeming drop of its nobility, In Western Levant. 20/ It is with unalloyed pleas- Climate. ^ , ^ ure that I note the vary- ing atmospheric changes which are so sudden and impressive in these southern climes, so resplendent and magical in their display of variation. From my windows I look out upon the horizon, noting the thin blue threading of the coast of Europe along the brim of the opalescent waters which seem so varied in their play of hues; and watch, too, the masses of cloud, cheerless indeed would they appear by the cold northern peaks, but here now full of caprice, now indo- lent, and then chased away into nothing- ness to give place to the warm limpid depths of a southern sky, than which nothing is more enchanting. After leav- ing the turgid activities of Europe, the quiet and repose of this venerable city fills me with a certain passion which doubtless is somewhat akin to that love of introspection and ease which character- izes the types I constantly meet. The city lies below me, the strange, half- modern, half-ancient, fanatical old burg which has wrapped about it the great 2o8 /// Western Levant. folds of a Moslem sack-cloth in penance for sins imaginary, yet no less rci:). The illusions of the mind before sucli scenes are firm and convincing. It is so easy to be resigned, religious, believing under such tranquil, peace-giving in- spiration. IX. The Negro. The Negro type, which is to be met with here in its several phases of evolution and inter- transfusion with the ruling element of the country, is one which will bear close scrutiny, and be found not wanting in interest. To us free-born and free-con- ditioned Americans, the negro is ever an object of regard, and often of our veneration, since he, for whose prosperity we have suffered and for whose welfare we have paid so dearly, naturally grows precious in our eyes. Even here, where slavery has denied the negro the com- monest opportunities of education, there is to be found, not unoften, types of cer- tain nobility — genuine spirits whose black masks have not concealed any of the benignity so inherent, and toward In Western Levant. 209 whom it is but our manly duty to ex- tend a hearty regard. Never before have ^' God's images cut in ebony " as- sured me of the dignity of their race as here in subjugation, where the very feel- ing that they are in no wise equals gives additional quality to their best efforts. We expect much of princes and rich men's sons. We expect little of slaves. The former can never outride our anticipations; the latter may often put us to blush that for a nonce we mis- conceived the inherent equality. As for the negress, she is something of a su- perior creature, even though she be not fattened by the stuffing process that her unfortunate mistress endures. She is statuesque m figure, graceful often- times in the arrangement of her pink cos- tume, and particularly pert while reclin- ing at ease, with something of the tigress in the lassitude of her repose. The sil- ver rings upon her dusky ankles and arms are far more ornamental than they would be upon white skin, and the pretty kerchiefs of silk surrounding the head like an aureole of light, gives something distinguished to the whole outline — 2IO In Western Levant. something even supernatural at times. Another marked distinction between the negress and her Arab mistress, is the gaiety which is permitted her, and which here is sorely unbecoming in a woman of whiter complexion. They are always cheerful and happy, seemingly, and doubtless their black faces are the only light of the household, since the pain- ful reserve and absolute withdrawal of their mistresses from the outer world makes the depths of e?imii and disgust with uneventful life nearly maddening. X. The indescribable The Bazaars again. . , , , scenes m and about the Arab bazaars, fill one with the true spirit of the fallen ages. The narrow streets are thatched, save here and there, at some important Five Points, or cele- brated Arab Seven Dials, where one catches a happy glimpse of the blue sky; and although it is noisy in the ex- treme, it is the noise of human voices — the din and concatenation of buyers and sellers in long shiny bournouses, with lean shoulders, and airs of abstraction In Western Levant. alternating the feline scrutiny of pass- ing affairs when trickery is suspected. In this uncertain twilight even at noon- day, the wide labyrinth of streets and lanes beginning everywhere, ending no- where, are filled to overflowing with the faithful and the infidel; the former all the way from Damascus to London, the latter from St. Petersburg to San Fran- cisco. We meet many Europeans in Arab dress, a fact which enables us to understand how thorough a knowledge of this Eastern life many of the literary, and particularly the artistic, lights of the cultured world have been privi- leged. The little shops or stalls along the sides of these long passages look more like niches in the walls of some cathedral, where sits in abject apathy a bournoused saint, surrounded, as it were, by offerings. But once manifest an interest in the little trinkets about the shopkeeper — tne inlaid Arab firearms of ancient shape and perhaps workman- ship ; the silk-veil merchant, or sandal dealers, the moment a prospective pur- chaser approaches, and particularly a giaour, the Arab, who would spit into his 212 In Western Levant. face upon the slightest provocation, and denominate him " Christian dog," now is attentive to his wants. These little booths are in groups; the leather booths where all sorts of quaint Arab capari- sons, shining and barbaric, flash out to greet the beholder, are by themselves, as are the niches where silks for the draperies of the wives and favorites are sold, and the stores of every other con- ceivable variety. Only the little apothe- cary and toy shops seem to ignore their brethren in the trade ; here the quaint little niches, where on the walls are long rows of bottles, boxes and jars, and everything from henna to leeches may be had, to the latter, where the little ones lead their indulgent mammas, and are regaled with nick-nacks of a quality and crudeness of workmanship and design that would be ignored by any of our modern sons and daughters of indulgent America. Now and then the approach to a brass- worker's shop is heralded by a ceaseless din, and a most picturesque glimpse of the workingmen at their arts is afforded us. These little shops, where quaint In Western Levant. 213 Arabesques are pounded out with such charming delicacy upon plates and pots for table and toilet use, remind one of the little brass-worker's shops of Venice, near the Santa Marguerita. Aside from the noisy spots, the bazaars are comparatively quiet places of trade, and one almost misses the sound of horses' hoofs, the crack of whips and the rum- ble of wagons — the familiar hubbub of modern business life in our lands. Then other unfamiliar sights greet the traveler every now and then. The religious fanatic, heralded by drums and tam- bourines, and followed by a motley mob of Moslem worshippers ; the beggars, covered with filth, and lepers holding out their shrunken, ashen, pallid limbs eaten to the bone with disease, voices husky and sepulchral, and visages ghastly in abject abandon to the ravages of the disease. Then, perhaps, not the least interesting to foreigners, the sor- cerers and magicians performing their incantations and mysterious feats of black art astonishing to the novice and seemingly no less to the vulgar crowd which gathers about, enjoying perhaps 214 In Western Levant. for the hundredth time, at another's ex- pense, the quick machinations of the priest-like magician and the daring of the snake-charmer. And now and then, > as if to vary still more the brilliant picture, through some door ajar, one catches a glimpse ^^^~\W\ ''^^ of a group of fes- » >>*"'^W'A^M^^ ^^^^ dancing girls in the seclusion of _ , ,_ the marble court, B ^^ where, in the cen- ^-' ^^B ^^^ ^^ ^ circle of maidens, each man- ipulating a tom- tom, a sort of man- dolin or other in- strument, accom- panied by a weird minor falsetto, a pretty figure drap- ed in flowing garments in happy con- trast with her sisters, dances gracefully and lithely with feather-like step and wave-like motion, seemingly enraptured with her own presence of loveliness. In Wester ti Levant. 