\ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 AND 
 
 SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 AND 
 
 SYRIAN SHRINES, 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 A VISIT TO PALMYRA. 
 
 By EMILY A. BEAUFOBT 
 
 (VISCOUNTESS STRANGFORD), 
 
 AUTHOR OF ‘THE EASTERN SHORES OF THE ADRIATIC.’ 
 
 NEW EDITION. 
 
 gTflnbvn : 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1874. 
 
 All Rights reserved. 
 
LONDON • 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
TO 
 
 R. E. B. 
 
 MY FRIEND AND SISTER, 
 
 WHO SHARED IN EVERY SCENE DESCRIBED IN THESE PAGES, 
 AND WITH WHOSE KIND ASSISTANCE THEY WERE WRITTEN, 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Circumstances having rendered change of scene and climate 
 imperatively necessary for my sister and myself, we hastily de- 
 termined, at the close of the year 1858, to leave England for Egypt, 
 believing that we should there find an endless store of deeply 
 interesting subjects for thought and study, unfatiguing travelling, 
 and no society : our hopes of the two former were more than realised, 
 but solitude it is less certain to obtain on the now fashionable 
 and crowded Nile. I had no presumptuous intention of writing an 
 account of our travels over such well-trodden ground, but, when I 
 found that our long residence in the mountains of the Lebanon and 
 at Jerusalem, as well as the unusual visit we had made to Palmyra, 
 had given us opportunities of observation that did not fall to the 
 lot of every traveller in those countries, I could not but wish to 
 share our experiences with the public. Since that, the horrible 
 Syrian war having fixed the attention of England for some time 
 upon that unfortunate country, I have been glad to add my small 
 offering towards appeasing the general desire for further information. 
 
 It is impossible for any one who has no personal experience of it, 
 to understand the physical difficulties and impediments under 
 which one’s journals, and notes, are written amidst the fatigues of 
 such travelling : and mine have had the further disadvantage of being 
 re-written in a foreign land, without books or help of any kind. 
 My work is, therefore, only a faithful, unornamented record of what 
 we saw and heard ; the scholar will learn nothing by it save a few 
 facts which I have recorded in hopes of his drawing those deduc- 
 tions from them of which I am myself incapable. I have, in fact, 
 written chiefly for those who, compelled to stay at home, like to 
 draw their chairs to the cheerful coal-fire, to shut out the grey sky 
 and dripping rain of England, and to follow in fancy the footsteps 
 of those who have enjoyed the realities of travel. I not only love to 
 
Till 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 share my pleasure, but I earnestly trust that many may be incited to 
 similar enterprise, by my showing them with what ease and security 
 ladies may travel, even alone, in those countries which have been 
 frequently supposed to be open only to strong and energetic men. 
 In this hope I have endeavoured to supply them with some practical 
 information as to routes, points of interest, and other details gathered 
 from our own experience. 
 
 The chapter on Thebes may be useful to those travellers who 
 cannot afford time enough to study the subject for themselves in 
 deeper and more important works. That on ancient Jerusalem 
 contains notices of some facts and recent discoveries which bear on 
 the topography of the ancient City, — for which I am indebted to 
 an able and intelligent gentleman, Signor Pierotti, Captain of 
 Engineers in the Sardinian army, who is now Architect to the 
 Pasha of Jerusalem, — an office which has afforded him several 
 opportunities of studying ancient remains accidentally brought to 
 light ; the results of this study, on which he has been engaged 
 for six years, will be found in his admirable plan of Jerusalem, 
 published in Paris, — a small and rough sketch of which I have 
 given upon the map that accompanies this book. 
 
 I have endeavoured to give the names of places in phonetic spelling, 
 or, at least, in spelling more in accordance with the habits of English 
 ears and lips than the now often-adopted rule laid down by Sir 
 William Jones, — as experience has proved to me how very rarely 
 names so written are pronounced by travellers with even an ap- 
 proximation to the Arabic ; and, therefore, in the hope of making 
 my book practically useful to them, I have preferred this to at- 
 tempting to follow the other, perhaps more accurate, but, as I have 
 found, generally unsuccessful plan. 
 
 Valencia, April 1861. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Fog and Sunshine 1 
 
 II. Real Life in Day-Dreams .... 10 
 
 III. Within the Tropic 25 
 
 IY. Cataract and Flame . . . . . .40 
 
 V. Eternal Thought in imperishable Stone ... 52 
 
 YI. A Modern Exodus “in haste” .... 74 
 
 VII. Where Homer lived and Sappho sang . . .85 
 
 YIII. The “Beautiful Gate” of Syria .... 103 
 
 IX. Our Mountain Home . . . . .120 
 
 X. Old Phoenicians and Modern Druzes . . .142 
 
 XI. The Battle 151 
 
 XII. Lebanon Politics . . . . . . .167 
 
 XIII. Solomon’s Friends and Solomon’s Work . . .179 
 
 XI Y. The Fair City .197 
 
 XY. The Queen of the Desert 212 
 
 XYI. Strongholds of Nature and Art .... 270 
 
 XVII. His own City and His early Home . . . . 295 
 
 XVIII. The Royal Cities of Israel . . . .315 
 
 XIX. The Sepulchre of Abraham and the Sea of Lot . 330 
 
 XX. Ancient Jerusalem . . . . . . 364 
 
 XXI. From Christmas to Easter in Jerusalem . . . 392 
 
 XXII. The Jews of Jerusalem 438 
 
 XXIII. The Cave of Elijah and the Pulpit of Chrysostom 457 
 XX I Y. Knights of the Past and Heroes of the Present . 47S 
 
 XXY. The Parthenon and Parnassus 494 
 
 XX YI. Paradise on Mount Olympus . . . , .521 
 

 
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 S3! 
 
 
 
EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 AND 
 
 SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 AND 
 
 SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FOG AND SUNSHINE. 
 
 A dense wet fog, varying from every shade of yellow to brown, 
 lasting with few intermissions for about three weeks, and ten days 
 of heavy frost, during which, however, there were some rare 
 glimpses of the sun, which enabled us to distinguish at a hundred 
 yards off the skeletons of that black species of tree peculiar to Hyde 
 Park, — such was our preparation for a draught of warm, delicious 
 air, heavily laden with the scent of orange-blossoms which, seven 
 days after we left London, stole in at our cabin window as we 
 dropped anchor in Yaletta Harbour, at one o’clock on the morning 
 of the 1st of December, 1858. A few hours more and we were 
 basking in the hot sun under the orange-trees, thankful for 
 limonade a la neige , and forgetting the black bricks of London 
 among the magnificent marbles of the church of the Knights Hos- 
 pitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and in the enjoyment of the kind- 
 ness and hospitality of cordial friends at Malta. Still a few days 
 more of the same cloudless blue sky and unruffled sea, and we 
 landed on the dirty quay of Alexandria on the 10th of December. 
 A boat and a janissary had been considerately sent to deliver us 
 from the crowd of loud-voiced Indian passengers, and to gratify 
 our impatience to tread the soil of old Egypt, though we only ex- 
 changed one scene of noisy confusion for another, as we were 
 greeted by a mass of screaming Arabs, in and out of the water, each 
 tumbling and fighting in order to gain possession of one member of 
 the party, for the benefit of his donkey, vehicle, or hotel ; and glad 
 enough we were to mount into the carriage prepared by our stout, 
 
2 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 grave, silver-sticked janissary, and to settle into a good hotel in 
 the Grande Place. Here we found it nearly impossible to do 
 anything but look out of the window at the motley crowd, which 
 filled that baking hot, sandy place, with men of every colour of skin 
 and garment that the most vivid imagination could conceive. 
 Arabs of every tribe in Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, and from 
 Abyssinia and Dongola to the Delta ; Syrians, Turks, Greeks, and 
 Italians ; dozens of open carriages in every degree of shabbiness, 
 driven by black Nubians in their white gowns, called sudeyrte , with 
 some bright-coloured stuff wound round the head for a turban, 
 thrashing their fiery black horses; strings of tall, dust-coloured 
 camels, slowly carrying their burdens of stones, winding round 
 corners, while every one waits for the file to pass, or pushing their 
 long necks over the heads of the passers-by ; hundreds of donkeys, 
 each with a horrid-looking goat-skin filled with water on his back, 
 the four legs sticking up into the air, with an uncomfortable dead- 
 alive look ; more donkeys still, each carrying a snow-white oval- 
 shaped balloon, with a huge flapping canary- coloured leather boot 
 at each side — these are women, as you may know by the unceasing, 
 shrill, screaming chatter which comes from under the white garment 
 (called an eezar ), to which the donkey-driver never seems to pay the 
 slightest attention; — Turks, Greeks, and Egyptian gentlemen, in 
 various degrees of semi-costume, but all agreeing in the invariable 
 red tarboosh, mounted on fine but small horses, sometimes richly 
 caparisoned; and lastly, handsome European carriages, always 
 preceded by a runnrng sais (who is really necessary to clear a path 
 through the crowd), dressed in graceful white robes, with red or 
 dark blue silk sashes, and sometimes a long stick — the carriages 
 containing ladies dressed in the newest French fashion, or in black 
 silk hdbarahs, with white muslin veils across the face, leaving 
 nothing to be seen but large sparkling black eyes painted with 
 kohhl. As Arabs always appear to be in a violent passion when 
 they speak, and they are endless talkers, it is not possible to describe 
 the noise that rose to our windows from the Place, nor how harsh, 
 shrill, and intensely guttural the various languages of Africa and 
 Turkey sounded to our English ears. 
 
 The noise without seemed to us pretty well balanced by the con- 
 fusion we immediately fell into within ; ladies travelling alone were 
 certainly a legitimate prey to the hosts (I use the word advisedly) of 
 dragomans, old and young, experienced and inexperienced, from the 
 master of eight or ten languages to the stammerer in all but one ; 
 natives of every country within three thousand miles, and of every 
 degree of intelligence or stupidity, who obtruded themselves on our 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES . 
 
 notice, at all hours of the day, walking into our talon, or, not finding 
 us there, coming straight into our bedroom without knocking ; as 
 well as cooks and waiters, each with his packet of dirty, thumbed, 
 faded, torn letters of recommendation, which each entreated us to 
 read on the spot at once, — all these creatures besieging us one after 
 another, all day and every day during the whole time we remained 
 in Alexandria. 
 
 We found several kind, though new, friends in Alexandria, and 
 were induced by their advice to change our plans and to take a 
 boat at once, instead of waiting till we reached Cairo, which is by 
 far the pleasantest plan ; but we had fixed our minds upon securing 
 a dragoman of whom we had heard much in England, Achmet 
 Adgwa, and he would not separate himself from his own boat, or 
 leave Alexandria until it was let to some one else ; for the latter 
 contingency we could not of course wait, and we therefore put an 
 end to the hopes of all our besiegers and closed with him, after in- 
 specting every boat on the Mah’moudleh Canal fiver and over again, 
 until we were too glad to be obliged to decide finally. And a beau- 
 tiful boat our dahabieh was ; from first to last we thought her the 
 best and most comfortable boat on the Nile, and only two were 
 larger. She had six cabins : first a saloon, fifteen feet by twelve, 
 containing two divans, fitted with presses underneath them along 
 each side, two book-cases, and a large table ; four sleeping cabins, 
 large enough for comfortable washing apparatus ; and a good-sized 
 back cabin, which we used as a store-room, and a sitting-room for 
 our maid. We had nine windows at each side of the dahabieh, with 
 glass, green wooden shutters, and curtains ; and plenty of shelves, 
 cupboards, and drawers enough to house everything. We saw other 
 dahabiehs, the interior of which were prettier and more tastefully 
 fitted up than ours, but none were more comfortable, bright, and 
 airy. In front of our saloon, on the lower deck, were two seats, and 
 the table for the servants’ dinner, and an enormous goolleli (a jar of 
 porous clay used for filtering, from which the water was always deli- 
 ciously fresh) enclosed in a lattice-work of wood prettily painted. On 
 the upper deck we had a comfortable sofa on each side, and the raised 
 skylight of the saloon made a table ; there was, however, room for 
 half-a-dozen tables besides. Beyond the mast, which is placed quite 
 in the bow of the boat, the mysteries of cooking are conducted over 
 a small stove, the sailors preparing their own food at a queer little fire 
 made at one side of the mast, which, about twenty-four feet high 
 itself, supported a lateen yard, 163 feet in length, slung on in a 
 curiously clumsy manner, but which slewed about in the prettiest 
 curves in a high wind. Our great sail was the largest on the river, 
 
4 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 and I never wearied of watching its graceful motions. There was 
 a small sail on the little mast at the stern, and a platform over the 
 stern cabin, where the sailors performed their ablutions at sunrise 
 and sunset. The dahabiehs on the Nile are all very gaily painted, 
 and have fanciful names, which some keep from year to year ; ours 
 we chose to change, and, after much consideration, we had the 
 words Wandering Maiden painted on her sides — a name the appro- 
 priateness of which we found afforded much amusement among our 
 fellow-travellers. We hoisted the British ensign at the stern ; and 
 a white fleur-de-lis on a dark blue ground floated from the end of 
 the long yard, together with a very long streamer of red and white 
 depending to the water, the best distinguishing mark at a long 
 distance. This naming of their boat is an important affair among 
 Nile travellers, and serves sometimes to bring out the odd fancies of 
 people rather amusingly ; some names have become hackneyed into 
 cockneyism on the Nile, but certainly the “ Ibis ” or “ Lotus ” seems 
 more appropriate as a name for such a nineteenth-century affair as a 
 dahabieh, than one raked up from the ashes of a dead Pharaoh. The 
 white bird that still flies over the Nile is a living, though degenerate, 
 descendant of the sacred Ibis of ancient days, and the flower is said 
 still to grow there : and we thought these names prettier than that 
 of one gaily-painted boat we met floating down the river called 
 Sesortasen III. .' It was truly puzzling to imagine what that long- 
 buried hero had to do with the blood-red banner of the Cross, or 
 the French motto that floated from his (mast-) head. 
 
 Our crew consisted of the Reis, or captain, the Mestahmel, or 
 steersman, fourteen sailors, and their cook-boy ; besides which our 
 dragoman had his own servant, a boy called ’Ali ; and these, with 
 our cook, our own maid, and German man-servant, made a comple- 
 ment of twenty-three persons on board the Wandering Maiden. 
 
 Two or three days were occupied in filling her with the stores 
 required over and above what we had brought from Malta, and in 
 getting the canteen, &c., in order ; but we were rather glad of the 
 delay, which enabled us to see the lions of Alexandria— the quays, the 
 two harbours, Cleopatra’s Needle (as it is absurdly called), and her 
 fallen sister, and the various gates of the city, one or two of which 
 are picturesque. Then we had several pleasant drives along the 
 acacia-shaded roads all round Alexandria. Yery pleasant they are, 
 the trees forming a cool, green barrier on each side between the road 
 and the sandy desert; and along the bank of the Mah’moudleh 
 Canal, by the pretty villas of the European merchants, each with 
 its luxuriant garden, throwing clusters and tangles of magnificent 
 gorgeous-coloured creepers over the walls, such masses of scarlet 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 5 
 
 poinsettias and convolvuli of all colours, with blossoms of four and 
 five inches in diameter, so delightful and strange to English eyes. 
 Here and there one comes to a small stone terrace built on the edge 
 of the water, and shaded with beila-sombra or acacia trees ; these 
 are kiosks, where people come out from the city to lounge away the 
 afternoons, smoking and drinking coffee or sherbet. One or two 
 huge palaces are also to be seen, which presented no beauty ex- 
 ternally ; but we afterwards visited the Kas-e-teen Palace, belonging 
 to Said Pasha, and built by Muhammed ’Ali, which stands on the 
 north-east side of the principal harbour, that is, on the Island of 
 Pharos, which is connected with the shore by the ancient causeway 
 called the Heptastadium. The rooms are furnished with divans 
 and ornamental tables of great delicacy and richness, but all 
 entirely European, except some fine species of gold and silver 
 damask on the Viceroy’s couches, the chefs-d’oeuvre of Constanti- 
 nopolitan looms. The best thing in the palace are the parquet 
 floors, which are of various woods inlaid with ivory and mother-of- 
 pearl, exquisitely done, and different in each room ; the palace is 
 also worth visiting for the sake of the fine view from the balcony of 
 the old harbour, Eunostus. 
 
 Another day we drove along the shady, sandy roads to see the 
 Pillar erected in honour of the Emperor Diocletian, probably on his 
 taking possession of the city of Alexandria, a.d. 296, which is 
 vulgarly called Pompey’s Pillar; and in returning we passed 
 through an encampment of Bedoueen tents, which certainly did not 
 realise any idea I had formed of them. “ Black as the tents of 
 Kedar” they were indeed, but far from “ comely;” oblongs and 
 squares of the darkest brown and black skins of rudely-tanned 
 leather, with flat tops, and only from two-and-a-half to three feet 
 high. Men and women, wild, dirty-looking, half-naked Arabs, 
 were crawling in and out from under the tents, gathering up their 
 dirtier rags, or attending to about a thousand black donkeys, 
 goats, and sheep, which were standing in the encampment. 
 
 Sunday afforded us the opportunity of service in the very hand- 
 some English Church which the Alexandrians have lately erected, a 
 privilege all the more valuable, as many a week was to elapse before 
 we should enter another church ; it is prettily built of white and 
 pinkish stone, adorned with arcades and pilasters, and a semi- 
 circular apse. In the afternoon every road and street seemed 
 filled with promenaders ; but French fashion predominates, to the 
 destruction of all orientalism or picturesqueness. 
 
 At last our preparations were completed, and we took up our 
 abode on board the Wandering Maiden ; one day more was allowed 
 
6 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 to elapse, on account of the Wednesday, a day of ill-luck, on which 
 the sailors refused to commence a voyage ; but on Thursday the 
 16 th, at daylight, we started before a good breeze down the Mah’- 
 moudieh Canal. About five p.m. we passed through the lock at 
 Atfeh, and were at last floating on the bosom of the grand old Nile ! 
 I shall never forget that evening, when we slipped out of the long, 
 narrow, high-banked canal on to the wide, swiftly -flowing, smooth 
 river,— the low, flat banks made it seem even wider than it was, 
 almost like a sea, and the setting sun gilded the mud-houses of the 
 tarboosh-making town of Fouah opposite, brightening the palm- 
 trees towering above the villages, and tipping the graceful white 
 lateen sails of a score of khandjelis and little boats going down to 
 Eosetta. We stayed on deck till it was quite dark, enjoying the 
 new scene, and our last, for a long time, of fine weather ; one or 
 two tremendous downpours in Alexandria had warned us of what 
 our fate might be, and from that evening, for eleven successive days, 
 we had constant storms of rain and wind, the rain threatening to 
 drown us as it leaked through deck, door, and window, and the 
 wind making us pitch and roll until we were nearly sea-sick. Once, 
 when looking at the magnificently blue sky in Alexandria, so new to 
 English eyes, I made some remark to a gentleman residing there on 
 its beauty : “ Ah,” he said, “ you have not learned yet to loathe this 
 cloudless sky ! We have not had one drop of rain here since the 
 middle of last February, and you cannot understand how one 
 wearies, mind and body, of the changeless expanse, longing for the 
 ever-varying clouds we think so beautiful, because we so seldom see 
 them, and because they bring us so much refreshment and vigour.” 
 We had enough of them now, however ; so much so that to some 
 people our voyage to Cairo might have been tiresome, but to us it 
 was not so. We were glad to rest after the long journey from 
 England, and we had books in plenty ; our boat dried in the first 
 rays of sunshine, and sometimes, when the wind forced us to lie 
 thumping on a bank, we managed to find a sheltered walk in the 
 country, making acquaintance with castor-oil and gum-arabic trees, 
 cotton-plants, and the ever-graceful palm-groves. Sometimes we 
 examined the shadoofs * and sakiyehs , f both on the banks of the river 
 and in the fields, or we ventured into the tents and mud-huts of the 
 
 * The shadoof is the very simple machine used for lifting the water of the 
 Nile up to the height of the bank : a man, almost naked and with his head 
 uncovered, holds a long pole balanced horizontally on a perpendicular stick, 
 with a palm leaf or wooden basket at one end and a weight at the other end ; 
 he dips the basket into the river and then throws it up expertly, making it 
 empty itself into a hole or trough, cut to receive it, above his head. If the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 7 
 
 fellaheen (from sing, fellah ), from whence we never failed to bring 
 away many lively and unpleasant souvenirs. The men seemed to 
 have nothing to do but to stand lounging about,, leaving all the 
 work of house and field to the women, whom we always found busy ; 
 they were lively and good-natured, though not by any means 
 attractive in person or deportment. They wear but one garment, a 
 long, dark-blue gown or chemise, thrown round the body in an 
 untidy fashion, exposing generally the legs, always the arms, and 
 sometimes the neck, but drawn over the head, and across the face, 
 when any one is near. Their unkempt locks are thrown back and 
 roughly plaited, their eyelids are painted black with kohl, and their 
 grinning white teeth are set off with stripes or circles on the chin 
 and forehead of blue tattooing. A large silver ring stuck through 
 one nostril, earrings, a dirty silver bracelet or two on each arm, 
 and generally one on each ankle, complete their costume, which is as 
 ugly as it is scanty. I do not think I saw two women in Egypt, out 
 of Cairo, whose appearance did not more or less disgust me. When 
 we went near their huts they always invited us in, and generally 
 insisted on shaking hands with us, laughing all the time, and ex- 
 pressing their wonder at our riches — the only reason they could 
 devise for our putting on so many clothes one over another : and 
 sometimes they would offer us their dhourra bread, or milk, or show 
 us how they were grinding corn, between flat round stones, or 
 making cheese by leaving the milk to drain through mats made of 
 plaited palm-leaves; always asking about how they do the same 
 things in the Howadji’s country. 
 
 It is certainly a much less expensive plan to go from Alexandria 
 at once by railroad to Cairo, and there engage your boat; since 
 though you may reach Cairo in four days’ sail, you may also occupy 
 fourteen, as we did, and we heard of persons having been twenty- 
 one days on the way ! But at the same time you have the advantage 
 of knowing your boat, and finding out her deficiencies before you 
 come to the last place where you can buy stores, or get anything 
 
 bank is high, another or two more men stand above him with repetitions of 
 the same contrivance. 
 
 f The sakiyeh is a huge wheel with earthen jars fixed all round it, which fill 
 as they pass through the river, and empty themselves into a trough as they 
 reach the top. It is turned by a couple of oxen, who pace round and round to 
 the screeching, groaning music of the ungreased crank. This creak of the 
 sakiyeh, with the eternal melancholy song of the shadoof men, half wail, half 
 screech, is the true sound of Egypt : no hour nor half-hour passes without 
 hearing one or the other, and the very name of the country brings the echo of 
 it as distinctly into one’s ears as the remembrance of the yellow sand, or of the 
 broad river, floats before one’s eyes. 
 
8 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 altered or improved and you have also some amusement and 
 pleasure in your voyage, while the line of rail is wholly uninter- 
 esting and ugly. I contrived to find something for a sketch every 
 day, and doubtless there would have been plenty more subjects to 
 be found with better luck than the unusually bad weather we had. 
 For a sportsman I should think the boat much pleasanter than the 
 land journey ; as game is immensely more plentiful in the Delta 
 than above Cairo, and much less wild. The sandbanks are covered 
 with thousands of wild geese and ducks, and there are wild boars 
 to be hunted in several localities. If, however, people are likely to 
 weary of a long quiet voyage, it is better to go by railway, and 
 have the dahabieh sent up to Cairo to meet them, stipulating that 
 it must arrive within a certain number of days. The dahabiehs are 
 decidedly better and nicer at Alexandria than at Cairo, but also 
 proportionably dearer. 
 
 At this time we were slowly tracking against head- winds ; and at 
 Kefr-el-Aesh, where the railway crosses the Nile, the wind increased 
 so much that we were moored two whole days on the east bank. 
 On the second day, when we had lost all patience, and, in spite of 
 our dragoman’s remonstrances, were going to insist on making an 
 attempt to shoot the opening left in the bridge now building for the 
 railway, an unexpected ally came to hand : the superintendent of 
 the station, Ismael Yousry Bey, — may his shadow never be less ! — 
 arrived in a well-rowed boat alongside, saying, that on hearing there 
 were English ladies on board, he had come to see if we stood in 
 need of any assistance. He assured us that it was quite impossible 
 to shoot the bridge, unless by the chance of an exactly favourable 
 wind. “But,” said he, “you English people always want to eat 
 dinner together on your Christmas-day, and you must be in Cairo 
 for that, — I will give you two hundred men to jpull you through, if 
 you like it.” Of course we gladly accepted so obliging an offer, and 
 while his men went off with his orders, the Effendi sat chatting 
 in very good English with us, sipping his coffee and smoking his 
 shibouque. He told us he had been educated at King’s College, 
 London, and afterwards lived a year or two in Kent, and that the 
 English had been so kind to him, and made him so happy, that it 
 was an especial pleasure to have an opportunity of assisting any 
 English person who came to his country. 
 
 His pleasure was, however, frustrated ; for, just as the men 
 were all ready, the wind, which had been unsteadily veering about 
 for the last hour or two, suddenly settled into the precisely right 
 point, and blew us through the opening with the Effendi on board, 
 and the two hundred workmen standing ready to assist on the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 9 
 
 bridge, who, however, gesticulated, screamed, and shouted quite as 
 much as if they had really been doing the business themselves. 
 
 Our good friend sent us in the evening some excellent milk and 
 turkeys ; on one of which, in consequence of the still unkind and 
 cruel winds, we made our Christmas dinner, moored under a palm 
 grove in the hot sun, the turkey stuffed with pistachio nuts and 
 dates, and a “ plum-pudding ” of biscuit, citron, and dried apricots. 
 
 Two days afterwards, as I was watching the rich hues of the 
 setting sun upon the sands and trees, I saw two small triangles, 
 distinct and hard, on the western horizon, which my heart suddenly 
 leaped up to greet : there were the Pyramids at last ! I saw them 
 many times afterwards, in various ways and at various times of day, 
 but they never impressed me more than on that evening, painted 
 in the exquisite lilac hues of sunset, yet golden-tipped, over the 
 straight, flat green bank of the river, far away over line after line 
 of sand — far away, standing sharp and clear against a background 
 of coloured clouds. 
 
10 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 REAL LIFE IN DAY-DREAMS. 
 
 We landed on the west bank, before we reached Bonlak, on the 
 morning of the 29th of December, scrambling oyer a forest of dirty 
 boats to make our first essay upon the Arab saddles and Cairo 
 donkeys : the latter are most excellent of their kind, as lively as 
 they are small. The saddles are not uncomfortable; they are 
 simply cushions mounted high on the donkey’s back, with a round 
 hump' across them in front, and they are generally made of gay red 
 leather, while the saddle-cloth is worked in colours with bands of 
 cowrie-shells sewn on in strips : a charm, enclosed in a triangular 
 silver box, is hung round the animal’s neck. 
 
 Our road, which lay along a high causeway shaded with fine trees, 
 brought us into the Esbeykiyeh, at the Shoobra corner, close to 
 Shepheard’s Hotel (where we entered the name and distinguishing 
 flag of our boat in the Nile Howadji’s book), and then went on to 
 the English Consulate, and into the Turkish bazaars to buy sugar, 
 sweetmeats, &c., which we wanted in the dahabieh. 
 
 Shall I here confess the truth ? that my first view of Cairo abso- 
 lutely disappointed me ! During our second visit, when I came 
 to know it better, I learned its full beauty and interest ; and now 
 I constantly wish that I could return there to gratify the un- 
 satisfied feeling of not having had enough of its charms. One 
 reads the result of every traveller’s enthusiasm after he has had 
 time to enjoy it and to think about it, and one’s expectations thus 
 become too highly exalted : — whatever it arose from, I certainly 
 was just at first disappointed with the poorness and raggedness 
 and want of solidity in the houses of Cairo. The gay wares 
 in the wooden shops of the bazaars are bright enough, but the 
 shops themselves are of rough, unpainted boards, uneven in size 
 and height, and covered in from the sun with only ragged old 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 11 
 
 palm-leaf mats, torn bits of carpet, and broken planks, “rags of 
 rotten wood/’ which give one a feeling of squalor, not incompatible 
 with its picturesqueness, perhaps all the more mesquin from its 
 contrast with the variegated hues, like a brilliant flower-garden, of 
 the crowd below. Then the contrast is continued between these 
 wooden and mud-built houses and the beautiful public fountains ; 
 the water, enclosed in circular walls, roofed over with a sort of 
 dome, flows into brazen mouth-pieces placed in compartments of ex- 
 quisitely carved stone- work, divided by pilasters of coloured marbles 
 with gilt capitals, and bordered with Arabic inscriptions in gilt 
 letters, recounting the names of the benevolent Pashas who built 
 them. Almost always in the courts of the mosque there are 
 fountains open to the air ; these are surrounded by a marble trough, 
 with a wooden roof supported by pillars, very gaily painted, but 
 tattered, torn, and dirty, under which the Moslems perform their 
 ablution of face, hands, and feet all day long. Nor do the mosques 
 strike one at first as handsome on the exterior ; the high flat walls are 
 unrelieved by window, column, or any architectural ornament, save 
 one invariable line of cornice along the top of the wall, formed of 
 simple pendentives of three bricks in the upper row, two bricks 
 in the second, and one brick below these ; simple as it sounds, its 
 effect is very pretty, and even rich-looking. The mosque walls are 
 always coloured in horizontal stripes of red or brown paint, roughly 
 daubed along the courses of the stone, and the lively and handsome 
 effect produced by it is wonderful. 
 
 The Esbeykiyeh is a very large irregular-shaped “ Place,” planted 
 with a pleasantly-thick wood of orange, acacia, and many other 
 trees, intersected with walks, and dotted round with wooden 
 kiosks for the enjoyment of coffee, lemonade, and narghiles. The 
 houses round the broad road might have made the Esbeykiyeh 
 handsomer than most European Places, had any two of these 
 buildings uniformity in height, colour, or kind; but they are so 
 different, and mostly so shabby in -exterior, that one loses all idea 
 of the Esbeykiyeh being the Grande Place of a great city. Shep- 
 heard’s Hotel and one of the Pasha’s palaces occupy nearly all one 
 side, but they are both of them ugly and common-looking 
 buildings. 
 
 But whatever may be its shortcomings, when one’s brains have 
 become a little accustomed to the din, bustle, and noise of the 
 streets, Cairo is essentially beautiful and charming ; it seems as if 
 one could never weary of the endless, ever-changing sights and 
 sounds of the multitude who throng its ways (street is too western 
 a term for them) ; a thousand times brighter and gayer than the 
 
12 
 
 E G YETI AN SEPUL CERES 
 
 Grande Place at Alexandria, which, seems tame after a single street 
 of Cairo. 
 
 Let us stand aside for ten minutes, while this fine old fellow with 
 a snow white beard, white and gold turban, a purple silk robe, and 
 dark red trousers, lays down his long shibouque, and weighs out 
 for us an oke of delicate rose-leaf confiture (having first held out 
 a little dig of two or three kinds on the end of his finger, for us 
 to taste !) and watch the crowd pushing by our donkey. This 
 bazaar is for groceries, and the shops are heaped with loaves of 
 sugar of every hue except white, and palm-leaf baskets of dates, 
 dry and fresh, nuts of all kinds, spices, roasted Indian corn, figs, 
 olives, and innumerable sorts of dry sugar-stuff, pink, brown, 
 yellow, and white, in sticks and lumps, which the Arabs are 
 always eating; they are thoroughly nasty to our taste. Every 
 shop is tenanted by a figure, rolled up cross-legged on the counter 
 in party-coloured robes and white turban, smoking and chatting 
 (or screaming rather) to their fellow shopmen; while the donkey- 
 boys in their dirty, ragged blue cotton shirts, and other idlers, sit 
 down to rest on the edge of the booth, and join in the conversation 
 right merrily. The way is quite full, and the beggars demanding 
 “ Baksheesh, howadji, baksheesh, ya sitt ! ” push by you as they go ; 
 while every second minute a ragged Arab jingles his brazen cups, 
 and offers you fresh water out of a black goat-skin which he carries 
 under his arm, or a sherbet-seller bends down before you, while 
 the brass jar at his side spouts forth a stream of sweetened water or 
 lemonade into a cup, for which you pay two or three paras, if you 
 wish to taste its sickly sweetness. A blind man is sure to stumble 
 over you, and a dozen women, entirely enveloped in white wrappers, 
 with a couple of holes for their eyes, stop to peep up under your 
 hat or to feel the texture of your dress, while you are intent upon 
 inspecting that Bey or this Effendi going by on a fine chestnut 
 horse, with a saddle-cloth splendid in gold embroidery, himself in 
 bright-coloured silks, satin, and cloth, smoking his long pipe as 
 he goes, — or this Turk of high degree, on a tall white donkey, 
 with bit and bridle made of strings of gold cord, hung thickly 
 with heavy gold sequins, and saddle of cherry-coloured velvet 
 embroidered in gold and pearls. You are bending forward to 
 look at the jewels on his sword-sheath, when you suddenly see a 
 camel’s ugly nose just over your own, and you start back while he 
 lazily pushes on, flattening you to the wall with his huge burden of 
 green fodder, or stones, or bales of calico. In another minute half 
 a dozen men, carrying on their shoulders a deal box, daubed over 
 with red paint, saunter by, chanting a discordant song, and your 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 13 
 
 donkey-boy looks up with a grin, and says, “ Dead man in there ; " 
 and you turn away to decline a quantity of sweetmeats in smoking 
 hot pastry hastily thrust up to your mouth by a boy in rags, trying 
 not to seem to see or hear the score of brown hands thrust out on 
 whichever side you move your face, while the owners scream out 
 “Baksheesh! baksheesh!” till you are glad to move on, though every 
 third person assails you with the same wearying word as you pass. 
 
