_EGYPT AND PALESTINE._
The excursions of early years, and the longer holiday rambles of student
life, for which the environs of Edinburgh and the neighbouring shores of
Fife afforded so many attractions, were exchanged for a time for the
prosaic rounds of the commercial traveller and book-agent. But this duty
was transferred ere long to trustworthy subordinates; and so soon as
prosperity rewarded the intelligent labours of the young adventurer, the
spirit that prompted earlier excursions revived. This was further
stimulated by that keen desire to see and judge for himself in reference
to all matters of general interest which manifested itself through life.
The occurrence of any unusual event, or the opening up of some new
region, was sufficient at any time to awaken the desire to explore a
scene rendered interesting by its novelty, or by the exceptional
circumstances which attracted his notice. When the first Pacific Railway
was completed, he crossed the Atlantic in company with Mrs. Nelson,
travelled to San Francisco, visited the Yellowstone Region and the
Mariposa Valley, and returned through Canada to renew his intercourse
with old friends there. While in the Mariposa Valley, Mrs. Nelson was
presented with one of the giant _Sequoia_, or _Wellingtonia_, which now
bears, on a marble tablet attached to it, the name of “Auld Reekie,”
then bestowed on it. At Salt Lake City a Scotsman addressed Mr. Nelson
by name, and begged him to convey his respects to his old clergyman, the
Rev. W. Arnot of Edinburgh; but in mentioning this, Mr. Nelson dryly
added that the Free Churchman of Salt Lake City seemed to take very
kindly to its spiritual wives! He visited Paris in 1851, and exposed
himself to its dangers at the time of the famous _coup d’état_ by which
the Third Napoleon made himself emperor. Twenty years later he hastened
again to the French capital in the perilous outbreak of the Commune; and
when the Christmas season of 1879 was overclouded by the disastrous fall
of the Tay Bridge, immediately on learning of the event he made his way
to Dundee to see for himself the ruins and to investigate the cause. He
succeeded in finding a man who had watched the lights of the train as it
swept on in the profound darkness, and was startled by their being
suddenly extinguished. The bridge had given way; and the train, with all
its passengers, was precipitated into the Tay. In like manner he set out
for the Scilly Islands on the occasion of the wreck of the _Schiller_;
travelled to Ischia after the occurrence of the earthquake of 1881, in
which the town of Casamicciola was almost totally destroyed; and when,
in the following year, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act led to a
violent popular outbreak in Connemara, he crossed over to Ireland, that
he might visit the disturbed district and judge for himself of the
merits of the conflict.
The amount of preparation for even the longest journey was amazingly
trifling. William Nelson would start almost at a day’s notice for an
extended tour; and this course of procedure, so characteristic of his
equanimity, conjoined with calm, resolute endurance, was curiously
exemplified in his first extended journey. In 1849 he left home with the
intention of spending a six weeks’ holiday in the south of Europe. He
was in Leghorn when a letter reached him which showed that all was going
on satisfactorily in the business. He thereupon decided to make an
extended journey to the East. But his funds were exhausted, and it was
before the days of railways or telegraphs. With a faith in human nature
characteristic of him through life, he stepped into the counting-house
of Messrs. Henderson Brothers, the leading British merchants in Leghorn.
He was a total stranger, with no introduction. He told them his story,
and asked them to cash a draft on Edinburgh for £300. They looked at
him, and after a pause told him to draw the cheque, and gave him the
money. The strangers became friends in later years; and one day, when
Mr. Robert Henderson was dining at Salisbury Green, William Nelson asked
him how it was that he and his brother had ventured to give a stranger
so large a sum. “Well,” said Mr. Henderson, “in plain truth, it was just
your Scotch tongue and honest Scotch face, and nothing else!” The
friendship which originated in this novel introduction lasted with their
lives.
