THE WILDS OF PALESTINE
The sun, rising red and clear next morning, put to rout even the
protests of Nehmé and Shukry against my departure on Sunday. Elias
sorrowfully said farewell at the mission gate. The teachers, carrying
between them a package at which they cast mysterious glances now and
then, conducted me to the foot of the Nazarene range. Pointing out a
guiding mountain peak that rose above Gineen, far across the trackless
plain of Esdraelon, they bade me good-by almost tearfully, thrust the
package into my hands, and turned back up the mountain pass. Half
certain of what the bundle contained, I did not open it until noonday
overtook me, well out on the plain. Inside was a goodly supply of
gkebis, oranges, native cheeses, and black olives; and at the bottom, a
bundle of home-made cigarettes, and a package of “arabee,” with a book
of papers.
Late afternoon brought me to the edge of Esdraelon. A veritable garden
spot, covered with graceful palms and waving pomegranates and perfumed
with the fragrance of orange and lemon groves, covered the lower slope
of the peak that had been my phare. Back of the garden stood the
fanatical town of Gineen. The appearance of a defenseless unbeliever in
their midst aroused its inhabitants to scowls and curses, and a few
stones from a group of youngsters at a corner of the bazaar rattled in
the streets behind me. My letter was addressed in native script. The
squatting shopkeeper to whom I displayed it attempted to scowl me out of
countenance, then, recalling his duty of hospitality towards whoever
should enter his dwelling, called a passing urchin and, mumbling a few
words to him, bade me follow. The urchin mounted the sloping
market-place, made several unexpected turnings, and, pointing out a
large house surrounded by a forbidding stone wall, scampered away like
one accustomed to take no chances of future damnation by lingering at
the entrance to a Christian hotbed.
I clanged the heavy knocker until the sound echoed up and down the
adjoining streets, and, receiving no response, sat down on the curb. A
well-dressed native wandered by and I displayed the letter. He glared at
it, muttered “etnashar săă” (twelve o’clock, i. e., nightfall by Arabic
reckoning) and continued his way. From time to time visitors paused at
neighboring gates or house doors and, standing in the center of the
street, lifted up their voices in mournful wails that endured long
enough to have given the wailer’s pedigree from the time of Noah; and
were finally admitted. Beggars made the rounds, wailing longer and more
mournfully than the others, seldom ceasing until a few bread-sheets or
coppers were tossed out to them. Bands of females, whose veils may have
covered great beauty or the hideous visages of hags, drew up in a circle
round me now and then to discuss my personal attractions, and to fill me
with the creepy feeling one might experience at a visit of the White
Caps or the Klu-Klux Klan.
Full two hours I had squatted against the wall when an old man, in
European garb, slowly ascended the street, mumbling to himself as he ran
through his fingers a string of yellow beads. He paused at the gate and
pulled out a key. I sprang to my feet and handed him the letter. He read
it with something of a scowl and, motioning to me to wait, went inside.
A long delay followed. At last the gate groaned and gave exit to the
ugliest creature in the Arab world. He was a youth of about twenty, as
long as a day without bread, and too thin to deflect a ray of light. His
shoulders were bowed until his head stuck out at right angles to his
body; his long, yellow teeth protruded from his lips; in his one eye was
the gleam of the rascal; and his very attitude stamped him as one who
hated faranchees with a deadly hatred. Around his lank form hung a
half-dozen long, flowing garments as from a hat-rack, and on his head
was the coiffure of the Bedouin.
I caught enough of his snarling harangue to know that he was a family
domestic ordered to conduct me to the servants’ quarters. On the
opposite side of the long street he unlocked a battered door, and
admitted me to a hovel furnished with a moth-eaten divan and a pan of
dead coals. A dapper young native entered soon after and addressed me in
fluent French.
“My family is in a sad situation,” he explained; “we are friends of the
Kawar and so always the friends of his friends. But we are the only
Christians in Gineen and so we can only give you servant quarters.” His
train of reasoning was not particularly clear. “But you must not stay in
Gineen to-night. If you wait until to-morrow, you must go on alone and
in the mountains are Bedouins who every day catch travelers, and fill
their eyes and mouths and noses with sand, and drag them around by a
rope, and cut them up in small pieces, and scatter them all around! You
must go to-night, with the mail-train. Then you will be safe.”
“I’ve tramped all day,” I protested; “I’ll find lodgings in the town if
I am inconveniencing your family.”
“Mon Dieu!” shrieked the young man; “there you would be cut to pieces in
an hour! Gineen hates Christians. If you stop here, they will beat my
family—”
His distress, real or feigned, was so acute that I assented at last to
his plan. He ordered the misshapen servant to bring me supper, and
departed.
The living caricature followed his master and returned with a bowl of
lentils and several “side dishes.” With him appeared two companions,
almost as unprepossessing of mien as himself; and he had no sooner
placed the food on the floor than all three squatted around it and,
clawing with both hands, made way with the meal so rapidly that I had
barely time to snatch a few mouthfuls. When the last scrap had
disappeared, the newcomers fell to licking out the bowls. The elongated
servant set up the wailing monotony that is the Arabic notion of a song,
and, swaying back and forth and thrusting out his misplaced fangs in a
fixed leer, he continued for an unbroken two hours a performance which
the roars of mirth from his mates proved was no compliment to
faranchees.
