St. Jean d'Acre, Oct. 14.—Of all the towns on the Syrian coast, from
Antioch to Gaza, none has had a more eventful history than Acre, or one
which more directly affected the fortunes of the rest of the country at
large. Napoleon I. called it the key of Palestine, and it is doubtless
owing to its important strategical position that it has undergone so
many vicissitudes, and been the scene of so many sanguinary battles.
There is, indeed, probably no similar area on the face of the globe on
which so much blood has been shed.
I was at some trouble the other day to add up the list of sieges it has
undergone, and the total was fifteen, not counting doubtful ones in the
earliest history of the country, when it was invaded and conquered by
the ancient Egyptians; but beginning with the siege of Acre by
Shalmaneser, 721 B.C., when the fortress belonged to the Tyrians, and
ending with its bombardment, in A.D. 1840, by the English Admiral Sir
Charles Napier, the list is one which suggests a record of blood
unparalleled in history. Its worst time was undoubtedly during the two
hundred years when it was taken and retaken several times by Crusaders
and Saracens successively. On one of these occasions when, after a two
years' siege, the town fell into the hands of the Saracens, sixty
thousand Christians are said to have fallen by the sword. The place is
still shown, at the northeast salient of the outer wall, where stood the
English tower, which was guarded by the troops of Richard Cœur de Lion.
The town now contains only about nine thousand inhabitants, cooped up by
the fortifications in the very limited area of about fifty acres; and it
is more picturesque than agreeable to live in. There is no more
characteristic bazaar in the East than that of Acre, with its motley
crowd of wild Bedouins from the desert, Persian devotees gathering
around a Persian holy man who has taken up his residence here, Turkish
soldiers who form its garrison, Druses, with their white turbans and
striped abeihs, or overcoats, Metawalis, who are wild and gipsy-looking
Moslem schismatics, Syrian Christians, and Moslem peasantry; add to
these veiled women, long strings of camels, with an occasional
foreigner, or sailor from a merchant-ship in the harbour, and you get a
population as varied as any town in the country can show. Acre,
therefore, is a most interesting place to spend a day in, apart from any
antiquarian attraction it may possess, or monuments of more modern
architecture which are worthy of attention.
There are few finer mosques in Syria than that of Jezzar Pacha, which
stands within a large rectangular area, where there are vaulted
galleries, supported by ancient columns ornamented by capitals brought
from the ruins of Tyre and Cæsarea. Along these galleries have been
built cells, destined for the people employed at the mosque, or the
pilgrims who came to visit it. They surround a magnificent court, under
which are cisterns, and upon which are palms, cypress, and other trees.
Among them are white marble tombs, notably those of Jezzar and Suleiman
Pacha. The town contains three other mosques, the columns in which and
the pavement have certainly belonged to more ancient buildings. There
are four Christian churches in the city, which belong to the Roman
Catholics, the Schismatic Greeks, the Maronites, and the United Greeks
respectively. Under the house of the Sisters of Nazareth and the
neighbouring houses extend vast vaulted cellars which are now divided by
walls of separation, and belong to different proprietors; they are
doubtless of crusading origin. Deep cisterns also date from that period.
Of the same date also are certain remains of walls and vaults near the
convent, which are the ruins of a church almost completely destroyed.
The most remarkable khan is near the port, called the Khan el Aurid on
account of its columns, the galleries surrounding it being built on
pillars of gray or red granite, covered by capitals of different orders,
brought from more ancient monuments.
The citadel, as may be imagined, has often been destroyed and rebuilt.
On one side is the military hospital, the lower part of which belongs
entirely to crusaders' work, and consists of large subterranean
magazines. In the middle is a great court, shaded by fig, palm, and
other trees, under which are vaulted galleries and cisterns. Under the
ramparts also extend immense ogival vaults, many of which belong to the
time of the crusades. These have furnished magazines for later defenders
of the fortress, and, during the bombardment by the English in 1840, the
principal one exploded, with a loss to the defenders of 1600 men, 30
camels, 50 asses, besides horses, cows, and a great store of arms. Some
of the guns lying about the ramparts are of old French manufacture, with
the dates 1785, '86, '87. They are those which were sent by sea, for the
use of Napoleon, but were captured by Sir Sydney Smith, and brought here
to serve for the defence of the city. About half a mile from the city
walls is an artificial hill or tumulus, called Napoleon's Hill, from the
fact that he used it as his headquarters during one of the sieges of
Acre. It was occupied for the same purpose six hundred years before by
Richard Cœur de Lion.
