an imposition to which all tourists are subjected, it being taken for
granted that we desire to see a native dance. This is one of the ways
these honest people have of levying tribute; by the connivance of our
protectors, the head sheykhs, the entertainment is forced upon us, and
the performers will not depart without a liberal backsheesh. We are
already somewhat familiar with the fascinating dances of the Orient, and
have only a languid curiosity about those of the Jordan; but before
we are aware there is a crowd before our tents, and the evening is
disturbed by doleful howling and drum-thumping. The scene in the
flickering firelight is sufficiently fantastic.
The men dance first. Some twenty or thirty of them form in a
half-circle, standing close together; their gowns are in rags, their
black hair is tossed in tangled disorder, and their eyes shine with
animal wildness. The only dancing they perform consists in a violent
swaying of the body from side to side in concert, faster and faster as
the excitement rises, with an occasional stamping of the feet, and a
continual howling like darwishes. Two vagabonds step into the focus of
the half-circle and hop about in the most stiff-legged manner, swinging
enormous swords over their heads, and giving from time to time a
war-whoop,—it seems to be precisely the dance of the North American
Indians. We are told, however, that the howling is a song, and that the
song relates to meeting the enemy and demolishing him. The longer the
performance goes on the less we like it, for the uncouthness is
not varied by a single graceful motion, and the monotony becomes
unendurable. We long for the women to begin.
When the women begin, we wish we had the men back again. Creatures
uglier and dirtier than these hags could not be found. Their dance is
much the same as that of the men, a semicircle, with a couple of women
to jump about and whirl swords. But the women display more fierceness
and more passion as they warm to their work, and their shrill cries,
dishevelled hair, loose robes, and frantic gestures give us new ideas of
the capacity of the gentle sex; you think that they would not only slay
their enemies, but drink their blood and dance upon their fragments.
Indeed, one of their songs is altogether belligerent; it taunts the men
with cowardice, it scoffs them for not daring to fight, it declares that
the women like the sword and know how to use it,—and thus, and thus,
and thus, lunging their swords into the air, would they pierce the
imaginary enemy. But these sweet creatures do not sing altogether of
war; they sing of love in the same strident voices and fierce manner:
“My lover will meet me by the stream, he will take me over the
water.”
When the performance is over they all clamor for backsheesh; it is given
in a lump to their sheykh, and they retire into the bushes and wrangle
over its distribution. The women return to us and say. “Why you give
our backsheesh to sheykh? We no get any. Men get all.” It seems that
women are animated nowadays by the same spirit the world over, and make
the same just complaints of the injustice of men.
When we turn in, there is a light gleaming from a cell high up on Mt.
Temptation, where some modern pilgrim is playing hermit for the night.
We are up early in the morning, and prepare for the journey to
Jerusalem. Near our camp some Abyssinian pilgrims, Christians so called,
have encamped in the bushes, a priest and three or four laymen, the
cleverest and most decent Abyssinians we have met with. They are from
Gondar, and have been a year and a half on their pilgrimage from their
country to the Jordan. The priest is severely ill with a fever, and his
condition excites the compassion of Abd-el-Atti, who procures for him
a donkey to ride back to the city. About the only luggage of the party
consists of sacred books, written on parchment and preserved with great
care, among them the Gospel of St. John, the Psalms, the Pentateuch, and
volumes of prayers to the Virgin. They are willing to exchange some of
these manuscripts for silver, and we make up besides a little purse for
the sick man. These Abyssinian Christians when at home live under the
old dispensation, rather than the new, holding rather to the law of
Moses than of Christ, and practise generally all the vices of all ages;
the colony of them at Jerusalem is a disreputable lot of lewd beggars;
so that we are glad to find some of the race who have gentle manners and
are outwardly respectable. To be sure, we had come a greater distance
than they to the Jordan, but they had been much longer on the way.
The day is very hot; the intense sun beats upon the white limestone
rocks and is reflected into the valleys. Our view in returning is better
than it was in coming; the plain and the foot of the pass are covered
with a bloom of lilac-colored flowers. We meet and pass more pilgrims
than before. We overtake them resting or asleep by the roadside, in the
shade of the rocks. They all carry bundles of sticks and canes cut on
the banks of the Jordan, and most of them Jordan water in cans, bottles,
and pitchers. There are motley loads of baggage, kitchen utensils, beds,
children. We see again two, three, and four on one horse or mule, and
now and then a row, as if on a bench, across the horse's back, taking
up the whole road.
