Of the birth, education, and early life of this traveller little or
nothing appears to be known with certainty. His friends, who were of
genteel rank, since he calls Sir Charles Hodges, judge of the High Court
of Admiralty, his uncle, seem to have resided in the neighbourhood of
Richmond. Having completed his studies, and taken the degree of master
of arts at Oxford, he was appointed chaplain to the English factory
at Aleppo, and departed from England in the year 1695. Part of this
journey was performed by land; but whether it passed off smoothly, or
was diversified by incidents and adventures, we are left to conjecture,
our traveller not having thought his movements of sufficient importance
to be known to posterity. It is simply recorded that he passed through
Germany, and made some short stay at Frankfort, where he conversed with
the celebrated Job Ludolphus, who, learning his design of residing in
Syria, and visiting the Holy Land, communicated to him several questions,
the clearing up of which upon the spot might, it was hoped, tend to
illustrate various passages in the Old and New Testaments.
Shortly after his arrival at Aleppo, he undertook, in company with a
considerable number of his flock, that journey to Jerusalem which, short
and unimportant as it was, has added his name to the list of celebrated
travellers; so pleasantly, ingenuously, and delightfully is it described.
The history of the short period of his life consumed in this excursion is
all that remains to us; and this is just sufficient to excite our regret
that we can know no more; for, from the moment of his introduction into
our company until he quits us to carry on his pious and noiseless labours
at Aleppo, diversified only by friendly dinners and rural promenades or
hunting, we view his character with unmingled satisfaction. He was a
learned, cheerful, able, conscientious man, who viewed with a pleasure
which he has not sought either to exaggerate or disguise the spots
rendered venerable by the footsteps or sufferings of Christ, and of the
prophets, martyrs, and apostles.
Maundrell and his companions departed from Aleppo on the 26th of
February, 1696, and crossing the plains of Kefteen, which are fruitful,
well cultivated, and of immense extent, arriving in two days at Shogr,
a large but dirty town on the banks of the Orontes, where there was a
splendid khan erected by the celebrated Grand Vizier Kuperli, on the next
day they entered the pashalic of Tripoli; travelling through a woody,
mountainous country, beneath the shade of overarching trees, amused by
the roar of torrents, or by the sight of valleys whose green turf was
sprinkled with myrtles, oleanders, tulips, anemonies, and various other
aromatic plants and flowers. In traversing a low valley they passed over
a stream rolling through a narrow rocky channel ninety feet deep, which
was called the Sheïkh’s Wife, an Arab princess having formerly perished
in this dismal chasm.
Crossing _Gebel Occaby_, or the “Mountain of Difficulty,” which,
according to our traveller, fully deserves its name, they arrived
towards evening at Belulca, a village famous for its wretchedness,
and for the extremely humble condition to which Christianity is there
reduced,—Christ being, to use his own expressive words, once more laid
in a manger in that place. The poorness of their entertainment urged
them to quit Belulca as quickly as possible, though the weather, which
during the preceding day had been extremely bad, was still far from being
settled; and they had not proceeded far before they began to regret this
miserable resting-place, the rains bursting out again with redoubled
violence, breaking up the roads, and swelling the mountain torrents to
overflowing. At length, however, they arrived opposite a small village,
to reach which they had only to cross a little rivulet, dry in summer,
but now increased by the rains to a considerable volume, and found upon
trial to be impassable. In this dilemma, they had merely the choice of
returning to the miserable, inhospitable den where they had passed the
preceding night, or of pitching their tent where they were, and awaiting
the falling of the stream. The latter appeared the preferable course,
though the weather seemed to menace a second deluge, the most terrible
thunder and lightning now mingling with and increasing the horrors of the
storm; while their servants and horses, whom their single tent was too
small to shelter, stood dripping, exposed to all the fury of the heavens.