215 How astonishingly like a dream is all this southern wonderland ! How far es- stranged from such a life, such a sphere, such a political and social state as ours ! The imperturbable, ceaseless pulse of this great people is as little in unison with the quick beat of our modern system as is the sluggish creep of the armadillo like the leap of the stag. Starvation, qui- escence— death : activity, progress, life ! They understand us so little, or rather misunderstand us so much, that they do not even comprehend the reason of our caring to study their ways and manners. Foreigners are objects of their pass- ing curiosity, perhaps, of their cupidity always, but of their serious interest never. The great brown capouchon^ and the white, faultless veil, both draw down mto most dreamy solitude the despiser of everything new, the hater of everything foreign. Not even the shrill, fierce cry of " Baleuk — baleuk ! " which causes them to stand aside for a dignitary and his attendants to pass by, give them anything more than a passing concern, and on they plod in their day- dreams, unconscious, apathetic, as in a 2i6 Tn Western Levant. trance of ecstasy. Then, in the midst of all this mercantile activity, obeying the command of the muezzin, business is for the moment suspended and the shrill funereal tones of the priest on the min- aret proclaim the hour and lament the vanity of all earthly things. This cry, heard in the small hours of the night, is mystifying indeed, where four-fifths of the faithful are asleep, and probably but one-fifth of the remaining one-fifth, give it more than a passing heed ; but here in the busy heart of the day to hear the wild, solemn chant rising and falling upon the gentle southern wind, now as if delivering a curse, now as if summon- ing up the whole nation's strength into one unbounded psalm of praise, is mys- tifying in the extreme. So conservative, so loving toward their offspring, so hating and intolerant of Christians and despis- ing of the Jew, so inexplicable in the mazes of goodness and vituperation, with all their religious fervor and sincerity to sharpen the strange southern portrait and give intensity to all they say and do, surely the Arabs are living paradoxes to the most scrutinizing foreign eyes. In Western Levant. 217 XL New Scenes Again. We left Algiers by rail early Tuesday morning, after having been regaled with coffee and rolls, the milk for the former being supplied by the goats that are driven from door to door, picturesque Algerian women and boys the custodians. The railroad bears around the beautiful blue bay in a north-easterly direction, the splendid villas dotting the hillsides here and there looking like opals in the rose tints of the early morning, contrasting with the rich background of verdure which half encloses them. The French have done much to improve Algeria, but it is an evident fact that they are no col- onizers as compared with the English. They stopped effectually the civil wars of the petty chiefs of the Arabs — the ignoble skirmishing which cost the able ranks a severe diminution the country could ill afford. They have also built a very good railroad from Oran to Tunis — the whole length of Algeria — some other roads from the sea inland, and otherwise developed the 2i8 In Western Levant. country. They have established small villages as refuges to receive the loyal .families of Alsace and Lorraine, after the forced possession taken of that dis- puted district by the Germans ; but as a general thing these magnanimous and patriotic asylums have not been a suc- cess. Only one of these villages seems to be in flourishing activity, leaving the remainder to effectually illustrate the folly of attempting to cork a bottle with a stone ; or in other words, of sup- plying a desideratum in a tropical prov- ince with the cold, solid, unsupple char- acter of the mountainous, middle Europe. Through tunnels and down the length of deep canons and gorges we sped, the scene on each hand one of con- tinued picturesque beauty. Now we pass a bright foaming cascade, the waters leaping down the ragged edge of the mountain with a cool, joyous sound ; now we glide by a Kabyle village, or contemplate from a distance a flock of sheep and goats in the valley, watched In Western Levant. 219 by their half-savage shepherd. The Kabyle villages on the top of the moun- tain ridges, with their brush wigwams and brush fences to keep off the wild animals, look as African and uncivilized as anything we have yet seen. Terrible tragedies are related with regard to the destruction and the murder of the French colonists by the Arabs and the fiercer natives of the Kabyle tribe in their last revolt of 187 1. XII. ^^ , At a village, which had The Journey. " ' but a passing charm for us — so passing that the altitudinous con- dition of the thermometer did not warrant our venturing from under cover — we were given a very good breakfast. The country about has been even in recent times infested with lions, and certainly a starving brood of beasts they must be that remain, for passing up through the mountains the country is like the back of a hedgehog — a sort of greyish dull neutral tint which belies the fact that ever grain or vegetable made In Western Levant. effort to glorify its Maker there. Still, there are patches of oats and barley, and now and then we see a brace of Arabs in the blazing sun, girdled with a rag about the waist, the rest of the body bronzed and bare, swinging the sickle with an ease that is as graceful a motion as the stroke of the oar of the Venetian gondolier. The thermometer stands 125*^ or thereabouts, and gives one a rare opportunity of testing the Northern blood, and of purifying it by boiling. The West is to be congratulated. I do not wonder that the oriental wor- ships fire, and that Mahommet per- formed so many miracles by its aid. I think I should turn Thalian if I lived here through the hot months, recognizing heat as the source of creation. Now and then we pass a Roman ruin to re- mind us of the Caesars whose triumphs have left records from Brittany to Per- sia — records which here, he must be a sturdy antiquarian, indeed, who in- vades for new classic light. The little towns are very similar, the trim French soldiers and the slovenly, but highly picturesque Arab, making confusion in In Western Levant. 