A WALK ABOUT JERUSALEM
We have passed along the south coast of Europe and have been into a
corner of Africa, and now we are going to set foot on a new
continent--Asia. From Port Said, before we go on eastward, I want you to
see just a little of the Holy Land--the scene of the Bible. The Holy
Land stands by itself, apart, and though it is in Asia it doesn't seem
to belong to it. Someone once said that it is to the world what a church
is to a town--the centre of religion. Anyway, it is curious and
interesting to notice that it forms the middle point where three
continents meet, so that they all share it. I expect you know the
position quite well. At the east end the Mediterranean does not run into
a point as it does at Gibraltar, but comes up against a straight wall of
land which cuts it off squarely, and this straight line is the coast of
Palestine, better known as the Holy Land. If the schoolboys of Palestine
were set to draw a map of their own country, they would find it much
easier than a British boy would if told to make a map of his country.
For all that the Jewish boy would have to do would be to make a fairly
straight line, sloping a little out at the bottom end. There would be
hardly any indentations on it and only one small bay.
Palestine, of course, is the country of the Jews, though people of many
other races and nations live there, and thousands of the Jews are
scattered in all parts of the world. Some people dream of restoring all
the Jews to their own land, but it is difficult to see what good it
would do them. Palestine is held at present by the Turks, but everyone
can visit it when they please. It is not a very large country, only
about the size of Wales, and yet there isn't a country in the world to
equal it in importance. Thousands of people visit it every year in spite
of the fact that it is very difficult to get there. There are no good
harbours, and the landing at Jaffa, which is the principal port for
Jerusalem, has to be done in small boats. As we have to make our visit
in the winter we may find the sea rough and dangerous, and may even be
carried on north of Jaffa and have to come back on another boat as some
friends of mine did. The Holy Land is not great or powerful or even
beautiful nowadays, though in the spring the wild flowers are lovely.
Seen in the winter it is just a rather barren, stony land, with many
hills, and it is inhabited by very poor people. Yet this little country
has been more fought over than any other. For centuries there were
crusaders, or soldiers of the cross, who went out to try to conquer it,
to hold it in Christian keeping, but they did not succeed.
We must leave our heavy luggage at Port Said, to be picked up again on
our return, and only take what we can carry in handbags. The rather
small steamer which is to take us starts in the evening, and it is best
to go straight to bed on board, as we shall have much to go through when
we arrive to-morrow morning. After a rather disturbed night we are glad
to get up and dress and come on deck. The ship is at anchor off Jaffa,
tossing up and down on the grey water, so that we have to clutch at
handrails and hold on to keep our footing on the slippery deck, which is
cumbered up with bags and bundles and people and crates in a most
confusing way.
[Illustration: JAFFA.]
All around the ship are big clumsy-looking boats filled with swarthy
shouting men wearing turbans and immense baggy blue trousers with enough
stuff in them to clothe a whole family! Except that they are not armed
we might imagine we were held up by pirates! In front of us, a little
distance off, are cruel jagged rocks over which the waves pour and dash,
spouting up in cascades as they come slap on the hard surfaces.
One of the boats is close to the ship and the men in her are hanging on
by a rope which they gather up or let out as they rise and fall at the
bottom of the long slippery gangway, much worse than that we climbed at
Toulon. The men in our ship are pitching in bags and bundles very
cleverly as the boat comes up, and among the things we see our own brown
bags. Very soon we shall be pitched in too! How will you like that?
Near us is a very fat Turkish lady, who is so rolled up in clothes, head
and all, that it is quite possible she might be mistaken for a
feather-bed. Two sailors get hold of her and carry her down the
gangway, depositing her neatly in the boat as it swings near.
Before you have quite realised what has happened a muscular man has
caught you up like a sack of potatoes. You are run down the gangway with
his hand on your arm like a vice, the boat comes up, and just at exactly
the right second, when it balances on the crest of the wave, your captor
lets you go and you land on the seat gently and sink away again with the
boat. I follow, but am not so lucky, for the next wave catches the boat
awry and sluices me from neck to heel! However, I have a stout coat on
and do not mind. Then, in the heavily laden boat, with the Turkish lady
and the bags and the bundles, we start for the distant shore.