At length a small sheïkh’s house, or burying-place, was discovered in the
distance, where they hoped to be allowed to take shelter along with the
saints’ bones; but the difficulty was how to gain admittance, it being
probable that the people of the village would regard the approach of so
many infidels to the tomb of their holy men as a profanation not to be
endured. To negotiate this matter, a Turk, whom they had brought along
with them for such occasions, was despatched towards the villagers, to
obtain permission peaceably, if possible; if not, to inform them that
they would enter the edifice by force. It is possible that the Ottoman
exceeded his instructions in his menaces; for the indignation of the
villagers was roused, and declaring that it was their creed to detest
and renounce Omar and Abubeer, while they honoured Ahmed and Ali, they
informed the janizary that they would die upon the infidels’ swords
rather than submit to have their faith defiled. The travellers on their
part assured them that the opinion they entertained of Omar and Abubeer
was in no respect better than their own; that they had no intention
whatever to defile their holy places; and that their only object at
present was to obtain somewhere or another a shelter from the inclemency
of the weather. This apparent participation in their sectarian feelings
somewhat mollified their disposition, and they at length consented to
unlock the doors of the tomb, and allow the infidels to deposite their
baggage in it; but with respect to themselves, it was decreed by the
remorseless villagers that they were to pass the night _sub Jove_. When
our travellers saw the door opened, however, they began secretly to laugh
at the beards of the honest zealots, being resolved, as soon as sleep
should have wrapped itself round these poor people like a cloak, as
Sancho words it, to steal quietly into the tomb, and dream for once upon
a holy grave. They did so; but either the anger of the sheïkh or their
wet garments caused them to pass but a melancholy night.
Next morning, the waters of the river, which rose and fell with equal
rapidity, having sunk to their ordinary level, they issued forth from
their sacred apartments, and proceeding westward for some time, they at
length ascended a lofty eminence, from whence, across a wide and fertile
plain, they discovered the city of Latichen, founded by Seleucus Nicator
on the margin of the sea. Leaving this city and the Mediterranean on the
right-hand, and a high ridge of mountains on the left, they proceeded
through the plain towards Gibili, the ancient Gabala, where they arrived
in the evening, and remained one day to recruit themselves. In the hills
near this city were found the extraordinary sect of the Nessariah, which
still subsists, and are supposed to be a remnant of the ancient pagan
population, worshippers of Venus-Mylitta and the sun.
Proceeding southward along the seacoast they crossed the Nahrel-Melek,
or King’s River, passed through Baneas, the ancient Balanea, and arrived
towards sunset at Tortosa, the Orthosia of antiquity, erected on the edge
of a fertile plain so close to the sea that the spray still dashes among
its crumbling monuments. Continuing their journey towards Tripoli, they
beheld on their right, at about three miles’ distance from the shore,
the little island of Ruad, the Arvad or Alphad of the Scriptures, and
the Andus of the Greeks and Romans, a place which, though not above two
or three furlongs in length, was once renowned for its distant naval
expeditions and immense commerce, in which it maintained for a time a
rivalry even with Tyre and Sidon themselves. Having travelled thus far
by forced marches, as it were, they determined to remain a whole week at
Tripoli, to repose their “wearied virtue,” and by eating good dinners
and making merry with their friends, prepare themselves for the enduring
of those “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” which all flesh,
but especially travelling flesh, is heir to. But the more fortunate and
happy the hero of the narrative happens to be, the more unfortunate and
melancholy is his biographer, for happiness is extremely dull and insipid
to every one except the individual who tastes it. For this reason we
hurry as fast as possible over all the bright passages of a man’s life,
but dwell with delight on his sufferings, his perils, his hair-breadth
escapes, not, as some shallow reasoners would have it, because we rejoice
at the misfortunes of another, but because our sympathies can be awakened
by nothing but manifestations of intellectual energy and virtue, which
shine forth most gloriously, not on the calm waves of enjoyment, but amid
the storms and tempests of human affairs.
We therefore snatch our traveller from the rural parties and cool valleys
of Tripoli, in order to expose him to toil and the spears of the Arabs.
The week of pleasure being expired, the party set forward towards the
south, and proceeding for five hours along the coast, arrived at a high
rocky promontory, intersecting the road, and looking with a smooth,
towering, and almost perpendicular face upon the sea. This appears to
be the promontory called by Strabo, but wherefore is not known, τὸ του
Θεου Προσώπον, or the Face of God. Near this strangely-named spot they
encamped for the night under the shade of a cluster of olive-trees.
Surmounting this steep and difficult barrier in the morning, they pursued
their way along the shore until they arrived at Gabail, the ancient
Byblus, a place once famous for the birth and worship of Adonis. In this
place they made little or no stay, pushing hastily forward to the Nahr
Ibrahim, the river Adonis of antiquity, the shadows of Grecian fable
crowding thicker and thicker upon their minds as they advanced, and
bringing along with them sweet schoolboy recollections, sunny dreams,
which the colder phenomena of real life never wholly expel from ardent
and imaginative minds. Here they pitched their tent, on the banks of the
stream, and prepared to pass the night amid those fields where of old the
virgins of the country assembled to unite with the goddess of beauty, in
lamentations for Adonis,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer’s day,
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
Infected Sion’s daughters with like heat,
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led
His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
Of alienated Judah.