221 the observance of old types. At Selif we pass a great market where the Kabyles from the mountains, the Arabs from the plains, and even the nomadic Saha- rans from the desert oases, meet to ex- change their various products, making a scene of indescrib2.ble effect of light and shadow, color and detail. We were glad to reach Constantine at midnight, after a journey over the hot plains and mountain plateaus since five o'clock in the morning. There was nothing of very serious discomfort to mar the flight into Tunis, having the whole compartment in the car to our- selves to lounge about at our serene complacency. We found Constantine a characteristic city of the western Orient, perched upon a high rocky plateau, sur- rounded by deep, dark ravines resem- bling the huge canons of the Colorado. It is a natural fortress, and in times previ- ous to Krupp guns that hurl a projectile for miles, must have been a keep almost impregnable. The former name was Cirta ; but A. D. 313 the present appel- lation, Constantine, was adopted, and for a number of years thereafter it main- 222 /;/ Western Levant. tained itself as a sort of independent re- public. About the old Roman ruins are many noteworthy relics of interest. The walls and crevices of the tumble- down relics are the homes of innumer- able birds with a shrill pipe, and here and there at the ancient cistern patched up for modern use, the Arab women and girls tread clothes with their feet, to perform the homely ablutionary duty which in our land is done by ma- chine. An old Roman mill of infinite picturesqueness, also patched up for modern use, is in full operation. The Arab quarter is as usually suggestive, the native as persistent in his gentle- manly habits of laziness as elsewhere, heroically giving over to the women the drudgery which would otherwise conflict with his daily long and deliberate cog- itations upon man and nature, which philosophical rhapsodies, judging from the gravity of each sheik's demeanor, means the salvation of the whole race. Constantine is a place noted for the lon- gevity of its inhabitants, but it is a sad fact that though there are fifteen tomb- stones here recording the ages of de- In Western Levant. 223 ceased from 100 to 132 years, the whole world does not flock hither, con- vincing us that the poor mortal would not live always. The muezzin \vi\\\^ minaret not far from our rooms aroused us from our slumbers by his dreamy call of ^^ Allah, iesa merua, Allah I " calling the faithful to worship. I arose and went to the window. The city was wrapped in slumber, and the lone fig- ure on the tower, with his hands extend- ed and his upturned face against the pale moonlight, made a weird and enchant- ingeffect. Then we heard his shuffling sandals clatter, clatter down the stone steps — a curiously contrasting sound, almost humorous in the way he is sup- posed to frighten off the devils with a pre- monition of his approach — and soon we heard his voice again repeating the sol- emn injunction from the top of another tower in a distant part of the city. Our route was to lead us to Biskera, the oasis on the desert approached from this point, but meeting a sirocco blowing fiercely from the burning sands, we were glad to abandon the project. A sight of the great rolling waste of sand- 2 24 ^^^ Western Levant. sky was so heartily crushing to our usu- ally good spirits, that we concluded to leave this part of our interesting journey to the chronicles of the past, which have never been so glowing that they have en- ticed the traveller into the desert for mere novelty. XIII. Carthage. '^^^ country between Constantine and the city of Tunis is much like Algiers — dry plains, plateaus, brush huts and moving caravans against the milk-white sky of the afternoon. On leaving Tunis some hours later, the moonlight shining through the great arches of the ancient aqueduct delights us with an effect most weird and estranging. What a stupendous piece of engineering the aqueduct must have been. Think of bearing water from the mountains of Zaghoan, a distance of sixty miles, over a great stone water course that conveyed seven millions of gallons per day into the great walled city of Carthage. How rich did this one fountain of God In Western Levant. makes this beautiful city, its gardens and suburbs ! Surel}^ it is an inspiring thought that is prompted at sight of these great stone arches which stand out in the pale moonlight like " the branched vertebrae of some gigantic ser- pent," to adopt the pointed simile of Sir Greenville Temple. The great Hadrian, under whose instruction so many huge and splendid feats of architecture and science took form, certainly outdid himself in this superb feat of engineer- ing. The great wall of Britain, from the Solway Firth to the Tyne, the great Temple to the .Olympian Venus which Pisistratus had left unfinished seven hundred years before, the lovely gardens and villa at Tivoli, the great Roman masses of masonry known as Hadrian's pile, and other majestic relics, leave traces of his gigantic intellect, cold and politic as it was in every degree. Tunis VIII. "A thousand raps on the door ; but alas ! few invitations to ' walk in.' "— ^ Moorish Saying. " I brought you good-will and a blessing ; I carry back a blessing and good-will."— ^r^*;/? the Arabic. " Salim aleyk !"— Peace be with y on \— Bedouin Salute. TUNIS. Cosn,opontan Tunis. ^he city of Tunis is composed of Jews and Mahommedans in about equal numbers, French and Maltese also in about equal numbers, and a scattering population of -Greeks, Italians and Germans. It stands on an isthmus, separating two saline bodies of water ; the salt bed of the drained pit is like a desert of blazing white sand. The Bar-el-Bey, or palace 230 In Western Levant. of the Bey of Tunis — that splendidly housed prisoner of war — we were dis- appointed to find a gross, uninterest- ing strcture, quite out of happy propor- tions, externally. The interior, how- ever, with the exception of the modern French part which is in ugly imitation of the ugly meretricious art of Louis the Sixteenth, is profuse in Moorish dec- orations, which in parts seem to have rivalled even the great Spanish Alhambra. There is a lamentable lack of taste and the sense for congruities when compar- ing the modern qualities of decoration with the ancient and more noble. We were interested in the paintings on the walls, portraits of Louis XVL, Napolean III., and the Bey of Tunis ; but espe- cially interesting to us, as may be im- agined, was the fine, full-length portrait of George Washington, whose kind face looked down from the canvas as benig- nantly and noble as ever, compelling us to take off our hats in reverence. The Moorish decorations of the ceiling, the marble sculpture of figures and various devises of antiquity, were extremely in- teresting. In Western Levant. 231 The new palace, not far distant, does not inspire one with much regard, save as an ethical revelation illustrating forcibly the ignominy of political downfall. This, as well as the former palace, was built for the Beys of Tunis ; but both are now kept up in a certain respectability, their tawdry chambers desolate and musty with neglect and decay, their harems and baths untenanted and left in charge of lazy servants— everything that be- speaks the completeness of the invader's subjugation of the conquered. The present Bey has lived during the nine years of French protectorship, at Marsa, and is really a prisoner of state, like a Maha Rajah of India, the real king being the French commandant or Resident General. The Bey for his superb figure- headship, as one might say, receives the munificent salary of one hundred thous- and francs per month — som ething like a quarter of a million dollars per annum. This is a sort of bribe to keep him and his Arab adherencs, who fret and chafe under the galling yoke of subjection, within peace-bounds. Other chiefs, it is said, receive large salaries as blood- 232 In We sterol Levant. money to keep them from mutual and general mutiny. The Bey's palace at Marsa we did not visit. This place of magnificent cap- tivity stands on a fine eminence com- manding a delicious view of the sober, blue Mediterranean. There, with his three hundred wives and concubines, and his body-guards to keep up the ap- pearance of power, the royal potentate takes life serenely, enjoying all the honor of a king with none of his respon- sibilities. XV. c ^ . .. ,,, We have seen here Fattening the Women. and in the city of Tunis, many of the handsome Jewish belles, dressed in their peculiar style, which would be very pretty were their forms not so short and stocky, their lower limbs measuring almost the circumfer- ence of the waist. Corpulency is the distinction desirable to be attained by Tunisian women to gratify the mascu- line taste, and they are raised for the matrimonial market with the care that a fatted bullock is for exportation. Their In Western Levant. 