Transcribed from the 1897 T. Fisher Unwin edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Cover]
[Picture: Dawn on the Great Sphinx]
THE
CITIES OF THE DAWN:
_NAPLES—ATHENS—POMPEII—CONSTANTINOPLE—_
_SMYRNA—JAFFA—JERUSALEM—ALEXANDRIA—_
_CAIRO—MARSEILLES—AVIGNON—_
_LYONS—DIJON_.
* * * * *
BY
J. EWING RITCHIE
(‘CHRISTOPHER CRAYON’),
AUTHOR OF ‘CRYING FOR THE LIGHT,’ ‘EAST ANGLIA,’ ETC., ETC.
* * * * *
‘Ye glittering towns with wealth and splendour crown’d;
Ye fields where summer spreads profusion round;
Ye lakes whose vessels catch the busy gale;
Ye bending swains that dress the flowery vale;
For me your tributary stores combine;
Creation’s heir, the world—the world is mine.’
* * * * *
_WITH THIRTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS_
* * * * *
LONDON:
T. FISHER UNWIN,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS.
1897.
To
F. W. WARMINGTON, ESQ.,
TO WHOSE PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPY
MANY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF BOTH SEXES
ARE INDEBTED FOR HAPPY HOLIDAY-TIMES,
THIS BOOK
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE.
In this new publication, consisting chiefly of articles which appeared in
the _Christian World_, the _Echo_, and the _East Anglian Daily Times_,
the author makes no pretence to original information, or to have acted
the part of an antiquarian explorer. He has simply gone over ground
familiar to many, and to which all holiday-makers will turn in increasing
numbers, partly for pleasure, and partly on account of the absorbing
interest attaching to the route here briefly described. To such he
offers his services as guide, philosopher and friend, trusting also that
many who stay at home may be interested in the story here told.
With regard to the illustrations, the author acknowledges the kindness of
Dr. Lunn and Messrs. Cassell in allowing him the use of them, and
especially is grateful to Miss Pollard, the daughter of the author of
that valuable work, ‘The Land of the Monuments,’ for permission to use
her sketch ‘Dawn on the Great Sphinx,’ which he has utilized for his
frontispiece.
CLACTON-ON-SEA.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A RUN ACROSS FRANCE 1
II. OFF TO NAPLES 7
III. NAPLES OF TO-DAY 13
IV. POMPEII AND VESUVIUS 23
V. THE ISLES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN 33
VI. ABOUT ATHENS 41
VII. CONSTANTINOPLE 54
VIII. SMYRNA 71
IX. JAFFA TO JERUSALEM 77
X. THE HOLY CITY 84
XI. BETHLEHEM 103
XII. THE JEW IN JERUSALEM 110
XIII. ALEXANDRIA 124
XIV. IN CAIRO 135
XV. THE PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX 153
XVI. THE RIVER NILE 164
XVII. THE RETURN TO MARSEILLES 172
XVIII. AVIGNON 186
XIX. THE GREAT CITY OF LYONS 194
XX. DIJON, OR THE WINE COUNTRY 206
XXI. BOOKS OF REFERENCE 214
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
DAWN ON THE GREAT SPHINX _Frontispiece_
TWO-BERTH CABIN, ‘MIDNIGHT SUN’ 4
THE BAY OF NAPLES 19
TEMPLE OF VENUS, POMPEII 27
THE CORINTH CANAL 38
TEMPLE OF VICTORY 47
THE PARTHENON 49
A BUSY STREET IN CONSTANTINOPLE 56
A MOSQUE ON THE BOSPHORUS 58
THE QUAY, CONSTANTINOPLE 60
GALATA BRIDGE, CONSTANTINOPLE 65
AN OLD STREET, CONSTANTINOPLE 67
THE GATE OF PERSECUTION, NEAR EPHESUS 73
JERUSALEM: VIA DOLOROSA AND PONTIUS PILATE’S HOUSE 79
VIEW FROM ST. STEPHEN’S GATE, WITH RUSSIAN CHURCH AND 81
GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE
GENERAL VIEW OF JERUSALEM FROM THE CONVENT OF THE SISTERS 93
OF ZION
THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 95
BETHLEHEM 105
POMPEY’S PILLAR, ALEXANDRIA 126
GENERAL VIEW OF CAIRO 136
A STREET IN CAIRO 137
TOMB OF THE CALIPHS OF CAIRO 139
DONKEY-BOY, CAIRO 142
COLOSSAL STATUE OF RAMESES II. 154
PYRAMID AND SPHINX 156
THE GREAT SPHINX 157
A TOURIST STEAMER—COOK’S NILE FLOTILLA 169
THE NEW HARBOUR, MARSEILLES 173
MARSEILLES 175
THE CASTLE OF THE POPES, AVIGNON 189
THE PLACE BELLECOUR, LYONS 197
CHAPTER I.