We overtake one old woman, a Russian, who cannot be less than seventy,
with a round body, and legs as short as ducks' and as big as the
“limbs” of a piano. Her big feet are encased in straw shoes, the
shape of a long vegetable-dish. She wears a short calico gown, an old
cotton handkerchief enwraps her gray head, she carries on her back a big
bundle of clothing, an extra pair of straw shoes, a coffee-pot, and
a saucepan, and she staggers under a great bundle of canes on her
shoulder. Poor old pilgrim! I should like to give the old mother my
horse and ease her way to the heavenly city; but I reflect that this
would detract from the merit of her pilgrimage. There are men also as
old hobbling along, but usually not so heavily laden. One ancient couple
are riding in the deep flaps of a pannier, hanging each side of a mule;
they can just see each other across the mule's back, but the swaying,
sickening motion of the pannier evidently lessens their interest in life
and in each other.
Our Syrian allies are as brave as usual. The Soudan babies did not go
to the Jordan or the Dead Sea, and are consequently fresh and full of
antics. The Syrian armament has not thus far been used; eagles, rabbits,
small game of all sorts, have been disregarded; neither of the men has
unslung his gun or drawn his revolvers. The hunting dogs have not once
been called on to hunt anything, and now they are so exhausted by
the heat that their master is obliged to carry them all the way to
Jerusalem; one of the hounds he has in his arms and the other is slung
in a pannier under the saddle, his master's foot resting in the other
side to balance the dog. The poor creature looks out piteously from his
swinging cradle. It is the most inglorious hunting-expedition I have
ever been attached to.
Our sheykh becomes more and more friendly. He rides up to me
occasionally, and, nobly striking his breast, exclaims, “Me! sheykh,
Jordan, Jerusalem, Mar Saba, Hebron, all round; me, big.” Sometimes he
ends the interview with a demand for tobacco, and again with a hint of
the backsheesh he expects in Jerusalem. I want to tell him that he is
exactly like our stately red man at home, with his “Me! Big Injun.
Chaw-tobac?”
We are very glad to get out of the heat at noon and take shelter in the
rock grotto at the Red Khan. We sit here as if in a box at the theatre,
and survey the passing show. The Syro-Phoenician woman smokes her
narghileh again, the dogs crouching at her feet, and the Soudan babies
are pretending to wait on her, and tumbling over each other and spilling
everything they attempt to carry. The woman says they are great plagues
to her, and cost thirty napoleons each in Soudan. As we sit here after
lunch, an endless procession passes before us,—donkeys, horses, camels
in long strings tied together, and pilgrims of all grades; and as they
come up the hill one after the other, showing their heads suddenly,
it is just as if they appeared on the stage; and they all—Bedaween,
Negroes, Russians, Copts, Circassians, Greeks, Soudan slaves, and Arab
masters—seem struck with a “glad surprise” upon seeing us, and
tarry long enough for us to examine them.
Suddenly presents himself a tall, gayly dressed, slim fellow from Soudan
(the slave of the sheykh), showing his white teeth, and his face beaming
with good-nature. He is so peculiarly black that we ask him to step
forward for closer inspection. Abd-el-Atti, who expresses great
admiration for him, gets a coal from the tire, and holds it up by his
cheek; the skin has the advantage of the coal, not only in lustre but in
depth of blackness. He says that he is a Galgam, a tribe whose virtues
Abdel-Atti endorses: “Thim very sincere, trusty, thim good breed.”
When we have made the acquaintance of the Galgam in this thorough
manner, he asks for backsheesh. The Doctor offers him a copper coin.
This, without any offence in his manner, and with the utmost courtesy,
he refuses, bows very low, says “Thanks,” with a little irony, and
turns away. In a few moments he comes back, opens his wallet, takes out
two silver franc pieces, hands them to the Doctor, says with a proud
politeness, “Backsheesh, Bedawee!” bows, runs across the hill,
catches his horse, and rides gallantly away. It is beautifully done.