This is the principal landing-place for Palestine! Babies and bishops,
pilgrims and pigs, pianos and potatoes have all to be pitched into
boats!
Our excitement is not over yet, for as we near the rocks it looks as if
we must be smashed by the heavy waves. The roar of the surf is so great
that we cannot hear each other speak, and the rain and foam bespatter
our faces. We blink and hang on to each other, see-sawing up and down,
and wondering every second if we shall be feeling colder yet when we are
actually in the water, and then the boat swings up on a wave and runs
through into calmer water beyond.
We thread our way in and out of narrow channels, still between rocks,
and see ahead of us a desolate land with a queer flat-roofed town.
When at last we are on firm ground our guide leads us quickly through
some narrow dirty streets, and before we have time to notice anything we
are in a noisy, fussy little train, bound for Jerusalem.
We are actually in the land of Israel, the land where all the Bible
stories happened, not only those of the New Testament but also of the
Old! Here Noah lived when the Flood came, here Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob pitched their tents and pastured their flocks. From here the sons
of Jacob, who was also called Israel, went down to the land of Egypt to
buy corn when there was a terrible famine lasting many years. We know
that they settled there, having found their brother Joseph in great
power; and long, long after they had all been dead their descendants
multiplied into a great people and were treated as slaves by the
Egyptians, so God brought them back again to the land of their
ancestors.
When they arrived here, after wandering many years in the wilderness,
they found the country occupied by stranger races whom they fought and
conquered; among them were the Hivites and Jebusites and Amorites and
Hittites. Then the Israelites became a great nation and had kings of
their own. The second king, David, was of the tribe of Judah, one of the
best of old Israel's sons, and he drove out the people who occupied
Jerusalem and made it his capital. His son, Solomon, built here the most
wonderful temple ever known. But later on trouble came upon the
Israelites, and mightier nations from the east swept down upon them, and
carried them away as slaves. After long years of captivity some came
back to Jerusalem, and they were the descendants of Judah and Benjamin,
but the other tribes returned no more, and no one knows what became of
them; they are spoken of to this day as the Lost Ten Tribes, but the
descendants of Judah were called Jews. These Jews, who returned and
lived again in Jerusalem and other parts of the country, were again
conquered by the Romans, and when the Saviour Jesus Christ was born the
Romans held the supreme power in the Holy Land.
As the train goes on we see a bare and bleak country, which looks as if
giants had had a desperate fight and hurled stones at each other, after
which the stones had lain there ever since. This was the part of the
land inhabited by the Philistines, against whom the Israelites had so
many and such bitter fights. It is quite likely that Goliath of Gath,
whom David fought, once strode among the fields; and we know that the
great Israelitish hero, Samson, the strong man, lived about here and
wandered in among the valleys. Most people are disappointed with the
country unless they come in the spring, but when you get used to it you
find it has a wonderful charm.
It takes nearly four hours in the train to reach Jerusalem station. It
seems quite odd to think of Jerusalem having a station. We have heard
the Bible stories so long that we forget that they are real, and that
they actually happened just as truly as the stories in our own history.
Jerusalem is a real town, just as real as York, though it is not like
it, except for the fact that it has city walls. The station is a good
way from the town, and a mob of eager men are waiting there to catch any
tourists and drive them up. They are quite ready to fight each other or
to clutch us to gain this privilege, and if it were not for our guide we
might be torn in pieces.
Our dragoman is a clever man; he chooses his driver at once and helps us
into the ramshackle old conveyance and off we go over the hillside. Soon
we see ahead of us the encircling wall of the city on a height above,
and we wind up to it by gradually inclined roads till we come to the
great gate. We cannot have the satisfaction of saying to ourselves,
"Jesus actually looked at these walls with His human eyes," because the
walls were built long after His death. The town was utterly destroyed
about sixty years after the crucifixion, and nothing was left but piles
of stones, and when the rebuilding began no one remembered where the
streets had run or where the holy places had been. All we can say with
certainty is that the present city must be very much the same kind of
city as that Jesus knew.
The hotel is just inside the gateway, and here we can rest and get
something to eat, and then we can go out; but we must have the guide
with us, for any well-dressed European walking alone in the city would
be pestered to death by beggars and touts trying to get money out of
him.