A RUN ACROSS FRANCE.
To leave London one day and to arrive in Marseilles the next would have
been deemed impossible—the dream of a madman—in the age in which I was
born, when steamships and railways were unknown. Yet it is a fact, to
the truth of which I can testify. Half a century has elapsed since the
fair fields, leafy woodlands, and breezy chalk downs of Kent were invaded
by a band of navvies, who, under the skilful direction of the late Sir
William Cubitt, built up the main line of the South-Eastern Railway. The
next thing was to connect France and Europe, which was done by means of
steamers running between Calais and Dover, and thence by rail to all the
chief Continental cities and health resorts.
I leave London by the Continental express at eight in the morning one
cold day in October; in eight hours I am in Paris, passing Calais and
Abbeville, both of which places, especially the former, are, I believe,
pretty well known in these days of universal restlessness and travel. It
is little we see of Paris, the gay and beautiful. We have to dine—for
man must dine, if possible, once a day—and to Paris we turn for its cooks
and cookery. It is there that the art of dining is carried to
perfection. ‘Unquiet meals make ill digestions.’ There is no fear of
that as I sit down to my well-prepared repast at the handsome buffet
attached to the French Northern Railway, and yet there my troubles begin.
As a barbarous Englander, I ask why in Paris, the centre, as it deems
itself, of civilization and refinement, I am compelled to help myself to
salt by putting my knife into the saltcellar. Then, again, it seems
curious to me, and what I am not accustomed to, to eat my fish without a
fitting knife and fork. Surely one may expect to find in Paris the
refinement one is accustomed to in one’s native land! As to being
cheated with one’s eyes open, one does not complain—you expect it, and it
is not worth while losing your temper merely for the sake of a few paltry
centimes; and yet I felt that I had been done unfairly when, on asking a
waiter for a cup of coffee _noir_, and giving him an English shilling,
and particularly calling his attention to the value of the coin, he
coolly treats it as a franc, and gives me change accordingly. That was
rather a dear cup of coffee, I calculate; but, then, the fault was mine,
and mine alone. I ought to have provided myself with French money before
I started.
I am going on what Dr. Lunn calls an educational tour on the Continent.
It seems to me I shall get a good deal of education of some kind or other
before I return to my native land again. There are about 112 on board
from London and the provinces. As we are bound for Jerusalem, we have,
as was to be expected, a large proportion of the clerical element.
Ladies are not so numerous as one would expect from what one knows of the
curiosity and fondness for adventure of lovely woman. The worst part of
the trip is the long, wearying ride from Paris to Marseilles, where we
found peace and plenty on board the _Midnight Sun_. We saw but little of
the country on leaving Paris; but when we reached Lyons, where we were
refreshed with delicious coffee and bread-and-butter, and were provided
with a handsome lunch, to be eaten in the course of our journey,
consisting of a bottle of claret, beef and fowl, bread-and-butter, and
cheese and fruit—a handsome meal, to which we all did justice—the day
broke on us clear and fine.