There was, in truth, something singularly winning in his open, handsome
countenance; and its influence on strangers was anew illustrated at a
later date, when Mrs. Nelson accompanied him in a tour through the Black
Forest. They were overtaken by a thunderstorm when in Baden-Baden, and
taking refuge in the nearest shop, they found it devoted to articles of
_virtu_. A woman in charge, who spoke English fluently, received them
courteously, and responded to Mr. Nelson’s inquiries in a way that
greatly interested him. On leaving he expressed his grateful thanks, and
said he would have liked to make some purchases, but unfortunately his
remaining funds were not more than sufficient for his journey home. The
reply was: “Take whatever you please, sir. No one could look in your
face and distrust you.” He did accordingly carry off some choice
objects of _virtu_, always a temptation to him; the money for which, it
is scarcely necessary to add, was duly remitted on reaching England.
Provided, on such novel security, with funds requisite for a prolonged
tour in the East, he was absent upwards of ten months, and turned the
time to account with characteristic assiduity. The late President of
Queen’s College, Belfast, the Rev. Dr. J. Leslie Porter, who, as a
traveller in Palestine, was familiar with the scenes embraced in Mr.
Nelson’s tour, and repeatedly conversed with him on points of mutual
interest, remarks:--“He did not as a rule enter into detailed
descriptions of the localities he had visited. His chief desire
apparently was to elicit from those with whom he talked the fullest
information, as if to add to or correct his own impressions. One thing
particularly struck me: his questions were all pertinent and exactly to
the point. He showed a talent in obtaining exactly the information he
wished such as I have never known equalled, except in the case of one
person. He could glean a wonderful amount of knowledge in a very brief
period. He had himself been a close and accurate observer. He knew
exactly the points which, from want of time or opportunity, he had not
been able perfectly to grasp, and he put his questions in a form that
brought out every particle of information the person he addressed could
give.
“Of Damascus Mr. Nelson spoke with great enthusiasm. ‘Yes,’ he said,
‘richness, beauty, and fertility are there. Where,’ he asked, ‘was the
scene of Paul’s conversion? Was it near the east gate, where tradition
has located it?’ I pointed out that this could scarcely be, as Paul was
on his way from Jerusalem, and the road from the Holy City approaches
Damascus from the opposite side. He next inquired whether there was
still any tradition of Abraham; and he was very much interested when I
told him that a few miles to the north there is still a shrine, at the
foot of the hills, called the prayer-place of Abraham. ‘Is not that,’ he
said, ‘a proof of the tenacity with which even the oldest traditions
cling to the country?’ There was much in this; and he seemed to feel, as
others have felt, that it may be used as an argument in favour of the
truth of the early Christian traditions regarding the holy places of
Jerusalem and other cities in Palestine. He asked much about the
leprosy. ‘Did any tradition of it exist in Damascus?’ I remember well
how deeply he seemed to be impressed when I told him that a short
distance outside the east gate there were the remains of a very ancient
building, called Naaman’s House, and that a portion of it was still used
as a leper hospital. He said to me, ‘I looked for the Straight Street,
mentioned in connection with the conversion of St. Paul, but could see
no trace of it.’ Then I told him the results of more recent researches;
how they had brought to light the position and character of that great
street which ran through the city from the east to the west gate, and
had on each side a double row of columns, fragments of which can still
be seen in the houses and courts adjoining.”
But he had a no less keen eye for the modern Damascus, with its motley
population, its narrow streets and thronged bazaars, all full of strange
Eastern life and habits. “The mean, dirty thoroughfares, worse,” as he
says, “than an Old Town Edinburgh close, run between low, shabby-looking
houses; and nothing surprised me more than when I was taken through a
long dark passage, to suddenly find that the shabby street-front
concealed a beautiful court, laid out in garden fashion, with a fine
fountain in the centre, and flower-beds and orange trees, and round this
the chambers, brightly furnished with cushions and matting, etc., all
opening on to it, like a scene from the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.”
Nevertheless the predominant thought in his mind was the Damascus of
Roman and New Testament times; the city to which Saul the persecutor was
journeying when he was arrested on the way, and commissioned to go far
hence to proclaim the gospel of glad tidings to the Gentile world.
