JERUSALEM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
I write these words on the housetop of a bishop’s residence on the summit
of Mount Zion and in the centre of the Holy City. My typewriter stands
within thirty feet of the great square Tower of David the base of which
was undoubtedly built before the time of Christ. At my left, surrounded
by the yellow stone walls of the houses, is the dark green pool Hezekiah
made to supply Jerusalem with water in case of siege, and beyond it, out
of the jumble of buildings, shines the huge bronze dome erected over
the spot where Christ was crucified. Not half a mile away on a plateau
covering thirty-five acres is a big octagonal tower with a bulbous
bronze dome. That is the Mosque of Omar which rises on the very site of
Solomon’s temple. At its left is the church built over the Roman mosaic
floor of the house of Pontius Pilate.
Jerusalem lies in a nest of mountains. It is built on an irregular
plateau with valleys all about it and steep hills rising straight up from
these to the city and to the higher hills on the opposite sides. The site
of the city runs over height and hollow, and was probably chosen for the
capital of Judea on account of the great gorges about it, by which it
could be the more easily defended against attack.
[Illustration: Jerusalem lies in a nest of hills which seem flattened out
when viewed from an airplane. It is on a plateau twenty-five hundred feet
above sea-level, and the city is divided into four quarters, each on its
own hill]
[Illustration: The walls of the Holy City were breached at the Jaffa
gate to provide a special entrance for the German Kaiser when he visited
Jerusalem. He was arrayed as a crusading knight and rode a prancing
snow-white steed]
Around the edge of the plateau is a wall about thirty feet high enclosing
the Jerusalem of to-day. The wall runs along the rims of the valleys,
climbing up hill and down, making its way around the Holy City until it
comes again to the Jaffa Gate which is just below me.
The Holy City now covers twice as much space as it did when I was first
here a good many years ago. It has doubled in size and has some sixty
thousand people. At that time most of the inhabitants were crowded
together inside the walls. They are crowded still, but to the north,
south, and west large Jewish settlements have sprung up, and among
and beyond them have been built great hospices, hospitals, convents,
cathedrals, and hotels, so that the population outside the walls almost
equals that within. The new buildings have extended to the Mount of
Olives, and are working their way toward the east along the road to Jaffa.
Seated here upon the site of King David’s palace, I see the whole city
spread out beneath me. What a curious place it is! In my tours of the
world I have found no spot so full of strange sights and picturesque
characters, so different in most particulars from every other town of the
world. Aside from its wonderfully interesting historical associations,
Jerusalem has a character of its own. It looks more like a great
honeycomb than a city. The houses are piled one above the other in
all sorts of irregularities. If you would take a half-section of land
and scatter over it gigantic packing boxes just as you find them in a
down-town alley, you might get some idea of Jerusalem as it looks to me
from Mount Zion. These houses have no chimneys and their stone roofs
are almost flat. Many of the roofs have in the centre little domes that
remind me of beehives. If the town were on a level these domes would
look like the haycocks in a meadow at harvest time.
The wood used in the construction of Jerusalem would not last an American
family a winter. Yellow limestone is the sole building material. The
roofs, walls, and floors of these thousands of houses are of this cold,
yellowish-white rock. Even in the Bishop’s mansion, which is one of the
finest in the city, I step out of my bed on to a stone floor and walk to
my breakfast down stone steps and through stone halls.
Now look at the streets with me. They are narrow and winding and some are
built over, so that going through them is like passing through tunnels or
subterranean caves.
Indeed, Jerusalem is a city of cave dwellers. Many of the stores and
houses are little more than holes in the rocks. I visited a native inn
yesterday right in the heart of the town. It consisted of a series of
vaulted chambers which looked much like caves. In one cave were four
donkeys, two camels, and a party of Bedouins. In another were a dozen
Jews from Samaria, and in a third were some men and camels who had just
come from beyond the Jordan. The only sign of modern times was an English
lamp burning American kerosene oil. Through my guide I chatted with the
keeper of the stable, or inn, as it was called, and he told me that his
charge for feeding and washing a donkey or a horse was five cents a day.
Jerusalem of to-day is founded upon the remains of the Jerusalems of the
past, and the excavations have unearthed houses and temples far below the
streets of the present. The original floor and court of the house in
which Pontius Pilate examined the Christ is much lower than the level of
the present city, and mosaics and marbles, including carvings of various
kinds and Greek and Roman capitals and columns, are frequently uncovered
in digging the foundations for new buildings.
There are many caves outside of Jerusalem and people live in some of
them. The tombs of the kings on the edge of the city have been cut out of
the solid rock, and some of them are so large that a city house could be
dropped into one and not touch the walls. An excavation of the Pool of
Bethesda has shown that it is eighty feet deep and covers nearly an acre.
Right under the temple platform are enormous caverns known as Solomon’s
Stables, and near by there is a space honeycombed with vast tanks which
will hold millions of gallons of water.
