glorious ride through the Plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, often coming
upon the brook Kishon and its little trickling tributaries in their
multitudinous windings, and fording the same. What a vast space is here,
how Biblical in its majesty, and how troubled too with recollections of
battle from remotest ages of Israelitish history down to Napoleon's
time. Deflecting to the right we climbed up to Naim for our halt,
memorable for the raising of the widow's son. There was an immense view
from this little bunch of mud houses towards Tabor and Galilee, with a
foreground of purple iris. Then descending again into the plain we rode
to the foot of Mount Tabor, where, in an olive-wood, and on ploughed
land, our camp was pitched. How refreshing it is never to be told we are
trespassing in this country.
[Illustration: THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON, FROM FOOT OF TABOR, WITH THE
VILLAGE OF NAIM IN DISTANCE
Plain full of green wheat. Mountain to left is "Little Hermon," on which
the village of Naim stands. Towards sunset.]
On arriving I chose to remain and make a sunset sketch of distant Naim
on its hill, whilst W. rode up to the top of Tabor.
_Wednesday, 22nd April._
Off again at sunrise over the saddle of Mount Tabor. Very rough riding
through dells of oak, where the honeysuckle hung in masses and scented
the air. Tabor itself is scarcely beautiful in outline, and like the
magnified mounds that the old masters intended for mountains. In their
pictures of the Transfiguration their Tabors are very like the original.
This was our most glorious day's journey, for it took us to the shores
of the Lake of Galilee. Hermon in distant Lebanon was visible ahead of
us throughout. We rode up to near the top of the "Mount of Beatitudes,"
and then on foot reached the very top, and had our first view of the
Sacred Sea from that immense height. Here Christ preached the Sermon on
the Mount, and down there, intensely blue, lay that dear lake whose
shores were so often trodden by His feet. Hermon rose above the majestic
landscape, and a warm, palpitating light vibrated over all. In a scrap
of shade from a rock we made our halt, and I had an hour and a half for
a sketch. Then we rode down to Tiberias, descending into a furnace,
though when once on the shore the breeze was sweet off the water.
Tiberias is a dreadful little town, and we were glad to thread its
alleys as quickly as possible. Our camp was on a pebbly strand about
half a mile south of this, the only, town on these shores that once held
such brilliant cities. I made an evening sketch, and before retiring for
the night we strolled a long time by those sacred waters in the light of
the full moon. The waves were strong, and sounded loud in that great
stillness. At such times as this the sense of Our Lord's Presence is
almost more than one's mortal heart can hold.
We picked up hundreds of shells, which will make appropriate rosaries,
mounted in silver, the cross made out of olive wood which I have brought
from Gethsemane. I will send you one.
_Thursday, 23rd April._
We went by boat three hours' row to near the mouth of the Jordan, at the
north end of the lake, where the grassy slopes are supposed to
[Illustration: OUR FIRST SIGHT OF LAKE GALILEE
The snowy mountain is Mount Hermon. Northern edge of the lake shown.
Tall fennel plants amongst rocks in foreground. Early afternoon.]
be the scene of the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. It is very
difficult to describe to you my enchantment at seeing one after another
these places I have longed to see from early childhood, when our beloved
father used to read us the Bible every Sunday. The lake was pale and
calm, delicately tinted, and there was a heat-haze over everything in
the early part of the day. We disembarked under some thorny acacias
which gave a deep shade, and I had the delight of making a sketch there
of the coast, looking westward, whilst W. went on by boat to the Jordan.
Rosy oleanders fringe the water as far as the eye can reach; the "Mount
of Beatitudes" and top of Tabor are in the distance, and the site of
Capernaum in the middle distance. God has trodden these scenes with
human feet; the feeling of sketching them is scarcely to be put before
you in words.
The boatmen were very angry at being kept, whilst I finished the sketch,
from returning at the right time, for they told us that if the west wind
sprang up we should never be able to get home that night. Surely enough
we were only able to get as far as Capernaum with hard pulling against
a strong west wind, which suddenly changed the whole face of the lake.