Having gratified his intelligent curiosity, in seeking to discover the
ancient localities of Damascus associated with Scripture history, he
proceeded by way of Lebanon to Jerusalem. The associations of the city
of Zion, of Nazareth, the Jordan, the Syrian desert, and the Dead Sea,
were replete with interest to a mind trained from earliest childhood in
devout familiarity with every incident of sacred story. The novel scenes
of Eastern life were, moreover, explored with peculiar zest in this his
first escape from the restraints of homely Western civilization into
that strange old East where the customs and ideas of an ancient past
still survive. In referring to this visit to Jerusalem he remarks:--“I
was there before any guide-book was written; and so I had to consult my
Bible, and occasionally Josephus, on a point of history. After these I
found Robinson’s ‘Biblical Researches’ the most thorough and useful.
Robinson seemed to me to write, and study, and investigate as a scholar.
Perhaps he paid rather too little regard to tradition; but this was
natural in a place like Jerusalem, which absolutely swarms with the most
absurd legends. He lays down on the whole a firm basis of biblical and
historical facts; then he leads one on in a logical and critical manner
to the truth regarding the exact sites of the great events of the Gospel
narrative: the site of the Temple, of the Palace of David, of the Hall
of Judgment in which Pilate sat, of the old walls and gates of the Holy
City, etc. Then Robinson seemed to me to prove that the Holy Sepulchre
could not have been where it is now located.”
The controverted questions about the topography of Jerusalem, which have
since received such abundant elucidation, were all familiar to him, and
were discussed with keenest interest when he met with any one who had
either visited the sacred city, or made its historical details a subject
of research. The scenes of the nativity, the crucifixion, and the holy
sepulchre, of the agony in the garden, and the ascension, were all
investigated by him with critical care. Dr. Porter furnishes the
following memoranda of their conversation on those subjects:--
“He asked me my views as to the true site of Calvary. Was I convinced
that it was not--or, as Robinson affirms, could not have been--within
the compass of the present walls? If not, then where was it? He several
times said, as if by way of suggestion, that it was either on the north
side of the modern city, or to the east, on the brow of the Kidron
Valley. ‘Did you ever consider,’ he asked me, ‘the statement of the
evangelist to the effect that the women, as if afraid to approach,
viewed the awful tragedy from afar?’ He was pleased when I suggested
that possibly the true site of Calvary was not far south of St.
Stephen’s Gate, where two public roads passed a short distance off--one
leading north to Samaria and Galilee, the other east, over the Kidron
and Olivet, to Jericho and the Jordan. ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘and the women
would then have a clear view of the whole scene, from a safe distance,
on the side of the Mount of Olives, beyond the deep and narrow valley.’”
To this succeeded discussions on the value of the local traditions in
reference to the scenes latterly associated with so much superstition
and deceit; and the possibility of identifying them with the help of
local topography and the sacred narrative. “‘Where,’ he asked me, ‘would
you locate the scene of the ascension? Was it, or could it have been, on
the traditional spot at the Church of the Ascension on the summit of
Olivet? If you adopt this tradition, then how,’ he asked, ‘do you
explain the words of the evangelist: “He led them out as far as to
Bethany”?’ My reply was, ‘I do not admit the reality of the traditional
site.’ He said this impressed himself very deeply when he crossed over
the Mount of Olives to Bethany. He felt convinced that the scene of that
wonderful last interview with the disciples was some spot near the
village. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘our Lord took the disciples to a retired
place, not in view either of Jerusalem or of the village of Bethany.