But I pause to make another little grumble. In barbarous England the
lunch would have been neatly packed away in a basket specially provided
for the purpose, and a knife and fork would have been included. On the
Lyons railway a brown paper bag was deemed all that was necessary, and
instead of a knife and fork we had to use our fingers. As there was no
convenience for washing—at any rate, as regards second-class passengers,
_quorum pars fui_; I recommend the traveller to go first-class on such a
long ride—you can imagine our disgusting state. It seems to me that the
rule that they do things better in France is one to which there are
several exceptions. But in some respects France beats us. It will be
hard to find anywhere in England a prettier ride than that we enjoyed
from Lyons to Marseilles. The white houses, with their green blinds and
red tiles, nestling in and among the trees, always make a French
landscape bright and gay. Their great industrial and manufacturing
centres also always [Picture: Two-berth cabin, ‘Midnight Sun’] look
cleaner and less forbidding in their dreariness than ours at home; and if
the little narrow plots you see suggest peasant farming, rather than the
high and costly farming patronized at home, you feel that the peasant of
gay and sunny France—for such France undoubtedly is—has a happier lot
than with us. But as you travel you have no time to think of such
things. It is all one can do to watch the fairy panorama of rock and
river, of waving woods and smiling plains, as you glide by. At all times
the Loire is a grand river, but to-day it is flooded, and seems to be
made up of lakes and seas, in which struggle haystacks, farmhouses,
barns, the everlasting poplars, and, what is worse, the poor man’s
garden, and I think, in one or two cases that met my pitying eye, his
vinefields as well.
One word before I have done with the _Midnight Sun_. ‘In the new
yachting,’ writes Sir Morell Mackenzie, ‘there is no unpleasantness as to
the change of places to be visited, nor are carefully-arranged plans to
be disarranged at the last moment by the thoughtlessness or unpunctuality
of friends. You have the pleasure of companionship, without any of the
responsibilities of a host or the obligations of a guest. You can enjoy
the sea and the air charged with ozone, which is the champagne of the
lungs, and free from any taint of animal or vegetable corruption, just as
freely as if you were an Alexander Selkirk on a floating island; and you
have many comforts which cannot be had even on the largest and
best-appointed yachts.’ Such were the results of the great physician’s
experience on board one of the fine excursion steamers of the Orient
line. ‘I felt,’ he writes, ‘like Faust after his great transformation
scene from age to youth.’
I am not on an Orient steamer, but I am on the _Midnight Sun_, and to
that Sir Morell Mackenzie’s testimony is equally applicable. The
_Midnight Sun_ is a grand steamer of 3,178 tons, and she was especially
fitted out for yachting purposes. She may be said to be the best of the
class. For instance, take the sleeping cabins. They contain no upper
sleeping berths—a boon most acceptable to passengers who have had to pass
many nights, as I have done, in cabins overcrowded with passengers and
luggage. An idea of the magnificent proportions of the _Midnight Sun_
may be gathered from the fact that seven times round her deck is equal to
one mile. The upper deck forms a promenade over the entire length of the
ship, with uninterrupted views on either side. She has been engaged by
Dr. Lunn for his co-operative educational cruises, which become more
popular every year. I note especially the smoking-room on the upper
deck, capable of accommodating nearly 100 persons. There is a crew of
110 on board for the purpose of ensuring our safety and supplying our
comforts and wants. Truly, if one cannot enjoy himself on such a trip,
and with such a company of gentlemen and ladies as Dr. Lunn succeeds in
drawing around him, he must be hard to please. Dr. Lunn, who is not on
board, is in himself a host, and so is his popular brother, who supplies
his place. We are now approaching Corsica. I will spare you my feelings
as I gaze on the land that gave birth to a Napoleon Bonaparte, and that
sheltered Seneca in his dreary exile, but which in modern times Lady
Burdett Coutts finds to be a very beneficial health resort. They are all
that should inspire the virtuous emotions of a true-born Englishman.