 We stayed in the bazaars till we were perfectly bewildered, and 
 were glad to go back to our dahabieh, which had in the meantime 
 moved to the palm-grove opposite Cairo, leaving the rest of our 
 shopping to be accomplished on the following day, when wd made 
 acquaintance with a lady and gentleman who kindly offered to 
 “ keep company ” with our boat, as we were strangers, and they 
 were spending their fifth winter on the Nile. We moved on a 
 little way the last day of the old year, stopping at sunset opposite 
 the Island of Rhoda, and looking back at a view that few things of 
 the kind can surpass. The vast city, studded with graceful domes 
 and still more beautiful minarets, rises up loftily from the flat 
 monotonous desert, partly placed on and partly backed by the 
 bold white Mohkuttum cliffs, while at a little higher elevation the 
 Mosque and Tomb of Muhammed ’Ali, with its white alabaster 
 walls, dark blue roofs, and delicately-slight minarets, stands like a 
 watchman guarding the city ; in the foreground the river-bank is 
 lined with large palaces, some white and some red, adorned with 
 graceful arcades and handsome balconies, each with its own 
 garden and orange-grove, meeting the gardens of Old Cairo and 
 Rhoda. The forest of boats of every size and form, with brightly- 
 painted masts, red and blue awnings, flags, and streamers, form a 
 gay fringe to the wide grey river. On the other side, far away over 
 the fields of green crops, and the wide expanse of desert-sand, the 
 Pyramids raise their grave, calm, solemn forms, cutting sharply 
 against the cloudless sky, clothed in strangely-beautiful sunset 
 colours of violet and gold, all too gorgeous for any paint-box to 
 depict. 
 
 We were joined the next morning by two dahabiehs ; on the fol- 
 lowing day we overtook a third ; while a fourth joined us two days 
 after. The five boats made quite a pretty little fleet ; and during 
 the ten days that ensued of slow tracking, we found plenty of 
 amusement in efforts and stratagems to outstrip each other; this, 
 however, is against all ideas of propriety among the crew, and our 
 Reis invariably apologised to the other Reises at sunset if we had 
 gained any advantage over their boats during the day ; which was 
 rather exasperating to our feelings when we were chuckling over the 
 
14 
 
 E G YPTIA N. SEPUL CURES 
 
 accomplishment of a quarter of a mile beyond onr neighbours. It 
 is amazing how these great dahabiehs do get on in the tracking ; 
 although they go aground twelve times in a day, yet they absolutely 
 float on in safety, when the men are walking all round them with 
 the water reaching only just above their ankles ; and sometimes 
 so close to the banks, that one may touch the trees from the decks. 
 They carry no ballast, in order to keep them light, and they require 
 a directly fair wind to sail tolerably. We thought ourselves 
 singularly unlucky in the strong head-winds, which blew persever- 
 ingly for ten successive days after we left Cairo, fearing that any 
 long detention below Thebes would render our reaching the Second 
 Cataract impossible under our three months’ contract for the 
 dahabieh. Our own boat was very heavy in tracking, though she 
 outsailed all the others, and we were naturally anxious to benefit all 
 we could by her virtues. Delicious as this Egyptian life was, we 
 could not bear to think of being disappointed of seeing Nubia ; and 
 so we fretted from day to day about our progress, very unnecessa- 
 rily as it turned out, and were not a little annoyed at our being 
 obliged to put in at Beni Souef for provisions, while the rest of the 
 little fleet took another passage for the sake of a short cut ; but a 
 favourable breeze sprang up in the night ; we sped on, and in the 
 morning could only just distinguish some of the red and white 
 streamers of our disappointed companions behind us. The 
 Florence, however, caught us up the next night, and we sailed on 
 gallantly, with the pleasant little excitement of racing each other and 
 enjoying the scenery of long low mountains of rugged shapes, at some 
 distance from the river — blue and purple by day, pink and golden 
 in the evenings — under the ever-cloudless sky. We passed Minyeh, 
 with its pretty minarets and gardens — it is one of the prettiest 
 towns on the Nile, — and reached Siout on the 15th of January. 
 
 Siout is chiefly remarkable for its many miles of roads, lifted up 
 above the reach of the inundations by wide causeways ; they are 
 shaded by trees, and give one a fine idea of what can be effected 
 by persevering labour. Beyond the town, the life in whose good 
 bazaars is thoroughly amusing, are the catacombs of the ancient 
 Lycopolis, the City of Wolves ; they are very extensive, excavated 
 in the side of the Libyan mountains, with high vaulted roofs, and 
 the walls covered with figures and hieroglyphics, which are, how- 
 ever so much faded and defaced as to be nearly indecipherable ; 
 one vault is still pretty, with gold stars thickly painted on a bright 
 blue ground. They are worth* a visit, from their size and as the 
 traveller’s introduction to hieroglyphics ; but perhaps the labour of 
 mounting is best repaid by the very fine view seen from the entrance 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 15 
 
 to the largest catacomb, called the Stall Antar by the natives. The 
 town, with its twenty-six minarets, stands in a rich plain of meadow, 
 intersected with canals, and shaded with lofty trees ; as far as the 
 eye can reach, north and south, it is all the same bright and beautiful 
 green, but on the east it is bounded by the broad Nile; while 
 beyond that is the yellow desert to the foot of the Arabian mountains, 
 fading away in the blue distance. 
 
 We rode back through a pretty Mooslim cemetery ; each tomb, 
 arched over in stone or stucco, and shaped like a huge bolster, stood 
 in its own plantation of acacia-trees, and frequently a fountain, for 
 the benefit of weary passengers, is added to the little building ; most 
 of the handsomer tombs being walled in and roofed over. The wind 
 was blowing a gale, and the sun was very hot, so hot that we were 
 right glad to get back to our shady cabin, although during the night 
 before and the night after the thermometer showed some slight 
 frost ! The mornings, indeed, till an hour or two after sunrise, 
 were always very cold and fresh until quite the end of the month ; 
 but the cold is never disagreeable, even when the thermometer is 
 alarmingly near 32°. Travellers, however, should always be pro- 
 vided with warm clothing, although after half an hour of sunshine 
 one forgets one has ever been chilly. 
 
 My idea of the Nile before I came to Egypt had been one of flat, 
 shallow banks, and a palm-tree or a mud-hut here and there, such 
 as it is in the Delta : I was therefore most agreeably surprised with 
 the beauty and variety of the banks after Siout, which I, for one, 
 never wearied of watching. On one side or the other there are 
 always * hills at no great distance from the river-bank; sometimes 
 the Libyan chain, in various tones of grey, shading into lilacs and 
 purples at sunset, advanced on the western shore, or receded into 
 delicate blue distance; more often the Arabian hills mounted up in 
 cliffs, sometimes very boldly and grandly from the water, leaving 
 only a strip of castor- oil plants or a narrow track for passengers. 
 And their colour was always so charming : a peculiar rosy yellow, 
 more nearly resembling — if I may be allowed to use a very un- 
 poetical simile — fresh Cheshire cheese than anything else I know — a 
 colour that forms the prettiest contrast to the fresh cool greens of 
 the banks, and to the glorious gentian-blue sky ; it darkens in the 
 strongly-marked lines of stratification, and in the abrupt, rugged 
 ravines, into indescribably' rich shades of yellow brown. These 
 cliffs are dotted all over with caves cut out of old by the monks of 
 the Thebaid. Though I thought them beautiful on first landing in 
 Egypt, I came to love the graceful palm-trees more and more every 
 day ; singly or in groves, they are always lovely and elegant, and 
 
16 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 even the most matter-of-fact mind could scarcely help indulging, I 
 think, in a day-dream of fairy-land delights while reposing in the 
 pleasant shade of a grove of fine palms waving in the cool sunset 
 breeze. 
 
 Then the villages, though entirely built of mud, are not ugly 
 when seen from the river, for the Nile mud is of a brown yellow, 
 which glows in the sunshine, and looks rich in the shade ; and the 
 flat-roofed houses are often topped with white stones in a way that 
 makes them appear something like fortifications from a distance. 
 Each village has scores of tall dovecots, the mud walls of which are 
 striped with whitewash, and thatched with Indian corn-stalks; they 
 are quaint and almost pretty objects, while the minarets are always 
 more or less elegant. These and the palm or acacia-groves, with 
 the endless variety of picturesque groups in bright-coloured cos- 
 tumes, white turbans, and long pipes, form a constant succession of 
 dissolving views passing into one another, with some fresh and 
 interesting, though always changing, charm as one glides slowly by. 
 
 A complete change, indeed, from all European commonplace is 
 this river-life — more especially in the proximity of those around one 
 which is so strange and new at first ; — it is not as on board ship, 
 where the confusion of loud and inharmonious voices only gives one 
 a sense of discomfort and isolation ; here the voices are close to one, 
 by day and by night, separated by only a thin plank or a glass from 
 one’s ear, yet are neither inharmonious nor disturbing. Then the 
 faces are not merely individually strangers, but of an unaccustomed 
 kind ; while the scenery changes all the accustomed current of one’s 
 ideas with the many new interests and new sights on each side, 
 leaving scarcely a trace of the every-day thoughts that have been 
 one’s companions for years past. You scarcely realise what you were 
 and where only three or four weeks previously, until the silent dark- 
 ness of night, hiding the engrossing sights of the present, enables 
 you to think back into the past; even then the water ripples, 
 gently murmuring, past your pillow— Mooslim prayers are heard in 
 whispers on the other side of a plank, within a few inches of your 
 ear — Arab snores come from un-English noses— jackals bark, shriek, 
 and howl on the shore, — and one starts up to peer out of the window, 
 so strangely close to one’s face, whence one sees wild-looking Arabs 
 crouching round a crackling fire of dhourra-sticks, and the glorious 
 clear moon shining through palm-trees, unlike anything one has 
 ever seen before but in the fairy -land of a bright dream. 
 
 As we every day improved our Arabic by a few more words, we 
 soon began to try to string them together into sentences; these 
 we bestowed chiefly on our Reis, Abou Nour by name, and less they 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 17 
 
 invariably afforded him the greatest delight and amnsement. Onr 
 Eeis, who was as good as he was handsome — unlike nearly all the 
 other Reises, whom we saw sitting smoking or sleeping all day long, 
 and only giving an occasional order with slow and solemn gravity, 
 seldom doing anything themselves — was up and about from daylight 
 to dark, and all night too if we were sailing, seldom taking more 
 than an hour’s sleep, and even then having one ear open for every 
 sound of difficulty in the management of the vessel. And what he 
 did he did with an active energy very different from the sailors, 
 who seemed only to move each muscle as little as they could 
 possibly help ; while Abou Nour flew about here and there and 
 everywhere, scrambling like a cat up and down the rigging, and 
 dashing into the water, clothes, turban and all, pushing the dahabieh 
 from the shore or shoals, guiding the little felucca with the towing- 
 rope, which he often held in his teeth while his hands were 
 employed in rowing or dragging the vessel athwart the stream by 
 his own powerful strength, always with the same merry laugh and 
 happy face, and a joke or an affectionate slap for each one of his 
 sailors, who seemed to be as fond of him as soldiers are of a suc- 
 cessful general. Sometimes he assembled them in a group, and 
 gave them a solemn lecture or a scolding with uplifted hands. Then 
 when an hour of quiet sailing came, with no sudden turns of the 
 river, and a tolerably deep channel, they would collect on deck at 
 the stern, lying or lounging round him while he laid aside his pipe, 
 and with the eloquent gestures of the Arab, recounted to them some 
 adventure, or told them a long story which elicited rapturous 
 applause ; and sometimes we used to laugh too, his face was so in- 
 fectiously merry, and the changes of his voice so expressive. But 
 their greatest delight of all was when I sketched his portrait, or that 
 of one of the sailors. How eagerly they came to see it, and then how 
 merrily they laughed over the grinning brown faces and white 
 turbans on the paper, telling me approvingly it was “ taib keteer,” 
 or “ quiyis ” (very good and pretty), and then each one begging to 
 be drawn too. Sir G. Wilkinson says “ that no modern Egyptians, 
 of any rank, can understand pictures ; ” but our experience every- 
 where was of the liveliest interest in all we showed them : our Reis 
 would point out immediately which of my portraits was most like, 
 and would catch at the accident in the dress or attitude for the sake 
 of which I had taken them; while of the passing dahabiehs or 
 kandjehs which I sketched almost daily, he was always ready to 
 point out any want of proportion, or to detect what ropes I had 
 omitted, or how the sails had been changed when she had passed 
 too quickly for me to seize them accurately. A friend afterwards 
 
18 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 photographed him for us ; but Abu Nour had specially prepared 
 himself in his gala attire — a very handsome one it was, of Damascus 
 silks and embroidery — and he was grievously disappointed at find- 
 ing his rich dress metamorphosed into one dull grey colour : even 
 the gilt frame did not reconcile him to the shadowy picture, and 
 whenever he saw it afterwards he always signified to me how much 
 he preferred my rough coloured sketches. He sat like a statue to 
 have it done, only rolling his eyes in a way that made them come 
 out no liow in the photograph ; and when it was finished he was 
 allowed, as a reward, to put his head under the curtain of the photo- 
 graphing instrument : I was standing in focus at the time, and it 
 was worth anything to see his face of astonishment and hear his 
 “ Mashallah ! Wullah ! ” when he saw me standing upside down ! He 
 was too intelligent to think it magic, but I am sure he made many 
 a long story about it afterwards. How much I wish I had still my 
 sketch of him, in his beautiful white and coloured silk vest, his long 
 khaftan of rich brown satin bound with black braid, his white 
 turban embroidered in yellow silk, and over all the wide blue cotton 
 shirt, which was his badge of Keis-hood. He was physician-general 
 also to the sailors, and bound up their scratches or gave them their 
 physic, whenever any little accident took place, as tenderly as a nurse 
 (though, to be sure, the Arabs have barbarous remedies for their 
 maladies — such as dipping a cut finger into boiling oil, and setting 
 fire to gunpowder on a wound) ; and we always saw him go to 
 comfort any of them when they were in trouble, giving them 
 affectionate squeezes or shakes, or long consolatory conversations. 
 
 Achmet told us that the Reis was under a vow of virtue, which 
 bound him to abstain from all lies or dishonesty, or from using bad 
 words ; to have but one wife, and to take no notice of any other 
 woman, &c., &c. ; and that he had kept it most religiously, punish- 
 ing himself by two or three days of rigid fasting and abstinence from 
 smoking (a terrible privation to an Egyptian), if he had failed by 
 any shortcoming : and no one could be more steadily exact in the 
 performance of his prayers, five times every day, during which, 
 except occasionally in the telling of his beads, which is only a rapid 
 repetition of the name of Allah, he seemed to be absorbed in the 
 most earnest devotion. Some people object to this and call it fanatic, 
 but we felt it far more satisfactory and pleasant to have the services 
 of a conscientious man, acting steadily up to his own light, even 
 though that light were darkness. 
 
 Our pleasant course was now varied for two days with sandstorms, 
 which, to use the mildest expression, are very particularly disagree- 
 able. We moored for one afternoon, because we could not see 300 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 19 
 
 yards before ns ; bnt the wind lulling at sunset, we sailed on slowly 
 by the light of a magnificent full moon (such moonlight as one has 
 in Egypt !) until we neared “ the mountain,” of which the Nile sailors 
 have so much terror, Jebel-ez-Zaid ; it is a very wicked mountain, 
 of sudden blasts and gusts that make one’s sails seem bewitched, 
 and which baffle the most expert of crews. Gliding . on smoothly 
 with the wind behind us, it was startling to be suddenly met 
 by a violent blast ahead, and the great lateen sail in an instant 
 reversed with a shock that sent one’s books spinning off the 
 tables ; but we held' on steadily, the Keis calling up every sailor, 
 and himself taking up a perilous situation on the long yard, 
 where no one else would venture; while Achmet stood watch- 
 ing and counting the minutes between the blasts, and, as each one 
 came whizzing past, saying his prayers with a very remarkable 
 rapidity, and calling on the Sheikh-ez-Zaid, the Mooslim saint to 
 whom the mountain is dedicated, to assist us out of the difficulty. 
 Achmet counselled mooring, but we insisted upon trying to proceed, 
 until, finding that in four hours we had not made a yard, we gave it 
 up at midnight, remaining on deck, however, for the amusement of 
 watching the five dahabiehs of our little fleet, which we had not 
 seen for two days, and two or three native boats, come sailing 
 smoothly up in the bright moonlight, unconscious of what was 
 awaiting them, and calling out to us to know “what we were 
 stopping for,” while, one after another, each was seized by the blast, 
 and taken aback, and we heard the exclamations of astonishment 
 and wrath proceeding from them. Early the next morning we left 
 them all behind, passing pretty Negadeh in a sandstorm that filled 
 eyes, mouth, and nose with unpleasant pertinacity, descending upon 
 one suddenly, like a December fog in London, obscuring everything 
 in a thick brown cloud, penetrating everywhere. We came into 
 Luxsor on Friday morning, the 21st, but— alas for our racing 
 triumphs ! — the second, by one hour, in the little fleet, for the Selirna 
 had passed us in the night, and we had only the consolation of 
 hearing that the three other boats were “ nowhere.” We had been 
 ten days doing the seventy-seven miles between Cairo and Beni- 
 Souef, chiefly tracking, and now we had sailed the three hundred and 
 seventy-eight miles between Beni-Souef and Thebes in only ten more. 
 
 We expected great delight in our first view of Luxsor and Thebes ; 
 but the river was already too low, and Karnak must be seen in detail 
 first to be appreciated at a distance ; nor could the Sitting Colossi 
 of the plain be seen at all. We had determined to follow Sir G. 
 Wilkinson’s advice of seeing the temples of Nubia before examining 
 Karnak, and accordingly devoted ourselves to the bundle of letters 
 
 o 2 
 
20 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 we found awaiting our arrival ; but an invitation to join a party 
 going to see Karnak by the light of a full moon, such as we then 
 had, was not to be resisted, and we started at 8.30, six of us, on don- 
 keys, attended by sailors and donkey-boys ad libitum to 'guard us 
 from jackals, and headed by the obliging Consular Agent Mustapha. 
 The more fortunate chance would be to have a fine moonlight view 
 after becoming well-acquainted with the plan of the ruins ; but even 
 under the disadvantage of seeing what we did not properly under- 
 stand, it was a scene that impressed itself upon the mind for ever : the 
 deep black shadows concealing much of the brokenness and decay, 
 and the splendid light illuminating, with a sort of tender glory, the 
 massive columns, immense pylons, and slender obelisks. By this 
 light it was only and altogether beautiful and lovely ; but one needs 
 the sunshine and blue sky to bring out the stupendous proportions 
 of these unrivalled ruins. Perhaps few spots on earth could be 
 more solemnly beautiful than the centre aisle in the Great Hall, 
 with the six gigantic columns between the sixty-one attendant 
 columns on either side, the moonlight piercing through the open 
 clerestory of delicate tracery against the dark sky, turning the 
 obelisk, ninety-two feet high, at one end of the aisle, into a silver 
 needle, rising with a stern grace against the ruined temple behind 
 it ; and at the other end illuminating a single column, standing 
 alone in the centre of a vast square, between giant pylons and huge 
 walls, with its capital complete, its shaft uninjured, seeming almost 
 livingly sorrowful in its loneliness. 
 
 The howling of the jackals gave a wild dreariness to the scene, 
 but we very unwillingly remounted our donkeys and turned back 
 towards Luxsor, through the avenue of sphinxes, which, broken and 
 defaced into almost shapeless masses by daylight, became impres- 
 sively grand by moonlight. What must have been the magnifi- 
 cence of Karnak when all these splendid avenues of sphinxes were 
 still perfect in their mighty limbs, leading up to the still more 
 magnificent walls ! 
 
 At midnight we glided smoothly on, feeling on the morrow glad 
 to rest after even that slight view of Karnak, and glad to fall back 
 into the quite sameness of Nile-life: a sweet calm monotony it 
 is, but yet a monotony of pleasant little changes — dream-like 
 and hazy — a waking day-dream without the sudden kaleidoscope 
 changes of a sleeping dream. From day to day, from night to night, 
 you sail calmly on, watching the golden and rosy-tinted mountains 
 advancing or receding on either side, offering indeed but little 
 variety of [form, yet of colours so lovely that I think no Egyptian 
 travellers say half enough about them ; watching the same brown 
 
AND S YRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 21 
 
 villages with their minarets and dovecots, and their luxuriant acacia- 
 groves ; the same ever-varying yet ever-graceful palms ; the same 
 picturesque Arab boats, with their burdens of dates, cotton, or 
 donkeys ; the same wide, smooth, rapid river, dark brown in one’s 
 hand, yet blue in the distance — a deep grey blue,— contrasting 
 finely with the invariably bright and cloudless sky, broken only by 
 the flocks of birds, which, hour after hour, rise whirling and wheel- 
 ing in the air in gracefully-curving lines — vultures, flying singly at 
 intervals like minute-guns — millions of wild geese and ducks — 
 hoopoes, hopping about on the banks, with their handsome brown 
 coroneted heads — zikzags, with their pretty black and white 
 plumage — the snow-white ibis, like a winged star, dazzling in the 
 sunshine— more rarely, rosy lines of lovely flamingoes, worth coming 
 a long way .to see; and from first to last the tiny black and white 
 
 Solomon’s bird/’ with its yellow cheeks— the robin of the Nile — 
 hopping about the deck, picking up crumbs from one’s hand, and 
 saying all manner of pleasant things with its little graceful nods. 
 
 Dreamy, too, is the Nile-life, because we see then with our real 
 eyes the scenes we have all thought of till we fancy we have already 
 seen them ; now in flesh and blood, yet dreamily still, they stand 
 before us— Joseph talking to his brethren in the field, or the sons of 
 Jacob journeying with their asses and their sacks of provender to 
 buy corn in Egypt ; Boaz sitting at the gate, and saying, “ Ho, such 
 a one ! turn aside, sit down here !” the two women grinding at one 
 mill, and the unmuzzled ox treading out the corn ; Rebekah carry- 
 ing her pitcher on her head, or “ letting it down upon her hand ” to 
 give drink to the wayfarer ; Rachel coming out at even to water 
 the flock ; and the blessed Virgin Mother sitting on the ass, holding 
 the young child in her lap, while Joseph, staff in hand, leads 
 them on. 
 
 No one seeking much excitement, or any exercise beyond walking, 
 should come to the Nile ; for it is altogether calm and dreamy. You 
 look on at life ever moving before your eyes — you hear ceaseless 
 sounds of men on the banks, women washing at the river’s edge, 
 melancholy Arab songs droned, out, donkeys continually braying, 
 and the hoarse scream of the wild geese over your head ; but you 
 yourself lie dreamily and silently on your divan, and see it all pass 
 by like pictures in a diorama. And yet you never feel shut up or 
 inactive, for you know you are moving on and on: everything 
 changes around you each hour, and all the while your mind wanders 
 away — now to the far south before you, where you fancy you must 
 come at last to the younger days of the great river you have been 
 passing up so long ; then back to the tideless sea into which you 
 
22 
 
 E G YPTIAN SEPUL CURES 
 
 saw him pouring weeks ago — now among the nineteenth century of 
 travellers like yourself ; then back to the countless generations in 
 the almost infinite history of Egypt. And so you look up at the 
 everlasting hills on each side of you, that stood there, already old and 
 timeworn, before the faintest light dawned on historic truths, or 
 even poetic fables, that your furthest-seeking perspicacity can dis- 
 cover, — and you are so weary with the long search that you only 
 care to lie still and think. 
 
 Then slowly sinks the sun, and evening closes in with a 
 delicious fresh sweetness, which you must cross the Mediterranean 
 to feel. The boat is generally moored early to the bank, where 
 the sailors light a fire of Indian-corn-stalks, and immediately fall 
 asleep in every imaginable and unimaginable attitude around it, 
 or in heaps on the deck; voices of prayer come from the next 
 village, until all is hushed but the howling and whining of dogs 
 and jackals, and generally half-a-dozen frogs holding an evening 
 gossip in stentorian j croaks. A few hours after you hear the 
 Eeis’ beads pattering on the deck as he kneels at his prayers, and 
 with the first rosy glow on the beautiful starry sky all the crew are 
 up and the sails are hoisted, and the flags stream behind you ; or 
 the men jump ashore, and your pretty boat goes lazily thumping 
 along the bank as the file of sailors pull her slowly on, only stopping 
 to make a rush at some neighbouring sugar-canes, which they 
 greedily devour all the day after, or to buy the more important 
 “ leben ” (milk) for your own breakfast. 
 
 Perhaps the sound most peculiar to Egypt, rivalling even the 
 groans of the sakiyah and the shadoof, because it is so often close 
 to your ear, is the “ Hay-a-lee-sah ! Hay-a-lee-sah !” — the emphasis 
 on the last or last but one syllable according as the action of the 
 moment is quick or slow — sung by the sailors in chorus : a sound 
 which I shall always consider, however rough in itself, as some of 
 the sweetest music I have ever heard. I never got a satisfactory 
 explanation of the words : our dragoman told us that Leesa was a 
 daughter of the Prophet whose aid they invoked; but I have 
 reason to believe this was nonsense. Sometimes, but seldom, they 
 called on other saints — usually only in some locality especially 
 dedicated to a dead saint whose wely was in the neighbourhood, or 
 to some Fakir or hermit living there — and sometimes of an evening 
 the sailors would sing a long descriptive song, the translations of 
 which were always very vague indeed. It is pleasant to have a 
 good singing crew, but they are generally engaged for Pashas’ 
 private boats ; and if your own is a very small boat you are apt to 
 wish a crocodile stuck in their throats before they have half done a 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 23 
 
 long song ; but if you keep their singing within bounds it is sweet 
 and harmonious, and an agreeable break upon the monotony of the 
 downward drifting. 
 
 We met with but one instance of dishonesty on the Nile among 
 the sailors : we left our things lying about all day, both in the 
 cabins and on the deck ; we dropped small coins on the floor ; we 
 were out whole days, leaving the Eeis in charge — though any of the 
 cabins might be entered by the windows unseen from the others — 
 and we never missed so much as a pin : every single thing was picked 
 up and restored with a simple straightforwardness that showed it 
 was their natural habit. I heard the same from every one else on 
 the Nile : your dragoman may eat up your stores — the rats may 
 abscond with your dearest treasures, and the mice may breakfast 
 on your new English gloves ; but with the sailors you are perfectly 
 safe. 
 
 We reached Esneh in twenty-four hours after leaving Luxsor, the 
 only incident of the day being an ineffectual effort to capture a 
 erocodile ; but the wary monster, though lying asleep on the spit 
 of a sandbank at least half a mile long, wakened at the first step of 
 a man on the other end, and after one or two yawns and stretches 
 w r addled down into the water. 
 
 The bank at Esneh was very gay and crowded. The costumes of 
 the Ghawazee, or dancing-girls, who are very numerous here, are 
 generally a bright cherry-coloured silk robe, quite long, only just 
 showing a pair of loose pink gauze shintyan below, their heads 
 covered thickly with gold coins strung together into a kind of cap, 
 and a white gauze veil thrown over all. They wear quantities of 
 gold coin-necklaces and other ornaments, but we never saw a single 
 really pretty face among them ; some seemed to be only eight or ten 
 years old. 
 
 We had here the good fortune of meeting Mr. Harris, the 
 Egyptian antiquary, and his amiable daughter ; they were so kind 
 as to accompany us to the temple, and to read some of the 
 hieroglyphics to us. The portico of this temple has been excavated, 
 leaving the rubbish as a wall of its own height beside it, so that you 
 descend into it from the level of its capitals. Though comparatively 
 modern, having been built in the times of Tiberius and Trajan, it is 
 well worth seeing for its massive elegance (an expression which can 
 only be realised in Egyptian architecture) and for the harmonious 
 symmetry of its proportions ; it is pleasanter, too, to study than 
 most of the temples, as it is walled off from the town, and you can 
 sit enjoying your sketch in perfect silence and solitude : the stone of 
 which it is built is of a rich yellow-brown, that tells well in a 
 
24 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 picture. We afterwards walked in the orange-groves of the Kashef’s 
 (or governor’s) palace, the Kashef himself paying a visit to our 
 dahabieh ; he made himself as agreeable as any one can do through 
 the medium of an interpreter, even though Achmet was a first-rate 
 translator, and gave us a good deal of information more interesting 
 than that in the conversation between the Pasha and “ The Member 
 for Mudcombe,” famous in Edthean annals. He descanted largely 
 upon a map of Egypt, quite proud of being able to point out each 
 place, though he could not, of course, read the names, and he 
 criticised my sketches as freely as a drawing-master. He after- 
 wards sent his daughter to see us, but we were unfortunately on 
 shore when she came ; and he was much disappointed at her not 
 being able to see the novel, and to him incomprehensible, sight of 
 a hareem belonging to nobody travelling in blissful liberty by itself 
 on the Nile. 
 
 Our crew had a soiree in the evening, and entertained us with 
 deafening music and dancing; the latter, which consists only of 
 placing the body in awkward attitudes, bending backwards, and 
 balancing upon bent knees, is as ungraceful as possible ; and we 
 were thankful when they were pleased to desist from the noisy 
 darabooka (drum), clapping of hands, coffee and pipes, with which 
 they amused themselves till ten o’clock : we sailed on an hour after- 
 wards, determining to allow no more balls in our dahabieh. The 
 mountains became more varied in form as they changed into the 
 sandstones of Jebel Silsilis and the cliff on which Koom Ombos 
 stands so finely ; but darkness came upon us, and we saw no more 
 till we reached Assouan at ten p.m. on the 26th of January, forty- 
 two days after leaving Alexandria. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WITHIN THE TROPIC. 
 
 “ Oh, mighty Jove ! 
 
 Forgive this monstrous love for a barbarian 
 That knows not of Olympus !” 
 
 Our eyes opened the next morning on a gay and pretty scene : 
 instead of the yellow hills and smooth sandbanks of Egypt strange 
 black, shining rocks popped up in the very middle of the stream — 
 an old Saracenic wall or fortification stretched down to the river’s 
 edge on the north, as if to shut out Egypt from our sight, while in 
 the narrow channel between the east side and the green island of 
 Elephantine four dahabiehs besides our own were moored, with 
 the Pasha’s steamer, which had towed up Lord Dufferin’s boats. 
 The high sandy bank was shaded with palm-trees and covered with 
 gaily-saddled donkeys, riding-camels, tame ostriches, and crowds of 
 Nubians offering spears, daggers, bows and arrows, pieces of ivory 
 and sandal-wood, ostrich-feathers and eggs, silver bracelets, clay 
 cups and vases, savage-looking necklaces and head-dresses of shells, 
 strips Of rhinoceros and hippopotamus-hide, leopard skins, mats, 
 and baskets of dates, all for sale. 
 