Then,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘was there not some analogy between this
scene and that of the transfiguration on a high mountain apart? Would
not the solitude impress the disciples more forcibly with the glory of
the appearance of the angels, and of his own close and immediate
intercourse with the hosts of heaven?’ The thoughtfulness and depth of
many of Mr. Nelson’s remarks upon the events of the life and death of
Jesus often struck me. His visit to Palestine was brief; but he grasped
in a very short time the most interesting and important points, and he
connected them, with a kind of intuitive readiness and accuracy, with
the events of the sacred narrative. He spoke on several occasions of the
noble and yet very peculiar site of the Holy City, different in many
respects from his previous ideas; but the moment he saw it, more deeply
fixing in his mind the truth of the Psalmist’s words: ‘Beautiful for
situation is Mount Zion.’ The view from the top of Olivet, and that from
the old road which winds round and along its side from Bethany, was, he
told me, to him by far the most instructive. ‘I read,’ he said, ‘the
words of Jesus, when he looked on and wept over the city, with a feeling
of their reality and wonderful vividness such as I had never experienced
before.’ Another thing he observed more than once: ‘I was disappointed
in the scenery of Palestine. I did not see, and I could not fully
understand, the glowing descriptions in some parts of Scripture of its
fertility and beauty. When I thought of England and Scotland, and
compared their fertile lowlands and magnificent highlands with the bare
plains and rocky hills of Judah, I felt much difficulty in divesting my
mind of the idea that even the sacred writers indulged in exaggeration.
But,’ he added, ‘I suppose my Western ideas were entirely different from
theirs as to what are the elements of richness and grandeur.’ I reminded
him of the words of Scripture: ‘A land of corn and wine and oil olive.’
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘most probably an Eastern would despise even the best
parts of Scotland because they want the vines and the olives,’”
The experiences of this visit to the sacred scenes of Bible story left
an enduring impression on William Nelson’s mind; and their special
character in association with his own early training justify some detail
in reference to researches otherwise only possessed of personal
interest. As a traveller, he made no pretension to geographical
exploration or scientific research; and unless when in company with one
from whom he could derive information, he rarely referred to his
experiences while abroad. His longest journeys were regarded by himself
as only extended holiday rambles. But they were carried out with
characteristic zeal; and some of the incidents which may be gleaned from
them have their biographical value in so far as they disclose traits of
personal character. He made his way by the desert route from Palestine
to Egypt, where he spent his Christmas in Grand Cairo, and commenced
the ascent of the Nile early in the following January. His
fellow-traveller in the latter country, Major MacEnery, furnishes some
interesting reminiscences of their voyage up the Nile. “I preserve a
lively memory,” he writes, “of the unvarying geniality of our companion,
and of his spirit of exploration. In this respect he was truly
remarkable; indefatigable in the pursuit of information concerning even
the minutest object of interest within reach; never satisfied without a
personal inspection, when at all possible; neither hunger, thirst, nor
fatigue deterring him from the gratification of being able to say
conscientiously, ‘I have seen it.’”
The impressions left on the traveller’s mind by the scenes of special
interest in the Holy Land, and some of the incidents which their memory
recalled, were a frequent source of pleasure to his friends in after
years. Some of them indeed enjoyed more tangible memorials, in the shape
of inscribed tablets of the wood of the Mount of Olives; a carved
memento of the Dead Sea fashioned from its black volcanic rock; a gold
shekel,--subsequently deposited by Mr. James Campbell in the
Presbyterian Theological College at Montreal,--and other like gifts. Nor
were the attractions of the land of the Pharaohs less keenly
appreciated. It had its ancient memories, both sacred and profane, alike
interesting to the intelligent explorer. There were the works of
Pharaohs of older centuries than Moses or Joseph; the walls of
Abu-Simbul, graven by the son of Theokles with their Hellenic record
centuries before the Father of History began his task; the Thebes of the
Hundred Gates, with its magnificent ruins authenticating Homer’s verse;
and Ptolemaic and Roman remains, modern by comparison. For all this the
traveller’s early training had unconsciously prepared him; and every
feature was calculated to revive the archæological tastes which found so
many votaries among the members of the “Juvenile Literary Society.” He
ascended the Nile to the Second Cataract, and gleaned some choice