The night was rainy and tempestuous, and when they looked out in the
morning the _Nahr Ibrahim_ had assumed that sanguine hue, which,
according to Lucian, always distinguishes it at that season of the year
in which the festival of Adonis was celebrated. Nay, the stream not only
“ran purple to the sea,” but had actually, as they observed in travelling
along, communicated its bloody colour to the waves of the Mediterranean
to a considerable distance from the land, just as the Nile discolours
them at the time of the inundation along the whole coast of the Delta.
Their road now lay nearly at the foot of those steep and rugged mountains
which have for many ages been inhabited by the Maronites, several of
whose convents they discerned perched like eagles’ nests on the bare
summit of the crags. A road cut for a considerable distance through the
solid rock, and a track still more rude and wild, worn by the footsteps
of travellers in the side of the mountain, at length brought them to
the river Lycus, or Canis, the _Nahr-el-Kelb_, or “Dog’s River,” of the
Turks and Arabs. Proceeding along a low sandy shore, and crossing the
_Nahr-el-Salib_, they arrived at a small field near the sea, where St.
George, the patron of England, acting over again the fable of Apollo
and Python, fought with and killed that mighty dragon which still shows
its shining scales on the golden coin of Great Britain. A small chapel,
now converted into a mosque, was anciently erected on the spot in
commemoration of the exploit. In the evening they arrived at Beiroot,
where they remained the following day, examining the ruins and present
aspect of the city.
The principal curiosities of Beiroot were the palace and gardens of
Fakreddin, fourth prince of the Druzes, a people of Mount Lebanon, said
to be descended from the fragments of those Christian armies which, after
the final failure of the Crusades, were unable or unwilling to return
to their own countries, and took up their residence in the mountain
fastnesses of the Holy Land. Originally the gardens of Fakreddin must
have been a little paradise. Even when Maundrell was there, after
time and neglect had considerably impaired their beauty, they were
still worthy of admiration. Large and lofty orange-trees of the deepest
verdure, among which the ripe yellow fruit hung thickly suspended like
oblong spheres of gold, shaded the walks; while below small shining
rivulets of the purest water ran rippling along, through channels of hewn
stone, spreading coolness through the air, and distributing themselves
over the gardens by many imperceptible outlets.
On leaving Beiroot they proceeded through a spacious plain, and
traversing a large grove of pine-trees, planted by the Emīr Fakreddin,
arrived in two hours on the banks of the river Dammar, anciently Tamyras,
in which, about four years before, the younger Spon had been drowned in
proceeding northward from Jerusalem. Coming up to the edge of the stream,
they found a number of men, who, observing their approach, had stripped
themselves naked, in order to aid them in passing the stream; but having
previously learned that a bridge which once spanned this river had been
purposely broken down by these officious guides, in order to render their
services necessary, and that, moreover, they sometimes drowned travellers
to obtain their property, they disappointed the ruffians, and ascending
along the stream for some time, at length discovered a ford, and crossed
without their aid.
At the Awle, a small river about three miles north of Sidon, our
travellers were met by several French merchants from this city, who,
having been informed of their drawing near, had come out to welcome
them. From these friends they learned, however, that the French consul,
who, being also consul of Jerusalem, was compelled by the duties of his
office to visit the Holy City every Easter, had departed from Sidon the
day before; but that as he meant to make some stay at Acra, they might
hope to overtake him there. On this account they again set out early
next morning, and keeping close to the sea, passed by the site of the
ancient Sarepta, crossed the Nahr-el-Kasmin, and in another hour arrived
at Tyre, where, notwithstanding their anxiety to place themselves under
the protection of the French consul, who was travelling with an escort,
they were detained for a moment by the recollection of the ancient glory
of the place.
Having indulged their curiosity for an instant, they again hurried
forward, the phantom of the consul still flitting before them, like the
enchanted bird in the Arabian Nights, and reached Ras-el-Am, or the
“Promontory of the Fountains,” where those famous reservoirs called the
“Cisterns of Solomon” are situated. Our traveller, who had little respect
for traditions, conjectured that these works, however ancient they might
be, could not with propriety be ascribed to the Hebrew king, since the
aqueduct which they were intended to supply was built upon the narrow
isthmus uniting the island to the continent, constructed by Alexander
during the siege of the city; and we may be sure, he observes, that the
aqueduct cannot very well be older than the ground it stands upon.
