handsome fellow, who rides a lean white horse, anything but a beauty,
and yet of the famous Nedjed breed from Mecca. This desert warrior
wears red boots, white trousers and skirt, blue jacket, a yellow kufia,
confined about the head by a black cord and falling upon his shoulders,
has a long rifle slung at his back, an immense Damascus sword at his
side, and huge pistols, with carved and inlaid stocks, in his belt. He
is a riding arsenal and a visible fraud, this Bedawee sheykh. We should
no doubt be quite as safe without him, and perhaps less liable to
various extortions. But on the road, and from the moment we set out, we
meet Bedaween, single and in squads, savage-looking vagabonds, every one
armed with a gun, a long knife, and pistols with blunderbuss barrels,
flaring in such a manner as to scatter shot over an acre of ground.
These scarecrows are apparently paraded on the highway to make
travellers think it is insecure. But I am persuaded that none of them
would dare molest any pilgrim to the Jordan.
Our allies, the Syrians, please us better. There is a Frenchified
Syrian, with his wife, from Mansura, in the Delta of Egypt. The wife is
a very pretty woman (would that her example were more generally followed
in the East), with olive complexion, black eyes, and a low forehead-; a
native of Sidon. She wears a dark green dress, and a yellow kufia on
her head, and is mounted upon a mule, man-fashion, but upon a saddle
as broad as a feather-bed. Her husband, in semi-Syrian costume, with
top-boots, carries a gun at his back and a frightful knife in his belt.
Her brother, who is from Sidon, bears also a gun, and wears an enormous
sword. Very pleasant people these, who have armed themselves in the
spirit of the hunter rather than of the warrior, and are as completely
equipped for the chase as any Parisian who ventures in pursuit of game
into any of the dangerous thickets outside of Paris.
The Sidon wife is accompanied by two servants, slaves from Soudan, a boy
and a girl, each about ten years old,—two grinning, comical monkeys,
who could not by any possibility be of the slightest service to anybody,
unless it is a relief to their pretty mistress to vent her ill-humor
upon their irresponsible persons. You could n't call them handsome,
though their skins are of dazzling black, and their noses so flat
that you cannot see them in profile. The girl wears a silk gown, which
reaches to her feet and gives her the quaint appearance of an old woman,
and a yellow vest; the boy is clad in motley European clothes, bought
second-hand with reference to his growing up to them,—upon which event
the trousers-legs and cuffs of his coat could be turned down,—and a
red fez contrasting finely with his black face. They are both mounted
on a decrepit old horse, whose legs are like sled-stakes, and they sit
astride on top of a pile of baggage, beds, and furniture, with bottles
and camp-kettles jingling about them. The girl sits behind the boy and
clings fast to his waist with one hand, while with the other she holds
over their heads a rent white parasol, to prevent any injury to their
jet complexions. When the old baggage-horse starts occasionally into a
hard trot, they both bob up and down, and strike first one side and then
the other, but never together; when one goes up the other goes down, as
if they were moved by different springs; but both show their ivory and
seem to enjoy themselves. Heaven knows why they should make a pilgrimage
to the Jordan.
Our Abyssinian servant, Abdallah, is mounted, also on a pack-horse, and
sits high in the air amid bags and bundles; he guides his brute only
by a halter, and when the animal takes a fancy to break into a gallop,
there is a rattling of dishes and kettles that sets the whole train into
commotion; the boy's fez falls farther than ever back on his head, his
teeth shine, and his eyes dance as he jolts into the midst of the mules
and excites a panic, which starts everything into friskiness, waking
up even the Soudan party, which begins to bob about and grin. There are
half a dozen mules loaded with tents and bed furniture; the cook, and
the cook's assistants, and the servants of the kitchen and the camp
are mounted on something, and the train is attended besides by drivers
and ostlers, of what nations it pleases Heaven. But this is not all. We
carry with us two hunting dogs, the property of the Syrian. The dogs are
not for use; they are a piece of ostentation, like the other portion
of the hunting outfit, and contribute, as do the Soudan babies, to our
appearance of Oriental luxury.