It is not long before we sally forth and are led into a curious long
dark alley or passage where the houses almost meet overhead; it slopes
down steeply and there are shallow steps at intervals. The sun has come
out, luckily, and looking up we can see a very narrow strip of blue sky,
but down below it is very dark. You slip and nearly come full length on
the pavement because of the old cabbage leaves, bits of orange peel, and
other messy remnants of food left about, and then I, in my turn, go
almost headlong over a bundle of rags lying on a door-step. Immediately
a shrivelled hand shoots out and a long melancholy cry which curdles our
blood comes from the heap. It is a woman, so wrapped up in rags that she
looks like nothing human. A small coin dropped in her hand brings down
what we must suppose are blessings on us in her own tongue.
The wee strip of blue sky is cut across here and there by iron bars,
high over our heads; these are "camel-bars" put to prevent camels
passing through this way, though the donkeys and people can get along
underneath. Then we turn a corner and pass into a slightly wider
thoroughfare, though it is still merely a passage in comparison with any
streets in our western towns. Swaying high above us is the head of a
camel whose squashy feet come down almost upon us as we hastily tumble
back into our entry, while the great bales on his back brush the walls
as he goes on his lordly way. Women selling vegetables crowd the more
open spaces at the crossing of the narrow streets. Men in red fezes and
flowing garments like dressing-gowns stride along; brown-faced boys run
in and out, and the din, the confusion, and the smell are very trying.
We begin to wonder when we shall get out into the real streets and we
ask the dragoman. He tells us at once that we _are_ in a street, one of
the principal ones, that, in fact, they are all like this, and no
wheeled vehicle can pass in any part of Jerusalem! This is so
bewildering that we feel as if we were in a labyrinth, and huddle close
up to the guide anxious not to lose sight of him for a moment.
[Illustration: A BEGGAR, JERUSALEM.]
Overhead there are arches sometimes spanning the narrow space, and at
others we cross over curious little open bridges joining one house to
another, then we plunge into a cellar and walk right through it and out
on the other side. Everyone seems to be doing the same; it is a regular
passage-way, and yet people live in that cellar, for we see them
crouching over a red fire in the cavernous dark, and we wonder how they
like strangers to make a highway of their home.
[Illustration: A JEW.]
All the way we see people of so many kinds we have never seen before
that it is difficult not to stand still and gape. There are men in
cloaks and wrappings, weather-beaten and worn, and men in European
clothes and brown or yellow boots, there are thick-lipped negroes with
rolling yellow eyeballs, and warlike Turkish soldiers, who clank down
the street thrusting everyone aside. The Jews themselves are the least
attractive of all, with very greasy head-gear, from each side of which
hangs down a corkscrew curl, as often red as black; they wear usually a
kind of soiled dressing-gown garment and seem afraid of being struck. Of
the many types of men the Arabs are the manliest, and come nearest to
our idea of the old patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They wear a
kind of cloth on their heads falling down behind, you could easily make
something like it with a towel any day. This is bound round the forehead
by a fillet sometimes made of camel's hair, which holds it in its place
tightly, like a cap. They have across their shoulders a striped narrow
blanket of brilliant orange or scarlet, and they walk with a free stride
and their heads held up; they are men of the desert, accustomed to
freedom and to taking care of themselves against all comers.
[Illustration: JEWS' WAILING PLACE, JERUSALEM.]
At one corner a man who has been angrily expostulating with another
bangs him with a bag he carries, the bag bursts and the air is filled
with a cloud of flour which envelops the two until they cannot be seen.
Furious voices come out of the cloud, and as everyone hastens to the
sight we take the chance to go the other way.
[Illustration: AN ARAB IN JERUSALEM.]