Towards nine in the evening he turned his fellow-rascals into the
street, and motioning to me to take up my knapsack, dived out into the
night. By good fortune I managed to keep at his heels without splitting
my head on the huts among which he dodged and doubled in an effort to
shake me off before we arrived at the mail-train khan. The keeper was a
bitter enemy of unbelievers and admitted me only under protest, and with
a steady flow of vile oaths that was unchecked as long as I remained in
the building. My guide deposited his cadaverous frame on a heap of chaff
and took up his song of derision and his leering where he had left off.
At the appearance of the mail train the song ceased, and the singer,
having briefly stated the desire of his master, disappeared. The snarls
of the servant and the khan-keeper had been friendly greetings compared
with those of the three drivers of the mail train. To all appearances
they were more to be feared than capture by sand-stuffing Bedouins; but
my sponsor was a man of higher caste than mere muleteers and would
surely in some degree hold them responsible for my safe arrival—so it
seemed—and I determined to stick to the plan. Of the four mules that
made up the train, one was saddled with the mail-sacks and, at a signal
from the leader, the driver sprang astride the others. The khan door
opened, letting in a cutting draught of January air, and I followed the
party outside, fully expecting to be offered a mount. The train,
however, kept steadily on. The hindmost Arab signed to me to grasp the
crupper of his mule; then he cut the animal across the flanks perilously
near my fingers. Only then did the truth burst upon me. Instead of
letting me ride, as certainly the Christian had expected them to do, the
rascals had taken this golden opportunity to reverse the usual order of
things Oriental. The true believers would serenely bestride their
animals and the faranchee might trot behind like a Damascus donkey-boy.
I fancied I heard several chuckles of delight, half-smothered in blatant
curses.
The night was as black as a Port Saïd coaling nigger. In the first few
rods I lost my footing more than once and barked my shins on a dozen
boulders. The practical joke of the Arabs, however, was not ended. Once
far enough from the khan to make a return difficult, the leader shouted
an order, the three struck viciously at their animals, and with a rattle
of small stones against the boulders away went the party at full gallop.
I lost my grip on the crupper, broke into a run in an attempt to keep
the pace, slipped and slid on the stones, struck a slope that I had not
made out in the darkness, and stumbling halfway up it on my hands and
knees, sprawled at full length over a boulder.
I sat up and listened until the tinkle of the pack-mule’s bell died away
on the night air; then rose to grope my way back to the khan. It was
closed and locked. By some rare fortune I found my way to the street in
which the Christian lived and pushed open the door of the hovel. The
room was unoccupied, though the lighted wick of a tallow lamp showed
that the servant had returned. I spread out three of the four blankets
folded away on the divan and lay down. A moment later the walking
mizzenmast entered, leaped sidewise as though he saw the ghost of a
forgotten victim, and spreading the remaining blanket in the most
distant corner, curled up with all his multifarious garb upon him. I
rose to blow out the light, but the Arab set up a howl of abject terror
that might have been heard on the northern wall of Esdraelon, and I
desisted.
The route between Gineen and Nablous was in strange contrast to that of
the day before, much like a sudden transition from Holland to an
uncivilized Tyrol. Directly back of the fanatical town lay range after
range of rocky peaks, half covered with tangled forests of oak and
terebinth. A pathway there was, but it indicated little travel, and
broke up now and then into forking trails from which I could only choose
at random. Against a mountain side, here and there clung a black-hide
village of roving Bedouins. These were the tribes which, if rumor was to
be believed, busied themselves with corralling lone Christians and
scattering their remains among the wooded valleys. To-day, however, they
were engaged in a no more awful vocation than the tending of a few
decimated flocks of fat-tailed sheep.
Late in the morning I came in sight of the mud village of Dothan. A
well-marked path marched boldly up to the first hovel, ran close along
its wall, swung round behind the building, and ended. It neither broke
up into small paths nor led to an opening in the earth; it merely
vanished into thin air as if the hovel were the station of some aërial
line. A score of giant mongrels, coming down upon me from the hill
above, gave me little time for reflection. Luckily—for my clothing, at
least—there lay within reach a long-handled kettle such as natives use
in boiling lentils; and half the mangy population of the village,
tumbling down the slope to gaze upon the unprecedented sight of a lone
faranchee in their midst, beheld him laying about him right merrily. Not
one of the villagers made the least attempt to call off the curs. It was
the usual Arab case of every man’s dog no man’s dog.
The village above was a crowded collection of dwellings of the same
design as those of the Esquimaux, with mud substituted for snow, perched
on a succession of rock ledges that rose one above the other. The human
mongrels inside them answered my inquiries with snarls and curses, one
old hag exerting herself to the extent of rising to spit at me through
her toothless gums. Wherever a narrow passageway gave suggestion of a
trail I scrambled up the jagged faces of the rock ledges in an effort to
find the route. As well might a landlubber have attempted to pick out
the fore-royal halyards. Regularly I brought up in back yards where
several human kennels choked the ground with their sewerage and the air
with their smoke, and the reward of every scramble was several gashes in
my hands and volleys of curses from the disturbed householders.
I caught sight at length of a peasant astride an ass, tacking back and
forth through the town, but mounting steadily higher. Shadowing him, I
came out upon an uninhabited ledge above. The precipitous path beyond
was but a forerunner of the entire day’s journey. Over the range I
overtook the peasant, and not far beyond a horseman burst out of a
tributary cut and joined us. The peasant carried a cudgel and a long,
blunt knife, and seemed quite anxious to keep both in a position that
would attract attention. The horseman, in half-civilian, half-military
trappings, carried two pistols and a dagger in his belt, a sword at his
side, and a long, slim gun across his shoulders. The countryman offered
me a mount, but, as his beast was scarcely my equal in weight, I
contented myself with trudging at the heels of the animals.
