The Ottoman Railway, whose headquarters are at Smyrna, was the first
in Asia Minor, and was begun by the English company which continues to
do business, thirty-six years ago. William Shotton, the locomotive
superintendent, showed us through the shops and buildings. One does
not need to be told that this property is managed by an English
company. I saw here the neatest, cleanest shops that I have ever seen
in any country. There were in the car shops some carriages just
completed, designed and built by native workmen who had learned the
business with the company, and I have not seen such artistic cars in
England or France.
Mr. Shotton explained to me that they found it necessary to ask an
applicant his religion before employing him, so as to keep the Greeks
and Catholics about equally divided; otherwise, the faction in the
majority would lord it over the weaker band to the detriment of the
service. An occasional Mohammedan made no difference, but the Greeks
and Catholics have it "in" for each other.
The Ottoman Railway Company has three hundred and fifty miles of good
railroad, and hope some day to be able to continue across to Bagdad,
though it is hinted by people not interested that the Sultan's
government favors the sleepy German company, to the embarrassment of
the Smyrna people, who have done so much for the development of this
marvellously blessed section.
We spent a pleasant day at Smyrna, with its watermelons, Turkish
coffee, and camels, and twenty-four hours later we were at the Isle of
Rhodes, where the great Colossus was. It was a dark, dreary, windy
night, and the Turks fought hard for the ship's ladder; for we had on
board a wise old priest from Paris, with a string of six or eight
young priests, who were to unload at Rhodes. Despite the cold, raw
wind and rain, men came aboard with canes, beads, and slippers made of
native wood--for there is a prison, here--and offered them for sale at
very low prices.
For the next forty-eight hours our little old ship was walloped about
in a boisterous sea, and when we stopped again it was at Mersina,
where a little railway runs up to Tarsus. As we arrived at this place
after sunset, which ends the Turkish day, we were obliged to lie here
twenty-four hours to get landing. An hour before sunset it is
twenty-three o'clock, an hour after it is one. That's the way the
Turks tell time.
[Illustration: JAFFA FROM THE HARBOR.]
On the morning of the second day after our arrival at this struggling
little port, our anchor touched bottom in the beautiful bay of
Alexandretta. Here they show you the quiet nook where the whale
"shook" Jonah. That was a sad and lasting lesson for the whale, for
not one of his kind has been seen in the Mediterranean since. All day
we watched them hoist crying sheep and mild-eyed cattle, with a
derrick, from row-boats, up over the deck, by the feet, and drop them
down into the ship just as carelessly as a boy would drop a string of
squirrels from his hand to the ground. The next morning we rode into
the only harbor on the Syrian coast, and anchored in front of the
beautiful city of Beyrout.
It would take too long to describe this place, even if I had the
power. To tell of the road to Damascus, the drives to the hills of
Lebanon, through the silk farms; the genial and obliging American
consul, and the American college. Here, after nine days and nights, we
said "good-by" to the obliging crew of the poor old "Daphne."
[Illustration: A CREW OF JAFFA BOATMEN.]
For nearly a week the steamers had been passing Jaffa without landing,
and the result was that Beyrout and Port Saïd were filled with
passengers and pilgrims for the Holy Land. All day the Russian
steamer, which we were to take, had been loading with deck or steerage
passengers, poorer and sicker and hungrier, if possible, than those on
the "Daphne." It was dark when they had finished, and when we steamed
out of the harbor we had seven hundred patches of poverty piled up on
the deck.
It began to rain shortly, that cold, damp rain that seems to go with a
rough sea just as naturally as red liquor goes with crime. For a week
or more these miserable, misguided beggars had been carried by Jaffa,
from Beyrout to Port Saïd, then from Port Saïd to Beyrout, unable to
land. The good captain caused a canvas to be stretched over the
shivering, suffering mob that covered the deck, but the pitiless rain
beat in, and the wind moaned the rigging, and the ship rolled and
pitched and ploughed through the black sea, and the poor pilgrims
regretted the trip, in each other's laps. All night, and till nearly
noon the next day, they lay there, more dead than alive, and the
hardest part of their pilgrimage was yet before them.
If you have ever seen a flock of hungry gulls around a floating
biscuit, you can form a very faint idea of a mob of native boatmen
storming a ship at Jaffa. Of course, the ladders are filled first,
then those who have missed the ladders drive bang against the ship,
grab a rope or cable, or anything they can grasp, and run up the iron,
slippery side of the ship as a squirrel runs up a tree.
[Illustration: A STREET SCENE IN JERUSALEM.]
From the top of the ship they began to fire the bags, bundles, and
boxes of the deck passengers down into the broad boats that lay so
thick at the ship's side as to hide the sea entirely. When they had
thrown everything overboard that was loose at one end, they began on
the poor pilgrims.
Women, old and young, who were scarcely able to stand up, were dragged
to the ladders and down to the last step. Here they were supposed to
wait for the boat into which the Arabs were preparing to pitch them,
for the sea was still very rough. Now the bottom step of the ladder
was in the water, now six feet above, but what did these poor ignorant
Russians know about gymnastics? When the rolling sea brought the
row-boats up, the pilgrim usually hesitated, while the bare-armed and
bare-legged boatmen yelled and wrenched her hands from the chains. By
the time the Mohammedans had shaken her loose, and the victim had
crossed herself, the ladder was six or eight feet from the small boat;
but it was too late to stay her now, even if the Arabs had wished to,
but they did not. When she made the sign of the cross, that decided
them, and they let her drop. Some waiting Turks made a feeble attempt
to catch the sprawling woman, but not much. Sometimes, before one
could rise, another woman--for they were nearly all women--would drop
upon her bent back. Sometimes, when the first boat was filled, an Arab
would catch the pilgrim on his neck, and she could then be seen riding
him away, as a woman rides a bicycle. From one boat to another he
would leap with his helpless victim, and finally pitch her forward,
over his own head, into an empty boat, where she would lie limp and
helpless, and regret it some more.
I saw one poor girl, with great heavy boots on her feet, with
horse-shoe nails in the heels, fall into the bottom of a boat, and,
before she could get up, three large women were dropped in her lap.
Just then the boat, being full, pulled off, and I saw her faint; her
head fell back, and her deathlike face showed how she suffered. It was
rare sport for the Mohammedans.
"Jump," they would say to the Christians; "don't be afraid; Christ
will save you!"
It was four P.M. when the last of these miserable people, who ought to
have been at home hoeing potatoes, left the ship. An hour later a long
dark line of smoke was stretching out across the plain of Sharon,
behind a locomotive drawing a train of stock cars. These cars held the
seven hundred pilgrims bound for Jerusalem. It will be midnight when
they arrive at the Holy City, and they will have no money and no place
to sleep. Ah, I forgot. They will go to the Russian hospice, where
they will find free board and lodging. It is kind and thoughtful in
the Russian church people to care for those poor pilgrims, now that
they are here, but it is not right nor kind to encourage them to come.
It will be strangely interesting to them at first, but when they have
seen it all, there will be nothing for them but idleness. Nothing to
do but walk, walk, up the valley of Jehoshaphat and down the road to
Bethlehem.