233 dress is peculiar — at first rather repul- sive than otherwise — skin-tight trousers, made of white muslin or silk, short jack- ets, loose and flowing, and made of some bright snapping color. They are very- handsome, particularly the young mai- dens, with large, quite ^almond-shaped black eyes, sable-black hair, sallow com- plexions, and heavy dark eye-brows and fine long lashes. As they parade up and down the Esplanade or lounge about the gardens in front of their homes on the sea-shore, they present a most at- tractive appearance — more so than any other feminine character we have seen, with the possible exception of the Madi- leiios in the more beautifying mantilla. In Tunis all the natives seem to be men; and as the Moorish women cannot appear on the street with uncovered faces, a black veil is here used instead of the white of other countries of the south- ern Mediterranean coast. The Jewish women, on the contrary, seldom go out, except at sunset and after to promenade on the Esplanade, and then they appear as gaudy as a bevy of ballet girls. In Western Levant. 235 The little Jewish children of the upper social ranks are the most artificial cari- catures, with their painted eyes, and pro- fusion of gew-gaws of varied brilliancy that heighten the grotesqueness of the portrait ; but the little ones of the mid- dle and lower caste are the most natural and healthful little sunbeams in the world, so unlike their waxy, dollish, upper-caste sisters. One meets them everywhere, yet never wearies of the ever varied tokens of careless naivete, yet intelligence withal, and the light freshness of their roguish countenances amid so much that is gloomy and de- pressing in these bewildering highways. I. To Carthage. ^^ ^^^^^ ^^t about eight miles northeast to inspect the remains of the ancient, renowned city of Carthage. " The rising- city which from far you see, Is Carthage. ..." wrote Virgil when he set forth in flow- ing numbers the now quite uncertain fact that the Phoenician Dido fled from Tyre to escape her brother's hatred, after that 236 In Western Levant. fierce king had killed Sichaeus, Dido's husband, through jealousy ; but most insignificant comparatively, are the ruins of this proud city on approaching by land or viewing from the sea. The Par- thenon, so conspicuous from the harbor of Piraeus, the temples and arches so in- viting of interest in Rome, the great mon- asteries of Ai in Balbec and in Thebes, inspire the approaching traveller with a sense of awe, and prepare him for a much higher degree of reverence to fol- low ; but Carthage, with all its noble history, is a most ignoble ruin. Fleeing from Tyre, and landing at the spot later named Carthage, Dido asked for so much land as might be enclosed with an ox-hide. This granted, she proceeded to cut the hide into threads and en- closed the whole hill-site upon which the citadel was forthwith built. So goes the tale, which lacks our personal confir- mation by the aid of the miserable Be- douins who hibernate or rather infest, the surrounding lands. But rather cer- tain is it, that though Dido may not have been the founder of the city, she was the enlarger and beautifier of it. In Western Levant. 237 The old aqueduct which looked so weirdly imposing as we approached the city of Tunis by moonlight from Con- stantine, now appeared dry and stupid, in the glare of noonday ; and this and the other ruins are occupied by gypsies by a happy skill of adaptation which only the barbarian, who does not believe in putting too much labor into anything, could improvise. One of the most in- teresting things was the old Roman mill, which was in operation, a lean old horse drawing the crank-pole, and the stone pestal grinding the meal. The old baths, large enough to bury a regiment or float a couple of gunboats — very like the reservoirs of Solomon near Hebron in the Holy Land, were also indicative of the decay of the times, for, indeed, the present inhabitants of this almost sacred soil, seldom wash; and, moreover, deem it a sin for which they would never be forgiven, to wash an infant before its first birthday. Doubtless this accounts for the terrible statistics of infant mortality among the Bedouins and lower Arabs and Moors, who are fast becoming an extinct race of people. 238 /// Western Levant. The old amphitheater and Basilica are the most imposing of relics here. The Roman wish has been fulfilled — Carthage is the most ignominious of ruins. Everywhere huge blocks of stone and carved fragments lie about, pillars, tiles, and sculptures. The location of Carthage must have been grandeur it- self. The sea before it leaping up to the edge of Dido's palace, the great salt in- land lake — back of the eminence the clear, tropic sky and the Zaghonan mountains, whence was conveyed the water to the ancient city, in the distance. The setting sun cast a vivid glow upon the vast heap of a once noble metrop- olis, and later, the moon came up over the mountain across the bay, sweeping a wide golden path along the calm wa- ters, the air was cool and refreshing after the dull lassitude of the hot day, and thus delighted with the happy finale of our historical drama, we drove back to the city. As we approached Tunis, we met the carriage of the Bey, closely covered, and were told that it contained some impor- tant personage of the Bey's harem. In , Western Levant. 239 . ^ , , ,. Early Sunday morninsr, A Celebration. •> ^ ^ ' the Bey was to arrive amidst the military splendor and the fir- mg of cannon, to attend the reception given in honor of the French celebration of the foundation of the republic, July 14. Like our Independence Day, it is a day of great festivity and rejoicing. Flags, bunting, and in the evening, illu- minations and fireworks, made merry all hearts, save those of the dethroned Moors and Arabs. They cheered lustily for their Bey, as he came into the city in a car- riage drawn by six horses, where he re- viewed the six thousand soldiers at this point — cavalry, zouaves and various companies. The Moors, in their long flow- ing robes and distinguished head-gear, looked picturesque enough to be really worthy of their own rule. When their grand outcast king had gone by, they looked sullen and grave, and soon re- tired into their strange seclusion, to brood, doubtless, upon the present un- happy condition of things for the in- vaded, and the fortune of the invaders. 240 In Western Levant. The Bey is very politic, however, and uses his strong and subtle influence to keep the subjugated in a state of peace, knowing the futility of resistance. II. The Child of the Past. ^^ ^^ a convincing fact that the Arab's social regime is impregnable to the innovations of modern life and convenience. Capa- ble of perceiving the delicate shades of the ideal, with a climate that renders most acutely resonant every intellectual fibre, and with a language whose ex- panse and richness bear all the refine- ments and indications of a high order of social life, the Arab is one and apart from the rest of mankind. He is too deeply rooted in the arbitrary convic- tions begotten of his forefathers, to be- lieve in aught that combats them. While all the world has progressed, wor- shipped the present and looked out for the future, the Arab has glorified the past like a true apostle of his creed, gainsaid nothing that his social script- ure had denominated true, and while In Western Levant. 