antiques from the relics with which the poor fellaheen tempt the
traveller in that cradle-land of the world’s civilization. Those
included Osirian figures bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions, one
especially with the cartouch of an early Pharaoh; a brick from Thebes,
stamped with the cartouch of Thothmes III.; a porcelain stamp similarly
inscribed; and other prized memorials. Above all, he had gazed with
delight on the monuments of a long-vanished civilization, and explored
with curious interest scenes associated with the Bible stories learned
by him at his mother’s knee. His inquisitive research was constantly on
the alert, and the same thorough-going energy characterized him as a
traveller and a man of business. But along with all this, one
exceptional trait may be noted, eminently characteristic of the man. A
letter addressed to him from Cairo by Abdallah, his old Egyptian
dragoman, which reached Edinburgh soon after his death, recalled the
fact that his faithful servitor had been the annual recipient of a
kindly remittance through all the years since they voyaged together up
the Nile. Abdallah writes with a borrowed pen: “I have received your
kind letter with the five pounds, and was very happy to hear that you
are in perfect health, with your dearest family and with your friends. I
always think of you, and beg God to be with you and spare you. All my
friends are very thankful for your great kindness to me. I hope some day
some gentleman of your friends come I shall have the honour to serve
him.” For his remembrance of the faithful dragoman had been practically
shown, not only by pecuniary remittances, but also by recommending him
to other travellers, until poor Abdallah’s creditors pounced upon the
baggage of Dr. Henry Field, to whose service he had been commended, and
so his prospects as a dragoman were ruined. In writing to Major MacEnery
in May 1886, Mr. Nelson says: “I had a letter not long ago from poor old
Abdallah. It was just the old story of his being unable to do anything
in the way of earning a livelihood. He sent me a letter addressed to the
Lord _Mare_ of London, an old fellow-traveller in the Holy Land, which
I duly delivered to his lordship; but he did not take the hint and give
me something for the poor dragoman.”
The experiences of the traveller were occasionally turned to account in
unexpected ways in after years, when dealing with his own work-people.
One instance was recalled in an address, already referred to, delivered
at Parkside soon after his death. On the introduction of a greatly
improved sewing-machine at Hope Park much opposition was excited among
the girls, who unanimously protested in favour of the old-fashioned,
familiar instrument. Thereupon Mr. Nelson humorously told them that they
reminded him of the difficulties among the Arabs engaged in digging the
Suez Canal. They had at first scooped out the sand into baskets, which
they carried on their heads, and so transported the soil to the new
embankments. This process was much too slow for the contractors, who
accordingly provided them with shovels and wheel-barrows. But when the
latter were filled, the Arabs could not be persuaded to trundle them in
the ordinary way, but hoisted the wheel-barrows on their heads, and so
trudged along to the place of deposit!
The unfamiliar scenes and incidents of Eastern life, both in Egypt and
Palestine, had made a deep impression on William Nelson’s mind, and were
frequently recalled. The letter to Major MacEnery, his old
fellow-voyager on the Nile, in which he refers to his dragoman,
Abdallah, was written at a time when the first news of the troubles in
the Soudan was awakening attention at home; and, recalling his old
experiences, he remarks: “How strange it is that the Arabs in the Soudan
should be troubling our troops there at Koshi, our most advanced post
from Wady Halfi. I was under the impression that it would have been
impossible for them to have advanced in anything like a formidable body
so far north. But those wild sons of the desert can live almost upon
air, and go about like clouds of locusts; and as they are not troubled
with artillery or other impediments, they may cause us some trouble,
more especially as they are animated with fanatical zeal against the
infidels, and they do not know when they are beaten.”
The traveller brought back with him a duly attested document bearing the
seal of the Holy Sepulchre (a cross potence and crosslets), furnished to
Gulielmus Nelson by the prior of the Latin convent in Jerusalem, in his
quality of guardian of the Holy Sepulchre, attesting that he had in an
edifying spirit visited the sacred places around the Holy City; and had
indeed conformed to the requirements of a devout pilgrim to an extent
which, if literally true, would have been in strange antagonism to all
his early training. For the veracious prior of the Convent of St.
Salvator certifies over his official seal that the aforesaid Gulielmus
Nelson had not only visited the principal sanctuaries, but that “with
great devotion he had heard mass in them all”!