All of the water for the Holy City comes down in rain, and the trees and
gardens of the town can be numbered on your fingers. The surrounding
hills are almost as barren as some of the rocky slopes of New England,
and the only foliage visible is the dark silvery green of the orchards
on the Mount of Olives and along the hills between Jaffa and Bethlehem.
The only grass to be seen is an acre or so of common inside the walls
of the temple plateau, and here and there a house top, which by age has
gathered a coating of dirt from the dust of the city, and on which the
green grass has sprouted. Occasionally I see ruined arches, too dangerous
to be inhabited by the bees of this human hive, on which grow moss and
grass. There is one green bushy tree at the base of Mount Calvary, and
a solitary palm beside the business street named after King David looks
out over the city. Jerusalem is not an attractive looking town, and
the glare from its cream-white buildings lying under the rays of this
tropical sun makes my eyes sore.
Jerusalem is the Mecca of millions of souls. It is to hundreds of
millions the holiest spot on the face of the earth. Everywhere buildings
have gone up both to accommodate pilgrims and to mark the most sacred
places. On the very top of the Mount of Olives a great Russian church
lifts its swelling domes toward heaven. In the Garden of Gethsemane,
where Christ spent that night of “agony and bloody sweat” before His
crucifixion, there is a resting place for pilgrims. The Roman Catholics
have fifteen hundred brothers and sisters in their monasteries and
convents, while the old Armenian church can accommodate a hundred and
eighty monks and two thousand pilgrims. There are Greek Christians here
by the thousands and Egyptian Copts by the hundreds. There are Abyssinian
priests with faces as black as your hat. Indeed, among the worshippers
who gather around the Holy Sepulchre you may see every costume and
hear every language. Furthermore, the Jews are fast coming back into
Palestine, and Jerusalem is again becoming a city of the Children of
Israel.
[Illustration: THE HOLY LAND AND SYRIA]
But let us come down from our housetop and take a walk through the crowd.
We are at the Jaffa Gate, which leads to the railroad station a half mile
from the walls. It is also at the end of the roads to Bethlehem, Hebron,
and Jaffa, and is the main business gate of the city. It is always
thronged, and the people who go in and out come from all parts of the
world. They are of all colours—blacks, browns, yellows, and whites—and
number a dozen different nationalities from the near-by parts of Asia,
Europe, and Africa. Here comes a donkey led by a fat, bare-footed Turk
in a yellow gown and red turban. His beast is loaded with wood which he
is bringing into the city for sale. The wood is the roots of olive trees
and his donkey load is worth twenty-five cents. He is stopped by the
customs officer at the gate and pays a tax of three cents. Behind him
comes a porter with a bag half as big as a hogshead fastened to the small
of his back. Inside the bag is a basket filled with the flat cakes which
form the bread of the city.
Now turn to the right and look at that Syrian Bedouin riding a gray
Arabian pony. There is a gun on his back and he wears a black-and-white
woollen blanket. His head is covered with a great yellow handkerchief
bound about the crown with two strands of hair cord the size of your
finger. Sitting as straight as a ramrod, he looks with fierce black eyes
at the crowd about him. Behind him come three camels laden with the
oranges of Jaffa. Each beast has a cartload of the great yellow balls in
the two crates which hang over his back, and he grumbles and whines as
his barefooted driver drags him along by a string tied to his nose.
As we look we see the figures of the Old and New Testaments crowding
around us. There are peasants who might have been among the disciples,
and gray-bearded men who would pass for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see
boys with coats of many colours, which remind us of Joseph, and shepherds
driving sheep into market who probably came from the very plains near
Bethlehem where similar shepherds were watching their flocks when the
heavenly host appeared.
Let us take a seat with those Syrians on the porch of the coffee house
outside the gate and make further sketches of those who go in. Here come
two figures dressed all in white. They look like walking bed ticks bound
around at the middle, or, better, like the ghosts of a sheet and pillow
case party. They are Mohammedan women, and it is against their ironclad
custom for them to go out unveiled. They have wrapped their bodies in
sheets the folds of which they hold close together over their faces,
leaving only a crack by which they may see to pick their way through the
crowd.
Behind them is a girl with bare face. She wears a round cap which extends
a foot above her rosy brown forehead, and she has a headdress of white
cotton. Her gown is a gray chemise which falls almost to her feet, and
which has a wide hem of red and blue silk embroidery. She is a Bethlehem
maiden wearing the shawl made with her own hands for her wedding.
Such shawls are much prized by tourists, and the best of them bring
twenty-five dollars apiece in the stores.
But here are some women in long coats and high boots. They have calico
gowns under their coats which reach half way down the calf. Their heads
are covered with handkerchiefs, and their faces are bronzed by the sun.
Each has a staff in her hand and a bag on her back, and is marching along
at the rate of four miles an hour. They are dusty and dirty, and look
weary and worn. Those are peasant women, pilgrims from Russia, who are
making their way from shrine to shrine. They have tramped this morning
out to Bethlehem, and to-morrow will probably be on their way to the
Jordan.
But let us leave here and take a walk about the walls of the Holy City.