We straggle down through the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and around the Mount
of Olives to Bethany; and from that sightly slope our route is spread
before us as if we were looking upon a map. It lies through the
“wilderness of Judæa.” We are obliged to revise our Western
notions of a wilderness as a region of gross vegetation. The Jews knew a
wilderness when they saw it, and how to name it. You would be interested
to know what a person who lived at Jerusalem, or anywhere along the
backbone of Palestine, would call a wilderness. Nothing but the absolute
nakedness of desolation could seem to him dreary. But this region must
have satisfied even a person accustomed to deserts and pastures of
rocks. It is a jumble of savage hills and jagged ravines, a land of
limestone rocks and ledges, whitish gray in color, glaring in the sun,
even the stones wasted by age, relieved nowhere by a tree, or rejoiced
by a single blade of grass. Wild beasts would starve in it, the most
industrious bird could n't collect in its length and breadth enough
soft material to make a nest of; it is what a Jew of Hebron or Jerusalem
or Hamah would call a “wilderness”! This exhausts the language of
description. How vividly in this desolation stands out the figure of the
prophet of God, clothed with camel's hair and with a girdle of skin
about his loins, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”
The road is thronged with Jordan pilgrims. We overtake them, they
pass us, we meet them in an almost continuous train. Most of them are
peasants from Armenia, from the borders of the Black Sea, from the
Caucasus, from Abyssinia. The great mass are on foot, trudging wearily
along with their bedding and provisions, the thick-legged women carrying
the heaviest loads; occasionally you see a pilgrim asleep by the
roadside, his pillow a stone. But the travellers are by no means all
poor or unable to hire means of conveyance,—you would say that Judæa
had been exhausted of its beasts of burden of all descriptions for this
pilgrimage, and that even the skeletons had been exhumed to assist in
it. The pilgrims are mounted on sorry donkeys, on wrecks of horses,
on mules, sometimes an entire family on one animal. Now and then we
encounter a “swell” outfit, a wealthy Russian well mounted on a
richly caparisoned horse and attended by his servants; some ride in
palanquins, some in chairs. We overtake an English party, the central
figure of which is an elderly lady, who rides in a sort of high cupboard
slung on poles, and borne by a mule before and a mule behind; the
awkward vehicle sways and tilts backwards and forwards, and the good
woman looks out of the window of her coop as if she were sea-sick of
the world. Some ladies, who are unaccustomed to horses, have arm-chairs
strapped upon the horses' backs, in which they sit. Now and then two
chairs are strapped upon one horse, and the riders sit back to back.
Sometimes huge panniers slung on the sides of the horse are used instead
of chairs, the passengers riding securely in them without any danger of
falling out. It is rather a pretty sight when each basket happens to be
full of children. There is, indeed, no end to the strange outfits
and the odd costumes. Nearly all the women who are mounted at all are
perched upon the top of all their household goods and furniture, astride
of a bed on the summit. There approaches a horse which seems to have a
sofa on its back, upon which four persons are seated in a row, as much
at ease as if at home; it is not, however, a sofa; four baskets have
been ingeniously fastened into a frame, so that four persons can ride
in them abreast. This is an admirable contrivance for the riders, much
better than riding in a row lengthwise on the horse, when the one in
front hides the view from those behind.
Diverted by this changing spectacle, we descend from Bethany. At first
there are wild-flowers by the wayside and in the fields, and there is a
flush of verdure on the hills, all of which disappears later. The sky
is deep blue and cloudless, the air is exhilarating; it is a day for
enjoyment, and everything and everybody we encounter are in a joyous
mood, and on good terms with the world. The only unamiable exception
is the horse with which I have been favored. He is a stocky little
stallion, of good shape, but ignoble breed, and the devil—which is, I
suppose, in the horse what the old Adam is in man—has never been cast
out of him. At first I am in love with his pleasant gait and mincing
ways, but I soon find that he has eccentricities that require the
closest attention on my part, and leave me not a moment for the scenery
or for biblical reflections. The beast is neither content to go in front
of the caravan nor in the rear he wants society, but the instant he
gets into the crowd he lets his heels fly right and left. After a few
performances of this sort, and when he has nearly broken the leg of the
Syrian, my company is not desired any more by any one. No one is willing
to ride within speaking distance of me. This sort of horse may please
the giddy and thoughtless, but he is not the animal for me. By the time
we reach the fountain 'Ain el-Huad, I have quite enough of him, and
exchange steeds with the dragoman, much against the latter's fancy; he
keeps the brute the remainder of the day cantering over stones and waste
places along the road, and confesses at night that his bridle-hand is so
swollen as to be useless.