About noon, in a narrow plateau, we came upon an open well from which a
party of Bedouins, that I should not have chosen to meet alone,
scattered at sight of the officer. My companions tethered their animals
on the lip of grass and drew out their dinners. The officer knelt beside
the well with a pot; but the water was out of reach of his corpulent and
much-garbed form, and the peasant being of the Tom Thumb variety, I won
the eloquent gratitude of both by coming to the rescue. Vainly I
struggled to do away with the food that was thrust upon me from either
side. The officer was, evidently, a man of wide experience and
savoir-faire. Not only did he display no great astonishment at the
faranchee manner of eating, but he owned a mysterious machine that
filled the peasant with speechless awe. The mystery was none other than
an alcohol lamp! Not until the coffee was prepared could the countryman
be enticed within ten feet of it. But once having summoned up courage to
touch the apparatus, he fell upon it like a child upon a mechanical toy
and examined its inner workings so thoroughly that the officer spent a
half-hour in fitting it together again.
During the afternoon the peasant turned aside to his village, and not
far beyond, the horseman lost his way. I could not but speculate on the
small chance I should have had alone on a route which eluded a native
well acquainted with the country. We had followed for some distance a
wild gorge which, ending abruptly, offered us on one side an impassable
jungle of rocks and trees, and on the other a precipitous slope covered
for hundreds of feet above with loose shale and rubble. The officer
dismounted and squatted contentedly on his haunches. In the course of an
hour, during which my companion had not once moved except to roll
several cigarettes, a bedraggled _fellah_ approached and replied to the
officer’s question by pointing up the unwooded slope. Three times the
horse essayed the climb, only to slide helplessly to the bottom. The
Arab handed me his gun and, dismounting, sought to lead the steed up the
slope by tacking back and forth across it. Several times the animal fell
on its haunches and tobogganed down the hill, dragging the cavalryman
after him. The gun soon weighed me down like a cannon; but we reached
the summit at last, and were glad to stretch ourselves out on the solid
rock surface of the wind-swept peak.
The officer spread out food between us. To the southward lay a panorama
that rivaled the prospect from the summit of Jebel es Sihk. Two ranges
of haggard mountains, every broken peak as distinct in individuality as
though each were fearful of being charged with imitation of its fellows,
raced side by side to the southeast. Between them lay a wild tangle of
rocks and small forests through which a swift stream fought its way,
deflected far to the southward in its struggle towards the Mediterranean
by the rounded base of the mountain beneath us. Over all the scene
hovered utter desolation and solitude, as of an undiscovered world
innumerable leagues distant from any human habitation.
For an hour we followed the trend of the stream far below, rounding
several peaks and gradually descending. The path became a bit more
distinct; but our surroundings lost none of their savage aspect, and as
far as the eye could see appeared neither man, beast, nor fowl. Suddenly
the cavalryman, rounding a jutting boulder before me, reined in his
horse with an excited jerk, and, grasping his sword, pointed with the
scabbard across the valley. “Nablous!” he shouted. I hastened to his
side. On a small plateau far below us, and moated by the rushing stream,
in a setting of haggard wilderness, stood a city, a real city, with
street after street of closely packed stone buildings of very modern
architecture. Like a regiment drawn up in close ranks, the houses
presented on four sides an unwavering line; inside there was not an open
space, outside hardly a shepherd’s shelter.
We wound down the mountain path to an ancient stone bridge that led
directly into the city. A squad of those ragged, half-starved soldiers
indigenous to the Turkish empire would have stopped me at the gate but
for my companion, who, with a wave of the hand, drove them off. Without
prelude we plunged into the seething life of the bazaars. The streets
were as narrow, as intricate, and as numerous as those of Damascus; but
their novelty lay in the fact that they were nearly everywhere vaulted
over, and one had the sensation of strolling through a crowded subway
from which rails and cars were lacking. The shoes of the horse rang
sharp and metallic against the cobblestones as the animal plowed his way
through the jabbering multitude, and by keeping close at his heels, I
escaped the returning waves of humanity that rebounded from the unbroken
line of shops on either side of the narrow passages to fill our wake.
The cavalryman dismounted before a shop that minutely resembled its
neighbors, handed the reins to a keeper who advanced to meet him, and
urgently invited me to spend the night in the inn above. My Nazarene
friends, however, had intrusted me with personal epistles, which I felt
in duty bound to deliver.
The addressee was one Iskander Saaba, a Nazarene school teacher. His
house was not nearly so easily found as the proof that the inhabitants
of Nablous were fanatical, unreasonable haters of Christians. In the
cities of Asia Minor the streets are neither named nor the houses
numbered. Mr. Smith, you learn, lives near the house of Mr. Jones. If
you pursue the investigation further you may gather the information that
Mr. Jones lives not far from the house of Mr. Smith, and all the raving
of western impatience will not gain you more. A few yards from the inn a
water carrier and a baker’s boy struck me simultaneously in the ribs
with their respective burdens. A wayward donkey, bestrided by a leering
wretch, ran me down. A tradesman carrying a heavy beam turned a corner
just in time to give me a distinct view of a starry firmament in a
vaulted passageway. These things, of course, were purely accidental. But
when three stout rascals grasped the knapsack across my shoulders and
clung to it until I had kicked one of them into a neighboring shop, and
a corner street vendor went out of his way to step on my heels, I could
not so readily excuse them. As long as I remained in the teeming bazaars
these sneaking injuries continued. Wherever I stopped a crowd quickly
gathered and showed their enmity openly by jostling against me, by
reviling the whole faranchee race, and even by spitting on my nether
garments.