At Acra they found the consul, who had politely delayed his departure to
the last moment in order to give them time to arrive; and next morning
continued their journey in his company. Crossing the river Belus, on
whose banks glass is said to have been first manufactured, and making
across the plain towards the foot of Carmel, they entered the narrow
valley through which the ancient Kishon, famous for the destruction of
Sisera’s host, rolls its waters towards the sea. After threading for many
hours the mazes of this narrow valley, they issued forth towards evening
upon the plains of Esdraelon sprinkled with Arab flocks and tents, and in
the distance beheld the famous mounts of Tabor and Hermon, and the sacred
site of Nazareth. Here they learned the full force of the Psalmist’s
poetical allusions to the “dews of Hermon,” for in the morning they found
their tents as completely drenched by it as if it had rained all night.
Paying the customary tribute to the Arabs as they passed, they proceeded
on their way, their eyes resting at every step on some celebrated spot:
Samaria, Sichem, mounts Ebal and Gerizim, places rendered venerable
by the wanderings of prophets and patriarchs, but hallowed in a more
especial manner by the footsteps of Christ. They now began to enter upon
a more rocky and mountainous country, and passing by the spot where Jacob
saw angels ascending and descending, “in the vision of God,” and Beer,
supposed to be the Michmas of the Scriptures, to which Jonathan fled
from the revenge of his brother Abimelech, arrived at the summit of a
hill, whence Rama, anciently Gibeah of Saul, the plain of Jericho, the
mountains of Gilead, and Jerusalem itself were visible in one magnificent
panorama.
Being in the Holy City, which no man, whether believer or unbeliever, can
visit without the most profound emotion, Maundrell enjoyed unrestrainedly
the romantic delight of living where Christ had lived and died, which to
a high-minded religious man must be one of the noblest pleasures which
travelling can afford. They resided, during their stay, at the Latin
convent, visiting the various places which are supposed to possess any
interest for pilgrims; such as the church of the Sepulchre, on Mount
Calvary, the grotto of Jeremiah, the sepulchres of the kings, and the
other famous places within the precincts or in the vicinity of the city.
Four days after their arrival they set out in company with about two
thousand pilgrims of both sexes and of all nations, conducted by the
mosselim, or governor of the city, to visit the river Jordan. Going
out of the city by the gate of St. Stephen, they crossed the valley of
Jehoshaphat, with part of Mount Olivet, passed through Bethany, and
arrived at that mountain wilderness to which Christ was taken forth to
be tempted by the Devil. Here some terrible convulsion of nature appears
to have shattered and rent in pieces the foundations of the everlasting
hills, swallowing up the summits, and thrusting up in their stead the
bases and substructions, as it were, of the mighty masses. In the depths
of a valley which traversed this “land of desolation, waste and wild,”
were discovered the ruins of numerous cottages and hermits’ cells,
many ascetics having formerly retired to this dreary region to waste
away their lives in solitary penance. From the top of this mountain,
however, the travellers enjoyed a prospect of extraordinary diversity,
comprehending the mountains of Arabia, the Dead Sea, and the Plain of
Jericho, into the last of which they descended in about five hours from
the time of their leaving Jerusalem.
In this plain they saw the fountain of Elisha, shaded by a
broad-spreading tree. Jericho itself had dwindled into a small wretched
village, inhabited by Arabs; and the plain beyond it, extending to the
Jordan, appeared to be blasted by the breath of sterility, producing
nothing but a species of samphire, and similar stunted marine plants.
Here and there, where thin sheets of water, now evaporated by the rays of
the sun, had formerly spread themselves over the marshy soil, a saline
efflorescence, white and glittering like a crust of snow, met the eye;
and the whole valley of the Jordan, all the way to the Dead Sea, appeared
to be impregnated with that mineral. They found this celebrated river,
which in old times overflowed its banks, to be a small stream not above
twenty yards in breadth, which, to borrow the words of the traveller,
seemed to have forgotten its former greatness, there being no sign or
probability of its rising, though the time, the 30th of March, was the
proper season of the inundation. On the contrary, its waters ran at
least two yards below the brink of its channel.
