CARPENTER’S
WORLD TRAVELS
_Familiar Talks About Countries
and Peoples_
WITH THE AUTHOR ON THE SPOT AND
THE READER IN HIS HOME, BASED
ON THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND
MILES OF TRAVEL
OVER THE GLOBE
THE HOLY LAND AND SYRIA
[Illustration: CHRISTIANS RULE THE LAND OF CHRIST
Seven hundred years of Moslem supremacy in the Holy Land ended with
General Allenby’s modest entrance into Jerusalem. Then arose the cry.
“The day of deliverance is come.”]
_CARPENTER’S WORLD TRAVELS_
THE HOLY LAND
AND SYRIA
BY
FRANK G. CARPENTER
LITT.D., F.R.G.S.
[Illustration]
NINETY-SIX PAGES OF
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS
AND TWO MAPS IN COLOUR
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1923
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
FRANK G. CARPENTER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS. GARDEN CITY. N. Y.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the publication of this volume on the Holy Land and Syria, I wish
to thank the Secretary of State for letters which have given me the
assistance of our official representatives in the countries visited.
I also thank our Secretary of Agriculture and our Secretary of Labour
for appointing me an Honorary Commissioner of their Departments in
foreign lands. Their credentials have been of the greatest value, making
accessible to me sources of information seldom opened to the ordinary
traveller.
I wish to acknowledge also the valuable assistance and coöperation
rendered by Mr. Dudley Harmon, my editor, and Miss Josephine Lehmann in
the revision of the notes dictated or penned by me on the ground.
While most of the illustrations are from my own negatives, there are
certain photographs which have been supplied by the Near East Relief, the
Red Cross, the Publishers’ Photo Service, and the Zionist Organization of
America, all of which are protected by copyright.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I JUST A WORD BEFORE WE START 1
II IN THE LAND OF GOSHEN 4
III THE CITY OF JONAH 14
IV BY RAILWAY TO THE LAND OF JUDEA 23
V FROM DAN TO BEERSHEBA 30
VI JERUSALEM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 36
VII AROUND THE WALLS OF THE HOLY CITY 43
VIII “THE TRIBES OF GOD GO THITHER” 48
IX ON THE SITE OF SOLOMON’S TEMPLE 57
X JEWS OF PALESTINE 68
XI THE EVIL EYE 78
XII EASTER IN JERUSALEM 84
XIII WASHING THE FEET OF THE APOSTLES 95
XIV A TALK WITH THE GREEK PATRIARCH 101
XV AMONG THE MONEY CHANGERS 111
XVI EXCAVATING OLD JERICHO 119
XVII THE DEAD SEA AND THE JORDAN 129
XVIII BETHLEHEM 138
XIX AMONG THE SAMARITANS 149
XX FARMING IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY 159
XXI THE COLONIES AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT 169
XXII WHERE OUR SAVIOUR SPENT HIS BOYHOOD 177
XXIII ON THE SEA OF GALILEE 187
XXIV THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 196
XXV THE WORLD’S OLDEST CITY 204
XXVI SHOPPING IN THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT 214
XXVII THE VEILED WOMEN OF DAMASCUS 223
XXVIII BAALBEK THE WONDERFUL 232
XXIX ACROSS THE LEBANON MOUNTAINS BY RAIL 242
XXX AMERICAN LEAVEN IN THE NEAR EAST 252
XXXI AT THE SHRINE OF DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS 262
XXXII ARMENIA, THE SUFFERING 271
XXXIII PALESTINE AND SYRIA UNDER NEW RULERS 280
SEEING THE WORLD 287
BIBLIOGRAPHY 289
INDEX 293
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Christians rule the Land of Christ _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Primitive water wheel in the Land of Goshen 8
Through rocky wastes to the top of Mt. Sinai 9
Egyptians toiling where the Israelites made bricks 16
We go ashore in small boats at Jaffa 17
House of Simon the Tanner 17
The men of Palestine are very strong 20
Cactus hedges are used instead of fences 21
The crude plough of Palestine 28
The children of the Holy Land 28
A sheeted Balaam and his ass 29
Fuel is scarce in the land of no woods 32
The Pool of Hezekiah 33
Airplane view of Jerusalem 36
The Kaiser’s breach in the Wall of Jerusalem 37
The roofs of Jerusalem 44
View of the Mt. of Olives 44
Jerusalem seen from a bell tower 45
Sheep and goats outside the walls 48
Lepers beg at the Gates of Jerusalem 49
The roads to Jaffa and Bethlehem 49
Water carriers old and new 52
“Going up to Jerusalem” 53
A donkey ambulance for pilgrims on the march 53
Pilgrims bathing in the River Jordan 60
Russian women walk from shrine to shrine 61
The Mosque of Omar 64
The Jews’ wailing place 65
A maid of Jerusalem 68
Snow in the streets of Jerusalem 69
Three learned Jews of the Holy City 76
The Tower of David 77
Inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 80
Keeping off the evil spirits 81
Grandfather and grandson—both beggars 84
Pilgrims praying in the Via Dolorosa 85
Waiting for the Holy Fire 92
Gathering the olive crop 93
The Church of the Lord’s Prayer 96
Washing the feet of the twelve bishops 97
A tailor shop in Jerusalem 100
The church of the best religious paintings 101
Commercializing the holiness of the Holy City 108
Moslem priest reading the Koran 108
The biblical good measure 109
Bethlehem maids 112
Bushels of rosaries 113
A Turkish restaurant in Jerusalem 116
In the shoemaker’s bazaar 116
View of Bethany from hillside 117
The Fountain of Elisha 124
At the Tomb of Lazarus 125
The Healing Stone on the way to Jordan 125
The source of the Jordan at Banias 128
Our escort to the River Jordan 129
On the shores of the Dead Sea 132
Fisherman and boat on the Jordan 132
A street in Bethlehem 133
Christmas Day services in Bethlehem 140
Young women and their dowries 141