Its pale blue was now dirty green and the choppy waves lashed with foam,
and so wild did the waves become that the progress of the boat was
almost impossible. These sudden and violent gusts that come through the
gullies between the mountains are dreaded by the fishermen of to-day as
they were in Peter's time. Fortunately W. had in the morning ordered
that our horses should be sent round to meet us here in case the wind
arose, and we gladly got on them at this point, having an enchanting
ride back and being able at many places to canter our horses. We heard
afterwards that the boatmen did not get in till one in the morning. At
Capernaum are seen some rich Roman ruins lying tumbled about as though
by an earthquake. We rode through the supposed site of Bethsaida, and
passed through a portion of the old Roman roadway for chariots, cut
through the rock. No accumulation of earth has buried the original
surface as elsewhere, so that this lane, with its polished floor of
rock, must have undoubtedly been trodden by Our Lord as He passed from
city to city. Here are the remains
[Illustration: GALILEE, LOOKING TOWARDS HERMON
Mount Hermon snow-capped in distance. Town of Tiberias on shore in
middle distance to left.]
of a Roman aqueduct, in one place pouring a huge volume of clearest
water over a ledge where, no doubt, in the city's time, a fountain
stood. Now the flood from the northern hills disperses itself in
abundant streams that rush through dense herbage to the lake. We counted
six of these little rivers on our way to Magdala, the birthplace of the
Magdalen. We looked down from our mountain lanes to the milk-white
strands of the little inlets that border the northern end of Gennesaret,
and I wondered at which of them the various episodes of the Gospel took
place--Our Lord preaching from the ship pushed out a little way to be
free from the jostling crowd on shore--the embarkation for the
miraculous draught of fishes----. Besides oleanders the pomegranates
grow all along this shore in dense masses half embedded in teeming
vegetation.
Magdala is a tiny mud hamlet with a single palm. There are splendid
fig-trees here. Herds of oxen and goats and flocks of sheep browse
knee-deep in the rich grass.
Our dragoman took us this time through the whole length of the town of
Tiberias. It happened to be a great Jewish festival, and the men had
all freshly oiled and curled their side locks, which dangled from under
immense round fur caps, and the women wore artificial flowers in their
hair and were clothed in velvets of splendid hue. It was strange to see
them thus attired, coming upon them so suddenly when entering the town
from the wilderness. The lanes were stifling and unwholesome, the
children pale and sickly, and all had that same blighted look I noticed
at Jerusalem. None of them were tanned, but remained white under such a
sun! It was a relief to come out at the other end and canter back along
the margin of the "Sea" to our camp, for that ride through Tiberias had
oppressed and saddened me.
_Friday, 24th April._
An early start as the sun rose over those dark cliffs of the country of
the Gadarenes down which the possessed swine careered to the abyss.
Good-bye, blessed Sea of Galilee! We had our last look from the immense
height near the "Mount of Beatitudes," and thence we turned south-west
on our way to Nazareth over the hills of Zebulon.
Young shepherds were piping on little fifes on the hills. The country
became uninteresting
[Illustration: GALILEE, LOOKING FROM NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE JORDAN
TOWARDS THE "MOUNT OF BEATITUDES" AND TABOR
OLEANDERS in flower skirting shore in foreground. Top of Mount Tabor
showing over nearer mountains in distance.]
(comparatively!) after we left the immediate surroundings of the lake
till we came to Cana of Galilee, where we halted, and where I made my
only "failure" sketch.
It was a dear, holy, lovable landscape, but hillocky and green and
impossible in that flat noontide light. At Cana is the fountain from
which undoubtedly was drawn the water for the marriage feast, since
there is absolutely no other spring in the place. It was a long journey
to Nazareth. That holy town is very lovely, and so much superior in its
buildings to the others--quite well-to-do and exquisitely situated on
the slope of a cypress-topped hill, in terraces, like a tiny Genoa. Here
culminated my disappointment in the faces of the women of Palestine, for
the tattooing is simply outrageous, worse than anywhere else in the
East. How can they be beautiful with blue lips and the mouth surrounded
with blue trees, animals and birds? This spoilt my pleasure in coming
upon the "Fountain of the Virgin," where these maids and matrons were
filling their pitchers amid a great chattering, at the entrance to the
town. We walked, after arriving, to the Church of the Annunciation.