In every Eastern city there is a "bazaar" corresponding with what in
England we should call the market-place. The guide leads us to the
"bazaar," and at the first glance we can hardly believe he is right, for
we plunge into a long narrow passage arched overhead so that it is
simply neither more nor less than a tunnel. There are three of these,
and the light only comes in from the ends or from some holes far
overhead. In this dimness we see caverns or recesses on each side, quite
open, with no glass, and these are the shops. There is a curious glare
from some of them where the owners have a fire for cooking food or for
heating their forges. Butchers and shoemakers abound, and the smell of
raw leather is revolting. In the next passage many things are sold, and
there are quite a number of chemists' shops. In most of these the owner
sits serenely smoking as if he had nothing on earth to do. In one we see
a chair tilted up against the merchandise, this is to signify that the
owner is away and that no one must touch anything till he returns. In
the third tunnel, which is the noisiest and darkest of all, there are
many silversmiths showing some wonderful work. It is no use our buying
any of it, for we cannot carry it round the world with us. Even if we
could, we should be rash to get it here, for every man asks about four
times as much as he expects to get. That is one of the things which is
so different in the East and West. Fancy going into one of the big
west-end shops in London where an article was marked at a fixed price
and trying to beat the shop assistant down. He would only smile, hardly
answer, and turn away. Such a thing is absurd, but in the East any
article is worth just as much as it will fetch, and the merchant says at
first an enormous price in the hope that his customer is ignorant and
will give it him, but if the customer bargains he will slowly come down.
It takes much time to shop in this way, and is not altogether
satisfactory, for you really have to know what the things are worth
first.
After this we must go back to the hotel, for we have wandered about all
the afternoon and are weary and bewildered, and we have many sights to
see to-morrow.
Thoroughly rested after a good night we start out next morning to see
something of the sacred places. Of course we know very well that when
the long lane is pointed out down which Jesus bore His cross, the very
spots where He stumbled and where Simon was made to carry it for Him,
that these things cannot be true. Speaking of Jerusalem Jesus said once,
"There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown
down," and it came literally true, so the present streets are not those
He trod. Yet even so the scene is wonderfully interesting, for the old
Jerusalem must have been like the present town, and the sights Christ
saw must have resembled those we see, as for the first time we walk down
these narrow steep alleys. We are going to the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre built over the place where the sepulchre of Christ is supposed
to have been. As we go toward it we come across more beggars than we yet
have encountered. A perfect army of halt and maimed and lame and blind
crouch by the sides of the lane and live on the charity of the
passers-by. This sort of thing would never be allowed in any Western
country, and, as we are not accustomed to it, it strikes us as very
distressing. Then we come out into an open space where there is a great
building so irregular and piled up that it is difficult to recognise it
as a church. Here are seated on the pavement numerous gaily clothed men
with crucifixes and mementoes of the Holy Land for sale. They spread
their wares out on the paving-stones.
Passing them all we go inside the church and find a darkened atmosphere
where red lamps burn always.
We are led up steps and down steps and this way and that, and have many
things pointed out to us. We are shown, for instance, the slab on which
Christ's body lay and the sepulchre hewn in the rock where He was
buried, and though we know that neither of these things can be true,
still we feel we are in a more sacred place than any we have ever yet
visited. For centuries men of all races and all nations have come here
to worship and pray, as the shepherds and Wise Men came to worship and
pray at the manger in Bethlehem. The slab of the marble is worn away by
the soft lips of adoring pilgrims, who fall prostrate before it and kiss
it while tears roll down their cheeks. Of all that come from far the
Russian pilgrims are the most devout. These poor people, worse off than
any English labourers, save their pence from year to year, and then
tramp hundreds of miles from their country homes to the seaport of
Odessa in Russia in order to come across to see the Holy Land. They live
on the charity of other poor villagers as they go, or they carry sacks
of bread-crusts, getting more and more mouldy every week. Thousands
arrive at the Holy Land every year just before Easter, old and frail men
and women who have undergone incredible hardships. They say, "What does
it matter what happens to our bodies?" and many of them die
uncomplainingly. They are so good and simple that they believe
everything that is told them, and almost faint with joy to think they
have at last arrived at the holy places. The air seems to glow with
their wonderful faith and love and kindliness to one another. If,
indeed, this is not the real sepulchre, at least it is a very holy
place.