We descend a steep hill to this fountain, which flows from a broken
Saracenic arch, and waters a valley that is altogether stony and
unfertile except in some patches of green. It is a general halting-place
for travellers, and presents a most animated appearance when we arrive.
Horses, mules, and men are struggling together about the fountain to
slake their thirst; but there is no trough nor any pool, and the only
mode to get the water is to catch it in the mouth as it drizzles from
the hole in the arch. It is difficult for a horse to do this, and the
poor things are beside themselves with thirst. Near by are some
stone ruins in which a man and woman have set up a damp coffee-shop,
sherbet-shop, and smoking station. From them I borrow a shallow dish,
and succeed in getting water for my horse, an experiment which seems to
surprise all nations. The shop is an open stone shed with a dirt floor,
offering only stools to the customers; yet when the motley crowd are
seated in and around it, sipping coffee and smoking the narghilehs
(water-pipes) with an air of leisure as if to-day would last forever,
you have a scene of Oriental luxury.
Our way lies down a winding ravine. The country is exceedingly rough,
like the Wyoming hills, but without trees or verdure. The bed of the
stream is a mass of rock in shelving ledges; all the rock in sight is a
calcareous limestone. After an hour of this sort of secluded travel we
ascend again and reach the Red Khan, and a scene still more desolate
because more extensive. The khan takes its name from the color of
the rocks; perched upon a high ledge are the ruins of this ancient
caravansary, little more now than naked walls. We take shelter for lunch
in a natural rock grotto opposite, exactly the shadow of a rock longed
for in a weary land. Here we spread our gay rugs, the servants unpack
the provision hampers, and we sit and enjoy the wide view of barrenness
and the picturesque groups of pilgrims. The spot is famous for its
excellent well of water. It is, besides, the locality usually chosen for
the scene of the adventure of the man who went down to Jericho and
fell among thieves, this being the khan at which he was entertained for
twopence. We take our siesta here, reflecting upon the great advance in
hotel prices, and endeavoring to re-create something of that past when
this was the highway between great Jerusalem and the teeming plain of
the Jordan. The Syro-Phoenician woman smoked a narghileh, and, looking
neither into the past nor the future, seemed to enjoy the present.
From this elevation we see again the brown Jordan Valley and the Dead
Sea. Our road is downward more precipitously than it has been before.
The rocks are tossed about tumultuously, and the hills are rent, but
there is no evidence of any volcanic action. Some of the rock strata
are bent, as you see the granite in the White Mountains, but this
peculiarity disappears as we approach nearer to the Jordan. The
translator of M. François Lenormant's “Ancient History of the
East” says that “the miracles which accompanied the entrance of
the Israelites into Palestine seem such as might have been produced by
volcanic agency.” No doubt they might have been; but this whole region
is absolutely without any appearance of volcanic disturbance.
As we go on, we have on our left the most remarkable ravine in
Palestine; it is in fact a canon in the rocks, some five hundred feet
deep, the sides of which are nearly perpendicular. At the bottom of it
flows the brook Cherith, finding its way out into the Jordan plain.
We ride to the brink and look over into the abyss. It was about two
thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine years ago, and probably about
this time of the year (for the brook went dry shortly after), that
Elijah, having incurred the hostility of Ahab, who held his luxurious
court at Samaria, by prophesying against him, came over from Gilead and
hid himself in this ravine.
“Down there,” explains Abd-el-Atti, “the prophet Elijah fed him
the ravens forty days. Not have that kind of ravens now.”
Unattractive as this abyss is for any but a temporary summer residence,
the example of Elijah recommended it to a great number of people in a
succeeding age. In the wall of the precipice are cut grottos, some
of them so high above the bed of the stream that they are apparently
inaccessible, and not unlike the tombs in the high cliffs along the
Nile. In the fourth and fifth centuries monks swarmed in all the desert
places of Egypt and Syria like rabbits; these holes, near the scene of
Elijah's miraculous support, were the abodes of Christian hermits,
most of whom starved themselves down to mere skin and bones waiting for
the advent of the crows. On the ledge above are the ruins of ancient
chapels, which would seem to show that this was a place of some resort,
and that the hermits had spectators of their self-denial. You might as
well be a woodchuck and sit in a hole as a monk, unless somebody comes
and looks at you.