Once or twice during the ride to Jerusalem we see him careering over the
hills, and he approaches within hail at Bethany, but he does not lower
his dignity by joining us again.
The heat is intense until we reach the well within a mile of Bethany,
where we find a great concourse of exhausted pilgrims. On the way,
wherever there is an open field that admits of it, we have some display
of Bedawee horsemanship. The white Arab mare which the sheykh rides
is of pure blood and cost him £200, although I should select her as a
broken-down stage-horse. These people ride “all abroad,” so to
say, arms, legs, accoutrements flying; but they stick on, which is the
principal thing; and the horses over the rough ground, soft fields, and
loose stones, run, stop short, wheel in a flash, and exhibit wonderful
training and bottom.
The high opinion we had formed of the proud spirit and generosity of the
Bedawee, by the incident at the Bed Khan, was not to be maintained after
our return to Jerusalem. Another of our Oriental illusions was to be
destroyed forever. The cool acceptance by the Doctor of the two francs
so loftily tendered, as a specimen of Bedawee backsheesh, was
probably unexpected, and perhaps unprovided for by adequate financial
arrangements on the part of the Galgam. At any rate, that evening he was
hovering about the hotel, endeavoring to attract the attention of the
Doctor, and evidently unwilling to believe that there could exist in the
heart of the howadji the mean intention of retaining those francs. The
next morning he sent a friend to the Doctor to ask him for the money.
The Doctor replied that he should never think of returning a gift,
especially one made with so much courtesy; that, indeed, the amount of
the money was naught, but that he should keep it as a souvenir of the
noble generosity of his Bedawee friend. This sort of sentiment seemed
inexplicable to the Oriental mind. The son of the desert was as much
astonished that the Frank should retain his gift, as the Spanish
gentleman who presents his horse to his guest would be if the guest
should take it. The offer of a present in the East is a flowery
expression of a sentiment that does not exist, and its acceptance
necessarily implies a return of something of greater value. After
another day of anxiety the proud and handsome slave came in person and
begged for the francs until he received them. He was no better than his
master, the noble sheykh, who waylaid us during the remainder of our
stay for additional sixpences in backsheesh. O superb Bedawee, we did
not begrudge the money, but our lost ideal!
VI.—BETHLEHEM AND MAR SABA.
BETHLEHEM lies about seven miles south of Jerusalem. It is also a hill
village, reposing upon a stony promontory that is thrust out eastward
from the central mountain-range; the abrupt slopes below three sides of
it are terraced; on the north is a valley which lies in a direct line
between it and Jerusalem; on the east are the yawning ravines and the
“wilderness” leading to the Dead Sea; on the south is the wild
country towards Hebron, and the sharp summit of the Frank mountain in
the distance. The village lies on the ridge; and on the point at the
east end of it, overlooking a vast extent of seamed and rocky and jagged
country, is the gloomy pile of convents, chapels, and churches that mark
the spot of the Nativity.
From its earliest mention till now the home of shepherds and of hardy
cultivators of its rocky hillsides, it has been noted for the free
spirit and turbulence of its inhabitants. The primal character of a
place seems to have the power of perpetuating itself in all changes.
Bethlehem never seems to have been afflicted with servility. During the
period of David's hiding in the Cave Adullam the warlike Philistines
occupied it, but David was a fit representative of the pluck and
steadfastness of its people. Since the Christian era it has been a
Christian town, as it is to-day, and the few Moslems who have settled
there, from time to time, have found it more prudent to withdraw than to
brave its hostility. Its women incline to be handsome, and have rather
European than Oriental features, and they enjoy the reputation
of unusual virtue; the men are industrious, and seem to have more
selfrespect than the Syrians generally.
Bethlehem is to all the world one of the sweetest of words. A tender and
romantic interest is thrown about it as the burial-place of Rachel,
as the scene of Ruth's primitive story, and of David's boyhood
and kingly consecration; so that no other place in Judæa, by its
associations, was so fit to be the gate through which the Divine Child
should come into the world. And the traveller to-day can visit it, with,
perhaps, less shock to his feelings of reverence, certainly with a purer
and simpler enjoyment, than any other place in Holy Land. He finds its
ruggedness and desolateness picturesque, in the light of old song and
story, and even the puerile inventions of monkish credulity do not
affect him as elsewhere.