 It was tempting to linger among them, but we had business to 
 settle : besides which a ride, our first ride in the desert, was more 
 tempting still. Achmet had been to see the Sheikh of the Cataract, 
 and learned that he was already engaged to take three boats up 
 before our turn would come, and he stoutly refused to take up any 
 dahabieh as large as the Wandering Maiden in less than two days ; 
 we might therefore expect to be detained five days at least before we 
 reached the other side of the Cataract ; and in returning we knew 
 very well that she would be, proportionably to her weight, slower 
 in descending the river. So we determined to see if any boat was 
 to be had above the Cataract, and accordingly started early in 
 
26 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 the morning for Mahatta — a desert ride of an hour and a half. 
 But what a different desert from one’s nursery imaginations ! The 
 flat expanse of yellow sand had no place here — two or three hundred 
 yards of white sand strewed with white stones, with banks of stones 
 and lumps of granite piled up loosely on each side, as if “ put away ” 
 by giants playing at bricks and suddenly called home to supper, — 
 strange, fantastic shapes, sometimes like cairns, sometimes like walls, 
 chiefly white, and yet shading into delicate hues of lilac and pale 
 grey, with now and then a dash of purple. Solemn and stern it 
 looked, seeming to close down upon one’s heart with an almost 
 tangible pressure as we journeyed on, we the only living things in 
 the whole way, except one hyena, and some black and white vultures 
 slowly sailing to and fro, some keeping watch while others picked 
 at the bones of a dead camel, which it required no vulturine organ 
 to scent at a good distance. A wely of some sheikh was the only 
 sign of man, save the remains of an ancient wall or dyke, built by 
 the Eomans, some say, or by an Egyptian queen in the days long 
 gone by. After leaving Assouan the road commences with a 
 cemetery of the most ancient converts to Muhammedanism, with very 
 small stone slabs, bearing inscriptions in Cufic writing— a pretty, 
 elegant character. Many travellers have sought to carry away one 
 of these slabs, but the people of Assouan will in no wise consent to 
 part with them, even for the handsomest of baksheeshes. 
 
 The village of Mahatta looked more tropical than any we had as 
 yet passed : it was neat and flourishing, every cottage having its 
 enclosure of dom-palms and its heap of gathered dates for sale or 
 winter consumption ; it was swarming with coffee-coloured children, 
 destitute of any clothing save a leathern girdle or a shell necklace. 
 Achmet fought a way for us through the crowd, and we descended 
 to inspect an Arab boat, climbing over slippery, perilous rocks 
 afterwards to the bank opposite Philse, where two of the Beises of the 
 Cataract (there are eight of them) followed to make a bargain for 
 its hire. In two minutes a cane divan was placed under a huge 
 shady sycamore, two or three carpets or mats laid on the divan for 
 us, and then the bargaining began. The two Beises were perfectly 
 black, with the woolly hair, negro nose, and turned-out lips 
 characteristic of Nubia; each wore only a white cotton shirt tied 
 round the throat, without sleeves, floating out in the wind from 
 their tall black figures, polished and shining with castor-oil very 
 fine they looked as they stood gesticulating with Achmet. In 
 about twenty minutes coffee was brought to us, and when the Beis 
 received the empty finjans from our hands he made a salaam, and 
 Achmet said, “ He says, Now you have drunk his coffee, you have 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 27 
 
 stepped upon Ms bach , so he must let you have the boat for the 
 price you say upon which the other Eeis opened the bosom of his 
 dirty gown, and poured out a quantity of dates into our laps, 
 along with a platter of roasted Indian-corn, of which we duly ate 
 before the bargain was concluded by shaking of hands and fresh 
 salaams. 
 
 We ended that day with a row in the felucca near the foot of the 
 Cataract, to enjoy the indescribable sight of that confusion of rocks, 
 thrown about as if by hand, piled up and smoothed by the rushing 
 water, shining and lustrous as coal and marble; the only two 
 colours, the jet black basalt and the red porphyry, ornamented here 
 and there with the vivid green of the little sont (mimosa) trees. 
 
 The desert looked strangely gay the next morning as we followed 
 the same route from Assouan to Mahatta, for all the occupants of 
 the six dahabiehs, then moored together, were on the same route, 
 as well as four camels loaded with the furniture and provisions for 
 our kandjeh, — beds, basins, baths, and baskets, all piled up in 
 confusion on the swaggering camels, while, hanging out over the 
 top of one of them, a great wooden sofa, painted green, went 
 wagging ludicrously along. Our friends bade us adieu with a 
 ringing cheer on the beautiful banks of Philse — ever-lovely Philas — 
 and we sailed gaily on at 2 p.m. into Nubia, with eight of our own 
 sailors under a Nubian Eeis. Our new boat looked hopelessly un- 
 promising and dirty, but we determined to make the best of it ; and 
 having made her look as nice as her old boards would permit, we 
 gave ourselves up to watching the lovely scenes through which we 
 were passing. 
 
 It is Egypt no longer, but something wholly different : the river 
 seems to run more rapidly in its much narrower channel, and is 
 of a deeper, clearer grey ; the rocky hills rise more abruptly on both 
 sides, leaving on each bank only a narrow strip, but a few yards 
 wide in many places, sometimes not even that, gay and bright with 
 the vivid green of young lupins ; then a fringe of palms, dom-palms, 
 or castor-oil-trees, a yard or two wide, and the dark red rock rises 
 immediately behind them, or the sand of the desert closes upon the 
 green, as if sternly saying, “ Thus far, and no farther ! ” And thus 
 it is throughout Nubia : scarcely anywhere does the cultivated land 
 extend a quarter of a mile in width, and often the rocks tumble down 
 in heaps into the water. Scarcely a village is to be seen, and but 
 very few of the people, only occasionally one or two working singly 
 among the lupins ; a silence, almost deathly, reigns throughout the 
 land, and the whole country seems, by a subversion of ideas, to 
 consist of the river only — a snake-like kingdom of blue water set in 
 
28 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 green and yellow enamels. The boats with their singing crews are 
 all gone; the birds have stayed behind in Egypt; there are no 
 villages for the jackals to howl in ; and the only sound that breaks 
 upon the listening ear is that of the creaking sakiyahs and shadoofs 
 at intervals. 
 
 And yet such is the beauty of the scene that Nubia is not 
 melancholy ; and so delicious is the air that breathing seems in 
 itself a pleasure. The balmiest European summer’s evening is raw 
 and cold in comparison with the perfection of those Nubian nights ; 
 scarcely even cool, yet with nothing of the oppressive heat of the 
 day, the evening air moves round one with a soft, sweet freshness 
 as it bathes every sense at once in a dreamy but not languid feeling 
 of pleasure, and charms sight, taste, touch, and hearing with equal 
 enjoyment. We afterwards found two or three mornings about 
 sunrise quite cool ; but during our stay in Nubia the nights were 
 always the same, bringing, as Eliot Warburton expresses it, a sort 
 of conviction that existence is a blessed thing. 
 
 Not however that Nubian existence by day is particularly in- 
 viting: very black and very oily is the Berberi, and your olfac- 
 tory organs shrink from the wind that blows from him to you ; 
 wild and fierce are the men, noisy and naked the women, and, in 
 contrast to the resplendent varnish of their skins, unpolished is their 
 manner. One girl tried to snatch rudely from my hand a dom- 
 palm-nut I had gathered, while her companion threw handfuls of 
 sand at us; but we were taking a long walk, with only the 
 protection of one sailor, and had we gathered as much of their 
 slender provision as its equivalent in England the British peasant 
 would probably have expressed his disgust quite as significantly, 
 and perhaps more disagreeably. 
 
 One more word of our nights in Nubia. When we entered our 
 boat at Mahatta we found her reeking wet throughout the inside : 
 “ She’s been sunk all night, ma’am, to clear out the vermin,” was 
 the explanation we received; and relyiDg on Sir G. Wilkinson’s 
 assurance of the purity of Nubia, we thought only of rats, and 
 said no more about it. That night we slept in peace; the 
 sunshine of the following day, however, dried up the whole boat 
 into its normal condition ; but, in the bliss of ignorance, we retired 
 to rest, when, after a few minutes’ slumber, I awoke with a kind of 
 impression that the imps of Sheiten had got hold of me. Oh horror ! 
 Inside and outside of my mosquito curtains files of bugs were pro- 
 menading all over me, and when, with more than usual contortions 
 I had struggled out of my Levinge’s bag, I saw on beds, walls, 
 ceiling, and floor only bugs— bugs— bugs ! In Syria you can buy 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 29 
 
 tiny little scraps of the Koran, folded np in highly-ornamented 
 silver, or gaily-worked leather hags, which are worn ronnd the 
 neck as infallible preservatives against bngs ; I thought of import- 
 ing them to England, but I remembered they could not be expected 
 to guard any but Islamite bodies. 
 
 After that night we slept on deck; and much pleasanter it 
 was, with the glorious stars for our roof, than in the stuffy cabin 
 and cupboard, which was all our kandjeh afforded us. And indeed 
 it was well worth while to sleep a la Idle etoile, to have full oppor- 
 tunity of seeing the beautiful Southern Cross, denied to European 
 eyes. We used to lie awake between two and four o’clock each 
 morning for the pleasure of looking at the lovely constellation — 
 such a mysterious emblem of Nature’s holiness, it always seemed 
 as if the heavens came closer to one’s heart in wearing the simple 
 but well-known symbol of our Faith, and that these lovely stars 
 visibly glorified the material image of the only path on earth that 
 leads to a sure home amongst those starry hosts of heaven. It is a 
 strange sensation, but an absolute fact, that the stars in Nubia seem 
 really and tangibly nearer to you than in Europe : not that the sky 
 seems nearer, for, on the contrary, it is lifted up to an infinitude far 
 above what we ever see in the cloudy skies of northern latitudes ; 
 but that the stars themselves seem to hang lower down, to lean out 
 of heaven towards man, shining on him with the glowing radiance 
 that one fancies should bring home to the heart a living testimony 
 of the inconceivably glorious heaven above them. 
 
 Thus much of the sky over Nubia ; of the land itself the produce 
 is almost entirely confined to two vegetables, the palm and the castor- 
 oil; it is one long, almost unbroken palm-grove from end to end. 
 The palm-trees are all numbered, registered, and taxed ; their fruit 
 is the chief, almost the only food of the Nubians; they have nothing 
 besides this but the beans, whose flowers perfume the air at this 
 season. The dates are sent down largely into Egypt, for no one eats 
 an Egyptian date in Cairo or Alexandria if he can get a Nubian 
 date; and the trade has increased by the dates brought in the 
 caravans from Sennaar, which are much prized in the more 
 northern latitudes. The second product of Nubia is the castor-oil, 
 of which an immense quantity is consumed, externally, by the 
 Nubian; the woolly hair of both sexes is soaked and matted into a 
 stiff paste with the oil, and their bodies are rubbed over with it till 
 they become polished and shiny. The oil keeps the skin from 
 blistering or burning in the hot sun, which is the more necessary 
 from their wearing no clothes ; it likewise protects them from the 
 attacks of mosquitos and other insects. The plant is extremely 
 
30 
 
 EGYPTIAN' SEPULCHRES 
 
 pretty, with the fruit and flower on the same branch, like the cotton- 
 tree, which bears the pretty yellow blossom along with the silky, 
 white cotton tufts of the dry open pod both at once. The castor-oil 
 is red-stalked and of large, deeply-cut leaves — the young ones dark 
 crimson-brown and purple, the old ones a bright green ; the berries, 
 like small chestnuts, of two shades of green, and the flowers white. 
 I have heard of red and white flowers on the same tree, but we 
 never saw them. The ugly, stunted-looking dom-palm every one 
 knows by pictures, with its strange fan-shaped leaves, and its fruit, 
 large, dark red, deformed-looking apples. 
 
 On nearing Korosko the colouring of the scenery changes mar- 
 vellously ; the river winds so much as to appear frequently like a 
 succession of lakes, enclosed by hills or mountains which have all 
 become of a dark deep purple, sometimes quite black, while the 
 sand which creeps up their sides and over the plains beyond them 
 is no longer white, or even yellow, but a full rich apricot colour. 
 About Korosko and Ibreem the mountains are singularly beautiful, 
 and still more strange; their dark purple tints and the bright- 
 coloured sands contrasting finely with the luxuriant palm and the 
 green beans, while the mountains themselves begin to assume the 
 fantastic shapes which give to the whole land, more especially 
 about Abou Simbil, such a weird and bewitched appearance. The 
 idea irresistibly suggests * itself that the country has been lately 
 burned, and each hill roasted ; it seems as if nothing but a general 
 conflagration could have given such a resemblance to over-baked 
 pies, which the flame-coloured sand around them increases. One 
 felt that there must be a legend of some such thing, and accordingly 
 we were soon told how Surya, the Kegent of the Sun, descended on 
 the country one morning to say his prayers, when the waters dried 
 up immediately, the mountains took fire, and the inhabitants were 
 roasted to death. Ibreem — a lovely subject for a sketch — is a lofty 
 perpendicular bluff, with curious old caves cut in the face, and 
 crowned with a castle, now in ruins, which must have been of great 
 strength and size. 
 
 We reached Wady Halfeh only four days after leaving Mahatta, 
 so that we had not exchanged boats for nothing ; 220 miles in four 
 days, one of which had been lost in tracking against a westerly wind, 
 was not bad. It blew violently at Wady Halfeh — invariably the case 
 there, it is said : the place looks wind-worn and desolate ; however 
 it was lively enough that evening, for a caravan from Dongola and 
 Sennaar had just arrived, and the shore was covered with camels, 
 and bales of elephants’ teeth, bags of gum-arabic and ostrich- 
 feathers ; and we were pestered with people offering us the veriest 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 31 
 
 rubbish for sale, as “ Antika, antika ! ” even common bits of stone 
 from the beach. One boy offered us an English halfpenny, and 
 another some broken morsels of glass ; but better still, when a man, 
 a few days after, picking up a button before the eyes of a gentleman 
 from whose coat it had dropped off, and holding it up to him, cried 
 out, “ Antika ! baksheesh, ya Howadji ! ” 
 
 There were no donkeys or any kind of ridable beast to be had at 
 the village, so we mounted very early the following morning on 
 rough baggage-camels belonging to the caravan, in order to reach 
 the Hill of Abouseer ; we had no saddles or riding arrangements 
 beyond a carpet and a mat thrown loosely over the beast’s back, 
 and how we stuck on is still a marvel to me ; but we firmly de- 
 clined, after a momentary trial, all invitations to trot. After be- 
 coming a little accustomed to the discomfort of the situation, I liked 
 the springy long step and even swing of the camel : it seemed in 
 harmony with the scene around one. A marvellous scene indeed 
 it was : an arid desert of apparently endless sand, both white 
 and deep yellow, with rocks breaking through of pale green, red, 
 yellow, white, and purple ; sometimes pieces shone sparkling in the 
 sun of so pure and clear an amethyst colour that one quite started 
 to tread over the seeming precious stone. About half-way we came 
 to a solitary sheikh’s tomb in ruins : no other sign of habitation 
 met our view during the whole five hours of the ride, not a man, 
 nor a camel, nor even a gazelle or a jerboa ; all was utter silence 
 and space under the bluest of cloudless skies and the rays of a 
 scorching sun. 
 
 In another hour we had climbed up the back of the famous Hill 
 of Abouseer, whose face is a perpendicular cliff three hundred feet 
 high, rising directly from the northern end of the second Cataract, or 
 Batn-el-Hajar,* as the Arabs call it. Many a fair land and many a 
 mountain panorama have I since seen, but never has any view made 
 more impression on me than that wondrous, though scarcely beautiful 
 scene. The rock stands almost isolated, yet with hills and heights on 
 the west side, and an immense plain to the south and east, which of 
 course makes it seem more lofty than it is ; and standing alone on 
 its summit, I thought of that “ exceeding high mountain ” whence 
 “ all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof” were 
 surveyed. But how different a view was this ! Kingdoms, indeed, 
 there had been in the land laid out before me with hundreds of 
 temples, and palaces, and pyramids, but of the glory of these there 
 is now nought but ruin and desolation ; “ their memorial ” even 
 has almost “ perished with them,” and the scene is one of the 
 * Core of the rock. 
 
32 
 
 EG YPTIA N SEPULCHRES 
 
 wildness of Nature only. Far, far away to the south and south-west 
 rose the mountains of Dongola and Kordofan, grey and blue in the 
 distance; between us and them the great river wound through 
 thousands of low black rocks, shining black like coals, and extend- 
 ing nearly twenty miles, a mazy archipelago, but all jumbled into 
 an indistinguishable mass — the black tinted here and there with 
 shrubs of tamarisk. As the river came within a few r miles of our 
 hill it dashed and foamed into wider channels of w r hite frothy 
 waters, which joined themselves into a smooth swift river, and, 
 passing the base of Abouseer, flowed on past Wady Halfeh on its 
 northern course. On each side of these miles of black cataract 
 spread the- flat yellow desert, carrying on the eye westwards to 
 the mountains of Dongola, and eastwards to the far-away Arabian 
 range, clothed in the loveliest hues of exquisite pale mauve, half 
 hidden in a dreamy kind of mist. 
 
 We gazed and gazed, feeling as if we could never have enough ; 
 like prisoners from the window of their gaol looking with longing 
 eyes over the far “ sweet south ” we so ardently desired to explore, 
 and over probably the most tropical scene in all the world that our 
 eyes will ever behold. Turning back is often sad, but it never 
 seemed so triste, or such starving work before, as when we set our 
 faces northward to regain the boat — almost like a hungry wayfarer 
 passing a baker’s shop and turning away his head from the food he 
 longs for and cannot have. But before we retraced our steps there 
 was something to do, to accomplish which I had armed myself 
 with a hammer and chisel, not knowing in the least how to use them, 
 but resolved to leave our names among the pilgrims who had rested 
 on that narrow ledge of rock before us. A mighty company of 
 names are gathered there, and a feeling of something awful came 
 over one in the sight of the hundreds recorded on that unchanging 
 stone — abiding there still like tangible shadows of those who carved 
 them when in health and vigour, yet of whom so many have now 
 already passed away ! For only a few years — twenty at most — has 
 that ancient river been open to travellers, yet already, like the 
 Volume of the Great Book, that rock, the record of those who spent 
 but one short hour of their brief existence there, is crowded with 
 the names of the dead! Of those we had personally known by 
 far the greater number were gone into that land whence none 
 return ; and it was with a feeling of sad pleasure that we placed 
 our names among them — thus making a sort of re-union in matter 
 as well as in thought — a silent, half-living companionship. The 
 sun was scorchingly hot, and, never having been a schoolboy, I 
 found the stone-carving a very hard task, and w T as heartily glad 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 33 
 
 when I had accomplished it. Then we went slowly back to the 
 kandjeh, with our heads wrapped in thick Scotch plaids to 
 guard us from the midday rays, to which we were not accustomed 
 on shore. 
 
 The real wealth of the glorious old Nile is derived from its lowest 
 affluent, called the Black Nile — a river that rises in Abyssinia, near 
 the town of Gondar, and pours into the great Nile just above 
 Berber. The inundation owes its value to the greasy black mud 
 suspended in the waters of this branch ; and it is doubted by some 
 persons whether the annual inundation would even take place were 
 the Nile robbed of the mass of water that comes down the Black 
 Nile. There might be a very large rise annually, but the water 
 would subside without leaving that peculiar sediment which makes 
 the soil of Egypt so fruitful. It was from knowing this that pro- 
 positions were occasionally made by the enemies of Egypt in olden 
 times of cutting off this branch, by turning its waters, before they 
 left Abyssinia, into the Eed Sea, and thereby reducing Egypt to a 
 desert, or at least a very poor land ; and on this account the 
 Abyssinians were reported, in an ancient tradition, to have the 
 power of reducing Egypt to utter and irreparable ruin. 
 
 This thick, greasy-feeling mud is thought to act beneficially upon 
 other substances besides land : it is largely exported, dried in cakes, 
 to all the hareems of Turkey ; and the mud, re-softened in water, is 
 laid on the skins of the fair ones of Damascus, Constantinople, and 
 the beauties of Circassia and Georgia, to give whiteness and lustre to 
 their complexions. Certainly the water of the Nile has the most 
 charming influence on the skin, especially during its thickest flow. 
 When we ascended the Nile the water was of a deep rich brown, 
 which had cleared before we returned to Cairo into a clear grey. 
 It is the most delicious water in the world for drinking, even when 
 very thick ; you have but to let it stand an hour or so in a clay 
 goolleh, and the most refreshing sweet water runs off, as agreeable 
 to the taste as it is beneficial to the health. 
 
 The following evening we anchored close to Abou Simbil, in the 
 prettiest reach of the river, where it was enclosed like a lake 
 between ranges of purple hills, then dressed in sunset hues of lilac 
 and gold. These hills are most curious from their fantastic shapes, 
 besides hundreds of others which rise suddenly from the flat, flame- 
 coloured sand, like huge round haycocks with steeply sloping sides. 
 We toiled up the steep bank of sand very early the next morning, 
 as it is only the newly-risen sun which can penetrate at all into the 
 depths of that world-famous Temple of Abou Simbil, or Ibsamboul, 
 as it is sometimes called. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPUL CURES 
 
 Everybody is familiar with the interesting account of its 
 resurrection from under the sand by the spade of Belzoni — that 
 lesson of noble perseverance grandly rewarded; and since that 
 time the temple has been too often and too well described by 
 able pens for me to use my feeble one in portraying its wonders ; 
 nor indeed can I hope here or elsewhere to do more than to render 
 in some degree the impression made upon our own minds, rather 
 than to give the actual description of the magnificent ruins of 
 Egypt in themselves. 
 
 Our entrance into the rock-temple is in no wise likely to be 
 forgotten by us ; the sand has now closed up the doorway (which 
 was quite open a few years ago *) within eleven or twelve inches 
 from the top, so that it would be impossible to enter it if the sand 
 were level, instead of being, as it is, on a steep slope. We divested 
 ourselves of hats, &c., for the heat inside is intense, and we were 
 puzzling over what was to happen next, when Achmet suddenly 
 disappeared, shouting back directions to us from the depths inside 
 the hole, in obedience to which we laid ourselves, one by one, flat 
 on our faces, inserting our heels into the aperture, when, being 
 instantly seized on, a few vigorous pulls drew us each safely 
 through ! Such a ludicrously unpleasant operation that I could not 
 help opening my mouth to laugh, thereby receiving half a pound 
 of sand down my throat. Still more intensely ludicrous did it seem 
 when, half an hour afterwards, we, being still inside, saw a gentle- 
 man undergo the same process — the feet first filling up the hole, 
 and then the body coming thundering down the steep sand-slope 
 into the darkness and silence within. 
 
 After this very unusual exercise we required a little rest, and 
 Achmet left us for half an hour, that our eyes might become 
 accustomed to the darkness within ; and we were thankful enough 
 to be alone, for very soon the light which pours through the little 
 opening enabled us to distinguish the features of that far-famed 
 hall, which sinks deeper and deeper into the heart the longer you 
 behold it. I'our colossal figures stand at each side of the middle 
 aisle as pillars dividing off the narrow and dark recesses behind 
 them ; all the light there is falls on these eight figures of Eameses, 
 now become Osiris, imbued with his almost superhuman strength, 
 and majesty and divine calmness— the swathed legs and the 
 unearthly repose of the face bespeaking the God of Death, as the 
 crook and the knotted scourge portray the God of Judgment. There 
 
 * The temple was cleared out, by order of the Pasha, for the visit of 
 Lord Haddo ; but since then the villagers have thrown the sand in again out 
 of pure mischief. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 35 
 
 is little in accordance with our modern ideas of beauty in his 
 features, yet the mind is more impressed with admiration — an 
 admiration that almost oppresses one — at the majestic, passionless 
 purity and perfect peace of that countenance than at the most 
 exquisite Grecian model of all that is most beautiful in man. 
 Something more is here, more than mere symbolism, and far beyond 
 mere human beauty, however perfect — something that speaks to 
 the mind with an eight-fold voice as clearly as the grave. The sweet 
 mouth and the powerful arms crossed calmly on the breast, 
 clasping the divine emblems, speak to the eye of the gazer 
 something which tells of the rest obtained, not by inaction, but 
 by conquest — something that whispers almost irresistibly to the 
 mind, “ When He giveth quietness, who then can make trouble ? ” 
 A quietness, a repose that is indeed almost unearthly, for it 
 comes from far away ; he is dead, but speaking from beyond the 
 earthly life he has quitted: it is not only that he has passed 
 through Death, but that Death is no more to him ; he is now living 
 — living again, but in silence, not in action, but in the life of 
 thought which is eternal — he is gone, not into Death, but through 
 Death into the Silent Land — the land of the great departed ; and 
 from that land, through the long silence between us and him, through 
 the deep darkness of intervening ages of idolatry and ignorance, 
 there seemed to come softly to our living ears the spiritual echoes 
 of those voices, for long ages silent upon earth, yet whose praises 
 are still ringing through eternity in adoration of the one same God 
 Almighty — the same then as now to the pure in heart — even to 
 them and to us as children of the same eternal and ever-present 
 Father. Through the long past ages these have stood there, and for 
 long ages to come they will still stand there, silently singing their 
 solemn, sweet chant, ever and ever the same, from those crossed 
 arms and those serene, passion-stilled countenances, and those 
 restful lips — “ Children and brothers, your burden is heavy, your 
 cares many ; but be of good courage — strive, struggle, fight your 
 way on — conquer through all, and attain this calm, this peace, this 
 rest, forgetting all the trials, sorrows, struggles of life in eternity.” 
 
 “ ‘ Daughter,’ they softly said, ‘peace to thine heart ! 
 
 . We too, yes, daughter, have been as thou art : 
 
 Hope-lifted, doubt-depressed, seeing in part, 
 
 Tried, troubled, tempted, sustained as thou art. 
 
 Our God is thy God ; what He willeth is best ; 
 
 Trust Him as we trusted : — then — rest as we rest ! ’ ” 
 
 Besides this hall there are fourteen chambers in the temple, all 
 
36 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 perfectly dark, of course, though before the sand had choked up 
 the entrance the four small figures which sit, as on an altar, at 
 the farthermost end of the adytum, facing the door, must have 
 been dimly illumined by the rays of the rising sun (the temple 
 faces the east) ; and they must themselves have appeared to look 
 with 'their stony eyes along the whole length of the temple, and 
 across the sacred ever- flowing Nile, to the unchanging purple 
 mountains beyond his green banks. If the sacred hawk, the emblem 
 of the Sun, to whom the temple is dedicated, was kept at the feet 
 of these four statues, as some suppose, 1 it must have been worse 
 than the “ penalties of royalty ” to him to be worshipped in the 
 dark enclosure instead of enjoying blessed liberty on the hills he 
 could just descry without. 
 
 On the walls of the outer hall are represented the historic deeds 
 and conquests of the great Rameses : the other chambers are also 
 sculptured all over ; but the pictures are so blackened with smoke 
 as to be very difficult to decipher, and the heat and suffocation in 
 the inner rooms are so intense that it became impossible to examine 
 half of them — strong lungs and head are absolutely necessary for a 
 real examination of Abou Simbil in its present state. It was with 
 much vexation that we turned to hurry out, but one was forced to 
 retain strength enough in one’s faint and semi-suffocated condition 
 for the exit — head foremost — through the same little hole : an 
 operation still more disagreeable than the entrance. 
 
 We lay” down in the shadow of the rock to rest and breathe, 
 and to feast our eyes quietly and thoroughly on the four colossal 
 figures of the facade : three only are quite uncovered by the sand, 
 and one of these has been destroyed to the waist, while of the 
 fourth only the face is visible. These enormous figures— they are 
 sixty-six feet in height without the pedestals — are of the great 
 Rameses II., seated on his throne ; his posture, the hands on the 
 knees, signifying his rest after his many conquests — viz. those 
 portrayed within the temple. These figures are as striking as the 
 Osirides in the interior, but even more beautiful in face : the 
 countenance is as grand, and perhaps more human, and it has an 
 expression of majestic sweetness in the mouth and of triumph in 
 the nose which gives conviction to the mind that they are portraits. 
 Till I saw those figures I never could believe that features of such 
 gigantic size could express such grace and benevolence so sweetly 
 and grandly mingled ; but here in reality one felt in one’s heart 
 that Rameses — the glory of ancient Egypt’s many glories, and the 
 terror of the then-known world— must have reigned over a people 
 who loved him, as well as over slaves who feared him. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 37 
 
 Then we turned to the mountains, now "deep in violet shades 
 against the Eastern sky, which we had seen from the inside of the 
 temple, feeling that these at least had been beyond the power of 
 man to change; but in truth they seemed to have come within 
 reach of a hand’s grasp, as it were, across the almost immeasurable 
 gulf between us and the thousands of centuries when these figures 
 were fashioned by men’s hands. Strange to feel how Nature came 
 close home to one’s heart as man faded away into dim distance ; 
 how the 
 
 u sweet and potent voice ” — 
 
 from 
 
 u within the soul itself” * 
 
 answered back the whisper from Nature’s grandest works, and the 
 inward life of Man and of Nature met together in the same God- 
 given thought; strange to recognise the links of that immortal 
 chain which bound up the spiritual life of Nature with the thoughts 
 of those whose works of the Past were living still in the Present, 
 in those old Egyptians and in the children of the new West, — 
 children of the same Father, with thoughts alike eternal in both. 
 
 The small but tastefully-built Temple of Amada was the next at 
 which we stopped ; it is situated on the western bank, and com- 
 mands a remarkably pretty landscape, and is in itself more pic- 
 turesque than most of the ruins of Egypt: the sculptures are 
 lively and interesting, and in some places very fresh ; but the little 
 temple is more than half buried in the sand. The next day a very 
 high wind kept us moored to the bank— the only day on which we 
 had imperfect weather in Nubia; but we found amusement in 
 watching the brown children and girls who came down with butter 
 and dates for sale : they were very shy, and screamed frightfully if 
 ever we went near enough to pretend to touch them ; but at any 
 reasonably safe distance they would stand for an hour, even the 
 tiniest of them, shouting “ Baksheesh, baksheesh ! ” We went on 
 in the night, but the wind continued to blow, and our old tub of a 
 boat rolled so much that — I grieve to say — we were both sea-sick. 
 
 Koofideena (or Maharraka) occupied us the next morning : an 
 unfinished temple, looking still as if fresh from the hands of the 
 builders, with its half-carved capitals, yet now in ruins. It is very 
 pretty, and worth seeing, though almost without sculptures, and 
 not to be compared with the noble ruin of Dakkeh, which we ex- 
 plored in the afternoon. Here there is a fine view from the summit 
 of the great pylon, I believe, but such a splendid mirage spread all 
 * Coleridge. 
 
38 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 around ns during our stay that we never rightly distinguished 
 between the truth and the pretty fable : the temple itself is one of 
 the most interesting. Then came Garf Hosseyn — a coarse travestie 
 of Abou Simbil, nearly passing the “ one step ” from the sublime 
 to the ridiculous. The clumsy giants who are fast crumbling away I 
 here bear little resemblance to the majestic figures in the other, l 
 reminding one only of the monsters of ancient India. In the | 
 beauty and dignity of Abou Simbil one almost forgets that from such 
 conceptions man could degenerate into the darkness of idolatry — for 
 there the spiritual life only is represented, which was afterwards I 
 clouded over by error and materialism ; but in Garf Hosseyn the 
 degradation of heathenism is brought before one. In the one you 
 feel instinctively that what is before you is the human representation 
 of what is divine — imperfect, perhaps mistaken, as from the hands 
 of men " seeing through a glass darkly yet with the aspirations 
 of a heart “ desiring a better country ” expressed in it : whereas 
 in the other the form is brutalised into the expression of some- 
 thing lower than human, and gigantically hideous ; but what re- 
 finement should be expected in a temple dedicated to the rude 
 Vulcan? The whole place is swarming with bats, and is very 
 disagreeable to explore. The proportions of the temple, which is 
 hewn from the living rock, are very grand, and there has been a 
 fine portico : it is nobly placed too, and the landscape from it is very 
 green and lovely ; as indeed were the views throughout this day’s 
 voyage. We saw Dendour and Kalabshee — the latter a magnificent 
 ruin, but being only of the date of Augustus, it is too modern to 
 claim as much attention as its size would otherwise command, and 
 the hieroglyphics are miserable. Besides being imposing it is also 
 curious from its excessive ruin — it looks really as if it had been 
 chopped up, and it is only by very active scrambling that one can 
 see it at all. 
 