In ancient times Acre was the most populous and flourishing port on the
sea-coast after the decline of Tyre and Sidon, and contained an immense
population; the town must have extended over the plain to the east of
the city, which is still rich in ancient débris, fragments of pottery,
and marble carvings. A great part of the modern fortification has been
built from the ruins of Athlit, which I have described in a former
letter, and which, before it was thus despoiled at the beginning of this
century, must have been an ancient crusading fortress in almost perfect
condition. When one thinks how lately it has been destroyed, one is all
the more inclined to regret the disappearance of a monument which would
have been the most interesting relic of its kind in existence. Acre
possesses little Biblical interest. It is only mentioned once in the Old
Testament, where it is alluded to as being a town from which the tribe
of Asher, in whose territory it was situated, did not succeed in driving
the Canaanites, but seemed to have lived with them in it upon friendly
terms; and once in the New Testament, where, under the name of
Ptolemais, it was visited by Paul on his way from Greece to Jerusalem.
There are many old people now in Acre who tell thrilling stories of the
episodes which occurred here during the years when it was occupied by
the Egyptians, between 1830 and 1840, and when it became necessary not
merely to conciliate the conquerors, but to play a double game of
keeping on good terms with the Turks, to whom it was ultimately, and, as
it now turns out, foolishly, restored by the British; but none so
thrilling as those which they have heard from their fathers, of the
incidents which marked the reigns of Jezzar and Abdullah Pacha,
especially the former. The following story was told me by the son of the
man who was the confidential secretary of this fiend in human shape, who
gloried in the name of “The Butcher.” In youth he sold himself to a
slave-merchant in Constantinople, and, being purchased by Ali Bey of
Egypt, he rose from the humble station of a mameluke to be Governor of
Cairo. In 1773 he was placed by the Emir of the Druses in command at
Beyrout. There his first act was to seize 50,000 piastres, the property
of the emir, and the second to declare that he acknowledged no superior
but the sultan. The emir, by the aid of a Russian fleet, drove Jezzar
from Beyrout, but he was soon after made Pacha of Acre and Sidon. Under
his vigorous rule the pachalik extended from Baalbec on the north to
Jerusalem on the south. My informant told me that he was not originally
a cruel man, but that one day he was playing with a little daughter who
pulled his beard. “This is very wrong,” he said; “how did you learn to
play with men's beards?” “Oh,” she replied, “I always play with the
beards of the mamelukes when they visit the ladies of the harem in your
absence.” This excited a fit of frenzied jealousy. Taking an escort, he
announced that he was going on an official visit to a distant part of
his pachalik. When he was a stage out of Acre, he told his escort to
remain where they were, disguised himself, and returned rapidly and
secretly to his harem. Here he found all his favourite wives disporting
themselves with his mamelukes or military body-guard. Instantly he drew
his cimeter and fell, not upon the men, but upon the women. Fifteen of
these he is said to have killed with his own hand, and then, growing
tired of the effort, he called in some soldiers to complete the
massacre, not leaving one alive. My informant did not remember the total
number slain. The mamelukes rushed to the great magazines, and swore
they would blow themselves up and the whole town if a hair of their
heads was touched. They were allowed, therefore, to saddle their horses
and ride of in peace; but from that day the whole character of Jezzar
Pacha was changed, and he made it a rule never to allow a week to pass
without executions. His Jew banker was a handsome man. One day Jezzar
complimented him on his looks, and then, calling a servant, ordered him
to put out one of the Jew's eyes. Some time after Jezzar observed that
the banker had arranged his turban so as almost to hide the lost eye,
and he then, without a moment's hesitation, had his nose cut off. The
poor Jew finally lost his head. The family of this man are still among
the chief bankers of Damascus.
This butcher also employed his own leisure moments in unexpectedly
drawing his sword and cutting off the ears and noses of his favourites
and the people about him, and sometimes their heads, with his own hand.
This was the man whom Napoleon besieged in Acre, and with whom British
troops were unfortunately compelled to ally themselves to prevent the
fortress from falling into French hands. My informant told me that
during the latter years of Jezzar Pacha's life his character again
changed for the better, and he gradually gave up his cruel practices. In
fact, he described his cruelty as a monomania produced by a fit of
jealousy, which it took him some years to get over.