241 he has turned his back on the present, his enemies have circumscribed him com- pletely. Modern wealth, manners, re- finements and the meanest comforts of conventional life have engendered no new quality which is recognizable in his contemporary art or science. He is one calm, unbending, unassimilating repetend of old fact foibles; and any one who in- vades this relic of his forefathers, is the meanest of triflers. His skill lies not in the resolving his social life into pictorial light, but rather in the hidden and mys- tical significance of things. Unconsci- ously, no doubt, the Arab is the subtilest Platonist, physically fragile, morally an extremest, mentally brilliant but im- placable, and altogether most affection- ate and ferocious. He has nothing of the synthethical, but bears all the faults and a few of the virtues of the analyti- cal faculty. He sees no connections be- tween his own sensitive nature and the external condition that is the result of his short-sighted analysis. Hence is it that the Northern reasoner — the cold, calculating analyzer with his disciplined acquisitiveness and his ductile morals, 242 In Western Levant. has touched the dreamer to waking ; but only to wake him into a knowledge of his own slavery. The Arab is a splendid study now only as a superb barbarian whose chief- est virtue is his splendid conservatism. The barbarian, like the highest type of the physical and intellectual man, is an intensely absorbing study ; the mediocre man only is utterly a point of abandon- ment. The barbarian is usually a type — a concise abridgment of old customs and obsolescent usage through which the observer may look into the dim but certain outlines of a thousand years be- fore him ; the highly civilized man, on the contrary, is the product of a race which, in its steady ascendency has cast aside superstions for the arts ; the ideal for the actual ; synthesis for analysis , the abstract for the severely concrete ; and the ideal, in a measure, for the material, yet with all the virtues of the former re- tained. He, too, is assuredly interesting — more so by far than the barbarian ; but the middle man — that uncertain, vacillating product of a society waking from the dregs of despotism into the In Western Levant. 243 light of republicanism, from the depth of intellectual torpor of restriction into the freedom of voice which is far more exultant than artistic, boisterous than refined — this mediocre man just crossing the intermediate strip of land between the natural barbarian and his splendid contemporary, is most despairingly void of interest. He has not the innate no- bility of the highest type, and lacks even the virtue of being an interesting bar- barian. What the conventional man sees is the great broad surface of life. Nothing above, nothing below this plane gives him more than a passing concern. Put an Arab in trousers, and what a sorry dog have you made of what was once characteristic and bold. Likewise clothe your higher type of man in a grey bournouse, or a deer-skin after the manner of your Sioux Indian, and what a grotesque anomaly have you made of this once dignified and noble condition. This much is said primarily to prove that the French occupation of Tunis will never make the Arab a Frenchman, nor the Frenchman an Arab. The second 244 ^^ Western Levant. thought is the lamentably evident one : that the Arab, like the North American Indian, with all his delightful character, his mystery, his nobility and his digni- fied setting of an old and precious pic- ture, must go. The world is too large for him. Once his kingdom was a con- tinent ; then the waters crept up till the broad area became an island. Soon it becomes a pinnacle — then it disappears. The anomalous individual will be merged into the conventional mass : the spring shall continue to bubble, but only at the bottom of a great sea. III. Adieu to Tunis. We left Tunis in a blaze of splendor on the night of the 14th of July, when fireworks, illum- inations, firing of cannon and the festiv- ities, strongly in character with those of our 4th of July, were in order. One of the notable events of the day was the fantasia of the Arabs on the plaza — a most dazzling series of barbarian feats upon the horse by a company of be- spangled Moors, mounted lustily upon In Western Levant. 245 richly caparisoned steeds which were trained with admirable discipline. The fantasia v»^as accompanied by the un- paralleled hubbub of the Arab tambou- rines, clapping of hands and shrill pipes, together with an unabated amount of enthusiasm on the part of all the spec- tators. We took the train to La Gou- lette, the port of Tunis, about eight miles distant from the latter city, which dependant borough is built almost en- tirely of the wreckage of ancient Car- thage. Tunis itself does not escape the charge of vandalism, be it known, and not unoften do we come upon dignified and noble sentiments carved upon stone which once consecrated the entrances of Carthagenian temples, and which now beam forth from the lintels of miserly looking Arab hovels in the heart of the city. The sail to Malta was one of unparal- leled beauty, the variable color of the calm waters defying the skill of art with their variegated hues and gentle inweav- ings of color and contrast. It seems so strange to be at last beyond the sights and sounds of Moorish character — the 246 In Wester 71 Levant. shrill " Baleuk ! " of the slave of the dig- nitary making room through the crowd- ed street for his mounted master, the supreme dignitary ; the bray of mules and the hoarse brawl of the camels ; the shrill, mournful piping of the Arab folk- song and the accompaniment thereto with voices of weirdest, clear-ringing cadence in unchangeable minors ; and last of all, that funereal, all commanding cry like a voice from eternity — the call to prayers of the muezzin on the minaret who speaks words in spirit intelligible even to us who do not understand the letter, words like the knell over the grave of all that is good and worthy, leaving us all the more bound to live and act full complete lives in the present when the great uncertainty of the future lies upon our right and our left hand. To the west a pretty island lifts from the waters as by magic — a lustrous " pearl set in a silver sea," the towers on its summits casting strange elongated shadows down to the edge of the waters, and the wheeling gulls venturing ever nearer the wreckage of some fish boats beyond. The sharp profile against the In Western Levant. 247 twilight gives it a spectral appearance, and robs it of its homely commonplace. A banker of Tunis — a very pleasing gen- tleman — gave us much valuable infor- mation regarding the natives of the country he was so proud to own as the land of his birth. He confided to us the story of his winning the love of a young American lady from Delaware, who was travelling with her parents in Africa some years ago, and who afterwards be- came his wife. Although his sons had received their education in America, neither his wife nor himself had been there since their marriage. " We are an- ticipating with much pleasure a visit to your country," said he, " and shall prob- ably live for a time in southern Califor- nia, having heard such glowing accounts of its climate." " How strange it ap- pears," I replied, '' that our people come to Algiers and Tunis to enjoy the bene- fits of your wonderful climate, while your people express a desire to visit our country for a like reason. It is the old story over again. Something better in some other place than our own." Our conversation drifted toward the 248 In Western Levant. subject of the Arabs and his experience with them. " People only glancing at the race with the superficial observation of a tourist," said he, " mistake the Arabs to be a wild and warlike people ; when in reality they are remarkably tractable, and in social life gentle and kind. They are boastful and assuming to a degree oftentimes, but true to the oriental spirit, strangely exaggerating in everything. He called to mind an in- cident that had occurred directly under his observation : " An Arab was com- manded by a former Bey, for some meri- torious service to his sovereign, to fill some important position under the gov- ernment. The fortunate courtier changed his wild fellahin dress for the robes of royalty as befitting his state, and I was present when he first appeared in the role of minister before his sovereign. He made an eloquent speech upon re- ceiving his appointment, and from that time became a trusted and popular aide to the monarch, amassing something of a fortune as well. Then came death and a change of rulers, and the Arab was de- posed, his whole fortune being confis- In Western Levant. 