There, in the "Holy House" (the front of which is at Loretto), far
below the present surface of the earth, on the very spot where the angel
saluted Mary, one can say the Angelus. This is the portion of the house
which (as is the custom here) is excavated out of the rock; the fronts
only are of masonry. We visited the "Mensa Christi," which interested us
but little, as it savours too much of the "pious fraud," and then the
site of Joseph's workshop.
We were disappointed in the position of our camp, as other travellers
had forestalled us in getting better places, and the best of all was
bespoken for the great French pilgrimage expected on the morrow.
On this account we settled not to tarry at Nazareth and to send the
heavy column back to Jerusalem in the morning. We are only one day's
journey from Caïfa, our place of embarkation. As I was looking at the
town from our tent door at the time of the Angelus, the bells of the
Church over Mary's house suddenly rang out a carillon, and the tune was
that very one we used to hear when A. and I were five and six years old
on our dear Genoese Riviera! I had not heard that tune since those days.
Later on I watched the full
[Illustration: NAZARETH AT SUNRISE
THE church with spire to the left stands over the site of Joseph's
workshop, and near Mary's house.]
moon rising over those mountain outlines which Our Lord looked on every
day of His hidden life at Nazareth, and then turned and saw the town
white in the moonbeams on its dark hillside.
_Saturday, 25th April._
We started later than usual, as W. had to close accounts with the "heavy
column" and send a telegram to Alexandria to warn them of our impending
return. There was a heavy dew. I made a sunrise sketch of the town. A
glorious ride we had to Carmel, steeped in the poetry of the Old
Testament. Carmel is one mass of oak-trees. There we met the vast host
of the French pilgrims coming from Caïfa and beginning their experiences
of Palestine. We met amicably at the shady halting-place and exchanged a
few words of _camaraderie_, and we watched them depart towards Nazareth,
each company headed by a banner. On our way to Caïfa we crossed the
Kishon again, now near its mouth, flowing through a lovely plain,
bordered, near the sandhills that skirt the sea, with date-palms. Over
the hills to our right towered Lebanon against the blue. As we came in
sight of the bay the town of St. Jean d'Acre looked beautiful on the
opposite side, and Caïfa appeared a bright little town at the foot of
Carmel. There we put up at the German inn, and I parted with my dear
little horse "Shiloh," and W. with his nimble "Kishon," our good little
steeds that brought us so well through the Holy Land.
_Sunday, 26th April._
A great rest and much letter-writing. The congregation at Mass was
large, for there is a considerable Christian colony here. We shall make
this our headquarters till Friday, when we must leave for Egypt.
CAÏFA, _Monday, 27th April 189-_.
My....--We had a very enjoyable expedition to Acre, driving the whole
way there and back _in the sea_. Where the waves break the sand is hard,
whereas higher up the beach no wheeled vehicle could get through in the
soft sand. We were often covered with spray, and the lean horses
splashed along knee-deep in the surf. At the ferry across the Kishon,
where it flows into the sea, our horses were unharnessed and swam
alongside our punt, together with a string of camels that looked very
comical swimming. The shivering horses were reharnessed on the farther
shore, and away we went tearing through the waves. The poor beasts
seemed to enjoy their oats at the end, if enjoyment is possible to such
wretched, ill-treated creatures. I made a sketch as well as I could with
the sun in my eyes from our shandrydan, about a quarter of a mile
outside the one gate of Acre, on the white sandy strand, whilst W. went
exploring all over the town. The military authorities molested us not at
all, and the commandant only asked W. for backsheesh, although I was
conspicuously sketching the fortifications and W. was scanning
everything in a place so saturated with Napoleonic reminiscences. The
same amphibious drive in the gloaming back to Caïfa.
_Tuesday, 28th April 189-._
To-day we drove to remote Athlit, a long way down the coast to the
south, and spent quiet hours amid the Gothic Crusader ruins on the
wave-lashed rocks beyond Carmel. Acre and Athlit steep one's mind in
Crusader sentiment, which feels almost modern after so long a sojourn in
the regions of the Bible. The majestic fragments of Northern Gothic we
saw to-day seem strange to the eye in this Oriental land, but to the
intellect they are full of touching meaning, for this was the point of
departure for most of the Crusaders. Baffled, haggard, heart-broken,
they took ship again from here.