At Jacob’s Well 144
The Sacred Scroll of the Samaritans 145
The Feast of the Passover on Mt. Gerizim 148
Pulling tares from the wheat 149
The camel blubbers as his hair is clipped 149
Why Palestinians use camels for ploughing 156
Modern farm machinery in the Jewish colony 156
The sheep that was lost is found 157
Colonists terrace the hillsides with stone walls 160
Picking almonds 161
An avenue of cypresses and palms 164
A carpenter shop in Nazareth 165
Nazareth lies in a little amphitheatre 172
The boys of Nazareth are friendly 172
Mr. Carpenter and the Water Pot of Cana 173
We cross the Sea of Galilee 176
The arched Gate of Tiberias 177
Fish from the Sea of Galilee 180
Capernaum—the city of prophecy fulfilled 180
The colonists do much of their own work 181
Making the bread of Bible times 188
A colonist’s home near Lake Merom 189
A prayer niche in the Grand Mosque 192
Where Fatima lies buried in Damascus 193
A place of trees with a river flowing between 196
The Wall of St. Paul in Damascus 196
Shopping in the Street called Straight 197
The men come together in the horse market 204
“O Allah, send customers,” cry the bread-sellers 204
Spinning wool into thread for a rug 205
The transportation monopoly of the Bedouin 208
At the end of the Bookseller’s Bazaar 209
The street dress of the women of Damascus 224
Mr. Carpenter and the Columns at Baalbek 225
The portal of the Temple of Bacchus 228
The mighty columns of the Temple of the Sun 229
The nomad Bedouins live in brown tents 236
A lonely grove of Lebanon cedars 237
Only a few of the great trees are left 240
Tree-lined avenues lead out of Beirut 241
The American University at Beirut 244
Stones carried up on the backs of camels 244
A view of Beirut 245
The ruins of the City of Diana 252
Storks build their nests in the palaces of Ephesus 252
Giving the silkworms their breakfast 253
Armenian children make themselves useful 256
Getting the Armenians back to the land 257
A cradle of Armenia 260
American flour sacks serve a double purpose 260
The water power of the Jordan will be developed 261
The first steel bridge across the Jordan 268
Jerusalem now has a speed law 269
MAPS
The Holy Land 24
The Holy Land and Syria 40
THE HOLY LAND AND SYRIA
CHAPTER I
JUST A WORD BEFORE WE START
By the World War the Moslem was forced to the rear and Palestine has
become more and more the possession of Christian and Jew. General Allenby
and his troops have taken the part of Richard the Lion-hearted and the
Crusaders, and Jerusalem is at last out of the hands of the followers of
the Prophet Mohammed. Among the innovations that followed are the removal
of the tax gatherers who robbed the poor and the rich in the name of
the Sultan, the safeguarding of the roads from the wandering Bedouins,
and the reclaiming of the soil, so that the country bids fair to become
once more the land of milk and honey that it was when it gladdened the
tired eyes of the Israelites after their long wanderings in the desert
of Sinai. Railways now cross the desert, connecting Palestine with Egypt
and Turkey, and one may go on the cars from Cairo to Jerusalem and from
Paris, via Constantinople and Damascus, to Galilee.
At the same time the Holy Land of the Bible is the Holy Land of to-day.
It has the same skies as those under which the Wise Men followed the Star
to the birthplace of Jesus. It has the same flowers as those trodden
by Joseph and Mary, and the water in Jacob’s Well is still sweet,
notwithstanding it is now compared with that of the Nile which flows
in pipes over the desert almost to the Pool of Siloam. The sheep still
pasture on the hills as they did in the days of our Saviour, and boys and
girls may be seen picking the tares from the wheat. Asses like Balaam’s
still carry their masters over the road, although their brays are now
and then drowned in the horns of the automobiles; and the strange people
one constantly meets personify Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Rachel and
Ruth, and the other Bible characters who lived and loved in the days of
the Scriptures.
All these belong to the Palestine perennial, and to that Palestine belong
the talks of this book. They are based on the notes dictated to my
stenographer or written by me in the midst of the scenes they describe.
I give them as they came hot from the pen, changing only a line here and
there to accord with the changing conditions.
We start in the Land of Goshen which Joseph gave to his father and
brothers after he was sold to the Ishmaelites and carried down into
Egypt, and enter Palestine at Jaffa, the city of Jonah and Simon the
Tanner. We cross the plains of Sharon by rail, and travel back and forth
over the Holy Land from Beersheba to Dan. Jerusalem and Bethlehem,
Jericho and the Jordan, Shechem and Nazareth are among the places where
we linger longest, and it is on the opposite side of the Sea of Galilee
from Capernaum that we take the train for Damascus. In that city we go
to the wall over which Saint Paul was let down in a basket, shop in
the Street called Straight, and then, crossing the Abana, one of the
rivers that Naaman the Leper would have preferred to the Jordan, ascend
the mountains of Lebanon to the ruins of Baalbek. We next climb down
to the Mediterranean Sea at Beirut and sail north to Smyrna to pay our
respects to the ruined shrine of the Goddess Diana on the site of old
Ephesus. After a peep at Asia Minor we take a ship for home. Throughout
the journey, the old is ever tramping on the heels of the new, and the
Palestine of the future is seen through the veil of the Palestine of the
past.