A more genuine reminiscence of travel, with which the pilgrim surprised
his friends, was the novel feature of a fine black beard, the imposing
effect of which probably had its share in the opinion formed by the
Syrian peasants that he was a learned leech. Commenting long after on
the reputed virtues of some much-vaunted pills, he said they were no
doubt as efficacious as those he used to make in Palestine. The
villagers flocked to his tent, importuning him and his companions for
medicine. With much gravity he distributed among them the pills he had
fashioned out of the spare breakfast loaf; and, with the faith of the
recipients in his prescriptions, supplemented as they doubtless were in
cases of actual suffering by a liberal _backshish_, he had no doubt that
he effected as many cures as some of the patent-medicine vendors. As to
the black beard, the custom in that respect has so entirely changed
since then that it is difficult for the present generation to realize
the astonishment which the strange appendage excited. To some grave
elders it almost appeared as if he had literally cast in his lot with
the followers of the false prophet. The idea of even a moustache as the
possible appendage of a civilian first dawned on the English mind when
Prince Albert set the fashion in society. But this innovation was viewed
with suspicion among all sober denizens of the mart. As to the wearing
of a beard, it would have been sufficient to ruin the credit of the most
reputable trader. There is a report in “The Dial,” from the pen of
Emerson, of a grand convention of enthusiasts held at Boston a few years
before. “If,” says he, “the assembly was disorderly, it was picturesque.
Mad men, mad women, _men with beards_, Dunkers, Muggeltonians,
Come-outers!”--and so the enumeration of the eccentric medley proceeds.
The beard, as is obvious, was an innovation beyond all tolerance. But
the art of photography, in its earlier form of ambrotype, was in vogue.
The traveller accordingly had his portrait taken in his Eastern dress,
with moustache, beard, and long pipe. Some time after, when showing to a
friend the relics he had brought from the East, he produced along with
them the portrait, and asked what he thought of the Egyptian pasha. To
his extreme amusement, his friend exclaimed, “What a bloodthirsty look
that fellow has in his face!”
It is abundantly manifest that at that date, whatever might be thought
of the beard, it could not be worn in the Hope Park counting-house
during business hours. Before, however, its sacrifice to the prudery of
that decorous, clean-shaven generation, a party of old schoolmates, of
whom the present writer was one, assembled at his dinner-table. The host
received us in the flowing robes of an Arab sheik; and with his turban
and fine beard, looked as though he might have sat with Abraham at the
tent door. In the course of the evening a tempting-looking bottle was
produced, with the announcement that it had been brought from the Holy
Land; and this he commended so zealously as to put some of the knowing
ones on the alert. Each filled his glass as the bottle passed round,
took a sip, and then watched its progress; till a rash young toper
swallowed the major contents of his glass at a gulp, and then, amid
roars of laughter, began coughing, sputtering, and anathematizing the
potation. For the seductive bottle was filled with water brought by our
host from the Dead Sea: a sulphureous, briny draught fit only for the
revellers of Gomorrah.
The enduring impressions left on the mind of William Nelson by his visit
to the Holy Land found expression, in long subsequent years, in a
well-known work, “The Land and the Book,” which in its final form
embraced: 1. Palestine and Jerusalem; 2. Lebanon, Damascus, and Beyond
the Jordan; and 3. Central Palestine and Phœnicia. The Rev. W. M.
Thomson was commissioned to explore the sacred scenes of Bible story,
with a view to the production of a work that should furnish for others
somewhat of the vivid realizations that William Nelson had experienced
in his own visit to the land
“Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
That eighteen hundred years ago were nailed
For our redemption to the bitter cross.”
The following extract from a letter written in July 1880 to his old
schoolfellow, Dr. Simpson, refers to the volume as then in progress, and
to the perils from which the manuscript had been so unexpectedly
rescued:--
“We are not out yet with the new volume of ‘The Land and the Book,’ and
I do not expect that it will be ready for publication before the middle
of next month. It is a truly superb work, and it has been got up
regardless of expense. It will, when completed, form three volumes.
Strange to say, the manuscript of one of them, ‘Egypt, Mount Sinai, and
the Desert,’ turned up the other day after we had given it up as having
been destroyed at our great fire, with many other valuable manuscripts.
But, fortunately, it was in one of the drawers of a writing-desk which
had escaped the devouring flames, and the manuscript was discovered
quite unexpectedly, after the author had for a long time been informed
of the loss that had been sustained.”