Wednesday we spent in visiting the Carmelite Monastery, a perfect place
to stay at instead of the rather dubious German inn. It is a
fortress-like building commanding a sweeping view of the sea, south and
west and north, and of the grand landscape eastward and south again. The
whitewashed rooms are filled with the reflection from the light off the
water and the land. The Abbot and monks, in the well-known white cloak
and brown habit, are, as everywhere, kindly and hospitable, and glad to
see you. What a place for study and for painting; what a place for a
Retreat, where everything reminds you of Religion and not one single
mundane, worrying, or ugly object comes within your ken! By "ugly" I
always mean some modern eyesore; it is not a word applicable to the poor
and the diseased who humbly mount the steep path for the daily alms and
food the monastery has ready for them.
[Illustration: ST. JEAN D'ACRE
THE roadstead is seen to the left. A sandy shore. City surrounded by
walls and fortifications.]
Somewhere amongst this series of oak-clad hills that forms Mount
Carmel, Elijah built his altar to the True God, whereon the
burnt-offering was consumed by fire from heaven in sight of the prophets
of Baal. "Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the holocaust,
and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that
was in the trench," III Kings xviii. 38. This was the scene of that
mighty episode which is one of the most salient and impressive in one's
memory of the Old Testament, and look! down below rushes that same
Kishon on whose banks Elijah, after the great drama on the mountain,
slew the prophets of Baal in sight of all the children of Israel. A
thrill runs through one when recalling such scenes as one stands on the
very spot where they took place.
After seeing specimens of the ancient tombs in this country one can
fully understand the words of St. Luke and St. John alluding to the new
sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea "wherein no man had yet been laid."
These tombs contain triple receptacles for the dead, as I showed you in
the sketch plan at Jerusalem, and some I believe have more than three.
Had the sepulchre at the foot of Calvary contained but one, the words of
the Evangelists would be puzzling. This is an instance of the
illumination that dispels certain obscurities in one's mind as one
journeys across the theatre of Bible history.
It seems a strange paradox, but it is a very weighty fact, that the
possession of the Holy Land by the conservative Turk preserves all such
tokens of the past for the elucidation of the Christian's Bible. Were
this land in possession of a "Christian" Power, I fear that the service
of Mammon would soon necessitate the obliteration of these tokens so
precious to our Faith. Railways, factories, mines and new towns "run" by
greedy syndicates, would very soon make an end of them all. There was a
Christian proposal a little while ago, I believe, to flood the whole of
Palestine for commercial purposes. My ideal would be (oh, vain dream!)
that some great confederation of earnest people whose God is not the
Dollar, belonging to the various European Powers and America, should
purchase the little Holy Land as a possession "for ever" for
Christendom--_real_ Christendom.
To-day, Thursday, we saw the "School of the Prophets," a curious and
awesome cavern in the side of the mountain. These have been quiet days,
wherein I have been able to write much and assimilate the events of our
glorious journey.
Looking back along these days of travel, many flitting thoughts that
came and went as we journeyed on, return to one's mind in the stillness
of repose. One of the facts that have struck us most in this ancient
land which is yet so fresh--so fresh in its surprises and in its
stirrings of the heart--is the fact that no book of human authorship
dealing with the subject is readable on the spot. You may take with you
Dean Stanley, Dr. Thomson (_The Land and the Book_), Miss Martineau, or
any of the delightful works on Palestine that have fascinated you in
times gone by: you will open them once but not again. _The Bible is the
only book you can read here!_ All the others are inadequate: no man can
measure himself with the Infinite. (Such books as Père Didon's sublime
_Jésus Christ_ or Father Gallwey's _Watches of the Passion_ I do not
consider as being of human authorship, because they are illustrative
accompaniments of the Scriptures.)
The feeling I have when on the point of leaving the Holy Land is one
difficult to describe worthily. We seem to have been allowed a glimpse
into the other world through this sacred portal. To have stood on the
summit of Olivet whence Our Redeemer ascended into heaven in the form He
reigns in now at the right hand of the Father, is as though one had
touched heaven itself. And then the force with which one realises
certain episodes of His revealed life on earth makes one see the
Incarnation so vividly that the human mind bends beneath the might of
the revelation.