 But the gem of all the hieroglyphics of Nubia is to be found 
 within a mile of Kalabshee, beautifully situated on a cliff command- 
 ing a long reach of the river and its bright green banks, — this is 
 the rock-hewn grotto-temple of Beit-el-Wely. It is very small, con- 
 sisting of only an adytum and a hall, supported on two columns ; 
 the sides are filled with representations of the victories of Bameses 
 II. over the Cushites (Ethiopians) and the Shori. In many places 
 the paint is fresh as ever, the pupils of the eyes of Bameses still 
 preserving their sharply- defined blackness, and the pattern of red 
 and blue embroidery on his robes still bright and clear ; the piece 
 washed by Miss Martineau is cleaner than most of the rest, and is 
 of course pointed out by every dragoman. Outside the temple the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 39 
 
 two sides of the area or court are covered with small, but most 
 lifeful figures — on the one side Eameses is represented in the act 
 of conquering the Ethiopians, with portraits of all the offerings 
 presented to him by the newly-subdued people ; on the other the 
 great king is seen besieging the fortified city of the Shori, who 
 make a determined resistance. The conqueror is also represented 
 engaging in single combat with a chief of the Shori, and afterwards 
 sitting on his throne receiving a group of prisoners, conducted by 
 his son ; the figures are certainly most living and spirited, but they 
 scarcely equal the highly-imagined description given of them by 
 some travellers. 
 
 One night more of delicious fresh warm air — though at Kalabshee 
 we had left the Tropic of Cancer — and on the evening of the next 
 day, by the glorious starlight, we drifted swiftly and noiselessly 
 down the narrow stream, between the dark high cliffs which 
 charmed us still more in returning than when ascending the river, 
 and anchored by the shore of beautiful Philse. Our tent was 
 already pitched on the sand, and we thankfully enjoyed such a 
 night’s sleep as we had not once had in our carnivorous kandjeh. 
 
40 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 CHAPTEE IY. 
 
 CATARACT AND FLAME. 
 
 Who can describe Philse? and 'what good would even pages upon 
 pages of writing do to the minds of our readers ? they could only 
 produce confusion, since Philse is made up of apparently incon- 
 gruous elements, each beautiful in itself, though combining badly 
 enough in description, but in reality melting into one harmo- 
 nious whole — stern and wild, yet soft and lovely ; grand in feature, 
 yet exquisite in detail; calm and silent in its deep repose, yet 
 surrounded with life and sound ; the vast white of the desert and 
 the deep grey of the river — the glowing purple of the mountains 
 and the vivid green of the palm-trees — the lustrous black of the 
 weird rocks in the water and the fiery orange and red of the 
 infernal-looking rocks on the shore — the blue and pink granite 
 and the red and purple porphyry — the creamy yellow of the ancient 
 ruins, so grand and beautiful, yet so arid and unpicturesque, and 
 the dry, cracked, and crumbling mud-huts around and all over 
 them : — these are the various opposing features which combine 
 into the one unique and perfect Philse — of all spots in Egypt and 
 Nubia the one to which, perhaps, one looks back with the most 
 love and tenderness. 
 
 Much of its magnificently-planned temple was still unfinished 
 when all was left to silence and ruin : what would it have been in 
 its complete beauty ! What must it have been even in its incomplete 
 magnificence, when the pagan priests of old sang their hymns of 
 worship along its sacred shore ! Isis and Osiris, with their son 
 Horus, the type of youthful beauty, was the Triad worshipped here 
 (Egyptian worship was always in triads), and the interior of the 
 great temple is filled with their “ domestic annals ; ” but the earthly 
 history of Osiris did not end here, for the oath which has dreamily 
 thrilled through our minds, so ancient is history to us, was a 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 41 
 
 modern error among the Egyptians, and “ He who sleeps in Philae ” 
 was really believed by them to have been buried temporarily in 
 Abydos. 
 
 The temple and the buildings connected with it must have once 
 entirely covered the island, which was nearly surrounded by a quay 
 of smooth stone-work ; only a portion of this remains, and the chief 
 parts of the temple are now connected only by piles of broken 
 stones. Nothing, however, can lessen the grandeur of the enormous 
 pylons and pyramidal towers in the centre ; of all the rest the effect 
 is sadly spoiled, to our minds, by the perverse irregularity and un- 
 symmetrical arrangement of all Egyptian architecture, which is no- 
 where shown more broadly — I had almost said rudely, — than at 
 Philse. There are two splendid colonnades of pillars, commencing 
 from a wall of rock rising at the southern end of the island ; but 
 only a few of the pillars can be seen in true perspective, as the line 
 of each colonnade is almost unaccountably crooked, following with 
 unnecessary closeness the shore of the island. Many of the columns 
 too are unfinished, with uncarved capitals, the grace and elegance 
 of the first score making one doubly regret the vacancy of the others. 
 After this and a whole heap of ruins, among which lie the broken 
 limbs of a gigantic lion, you enter between enormous towers through 
 one court into another : every side of the second square is different 
 from the other three; one of them is occupied by a corridor of 
 richly-ornamented pillars, while on the opposite side is the small 
 but beautiful temple dedicated to Horus. Beyond this is the gem 
 of Philse, “ the ten-columned court,” as it is called, of the great 
 temple. These columns are still quite perfect, and are almost the 
 only ones in Egypt where the colours are really as fresh and bright 
 as they must have been two thousand years ago— unlike the descrip- 
 tions of enthusiastic tourists ; their capitals are of the most vivid 
 blue and green, picked out with red, crimson, and orange ; the roof 
 is bright blue, with golden stars ; and the winged orb typifying the 
 Sun, is here more elaborately portrayed than usual. Then comes 
 the adytum and several other chambers, all in darkness— thick dark- 
 ness, the abode of bats and dismal odours — yet whose walls still 
 hold vivid pictures, in spite of dirt and decay, of the birth and 
 education of Horus, who stands between Isis, horned and sun- 
 crowned, and Osiris with the crown and mitre. There are inner 
 chambers, staircases still unbroken, passages innumerable, and some 
 smaller temples ; one among them on the western side was dedicated 
 to the God of the Nile, and is full of pretty water-plants, lotus and 
 papyrus, neatly and well sculptured. The colossal sculptures on 
 the pylons, &c., are very coarse and ill done, unlike the really 
 
42 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 ancient hieroglyphics, this temple having been built by Ptolemy 
 Epiphanes and Ptolemy Physcon, and begun about 200 b.c.' Turn- 
 ing to the east side of the island, there is one beautiful and very 
 graceful building : a quadrangle of columns, rising from a wall of 
 only a few feet high, support an architrave, and again a cornice 
 raised some feet above that ; there is no roof, and the pillars and 
 walls are, with the exception of a single winged Sun, quite unsculp- 
 tured. The intention of the building in its unfinished condition is 
 somewhat incomprehensible, but it is singularly elegant and pretty, 
 in spite of the efforts of the vulgar to deface its beauty by the 
 scribbling of their own paltry names on its walls. 
 
 On the west of Philae there is a small island called Biggeh, one 
 huge heap of black and purple rocks, thrown and piled upon each 
 other in the most wild and fantastic confusion. To the top of this 
 we climbed in the afternoon — not a very easy or pleasant task, 
 but worth achieving, as without seeing Philse from its summit it is 
 hardly possible to understand the plan of the ruins through the 
 thick crust of overlying mud-huts (built, it is said, by the ancient 
 Christians); or to see how beautifully the great temple was placed 
 in the centre of the river, which is here like a large oval lake, closed 
 at the southern end by the lovely mountains, clad in soft Nubian 
 colours. The river comes gliding from them to your feet, and flowing 
 by in a rapid deep current, hastens over the wild black rocks, past 
 all the bewitched-looking piled-up islands into the north-west 
 corner of the picture, from whence the distant roar of the cataracts, 
 borne upon the breeze, murmurs up occasionally into your ear. 
 Behind you it is all black, burnt-up rock, like the outpourings from 
 a furnace — mountains of slag, with patches of flame-coloured Nubian 
 sand ; at your feet lies Philse, slumbering in calm beauty ; and 
 beyond that the broad white pathway through the desert to 
 Assouan. 
 
 We were soon surrounded by the black islanders and a number 
 of little children, entirely naked, except a girdle of leathern fringe 
 round the loins. One lovely little girl, with properly oiled and 
 plaited hair, made great friends with us, insisting upon giving the 
 support of her six-year old hand to help even the gentlemen of our 
 party to descend the rocks, or pointing out the way with her round, 
 slender arms ; nor would she quit us for a moment till we rowed 
 away, leaving her graceful little figure poised on a pinnacle of 
 rock, waving farewells with her little hands, and crying, “ Ma es 
 salame ! ma es salame !” * Nor did [she once ask for baksheesh — a 
 very remarkable exception in Egypt. 
 
 * “ Good bye ! Good bye !” More literally, “ Go in peace !” 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 43 
 
 We devoted the next day to sketching in the beautiful ten- 
 columned court — a strange day for Philae, for it rained unceasingly, 
 small fine rain, such as they said had not been seen there for 
 twenty-two years, and the *dark purple mountains and wild black 
 rocks looked more eerie, and sad too, than ever, in the lowering un- 
 Egyptian sky. A sandstorm came on in the evening, filling our 
 tent to about eight inches’ depth of sand in the course of an hour ; 
 and the sun rose on the morrow in a lurid heavy glare, soon shaded 
 by rain, in which, however, we took leave of our dirty kandjeh, and 
 sailed over to Mahatta in the boat of some friends, who had kindly 
 invited us into their dahabieh for the shooting of the Cataract ; we 
 were very anxious to enjoy that experience instead of riding again 
 across the desert to join our Wandering Maiden. We had no sooner 
 reached Mahatta than a furious thunderstorm broke forth, the 
 lightning playing round the rocks, and the thunder pealing in 
 thickening echoes, that seemed to gather up and give back the 
 sound in hundred-fold majesty. The Arabs declared they would 
 not pass the Cataract in such “ weather of Satan,” but after a couple 
 of hours it passed off, and a cold sunshine having come out, we 
 shipped about thirty Arabs, and the eight rowers took their places 
 at the oars, tightening their turbans, and turning up their sleeves 
 as though their work was to be done in earnest. We settled our- 
 selves on the deck, admonished that the safety of the boat would be 
 risked should we move hand or foot during the passage of the dan- 
 gerous parts ; and the Arabs squatted round, packing themselves 
 tightly in the prow and on the upper deck, and carefully balancing 
 the boat. At first they all talked marvellously fast, but the voices 
 lulled as we neared the Cataract ; and, in something less than half 
 an hour, silence fell on all save the rowers, who, for once keeping 
 good time with their oars, kept singing their “ Hayalee-sah ! ” 
 vigorously — the Keis of the Cataract standing on the upper deck (a 
 grand old white-bearded Nubian he was), shouting short, deep-toned 
 words of command to the helmsman and to the Eeis of the dahabieh, 
 who stood in the prow with a stout pole ready for action. Every 
 face was turned to the narrow passage between the noble black 
 rocks down which we were to pass— every eye was fixed and eager — 
 and here and there a hand was raised or the fingers tightened in a 
 clasp, as if in mute appeal to the spirits of the rushing waters to 
 bear us down gently and safely. On we went, swiftly and smoothly 
 gliding through the labyrinth of rocks, which seemed to fly past, 
 scarcely a yard’s distance on either side of us — swifter and swifter 
 in the rushing, boiling mass, till the dahabieh seemed to bend for a 
 brief second, poised in mid air over the edge, then, with one 
 
44 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 swinging bound, down she leaped into the white whirling foam at the 
 bottom, spun half round in the eddy, sped away beyond the strength 
 of the rowers in a sideways plunge — and the Cataract was passed ! 
 The Arabs all joined in a shout of triumph, and the Reis of the 
 Cataract had just time to snatch the turban from the head of the 
 dragoman (his invariable perquisite from the owner of every boat 
 which has safely passed the Cataract under his guidance), into 
 whose white lips the blood had just time to return, when a reeling 
 shudder seized the vessel from stem to stern ; she gave a sort of 
 stagger in the water, and bounded off from a pointed rock, which 
 had knocked a tolerably large hole in her bow. No great harm was 
 done, however, we passed another smaller descent a few minutes 
 after in safety, and soon moored in a little cove, for the double pur- 
 pose of getting rid of our host of Arabs and to put the vessel in 
 order, as all the chairs, divans, spare spars, &c., had been built up 
 en masse in the stern to balance the boat more perfectly. It was 
 then just one hour since we had left Mahatta. 
 
 Three hours after we found ourselves comfortably reinstated in 
 our pretty Wandering Maiden , which seemed a perfect palace 
 after the miserable Nubian barge ; and we spent the remainder of 
 the day in walking over that much bepraised island of Elephantine, 
 whose beauties, if it ever had any, are now hidden under heaps of 
 broken pottery of marvellous depth. There is nothing else but the 
 ruins of one small gateway, and a few palms. The view, however, 
 from the southern end of the Nile, studded with black islets, with 
 green and purple banks, is very pretty. It was more interesting to 
 ride out once again into the desert, winding among the beautiful 
 pink, white, and yellow rocks to the quarry, where the marks of 
 man’s work still linger in a sort of ancient freshness on the half- 
 carved obelisk which lies unfinished and unremoved from the rock, 
 whence so many thousands of blocks have been cut and conveyed 
 down the Nile, to build up the unperishing memorials of “ a people 
 terrible from their beginning, and formerly a nation extending its 
 limits, a victorious people, whose land is washed down by rivers ! ” 
 
 A heavy wind detained us within a few miles of Assouan for two 
 days, the bumping of the boat against the waves being very un- 
 pleasant. On the third day we made a long row in the little felucca 
 to the beautiful ruin of Room Ombos, one of the finest in Egypt. 
 An enormous wall, raised on an artificial substruction, and pierced 
 with a lofty gateway in the centre, towers above the river ; a grand 
 halKonce stood there, it is said, but it is entirely ruined, and fallen 
 into heaps of broken stone. The temple itself, built in honour of 
 two divinities — the God of the Temple hawk-headed, and that of 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 45 
 
 Ombos crocodile-beaded, — is balf buried in the sand ; and tbe two 
 sanctuaries, an arrangement peculiar to Koom Ombos, have almost 
 disappeared; but what remains of the fine lofty portico is re- 
 markably beautiful. The capitals of the huge but not clumsy 
 pillars are richly and most elegantly carved; the sculptures are 
 well done and easily decipherable, and the painting on the roof is 
 still bright and fresh. It is the more interesting from being in some 
 places unfinished, the squares, drawn for the convenience of the 
 copying artist, being yet clearly visible. As the portico is almost 
 perfect, within and without, it is a good example of the smaller 
 Egyptian temples ; and the finish of the carving is the more easily 
 examined from the overlying sand raising one half way up the 
 pillars. Yet how well this beautiful temple would repay clearing, 
 and how easily it might be done ! 
 
 It was now midday, and the sun was very hot. We waited hope- 
 lessly long, as it seemed to us, for our boat, and scarcely knew where 
 to look for her ; for, far away, winding from beneath our feet, the 
 Kile glided into a misty haze, which seemed only to end in sandf; 
 then, coming back from the dim horizon eastwards, came a long 
 reach of the river, bending round towards us, and back again to the 
 south. The banks were shaded with rich palm-trees, and we fancied 
 we could distinguish sails upon the blue -grey water. We sat look- 
 ing, and upbraiding ourselves for not having observed how much 
 our course must have wound round in the early morning, when 
 river and banks began to tremble ; the sand seemed to rise in a faint 
 hot haze, and on changing our point of view by a few yards in 
 height, the whole panorama dissolved away into “ the devil’s water,” 
 as the Arabs call the mirage of the desert. 
 
 We spent the following morning, the 16th of February, in examining 
 the very ancient rock-hewn grotto of Hajr Silsilis on the eastern side 
 of the river, with its most interesting and life-like sculptures ; and 
 afterwards had a scrambling walk over some of the gigantic quarries 
 on the same bank. We hoped to have reached Edfou by daylight, 
 but the sun sank, and a glorious moon arose before we moored at 
 the bank about six o’clock. A boat belonging to the Mr. Jacksons 
 came up at the same time, and we agreed to visit the temple by 
 moonlight in one party, in consequence of Sir G. Wilkinson’s warn- 
 ing to travellers that the natives of Edfou are apt to be troublesome, 
 and sometimes to molest one impertinently. We determined to be 
 extra prudent, and desired our dragoman to select six of the sailors, 
 provided with stout sticks, to accompany us, headed by Achmet 
 himself and our man-servant ; and, alas ! we carefully took off our 
 watches and rings, and the few trinkets and little valuables we 
 
46 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 cared for most, and put them by in onr cabins, as we thought in 
 safety. Then we sallied forth en masse without hats, for it was a 
 very sultry, stifling night, and had a pleasant walk over the fields 
 for about three-quarters of an hour before we reached the mag- 
 nificent temple. It has gigantic pylons, and a huge square, with an 
 interior peristyle of thirty-two columns; then comes a splendid 
 portico of lofty and richly-carved pillars, which looked mysteriously 
 beautiful in the strong lights from the torches, and the deep black 
 conflicting shadows thrown by the bright moonbeams ; then we 
 mounted on the roof, in order to survey the wide extent of the 
 temple, and looked down on the great courts, into which burning 
 wood was thrown to show us, though dimly, their depth and width. 
 The view thence, too, in the calm clear moonlight, was serenely 
 pretty ; from the lofty platform on which we stood we looked over 
 the village, which lay in a hollow below us, over a mile or so of 
 field between us and the river bank, and then across the river, 
 shining in silver lustre, to the dark dim mountains on the other 
 side. The bank was much too high to admit of our seeing the 
 dahabiehs, but we remarked to each other that the sailors had lit a 
 more than usually large fire on the bank, by the light of which our 
 flags were gaily illuminated ; but in another minute that seemingly 
 trifling idea was forgotten. We lingered a little in the temple, and 
 then walked quickly through the village, stopping only to observe a 
 circle of derwishes performing a zilcr, or sacred dance ; about twenty 
 of them joined hand in hand, jerking their bodies forward with a 
 short sudden start as fast as possible, violently nodding the head 
 with every movement, first over one shoulder, then over the other, 
 uttering with each jerk a loud harsh grunt, exactly like a London 
 paviour, only that instead of being expressed with slow stolidity 
 this sound was flung out with passionate excitement. Achmet, how- 
 ever, begged us not to loiter watching them, as the Edfou people 
 are very fanatical, and might take umbrage at Frank inspection ; 
 so we went slowly on through the fields, enjoying the quiet silence 
 of the hot night, and the bright moonbeams playing on the pic- 
 turesque figures of the sailors accompanying us. Alas, this pleasant 
 half-hour was but the cairn before the storm ! We were within but a 
 few yards of the bank when the sailors in front made some loud 
 exclamations, and rushed up the steep slope — Achmet and all of us 
 
 ran forward and looked down on what had been 
 
 our beautiful boat — our little home— now a mass of flame ! roaring 
 and crackling with terrible, long-to-be-remembered noise, — the de- 
 vouring tongues of flame licking round the sides of the vessel — hiss- 
 ing in sudden quenchings upon the water— running in fine darting 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES . 
 
 47 
 
 lines up the ropes — clinging round the masts — and over all the 
 gay flag and the red and white streamer flying out in the fierce 
 draught, redder and prettier than ever, in a sort of demoniac dance 
 of triumph at their own illumination, till a higher and still higher 
 tongue of flame leaped up and shrivelled them into black nothing- 
 ness ! It is easy to describe it even now, for I have but to close my 
 eyes, and the whole thing, living and horrible in its reality, comes 
 only too vividly before me, burnt into my memory. The dragoman 
 of the other boat, the Tayr-el-Nil, and a few of our sailors, now that 
 we were at hand to see them, now and then threw a basinful of 
 water upon the flames ; the others stood passively looking on, only 
 exclaiming “ Mash-allah, Mash-allah ! ” except ’Ali, the sailors’ 
 cook-boy, who was crying bitterly. Not a single thing had been 
 thrown from the interior of the boat, except the sailors’ bread and 
 their bundles of clothes ; nothing of ours had they attempted to 
 save, but, on the contrary, they had held back our maid by force 
 when, with the courage of an Englishwoman, she attempted to 
 rush into the burning vessel to secure my sister’s desk, which was 
 in the outer cabin, containing money and some valuables. Within 
 a quarter of an hour after our return the masts had disappeared, 
 and the flames sank down with sullen satiety into the hull, where 
 alone there was anything left to consume ; and we stood upon that 
 bank absolutely bereft of everything — without home, food, clothes, 
 or money, among a strange and savage people, three thousand 
 miles away from home, and at some five hundred miles from the 
 nearest spot where any of our wants could be supplied, with no 
 means of getting there, apparently without friends or help ! Who 
 could describe the forlornness of such a position, or the overwhelm- 
 ing feelings that rushed over our sinking hearts ! Such circum- 
 stances must be experienced to be understood ; and were I to try to 
 tell of even a part of our immediate loneliness or the dim vista of 
 future difficulties and dangers, it would but appear exaggerated 
 to those who have not gone through something of the kind. God 
 alone knows what it was to us. 
 
 But in this hour of direst need help and friends were — God 
 be thanked! — close at hand. The Mr. Jacksons, whose boat had 
 arrived at the same time as our own at Edfou, insisted on our 
 coming at once on board their dahabieh, and immediately, with the 
 most generous kindness, devoted the whole of the inner cabins to 
 the use of ourselves and our maid, and placed their stock of clothes, 
 linen, stores, and all other necessaries at our disposal. With these, 
 and other kind gifts received from several of the boats we afterwards 
 encountered, and which were always pressed upon us with the most 
 
48 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 delicate liberality, we managed to get through the seven weeks that 
 elapsed before we reached Cairo, not quite in rags, and in some 
 degree of comfort ; although of course the want of constant change 
 of clothes is a great privation in a hot country, and necessarily there 
 were scores of things wanting which not even the kindest ingenuity 
 could supply from an outfit originally furnished only for the wants 
 of two gentlemen. It is needless to say how it distressed us to feel 
 to what discomfort our intrusion must have reduced our kind hosts, 
 excluding them from the principal part of the boat, and marring all 
 their own snug arrangements by the occupation of five persons 
 in a dahabieh only adapted for two. But from Edfou to Cairo no 
 one effort was ever spared by them to make us forget our own losses, 
 or to assure us that their comfort and convenience were not only 
 willingly but gladly sacrificed to ours. 
 
 No fellow Christians under the circumstances could have refused 
 to give us an asylum, but the manner in which the hospitality 
 was rendered made all the difference in the world to us; and, 
 anomalous as our position could not help being, it was a good 
 deal to be assured that we were not looked upon as intruders, 
 but were really welcome. We had hoped to have found at Thebes 
 a boat of some kind, in which we could have descended the river 
 to Cairo, with some of our sailors and our own dragoman; but 
 there w T as not even an Arab kandjeh to be had, and our friends 
 foresaw that we might find ourselves very unpleasantly situated 
 had the dragoman taken the opportunity of our separation from 
 Europeans to demand promissory notes of payment for his boat. 
 We thought our man-servant was sufficient protection against this, 
 but they decided that it was better we should not risk it. Failing 
 this we felt sure there would be some large dahabieh at Thebes, 
 with ladies on board, willing to make a spare cabin for us, but no 
 such offer came ; one young lady lent us all she could spare of the 
 clothes we so much needed, and Mrs. Hood, who was still at Thebes, 
 shared with us everything she possessed with the most unselfish 
 kindness. But from the boats then at Luxsor no other lady broke 
 through the formalities of lacking an “ introduction ” to English- 
 women in distress ; and we found our countrymen far more generous 
 and thoughtful for us than our country women ; all their little stores 
 of handkerchiefs, brushes and combs, needles and threads, &c., &c., 
 were brought out and pressed upon us, and one gentleman even 
 sent us shawls and green veils. 
 
 There was one very large dahabieh with a small party on board, 
 which came down the river to Luxsor while we were there ; they 
 offered nothing of their own accord, but in our utter distress for 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES . 
 
 49 
 
 some of the common necessaries that gentlemen could not supply, 
 we ventured to send our maid on hoard to ask for some materials 
 requisite for making up the clothes we had contrived out of Arab 
 cotton : the reply to this, our first essay in the art of begging, was 
 the gift of one hook and eye ! We sought for nothing more from 
 that boat. 
 
 In contrast to this another lady, who was at Assouan when the 
 news of our misfortune reached her, immediately prepared with her 
 own hands every article of clothing she could possibly spare, packed 
 them up together, and kept them ready, in hourly hopes of over- 
 taking us, or of finding some quicker means of sending them to us. 
 Unfortunately their dahabieh was detained by the same winds that 
 detained us, and it was not till her arrival in Cairo, a week later than 
 ours, that we knew of, or could profit by, her true hearty kindness. 
 
 It was not at first that we fully realised how great our loss had 
 been. Our penniless condition, forced to accept the hospitality, 
 however kindly bestowed, of our companions and friends, was 
 painful enough ; so was the heavy loss in money, clothes, &c., and 
 the necessity of replacing the latter at prices three times their 
 value in Cairo. But besides this we had a really valuable stock of 
 books on board, and — still more valuable to us, because irreplace- 
 able — all our journals, notes, and our little collections of antiquities 
 bought at various places, all our drawings and sketches, and, alas ! 
 many a dearly-loved little treasure of past days, which neither time 
 nor money can ever replace. Not then, nor for very long after- 
 wards, did we really know the length and depth of our losses— 
 losses which we still feel sometimes sadly enough. 
 
 The cause of the fire was briefly this : our maid, who had been 
 left in the boat, went out, as she usually did in the evenings, to 
 walk for a few minutes on the bank. She had been ironing till dark 
 in the stern cabin, and had hung up a quantity of clothes on lines 
 across it ; on leaving it she omitted to lock the door behind her, 
 and Ali, the sailors’ cook-boy, seized the opportunity of going in, 
 with a light in his hand, to steal money out of the man-servant's 
 coat, which was hanging up inside, or perhaps to pilfer the store- 
 bags of nuts, raisins, &c., which were there also. We learned 
 afterwards that he had stolen money twice before from the servants, 
 but Achmet had always entreated that we might not be informed of 
 this, saying that ’Ali (for whom, as well as all the sailors, he was 
 answerable) must be caught in the very act of stealing. He was 
 strictly forbidden to enter the cabins at all, but unhappily the fatal 
 opportunity was now afforded him while the Beis was at his prayers 
 and the few sailors left on board were performing their evening 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 ablutions : the draught from the open window probably blew the 
 hanging clothes into his candle, and seeing the flames all round him, 
 he rushed out screaming, “ What will become of me ! I am undone, 
 undone ! I have set fire to the ship ! ” and in another minute the 
 flames burst out of the windows. These words of ’Ali’s were trans- 
 lated at the very moment by Mr. Jackson’s dragoman to our maid as 
 she stood on the bank. Achmet afterwards denied all this when he 
 got to Cairo, and gave out several stories, each one differing from 
 the other, to account for the disaster. ’Ali, who was a bad speci- 
 men of the lowest Egyptian people, with a cunning, dishonest coun- 
 tenance, was taken up three times for stealing before we left Cairo, 
 and we knew ourselves that neither Achmet nor ’Ali were very 
 particular as to truth. 
 
 Our dragoman and man-servant both sat up all night to watch 
 by the burned boat, and to keep off the villagers; and with the 
 first dawn another dahabieh (the Titania) came up ; two of the 
 gentlemen in her joined our friends in superintending the digging 
 through, and the careful sifting of the ashes from the inside of the 
 boat. A party of Arab boys was organised for this dirty work, 
 who laboured intelligently and industriously enough throughout 
 the day, only stopping occasionally over the irresistible temptation 
 of a roasted potato or broiled fig as they turned them up, or a pot of 
 marmalade, into which they plunged their dirty fingers to suck off 
 the jam, with great glee, ashes and all. A few sovereigns and some 
 melted metal were recovered, fused into a shapeiess mass, and the 
 works of my watch, of which the case was found, curiously enough, 
 at some distance from the works. A small box of silver ornaments, 
 tightly packed in cotton wool, which had preserved them in perfect 
 freshness, were the only other things found — a melancholy mockery 
 to us, in want of all necessaries, was their silvery brightness shining- 
 in the ashes, so prettily useless. Complete and fierce had been the 
 fire, and rapid too — for the dry, sun-heated boat burned like paper ; 
 but a good deal might have been saved in the first few minutes 
 had any one of sense been at hand ; and the sailors would probably 
 have worked well and usefully if properly directed. 
 
 We had not either heart or head enough to revisit the Temple of 
 Edfou, nor indeed had we much leisure for anything but trying to 
 repair our losses as far as we could, by adapting the various con- 
 tributions we had received to our use. The boat, which looked 
 like a long green coffin with its painted hull just showing above the 
 water, all black and charred within, and the words “ Wandering 
 Maiden” stiil visible on the outside, preceded us down the 
 river, carrying our dragoman and sailors; the owner of the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 51 
 
 Titania had kindly given a passage to our man-servant, for 
 there was not a spare inch in the Tayr-el-Nil; and we stopped 
 at Esneh only long enough to make a report of our loss to the 
 worthy Kashef, or governor of the district, and to obtain a quantity 
 of miserable Arab calico, after a long weary bargaining in the 
 bazaar. At El-Kab we also made a halt, and rode to the rock- 
 tombs, but we were so mnch worn out and stupefied that I can recall 
 nothing abont them beyond the general impression that they were 
 well worth seeing. 
 
 Early in the morning of Sunday the 20th we reached Luxsor, 
 where we had the comfort of attending the Church service, read by 
 two clergymen at Mustapha’s home, to a congregation of nearly 
 forty English persons. There were, I think, ten dahabiehs at 
 Luxsor on that day, and it required some little courage to face 
 that congregation, even in the wilds of Egypt, in our destitute con- 
 dition ; this was indeed fully attested by our soiled dresses, half- 
 burnt shawls, and old shooting-caps — a most useful contribution to 
 our wardrobes, given to us by one of the gentlemen we had met, 
 and which we had covered with muslin, to give them a somewhat 
 more lady-like appearance. Alas ! our nice large shady hats had 
 been burnt, and only those who have been in a country of hot 
 sun can imagine how much we missed them afterwards. Nor had I 
 even a pair of boots or shoes, — I had gone out that evening, for it 
 was very hot, in a pair of linen slippers, and I had nothing else but 
 these to walk in over the sands, stones, and rocks of Egypt all the 
 seven weeks that elapsed between the fire and our reaching Cairo. 
 
52 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 ETERNAL THOUGHT IN IMPERISHABLE STONE. 
 
 A bird skimming through the smoky sky of London, perching 
 on this steeple or on that, here and there peering into a window, 
 or picking a few crumbs in one street or in another, would have an 
 endless tale of wonder to relate to the mate he left at home in his 
 country nest ; but the town-bred sparrow would not have much 
 respect for the accuracy with which he described even the external 
 architecture of the immense city — and of all that was “ underneath 
 the eaves,” what would he know ? Just as much as a traveller, 
 lingering his longest possible on the green plain of Thebes, may 
 fancy he knows of even the ruins of that ancient City whose stones 
 and walls lie in desolate heaps upon the arid ground, whose statues 
 and obelisks are now shapeless masses, and whose history is looked 
 upon, but not read, by eyes that are unwillingly blinded by igno- 
 rance. The devotion of a long life is but sufficient for the under- 
 standing of a very little of what has gone before, while much 
 labour, much thought, and much study is indispensable for the 
 comprehension of even the broken materials that lie there still. 
 Eor only this latter object we had endeavoured to prepare ourselves 
 with some months of careful study — although neither expecting, 
 nor even hoping to have attained much; but the unfortunate 
 disaster described in my last chapter cleared everything but its 
 own troubles out of our heads, and produced such a numbing 
 ffect upon cur minds and memories, that when, four days after, we 
 began to examine the ruins of Thebes, we found it difficult enough 
 to command our thoughts, and next to impossible to recall our 
 memories of previous readings: present discomforts and small 
 anxieties and awkwardnesses are sad obstacles to thought and 
 study. A graver loss, both in itself and because they would have 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 53 
 
 more than replaced our faded memories, was the loss of all our 
 books, and the notes we had made in preparation for seeing the 
 realities themselves, as well as various useful maps, plans, &c., 
 with which we had been amply provided. From the want of books 
 it was hard, more than hard, to profit even by what we saw ; we 
 were too much dispirited to recommence journals, &c., and we had 
 no strength to spare for sketches of any kind, even had we had any 
 materials. The shadowy memory of a bird’s-eye view is, therefore, 
 all I have to offer to my readers ; such as it is, I must let it go, 
 trusting only, as I do for every other page I have written, that 
 it may succeed in presenting some faint picture of the reality to 
 the minds of those who stay at home, and, what is much more 
 important, that it may induce others to go and see for themselves. 
 