249 cated. It was then that the nobility of the man as superior to his position was manifest ; for he went back to his plow, assuming the native dress and manner with characteristic courage, and took up his simple mode of life again without a murmur." He said that the Arabs, as a rule, have a wonderful faculty of catching hold of an eloquent turn of thought or happy phrase, but true to this theory of bril- liance, are superficial in attainments, full of superstition, necromancy and sor- cery. He calls upon the present Bey of Tunis, but his impression of the ruler is that he is childish and has too much faith in his court sorcerers. " Nothing serious or worthy can come of Arab di- plomacy and social life till their girls are differently educated," he was pleased to say. " The training of the children is en- trusted to incompetent females who fill their young minds with senseless ro- mance and superstition, and nothing womanly and heroic can come of such pollution and ignorance." He said that his wife often visits the harems of the Bey, and is kindly re- 250 In Western Levant. ceived. I asked him about the rule re- quiring the native women to cover their faces in the street and elsewhere, not al- lowing any but their lords to look upon them. He said that their social law was very strict in this respect, "and why not ?" he added with characteristic emphasis, ** it is most necessary ; for Arab women, you must know, are not women, but fe- males ! " An instance of the stubborn stupidity with which this law is enforced, came under his observation. A very beautiful and accomplished young lady, the daughter of a dignitary, was very ill and a French physician of Tunis was called in, as a last resort, to prescribe for her. The bed was shielded by a screen, through which the patient's hand was thrust. The physician felt her pulse and said : " This young woman has a high, dangerous fever of some kind, and I must see her face, or I can do nothing for her. There was a long and serious consultation on the part of the father and the members of the household, after which the father returned to the phy- sician and replied ; " No ; I would In Western Levant. 251 rather my daughter should die than that you should look upon her face ! " and in a very short time she passed away. .... .c u The Arabs are under Injustice of French Taxation. an unusual oppression of taxes under the French, and to me it seems a great mistake pecuniarily on the part of the governors, to say nothing of the injustice to the Arabs. North Africa is an agricultural country and nothing else. The olive trees were formerly pro- ductive, and their cultivation was a great industry till the French placed a local tax of sixty per cent on all the oil produced here, and as a result, the farm ers cut down their olive orchards, as they cannot produce it with such a high tax. Tobacco culture might be an- other occupation, were it not for the fact that the home tax is so great that it is far cheaper to import from America^ 252 In Western Levant. And so we take our journey home- ward from the lands of the Bey and Sul- tan, thankful at heart for all the kind- ness received at the hands cf many, who, other than the common good will man to man, had no object in view save to give us happiness. It is gratifying in- deed to receive on every hand such marks of respect as has been often our good fortune, in places where we had no reason to expect more than a common business courtesy. It proves to us that an American, with his frank ways, gen- erous opinions in toleration of all that is honestly and devoutly believed in, may travel the wide world over and inspire respect in the hearts of those whose lan- guage, customs, traditions and religions, are entirely distinct from, and even at variance, with his own. Appendix. APPENDIX, NOTE I. — The Antiquity of Bull-Fighting. Although personally I heartily condemn, and find very ^vv reasons to extenuate indulgence rn, the wretched sport of bull-fighting in Spain, there are several interesting data which of^cr themselves to the student of Spanish history and antiquity, and that of other countries where the sport has been countenanced, and a few of these facts I have taken the liberty to append here. To an American the spectacle is thoroughly disgusting ; but likewise to the student of men, the antiquity of the brutal sport is of healthful and natural interest. The antiquity of Tauromachian art appears to be a mat- ter of much conjecture. It has been creditably argued that it is of Thessalian origin, and that Julius Caesar im- ported the sport from Greece for the edification of his sub- jects ; that the Moors assumed the science from the Ro- mans, bringing it to the high degree of spectacular effect which has been emulated by their more agile and skilfi'l II In Western Levant, followers. Passages in Libey and Festus would lead us to infer that the Ludi Tauralia were games instituted in honor of certain anniversary events, as were the Olympian games in Sparta ; but from Servius and Varro we learn that these were religious observances, and certain gym- nastic exercises performed by men wrapped in the pelts of bulls. We also learn that Tarquinius Superbus instituted a form of religious penance which might lead us to believe that the Taurobolia were merely bull-pits. Silius makes note of the games of Scipio into which the Andalusians took part; and Suetonius gives a detailed account of a series of gladiatorial an 1 other festivities beginning with the Eastern, probably Median, games, and ending with those of Andalusia, which doubtless were the matching of bulls against bulls, rather than against men. Iberian coins bear the images of bulls, which might have been the em- blem of Osiris, in Spain worshipped as Hercules, or of Astarte, rather than emblems of Tauromachian triumph. Humboldt made a journey to Biscay to study the Oscan in- scriptions, and the sculptured alto-relievo discovered in the ruins of Clunia, which represented various scenes, leading one to believe bull-fighting to be of Iberian origin. How- ever, of the Thessalian origin of the dangerous sport there is ample evidence. Philippus, the Thessalian poet, des- cribes the exact manner of parrying and overwhelming the ferocious bulls in the ring, in exact accordance with the rules laid down to the modern Picadores. A denarius,, a small coin of Thessaly, bears the image of a fierce bull with the impression of the head of Caesar on the converse. Claudius, and his successor, Nero, instituted games similar to bull-fighting, records of which are extent. Wilkinson, in his learned work on the manners and customs of ancient "ofypt, proves clearly that combats of men against men c\ In Western Levant. iii foot, and against bulls, were known in the remotest period to the Pharoahs, and substantiates a theory from sculptures on certain tombs at Beni Hassan and Thebes. Bull-pens, and other appurtenances of the amphitheatres at Murviedro, at Murida and Italica, prove that bull-fights were common there. At Avila, on a certain marriage festival in 1107, a bull-fight was celebrated, in which Moors and Christians both fought; and in 1124, at Sajdana, when Alphonso VII., of the Count of Barcelona, a similar festivity took place, according to Moratin, in his Origen de las fiestas de toros. The conquest of Andalusia, in the thirteenth century, set- tled Granada as a