When I saw our boatmen the other day on Galilee pulling with all their
might, but in vain, against the sudden west wind, so peculiar to that
particular lake, I saw before me the fishermen of Peter's type, dressed
in the same loose garments, going through the same dangerous work that
he and his fellows had to face habitually. How easy it was, with that
living illustration before me, to see the struggling boat's crew on the
night that Jesus, remaining to pray alone on the mountain on the eastern
shore, sent them forward to Capernaum without Him, and how easy to see
them trying to make their way as described in Matthew xiv. 24. "But the
boat in the midst of the sea was tossed with the waves: for the wind was
contrary." And then the divine Figure following them, moving over those
tossing waves, can be imagined, approaching, full of calm reassurance,
to still their fears at His apparition--"It is I, be not afraid." The
direction in which the boat was steered, the mountain whence the divine
Figure came forward and overtook the boat--all now appears to the mind's
eye in powerful vividness, in the setting of land and water that one has
seen.
Again, the poor demoniacs that lived in the tombs that are cut out of
the sides of those same mountains "over against Galilee" (there are
outcast maniacs like them to-day in the deserts, if not "possessed" as
these men were),--I fancy I can see the look of the wild animal in their
faces as they met our Lord, and hear the quick, wild cry of one of them:
"What have I to do with thee, Jesus, Son of the most high God?"--and the
hoarse answer to Christ's question, "My name is Legion!" I have before
me the recollection of a strange creature I saw running out of a
sepulchral chamber in a ruined temple on the Upper Nile, like the
incarnation of Satan in some of the Old Masters' pictures: the head
bald, and of the same cinder-coloured hue as the evil face, with its
large pointed ears, and the muscular body. I do not mean that the
possessed man of the Gospel might have been like this dweller in tombs,
but one sees strange beings in the deserts whose shelters are the
resting-places of the dead.
I continue to be haunted by the feeling that the sight of the Holy
Places is too easily and too unceremoniously obtained nowadays. I hope
we do not feel less devoutly with regard to them than in the "Ages of
Faith," and that it is only our modern way to take these things as we
do. Do you remember how history tells us that Richard Coeur de Lion,
after his defeat by the Saracens some distance short of Jerusalem,
falling back towards the coast, baffled in his heroic efforts to redeem
the Holy Sepulchre from the Infidel, refused to look on the city which
came in sight in the rear of his line of march as he and his knights
crested a high hill near Emmaus? He would not look; he had failed; his
eyes were too unworthy to rest upon the City of the Lord. And to-day,
with the Infidel still in possession, the Christian tourist, nothing
doubting, takes a good look through his binocular on sighting the same
Jerusalem. I remember hearing that as some friends of ours, forming part
of a mixed company,
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE CRUSADERS' BANQUETING HALL, ATHLEET
The springs of the Gothic arches can be traced on the high brick wall.
The hills to the right form the lower western slopes of Mount Carmel,
covered with oak woods.]
came in sight of the city, one of their number dropped on his knees in
as unobtrusive a manner as was possible under the circumstances. "I did
not know your brother was a _fanatic_," whispered an American to his
sister.
As regards certain details of life in this country that so much
embarrass and disappoint some travellers, do not imagine that I
affectedly ignore their existence; but I do feel grateful that in my
view of the whole scene they have everywhere kept their proper place. I
know how disappointed some people are on their account, and I should be
sorry if I was thought intolerant in my self-satisfaction at being so
fortunate.
One lady, in a little book I once read, describing her journey, takes
for her text: "He is not here, but is risen." In bitter chagrin she
acknowledges the fact that nowhere in Jerusalem could she see Our Lord
through her surroundings. I asked a friend once if she would like to see
the Holy Land: "Certainly not!" she exclaimed; "I have read Mark Twain's
book." I inquired of an English traveller at Jaffa the other day, who
was on his way home, how the Holy Places had impressed him. His answers
were dispirited: the dirt, the flies, etc., etc., had annoyed him. His
ears were still ringing with the ubiquitous "Baksheesh!"; the lepers had
spoilt some of the best views--and so on. How much better it would have
been for him not to come here, like the Mark Twain lady, and to have
preserved his Oxford impressions of the Bible uncontaminated!