After this the guide leads us through so many churches of all sorts that
we are quite bewildered, until at last we come out on a high open place
where all is quiet, and in the midst there stands a huge church quite
different from anything we have yet seen--it has a round dome rising
from walls of exquisite blue and green slabs of polished stone. This is
the church of the Mohammedans, called a mosque, and why it is so
especially interesting to us is because it stands on the very spot where
stood the Ark of the Jews, and where, from the days of King Solomon,
they worshipped God in the Temple. When Solomon built the Temple it was
the most wonderful and beautiful church in the world. It was put
together of massive stones, made ready and hewn and carved before they
came to this place, so that there was no sound of axe or hammer in the
sacred precincts. And the fittings were made of carved cedar wood,
brought down by sea from Lebanon, while the furnishings were of pure
gold. Never was any building before so carefully finished or so
artistically designed. Solomon's Temple was utterly destroyed, but there
were temples built and rebuilt on the same site, and that site is
considered to be peculiarly sacred, because it is a peak of a mountain
called Mount Moriah. You remember that it was to Mount Moriah Abraham
was told to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him? The Jews hold that the
very peak on which the mosque now stands is that place. It is, indeed,
quite certain that there is an outcrop of rock belonging to part of the
summit of Mount Moriah in the mosque which stands just where the Temple
stood. You shall see it. Meantime we must put on huge loose slippers,
made of sacking and straw, over our boots before we go in, for the
Mohammedans always take off their own shoes on entering holy places, and
as our modern boots are not constructed to be easily slipped off like
Eastern shoes, we must cover them up. The man at the entrance ties on
these enormous things and we shuffle along in them as best we can.
Inside, the mosque is light and high and very rich in polished stone and
gilding; it is very different from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We
are led through it, wondering and gazing, until we come suddenly to a
bare rock cropping up out of the pavement to just about your height, and
this, for all the ages past, has been a sacred rock. Indeed, no one can
say that it was not on this mountain-top, then in the midst of wild
natural country, that Abraham laid his only son bound. From this cause
the mosque is often known as the "Dome of the Rock."
[Illustration: THE MOSQUE OF OMAR ON MOUNT MORIAH, JERUSALEM.]
One more sight we must see before going out on to the quiet hillside
called the Mount of Olives. This is that most curious place called the
Jews' Wailing-Place.
To reach this we pass down long staircase-like streets in a poor
quarter. We see many tall and fierce-looking men, with hooked noses and
keen eyes, who wear a white cloak thrown round their heads and hanging
down on their shoulders; but there are also many other Jews from all
parts,--the Polish Jews are most conspicuous in their brilliant crimson
or purple plush gowns, with round velvet hats of the same colour edged
with fur; and then we come out into an open space with a huge wall as
high as a very high house made of enormous blocks of stone. This is said
to be part of the actual wall surrounding the Temple built by Solomon.
It is Friday afternoon and there is a great concourse of men and women
in flowing garments, bending and bowing and kneeling before the wall and
wailing out their prayers. Some crouch low, others cling to the giant
blocks and kiss the rough surface, others beat their breasts as if in
agony. Standing not far from us is a tall man who calls out some words
in a long wailing cry, immediately the crowd respond as in a Litany.
What they are crying out is something like this--
"For the sake of the Temple that is destroyed
We sit solitary and weep;
For the walls that are thrown down
We sit solitary and weep."
* * * * *
We are alone at last. All the morning it has been raining heavily, and
in our wanderings about the city we got drenched by water-spouts from
roofs that stuck out across the street, and deluged by drippings from
window-sills. In many of the narrow streets we simply had to wade, for
the water rushed down them like mountain-torrents, and then we went back
to the hotel to get warm and dry before sallying out again. Now we are
sitting on a great grey stone on the Mount of Olives, and the sun is
coming out and drying up all the dampness. We look down upon Jerusalem
as Christ looked down on it that day when He entered in a triumphal
procession and paused to weep over it. We can see the domes and the flat
roofs with the sun glinting on them and making them shine out white, and
the great wall with its turreted top running round all. It is not the
same city He saw, but it must be very like it. These buildings,
churches, and mosques were not there, of course, and there were a good
many more trees than there are now. An olive tree never looks young;
from the earliest time it always has a twisted cross appearance like an
old man who knows what rheumatism is. The blue-green leaves are small
and narrow, and they turn edgewise to the sun as if they were reluctant
to give anyone beneath them any more shade than they could help. There
is one line of a hymn that always comes into my mind when I look at an
olive tree, it runs--
"Beneath the olive's moon-pierced shade."