Proceeding onwards towards the Dead Sea, they passed over an undulating
plain, in some places rising into hillocks, resembling those places in
England where there have formerly been limekilns, and which may possibly
have been the scene of the overthrow of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah
recorded in Genesis. On approaching the Dead Sea, they observed that on
the east and west it was hemmed in by mountains of vast height, between
whose barren ridges it stretched away, like a prodigious canal, farther
than the eye could reach towards the south. On the north its limpid and
transparent waters rattled along a bed of black pebbles, which being held
over the flame of a candle quickly kindle, and, without being consumed,
emit a black smoke of intolerable stench. Immense quantities of similar
stones are said to be found in the sulphureous hills bordering upon
the lake. None of the bitumen which the waves of this sea occasionally
disgorge was then to be found, although it was reported that both on the
eastern and western shores it might be gathered in great abundance at the
foot of the mountains. The structures of fable with which tradition and
“superstitious idle-headed Eld” had surrounded this famous sea vanished,
like the false waters of the desert, upon examination. No malignant
vapours ascended from the surface of the waves, carrying death to the
birds which might attempt to fly over it. On the contrary, several birds
amused themselves in hovering about and over the sea, and the shells of
fish were found among the pebbles on the shore. Those apples of Sodom
which, “atra et inania velut in cinerem vanescunt,” according to the
expression of Tacitus, for a thousand years have furnished poets with
comparisons and similes, were found, like many other beautiful things,
to flourish only in song; there being in the neighbourhood of the lake
no trees upon which they could grow. The surprising force of the water,
which according to the great historian of Rome sustained the weight even
of those who had not learned to buoy themselves up by art, was in a great
measure found to exist, and subsequent experiments appear to support the
opinion.
Returning thence to Jerusalem, and visiting Bethlehem and the other holy
places in its vicinity, they at length departed on the 15th of April
for Nazareth, which they found to be an inconsiderable village on the
summit of a hill. Their road then lay through their former track until
they struck off to the right through a defile of Mount Lebanon, entered
the valley of Bocat, and emerged through a gorge of Anti-Libanus into
the plain of Damascus, which, watered by “Abana and Pharphar, lucid
streams,” unfolded itself before the eye in all that voluptuous beauty
glittering in a transparent atmosphere which intoxicated the soul of
the Arabian prophet, and caused him to pronounce it too generative of
delight. The somewhat colder imagination of Maundrell was strongly moved
by the view of this incomparable landscape. The City of the Sun (for such
is the signification of its oriental name) lifted up its gilded domes,
slender minarets, and tapering kiosks amid a forest of deep verdure;
while gardens luxuriant in beauty, and wafting gales of the richest
fragrance through the air, covered the plain for thirty miles around the
city. The interior of the city was greatly inferior to its environs, and
disappointed the traveller.
From Damascus, where they saw the Syrian caravan, commanded by the Pasha
of Tripoli, and consisting of an army of pilgrims mounted on camels and
quaintly-caparisoned horses, depart for Mecca, they proceeded to Baalbec,
where they arrived on the 5th of May. The magnificent ruins of this city
were then far less dilapidated than they are at present, and called forth
a corresponding degree of admiration from the travellers. The site
of Baalbec, on the cool side of a valley, between two lofty ridges of
mountains, is highly salubrious and beautiful; and the creations of art
which formerly adorned it were no way inferior (and this is the highest
praise the works of man can receive!) to the beauties which nature
eternally reproduces in those delicious regions. Time and the Ottomans,
however, have shown that they are less durable.
When a place affords nothing for the contemplation of curiosity but
the wrecks of former ages, it usually detains the footsteps of the
traveller but a short time; and accordingly Maundrell and his companions
quitted Baalbec early next morning, and, penetrating through the snowy
defiles of Mount Lebanon into the maritime plains of Syria, arrived in
two days at Tripoli. From hence, on the 9th of May, Maundrell departed
with a guide to visit the famous cedars so frequently alluded to in the
Scriptures, and which, from the prodigious longevity of the tree, may
be those which the poets and prophets of Israel viewed with so much
admiration. The extreme brevity of the original narrative permits us to
describe this excursion in the traveller’s own words:—“Having gone for
three hours across the plain of Tripoli, I arrived,” says he, “at the
foot of Libanus; and from thence continually ascending, not without great
fatigue, came in four hours and a half to a small village called Eden,
and in two hours and a half more to the cedars.
“These noble trees grow among the snow, near the highest part of Lebanon,
and are remarkable as well for their own age and largeness as for those
frequent allusions made to them in the Word of God. Here are some of them
very old and of a prodigious bulk, and others younger of a smaller size.
Of the former I could reckon up only sixteen, and the latter are very
numerous. I measured one of the largest, and found it twelve yards six
inches in girth, and yet sound, and thirty-seven yards in the spread of
its boughs. At about five or six yards from the ground it was divided
into five limbs, each of which was equal to a great tree.”
Descending the mountain, and rejoining his friends at Tripoli, they
departed thence together; and returning by the same road which they
had pursued in their journey to Jerusalem, they arrived in a few days
at Aleppo without accident or peril. Such is the history of that brief
excursion, which, being ably and honestly described, has justly ranked
Maundrell among celebrated travellers. The date of his death I have been
unable to discover. This journey has been translated into several modern
languages, and is held in no less estimation abroad than at home.