In a residential district my inquiries were answered at last, and I was
soon welcomed with true Arabian hospitality by Iskander Saaba. A most
pleasant evening I spent in the dwelling of the youthful teacher, a cosy
house adjoining the mission school, the windows of which looked down on
the roaring river far beneath. The family and a white-haired native,
whom Saaba introduced as “my assistance in the school,” plied me with
questions ranging from the age of my grandfather to the income of my
various cousins, and gasped when I pleaded ignorance. But these things
were but harmless examples of the frankness of the Arab, at which only
an underfed mortal could have taken offense.
A steady rain was falling next morning and my host awoke me with the old
saw—“To-morrow is just as good a day as to-day.” When I had convinced
him that this was not an Occidental proverb, he set out to pilot me
through the city. On the way he paused often to purchase food or
tobacco, with which he stuffed my knapsack in spite of my protests,
answering always: “It is far to Jerusalem, and some day I will come to
America.” All in all, he did not spend twenty-five cents; but I was well
nigh staggering under my load when I took leave of him at the southern
gate of the city and struck off across the oblong plateau shielded by
Mt. Ebal and Mt Gerizim. Since the day when it was called Shechem, a
city of refuge, Nablous has carried on much traffic with Jerusalem, and
in recent years the pusillanimous Turk has set himself to the task of
building a connecting highway. The section beyond the southern gate
promised well; but in this rainy season it was a river of mud which
clung to my shoes in great cakes and made progress more difficult than
in the trackless mountains to the north.
The highway ended abruptly at noonday, as I had been warned it would.
“It is all complete,” Shukry had said, “except over the mountain, the
highest mountain in Palestine, and over that it runs not.” The barrier
must, indeed, have been a problem to the engineers, for it towered
hundreds of feet above, as nearly perpendicular as nature is wont to
construct her works. Diagonally up the face of the cliff a path was cut,
but no spiral stairway, compressed within a slender tower, ever offered
more difficult ascent. At the summit I came again upon the road, as
wide, as finely ballasted, as well engineered, as the most exacting
traveler could have demanded; yet, as it stood, utterly useless. It had
been built that carriages might pass from Nablous to the Holy City; but
no wheeled vehicle in existence could have been dragged up that
wall-like hillside; and the sure-footed ass, who still carries on the
traffic between the two cities, would make the journey exactly as well
had the highway never been proposed. One could read in that road the
character of the power that holds Palestine, and fancy its builders,
like the highway, wandering irresolutely from east to west and west to
east, and halting at the highest point to peer helplessly over the dizzy
edge upon the section below.
Long after nightfall I stumbled upon an isolated shop, occupied by the
keeper and an errant salesman of tobacco. The building was no more than
a wooden frame covered over with sheet iron; and the rain, that began
soon after I turned in with the drummer on one of the shelves that
served as bunks, thundered on the roof through the night and made sleep
as impossible as inside the bass drum at a Wagnerian performance. In the
morning, a deluge more violent than I had ever known, held us prisoners;
and, the weather being bitterly cold, I kept to my shelf and listened to
the roaring of the tin shack through the longest day that ever rained
and blew itself into the past tense.
The storm had abated somewhat when I set out again on the following day.
One stone village broke the dreary prospect; the ancient Bethel, beyond
the sharp hills of which the highway side-stepped to the eastward. The
rain of the preceding days had, no doubt, left the peculiar atmosphere
of Palestine unusually humid. In no other way can I account for the
strange vision that appeared late in the morning. The hills ahead were
somewhat indistinct, in the valleys lay a thick, gray mist, while
overhead, the sky was dull and leaden. Before me, well above the
horizon, hung a long dark cloud which, as I looked, took on gradually
the faint shape of a distant line of buildings. It could have been no
more than a mirage, for beneath it was a considerable strip of sky; yet
it grew plainer and plainer until there rode in the heavens, like the
army in that weird painting of the soldier’s dream, a dull, gray city, a
long city, bounded at one end by a great tower, at the other shading off
into nothing. Then suddenly it vanished. Black clouds, hurrying westward
from across Jordan, wiped out the vision as one erases a lightly
penciled line. Yet the image was Jerusalem. Miles beyond, the fog lifted
and showed the city plainly, and it was that same long city bounded on
the eastward by a great tower, but with solid footing now on a dull,
drear hill that sloped to the west. The highway led downward across
bleak fields, past the reputed Tombs of the Kings and Judges, to-day the
refuges of shivering shepherd boys, and through the Damascus gate into
the crowded bazaars of the Holy City.
[Illustration: The shopkeeper and the traveling salesman with whom I
spent two nights and a day on the lonely road to Jerusalem. Arabs are
very sensitive to cold, except on their feet and ankles]
[Illustration: A high official of Mohammedanism. It being against the
teachings of the Koran to have one’s picture taken, master and servant
turn away their faces]
A howling horde swept me away through markets infinitely dirtier and far
less picturesque than those of Damascus, up and down slimy stone steps,
jostling, pushing, trampling upon me at every turn, not maliciously, but
from mere indifference to such familiar beings as faranchees. At the end
of a reeking street I turned for refuge to an open doorway, through
which I had caught a glimpse of a long greensward and a great mosque
with superbly graceful dome. A shout rose from a rabble of men and boys
at one side of the square. In Damascus, such demonstrations, bursting
forth each time I entered a mosque enclosure, had soon subsided. So I
marched on with an air of indifference. The shouts redoubled. Men and
youths came down upon me from every direction, howling like demons, and
discharging a volley of stones, some of which struck me in the legs,
while others whistled ominously near my head. I beat a hasty retreat.