From Jerusalem we reach Bethlehem by following a curving ridge,—a
lovely upland ride, on account of the extensive prospect and the breeze,
and because it is always a relief to get out of the city. The country
is, however, as stony as the worst portions of New England,—the
mountain sheep-pastures; thick, double stone-walls enclosing small
fields do not begin to exhaust the stones. On both sides of the ridge
are bare, unproductive hills, but the sides of the valleys are terraced,
and covered with a good growth of olive-trees. These hollows were no
doubt once very fruitful by assiduous cultivation, in spite of the
stones. Bethlehem, as we saw it across a deep ravine, was like a castle
on a hill; there is nowhere level ground enough for a table to stand,
off the ridges, and we looked in vain for the “plains of Bethlehem”
about which we had tried, trustfully, to sing in youth.
Within a mile of Bethlehem gate we came to the tomb of Rachel, standing
close by the highway. “And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to
Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave:
that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day.” This is the
testimony of the author of Genesis, who had not seen the pillar which
remained to his day, but repeated the tradition of the sons of Jacob.
What remained of this pillar, after the absence of the Israelites for
some five centuries from Bethlehem, is uncertain; but it may be supposed
that some spot near Bethlehem was identified as the tomb of Rachel upon
their return, and that the present site is the one then selected. It is
possible, of course, that the tradition of the pagan Canaanites may have
preserved the recollection of the precise spot. At any rate, Christians
seem to agree that this is one of the few ancient sites in Judæa which
are authentic, and the Moslems pay it equal veneration. The square,
unpretentious building erected over it is of modern construction, and
the pilgrim has to content himself with looking at a sort of Moslem tomb
inside, and reflecting, if he can, upon the pathetic story of the death
of the mother of Joseph.
There is, alas! everywhere in Judæa something to drive away sentiment
as well as pious feeling. The tomb of Rachel is now surrounded by a
Moslem cemetery, and as we happened to be there on Thursday we found
ourselves in the midst of a great gathering of women, who had come
there, according to their weekly custom, to weep and to wail. .
You would not see in farthest Nubia a more barbarous assemblage, and
not so fierce an one. In the presence of these wild mourners the term
“gentler sex” has a ludicrous sound. Yet we ought not to forget
that we were intruders upon their periodic grief, attracted to their
religious demonstration merely by curiosity, and fairly entitled to
nothing but scowls and signs of aversion. I am sure that we should
give bold Moslem intruders upon our hours of sorrow at home no better
reception. The women were in the usual Syrian costume; their loose
gowns gaped open at the bosom, and they were without veils, and made no
pretence of drawing a shawl before their faces; all wore necklaces of
coins, and many of them had circlets of coins on the head, with strips
depending from them, also stiff with silver pieces. A woman's worth
was thus easily to be reckoned, for her entire fortune was on her head.
A pretty face was here and there to be seen, but most of them
were flaringly ugly, and—to liken them to what they most
resembled—physically and mentally the type of the North American
squaws. They were accompanied by all their children, and the little
brats were tumbling about the tombs, and learning the language of woe.
Among the hundreds of women present, the expression of grief took two
forms,—one active, the other more resigned. A group seated itself
about a tomb, and the members swayed their bodies to and fro, howled
at the top of their voices, and pretended to weep. I had the infidel
curiosity to go from group to group in search of a tear, but I did
not see one. Occasionally some interruption, like the arrival of a new
mourner, would cause the swaying and howling to cease for a moment, or
it would now and then be temporarily left to the woman at the head of
the grave, but presently all would fall to again and abandon themselves
to the luxury of agony. It was perhaps unreasonable to expect tears from
creatures so withered as most of these were; but they worked themselves
into a frenzy of excitement, they rolled up their blue checked cotton
handkerchiefs, drew them across their eyes, and then wrung them out with
gestures of despair. It was the dryest grief I ever saw.