point of headquarters for bull-fighters. We learn from Alphonso the Wise, that the clergy were prohibited from viewing, and Christians were prohibited from taking part, in the combats, which lead us to believe that only Moors participated. Gibbon gives an account of a combat celebrated in the year 1332, in the coUiseum at Rome, " after the fashion of the Moors," so that the Ro- mans appear to have borrowed from Spain the very sport which it is well contended was imported from Rome into Andalusia. And so down from the thirteenth century, we find records of bull-running and bull-fighting, with methods more or less barbarous and unskilful, till 1440, where we find in Baston's letters that " there is one commg to England, a knight out of Spain, the which knight will run a course with a sharp spear, etc.," which may account for the bull-bating custom of England, mentioned by Fitz Stephen and Hentzner, who declared that bill and bear- baiting were popular sports with the London youth in the time of William the Third. A curious phrase is to be found in the letters to Lord Colchester, in which Howell gives an account of this " chiefest of all Spanish sports. Commonly there are men killed at it ; therefore there are priests ap- IV In Western Levant. pointed to be there to confess to them. It hath happened oftentimes, that a bull hath taken up two men upon his horns, with their entrails dangling about them. As I am told, the Pope hath sent divers bulls against this sport of bulling, yet it will not be felt, the nation hath taken such an habitual delight in it." In the life of the reverend Father Bennet, of Canfilde, 1623, is the following sarcastic observation that : " Even Sunday is a day designed for beare-bayting, and even the howre of theyre (the Protestants) service is allotted to it ; and indeed, the tyme is as well spent at the one as at the other," which does not argue well for the enthusiasm of the church in the time of James the First. Good Queen Elizabeth certainly enjoyed the bear-baiting entertainment at Killingsworth, in 1575, a curious account of which is in Laneham's account, which begins: " Well, Syr, the Bearz wear brought foorth intoo the Court, etc.," which, when the battle was well begun, continues with vigor, " there- fore, with fending and prooving, with plucking and tug- ging, skratting and byting, by plain tooth and nayll a to side and toother, such expens of blood and leather waz thear between them az a moonth's licking, I ween, wyl not recoover." NOTE II.— Anecdotes of Velasquez. There is, however, one unvarying rule with regard to the real greatness of a master, which makes MuriUo in many respects the superior man. The artist who has no imitators is but a master of situations already achieved by others. Few are the imitators of Velasquez, so tremendous an imi- tator himself, but the followers of the style of Murillo are legion. A prodigious number of works represented to be In Western Levant. by him, are proven to be those of his pupils and contem- poraries. Of Velasquez there is a pretty anecdote in Cum- berland's Spanish Painters. King Philip had fitted up a painting room especially to the convenience of his favorite, to which chamber the king alone, beside the painter, had access. Velasquez had just finished a portrait of Don Adrian Pulido, Admiral of the king's fleet. This ofificer was under orders to repair to the command of the fleet, when Philip entered Velasquez's studio, and mistaking the portrait for the admiral himself, entered into a violent expostulation for daring to disobey his sovereign's orders. It was only upon touching the portrait with his hand that he could be convinced that it was indeed not he whom he believed it. Another, perhaps more widely quoted anecdote, sets forth the woes and final triumph of the slave of Velasquez, who, noting the fact that the king, on his visits to his famous courtier, demanded to inspect every canvas which stood on the floor, face to the wall, conceived the plan of substitut- ing one of his own ambitious studies, done during his mas- ter's siestas, for one of those by the painter himself. The king demanded to see it, and commenting upon its merit, was astounded upon being told by the slave on bended knee, that, living so closely in contact with such genius, he had imbibed of his master's quality, and had performed this in evidence of it. The king bade him rise and com- mended him to the artist who was no less astonished and pleased ; and the slave, now a freedman, was no less a personage than Paresa, who afterwards became distinctly eminent in portraits. Every style of painting then known, sooner or later found in Velasquez an expositor, and the teacher was even su- perior to his text. Titian, Greco, and Claude, m landscape, VI In Western Levant. Salvator and the Dutch contemporaries, all poured into that gigantic mould their peculiar metals which came forth with the stamp of his Spanish mintage. From the highest historical situations to the most commonplace detail of gypsy low life, his genius was all things to all men. Now it is a farm-yard, with fowls and cattle, and a deep Anda- lusian sky ; now the deep blue distances and the mellow, royal colors of the drapery of his portrait of Philip. How striking was the antipodal character of these two friends and contemporaries, Murillo and Velasquez ! The former, within the four walls of a sacristy of Seville, idealizing with devotional enthusiasm, painting saints and angels floating upon ethereality, and attaining the highest degree of perfection in the art which has the church for its patron ; and on the other hand, the latter painter on the balcony of the royal palace of Madrid, portraying in cold, silvery tones, the last rays of the sun upon the distant range of Guadarrama, or in the great halls of his king and friend, eminently the man of tact and diplomacy, brilliant, worldly, far-seeing and indefatigable. But whether or not Murillo was the painter of angels, and Velasquez the painter of men— whether or not the great estranged, ethereal genius of the former was as a bright iri- descent bubble to the substantial, devoted worldiness of the latter,— it remains a fact that Murillo's works are pre- eminently expressive; and "it is for the expressive talents," as Henry James says of Daudet, " that we feel an affection." Murillo answers this demand. Seldom do we find a man with more than one great idea. Michael Angelo was one, Donatello was most surely another, Leonardo da Vinci, the man whom both Draper and Hailam pronounced to have been " of knowledge almost preternatural," who In Western Levant. anticipated Castelli on the laws of hydraulics, andj fore- shadowed one of the greatest hypotheses of geology— the elevation of continents, and who carried these great weights of learning with the ease with which he painted " The Last Supper," was without dispute another of the world's rare men of more than one idea. Still, Reubens had but one, and he was great. A magnificent piece of flesh was the heighth and breadth of his theme, and beyond it, either spiritually or with the passion of tragedy or comedy, he could not discern any available material. Velasquez was the intellectual painter with but one idea ; Murillo, the rhapsodist with a higher idea, considered poetically, and consequently, a less sure touch and manner, considered technically. While the former could paint the high-born noble, and forget not to reproduce that ineffable distinction which is the result of high-breeding, he took nothing in a higher light than mere realism. He wanted to paint the highest type of the race, and found it in the nobleman. Murillo found his nobles in the street, in the underground hovels — anywhere, taking Nature unawares, and always at her best, her most unguarded moment. Like a clever photographer, who, while pretending to be arranging pre- liminarily, engages the stiff poser in a genial conversation, and snaps the instantaneous plate at the inspired moment, so Murillo, while we cannot admire him as the giant of technique and perspective that his contemporary was, we love far more, feeling invigorated and perhaps flattered in the presence of his works ; and though we oftentimes do not approve, with true sincerity we applaud, blessing so much appealing sincerity in another. VIII /;/ IVesterfi Levant. NOTE III.