As we advance, the Jordan valley opens more broadly upon our sight. At
this point, which is the historical point, the scene of the passage
of the Jordan and the first appearance of the Israelitish clans in the
Promised Land, the valley is ten miles broad. It is by no means a level
plain; from the west range of mountains it slopes to the river, and the
surface is broken by hillocks, ravines, and water-courses. The breadth
is equal to that between the Connecticut River at Hartford and the
Talcott range of hills. To the north we have in view the valley almost
to the Sea of Galilee, and can see the white and round summit of Hermon
beyond; on the east and on the west the barren mountains stretch in
level lines; and on the south the blue waters of the Dead Sea continue
the valley between ranges of purple and poetic rocky cliffs.
The view is magnificent in extent, and plain and hills glow with color
in this afternoon light. Yonder, near the foot of the eastern hills,
we trace the winding course of the Jordan by a green belt of trees and
bushes. The river we cannot see, for the “bottom” of the river,
to use a Western phrase, from six hundred to fifteen hundred feet in
breadth, is sunk below the valley a hundred feet and more. This bottom
is periodically overflowed. The general aspect of the plain is that of
a brown desert, the wild vegetation of which is crisped by the scorching
sun. There are, however, threads of verdure in it, where the brook
Cherith and the waters from the fountain 'Ain es-Sultan wander through
the neglected plain, and these strips of green widen into the thickets
about the little village of Rîha, the site of ancient Gilgal. This
valley is naturally fertile; it may very likely have been a Paradise of
fruit-trees and grass and sparkling water when the Jews looked down
upon it from the mountains of Moab; it certainly bloomed in the Roman
occupation; and the ruins of sugar-mills still existing show that the
crusading Christians made the cultivation of the sugar-cane successful
here; it needs now only the waters of the Jordan and the streams from
the western foot-hills directed by irrigating ditches over its surface,
moistening its ashy and nitrous soil, to become again a fair and smiling
land.
Descending down the stony and precipitous road, we turn north, still on
the slope of the valley. The scant grass is already crisped by the heat,
the bushes are dry skeletons. A ride of a few minutes brings us to some
artificial mounds and ruins of buildings upon the bank of the brook
Cherith. The brickwork is the fine reticulated masonry such as you
see in the remains of Roman villas at Tusculum. This is the site of
Herod's Jericho, the Jericho of the New Testament. But the Jericho
which Joshua destroyed and the site of which he cursed, the Jericho
which Hiel rebuilt in the days of the wicked Ahab, and where Elisha
abode after the translation of Elijah, was a half-mile to the north of
this modern town.
We have some difficulty in fording the brook Cherith, for the banks are
precipitous and the stream is deep and swift; those who are mounted upon
donkeys change them for horses, the Arab attendants wade in, guiding the
stumbling animals which the ladies ride, the lumbering beast with the
Soudan babies comes splashing in at the wrong moment, to the peril of
those already in the torrent, and is nearly swept away; the sheykh
and the servants who have crossed block the narrow landing; but with
infinite noise and floundering about we all come safely over, and gallop
along a sort of plateau, interspersed with thorny nubk and scraggy
bushes. Going on for a quarter of an hour, and encountering cultivated
spots, we find our tents already pitched on the bushy bank of a little
stream that issues from the fountain of 'Ain es-Sultan a few rods
above. Near the camp is a high mound of rubbish. This is the site of our
favorite Jericho, a name of no majesty like that of Rome, and endeared
to us by no associations like Jerusalem, but almost as widely known
as either; probably even its wickedness would not have preserved its
reputation, but for the singular incident that attended its first
destruction. Jericho must have been a city of some consequence at
the time of the arrival of the Israelites; we gain an idea of the
civilization of its inhabitants from the nature of the plunder that
Joshua secured; there were vessels of silver and of gold, and of brass
and iron; and this was over fourteen hundred years before Christ.
Before we descend to our encampment, we pause for a survey of this
historic region. There, towards Jordan, among the trees, is the site
of Gilgal (another name that shares the half-whimsical reputation of
Jericho), where the Jews made their first camp. The king of Jericho,
like his royal cousins roundabout, had “no more spirit in him” when
he saw the Israelitish host pass the Jordan. He shut himself up in his
insufficient walls, and seems to have made no attempt at a defence. Over
this upland the Jews swarmed, and all the armed host with seven priests
and seven ram's-horns marched seven days round and round the doomed
city, and on the seventh day the people shouted the walls down. Every
living thing in the city was destroyed except Rahab and her family, the
town was burned, and for five hundred years thereafter no man dared
to build upon its accursed foundations. Why poor Jericho was specially
marked out for malediction we are not told.