Not until later in the day did I know the reason for my expulsion. I had
trespassed on the sacred precincts of the mosque of Omar on the summit
of Mt. Moriah, where no unbeliever may enter without an escort of bribed
soldiers.
A second attempt to escape the throng led me down more slimy steps and
along a narrow alley to a towering stone wall, where Hebrews, rich and
poor, filthy and bediamonded, alternately kissed and beat with their
fists the great beveled blocks of stone, shrieking and moaning, with
tears streaming down their cheeks. It needed no inquiry to tell me that
I had fallen upon the “Jews’ Wailing-Place.”
Random wandering brought me at noonday into the European section about
David street. Light as had been my expenditures in Palestine, my
fortunes had fallen. A sum barely equal to forty cents jingled in my
pockets. It was high time to seek employment. With this end in view, I
sought out the addressee of my letter. Unfortunately, his influence was
not far-reaching in the city, for he was a mere man-of-all-work in a
mission school outside its walls.
“But it is all right,” he cried; “if you are an American, I will take
you to ‘the Americans.’”
“The Americans” proved to be a community of my countrymen of Quaker
ancestry, who dwelt in a great modern building to the northwest of the
city. The errand boy introduced me into the inner courtyard, thickly
planted in orange and lemon trees, and a self-appointed committee
invited me in to supper. It seemed almost a new experience to sit again
at a white-decked table, partaking of such familiar dishes as roast pork
and rice pudding, with men and women of my own land chatting on every
side. An aged native of Pennsylvania, for no better reason, apparently,
than that he had crossed the Atlantic forty years before on the ship
that had brought me to Glasgow, espoused my cause and set himself to the
task of supplying me with employment, and of getting me to heaven as
well. The meal over, the colony adjourned to the parlor on the second
floor for a short religious meeting, and then spent the evening in mild
merry-making. Several visitors dropped in, among them two natives in
faultless evening attire, a disconcerting contrast to my own, but still
wearing their fezes. My sponsor announced one as the Superintendent of
Public Instruction and the other as the Chief of Police. Though they did
not speak English, neither would have been out of place in the most
accomplished society.
“These men,” said the Pennsylvanian, “are Mohammedans, and each has
several wives. Yet for years they have been welcome guests here, for
according to their code of morals they are very moral men. The
Superintendent, there, is a famous singer.” He was even then beginning a
duet with one of the young ladies at the piano, and that with the clear
tone of a man who sait faire.
“The Chief of Police has been rather roughly used?” I suggested. Across
his left cheek was a great scar and his left eye was missing.
“Every Christian,” said the man beside me, “should blush with shame at
sight of that scar. Each year, as you know, the Christian pilgrims to
Jerusalem celebrate feasts and festivals in the churches here, and for
years clashes and free fights have frequently broken out between
followers of rival creeds. For that reason the Turks have found it
necessary to establish a guard in every general Christian edifice. Two
years ago, at the Feast of the Assumption in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, the Greek and Armenian pilgrims, in spite of the guards, fell
upon each other. The Chief, there, a man of very peaceful and kindly
temperament, went among the combatants and spoke to them through an
interpreter. Instead of dispersing, the frenzied pilgrims swept down
upon this whole-hearted Mohammedan, and some good Christian, of one side
or the other, slashed him across the cheek with a heavy knife and gouged
out his eye. They tell us, you know, over in America that Mohammedans
are savages and Christians are civilized. I, too, used to think that;
but I have lived a long time in Jerusalem now.”
Several members of the community, in business in David street, promised
to find me work. A round among them in the morning, however, brought
only reiterated promises, and I wandered away through the city. Scores
of Christian pilgrims were engaged in a similar occupation, and my
weather-beaten and bedraggled appearance led more than one of these
devout nomads to accost me. I soon fell in with an Italian who had spent
nearly two years in making his way from his home in Urbino to carry out
a vow made in an hour of distress.
“Why do you not go to a hospice?” he asked, when he had learned my
situation. “I have been in one for three weeks and get both food and
bed. There is the Russian, the Greek, the Armenian, the Coptic, the
Italian, the French—”
“But no American?” I put in, less eager for charity than for a glimpse
of the life within these institutions.
“N—no,” admitted the pilgrim; “no American—but I’ll tell you! Go to the
French hospice. Archbishop Ireland of America is there this week and—”
“Where is it?” I asked.
The pilgrim led the way through several narrow, uneven streets and
pointed out a time-blackened door. A French servant met me in the
anteroom and listened to my request.
“Are you a Catholic?” he demanded.
“No,” I answered.
“Wait,” he murmured.
A few moments later he returned with the information that “the reverend
father could admit only those of the faith.” “You must look to the
Protestants,” he concluded.
“But I believe there are no Protestant hospices here?” I suggested.
“Ah! It is true,” cried the servant, waving his hands above his head,
“but tant pis! You should be a Catholic and all would be well.”
I turned away to the American consulate. If there was work to be had by
faranchees in the city, the consul, surely, should know of it. I fought
my way through a leering throng of doorkeepers and _kawasses_ into the
outer office. While I waited for an interview the population of our land
increased. A greasy, groveling Jew, of the laboring classes, the
love-locks at his temples untrimmed and unperfumed, pushed timidly at
the swinging door several times, entered, and bowed and scraped before
the native secretary to attract his attention.