 Ancient Thebes stretched across the whole plain which we now 
 see at each side of the Eiver Nile ; but the principal part of the city 
 was on the east bank, and only the royal palaces and temples were 
 placed on the western side, which was otherwise occupied by the 
 tombs of the dead. The city was never enclosed by walls, and the 
 “ hundred gates ” sung of by Homer are supposed to have alluded 
 to the portals of a hundred temples, if indeed it was anything 
 beyond a figure of speech. Thebes is believed to have been a great 
 city even before the invasion of that hated race of Shepherds who 
 ruled the country for several hundred years ; but about 1500 years 
 before Christ the Theban kings expelled the Shepherds, and their 
 city then became the capital of all Egypt, both Upper and Lower, 
 and continued to be so for a thousand years ; this thousand years 
 contains all that is most brilliant and glorious in the most ancient 
 history of the world. The removal of the throne to Sais in Lower 
 Egypt caused the decline of Thebes, and the invasion of Cambyses, 
 the Persian conqueror, in b.c. 525, threw her into ruins, the last 
 magnificence of which were crumbled into their present condition by 
 the siege of Ptolemy Lathyrus, in b.c. 116, when the Thebans had 
 revolted from the yoke of the Eomans. It is with the thousand 
 years of the glory of Thebes that we have to do in the examination 
 of the ruins that now lie upon the verdant plain ; would we could 
 rebuild in our minds even a dream of their former splendour ! 
 
 The enormous quantity of mud — the source of all the riches of 
 Egypt— brought down every year by the river gradually raises its 
 bed; the water consequently extends slowly but surely over the 
 plain, and leaves behind it a certain amount of soil. So, like the 
 sand gathering round the feet of the Desert Temples, the green 
 herbs wave higher and higher round the ruins of Thebes, and thus, 
 year by year, the two great Colossi seem to be sinking gradually 
 
54 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 down among the young grasses of the plain. These two, sitting, 
 like the Sphinx, wrapped in the silent mystery of unnumbered years, 
 are the first objects that attract the view from the deck of one’s 
 dahabieh : scarcely changing in the varying light of morning and 
 evening, they are always, and from every point, the same— grand, 
 calm, and almost sublime — their very ruin making them more 
 mysteriously fine, in contrast to the perfect tranquillity of repose— 
 not idleness, but the rest earned by long labour — expressed in their 
 impressive figures. One’s first and last impressions of Thebes are 
 hung upon those two broken but noble statues. Both represent 
 Amunoph III.* (the predecessor by a thousand years of Bameses 
 the Great), whose virtues and greatness are thus emphasised, as is 
 always the case in Egypt, by reduplication and superhuman size. 
 Behind them a stone causeway, of which the two Colossi were the 
 outer sentinels, stretched back for eleven hundred feet, with pairs 
 of statues and sphinxes at every few steps, up to the palace-temple 
 of the same Amunoph ; scarcely anything now remains of it. The 
 Colossus that was anciently so famous for the sweet sounds emitted 
 at morning was destroyed to the waist, it is said, by the barbarian 
 Cambyses f : it has been rudely built up since with roughly-hewn 
 stones. The sounds are supposed to have been caused by a man, 
 hidden in the huge lap of the statue, striking a hammer upon a 
 stone which stills lies there, and which rings like the sarcophagus of 
 Suphis, and many other Egyptian stones. As the whole of this 
 Libyan bank of the river was dedicated peculiarly to Athor, the 
 Aphrodite of the Egyptians and the “ president of the west,” the 
 Colossus, who surveyed the plain, could do no less than greet with 
 a harmonious salutation the first rays of that sun who was to sink at 
 evening into the arms of his divine mistress. Standing as it were 
 underneath his knees are the figures of Amunoph’s wife and mother, 
 sculptured on the throne, as at Abou Simbil ; the wife also reappears 
 between his feet ; while on the throne the god Nilus is represented 
 holding some ; of the plants that then grew in his bosom far away, 
 but which he now annually leaves around the feet of the statue — 
 like flowers laid upon a grave. 
 
 * Other opinions are that the one covered with Greek inscriptions is that 
 of Amunoph, but that the second represents his Prime-Minister, whose mag- 
 nificent tomb is shown in the Valley of the Dead : it contains two very grand 
 sitting figures of himself and his wife, besides some exquisite bas-reliefs of 
 hieroglyphics. His name is said to have been Shammar ; the Arabs call the 
 colossi Dammar and Shammar , and also Salamat, salutations — an evident 
 allusion to the musical sounds so famous in tradition. 
 
 f Strabo says it was destroyed by an earthquake — the one seems as probable 
 as the other. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 55 
 
 The great palace-temple of Eameses II. is the first ruin visited on 
 this western bank ; it has been commonly called the Memnonium, 
 from a confusion caused by the title of Mi-Ammoun belonging to 
 Eameses the Great, but it is more rightly called the Eameseum. 
 The expression palace-temple does not, at least in this instance, mean 
 that the king and his court resided in the temple, but only that 
 rooms were attached to it where the king may have retired in the 
 intervals of his own devotions, or after receiving the offerings of his 
 people; and he may also have held his receptions in the grand 
 courts or halls of assembly of the Temple. The Eameseum was 
 called by Diodorus the “ tomb of Osimandyas ” (Eameses) ; but it is 
 not quite this, for the dead king’s actual tomb * was in the mountain 
 side, towards the setting sun, and this temple is consecrated only to 
 his memory ; here, therefore, as in a few other temples, there is no 
 sanctuary or adytum appropriated to the image of a particular god. 
 The Pyramids had each of them a small temple on their eastern 
 side, consecrated to the dead who lay beneath them; and the 
 Eameseum bears the same relation to the mountain tomb of the king 
 as the memorial temple bore to the Pyramid. 
 
 The Eameseum is one of the finest and most complete of all these 
 ruins ; the noble pylons are still standing, with a good deal of the 
 first and second courts, including the fine interior peristyle of the 
 latter, which once contained eight Osiride pillars and two splendid 
 statues (the head of one of which is now in the British Museum) ; 
 besides these there is nearly all the beautiful hypostyle hall, which, 
 though small in comparison to that of Karnak, is very fine. The 
 sculptures here are more than commonly interesting: they are 
 boldly and well executed, chiefly of battle-scenes, some of them 
 densely crowded with figures, but every figure is left perfectly clear 
 and distinct. They illustrate the different modes of warfare, the 
 varieties of kingdoms and peoples overcome by the great conqueror, 
 with the king returning thanks to the gods for their assistance, 
 while his deeds are noted down by Thoth. Here Eameses is given 
 by the gods the sword and the sceptre — the one for his enemies and 
 the other for his people, while the goodness of the king’s character, 
 which has rendered him the favoured son of the gods, is indicated 
 by the stream of “ pure life ” poured upon his head by them. So 
 vivid is the interest raised in one’s mind by these graphically-por- 
 trayed historic scenes, that one turns with double curiosity to the 
 mysteriously-shattered colossal statue of the hero of all the incidents 
 graven there lying close by, unquestionably a real, true portrait ; 
 it is about the same size as those of the pair sitting on the plain, 
 
 * No.' 7. 
 
56 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 but cut in a finer stone. It is difficult to conceive how such a block 
 was transported here, carved or uncarved, from Assouan, for it is 
 nearly as large and heavy as the famous stone still lying in the 
 quarry at Baalbek ; but this huge mass once wore the same noble 
 and beautiful features as the giant faces at Abou Simbil, and those 
 of the fallen hero lying in the mud at Mitrahenny (Memphis). 
 
 Then comes at Gourneh the beautiful old temple of the great 
 warrior Sethi, or Osirei I., completed by his son Bameses II. — 
 perhaps the most venerable looking of all the Theban ruins ; it has 
 a sad and melancholy air about it, but the sculptures are very 
 interesting. There are two pylons, one beyond the other, from each 
 of which an avenue of sphinxes led to the temple, where a corridor 
 of very elegant columns bears the dedication of the temple to 
 Amoun-Ba, the king of the gods, by Bameses II., who appears after- 
 wards, introduced by his father Osirei to the gods : among them his 
 grandfather Bameses I. is standing, bearing the insignia of Osiris, as 
 a dead king now with or absorbed into Osiris. This temple lies to 
 the north of the plain. Far away at the southern extremity is 
 the magnificent pile of buildings now called Medeenet Habou, the 
 palace and temple of Bameses III., who reigned about a hundred 
 years later than Bameses the Great. This is probably the largest 
 ruin in Egypt. There is here a temple with all the usual pylons, 
 courts, sanctuary, &c. ; and then another mass of towers, pavilions, 
 courts, halls, and pylons, in one immense heap of confused ruin. 
 The sculptures here, retaining the most vivid freshness of colour, 
 are perhaps, on the whole, the most varied and interesting to be 
 met with. Many pages would be required to give even a faint idea 
 of their subjects ; one open court alone, with an interior peristyle, 
 123 feet by 133, is completely surrounded with battle and other 
 scenes depicted in the liveliest manner possible. Every column also 
 is painted in beautiful patterns, and, although these columns are 
 but three diameters in height, the tout ensemble is one of the grandest 
 things in ancient art. At Medeenet Habou everything connected 
 with the king may be seen and studied together : his leisure hours 
 and his amusements in his court at home, his state processions 
 abroad, are closely detailed in the walls of this palace, while on 
 those of the towers and huge areas are all his noble deeds and his 
 religious ceremonials and duties. Unfortunately within the latter 
 the Copts made their cathedral, and the houses of their village 
 filled up the surrounding ruins : much, therefore, has been sadly 
 spoiled and intentionally mutilated, though they happily preserved 
 many of the sculptures in their original brightness by concealing 
 them under a plaster of mud. One cannot help fancying what 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 57 
 
 grand cathedrals these beautiful hypsethral courts must have made, 
 however incongruous the mixture of the past and the present. 
 
 Here Eameses III. dedicates all these buildings to his great father 
 the god Amoun-Ra, who calls him his “ friend/’ and, in company 
 with other gods, presents him with the scythe wherewith to con- 
 quer and cut off all his enemies. The warrior-king is then seen 
 fighting his battles, after which he returns in triumph, leading, or 
 rather dragging, his enemies by their hair, to show them to the 
 gods, to whom also he makes rich thank-offerings, gratefully 
 receiving their praises : his conquests have been innumerable, and 
 his god-given virtues are nearly as many ; his new subjects assure 
 him that he “ reigns like a mighty sun in Egypt,” — that his 
 “ courage is like that of the griffin — our breath is thine, as well 
 as our lives, which are for ever in thy power,” —while he declares 
 that he has but obeyed the command of Amoun-Ra, and conquered 
 by the might of his god-given strength. The coronation of the 
 king is also seen, and, while he offers incense to the protecting 
 gods, carrier-pigeons announce his greatness in all the four quarters 
 of the world. The king also gains a great victory at sea, assisting 
 his fleet of finely-drawn ships by manoeuvres on shore : to this 
 fresh conquest he declares himself inspired by the spirit of Amoun- 
 Ra, who has thus “ laid the whole world at his feet.” 
 
 Not far from the ruins of the royal palaces of Medeenet Habou 
 the remains of an artificially-made lake are distinctly discerned, 
 like that at Memphis : across this lake the corpses of the king and 
 of all the nobles of the city were ferried with grand processions of 
 boats, before they were drawn on sledges along the dreary valley, 
 opening in the mountain range at whose feet we stand, to their 
 “ eternal habitations.” We will delay speaking of them till we 
 have glanced over the rest of the city of Thebes. 
 
 Luxsor, being now a market town of some small dignity, has 
 clustered its miserable houses within and without the once 
 beautiful ruins of its temple, and it is almost impossible to see 
 them with any very intelligible understanding of their plan : one. 
 can only perceive that it is a fine and picturesque ruin. One 
 beautiful obelisk (sister to that in Paris), still marks the site of the 
 once proud city; it is the oldest and most interesting of all the 
 obelisks in Egypt, for it bears the name of Sesortasen the Great, 
 of the twelfth dynasty — the king in whose reign the wonderful 
 tombs of Beni-Hassan were hewn and painted — and perhaps it 
 stood there before Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s 
 daughter — perhaps even before Joseph was brought into the land 
 of Egypt by the Bedouin ! Yet the characters engraved upon its 
 
58 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 sides are as clear now as they were five or six thousand years ago, 
 and one may well be excused for the fancy that the stone is as 
 imperishable as the idea conveyed on it. These two obelisks com- 
 menced an avenue of twelve hundred giant ram-headed sphinxes, 
 which led from Luxsor to the pylon of the first temple of Karnak, 
 each standiog on a pedestal; hundreds of these have been 
 destroyed, but many, headless and broken, still border the empty 
 path down which the long and gorgeous procession of priests, clad 
 in panther skins, passed daily, carrying the ram-prowed barge 
 containing the shrine of the god in whose honour the festival of 
 the day was held, and before whom burning incense was borne. 
 Several of these Sphinxes are at Turin, very many at St. Petersburg, 
 some in Berlin, and one or two in England. Another avenue 
 of Sphinxes led from the front of this temple to the bank of the 
 river, overlooking Gourneh, and a third led in a southerly direction 
 towards Luxsor. 
 
 The first temple reached at Karnak is a very complete and fine 
 one, approached by another sphinx avenue ; but one cannot linger 
 here in one’s impatience to see the grand temple itself, a few 
 minutes farther on. Two giant pylons open into a large court, 
 with columns on two sides, and an aisle of columns up the centre, 
 leading into the famous hypostyle hall, which Fergusson calls “ the 
 greatest of man’s architectural works ; ” the centre aisle is formed of 
 twelve columns, sixty-two feet high, the largest, if not the tallest 
 columns in the world, with sixty-one smaller columns on each side 
 of them. A beautiful clerestory runs along the top of each first row 
 of the lower columns, and may have supported a stone roof over the 
 middle aisle, as in the Eameseum : the rest was probably hypsethral — 
 some suppose it to have been covered in with hangings either of stuffs 
 or of palm-leaf matting, but as ample shade must have been found 
 beneath the very closely-placed columns, even had it been hypsethral 
 one cannot help hoping that the blue sky was open to the worship- 
 pers within — so beautiful is the effect of the sunlight and the shade 
 of the columns falling athwart the apparently innumerable pillars. 
 This is the place to see what a complete tapestry the hieroglyphics 
 formed, for here not an inch of wall or column is left uncovered 
 with closely-sculptured figures, once all brilliantly coloured — as 
 complete a covering for the stone as the marble inlay of a Damas- 
 cene house, or the brocade pattern of a modern house-paper. 
 Strange to say, every column has the same set repeated in rings all 
 round it. But though so subordinate a feature, their sameness 
 probably adds to the feeling of infinite space, as the eye is not 
 attracted by any change of object, and therefore wanders on 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 59 
 
 indefinitely among the mighty forest of 6420 square yards. Behind 
 this and the slender rose-granite obelisks, happily still erect, is the fine 
 hall and adytum of this Temple ; then comes, within the same outer 
 enclosure, the palace of Thothmes III., where the hall is supported 
 by alternate rows of square and round pillars with reversed 
 capitals. In one of the many chambers behind this the valuable 
 list of the sixty predecessors of Thothmes was found sculptured 
 which is now in Paris. Deeply interesting are the splendid 
 sculptures that cover the great walls throughout this pile of 
 buildings, portraying the history of a thousand conquests, — among 
 them that of the land of Palestine, with its name of Canaan and 
 Yooda Melchi — the Judah kingdom, conquered by Shishak or 
 Sheshonk in 971 b.c. 
 
 Numbers of other ruins of great interest lie scattered around this 
 great temple, in strange but picturesque variety, among palm- 
 groves and verdant fields ; and it is pleasant to wander from one to 
 the other, and rest one’s mind, oppressed with the stupendous 
 ideas generated by these ruins, so sublimely expressed in the stone 
 and pictured in the sculptures, while listening to the evening breeze 
 among the palms, and the melancholy chaunt of the fellah, and 
 watching the flocks of exquisite tiny paroquets, with emerald green 
 plumage and crimson bills, flitting about in the sweet air. And it 
 is right to linger, for this is truly one of the grandest scenes that 
 earth can show. Athens, with all the delicate refinements of 
 comparatively modern days, stands smiling like a white dove 
 pluming herself on the summit of her noble rock, a paean of war 
 still echoing round her white statues — Palmyra, far away in the 
 silence and soltitude of Nature’s wildest splendour, sings lowly to 
 herself the sad elegy of her own dead glory ; but Karnak, with no 
 natural beauty save the ever-cloudless sky and the delicious air 
 over the green palm-groves and yellow sand, closes down upon 
 the mind with a grand and almost awful solemnity; and the 
 feeling comes home, that while in the others the chivalry and 
 poetry of life were solidified in stone, you have here the expression 
 of man’s deepest religion. I have often thought since that Athens 
 told of the bright and hopeful ardour of the busy morning. 
 Palmyra of the lovely tenderness of evening, and Karnak of the 
 calm and holy night, in yet closer communion with all beyond this 
 world. 
 
 Let us now go down over the fields, through the groups of trees 
 to the river bank, and after crossing the wide grey stream, land on 
 the western side, thread the green paths between the fields of 
 waving dhourra till we reach the low mountain range at the back 
 
60 
 
 E G YPTIAN SEPUL CHRES 
 
 of the plain : here, turning a little to the right, we enter a narrow 
 defile which the Arabs call the Biban-el-Moluk, or Valley of the 
 Kings; it ought rather to be called the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death, for the reality of death is farther on. The winding ravine is 
 an absolute desert of loose stones, with steep rocky sides, broken, 
 jagged, and crumbling, of bright yellow and orange cliffs, with here 
 and there a blackened, burnt-up summit : it is not high enough to 
 be very grand, but is it utterly and intensely desolate and dreary, 
 solitary and silent — not a bird nor a moving insect is to be seen — 
 not a sound of any kind heard ; almost always painfully hot and 
 glaring, it forms a fit passage to the Land of Death beyond. 
 
 After a ride of about an hour the valley opens to a somewhat 
 greater width. Here every rock and hill-side is honeycombed with 
 excavations, receding back to the extent of from two to four 
 hundred feet — chamber succeeds to chamber, passage to passage. 
 Nearly all slope downwards as they recede ; some have staircases 
 cut down to much lower levels, as if to sink the body of the deceased 
 lower and lower under the crust of the mountain, but the reason 
 was probably to avoid faults in the rock. The larger chambers are 
 supported on pillars left in the excavation, but smoothed over for 
 the reception of hieroglyphics ; some have divans round a few of the 
 chambers : the sarcophagus rarely remains ; in some it was buried 
 in a pit, and carefully covered over. 
 
 The tombs in this valley appear to have been entirely devoted to 
 kings and royal personages, whose bodies were probably concealed 
 in secret passages, lest avarice should lead to the plunder of the 
 tomb, and the sacred person of the king be discovered. The 
 Egyptians considered that the body might at some time be reclaimed, 
 and they regarded what had once contained the divine spark of any 
 man as sacred ; it was therefore carefully embalmed and laid by 
 with some of his regal ornaments, a list of his possessions, and a 
 roll of prayers written on papyrus. This set of tombs are all of the 
 Theban kings of the XIXth and XXth dynasties : sometimes a 
 king of later days has taken the place of one of his predecessors, 
 when his name is seen to be marked in a different style to the rest 
 of the sculptures. Near Medeenet Habou is a small valley con- 
 taining the tombs of the queens ; while beyond those of the kings 
 are the tombs of priests and rich men, in a place called the Valley 
 of Assaseef. It is believed that among these tombs some were 
 excavated and ornamented with sculptures appropriate to the 
 solemn place — with the lessons for the living drawn from the life of 
 the dead, and the hopes and fears of the future ; blanks were left 
 for the names and peculiar titles or biography of the individual who 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 61 
 
 afterwards bought the tomb, which were filled up at the time of his 
 death; some remain still unfilled, and some tombs are supposed 
 never to have been occupied save by the bodies of the modern dead, 
 thrust in in after times. The roofs of these tombs are generally 
 lined with crude brick, and covered with stucco, as are the walls on 
 which the hieroglyphics are painted. Over the portal of each is 
 painted the great red disk of the sun, signifying that the soul of 
 the deceased is gone down into the darkness with him, and after 
 traversing the shades, will ultimately rise up with him again. 
 Near the entrance the scarabseus (the emblem of the resurrection) 
 and the crocodile (the emblem of darkness) are figured; while 
 beyond the sarcophagus is seen the young Horns, son of Osiris, the 
 Divine Man, who yet more emphatically signifies the resurrection. 
 
 It is impossible to give an idea of the immense variety of 
 the sculptures which tapestry the walls of these tombs, and 
 happily it is unnecessary to do so, as so many excellent descrip- 
 tions are already published of them: suffice it to say that they 
 illustrate every trade, profession, manufacture, occupation, and 
 custom of the ancient Egyptians, besides the religious and royal 
 ceremonials, and the minutest details of the burying of the kings 
 and the nobles: the tombs of private individuals are still more 
 generally interesting* 
 
 The chief thought made present to one’s mind in examining the 
 temples and palaces of the Egyptian kings is their (natural) pride 
 in the extension and glory of their conquests: the next is the 
 perception of how invariably every triumph and every blessing was 
 acknowledged as bestowed by the supreme God, the Father and 
 Giver of all good. At every moment throughout his life we find 
 the king honouring, reverencing, and, perhaps, propitiating the 
 gods, to whom he daily pays his grateful homage, and to whom 
 he offers up his prayers for virtue and life, as well as his thanks- 
 givings for the throne and power they have conferred upon him. 
 In death he is portrayed in still closer communion with the gods : 
 the short and varied term of earthly life appears over, and the 
 spirit, parted from the body, commences a new and still more 
 important existence. The entrance to this new life is attended by 
 the most rigorous difficulties, but for the overcoming of these he has 
 
 * The tombs best worth seeing among those of the kings are Nos. 17, 11, 6, 
 14, and 9 ; the magnificent tomb of the priest Petumnnap, in the Valley of 
 Assaseef ; that of King Amoun Toonh ; Nos. 5, 16, 17, 31, 34, and 35, of those 
 at Goorneh Murraee ; and another among these latter, inhabited by a family 
 of Arabs, and very difficult to crawl into, containing the most varied and 
 lively representations of all kinds of hunting. 
 
62 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 been preparing throughout his earthly career. And truly to us 
 this pictured Life in Death seems almost more comprehensible than 
 that which has come before ; here there are but few signs of ruin and 
 destruction — we know that all have equally passed away, but the 
 Life after Death seems nearer to us now than the Life before 
 Death, — the idea of the grave and of judgment is closer akin to our 
 minds than the old-world customs of the past ; and Death becomes 
 a link binding us into one brotherhood, almost more living than 
 Life. 
 
 The awfulness of the future judgment began with the ancient 
 Egyptians even upon earth ; * a type of it was enacted over the 
 dead body after being carried across the lake for burial. Forty- two 
 judges examined the testimony given of the candidate’s innocence 
 or transgression in each of the forty-two sins most common to 
 man; if the dead man was proved to have been of an immoral 
 character, whether king, priest, or peasant, he was refused buriaLf 
 The mummy is everywhere entitled “ the habitation of Osiris it 
 is carried to the tomb in his boat, his symbols precede and follow 
 it in procession, and the high-priest offers incense to it. The soul 
 was supposed to sleep during the forty days of embalming ; it then 
 revived again, and accompanied the body to the tomb, where it 
 received liberation. In the f Book of the Dead ’ (the Turin copy) 
 Isis and Nepthys are thus addressed: — “Oh ye liberators of the 
 souls of them that are built into a house of Osiris ” (that is, made 
 
 into a mummy), “ liberate the soul of M whom ye have made 
 
 into a house of Osiris : he sees as ye see, he hears as ye hear, stands 
 as ye stand, sits as ye sit.” The soul is then directed to pay 
 adoration to Ba, the rising sun, and Athom, the settiug sun. In 
 the illustrations that occur here in this papyrus the soulj is seen 
 entering the bark of the sun in the twelfth hour of the day ; the 
 disk of the sun is seen passing the portals of the west, which are 
 opened by male and female guardians ; then the orb of day is seen 
 to have entered into the cave, where he is received into the arms of 
 Athom, his human impersonation, while eight apes shriek forth the 
 impurities of the soul that accompanies him ; after this the soul is 
 again seen, arrived in the world of spirits underground, adoring 
 the souls of his deceased ancestors, and offering them incense and 
 libations. Afterwards the adventures of the soul in Hades are 
 
 * Champollion. Martineau’s ‘Eastern Travel,’ p. 194. 
 
 f Osburn, ‘ Mon. Hist.,’ vol. i. p. 427. 
 
 j The soul is portrayed under the symbol of a bird, usually the white ibis : 
 it was natural to think “these beautiful white, silent, ghost-like birds, 
 standing motionless and pensive on the sand-flats, might be the souls of the 
 departed waiting the completion of the funeral ceremonies.” — Osburn. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 63 
 
 described : they consist of transmigrations into the forms of many 
 divinities, all of them of the family of Osiris, who is styled “ son of 
 the sun,” “ the lord of the cave of Amenti,” &c. ; the disembodied 
 spirit still navigating a river, which represents the nocturnal path 
 of the sun. It at length reached the grand hall of the judge of the 
 dead, where his heart is tried in the balance (upon which a cyno- 
 cephalus, the emblem of Thoth, the scribe who has recorded his 
 good and evil deeds, is sitting) by Anubis and Horus against the 
 feathers (the emblem of truth and justice), and the sentence is 
 pronounced by Thmee, the goddess of justice, in the presence of 
 Osiris, enthroned and holding the emblems of supreme judgment, 
 the crosier and the scourge. The dead were instructed to make 
 deprecations to the divinities presiding there — to the assessors who 
 wear the feathers of truth and justice, and also to the forty-two 
 avengers (represented in the tombs with various heads), who sat 
 with knives ready to inflict torments on those that failed at the 
 balance ; thus he says, “ I have neither done any sin nor omitted 
 any duty to any man ; I have committed no uncleanness ; I have 
 not prevaricated at the seat of justice,” &c., &c.* If the soul is 
 found really wanting, it is seen sent away in the form of a black 
 or white dog, driven by the servants of Typhon down steeply- 
 sloping paths, descending in a Dantesque manner deeper and 
 deeper, according to his guilt. If the soul was found worthy of 
 acceptation the goddesses Hathor and Nutpe, deputed by Amoun- 
 Ea, the Creator of the world, poured over him the water of eternal 
 purity and life, and he was believed thenceforth to be reunited, if 
 not absorbed, into the spirit of Osiris, — to have become a part of 
 Osiris; and in all future offerings made to the god the soul is 
 remembered as dwelling in Osiris, and therefore partaking of the 
 gifts offered to him. At some future time, long after the judgment, 
 three thousand years according to Greek tradition, the justified 
 soul returned to the earth and resuscitated the body; but after 
 many cycles the final doom was probably to rest with Osiris, the 
 divine lord of spirits and of the spirit-world, in whose person they 
 arrived at the indescribable happiness of the presence of Amoun- 
 Ea, the “hidden one,” the lord of heaven, from whom he had 
 emanated. 
 
 In the Egyptian religion every principle was embodied in some 
 recognised type, under which form it was worshipped as partaking 
 of the divine nature: thus the generation of life — the most im- 
 portant, and, to their naturally reverent minds, consequently the 
 most sacred fact in creation, a fact in this world but not of it, a 
 * Translated by Osburn. 
 
64 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 mystery utterly incomprehensible, and therefore to be the more 
 venerated — was worshipped in the persons of several gods and 
 goddesses, such as Khem,* the chief god of generation, Kneph,f 
 Maut, Pasht, Neith, Hathor, Isis, and many others ; for each and 
 every god and goddess had a share, as it were, in the divine power. 
 The vulture, the cat, the lion, the cow, and others, each and all 
 were supposed to typify some divine attribute, and were therefore 
 considered sacred as types , not gods in themselves. They were to 
 the Egyptians the less perfect manifestations of the things typified, 
 partaking of the same one divine nature, and thus truly divine in 
 themselves ; yet it was only that peculiar attribute found in each 
 which united them to divinity, or had a divine origin ; just as the 
 life which animated them must have been divinely given. Thus 
 the crocodile was sometimes worshipped as the type of strength ; 
 but he was usually consecrated to Typhon as one of the types of 
 evil things, such as darkness. It is somewhat hopeless now to 
 determine the reasons why the sacred animals were made re- 
 spectively typical of certain principles, as they occasionally repre- 
 sented contrary ones : the ignorance of natural history at that time 
 may sometimes account for the choice. 
 
 There were also deities of each nome or division of the land, and 
 local deities in great variety; but there are signs of the united 
 empire under the great dynasties, in these deities having each 
 other’s attributes, while, as Herodotus tells us, Osiris was uni- 
 versally worshipped. The principle of Triads seems to pervade 
 every form of the worship, and is a subject well worthy of study. 
 It is difficult to ascertain the precise idea of the Father, Mother, 
 and Child, but the Triad-principle runs through all mythology, 
 and, together with the worship of a God-Man, dying in his strife 
 with Evil, and rising triumphant as the Judge of the Dead, is one 
 of the remarkable evidences that God has been speaking to Man 
 everywhere, and in every age: to some minds, at least, such 
 coincidences appear very strong evidence of truth. 
 
 The worship of the king is another instance of the worship of the 
 divine attribute : he was deputed by the gods in heaven to rule on 
 earth for them ; he was divinely appointed and divinely assisted ; 
 a portion of the divine essence dwelt in the king as Icing, and was 
 so completely a part of the god from whom it came, and so separate 
 
 * In the 18th dynasty Khem was erased in the hieroglyphic names, and 
 Amoun-Ra (generator) substituted : Amoun-Ra was not worshipped earlier. 
 
 f Kneph is most frequently seen standing in the boat which Horus steers ; 
 he is the vivifying spirit of God, “brooding over the face of the waters.” The 
 serpent is stretched above him, and the ram is peculiarly sacred to him. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 65 
 
 from the king’s human nature, that he conlcl offer worship — not to 
 himself, but — to the divinity in him; although, of course, this 
 divine essence can only be materially pictured by the temporary 
 habitation of his own human body, holding or wearing divine 
 symbols. For this reason the king bore the title of c ‘ the son of the 
 sun 5 ’— a title which has been roughly rendered in our Bible as 
 “ Pharaoh” — Ph being the article the — Pa, the sun. The king was 
 high-priest, and the princes were necessarily of the priestly order, 
 while the queens were priestesses to the goddesses. Joseph and 
 Moses, from their distinguished positions, must have been priests ; 
 and taking what St. Stephen says of Moses, that “ he was learned 
 in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,”* with the fact that Joseph 
 married Asenath, daughter of Pet-ph-Ra, priest of On,f we may 
 infer that they were both initiated info the mysteries of Osiris, On 
 being one of the principal places of the worship of Osiris. 
 
 The Egyptians found a spiritual meaning in everything natural, 
 and inculcated this with the deep religious poetry of their grave, 
 calm minds : thus Osiris, the Father Nile, and Isis, the Mother 
 Earth of Egypt, were brother and sister as well as husband and 
 wife; their life, they taught, is one of perfect, di vie ely-gi veil 
 happiness (because perfectly pure and holy), until Evil or Typhon 
 — that is all the noxious powers of Nature, sterility, darkness, and 
 scorching heat — arrives and murders Osiris, who descends into the 
 nether world, while the earth remains widowed under the dominion 
 of Typhon — that is, dry, burnt-up, and sterile. Horus, the son of 
 Osiris and Isis, the fruit grown upon the earth after the annual 
 inundation of the river, grows up into manly strength, struggles 
 with Evil, and, overcoming him, spreads fertility and blessing once 
 more upon the soil ; Horus is therefore entitled “ the great deliverer, 
 the support of the world,” and is invested with the signs of power 
 and life : his face is as the hawk’s, he wears the royal head-dress, 
 and holds the anch, the sign of pure life, in his hand. 
 
 To mention, for the assistance of travellers, a very few of the 
 chief and most frequently- repeated figures, we may speak of: 
 Amoun-Ra, the creator, distinguished by the red disk of the sun, 
 winged, and the feathers of truth and justice on his head : he is the 
 great god of Thebes, the capital of Egypt, which was probably one 
 of the reasons for his being the chief god of all ; many others take 
 his name as a prefix. As the name meant hidden, he would in his 
 own character express one of the highest religious Ideas, and other 
 divinities would be merged in him, so that, amidst the endless com- 
 plexities of this idolatrous system, we have a glimpse at times of 
 * Acts vii. 22. + Gen. xli. 45. 
 