That is very good, because the brilliant clear white light of an Eastern
moon would certainly pierce through any "shade" an olive tree could
make.
Many, many times must Jesus have crossed this hill, and the most
memorable time was when the people came running beside Him, singing
Hosannas and cutting down palm branches, and even spreading their
clothes for Him to pass over, on that first Palm Sunday so long ago. The
association, which is the most sacred and heart-stirring, is of that
night before the crucifixion, when He came out here with His disciples
and, kneeling, prayed earnestly while they slept. That was in what is
called the Garden of Gethsemane. There is more than one place on the
Mount which claims to be that garden. The monks have fenced one in and
planted it with gay flowers, and there is a good deal of reason to
believe this may be actually right. In the country, places cannot be
utterly swept away as they are in towns under an avalanche of brick and
stone. We can look down from the hill into this garden, even though it
is surrounded by high walls. In the middle is a very ancient olive tree,
said to have been growing in Christ's time. Rosaries are made from the
stones of the olives which it bears. There are little round flower-beds
carefully tended in the garden, and between them you can see a monk
walking in his long coarse gown.
The hill is not very high, and the country is barren and stony and would
be rather dull were it not for the thought of all the wonderful scenes
that have happened here. Let us climb on to the very top. From there,
away to the east, we see a long line of high blue hills, the mountains
of Moab, and nearer, in a deep hole in the ground, we catch just a
glimpse of the water of the Dead Sea. It is a strange name and a strange
place! It lies deep, deep down, far below the level of the ocean, and
though many rivers and streams run into it none run out. You would think
it must always be getting larger, but no. The water evaporates very
quickly. You know if there is a drop of water or a wet mark on your hand
and you wave it about in the air, presently the water disappears, that
is because of evaporation. The dampness has not really gone but turned
into another form and made the surrounding air a little more damp. If
that drop had been salt, the salt would not have entered into the air,
but stayed on your hand, so when the air drinks up the water from the
surface of the Dead Sea, the salt remains behind and the sea gets more
and more salty; it is many times more salt than the water of an ordinary
sea.
The sandy shores all round are full of this salt and nothing can grow
there, so all is desolate and dreary, and thus it is that the name Dead
Sea is so appropriate. If you tried to swim in that sea you would find
it impossible to sink, for just as sea-water holds you up more than
fresh, so the Dead Sea water holds you up more than that of the ordinary
sea. All the same, though you could not sink to the bottom you might
drown, because the head and chest being heavier than the legs go down
naturally, and a man might not be able to recover himself but be drowned
legs upward, as many have been through not knowing how to manage a
lifebelt.
The sacred river Jordan runs into the Dead Sea. We have met one of the
sacred rivers of history already--the Nile,--and the Jordan, though very
small, is another. It is almost absurdly small in contrast with the
Nile, being only one hundred miles long! From all over the world people
send to get water from the Jordan with which to baptize their babies;
they have a feeling that it is different from ordinary water because
Christ Himself was baptized in it. As you have heard, the Russian
pilgrims go down in crowds to bathe in the Jordan in their shrouds, for
they too look on the river as sacred.
About six miles to the south of where we are sitting is Bethlehem, where
Jesus was born, and where the shepherds and Wise Men found Him. Much
nearer is Bethany, where He often stayed.
To-day something of the wonder of the Holy Land has come upon us. We
have got out of the narrow crowded lanes and away from the jostling
people into the country; so the Bible story has become more real than it
ever was before. Here is the hillside over which He passed. There are
the olive trees, exactly like those He saw.
[Illustration: ABOUT SIX MILES TO THE SOUTH IS BETHLEHEM.]
We have visited Him in His daily life. It is now only left for us to go
to Nazareth, where He spent all His life up to the time when He
announced Himself as the Christ, the Messiah, and began His Mission. But
Nazareth is a long way off. It will take us about three days to get
there. We can ride or drive, whichever you like. You prefer to ride? All
right, but don't expect a sleek, home-fed pony, or a fine horse champing
the bit, or even a well-grown, well-fed Egyptian donkey; wait and you
will see what riding means here!
[Illustration: WOMEN AT A WELL IN NAZARETH.]