“Gonsul,” he wheezed, holding out his naturalization papers, “Gonsul, I
vant rregister my vife; she got boy.”
The secretary glanced at the papers and duly enrolled the new arrival as
an American citizen, with all the immunities and privileges thereunto
appertaining.
A moment later I was admitted to the inner office. The kindly,
white-haired consul asked for a detailed account of my journey in
Palestine.
“I am often much exercised,” he said, when I had finished; “I am often
much incensed that, with all the hospices for every other brand of
Christian, there are no accommodations in Jerusalem for American
pilgrims. It seems like cruel discrimination—”
“But I am scarcely a pilgrim,” I suggested.
“Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” cried the consul; “But never mind. I shall
give you a note to the Jewish hotel across the way and you may pay the
bill when you earn the money. For ‘the Americans’ will find you work,
you may be sure. See me again before you leave the city.”
I mounted an outdoor stairway on the opposite side of David street to a
very passable hostelry. The window of the room assigned me offered a
far-reaching view. Directly below, walled by the backs of adjoining
shops, stenched the ancient pool of Hezekiah. To the north, east, and
south spread a jumble of small buildings, their dome-shaped roofs of mud
or stone thrown into contrast by a few houses covered with red tiles,
the general level broken by several minarets and the architectural
hotch-potch of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At the further edge of
the city, yet so near as to be as plainly visible from base to dome as
in the compound itself, stood the beautiful mosque of Omar. From the
valley of Jehoshaphat beneath rose the Mount of Olives; the
stone-terraced Garden of Gethsemane of the lower slope backed by a
forest of olive trees; the summit crowned by the three-storied tower on
the “Russian Calvary.” Beyond, a desolation of rolling hills stretched
away to the massive wall of the mountains of Moab.
Descending to the street after dinner, I came upon the Pennsylvanian.
With him was an English resident who wished some documents turned into
French. I began on them at once and worked late into the night. In the
three days following, I interspersed my sightseeing with similar tasks.
The bazaars were half-deserted during this period; for on Friday the
Mohammedans held festival, Saturday and Sunday were respectively the
Jewish and Christian Sabbath, and the influence of each of the sects on
the other two was so marked that the entire population lost energy soon
after the middle of the week. On Saturday, the hotel guests subsisted on
the usual meals of meat, meat, meat; this time served cold, for what
orthodox Jew could bid his servants build a fire on the Sabbath? The day
grew wintry cold, however. The proprietor summoned a domestic, and,
speaking a Yiddish that closely resembled German, issued several orders,
ending with the wholly irrelevant remark, “I believe this is one of the
coldest days we have had in many a year.”
The servant scratched his moth-eaten poll, shuffled off, and returned
with a bundle of fagots that were soon crackling in the tiny sheet-iron
stove.
Sunday found me unoccupied, and, pushing through the howling chaos at
the Jaffa gate, I strolled southward along a highway, which afforded,
here and there, a glimpse of the Dead Sea. Turning off at the tomb of
Rachel, I climbed into the wind-swept village of Bethlehem.
From a cobblestone square in the center of the town, a low doorway,
flanked by blocks of unhewn stone so blackened by the none too cleanly
hands of centuries of pilgrims as to give it the appearance of a huge
rat hole, offered admittance to the Church of the Nativity. A score of
worshiping Christians gave me welcome in the grotto of the manger by
tramping on my lightly-shod toes and I quickly retreated to the
cedar-groined church above. At their altar in one section of the
transept a group of bejeweled dignitaries of the Greek church were
celebrating mass. Plainly, it was a solemn and holy occasion to the
patriarchs and their assistants. A small army of acolytes hovered round
the priests like blackbirds over an ear of corn, advancing and
retreating with great robes and surplices of rich design, each of which
served only for a kow-tow to some object of religious veneration. In the
center of the transept, a few feet away from the worshiping priests,
just where the Greek territory meets that of some other sect, stood the
Sultan’s guard. He was a typical soldier of the Porte, his uniform of
patches stretched and bagged out of all semblance to modern clothing,
his head covered with a moth-eaten fez, its tassel long since departed
and its lower edge turned from its original red to a greasy brown
through long contact with the oily scalp of its wearer. Lazily he leaned
on the muzzle of the musket under his armpit, one dusty foot resting on
the other, and gazed with an unshaven grimace, half of scorn, half of
pity, at those gullible beings who performed their amusing antics to a
false god. His relief arrived soon after. The scoffer stalked out of the
church, cast his musket on the cobblestones, and turning an ultra-solemn
face towards Mecca, stepped out of his shoes and bowed down in afternoon
prayer.
From the Pools of Solomon, I returned to Jerusalem. The English resident
came next morning with another document, which I returned at noon and,
having paid my bill, presented myself at the consulate to announce my
departure.
“How much money have you?” asked the consul.
“A ten-franc piece.”
“Good! Now, my lad, take my advice. There is a steamer leaving Jaffa for
Egypt to-morrow. Take the afternoon train—ten francs will more than pay
your fare—and once in Jaffa perhaps you can get a berth on the steamer.
Ask the American consul there to give you his assistance.”
“I can save money by walking,” I ventured.
“Impossible!” cried the consul; “It’s forty miles to Jaffa; the ship
leaves at noon, and there is not another for ten days. Take the train.
You can’t walk there in time.”