— Saracenmc Philosophy. It maybe pardonable in a discursive narration of personal experiences in Spain, and particularly here in the midst of scenes which seem so redolent of the deep spirit of contem- plation familiar to the Mahommedan schoolmen contem- porary with the achievements of art and architecture whose remains lie all about us, to touch lightly upon the philo- sophical development of thought, in contradiction with that which was so zealously religious. In Europe while the scholastic controversy between Nominalism, with Ros- cellinus as its extreme champion, and Realism, with Anselm as its profound exponent, was warring upon theological dogma which left the polemics at exactly their starting point after forty years of intellectual sparring, the Arabs and the Jewish thinkers, so largely indebted to the Nes- torians in Syria, no doubt, were achieving noble things in speculative science in these two cities, Seville and Cordova. Aristotle, already excommunicated by the church of Rome ( they did not fear to excom_nunicate dead philosophers, comets, vermin— anything troublesome whether living or dead, in those times), and the followers of the great Peripatetic threatened with public flagellation, the Saracens amid these hills and by the same rushing waters, were vieing with their Moslem brethren in and about the Calif's court in Bagdad in construing the great Thracian's theories of universals in the interest of the Koran. The first really great thinker who left a profound impression upon his con- temporaries and upon scientific thought to the present, was Averroes, who flourished here in Cordova in the twelfth century. He was an Aristotlean with an enthusiasm for his master which amounted to adoration. He took up the theory of evolution with splendid sincerity, arguing logically tnat creation was merely the " transition from In Western Levant. ix potentiality to actuality." He argued that only the few can obtain high philosophical truth ; that for the rest of mankind, merely a popular creed was the necessity. To him, strangely enough, is the discovery of the spots on the sun attributed. Upon Albertus Magnus, William of Occam, the P'ranciscan, and even Thomas Acquinas, "the incar- nate spirit of scholasticism," the mantle of Averroes fell with an unmistakable aroma of the famous Cordovian cling- ing to it. This was the rostra Julia of all the thinking world. Although the Christians were intolerant of any commentators of even their own creed, the Arabs here con- vocated thinkers from all parts of the then small world. From France under intolerant bigotry of Philip and Louis le Gros^ from Germany under the fourth and fifth Henry, from Rome under the overbearing Pope Pascal H., and from Venice under the more lenient Doge Foledro,— from all Christian Europe, in fact, as well as from Persia and Egypt, the philosophers of every shade of opinion were permitted an audience. What a splendid period ! and what a crown- ing contrast with the ignoble intolerance of Christian auto- crats were these splendid thinkers, the high-minded fol- lowers of the prophet ! Thk Jewish Scholars And now, glancing superficially at the Jewish represen- tations in science contemporary with these noble reliquaries, we find that the generous befriending of the persecuted Jews, who suffered under Christian rulers, by the Moslem Califs, brought to the benefactors' religion many a staunch adherent of the Tadmud. Among the important converts who own Cordova as their native city, is the celebrated Rabbi, Moses Ben Maimon, or more generally known, Maimonides, the forerunner of the great Hebrew phil- In Western Levant. osopher of Amsterdam, Spinoza. His learning was gigan- tic. Like a sponge, that daring intellect absorbed every- thing within the reach of his times. Commentaries on the scriptures, on medicine compiled from Egyptian, Greek, and Hindoo sources, treatises on astronomy, and reconciliations of the Old Testament with reason— everything unattempted and worthy for the present exigency he absorbed and poured out again, refined by the sunlight of his own fierce intellect. Avicebron, of Malaga, although before Maim- onides in point of time, was the author of the celebrated "/''<:;« J 7/ ?V(»," that work of profound pantheism, wherein is taken that perilous stand in maintaining the universality of the opposition of Matter and Form throughout the sen- sible, the intelligible, and the moral words, arguing at the same time their mdissoluble unity. His influence was felt by Maimonides, while likewise, in spite of unbounded en- thusiasm in the doctrines of Aristotle, refused to admit " the eternity of the world ex parte ante,'' and that divine intelli- gence alone contains the possibility to universal forms. But it is not necessary to dilate to a fuller length this list of learned Moslems and Jews ; it but remains to say that the splendid schools of Seville, Cordova and Salerno were turning out doctors of medicine, jurisprudence and the kindred sciences by the score and that soon the whole of the benighted, corrupted, relic-worshipping world outside the Moslem dominions were flooded with Jewish exponents of the several perfected and modernized sciences, and it be- came necessary for the church to surpress them by not suf- fering the Christian world to employ their services, under penalty of death to both employer and scholar. The educational standard during the period of Saracenic ascendency and at its meridian in Spain, was commensurate with the highest standards of the contemporary achieve- In Western Levant. xi ments of the East. AH, the fourth successor of the great prophet, left injunctions with regard to the education of youth, which was as faithfully regarded here as at the hearthstone of his chief. Nearly a hundred public libraries were sustained at different points— an astonishing mark of the times— and every mosque had a school for the educa- tion of youth in the simple rudiments, and in the pre- cepts of the Koran. The Mahommedan maxim " that true wisdom in a man is mor to be regarded than any religious or other conviction he may entertain," was generously carried into practice. With such acountry such a language with a possibility in its breadth and bounty to give to human thought the keenest and nicest gradations of word-coloring with a religion which enthused the devoted even to fanati- cism, yet enlarged their hearts and found them manly in their liberality, with politeness and personal grace the chief factor of Cordovian social life, and such masters of the arts and sciences to give weighi and quaHty to the edu- cation to the youth how could it do otherwise than evolve a civilization at once unique, in comparatively foreign soil, exalted by reason of the dignity of its purpose, and refined by the very nature of its climate, and wealth, and national character ? And yet all this has passed away. The school where the portly gownsmen paced the brilliant porticoes, the fireside where the story-teller from Babdad and Morocco gathered the household and told and retold the stories that gladdened the hearts of their forefathers, the pulpit, the rostrum,— everything that edified the race and proved its superiority, has passed away ; but the spirit lives and has a being in the achievements of our own times, and certainly a place in the heart of him who contemplates these relics with a genuine sincerity of heart. YB 58)42