THE COUNTRY OF CHRIST'S CHILDHOOD
If you only knew how funny you look! Perched up on a dirty, thin, white
horse which scrambles along somehow, while the great iron stirrups,
shaped like shovels, dangle far below your feet. Aha! I thought so, one
has fallen off. I try to pull up quickly to dismount and help you, and
my bridle, which is made of worsted, like the toy reins children play
with, breaks suddenly and my noble steed comes a cropper!
By the time I recover and get to you I find our guide, who looks more
like a bundle of rags than anything else, tying up your stirrups with a
crazy bit of string full of knots and quite rotten. This is the way we
journey in the Holy Land in the present year! This is the third day of
it, and these little accidents don't affect us; the harness must have
been broken in at least two dozen different places since we started,
and, as an Irishman might say, most of it is made of gaps.
To-day we ought to reach Nazareth while it is still light, though, as it
is dull and grey, the evening will close in sooner than if the sky were
clear. What a pity we could not manage to come here in the spring when
the fields of blue lupins look like a strip of summer sky fallen to
earth and fill the air with their scent for miles around. There are
anemones too, purple and red and white, and lilies, but I think nothing
would strike us so much as the homely little daisies which grow here
just as they do at home. There is something strange and yet familiar in
this country, where so many different sorts of trees and plants grow,
that a man coming from almost anywhere in the world will find something
that carries his heart back home. Besides the daisies we have the
sparrows, just as pert and neat as our own sparrows, yet other things
are odd. Yesterday we saw a man carrying a sheep on his shoulders; he
wore a striped garment hanging down on each side of his neck, and even
the sheep did not seem quite the same as ours. It was some time before
we discovered why, and then we found out that the long flapping ears
hung down, while the ears of our sheep are small and upright. It is a
most difficult thing to remember how an animal's ears grow. Nine people
out of ten, on being told to draw a pig, will give him small, pointed,
upright ears, instead of making the flaps fall over!
The rest of the flock of sheep quietly followed the shepherd who carried
the hurt one, for in the East sheep are used to being led, instead of
being driven by a dog, as in Britain, and that is why so often we hear
in the Bible of the sheep being led. Jesus took almost all His parables
from natural things around Him--the cornfields, the lilies growing, the
sparrows, and the vineyards.
[Illustration: A MAN CARRYING A SHEEP ON HIS SHOULDERS.]
We have been steadily rising for long past, now we mount a steeper bit
of rising ground and suddenly there comes into view a tiny valley from
which the hills rise again, and on the opposite slope, spread out before
us, is Nazareth. We pull up and look at it in silence. The little,
flat-roofed, white houses are dotted about among gardens and trees, and
resemble the square white dice one throws out of a box. Very much as it
appears to us now must this little hill-village have looked to Jesus
when He lived here, except that the slopes of the hills were more
cultivated, and there were more houses. Jesus came here as a small child
and lived here until He was thirty. _You_ know, of course, every tree
and hole and stream and almost every stone and bird's nest about your
own home in the country; you will never get to know any other place so
well again in your life, for when one is grown up one can't climb trees
and dabble in streams and build huts and root about in the earth. Jesus
was just a natural boy; He grew to know all the byways between the
little gardens, all the trees which bore figs or pomegranates or olives
or oranges, and He climbed the hills around with other lads when He had
a holiday--no other place would ever be to Him what Nazareth was.
[Illustration: NAZARETH.]
One or two tall buildings stand out prominently, these are the churches,
and they, of course, were not there in His time. None of the houses can
be the same after nineteen hundred years, but many of them are probably
exactly like those that existed then.
As we go down toward the village at a foot's pace we see grave,
brown-faced, bright-eyed boys, who stand and stare but do not bother us
for coppers, as the Jerusalem children did. We pass in among the houses
and come to the well where both men and women are standing, for it is
just the time that they come to draw water in the evening. This well is
one of the most interesting things in Nazareth, for it is the only one,
and has been known for generations. It is almost certain that it must
have been here when Jesus lived in the village. Now it has a stone arch
over it, and as the water gushes out the women fill hand-made
earthenware jars with narrow necks and curving sides, and having filled
them they put them on their heads and walk gracefully away. Just so must
Mary, the mother of Jesus, have filled her jar in the ages long ago, and
the child Jesus may have clung to her skirts as that tiny brown boy is
doing, shyly hiding at the sight of us. The women are very good looking,
and dress in a great variety of colours, many wearing striped clothes.
One or two have chains or bands of silver coins across their foreheads,
very many have bright red head coverings falling down over blue dresses.
There are some swarthy-looking men too, in sheepskins, and one is
waiting to water his camel. On one side is a very handsome lad of
sixteen with a flock of black goats. They all look at us with interest,
but they are quite accustomed to strangers and are not at all
embarrassed.
We go on between the houses by the widest road, which is now slippery
with mud, and after our guide has asked permission of a man standing in
a doorway, we dismount and get a chance of seeing inside one of these
little dark houses. The only light comes from the doorway, for there is
no window; it shines into one room with a mud floor, beaten hard by
many feet. There are a few mats laid about, a few stools, and on one
side a kind of shelf with more mats and some cushions--this is where the
family sleep at night. In a corner are some of the earthenware jars and
some pots and pans. That is all. There is no reason to think that the
house Jesus lived in was at all more luxurious than this.
As we turn to go out we hear a flutter of wings, and a flock of white
doves rise from the ground and alight on the roof, cooing softly.
In this village are a good many shops, but they are not the sort we are
accustomed to. Picture the village shop at home with its small glass
panes and the post-office on one side. The window crammed with marbles
and liquorice and peppermint, and slates and balls and copybooks and
hoops and everything that the owner thinks anyone would be in the least
likely to buy. In Nazareth the shops sell only one sort of thing, and
those that sell the same sort of thing have a general inclination to
come together. In one little street, for instance, are the saddlers'
shops.
The front of the house is open, but there is no glass to fill it in, and
we can see the men working at their trade inside. The harness is
extremely gay, painted in all colours, red and blue and yellow, and made
up with bits of tinsel and glitter. The more decorated he can afford to
have his harness the prouder is the rider. As we stand watching, a
number of women steal gently up behind us and offer some embroidery they
have made; they do not push or scramble, and when we shake our heads
they melt away again.
As we turn a corner, there, right in front of us, is a carpenter's shop
with the front quite open to the street, as in the harness-makers'
shops. The bearded man who leans over a cart-wheel and handles it with
long brown hands might have been Joseph himself. In just such a
workshop as this Jesus learnt His trade.
[Illustration: IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN JOSEPH HIMSELF.]
The life of a little Jewish boy of those days was carefully ordered, and
in his life there was much more saying of prayers and going to
church--that is, the synagogue--than you have in yours. At school there
was a great deal to be learnt by heart, and what with that and the
churchgoing and the workshop there cannot have been much spare time.
We go slowly on to the inn, where we are to pass the night. To-morrow we
will go down to the Sea of Galilee and watch the fishermen drawing in
their nets as they did in Christ's time when He called them to be
fishers of men.
After that we will come back, pass Nazareth once more, and make our way
to a port called Haifa, where we can get a steamer to take us down to
Jaffa instead of returning to Jerusalem again by three days' journey on
horseback.
[Illustration: THERE IT WILL STAY TILL IT ROTS.]