Just to prove that the consul had underestimated my abilities as a
pedestrian, I spent half my wealth for a roll of films and struck out on
the highway to the coast. Long after dark I usurped lodgings in Latron,
the home of the penitent thief, and put off again before daylight, in a
pouring rain, across the marshy plain of Sharon. It was nearly noon when
I reached the port; but the sea was running mountain high and the task
of loading the steamer was proceeding slowly. A native offered to pilot
me to the dwelling of the American consul for a few coppers. Urged on by
an occasional jab in the ribs, he splashed through the streets,
ankle-deep in Jaffa soil in solution, to a large hotel that made great
effort to pose as an exclusive faranchee establishment. I dashed into
the office in a shower of mud that raised a shriek of horror from the
immaculately attired clerk, and called for the consul.
“Impossible!” cried the clerk; “The consul is at dinner.”
Two steps towards the dining-room convinced him that my business was of
pressing importance. He snatched wildly at my dripping garments and sent
a servant to make known my errand.
[Illustration: The view of Jerusalem from my window in the Jewish hotel]
[Illustration: Sellers of oranges and bread in Jerusalem. Notice
Standard Oil can]
Had the low comedian of a Broadway burlesque suddenly appeared in full
regalia amid these Oriental surroundings, I should have been far less
astonished than at the strange being who pounced down upon me. He was
tall, this American consul, tall as any man who hoped to be ranked as a
man could venture to be, spare of shank as the contortionist who drives
the envious small boy to bathe himself in angle-worm oil in the secret
recesses of the barn for the fortnight succeeding circus day—and he was
excited. Several other things he was as well—among them, a Frenchman,
and, despite his efforts, none but the words of his native tongue would
go forth from his lips—and that foreign jargon it was not my place, as a
common sailor, to understand. He stood framed in the doorway of the
dining-room—though, to be frank, the frame was a good six inches too
short, and wrinkled the picture sadly—and between whirlwind gusts of red
hot Gaelic, tore at his dancing mane.
“Sacré nom d’un chien!—to be disturbed entre le dessert et le fromage—by
a sunburned, muddy wretch—and with a knapsack!—Un misérable
court-le-monde, mille tonnerres!—Un sans-sous—and these fellows were
always after money—”
Had I been able to understand him, I might have protested. As it was,
what more could I do than try to rush a word across the track where one
train of invectives broke off and another began:—
“Say, mister, be youse the Amurican consil—?”
But the words were mercilessly ground under the wheels;—
“—And where should he get this money?—Mille diables!—Was he a
millionaire because he was consul for a few countries?—Un vagabond!—Par
le—”
“Say, mister, can’t youse talk English?”
“Anglais—angl—engl—Engleesh—certainly he could parle Engleesh!—But to
be called from dinner avant le demi-tasse—An American?—yes, yes,
oui—certainment, American consul—and to be called out—Sailor,
hein!—Aha! Quoi?—From Jerusa—Couldn’t be—no
train—hein?—walk?—diable!—non!—impossible!—Comment?—consul in
Jerusalem told—Par le barbe de—Help me?—A poor Jaffa consul with no
salary help a man sent by the Jerusalem consul who drew des millards
de francs!—le coquin—Hein?—Quoi?—My paper that?—A ragged sailor with a
letter from the Secretary of State?—Un vagabond?—coming during
dinner—Quoi?—my letter?—Quelle histoire—what a lie!—elle était
volée!—Oui—If he did his duty, he would keep it for the lawful
owner—elle était volée—still, he would—”
He certainly would, for I had already twisted it out of his hands.
“Diable!—Quoi?—Write letter to the cap!—didn’t know him!—ship’s
agent—hein? certainly—one of his best friends—write letter?—of
course—but the din—and money?—Hein?—Quoi?—dis donc!—Pas
d’argent?—no money?—vraiment!—sailor, and not want money!—Sainte
Vierge au—Note?—certainly—at once—why hadn’t I said long
ago—No!—no!—n’importe!—not the least harm done—wasn’t hungry
anyway—appetite very poor—only a note?—pas d’ar—Delighted to know
me—my letter?—certainly it was my letter—Never doubted it for a
moment—Would I take a demi-tasse?—No?—Hurry?—of course—at
once!”—and he was gone.
A moment later the clerk handed me an unfolded note and I hurried away
to the wharf, a half-mile distant. The ship still rode at anchor. I
rushed to the wicket and presented the epistle. Why had I not been
warned that Jaffa was the refuge of worn-out comic opera stars? The
agent who peered out at me wore a glass eye, a headdress of the Middle
Ages, and—by the beard of Allah!—a celluloid nose.
His face puckered up as he read the missive—all, that is, except the
nose, which preserved a noncommital serenity. “Ah!” he snored, drawing
out a ticket from the rack, “Very well! The fare is twelve francs.”
“The fare? But doesn’t the consul ask you to give me a berth as a
sailor?”
The noseless one pushed the note towards me. It was in French, but a
warning whistle from the harbor made me forget my ignorance of that
language. The letter was as upset in construction as the consul had been
when he noted my name. It ran:—
DEAR FRIEND:—
The bearer, Harris Frank, is an American sailor who wishes to go to
Egypt. Will you kindly sell him a ticket and oblige, your humble,
etc., etc.
____ ____,
American Consular Agent.
A letter authorizing the company to sell me a ticket that it would have
been delighted to sell to any species of man or ape who had the money!
It was as valuable as a letter from the mayor of New York would be in
buying a subway ticket! I dumped my possessions recklessly on the floor
and sped away to the hotel at a pace that spilled four natives in the
mire, by actual count. The consul was as raving as before. He had just
lain down for his siesta and was convinced that I had repented my
refusal to ask for money. A few words reassured him. He fidgeted while I
explained the desired wording of the new note; and I was soon speeding
back to the owner of the junk-shop face.