66 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES. 
 
 the Truth of the Divine Unity underlying all. The hawk, signifying 
 omnivision, and the scarabaeus, chiefly typical of creation and of the 
 world, were sacred to Amoun-Ka : the complete ball of mud with 
 which the latter surrounds its egg, and which it fashions and rolls 
 away so ingeniously, might well suggest creation ; and they seem to 
 have had a fancy about all the beetles being males. It was also 
 distinctly a type of the resurrection, and with this meaning its 
 images were bound in a hundred ways upon every corpse, and 
 painted upon every coffin as the pledge and token of a future life. 
 Still more strongly, and by a beautiful figure, the scarabaeus is seen,* 
 as it were, leaning out of heaven, and helping the mummy over the 
 difficulties of the entrance, the body being thus included in the 
 resurrection. 
 
 Pasht (corresponding to the goddess Diana) was the “ mother of 
 the gods,” and had the vulture sacred to her as the emblem of 
 maternity, because she was supposed to feed her young with her 
 own blood : this was changed in later times to the pelican. But 
 Pasht in the tombs is the goddess of fire, and presides over punish- 
 ments ; she is seen standing over souls enveloped in flames, with 
 the sword of vengeance in her hand, and spitting fire upon them : 
 she has a cat’s head usually, but sometimes that of a lioness. 
 
 Osiris is known by the • scourge of punishment for the wicked, 
 and the crosier of acceptance for the righteous. The crosier is often 
 seen held out by the kings to supplicants, just as Ahasuerus held it 
 out to Esther.! He is called the “ manifester of good, the lord of 
 life, the lord of spirits,” &c. ; his legs are swathed, to represent the 
 repose of one who has passed through death. 
 
 Isis (whose faceds, like that of Osiris, always full of sweetness and 
 dignity) has the sun’s disk, as the mother of the earth ; and in the 
 character of Athor, the horns of the cow on her head, as the provider 
 of nourishment (milk) for all the world. She is continually 
 represented with the attributes of other goddesses ; but as the great 
 goddess, “ the mother of the child ” (Horus), she is distinguished by 
 the throne as her head-dress, which is one of the hieroglyphs in the 
 name of Osiris : in fact her name is written similarly to his, but 
 with the female sign, the egg ; she has often the vulture as a head- 
 dress, with the asp, and sometimes water-plants, as “ the bride of 
 the Nile.” She corresponds, when in the Amenti, to Proserpine, 
 but usually her character is that of Ceres. 
 
 Neith is goddess both of wisdom and of war : she wears the 
 crown of Lower Egypt, and sometimes holds a bow and arrows, but 
 
 * In the Harper’s or Bruce’s tomb. 
 
 f Esther iv. 11. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 67 
 
 more frequently a sceptre of flowers ; while her face is green, sig- 
 nifying the verdure of the fruitful earth. Her great temple was at 
 Sais, and over the portal was this remarkable inscription : “ I am 
 all that was, is, and shall be, — I proceed from myself, — none have 
 lifted -the veil that covers me.” The great mysteries of the burial 
 of Osiris were performed on the lake at Sals by torchlight, with 
 those of Neith as Isis, — whence, says, Herodotus, came the Greek 
 Eleusinian mysteries, and the f Thesmophoria.’ 
 
 Nutpe — wife of Seb, and mother of the gods — the heaven or 
 firmament : this is the divine origin of Osiris, from the primaeval 
 Mother, the ineffable Darkness, and Time, his father. The figure 
 of Nutpe within the sarcophagus means that the soul is become as 
 Osiris. In one tomb,* she surrounds the whole ceiling of a chamber 
 like a winding river, giving birth at one side to the Sun, the form of 
 Day, who is led away by a group of gods along a path which grows 
 shallower till it reaches a lake on the other side, through which he 
 passes, and thence in solitude and darkness returns to the side 
 whence he commenced his course. 
 
 Seb corresponds to Saturn as Chronos, Time. An inscription 
 reads : “ Saturn, youngest of all the Gods, is my father, — I am 
 Osiris ; ”• so the Divine children of Seb constitute the third order of 
 gods; for there were three of these orders : 1. the eight Great Gods, 
 (according to Herodotus), Amoun, Kheph, &c. ; 2. Ba, and his 
 family ; 3. the Osiride. 
 
 SETf represents Evil : he is brother of Osiris, and the son of 
 Time ; he and Horus are sometimes seen pouring the anointing oil 
 over the king. Horus embraces him, and Set gives him weapons of 
 war ; the king also offers to and propitiates the destroyer Set, that 
 he may be induced to favour the king, and make him his instrument. 
 
 One of the most interesting subjects of all in these tombs, both 
 for examination and thought, is that of the Serpent, which meets 
 the eye at every step, and evidently speaks a language of deep mean- 
 ing, that one longs to hear and understand : it is one, however, 
 about which, I believe, little is as yet known. These animals form 
 the most conspicuous and important feature in every representation 
 of a mystery, or of an unearthly ceremonial : frequently drawn as 
 in nature, and as frequently with human heads, male or female; 
 sometimes with many heads, with human legs, some turned one 
 way, some another ; occasionally with lion’s paws ; sometimes with 
 a head at each end of the body, and some growing along the back, 
 or ranges of mummies supported on it ; sometimes — and these are 
 
 * No. 9. 
 
 t Possibly from this name comes the Arabic Sheitan, the deyil or Satan. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 E G YPTIAN SEPUL CHRES 
 
 always grand, giant serpents — they have vulture’s wings, and bear 
 a sun’s disk. They are seen in battle with the gods, and in the end, 
 overcome by them, they lie wounded and bound. Sometimes there 
 are long rows of them, each one enwreathing a headless human 
 body, forming grotesquely-shaped rings; they are painted of all 
 colours, beautifully striped, mottled, or scaled ; they are also seen 
 lotus-crowned, with human legs, as the symbol of Kneph, the good 
 spirit, the paternal and spirit-giving deity. In some tombs the 
 Serpent commences at the entrance, and winds in countless folds 
 throughout the whole tomb to the very end : sometimes he swallows 
 his own tail, forming a circle — the symbol of eternity. One can only 
 say that they usually represent Evil, and perhaps more peculiarly 
 Moral Evil than the god Set does. Coleridge takes the Serpent as 
 symbolising the understanding ; and in some cases this may be the 
 sense : “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the 
 field.” 
 
 But with the most accurate knowledge of the meaning of the 
 hieroglyphics, the scholar still gropes in the dark respecting their 
 less tangible translation ; little more than has been already read 
 historically from the walls of temple and tomb will probably ever 
 be educed by the mere hieroglyphist. The old Greeks — rude, 
 untutored infants in the days of Egypt’s glory — drew from her the 
 first sparks of that fire which they afterwards refined and beautified 
 into models for all the world. From the days when the little band 
 of Egyptians left the mouth of the Nile to plant a new kingdom on 
 the fair shores of Greece, down to the thirteen years that Plato 
 studied at Heliopolis, every Grecian superstructure will be found to 
 have its foundation in the Egyptian faith ; and perhaps it is only 
 by the light of those who taught the deepest and highest philosophy 
 of the Greek school that the parent principles can be solved.* 
 The very gods bear all the same attributes and functions : Zeus is 
 but Amoun-Ra, keeping, indeed, his Egyptian name; Seb turned 
 into Chronos ; Phthah into Hephsestos ; Pasht into Artemis ; Thoth 
 into Hermes ; while Athor,the lovely lady of the West, the Morning- 
 Star, became the queen of beauty, Aphrodite. True, the Greeks 
 threw a poetic veil over them, and re-created them, as it were, with 
 a new and fresh beauty, which made them peculiarly their own ; 
 yet not the less is every deep and holy idea of the Grecian mythology 
 essentially and originally Egyptian. 
 
 The Temple of Denderah should be seen in ascending the Nile, 
 as it loses all interest of detail after the temples and tombs of 
 
 * Doubtless the Greeks owed much also to the Phoenicians ; but it is im- 
 possible to say how much the Phoenicians owed to the Egyptians. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 69 
 
 Thebes, the hieroglyphics testifying their modern age by their 
 poorness of outline and bad arrangement ; its nearly perfect pre- 
 servation, however, renders it a good explanation, in its plan and 
 general construction, for the more ruined but more interesting 
 temples farther on. The great square court succeeding the pylons 
 usual in the larger temples is here wanting, but the magnificent 
 portico makes up for the loss. This portico, leading to the fine 
 hall and lofty adytum within, and which has scarcely even a chip on 
 the stone, is supported by twenty-four grand columns with square 
 capitals, to which the colossal face of Athor is affixed on each side ; 
 very sweet and dignified is the head, however singular the adaptation 
 of a small pylon which is inserted below the abacus as her head- 
 dress ; the whole front is richly covered with hieroglyphics. There 
 are a number of other buildings near this, much ruined ; one is a 
 temple of the class that Champollion calls “ mammeisi,” where the 
 child of Athor is supposed to be born : this is Ehu, the young god 
 of day or light, born of Ea, the sun, and Athor, the morning-star. 
 This temple is covered with representations of Typhon, the god of 
 darkness, with whom Ea is in continual combat, and to whom the 
 birth of a child is a fresh disaster. Outside the wall of the large 
 temple is a portrait of the famous Cleopatra; she has a fat, 
 chubby face, and is not very much prettier than the lion-headed 
 gurgoyles which surround the roof, as grotesque in form as any 
 mediseval monsters. 
 
 For the study of hieroglyphics there is no place, after Thebes, to 
 be compared to Abydos ; and in descending the Nile the difference 
 in them, to the eyes that have looked on Kalabshee, Philae, and 
 Denderah, is very glaring ; there is a neatness and precision here, 
 an evident meaning vigorously expressed, even to those who cannot 
 read them, which strikes the most cursory glance ; while in some 
 of the late Ptolemaic temples they seem only pictures^stuck on as 
 ornament. They are here conveyed, too, by a fine medium, the 
 walls of the now ruined sanctuary and chambers being lined with 
 slabs of alabaster and finished with all the princely richness and 
 fine execution of Eameses the Great. I remember three most living 
 figures, larger than life, sculptured on one wall with something like 
 chain mail over the head and the dress ; and the plaited hair and 
 embroidery all conveyed with the utmost delicacy of finish. The 
 other building — the Temple-palace of Seti (or Osirei) I. — was un- 
 covered in 1857 ; it was finished by his son Eameses the Great, and 
 is very rich and large ; the bas-reliefs are the most beautiful in 
 Egypt, indeed there is nothing equal to them in Egyptian art 
 except the paintings in the tomb of this same King Seti at Thebes. 
 
70 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 In earlier periods art was far more naturalistic ; but what we may- 
 call Egyptian art proper was in the reign of Seti the most perfect of 
 all ; it is beautiful, living, and highly picturesque, although com- 
 pletely subject to the arbitrary rules imposed by the priests on the 
 artists, in accordance with the elaborate theocratic system of govern- 
 ment that extended through all the minutiae of life. Here at 
 Abydos stood, it is supposed, the City of This, the birthplace of 
 Menes, and the capital of Upper Egypt long before the rise of Thebes, 
 and at least 1300 years before the time of Kameses the Great, who 
 lived about as long before Christ.* 
 
 I think the ride to Abydos was the prettiest and pleasantest we 
 enjoyed in Egypt ; we had good little donkeys, who took us there 
 in about three hours and a half, through green fields of flourish- 
 ing sugar-cane, bean, and dhourra crops, with here and there a 
 grove of shady trees, and buffaloes in large herds feeding on the 
 plain. The sun was hot enough without being fierce, and there 
 was only too much of a cool breeze, delightful in the fields, but 
 very disagreeable when we reached the ruined city, which lies 
 under many fathoms of loose sand. The path was gay with pas- 
 sengers, all dark brown, and in the village we found troops of 
 pleasant-looking women and naked shining-skinned children, who 
 seemed more obliging than usual, offering us dates and water as 
 we passed by. Then there were camels, old and young, feeding 
 round a pretty little natural pond shaded by palm-trees. 
 
 We were very much detained by contrary winds the whole way 
 down from Thebes to Cairo ; day after day the same head-wind blew, 
 with only the cessation of three or four hours now and then, and fre- 
 quently with so much violence that it was impossible to proceed, 
 when, after enduring a. variety of unpleasant collisions with the small 
 waves, we hauled to and lay bumping on the bank. The process of 
 drifting down is not an agreeable one ; the boat generally gets near 
 the middle of the stream, and spins slowly round and round as it 
 goes on, and in any wind it drifts with a kind of heavy lumbering 
 motion, which makes many people qualmish. The sailors row a 
 good deal, but in head- winds it is labour thrown away. We some- 
 times found pleasant walks on shore, especially in the lovely gardens 
 of Siout and Minyeh, but the wind was often too high even for 
 walking. We had intended to stop in coming down, to see the Eed 
 and White Convents, and many other things, but our many dis- 
 comforts made us anxious to get on. One morning very early, 
 however, we started to see the Cave of Diana, the Speos Artemidos, 
 by no means to be missed by any traveller ; it lies in the midst of 
 * Wilkinson’s Chronology. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 71 
 
 a wild desert ravine of broken rocks, and is excavated from the 
 mountain side, leaving in front a portico of eight square pillars : 
 there is an inner chamber containing a large niche, probably for the 
 statue of the goddess Pasht, “ the beautiful lady of the cavern,” to 
 whom the excavation was dedicated by Thothmes III. and Seti (or 
 Osirei) I. Lions and cats, the animals sacred to Pasht, have been 
 buried in numbers of grottoes hollowed out in these rocks, and some 
 of the larger tombs in the ravine contain a few hieroglyphics. 
 
 Prom this the deeply interesting tombs of Beni-Hassan are soon 
 reached ; they occupy a long time in examining, for they are, next 
 to the Pyramids, the oldest records in Egypt, some of them being 
 of the time of Osirtasen I. and II., with the name of Suphis, the 
 builder of the Great Pyramid, introduced in one of the inscriptions. 
 Yet no colours anywhere in Egypt are fresher, and no paintings 
 more vigorously and admirably executed. They contain vivid re- 
 presentations of every trade, occupation, amusement, and mode of 
 life known to the Egyptians, besides a hundred other subjects far 
 too numerous to describe or even to mention. The porticoes of two 
 or three of the southern tombs are ornamented with polygonal 
 columns, the representation of the stalks of plants bound together, 
 with a lotus-bud for the capital ; and one is considered to be the 
 original from which the Doric Temple at Corinth was copied ; in 
 others the column is the same without any capital or fillet beneath 
 the abacus. It is wise and pleasant to linger among these tombs, 
 and to examine them narrowly ; they should be studied in ascend- 
 ing the Nile, for the sooner the eye is accustomed to good hiero- 
 glyphics and the lest Egyptian art, the better : after becoming even 
 only a little familiar with them, one’s enjoyment of the finest and 
 oldest temples is doubled and trebled to what it is if the eye has 
 not learnt to distinguish easily between the ancient reality and 
 the modern imitation. One should never lose an hour of favourable 
 wind in ascending the Nile, nor stop for anything (even the all- 
 important daily milk !) should there be a chance of a good breeze ; 
 but the few, very few miles gained by a whole day’s tracking are 
 worth nothing in comparison to the knowledge thus gained in pre- 
 paration for the Nubian and other temples. Thebes, indeed, on 
 both sides of the river, should be left till the last of all, unspoiled 
 by even a glance in ascending; and after it has been seen, the 
 slowest downward drifting without landing is scarcely enough 
 for arranging clearly nr one’s mind all the knowledge one has 
 gained there. 
 
 The last excursion we made before arriving at Gheezeh was to 
 visit the site of Memphis, the first city of which even a legend still 
 
72 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 exists in Egypt : it is believed to have been built by Menes, the 
 first king, whose date is given between 3640 and 2700 before Christ, 
 and some hundreds of years prior to the building of the Pyramids. 
 It continued to be the capital of Lower Egypt throughout the glory 
 of Thebes and long after its fall ; in fact until the rise of Alexandria 
 robbed it of its commerce. It was still a city in the time of the 
 Mohammedan conquest, 600 years after Christ ; but, unlike Thebes, 
 not a trace remains of its magnificent temples, and only a few green 
 mounds and some broken statues guide the antiquary to its long- 
 forgotten site. 
 
 A short ride from the village of Bedreshayn brings the traveller 
 to that called Mitrahenny, where, prone on its face, lies the statue 
 of Kameses the Great, forty-three feet high, and finely carved in a 
 hard limestone, which was probably polished : the beautiful features 
 (which can fortunately still be seen, from the ground sloping away 
 from under the face) are in perfect preservation, and recall to the 
 mind their brother portraits at Abou Simbil. There is also a 
 broken statue farther on, about eight feet smaller, of another 
 Kameses, and many fragments and broken bits of sculpture lie 
 scattered about, besides smaller pieces arranged with some care by 
 the villagers in a little mud-enclosure. We could not loiter under 
 the fine trees that shade the village, nor even by the ugly ruin of 
 the Sakkara Pyramid, for we were hastening on to the Serapeum, 
 the happy discovery, made by Mariette in 1851, of the enormous 
 tomb of all the Apis-bulls. This remarkable excavation is one long 
 winding passage, sixteen feet wide and fourteen feet high, with 
 large recesses on a level of some four or five feet lower at each side ; 
 in these recesses we .counted thirty sarcophagi : only a very few 
 were empty. It is almost incomprehensible how these sarcophagi, 
 each thirteen feet by eight, and eleven feet high, could have been 
 drawn along the passage ; they are all of fine granite, some reddish 
 from Assouan, some of a dark green nearly black, which stone is 
 said, I know not on what authority, to come from the mountains 
 of the Dead Sea. One sarcophagus is of basalt, with hieroglyphics 
 remarkably small and delicately cut, and the granite is in some of 
 them polished : they are I believe the finest sarcophagi ever 
 discovered, and certainly wonderful masses. No Apis-bones have 
 been discovered in them ; all that have been opened were found 
 filled with stones, as a mark of contempt. Apis was called “ the 
 living image of Osiris,” and his name is probably an adapta- 
 tion of a Coptic word meaning “ conceal,” * as Osiris was concealed 
 under his form ; his body was black, Plutarch says, but he had 
 
 * Osburn. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 73 
 
 a white triangle or star upon his forehead, the spot where the 
 spirit was supposed to enter into him : on his hack there was the 
 mark of a vulture, a beetle under his tongue, and his tail was 
 double, — all which was, of course, managed by the priests. In 
 fact this Apis- worship shows what a monstrous system of priestly 
 imposture the religion had become. How hard it must have been 
 for the spiritually-minded, in these later times, to get at the ground- 
 work of deep truth that underlaid many of the myths with which 
 the priests had overlaid and so changed it, as far as the ignorant 
 and vulgar went, into a degrading and gross idolatry. 
 
 But these are things to sigh over, and to think upon with an 
 earnest, grave attention. What people find “ so amusing ” in the 
 “ bulls and cats” I never could understand ; one would think that 
 even the most frivolous would be sobered and the most trifling 
 impressed into something like reverence after a few days at Thebes ; 
 yet even in the silent solemnity of the Yalley of the Dead Kings- 
 one’s mind is jarred and worried with the strangest and most 
 disagreeable contrasts. One may be lost to all the realities around, 
 and then interrupted, as we were one day, by a voice calling to 
 the unhappy dragoman, “ I say — you there — awsk that feller oose 
 tomb this is ! ” Being answered “ Belzoni’s tomb,” the owner of 
 the voice says he believes “ that was the name of the king 
 who built Abou Simbil ;” and then he goes back to his dahabieh 
 and his dinner, and perhaps confidingly remarks to his neighbour, 
 after his champagne, “ I say — wawta bawr these tombs are ! Egypt’s 
 quite a sell for a man like me ! ” in which latter sentiment we 
 agree with him. 
 
74 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 4 
 
 CHAPTEE .VI. 
 
 A MODERN EXODUS “ IN HASTE.” 
 
 11 Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies’ pyramises are very goodly 
 things : without contradiction I have heard that.” — Shakespeare. 
 
 As we knew we should not have much time at our disposal for 
 sight-seeing when once we had reached Cairo, we determined to 
 visit the Pyramids from Gheezeh, this being a quieter and shorter 
 ride than from the city. The heat was becoming greater every 
 day, and those who wish to examine them in any degree of comfort, 
 or see the view in bright tints, should leave their dahabieh before 
 sunrise, taking breakfast with them. We did not start till 9 a.m., 
 and only reached the Pyramids towards midday, when all the beauty 
 of colouring had faded into the hot white glare, which is as painful 
 as it is ugly. The path was for some way fresh with pleasant 
 verdure, and crowded with Arabs, laden camels, and donkeys ; then 
 at last we emerged on the dry loose sands, and had neither thoughts 
 nor eyes for anything but the Pyramids. Their appearance, 
 however, is very disappointing as one approaches 'them : I was not 
 at all prepared to find how much so ; the deception caused by every 
 line sloping away from the eye is inconceivably great, and not even 
 a column raised beside them would correct the natural error, since 
 the pyramidal form would still give the idea of something fore- 
 shortened. I had to keep repeating to myself that the tower of 
 Strasburg Cathedral might stand beneath the apex, and I found 
 even then I did not quite believe my own reasoning about it. 
 
 We were soon in the usual mob of fellaheen anxious to be chosen 
 as assistants for the ascent, on account of whom we had previously 
 determined to forego a visit to the Pyramids unless we could join 
 a party with gentlemen ; for they are an unruly and turbulent set, 
 and only a very short time before a most unpleasant attack had 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINE, o. 
 
 75 
 
 been made by them upon a couple of gentlemen, when some blood 
 was shed. The fellaheen had probably been roughly treated, but 
 I believe that a little quiet firmness, with the declaration that you 
 are English, and the determination not to be put into a passion by 
 their noisy and extortionate demands, will soon secure the com- 
 parative comfort of the traveller. One must however make up one’s 
 mind to purchase the interesting result of examining the Pyramids 
 by a thoroughly disagreeable process in every way. I am most 
 glad to have done it, but nothing would induce me to repeat the 
 operation, and I would earnestly dissuade any and every lady who 
 is not entirely sure of her own nerves and self-control, and who is 
 not very strong, from attempting it. The injury done to them- 
 selves in visiting the Pyramids by gentlemen who go to Egypt 
 on account of delicate lungs or imperfect circulation is probably 
 greater than the benefit they derive from the delightful climate, 
 particularly if they indulge in the absurd schoolboy emulation of 
 “ trying to get up first.” 
 
 The only right way to get through the ordeal is to be quietly 
 passive in the hands of the three Arabs apportioned to each visitor. 
 When once you have commenced the real business they are good- 
 natured and careful fellows, proud of their knowledge of half a 
 dozen sentences in half a dozen languages, and anxious to please 
 you ; they know best how to tie up your garments so that they 
 shall not impede your progress, and how to lift you with least 
 exertion or disagreeableness to yourself, and the sole piece of advice 
 I give to my countrywomen is, to let them lift you. Many of the 
 stones are four feet in height, but the Arabs lift you at one jump 
 with more ease than a stool or any other contrivance will afford you ; 
 sometimes, too, they appear to mistake you for a doll or a swaddled 
 baby, and you find yourself seized by the ankles as well as by the 
 arms ! Even thus passively impelled upwards, the ascent is an 
 enormous tax upon both blood and breath. 
 
 The now broken summit affords a platform of thirty-two feet 
 square, with stones upon which and beside which you can rest 
 comfortably ; the view is fine, and interesting as being characteristic 
 of Egypt, and should, I think, be viewed at the commencement of 
 the traveller’s stay in the country, thus taking in at one glance 
 what you learn by slow degrees afterwards. Cairo, with its 
 uncountable minarets, the most varied in form and the most 
 picturesque in the world, rising upon the steep slope of the 
 Mokuttum hills up to the citadel and the mosque of Muhammed 
 ’Ali, is a remarkable view in itself ; still more so the clearly-marked 
 boundaries of the wide sandy desert, so melancholy and bare- 
 
76 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 looking, from the verdant, smiling plain studded with palm-trees 
 which adjoins it; while the pyramids of Abouseer, Sakkara and 
 Dashoor, to the south, give a sort of still life to the scene. In the 
 early morning or evening, doubtless, the view becomes as beautiful 
 as it is striking, when even the featureless, desolate sand of the 
 desert gains for a few moments the hues of a wild, stern beauty 
 peculiarly its own. 
 
 An American gentleman arrived on the summit while we were 
 there, and breathlessly informed us that the English Ministry was 
 entirely changed, that England had declared war against nearly all 
 Europe, and that the Old World was shortly going to pieces. Those 
 who never stir beyond the reach of newspapers or letters can hardly 
 imagine the avidity with which one seizes on all the news one can 
 get after three months of exile from the civilised world, and it was 
 curious to realise the vivid interest we felt in a thing of to-day, — 
 whether one man or another was living “ his little hour ” in the 
 new history of a tiny island 2000 miles away, — while so completely 
 absorbed in personal interest in the events and actors of bygone 
 ages. I felt the incongruity, but on the burning fiery furnace of 
 that platform I could not think ; my mind, too, was nervously fixed 
 upon the horrors of the descent that awaited me. I found it by no 
 means so difficult, but infinitely more disagreeable than the ascent. 
 It was a very happy moment to me when I reached the bottom and 
 found my sister standing, with the full complement of her limbs, in 
 peace and comfort beside me : we had not felt legs or arms our 
 own in either the up or down ordeal. 
 
 We rested some minutes in the shade before we entered the 
 Pyramid. I think not less than eighteen Arabs went in with us ; 
 and it is impossible to describe the stifling feeling in the narrow 
 passages, filled with noise, lights, heat, and smoke. I did not perceive 
 in myself any sensation of horror or fear, so frequently felt by even 
 the strongest-nerved travellers, but I confess that, according to the 
 proverb of the “ burnt child,” the dread of fire came strongly upon 
 me. We were above a score of persons, obliged to crouch quite 
 on all-fours for many yards together, the flames of our candles 
 flaring about in the draught which we made in passing, and my 
 sister and I wore Arab-cotton dresses, on which one spark alighting 
 — and many flew about — would have put us in a blaze, while any 
 rush in those stifling passages must have been fatal to some one. 
 The steep angle in which they dip, and their smooth surface, 
 oblige one .to have recourse to the barefooted Arabs for support, 
 and their close company is considerably more disagreeable here 
 than in the open air outside. But the passage is soon done; and 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 77 
 
 after visiting a small empty chamber, nearly square, called the 
 Queen’s, — which is only interesting because it stands directly under 
 the apex of the Pyramid, — you pass through a gallery twenty- 
 eight feet high, the walls meeting at the top by progressive steps, 
 and enter the King’s chamber, an oblong room nineteen feet high. 
 There are small holes or tubes in the walls of this chamber to admit 
 ventilation, and over it are four large spaces, one above the other 
 (which Sir G. Wilkinson naively calls entresols, in spite of their 
 eternal darkness), intended to relieve the weight of the mass above 
 them. In the two uppermost of these chambers the two stones 
 were found on which the workmen had painted the names of the 
 kings for whose mausoleum the Pyramid was built — Shofo (or 
 Suphis, commonly called Cheops) and Nou (or Nef) Shofo, two 
 brothers who reigned together, the one for fifty years, and the 
 other for fifty-six years; their cartouches have been found in the 
 rock-cut tombs close by, as well as the gold ring of King Suphis. 
 
 The chamber is formed of blocks of granite, which sparkle in the 
 torchlight, cut smooth,* so exquisitely joined that the seams are 
 almost imperceptible ; at one end is the broken sarcophagus of the 
 king, it is supposed, made of red granite, and still emitting a bell- 
 sound when struck. It was a fine idea of those old Egyptians, as 
 Herodotus tells us, that of admitting the waters of the life-giving 
 Nile to enclose in its watery arms the dead body of the king, who 
 in life “called the Nile his own thus insulating it from all earthly 
 contact ; but antiquaries have ruthlessly declared the tale to be less 
 than a fable — a total impossibility. The overpowering feeling of 
 immensity while thus descending lower and lower into the interior 
 of the Pyramid is certainly very intense, and never to be forgotten ; 
 it is doubtless much increased by the quickening of the pulse, in 
 the hurried rush down passages and up again, and by the difficulty 
 of respiration. I felt something of the same kind afterwards in the 
 cave of Adullam (near Hebron), the perilous path leading to which 
 naturally hastens one’s circulation a little ; but there the habitual 
 confidence of man in Nature and her glorious works has a soothing, 
 strengthening influence, while inside the Pyramid one finds a vague 
 feeling of fear steal involuntarily over one as one calculates the 
 giant mass of human-raised Titan blocks around and above. I am 
 sure the man who invented the horrible tale of the prison the walls of 
 which gradually closed in day by day on the unfortunate prisoner 
 confined within them had once stood in that King’s chamber; 
 and I remember comparing myself mentally to the little almond I 
 had seen so gently and quietly cracked by the wonderfully- regulated 
 * The rest of the Pyramid is built of limestone. 
 
78 
 
 E G YETI A N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 power of the giant “Nasmyth’s hammer,” which hut a moment 
 before had pierced holes through a massive bar of iron as easily as 
 a needle passes through fine cambric. The monstrous mass above 
 me, however, remained unmoved, and the fate of the small almond 
 was not mine. 
 
 The next half-hour was pleasantly spent resting under the 
 shadow of one of the enormous blocks of which the lower tiers of 
 the Pyramids are composed. Of course the finish given by the 
 triangular stones, which made the surfaces of the sides smooth, 
 must [-have added much to their appearance, but they are more 
 picturesque as they are, with their rugged steps. 
 
 We saw the Sphinx in her very worst light, the glare of 2 p.m. : 
 then all colouring is spoilt, the poetry of Nature silent, and 
 the surrounding scene as ugly as it can be. And yet it im- 
 pressed me as much as anything I have seen; like the Pyramids, 
 it is impossible to form any idea of its size, from the fine proportion 
 kept in all its parts, until the Arabs climb like ants over the neck 
 and head. The features have been beautiful, but they are now so 
 much destroyed that the mind must be full of those perfect faces 
 seen in Abou Simbil, &c., to fill up the gaps for oneself : like them, 
 it is more than wonderful how such exquisite harmony could be 
 preserved in the 172 feet long of the figure and the 28 feet of the 
 face cut out from the natural rock. In spite of fractures and dis- 
 colourments it still retains its " mild and bland ” expression : un- 
 imaginably grand it must have been when the bearded chin over- 
 hung the temple and the altar between its paws, and the group of 
 lions crouched in front. It is believed to have been executed by 
 Thothmes III., who was fond of architectural caprices, but we must 
 all be thankful to him for a “ caprice ” so grand and enduring and 
 noble as this. It is a marvellous mystery, keeping its own secret 
 behind those wide-open eyes and within that serenely-smiling 
 mouth, and one wanders round it vainly searching for the key to 
 what one feels instinctively is full of a meaning now, and perhaps 
 for ever, hidden beneath the eternal veil of sand. 
 
 That evening we went on to Cairo, and arrived at Shepheard’s 
 Hotel on the 25th of March, and for the next ten days we were 
 employed in a ceaseless labour of shopping — wearisome enough 
 anywhere, but at Cairo really dreadful. One hunted the whole day 
 for some indispensable trifle, seldom having the slightest idea where 
 to go to, and at the end of the day finding the thing in the first shop 
 one had been in. We were soon in despair at the invariable answer 
 to all inquiries for articles, that they had none ; but a Cairo lady, 
 who was so kind as to help us very much in our difficulties, assured 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 79 
 
 us that meant only laziness, and at last we learnt to answer “ We 
 will help you to look for it," and by dint of opening drawers and 
 searching for ourselves we sometimes found what we wanted. But 
 one never could guess where to look for anything : for instance, we 
 found books and trunks at the tailor’s, boots and shoes at a watch- 
 maker’s, a French dressmaker behind a butcher’s stall, and some 
 strong, useful dresses at a warehouse for glass beads. Many things 
 we never found at all, and we had to get on as best we could till 
 they were sent out to us from England after some months of dis- 
 comfort. Everything European was of course enormously dear, 
 and our wardrobes, even the very queer medley they were, cost us 
 certainly three times their real value. We were of necessity con- 
 stantly in the bazaars, which, though very amusing to see, are 
 tedious and provoking to the last degree when one wants to get 
 any real business done, and excessively fatiguing. The sirocco and 
 heat became very oppressive ; the noise and bustle of the city after 
 being so long quiet on the river was very trying to nerves that were 
 already a good deal shaken. The hotel was full of passers-by, and 
 the few friends we had came and went without being able to help 
 us; the unjust demands of our quondam dragoman grew daily more 
 annoying, and we soon perceived that the proceedings of the Arab 
 court regarding the loss of the dahabieh might be far worse than 
 the misery caused by any Circumlocution Office ever set up in a 
 civilised country, where truth, honour, and honesty are at least 
 words understood by all : they do not seem to exist in the modern 
 Arabic used in Cairo. 
 