The more active mourners formed a ring in a clear spot. Some thirty
women standing with their faces toward the centre, their hands on each
other's shoulders, circled round with unrhythmic steps, crying and
singing, and occasionally jumping up and down with all their energy,
like the dancers of Horace, “striking the ground with equal feet,”
coming down upon the earth with a heavy thud, at the same time slapping
their faces with their hands; then circling around again with faster
steps, and shriller cries, and more prolonged ululations, and anon
pausing to jump and beat the ground with a violence sufficient to
shatter their frames. The loose flowing robes, the clinking of the
silver ornaments, the wild gleam of their eyes, the Bacchantic madness
of their saltations, the shrill shrieking and wailing, conspired to give
their demonstration an indescribable barbarity. This scene has recurred
every Thursday for, I suppose, hundreds of years, within a mile of the
birthplace of Jesus.
Bethlehem at a little distance presents an appearance that its interior
does not maintain; but it is so much better than most Syrian villages of
its size (it has a population of about three thousand), and is so much
cleaner than Jerusalem, that we are content with its ancient though
commonplace aspect. But the atmosphere of the town is thoroughly
commercial, or perhaps I should say industrial; you do not find in it
that rural and reposeful air which you associate with the birthplace of
our Lord. The people are sharp, to a woman, and have a keen eye for the
purse of the stranger. Every other house is a shop for the manufacture
or sale of some of the Bethlehem specialties,—carvings in olive-wood
and ivory and mother-of-pearl, crosses and crucifixes, and models of the
Holy Sepulchre, and every sort of sacred trinket, and beads in endless
variety; a little is done also in silver-work, especially in rings. One
may chance upon a Mecca ring there; but the ring peculiar to Bethlehem
is a silver wedding-ring; it is a broad and singular band of silver with
pendants, and is worn upon the thumb. As soon as we come into the town,
we are beset with sellers of various wares, and we never escape them
except when we are in the convent.
The Latin convent opens its doors to tourists; it is a hospitable house,
and the monks are very civil; they let us sit in a salle-à-manger,
while waiting for dinner, that was as damp and chill as a dungeon, and
they gave us a well-intended but uneatable meal, and the most peculiar
wine, all at a good price. The wine, white and red, was made by the
monks, they said with some pride; we tried both kinds, and I can
recommend it to the American Temperance Union: if it can be introduced
to the public, the public will embrace total abstinence with enthusiasm.
While we were waiting for the proper hour to visit the crypt of the
Nativity, we went out upon the esplanade before the convent, and looked
down into the terraced ravines which are endeared to us by so many
associations. Somewhere down there is the patch of ground that the
mighty man of wealth, Boaz, owned, in which sweet Ruth went gleaning
in the barley-harvest. What a picture of a primitive time it is,—the
noonday meal of Boaz and his handmaidens, Ruth invited to join them,
and dip her morsel in the vinegar with the rest, and the hospitable Boaz
handing her parched corn. We can understand why Ruth had good gleaning
over this stony ground, after the rakes of the handmaidens. We know that
her dress did not differ from that worn by Oriental women now; for
her “veil,” which Boaz filled with six measures of barley, was
the head-shawl still almost universally worn,—though not by the
Bethlehemite women. Their head-dress is peculiar; there seems to be on
top of the head a square frame, and over this is thrown and folded a
piece of white doth. The women are thus in a manner crowned, and the
dress is as becoming as the somewhat similar head-covering of the Roman
peasants. We learn also in the story of Ruth that the mother-in-law in
her day was as wise in the ways of men as she is now. “Sit still, my
daughter,” she counselled her after she returned with the veil full
of barley, “until thou know how the matter will fall, for the man will
not be in rest until he have finished the thing this day.”
Down there, somewhere in that wilderness of ravines, David, the
great-grandson of Ruth, kept his father's sheep before he went to the
combat with Goliath. It was there—the grotto is shown a little more
than a mile from this convent—that the shepherds watched their flocks
by night when the angel appeared and announced the birth of the Messiah,
the Son of David. We have here within the grasp of the eye almost the
beginning and the end of the old dispensation, from the burial of Rachel
to the birth of our Lord, from the passing of the wandering sheykh,
Jacob, with his family, to the end put to the exclusive pretensions of
his descendants by the coming of a Saviour to all the world.