When it was rebuilt in Ahab's time, the sons of the prophets found
it an agreeable place of residence; large numbers of them were gathered
here while Elijah lived, and they conversed with that prophet when
he was on his last journey through this valley, which he had so often
traversed, compelled by the Spirit of the Lord. No incident in the
biblical story so strongly appeals to the imagination, nor is there
anything in the poetical conception of any age so sublime as the last
passage of Elijah across this plain and his departure into heaven beyond
Jordan. When he came from Bethel to Jericho, he begged Elisha, his
attendant, to tarry here; but the latter would not yield either to his
entreaty or to that of the sons of the prophets. We can see the way the
two prophets went hence to Jordan. Fifty men of the sons of the prophets
went and stood to view them afar off, and they saw the two stand by
Jordan. Already it was known that Elijah was to disappear, and the
two figures, lessening in the distance, were followed with a fearful
curiosity. Did they pass on swiftly, and was there some premonition, in
the wind that blew their flowing mantles, of the heavenly gale? Elijah
smites the waters with his mantle, the two pass over dry-shod, and “as
they still went on and talked, behold there appeared a chariot of fire,
and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by
a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, 'My father,
my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.' And he saw
him no more.”
Elislia returned to Jericho and abode there while the sons of the
prophets sought for Elijah beyond Jordan three days, but did not find
him. And the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, I pray thee, the
situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth, but the water is
naught and the ground is barren.” Then Elisha took salt and healed the
spring of water; and ever since, to this day, the fountain, now called
'Ain es-Sultan, has sent forth sweet water.
Turning towards the northwest, we see the passage through the mountain,
by the fountain 'Ain Duk, to Bethel. It was out of some woods there,
where the mountain is now bare, that Elisha called the two she-bears
which administered that dreadful lesson to the children who derided his
baldness. All the region, indeed, recalls the miracles of Elisha. It was
probably here that Naaman the Syrian came to be healed; there at Gilgal
Elisha took the death out of the great pot in which the sons of the
prophets were seething their pottage; and it was there in the Jordan
that he made the iron axe to swim.
Of all this celebrated and ill-fated Jericho, nothing now remains but a
hillock and Elisha's spring. The wild beasts of the desert prowl about
it, and the night-bird hoots over its fall,—a sort of echo of the
shouts that brought down its walls. Our tents are pitched near the
hillock, and the animals are picketed on the open ground before them by
the stream. The Syrian tourist in these days travels luxuriously. Our
own party has four tents,—the kitchen tent, the dining tent, and
two for lodging. They are furnished with tables, chairs, all the
conveniences of the toilet, and carpeted with bright rugs. The cook is
an artist, and our table is one that would have astonished the sons
of the prophets. The Syrian party have their own tents; a family
from Kentucky has camped near by; and we give to Jericho a settled
appearance. The elder sheykh accompanies the other party of Americans,
so that we have now all the protection possible.
The dragoman of the Kentuckians we have already encountered in Egypt and
on the journey, and been impressed by his respectable gravity. It would
perhaps be difficult for him to tell his nationality or birthplace; he
wears the European dress, and his gold spectacles and big stomach would
pass him anywhere for a German professor. He seems out of place as a
dragoman, but if any one desired a savant as a companion in the East, he
would be the man. Indeed, his employers soon discover that his forte is
information, and not work. While the other servants are busy about the
camps Antonio comes over to our tent, and opens up the richness of his
mind, and illustrates his capacity as a Syrian guide.
“You know that mountain, there, with the chapel on top?” he asks.
“No.”
“Well, that is Mt. Nebo, and that one next to it is Pisgah, the
mountain of the prophet Moses.”
Both these mountains are of course on the other side of the Jordan in
the Moab range, but they are not identified,—except by Antonio.
The sharp mountain behind us is Quarantania, the Mount of Christ's
Temptation. Its whole side to the summit is honey-combed with the cells
of hermits who once dwelt there, and it is still the resort of many
pilgrims.