 Of the city, which we were longing to examine, we saw little or 
 nothing ; only once or twice, by way of rest after our weary work, 
 we went up to the splendid mosque of Muhammed ’Ali, to enjoy 
 the magnificent view. The famous view of Damascus is far more 
 really beautiful, but there is a singularity and a grandeur about 
 Cairo, the mingling of the works of man in the thousand domes 
 and minarets with the desolate face of Nature, the verdant cultiva- 
 tion beside the barren waste of sand, that is unspeakably impressive. 
 One day we paid a hasty visit to the four finest mosques of the 
 city, those of Sultan Hassan, Touloun, El Azhar, and Hassaneyn ; 
 they are well worth seeing, grand, simple, and impressive, with bits 
 here and there of admirable richness and beauty. We found most 
 of the persons who admitted us civil as showmen and tolerably 
 intelligent, and we were careful to show the decent attention due 
 to their customs ; so, not being provided with overalls, we walked 
 through the mosques in stockings, — a not very comfortable pro- 
 ceeding. But one must have very little of the spirit of Christianity 
 
80 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 in one,, and still less worldly good-breeding, if one refuses such 
 conformity to their notions of reverence. 
 
 The minarets of the mosques of EI-Azhar, “the splendid,” 
 Barkook, Nasr Muhammed, and Hassan, are beautiful ; the domes, 
 too, are sometimes elaborately and elegantly worked. But the 
 buildings which charmed us most were the tombs of the Mamlook 
 kings outside the town, full of variety and of singular elegance: 
 they stand in the loose sand, and should be visited early or late to 
 avoid the heat of the sun, but they will well repay a visit at any 
 time, and artists would find among them subjects for many months 
 of drawing. 
 
 One Sunday morning we got up an hour or two before sunrise, 
 having arranged with a Copt dragoman to Take us to the Coptic 
 service, which was celebrated in a small old church while their 
 large one was being repaired: it commences always at the first 
 dawn of day. We found an oblong room with latticed windows, 
 cleanly whitewashed and hung round with pictures of saints, some 
 of which were not bad, and a part of it latticed off at one end for 
 the women. On the north side there was a recess the whole length 
 of the church, like an aisle, but nearly dark : one half of this was 
 the chancel, enclosed within a screen ; in front of the other half 
 stood the Patriarch’s chair and the reading-desks. As each Copt 
 came in he crossed the church, and, going into the back of the 
 recess, washed his hands in a little running fountain in one corner ; 
 then, returning into the church, squatted on the floor among the 
 rest of the congregation. At first the service consisted of short 
 readings of the Gospels, each portion read first in Coptic, then in 
 Arabic, by little boys ten or twelve years of age, dressed in a kind 
 of surplice over crimson silk, with caps, embroidered in gold, on 
 their heads; these- were the deacons. There were also several 
 priests, who wore erowns with gilt crosses on their heads, and robes 
 of various coloured stuffs. There was chanting besides, and bells 
 chimed in now and then, sounding like cymbals. After about an 
 hour of this the Patriarch, — the successor of the Apostle St. Mark, 
 and the spiritual head of the Egyptian Church, — entered from 
 behind the chancel, clothed in a magnificent mantle of green and 
 gold tissue, with an enormous hood of the same, which almost hid 
 his face ; he held a beautiful patriarchal staff in his hand, with a 
 silver crosier on the top, surmounted by the figure of a knight 
 slaying a dragon, — that universal legend, found in nearly every 
 country where any “ancient story” existed, typifying, each ac- 
 cording to the local colouring in which it was found, the triumph of 
 pure-hearted moral courage^over brute force and wickedness. In his 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 81 
 
 other hand the Patriarch carried a small gold cross, jewelled, and 
 wrapped in a handkerchief of gold tissne, which each person who 
 passed him stopped to kiss. 
 
 The readings continued for some time with many short prayers 
 and sentences, the people responding with uplifted and waving 
 hands, often repeating “ Eyrie eleeson. Eyrie eleeson.” After this 
 the Patriarch preached a short but very energetic sermon, stopping 
 continually, both in the reading and the sermon, whenever he saw 
 anything amiss in the congregation ; calling out very loud orders to 
 them, “ Oh, ye donkeys, don’t make such a noise ! ” “ Give more 
 room to each other ! ” u Oh, ye pigs, attend and listen ! ” the people 
 also frequently expressing their approbation of what he said in his 
 sermon with a loud murmur of applause and the words “taib, 
 taib.” Then he retired into the chancel, and seemed, with the priests, 
 to make processions round the altar, and to consecrate the holy 
 Elements; after which small cakes, circular, and stamped with 
 the name of Christ, a cross, and some words were handed about”, 
 and bought by many (for five paras each) to take home. These are 
 not consecrated, but, having been prepared for the Eucharistic 
 bread, are considered semi-sacred, perhaps lucky. After a pause 
 some members of the congregation went to the door of the chancel, 
 where the Patriarch gave them the bread and the wine together in a 
 spoon from a glass he held in one hand, at the same time laying the 
 edge of his hand across the eyebrows of each while he gave his 
 blessing. The people made numbers of responses in this part of 
 the service, not one having any book, and they recited together the 
 Creed, the Sanctus, and the Lord’s Prayer, the service seeming, as 
 well as we could make out, to be arranged very much the same as 
 our own. The whole service was exceedingly chaleureuse, not 
 merely a duo or quartette of priests, with the congregation as 
 audience, according to the fashion of some of our churches at home, 
 but all the people joining in very frequently, and with apparent 
 devotion. ,At the end of it the kiss of peace was passed round, 
 each one to his neighbour, the Patriarch kissing the priests and 
 blessing them. The women did not enter any part of the church 
 but that screened behind their lattice ; two of the priests carried 
 the Sacrament to them ; and they joined in the responses very 
 frequently. 
 
 The service is read in Arabic as well as Coptic, because very few 
 of the people readily understand the latter now ; but the liturgy 
 and all their religious books are written in Coptic, and they are in- 
 structed at school to pray, both in church and in private, in that 
 language. The Copt is enjoined to pray seven times in the course 
 
 G ■ 
 
82 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 of each day, and Mr. Lane says he believes there are very few who 
 do not practise the rule ; and the educated Copts repeat in their 
 prayers the whole book of Psalms every day ; they also keep long 
 and rigid fasts. We heard afterwards that the Patriarch is much 
 beloved by the people* ; he is still a young man, and has a fine 
 countenance, with a very black, thick beard, and bushy eyebrows, 
 which he knit ominously when he scolded them. We were also told 
 by those who knew him well that the present Patriarch is an earnest, 
 energetic man, bent on reform, which he is endeavouring to* carry 
 out, as well as, by means of judicious and enlightened education, to 
 elevate the minds of his flock. He entered frankly and earnestly 
 into an elaborate argument, or rather explanation, of the difference 
 between the Coptic and Anglican faiths with a friend of ours some 
 time after, and seemed as much interested in the details given him 
 as he was evidently pleased at the impression made by the Coptic 
 service on an Englishman. We thought it one of the most in- 
 teresting services we had ever attended. 
 
 The Coptic creed is very similar to that of the Eutychians (who 
 were condemned as heretics by the Council of Chalcedon in a.d. 
 451), with some admixture of the tenets held by the Jacobites and 
 Monophysites ; their rites and ceremonies have been preserved with 
 but little alteration for the last fourteen hundred years. The Copts 
 are undoubtedly descendants of the ancient Egyptians, says Mr. 
 Lane, but they are very far from being a pure race, having inter- 
 married, long before the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs, with their 
 Christian brethren of Abyssinia (who w r ere Jacobites), Nubians, and 
 Greeks. The name of Copt is thought to be derived from the 
 ancient Greek name of Egypt, iEgyptos, or else from the City of 
 Coptos in Upper Egypt, to which numbers of Christian Egyptians 
 retired in the time of the Eoman persecutions ; the word is pro- 
 nounced Gkubt or Gkibt, in the singular Gkubtee or Gkibtee. 
 
 After a fortnight’s stay in Cairo, during which the examinations 
 of our English servants and of the sailors were constantly repeated, 
 each repetition bringing out some new variety of absurd falsehood 
 in the history of the boat-burning, we learnt one morning from the 
 English Acting-Vice-Consul that the story next to be adopted was 
 that our maid had set the boat on fire, and that on this plea the 
 dragoman Achmet Adgwa, owner of the boat, intended to sue us 
 for 900Z. damages. 
 
 On first arriving in Cairo we had been strongly advised to institute 
 
 * He died a few months after. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 83 
 
 proceedings against Achmet for the recovery of onr losses, which we 
 estimated at considerably above 300/., since onr contract with him 
 included our safe conduct and indemnity from accident during the 
 three months of our voyage. Many said we owed at least the form 
 of instituting such a claim to future Nile-travellers, the safety of 
 whose persons as well as property is at the mercy of their dragomans 
 and crews, who should, therefore, be made fully aware that they 
 are held responsible for injury suffered by one or the other, unless 
 caused by the traveller’s own fault. But even the knowledge that 
 we need not enforce the payment in the end did not reconcile us to 
 the appearance of harshness against a fellow-sufferer ; and we felt 
 more disposed to exert ourselves to effect some compensation for 
 his losses, with which experience had taught us so well how to 
 sympathise. 
 
 But now the case was changed; from what we heard Achmet 
 seemed to be restrained within no limits in the false and injurious 
 stories he was spreading everywhere about us ; we knew him, from 
 his own account, to be possessed of property, in land and cows, un- 
 usually large for one of his class, and we heard now that he had 
 expended much of this (as well as money begged and borrowed for 
 the “ maintaining of his cause ”) in bribing the members of the 
 court from whom he hoped for a decision in his favour. 
 
 Under these circumstances the Consul was so kind as to step 
 somewhat out of the course which he would have felt to be right 
 in his official capacity, as he said, in consideration of our being 
 ladies alone in a foreign land and among such a people, and he 
 advised us to leave Cairo as quickly and as quietly as we could ! 
 He assured us that the final decision of the cause would not be at all 
 affected in this country by considerations of truth or justice, and 
 would probably be protracted to the very utmost limit that 
 ingenuity could devise, or during which bribes could be supplied, 
 detaining us thus prisoners during many a long month of summer 
 heat in Cairo, to the great risk of our health, which had already 
 suffered much from the shock and subsequent anxiety. 
 
 Unfortunately for us just at this time there was really no consul 
 either at Cairo or Alexandria ; our excellent friend Mr. Green had 
 gone, and his successor had not yet arrived, and there was the same 
 transition state of affairs in the consulate at Cairo ; and thus, while 
 everybody was acting for some one else, nobody liked to take any 
 responsibility on himself, or to come forward in an affair not very 
 simple, and not very distinctly his own. 
 
 We therefore lost no time in paying to our dragoman all that we 
 owed him for the hire of his boat, and his wages up to the last day 
 
8 4 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 of our stay in Cairo, as if he had still been in onr service there, 
 which of course he could have no claim to ask ; the sailors we paid 
 up to the same day also, as we learnt that in the prison their supply 
 of food depended on their own funds ; and then, after passing the 
 night in packing, we left Cairo by the early morning train for 
 Alexandria, feeling even then how little pleasant it was for Britons 
 to flee ! especially when they had truth and right to stand on ; hut 
 remembering also that “ prudence is the better part of valour,” 
 especially when the Britons happen to be ladies. 
 
 But rest was not to come yet ; we had a very fatiguing journey of 
 thirteen hours (something was amiss in crossing the river, which 
 detained us far beyond our time), and we hoped to remain a few 
 days in Alexandria to obtain the rest which had become so needful 
 for us. However’ a friend who was so kind as to act as our deputy 
 in announcing our arrival to the Acting-Vice-Consul early the next 
 morning, chiefly as a matter of precaution, brought us back a most 
 emphatic message of advice to quit Egypt immediately. He was aware 
 that an order for our detention had arrived in Alexandria, but it had 
 not yet reached his office ; and though the preferring such a claim 
 on us, to use his own expression, was “ simply infamous,” there was 
 too little hope of justice in an Arab court not to make it most im- 
 portant that we should not be exposed to the exercise of its power. 
 His advice, therefore, was that we should go immediately on board 
 any vessel in the harbour whose steam was up, without waiting 
 to ascertain its destination ; and he added significantly, “ I trust 
 the ladies will be gone before I am in my office.” So warned, we 
 lost not a moment in driving down to the harbour, leaving even the 
 conveyance of our baggage to the kindness of a friend, who brought 
 it after us to the Austrian steamer, which, fortunately for us, was just 
 starting for Smyrna ; nor would it be easy to express the immense 
 relief we felt, after so much anxiety and turmoil, when the screw 
 beneath our feet began to revolve, and Egypt — with all her inex- 
 haustible and high interests, her indescribable beauties, her manifold 
 charms, and, to us, her many troubles — was left on the far horizon. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 85 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHERE HOMER LIVED AND SAPPHO SANG. 
 
 The Arciduchessa Carolina , though a fine little boat and very 
 clean and comfortable, did not prove a berth of roses to us ; a terrible 
 storm on the second day blew us back a considerable distance 
 towards Egypt, as if our evil destiny wanted to force us into an 
 awkward position, and instead of a three days’ passage we had 
 the benefit of five. On the evening of the third day, however, 
 we were able to enjoy the exceeding beauty of the islands after 
 passing between Scarpanto and the southern end of the Island of 
 Rhodes. On the following morning our eyes opened on a grand 
 mountain mass of violet hue — an awful colour, deep as the ripest 
 autumn plum, mysteriously dark. The huge rock rose solemnly 
 from the sapphire sea, which folded it round in waves of inde- 
 scribable blue, while heavy masses of savage clouds now swooped 
 down the mountain side, now rose and tore themselves asunder on 
 the summit, leaving bare to view, ever and anon, the calm, pure 
 snow lying in loving mantles half-way down the rock, answering to 
 the glistening white masses and wreaths of surf thrown up again 
 and again in ever-changing beauty at its feet. I saw this island 
 twice afterwards ; but never again did its sacred rocks impress me 
 with such solemn beauty as then in that wild April storm-sky when 
 I came up with my mind full of the grand old idols of Egypt, and 
 remembered that there the Disciple whom Jesus loved — he who 
 taught us that God is Love, and who showed to us that love 
 whereby, when made perfect in our own hearts, we dwell in Him 
 and He in us, — that there he dwelt in tribulation, but in patience, 
 when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he saw, with 
 spiritual eyes, the “ great city, the new Jerusalem,” and wrote that 
 heaven-born prophecy which “ blessed is he that readeth ; ”■ — for 
 
86 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPUL CURES 
 
 this was Patmos. A large cave, in which the Beloved Apostle 
 is supposed to have lived, is still shown ; a solitary and spacious 
 grotto above 700 feet above the sea — it is very probably a true 
 outline tradition. Nikaria, Samos, and Khio (Scio) were passed 
 successively, while the mainland presented an ever-changing view of 
 cliffs and bays, richly coloured, and in some parts wooded. They 
 were beautiful enough for any eye, but doubly beautiful to those 
 accustomed to the monotonous yellows and the arid white rocks 
 and sands of Egypt, however beautiful the colours in which sunset 
 and distance sometimes array them. Lovely the Bay of Smyrna 
 looked on the fifth morning when we landed at the quarantine very 
 early in the day, and willing were we to be pleased with the clear 
 water and the shining pebbles on the beach, the green vines and 
 meadow-land around us; but the quarantine itself filled us with 
 dismay. The dirty Hajj pilgrims who had crowded the deck of the 
 Arciduchessa Carolina” poured into the courtyard of the wing ap- 
 propriated to us, which looked forlorn enough with the iron-barred 
 windows and doors, and the bare stone walls and floors of our 
 prison; the three English gentlemen who had come in the same 
 steamer were shown into one little room together ; and to us, with 
 our maid, was assigned an upper room with a staircase to ourselves, 
 not so bad in itself, but that every room and the whole place was 
 pervaded by the most horrible smells one could imagine. We 
 passed the whole day sitting on the dirty floor, with nothing to do 
 or look at, or, what was worse, to eat, till sunset, when a boat-load 
 of beds and food, &c., arrived from the hotel; and we were then 
 allowed to have our luggage, which had been kept from us all day, 
 doubtless in order to see whether the plague would burst out of 
 the locks and straps in a visible shape. 
 
 We fortunately enjoyed a pretty view of the bay from the window 
 of a front room, and once we walked in a paddock of long grass 
 under the guardianship of a soldier, but it seemed bitterly cold 
 and damp to us after Egypt, and we counted the hours of our very 
 long five days most wearily. We were always expecting a visit of 
 inspection from the Turkish medical officer, but no one came ; and 
 when we had fulfilled the law, the five days concluding at the very 
 same hour as that of our arrival, we were allowed to embark in a 
 little boat, which carried us across the lovely bay to the City of 
 Smyrna on the 15th of April. After this we never had any reason 
 to complain of the cold, for the spring changed at once into 
 delicious summer heat and sunshine. 
 
 We spent a pleasant fortnight enjoying the beauties of Smyrna* 
 The town is picturesquely situated at the end of the thirty-six 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 87 
 
 miles of winding gulf, the sea washing the very walls of the houses, 
 whose bright red roofs, mingled with pretty trees and gardens, rise 
 np a very steep hill, finishing in a forest of the finest cypress-trees 
 in the world, not excepting those at Constantinople: it is really 
 worth going to Smyrna only to see these trees. From the summit, 
 which is crowned by an ancient castle and is the site of the 
 martyrdom of Poly carp, a noble view is obtained ; the town, with 
 its bright colours and numerous churches, sweeping round at one's 
 feet, and extending partly along a creek at the right, while sloping up 
 from the water’s edge, are rich meadows and fig-groyes, dotted here 
 and there with the summer residences of the wealthier inhabitants 
 of Smyrna, and with a few Tillages. On the north, across the creek, 
 the lovely mountains rise, backed by Mount Sipylus, of ancient 
 fame; on the south the bay curves round westwards under the 
 gloomy grandeur of fine purple and brown craggy mountains, on 
 which, at this time, the snow was lying in light shrouds. All 
 around the eye discovers remains of aqueducts and other ruins, 
 through which the new railway steers its unwavering, narrow line. 
 I should think that there are not a great many cities in the world 
 that can boast a much prettier panorama than Smyrna. 
 
 As to the town itself, it does not possess many fine buildings ; 
 some of the bazaars are handsome and solidly built, and there are 
 a few pretty churches. The streets are wide for an oriental town, 
 and many of them are lined with European-looking private houses, 
 which remind one of a French town; they are interspersed with 
 trees and little gardens, and pretty cafes beside running streams. 
 The bazaars are very amusing ; there is nothing like a Levantine 
 town for the jumble of languages one hears, and at Smyrna no one 
 seems to think of troubling himself to select all the words of a whole 
 sentence in any one language. Your true Smyrniote, being accus- 
 tomed to think in all the eight or nine he knows, mixes them up at 
 once into an olla podrida of language without the fatigue of separat- 
 ing them, for he is sure that to whomever he speaks one or other 
 word will be intelligible. You ask the price of a thing — the coin 
 will be in one language, and the number in another ; you ask what 
 o’clock it is, and the hour will be told in one tongue and the 
 minutes in another, and so on. In a sentence of twelve words there 
 are certain to be four or five languages mixed up, forming a jumble 
 which is truly astonishing, and not a little perplexing at first. 
 
 We found the town well supplied with European goods, chiefly 
 German, most delightful to us in filling up our many wants of the 
 things not purchasable in Cairo ; and the change was very agree- 
 able from the cold, listless impassiveness of the oriental shopkeeper. 
 
88 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 who does yon the favour of bestowing his goods upon yon to his own 
 entire ruin, as he assures you, though at double their value, and the 
 brisk anxiety of the civil Levantine trader pressing his goods on 
 your notice. Almost every shop is wreathed with strings of sponges 
 of every variety of size, quality, and price : some nice little sponges 
 are sold for a few halfpence, but a really good, fine sponge, fetches 
 almost as large a price in Smyrna as in England. The Broussa silk 
 and embroidery bazaar, which is handsomely, built of stone, is 
 exceeding gay and pretty ; but the gayest of all the bazaars is that 
 for made-up garments, — the stalls are filled with many-coloured 
 cloths and waist scarves, embroidered turban stuffs, striped and 
 flowered silk robes of the most brilliant colours, and gold-em- 
 broidered jackets, varied with antique arms, little glass cases of 
 delicate porcelain and amber beads, Persian carpets and shawls, 
 and table-covers of needlework ; the sellers almost attack the unwary 
 traveller, rushing at him with the articles generally bought by 
 strangers, and shrieking to him on all sides, “ Howadji ! Senor ! 
 Ingleez ! Franja ! Monsieur ! Signor !” &c., &c. Strings of camels pace 
 along the streets — large, untidy-looking beasts, with long thick hair 
 hanging down from their necks, very unlike the trim, closely-shaved, 
 and more lively-looking camel of Egypt. Numbers of mules, and 
 most gigantic donkeys, meet you at every turn. But the day for 
 seeing Smyrna is Sunday, when all the inhabitants of the houses, 
 high and low, sit outside their doors in groups, on chairs placed in 
 the carriageless streets. You walk through the Armenian quarter 
 after midday, and you have thus an opportunity of seeing whole 
 families, of three or four generations, dressed in French fashions, 
 but with the large, soft, lustrous eye of the East, and the 
 languishing, graceful gait of the South ; in the G-reek quarter, blue 
 eyes and more regular features make a pleasant variety, while each 
 and all have coquettish flowers, freshly plucked, twined with an 
 Eastern abandon in the dark tresses of both maid and matron. 
 The Jewesses, alas ! do not exhibit themselves in the same manner 
 to the admiring passers-by; they are said, by those admitted to 
 their houses, to be very remarkably beautiful. 
 
 We made one pleasant day’s excursion to Bournabat, a village of 
 the citizens’ summer residences; each house has its own nice 
 garden, but every one is enclosed in a high stone wall, making all 
 the streets seem blind, and preventing any kind of view of the 
 lovely mountain scenery to the inhabitants within them. But we 
 learned that this had been, till within the last four or five years, a 
 matter of necessity, not choice ; since without these high walls no 
 Frank was safe from insult from the Turks, even in their own 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 89 
 
 gardens. The only exception to the rule was in a new iron-railed 
 wall, just completed, round the garden of a Mr. Whittal, an English 
 merchant of half a century’s standing in Smyrna, and who is much 
 respected and beloved by all classes. His house is the handsomest 
 of the numerous good houses about Smyrna, and the garden is very 
 large and charming ; it has cost a large sum of money, and is still 
 a costly luxury, from the enormous expense of keeping it watered : 
 in dry seasons the water has to be carried out from Smyrna for 
 weeks and weeks together, and of course the thirsty soil requires a 
 vast quantity to keep gardens of such extent in order. Seeing us at 
 the gate, the hospitable owner was so kind as to invite us in, strangers 
 though we were, and to show us the house and grounds, and a 
 small but handsome church which he has just built at his sole 
 expense for the English community of Bournabat. In the course of 
 the following summer, Mr. Whittal entertained Prince Alfred at a 
 fete in his pleasant grounds. 
 
 We wandered about the village for some hours, peeping into a 
 pretty mosque, and a beautifully clean bath, watered by the Biver 
 Meles, on the banks of which the “ divine Homer ” sat and sang 
 for all the generations of the world after him ; and after resting in a 
 cafe, and being refreshed with coffee and hot bread, which we took 
 from the baker’s oven — like all the shops here, open to passers-by — 
 we rattled back in the rickety char-a-banc which had brought us 
 from Smyrna: such a pleasant hour’s drive, the lovely meadows 
 between the fine wild mountains clothed in the richest and brightest 
 spring greens, beds of wild-flowers on all sides, and the hedges filled 
 with hawthorn, dog-roses, and acacia, all in full blossom, and the 
 Judas-tree, with its tall spikes of bright lilac flowers on the 
 leafless branches. 
 
 The next day a friend kindly called to invite us to accompany his 
 family to the Armenian Church in the afternoon, as it was Maundy- 
 Thursday, on which day, at vespers, the Patriarch washes the feet 
 of twelve Bishops, to commemorate our Lord’s act at the Last Supper. 
 The church is spacious and lofty, half Italian, half Saracenic, built 
 partly out of the ruins of ancient churches, and having itself twice 
 fallen down, each time immediately after its completion, to the great 
 delight of the enemies of the Armenians. It has no architectural 
 beauty in the interior, but it is pretty and gay, like the temples on the 
 top of a confectioner’s cake, all pink and white paint and gold, with 
 numbers of pretty silver lamps hung from every arch. The 
 galleries were filled with women in bonnets and hats instead of the 
 old-fashioned and more graceful black silk scarf ; the floor of the 
 church was closely covered with tarbooshed Armenians squatting, — 
 
90 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and as a great favour a bench was brought in, and placed for us 
 near the altar. The service commenced with half an hour’s singing, 
 performed by twenty or thirty little boys and lads, dressed in flowered 
 white muslin tied with riband, and each holding a lighted candle as 
 tall as himself ; such singing ! — screamed at the top of their lungs 
 with so much exertion that they all got red in the face in five 
 minutes: each one on a different note and in a different key, 
 following his own fashion and fancy as to tune, only getting in the 
 words to something of the same time and swing, and keeping the 
 nose steadily shut. Then came in the Archbishop, clothed in black* 
 with a great black hood (which, however, he soon threw off, and 
 then appeared in splendid robes of green and gold brocade), accom- 
 panied by twelve Priests or Bishops, each dressed in a different- 
 coloured velvet robe embroidered with gold, and a large circular 
 crown of the same colour as his dress, hooped with gold and 
 surmounted with gold crosses. 
 
 After some more singing the Patriarch changed his robes before 
 the altar to still finer ones of white satin covered with heavy gold 
 embroidery; he put on a fine gold mitre, and advanced towards 
 the people, holding a beautiful jewelled crosier in one hand and a 
 gold cross in the other ; he then preached a short but seemingly 
 very earnest sermon in the harsh, nasal Armenian language. After 
 this a huge silver basin was brought, which the Archbishop blessed 
 separately with the soap and towels ; he then seated himself in a 
 squatting fashion on the floor beside it, while one by one the twelve 
 Bishops sat for a few moments in a chair opposite to him, and 
 placed one foot in the basin, over which the Archbishop poured 
 some drops of water from a silver flagon; they then bowed and 
 retired, kissing the Gospels and the Cross in his hand as they went. 
 The service was then concluded. We had been involuntary 
 witnesses of the preparatory process to the ceremony ; for, while 
 standing about, before it was time to enter the Church, we had seen 
 the twelve Bishops previously washing the twelve legs, which were 
 to be afterwards exhibited, in a very ordinary wooden pail in a 
 small back room ! They had incautiously left the door open, and 
 we had reason to think the preparatory and more thorough ablution 
 not at all unnecessary, and that it was a pity it had not extended 
 to the other twelve. 
 
 On good Friday afternoon there was a grand procession from the 
 Patriarch’s Palace to the same church, the Bishops, dressed as on 
 the day before, bearing pictures to excite the adoration of the people. 
 We also went to several Greek churches, where crowds of people 
 were streaming in and out to kiss some favourite picture in each; 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 91 
 
 in the Church of San Giorgio the popular favourite was St. George, 
 but as no one could reach the saint comfortably, they kissed the 
 dragon with as much complacency and doubtless with as much 
 benefit. There was a very good performance of Eossini’s ‘ Stabat 
 Mater ’ at the French Church, but the crowd was so great that we 
 could not even get inside the door. The prettiest and most inter- 
 esting sight to me of all the gorgeous ceremonies was the Greek 
 “ Announcing the Eesurrection ” on Easter-morning ; places were 
 kindly obtained for us at the windows of the Greek Patriarch’s 
 palace, to which we went at a little after midnight. The crowd 
 was then assembling in the court between the palace, the church, 
 and the belfry (which was separated from the church, — a tall 
 dazzling white building, like a tower of filagree sugar), and service 
 was going on in the church. The crowd at last was packed as 
 densely as it possibly could be, every individual bearing a long 
 lighted candle, and nearly every one a pistol of some kind or other. 
 Expectation and impatience got higher and higher, and the noise 
 louder and louder, until about 2 a.m. the Patriarch and clergy came 
 from the church in procession, carrying a huge silver cross wreathed 
 in artificial flowers, and mounted a low platform ; after some singing 
 there was a pause, and then, in distinct, solemn tones he announced 
 “ Christ is risen ! ” In an instant all the bells burst out in loud 
 peals, the people shouted like mad things, and every one waved his 
 candle and fired off his pistol again and again : the waving candles 
 had a beautiful and quite indescribable effect — it seemed like the 
 wind passing over a field of fiery ears of corn, burning the brighter 
 as they bowed their heads to the breeze. Then the people separated, 
 and the strange sight was over, and the acacia-trees were left in 
 silence and darkness : they had lent their own fantastic, fairy kind 
 of beauty to the ceremony, for their white blossoms, illuminated by 
 the thousands of candles underneath them, against the dark sky of 
 night above their heads, looked like a white cloud bending down 
 gently in fragrant blessing over the people. Despite our fatigue we 
 had little sleep that night ; for the whole population was in the 
 streets, firing pistols, squibs, and crackers, without one moment’s 
 cessation, throughout that night and the next day. 
 
 Another but a sadder sight passed our windows on Easter Sunday- 
 morning — the funeral of a young girl, the only child of a widowed 
 Greek doctor, who is rich and much respected in the city ; the 
 funeral was therefore conducted in the grandest style. The pro- 
 cession commenced with a score of little boys, dressed in scarlet, 
 carrying crosses and candles ; then thirty priests, all robed in the 
 richest brocades and the peculiar black cap of the Greek Church, 
 
92 
 
 E G YETI A N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 one of them singing a sweet and solemn chant ; then came the Arch- 
 bishop, robed in brocade and mitred, carrying a gold crosier, a boy 
 bearing his train; and after him the coffin — uncovered — painted 
 white and supported by bands of white satin riband ; within it lay 
 the young girl, — embalmed, they said, and the face painted just 
 enough to conceal the terrible colour of Death, — the body dressed in 
 white satin, with a wreath of orange-blossoms on her head, and 
 strewn over with white roses, buds and leaves. About a hundred 
 gentlemen followed, wearing white hat-bands, foremost among them 
 the poor father, bowed down with grief. The girl was very lovely, 
 and she seemed sleeping to the measured sounds of the sweet chant 
 sung by the boys who preceded her, and by the rich- voiced priest. 
 
 The whole scene was touching ; but there is a horrible ending to it : 
 at the grave the corpse is taken out of the coffin and stripped of all 
 its fine clothes and ornaments, for which a regular scuffle then 
 ensues among the gentlemen, and happy is he who can secure the 
 white shoes, or the wreath, or any other morsel of the finery ! The 
 corpse remains in the grave for one year, when it is taken up, and 
 the bones are put into a small bag, which is buried inside the 
 church, the tombstone remaining as before. 
 
 All the shops in Smyrna were shut for the next few days, the 
 people making holiday with every imaginable noise, and eating 
 quantities of little pastry baskets filled with gay-coloured eggs; 
 while at every door a lamb was tethered, all through Easter 
 Sunday, decked out with flowers or ribands, as on this day every- 
 body gives everybody a lamb, and as few can afford one for each 
 family of his acquaintance, the lambs just accepted are passed on 
 in fresh presentation until they have changed owners through a 
 score of hands ; even so the custom is a great tax upon the purses 
 of the inhabitants. 
 
 As we found that there was no steamer going to the coast of 
 Syria for another ten days, we determined to pay a flying visit to 
 the Island of Mitylene, where the English Consul had offered us the 
 use of his vacant house for the summer months. We started at 
 midday in a dirty French steamerj bound for Constantinople, 
 enjoying the lovely views of the gulf ending with the dark bold 
 promontory of Kara Bouroun, which contrasted well with the 
 yellow and red cliffs on the mainland. The wind freshened enough 
 to make the passage very unpleasant, but we reached the island in 
 less than eight hours. The day, however, had ended in rain, and the 
 night was as dark as pitch. The steamer stops outside the harbour, 
 nearly two miles from the shore : if a boat has been pre-engaged to 
 come out for you, well and good ; if plot the chances are that you 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 93 
 
 must go on to Constantinople, as, after dark, a Mitylene boatman 
 would never tbink of an excursion on speculation. We had, how- 
 ever, fortunately an introduction to one of the few Mitylene gen- 
 tlemen, M. Pinto, a fellow-passenger on the voyage, and he kindly 
 landed us in his boat. The air on the island felt warm and balmy, 
 perfumed with the fresh spring flowers, and we almost enjoyed 
 groping our way up to the English Consulate, where we were 
 received by the French Consul, who had kindly prepared supper 
 for us. The house is spacious and comfortable ; we found a good 
 library, and all we could desire : our only perplexity being, that as 
 neither of us knew a syllable of Greek, we had to send the servants 
 to the French Consulate to get our common domestic wants 
 interpreted. 
 