He read the new communication after the leisurely way of the East, and
said:—“Well, as a sailor we can give you a ticket at half-price—six
francs.”
I snatched the note out of his hand. The goblins catch that
scatter-brained consul! He had unburdened himself as follows:—
DEAR FRIEND:—
The bearer, Frank Harris, is an American sailor without funds who
wishes to go to Egypt. Kindly sell him a ticket as cheaply as
possible, and oblige, etc., etc.
—— ——,
American Consular Agent.
Utterly indifferent to the rain, I sat down against a pillar outside the
office. Four paltry francs rattled in my pocket. Long, penniless days on
the Jaffa beach seemed my promised lot. Stevedores were struggling to
breast the towering waves. Now and then a giant comber overturned a
laden rowboat high on the beach. Barefooted natives waded into the surf
with tourists in their arms. Each warning whistle seemed to thrust Egypt
further and further away. If only—
I felt a tap on the shoulder. A young native in the uniform of Gook and
Son was bending over me.
“Go on board anyway,” he said.
“Eh?” I cried.
“The captain is English. If you are a sailor he will give you work.”
“But I can’t get on board,” I answered.
For reply, the native pointed to the tourist-company boat, laden with
baggage and mails, at the edge of the wharf. I snatched up my knapsack
and dropped into the craft.
The steamer was weighing anchor when I scrambled up the gangway. I
fought my way through a chaos of tumbled baggage, seasick natives, and
bellowing seamen, and attempted to mount to the bridge. A burly Arab
seaman pushed me back. When darkness fell on an open sea I had not yet
succeeded in breaking through the bodyguard that surrounded the captain.
Writhing natives covered every spot on the open deck. I crawled under
the canvas that covered the winch, converted my bundle into a pillow,
and fell asleep.
In what seemed a half-hour later I awoke to find the ship gliding along
as smoothly as in a river. I crawled out on deck. A bright morning sun
was shining, and before my astonished eyes lay Port Saïd. The ticket
collector had neglected to look under the winch for passengers.
The steamer was held in quarantine for several hours. I purchased food
of a ship’s boy and settled down to await the good will of the port
doctors. As I lined up with the rest, to be thumped and prodded by order
of His Majesty, the Khedive, a new plan flashed through my mind. The
ship was to continue to Alexandria. That port, certainly, gave far
easier access to the real Egypt than Port Saïd, and it was an unexplored
city. Instead of disembarking with the others, therefore, I sought out
the captain once more—and once more was repulsed by a thick-witted
seaman.
I returned to the deck and sat down on a hatch. To my dismay, the native
purser began to collect the tickets before the last tender was unloaded.
He approached me and held out his hand.
“Where can I see the captain?” I demanded.
“M’abarafshee,” he answered, shaking his head, “bilyeto!” (ticket).
Certainly I must offer some excuse for being on board without a ticket.
The lean form of the purser bending over me called up the memory of the
Jaffa consul. I rummaged through my pockets, and, spreading out his
second note to the ship’s agent, laid it in the purser’s hand. The
consul’s yellow stationery bore a disconcerting contrast to the bundle
of dark-blue tickets. The officer gave vent to his astonishment in an
avalanche of Arabic.
“M’abarafshee!” I imitated.
He opened his mouth to launch a second avalanche, hesitated, scratched
his head, and, with a shrug of the shoulders, went on gathering
“bilyetos” from the native passengers.
Some time later he descended from the upper deck and, beckoning to me,
led the way to the bridge. The steamer was preparing to get under way.
The captain, a burly Briton, stormed back and forth across the ship,
striving to give orders to the crew in such Arabic as he could muster,
and bursting the bounds of that unnatural tongue with every fourth
word, to berate the blockheads in forcible excerpts from the
King’s—private—English. His eye fell upon me.
“Here,” he roared, profanely, ’tis true, but to the point, “what the
bloody —— is all this?” and he waved the now ragged note in my face.
“Why, that’s a note from the Amurican consil in Jaffa, sir, sayin’ I
want t’ ship for Egypt.”
The purple rage on the skipper’s face, the result of his attempt to set
forth in Arabic thoughts only expressible in English, subsided somewhat
at the sound of his own tongue.
[Illustration: The Palestine beast of burden carrying an iron beam to a
building in construction]
[Illustration: Jews of Jerusalem in typical costume]
“But,” he went on, in milder tones, “this note asks the company to give
you as cheap a passage as possible; and it’s addressed to the agent, not
to the captain of this ship.”
“What, sir!” I cried, “Is that all? Why, the consil knowed I ’adn’t no
money, sir.”
“It’s open; why the devil didn’t you read it?” retorted the skipper.
“Aye, sir,” I answered, “but it’s wrote in some foreign lingo.”
“Eh?—er—well, that’s right,” admitted the commander, with a waver of
pride in his voice. “It’s written in French, and this is what it
says”—and he translated it.
“Why that bloomin’ consil—” I gasped.
“American sailor, are you?” demanded the captain.
I handed him my Sardinian and Warwickshire discharges.
“Well,” he mused, “if that note had been in English, I’d—”
“I’m ready to turn to with the crew, sir,” I put in.
“N—no. That’ll be all right,” said the skipper, stuffing the note into
his pocket as he turned his attention to the seamen on the deck below.
“Cover that hatch, you bloody fools, before a sea fills her!”
Early the next morning I disembarked in Alexandria.