 The English Consulate commands a good view of this lovely 
 island. The bright-coloured town curves round the little bay from 
 which the mountains slope upwards, clothed in the rich hues of 
 orange-groves, pomegranates, figs, and mulberries; grey rocks 
 cropping out sternly at the tops among the dark shades of purple 
 heather. An old castle on the left, and two quaint lighthouses on the 
 right, add something to the beauty of Nature, while the eye travels 
 on across the calm blue sea, caught here and there by a graceful 
 lateen sail, till it reaches the coast beyond. Truly there can 
 hardly be a more beautiful coast-view than that of these time- 
 honoured mountains of Mysia, blue and hazy with light wreaths of 
 white mist and snow. Kising straight up from the gulf of Adramy- 
 tium at her feet, stands the noble and graceful peak of Mount Ida, 
 clouds resting lightly on the summit, and shadowing the eternal 
 snow on her crest : a fit resting-place for Jupiter and his attendant- 
 gods, for the noble mountain — now de-poetised into the “ mountain 
 of goats ” — was once covered with pine forests, in a lovely glade of 
 which “ Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris” adjudged the apple to 
 Aphrodite, “ new-bathed in Paphian wells.” I never looked at the 
 grand old mountain without fancying I heard the sorrowful chant 
 of “ Mournful CEnone, beautiful-browed CEnone ” repeating — 
 
 “ 0 mother Ida, many-fountained Ida, 
 
 Dear mother Ida ! hearken ere I die ! ” — 
 
 while one had but to walk through the streets of Mitylene or the 
 villages near the town, to see girls beautiful enough for all the 
 heroines of ancient song — even " the Greek woman ” herself — with 
 figures like statues of Phidias, and draperies that a sculptor would go 
 wild to reproduce. Broken fragments of fine marble figures are fre- 
 quently found beneath the soil on this classic ground : we saw two 
 
94 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 fine heads which had just been dng up, in one of which the gems 
 placed in the eye-sockets to represent the dark iris of the eyes 
 had fallen out, leaving round empty holes, shadowing the eye with 
 a softer expression than the original gems could have done. 
 A little patience and money would probably be well expended in 
 collecting some of these remains. The natural marbles of various 
 colours found in the island are also said to be valuable. 
 
 We saw a new hospital being built with the stones taken from the 
 ruins of the Temple of Apollo, which was discovered in digging the 
 foundations: it is a pity that some of the friezes could not have 
 been secured for the Mitylene Museum — a praiseworthy institution, 
 which ought to be supported by strangers, the native community 
 being far too small to accomplish much. They have, however, 
 acquired a wonderfully fine collection of scientific instruments 
 for their college, into the uses of which the Lesbian youth of the 
 present day, we were told, enter most heartily and readily. The 
 institution appeared to us, in our hasty glance, to be unusually good. 
 
 Many excellent things are produced in the island, beginning with 
 the delicious little beccafigues, of which a hundred may be shot in 
 one tree in a few minutes of the first hour of a spring morning ; 
 then the figs, which are small but luscious, though not as far-famed 
 as their Smyrniote neighbours; abundance of olives, the chief 
 commerce of the island, and some tolerable wine; besides the in- 
 numerable confitures , on the manufacture of which the Mitylene 
 matron prides herself, and of which every visitor invariably partakes, 
 the mother or daughter of the house bringing various kinds on a 
 silver tray before the inevitable coffee. An amusing story is told 
 of the consequences of the rhapsodies written by Lamartine on the 
 confitures he tasted on visiting the hospitable house of M. and 
 Mdme. Pinto. A few weeks after the publication of the f Voyage en 
 Orient’ letter after letter arrived by each succeeding mail, con- 
 taining “ orders ” from Parisian confectioners for “Pinto’s confiture,” 
 with special directions for its being exactly the same as that M. 
 Lamartine had described ; and for some months these letters con- 
 tinued angrily reproaching the astonished and indignant M. Pinto 
 for not attending to their “ commissions ! ” There are also abundant 
 truffles in the island, and, it is said, “ unequalled oysters.” 
 
 Another product of Mitylene is the needlework of the women, 
 which is really ancient, and very beautiful. It is rarely to be met 
 with now, all the best in the island having been bought up ; so that 
 we thought ourselves fortunate in obtaining a few specimens of 
 the pretty manufacture, which no modern Lesbian can imitate. 
 At present the islanders do “ broderie Anglaise,” and despise the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 95 
 
 tasteful colours and elaborate patterns of their ancestors. If poor 
 Sappho — “ violet-crowned, pure, sweetly-smiling Sappho” — had 
 only stuck to her needle instead of meddling with the Muses and 
 Aphrodite, “ the fatal fire ” in her heart might have remained for 
 ever unkindled by the rejuvenated old Phaon, and the rocks of 
 Leucadia would not have been immortalised by a myth which I 
 insist on believing, despite a whole library of commentators. By- 
 the-by her marble coffin, which it is said she had prepared for 
 herself before the fatal leap was determined on, is shown in one 
 of the mosques here. 
 
 As we wanted to see something of the far-famed beauty of the 
 Mitylene women, we gladly accepted an invitation to a Greek fete, 
 given in honour of St. George, at a small village on the other side of 
 the harbour. It did not seem to our ideas a very lively fete; the 
 large gardens were filled with groups of men, women, and children 
 sitting in family parties, eating dinners which they had carried 
 with them, and listening to very barbarous music: there was no 
 dancing or games, and we were disappointed at seeing no costumes 
 except among the men, who still look picturesque. The women 
 were altogether dressed in gowns a la Europeenne , of the brightest 
 possible colours, in thin sarsenets and muslins, and their pretty heads 
 adorned with natural flowers. It is said that within a hundred years 
 ago the women wore only a very short petticoat and an embroidered 
 handkerchief over the bosom — the smallest modicum of a costume 
 possible ! They wear a great many jewels — strings upon strings of 
 pearls most commonly, very often with diamond-clasps and earrings 
 — and are certainly beautiful women, with very fine, lustrous dark 
 eyes, and graceful movements ; but their sweet mouths are sadly 
 spoiled by the effects of the rouge which they all wear from their 
 earliest childhood, the mercury in which so affects the health that 
 there is scarcely a girl in the island above the age of sixteen with 
 any teeth left in her head. 
 
 We took a very pleasant ride one day to the Porto d’Olivieri, the 
 second large harbour in the island, in itself large enough to contain 
 the whole English navy, even if half our ships were Great Easterns 
 — Port Callone is still larger. We ascended the mountain behind 
 the town on our good mules, enjoying as we went the most lovely 
 and ever-changing views of the island itself, the sea, and the opposite 
 coast ; the road is a good one, well paved, and not broken into holes, 
 sometimes steep enough for broad shallow steps. The whole way 
 over mountain and dell offered a continual variety of rich colours, 
 forests of pine and white cypress, olive-groves alternating with the 
 fresh green of the newly-leaved fig-tree, in pretty contrast with 
 
96 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 crowds of luxuriant juniper, dwarf-oak, hollies, oleanders, myrtle, 
 and many shrubs we did not know; while our mules stepped 
 through the thickets of gum-cistus, both white and pink, growing 
 in huge tufts everywhere; and every morsel of flat ground, or 
 “ smooth-swarded bower ” was carpeted with the most brilliant beds 
 of flowers, — “ the crocus-brake like fire,” and all the mountain slopes 
 seemed striped like gay-coloured silks, with ribands of the brightest 
 yellow, lilac, pink, and blue. Sometimes the rocks overhung the 
 path in perpendicular bluffs, but in general the character of the 
 island scenery is rather lovely than stern or grand. 
 
 We descended in about two hours into the olive-groves on the 
 sea-shore, and alighted at some ancient baths, now used for a cafe. 
 The shore, perfumed with flowering shrubs, is interesting from the 
 multitudes of shells, sponges, and beautiful Medusae of all colours 
 and sizes ; and the view of the tranquil water of the harbour — like a 
 lake from which there is apparently no outlet, surrounded by the 
 beautiful mountains — is very lovely indeed. The ancient towns of 
 Hiera and Pyrrha stood at the lower end of the harbour. Passing 
 thunder showers threw a thousand colours and changing lights over 
 the scene, so that we forgave the wetting we got in riding back for 
 the sake of seeing the beautiful mist-wreaths carried in haste over 
 the opposite shore, — and the sun soon dried our garments. A short 
 detour in returning brought us by the leper colony, encamped 
 among the caves of a wilder and less cultivated valley : there are a 
 great many of these poor creatures in Mitylene ; they marry among 
 themselves, and we saw two or three very pretty young girls in the 
 group who begged from us ; sooner or later, however, it is said that 
 the taint invariably shows itself, and the inevitable disease slowly 
 but surely eats into the whole body, till limb after limb drops off. 
 It is not thought to be so very painful a complaint as its horrible 
 appearance would seem to indicate. 
 
 We returned into the town by the’ sheds where the slave-market 
 used to be held, and made our way into a small church filled with 
 some splendid wood-carving ; it is of a different style to the Venetian 
 chef s-d’ oeuvres of Brustolon, but quite equal to them in execution. 
 A transparent screen stretched across the church, composed of 
 arabesques and wreaths of natural flowers ; pulpit-stalls and read- 
 ing-desks were all alike of the same exquisite workmanship. 
 We heard there was a great deal more in two or three other churches, 
 and that it was all the work of native artists of the olden days ; it 
 would be priceless to many a collector in England of such antique 
 beauties, and I hope the pretty island may some day be robbed of it. 
 Wood-carving is still a favourite employment here by the peasantry 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 97 
 
 during the winter months : the peasants in the Island of Scarpanto 
 also excel in this work. We may hope that Mitylene will yet 
 regain her place in the commercial world : an island so easy of 
 access, and possessing such harbours and so fruitful a soil, with an 
 active, intelligent, and industrious population such as they are, 
 ought indeed to be prosperous and important ; but her vicissitudes 
 have been many, though her name has been great, and at present 
 she is under a thick cloud, called Turkish dominion. The birth- 
 place of poets, musicians, philosophers, and historians — a stout 
 member of the Grecian confederacy — she passed under the Eomans, 
 and long afterwards to the Venetians, under whose sway, probably, 
 her fine castle was built ; in 1465 she gallantly resisted the siege of 
 the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II., aided by a band of the Knights 
 of St. John, until the city was betrayed to the Turks by the treachery 
 of the Governor, who paid for his baseness by immediate execu- 
 tion : not a Knight remained alive after its capture. A good half 
 of her inhabitants were destroyed in the Greek War of Independence, 
 and in the horrible massacres of that period, which were nowhere 
 characterised by greater brutality ; but now, after a long interval of 
 peace, one hopes to see the beautiful island repopulated and pro- 
 sperous, as some day — Inshallah — she will be. 
 
 The Enphrate steamer, in which we took our passage from 1 
 Smyrna to Beyrout, is one of the finest and most comfortable of all 
 the Mediterranean steamers, not excepting even those belonging to 
 the P. and 0. Company. We had the ship nearly to ourselves, 
 except for the addition of the Hajji to Jerusalem — the inevitable 
 nuisance in every Levantine voyage during the spring and summer. 
 The pilgrims, who are continually going to or returning from every 
 port in the Levant, live upon the deck, which is generally divided 
 like a sheep-pen down the middle ; they are expected to keep to 
 their own side and within the railing, but, even if they do so, the 
 sights, sounds, and odours proceeding from their locality are un- 
 pleasant to the last degree. They lie all day huddled up on their 
 mattresses, presenting every variety of Eastern costume and lan- 
 guage, — grandfathers, parents, and children all pell-mell together. 
 They bring their own provisions, and also plenty of small com- 
 panions, on whose unfailing activity neither open railings nor ship- 
 regulations have the slightest effect. 
 
 The day after leaving pretty Smyrna found us threading the 
 islands we had passed by before — this time, however, going closer in 
 shore, so as to catch a glimpse of Boudroum and Cnidus, and the 
 glorious Cape Krio, which rose majestically, snow-covered, from the 
 blue waters that foamed over its rugged feet. The evening brought 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 E G YETI A N SEPUL CURES 
 
 us to Rhodes, whose busy little harbour looked very pretty, with its 
 minarets and ships lighted up with lines of coloured lamps to cele- 
 brate the last night of Ramazan. We were rowed on the following 
 morning in the gig of H. M. S. Tartarus, to the inner quay, where we 
 landed and found ourselves amongst crowds of gaily-dressed Turks 
 hurrying in great state to pay each other visits on the close of 
 Ramazan ; from the beys, on richly-caparisoned horses, down to the 
 smallest child, all were in bright clean clothes, with natural flowers 
 in bouquets stuck into nearly every one’s turban or fez. It was 
 really gay and pretty ; but nothing can save the streets of poor old 
 Rhodes from looking desolate and deserted when one compares it in 
 one’s mind with its days of chivalry and splendour, the like of which 
 has passed away for ever from the world. Passing by the barracks 
 of the Turkish soldiers, the ancient doors of which have been re- 
 moved to Versailles, we found ourselves in the “ Knights’ Street,” — 
 once so grand, now so silent and sad. There are but few remains 
 of the fine “ Auberges,” which belonged to The eight Languages of 
 the Order : only some richly-ornamented doorways and finely-carved 
 marble scutcheons in the walls, the armorial bearings on which 
 are still very perfect; but they are much hidden by miserable 
 balconies of old boards and broken lattices, which have accom- 
 plished the metamorphose of the palace of a monastic knight into 
 the hareem of a Turk. The once noble church is now a heap of 
 unintelligible ruin, to which state it was reduced by a singular 
 accident : some rock-hewn caves had been used by the knights as a 
 storehouse of gunpowder in* the days of Rhodian glory, but they 
 had long been forgotten, when, in November 1856, a flash of light- 
 ning during a severe thunderstorm ignited the gunpowder and blew 
 the church, the palace of the Grand-Master, and a hundred other 
 interesting remains, into utter ruin. We were told by an English 
 officer who witnessed the catastrophe that he saw the church lifted 
 bodily into the air, from whence it fell with a shock that was felt 
 for many miles round ; every glass window in the town was broken, 
 and large stones wrenched from the walls beyond the outskirts of 
 the city. One might almost say that by this powder Rhodes was 
 twice lost: 330 years before, the fortress' was “ heroically lost,” and 
 obliged to capitulate to the Turks for want of the ammunition they 
 had buried and forgotten ; and now the last memorials, even the 
 skeletons mouldering in the tombs of the gallant heroes of her siege, 
 were utterly destroyed by the very means which would have saved 
 them in their day of need ! * 
 
 * The town of Rhodes was yet further destroyed by a severe earthquake 
 in 1865. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 99 
 
 The towers and minarets of the fortress-city mingle prettily in the 
 views round the harbours of Rhodes, backed by the green hills and 
 gardens which surround the town. People still amuse themselves 
 disputing over which harbour the famous Colossus stretched his 
 brazen legs, but the fact is that he was placed on the point of the 
 rocky promontory between the two, called now the “ Arab’s Tower,” 
 but, in the time of the Knights, St. Michael’s. It is still a massive 
 square tower, and was topped by the bust and head of a man, 
 covered with brazen plates, with an arm stretched out towards each 
 of the harbours, and holding a lamp in either hand. He must have 
 been a monster of ugliness, but he figures nowhere so amusingly as 
 in the chronicle of the old British pilgrim Ssewulf, in 1182, who re- 
 counts how St. Paul addressed his ‘ Epistle to the Colossians ’ to 
 the men of Rhodes, because they dwelt beneath the legs of the 
 famous Colossus ! 
 
 As the steamer allowed us but two hours of daylight, we could at 
 this time see but little of Rhodes ; but on returning in the following 
 year we had the benefit of receiving much information from M. 
 Salzmann — the best authority on the remains of the island ; and I 
 therefore defer my description of it till that time. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the beauty of the coast scenery of Asia Minor 
 from Cape Krio onwards : the mountains are rugged, stern, and 
 grand, the savage wildness at times changing into varieties of 
 luxuriant, many-shaded woodlands, and green meadow-nooks — the 
 snowy peaks in the spring and early summer rising behind the dark 
 purple and red-browns of the nearer cliffs ; and then the sapphire 
 water— it is said by experienced sailors that the water near this 
 coast is of a deeper and brighter blue than any other in the world, 
 and one can well believe it. The beauty which extends along the 
 whole coast attains its highest loveliness in the Gulf of Makri and 
 the famous Seven Capes : the outlines of the cliffs and mountains 
 are here both grand and graceful, and the blue distances on the 
 other side of the Gulf lend much to the scene. Kastelorizo, Kheli- 
 donia, and Anamour are each very fine, and all abound in historical 
 interest to the scholar. This little nine days’ voyage in a fine 
 steamer, coasting closely along under such beautiful scenery, is 
 more than pleasant : we had lovely, clear weather, and fortunately 
 always a calm sea. The fifth day was spent at Mersina, where, how- 
 ever, we did not land ; and the sixth in the beautiful bay of Isken- 
 deroon, where the Amanus mountains come down into the water, 
 clothed in rich woods, and the beach is fringed with thickets of 
 oleanders. The bay is enclosed by lofty* mountains, the Taurus 
 range, to the north, rising in the pale blue distance, covered with 
 
 h 2 
 
100 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 snow, which seldom melts, even at the end of the summer. All these 
 mountains are full of souvenirs of the misled but gallant Crusaders. 
 Among their precipitous ravines, and in the hot valleys and plains 
 between their heights, not hundreds, but thousands, lay down to die 
 ere ever they saw the Promised Land of their enthusiasm ; * and of 
 those who survived many more passed along this great mountain- 
 road, called the “ Iron Gates of Syria,” only to be slain before 
 Antioch, Damascus, &c. Excessively hot is the Bay of Iskenderoon, 
 and deadly the fever of the malarious plain on which the little town 
 stands , but our walk on the sandy shore among the oleanders was 
 delightfully pleasant. 
 
 Sunday we spent at Latakia, landing early in the tiny harbour 
 behind a fine old tower, built on the rocks which, rise insulated in 
 the water ; the shore was covered with something white, which I 
 took for tombs, — when, as we came nearer, I saw them move, and 
 discovered that they were living women, wrapped in the white 
 eezar , or sheet, with which we were afterwards to become so familiar 
 throughout Syria. Their faces were covered entirely with the 
 mandeel, a dark-coloured cotton handkerchief of gaudy pattern, 
 which is made at Manchester, and which we also now saw for the 
 first time. The pretty town is surrounded with fine gardens, where 
 we soon got quantities of roses and carnations. The streets are 
 so frequently covered in with stone arches, even where there is no 
 bazaar, that they are very shady and pleasant, and give a hand- 
 somer appearance to the small town than a fuller acquaintance 
 warrants : the long vistas of arches are most picturesque, and great 
 numbers of broken granite columns are still standing at the sides 
 of the streets. 
 
 There are also some ruins worth seeing: one is a row of four 
 columns with fine Corinthian capitals, still supporting a richly- 
 carved architrave and frieze ; another is a Triumphal Arch, or 
 square of four arches, with fine friezes and capitals. Their beauty 
 was much enhanced in our eyes from their being covered with 
 luxuriant trailing weeds, springing from between the old stones, 
 instead of the severe aridness of the unstained Egyptian ruins, to 
 which we had been so long accustomed. The capitals and friezes 
 are of very rich Corinthian, and well cut ; and the stone, which 
 appears to be a soft one, is of a fine golden-brown colour now. 
 
 It is difficult among the narrow winding lanes of modern Latakia 
 to carry its topography well in one’s head, at least in the visit of a 
 day ; but it would be interesting to map down the various remains 
 
 * The Crusaders frequently called even Northern Syria “ the holy land of 
 Jerusalem.” 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 101 
 
 still in situ of ancient Lat akia, or rather of Laodicea-ad-Mare ; there 
 is still enough to show that a double row of granite columns once 
 made an approach the whole way from the quay on the harbour up 
 to the Corinthian Temple, whose remains are now quite at the back 
 of the town, and at the distance of 1500 yards from the harbour. 
 Numbers of these columns still remain, but the greater part have 
 been broken off and rolled down to the sea, to be built into the 
 foundations and walls of the castle in the harbour — the memorial 
 left there by the Venetians, and where many of them, with their 
 rough broken-off ends, are still to be seen. 
 
 From a large mosque on the hill behind the town a very pretty 
 view is obtained : Mount Casius on the right, and the Lebanon on 
 the left, — the graceful bays, where sponges luxuriate, sweeping into 
 every imaginable curve on either side. From the gardens, on 
 the south of the little harbour, the view is also very pretty. In 
 short this Latakia is a gay little town, subsisting upon its mer- 
 chandise of tobacco and sponges, and remarkably delicate silver- 
 work ; the bazaars are uncommonly good for so small a place. 
 The famous tobacco is brought in from all the north of Syria to be 
 shipped from the port, and is, when the duty on reaching home is 
 added, very nearly as dear as in London. The sponges are gathered 
 off the coast, chiefly from the rocks near a little bay to the north, 
 which is occupied exclusively by the divers and seamen. The cliffs 
 above are filled with the rock-hewn tombs of the ancient Laodicea- 
 maritima ; they are very simple, and, of course, all of them quite 
 empty. 
 
 Tripoli, where we spent the next day, is a handsome town, and 
 beautifully situated on a narrow strip of plain, at the foot of the 
 Lebanon-range, which rises with abrupt loftiness directly behind 
 the town — its strata most strangely and grotesquely marked, as if 
 a boiling 'mass had been thrown out and suddenly cooled in its 
 still seething commotion. Between the beach and the mountains are 
 miles and miles of delicious fruit-gardens — oranges, apricots, and figs, 
 hedged with pomegranates, tangled over with clematis, and watered 
 by thousands of tiny streamlets from the Kadisha river. Five old 
 castles remain; the largest of which, on the seaside, built by 
 Raymond de Toulouse, was still occupied and fitted with cannon in 
 1840, when the English knocked huge holes in its ancient walls ; the 
 Saracenic doorway and the interior vaultings are good, and worth 
 seeing. Another castle is situated in the pleasant valley of the 
 Kadisha, a picturesque ruin, and a third crowns the mountain spur 
 above the town, from whence there is a splendid view of the town 
 and gardens, and of the river foaming through the rocks and 
 
102 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 woods, with the mosque and convent of the Derweeshes in a fine 
 ravine. 
 
 We amused ourselves drinking coffee and eating ice in a cafe 
 beside the river, listening to Arab story-tellers declaiming romances 
 to large groups of well-dressed Tripolitans, seated in rows on stone 
 divans along the streets, smoking nargilehs, and eating the excellent 
 oranges, which are plentiful here. The little town is a flourishing 
 one, with good bazaars ; its best production is, however, but little 
 known ; these are carpets made by the peasant girls in some of the 
 neighbouring villages. The process is very slow, as for each 
 carpet the girls, or the family, gather, prepare, spin, and dye the 
 wool themselves, which is then woven in patterns of their own 
 design, and very tasteful they are, and the colours rich and brilliant. 
 They are very strong and thick, as well as pretty, especially the finer 
 sorts, and cost from 100 to 500 piastres,* according to their size. 
 
 The eighth morning found us outside Bey rout, where the swell — 
 which is ceaseless in that bay — made every one so sick that we 
 were thankful to get out of the ship, and to settle into the pleasant 
 hotel on the southern headland below the town, at Bas Beyrout. 
 This hotel is simply, almost scantily, furnished, — the open corridor 
 is the only general sitting-room, but the semi-naked simplicity suits 
 the climate, and we found it at all times a delightful residence, the 
 heat of Beyrout being here tempered by the sea-breezes which blow 
 all round it. Besides it was the cleanest hotel we had been in since 
 Paris ; and it is an unspeakable comfort occasionally to get into a 
 place where you can sleep in peace without battling with scores of 
 fleas, or worse, and where there are plentiful signs of brooms and 
 brushes. 
 
 * From about 1L to 4 1. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 103 
 
 CHAPTEE Yin. 
 
 THE “ BEAUTIFUL GATE ” OF SYRIA. 
 
 The world must be very rich in beauty if there exist half-a-dozen 
 places on its surface much more beautiful than Beyrout ; but I for 
 one cannot believe that there are : its loveliness is of many kinds, 
 and though different pictures may combine to represent its beauties, 
 no one will contain them all. Tripoli, Saida, Hhaiffa, Smyrna, 
 Mitylene rightly lay claim to many charms, but they do not 
 surpass Beyrout. The amphitheatre of mountains, clothed in every 
 hue, which change with every passing hour ; the snowy summits 
 towering up behind them; the rugged headlands of rocks, over 
 which the sea dashes in ceaseless wreaths of foam ; the city rising 
 from the water’s edge, and climbing up the slopes of hills, adorned 
 with gardens, minarets, domes, mosques, castles, and palaces ; the 
 scattered palm-trees, and the bright colours dotting every street 
 and quay, make a tout ensemble which fascinates the eye in the 
 first moment, grows upon you under every changing light and 
 sky, and rests in the mind an everlasting memory of loveliness. 
 
 To the north one blue headland stretches out beyond another, 
 till the Theoprosopon (which forms one side of the Bay of Tripoli) 
 arrests the view; from this the mountains reach back with majestic 
 beauty to the far east, the various heights covered with every 
 variety of green, from meadow grass to pine forest; tiny white 
 streams dash down the sides, while crags, grey, white, purple, and 
 yellow, break out from between them, and nearly every crag is 
 crowned with the towers or walls of a monastery. In magnificent 
 loveliness Sunnin rises up behind them, the saddle-shaped summit 
 covered with a thick mantle of snow, and the barren creamy-red 
 sides stratified into terraces ; then Kunisyeh, more peaked and but 
 little less lofty, snow-covered also ; and then the mountain ranges 
 gather round southward, still more richly clothed in wood, — and 
 
104 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 sloping down towards Saida and Sonr in bine distance, meet the 
 clear blue sea at their feet. Ras Beyrout, to the right, throws out 
 bold rocks to greet the waves, over which a coast road in front of 
 rich gardens speckled with houses leads into the town. Lifted 
 above all are the fine barracks, standing proudly on a hill in the 
 midst, while a hundred palaces of the European residents and 
 merchants of Beyrout attract the eye, each house surrounded with 
 verandah-terraces of fantastic Saracenic arches, in various coloured 
 marbles. In the foreground the once strong Castle of Beyrout is to 
 be seen among the houses, and, on rocks jutting out into the little 
 harbour, two other castles, now picturesque ruins, pretend to 
 protect the crowds of oddly-shaped feluccas, stout merchantmen, 
 and scores of little boats painted all manner of bright colours, that 
 are jammed together in struggling confusion at the custom-house 
 quays. Some way out of the town lies the white Lazaretto, among 
 mulberry and fruit-gardens ; while the golden-sanded shore curves 
 round from beneath the old seven-arched bridge over the river, 
 and sweeps away past myrtle- edged villages into the smiling little 
 Bay of Jouneh. 
 
 In the early morning sun how clear and bright and beautiful it 
 is ! Later on how busy the gay boats, and how graceful the white 
 sails flecking all the bay ! At midday how refreshing and delicious 
 the green woods and gardens! In the afternoon how tender and 
 indescribable become the tints, and how enchanting the perfumes 
 that spread through the air! And in the evening how unearthly 
 the hues that steal over mountain, sea, and sky, dyeing the sea into 
 a full larkspur blue, and the mountains into a soft grape-like 
 purple, which seems, although so dark, to be semi-transparent, with 
 deep crimson shining through the purple in some mysterious union ; 
 while the more distant summits become transfigured in a tender 
 rose-colour, pure and lovely as a real, living, fresh-blossomed rose, 
 and the white snow softens into a kind of pale glow, and seems 
 ready to float away and dissolve in the rose-coloured and golden 
 floods above. What scene on earth can be more exquisitely 
 lovely than this ? For many a month I watched all this day by 
 day, with a thousand other changes ; and, looking back through all 
 I have seen before and since, hothing surpasses it in loveliness but 
 the Great Desert and the Dead Sea (and they have much less 
 variety, though not less glory of colouring), and one view of Broussa. 
 Then at night, when the lights twinkled through the town, and the 
 moon came out and seemed to turn the marble arcades and the 
 minarets into molten silver, and illuminated the snow on the 
 mountain-tops, — when the stars swam in liquid light over all, and 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 105 
 
 the cool refreshing night-air came gliding by, laden with sweets — 
 silent messages of whispered fragrance — and faint music stole up 
 from the town, and the sea murmured below in soft plashings 
 on the rocks ; — then one sat and listened and looked, and longed to 
 have it always night, until the glory of the dawn made one feel that 
 joy is better than sadness, however sweet, and one’s heart sang, 
 “ The earth is the Lord’s, and the glory thereof ! ” 
 
 Behind all this, unseen from the sea or the town, is the delightful 
 pine-forest made famous by the rhapsodies of Lamartine ; it is a 
 charming place, for though the trees are nearly all quite young, 
 yet they throw a cool and refreshing shade upon the hot sand 
 beneath them, and nothing can be pleasanter than an early morning 
 or late evening gallop along the wide open glades, occasionally 
 stopping at one of the quaint cafes for a glass of snow-lemonade, or 
 pacing slowly under the sombre, fragrant trees on foot. The sand 
 from the beach had blown over this part of the plain, rendering it 
 quite a desert, until these trees were planted, to prevent its drifting ; 
 and it is to be hoped that the forest will be very much extended, to 
 form shelter for the town and gardens on the rest of the plain from 
 the south winds. 
 
 The hot season was now beginning, and it was time for us to 
 secure a summer residence. Beyrout, however enchanting, did not 
 suit us, as we did not choose to remain long either in a town or in 
 an hotel, and except in the charming palace-houses of the residents, 
 or in the Bas Beyrout Hotel, it is too hot a climate to be healthy 
 for European strangers in the summer; we were longing j too for 
 mountain air and a quiet home, so we lost no time in making in- 
 quiries and preparations for attaining both. First of all we engaged 
 a dragoman, Habeeb Soma, the best of those at Beyrout, and whom 
 we afterwards found, during the year he remained in our service, 
 more honest than most of his class, invariably obliging, and particu- 
 larly well-informed concerning the country ; he was a mountaineer 
 from near Bukfeyia, and used so guttural an Arabic that we found 
 our very limited Egyptian vocabulary of little or no use to us ; but 
 as he spoke excellent Italian and tolerable French, we had no need 
 of anything else, and he afterwards made great progress in English 
 under the tuition of our maid. Guided by him we mounted some 
 ugly but good Syrian nags, and proceeded to some of the neighbour- 
 ing mountain villages. 
 
 We were informed that the abode most likely to be convenient to 
 us would be apartments in one of the numerous convents which are 
 strewed over the Lebanon mountains ; we therefore first bent our 
 steps to the Convent of Mar Bonkas, where we knew a European 
 
106 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 family of ladies had spent the previous summer. At first we 
 followed a pleasant road among gardens and fields hedged with 
 prickly pears, and two large plantations of cactus (on which some 
 one was trying to cultivate cochineal), the scarlet blossoms of which 
 looked splendid. After fording the stream and pushing through 
 thickets of lovely oleanders, we began to ascend the mountain, and 
 The path became as bad as the scenery was beautiful ; the horses 
 scrambled over rocks like cats, with occasional bolts, jumps, and 
 struggles that really [astonished one ; for this was one of the very 
 vilest paths I ever saw, and we were quite new to such undertakings. 
 The beauty of the scenery happily consoled us, and we reached the 
 convent at last. It stands on a little horn of the mountain, very low 
 down, but high enough to overlook the rich and lovely plain. We 
 pushed the gate open and found ourselves in a little court-yard full 
 of fowls, from whence we made fruitless efforts for about half an 
 hour to waken any of the monks : they were taking their siesta. At 
 last one of them appeared, and learning our wishes, set off for the 
 superior, who soon came panting up the steep, with his black gown 
 turned up in front, and the under-skirt carefully folded out of harm’s 
 way during his digging and pruning. He made himself tidy and 
 then joined us, sitting in a pleasant window- seat while we sipped 
 lemonade, only one at a time, though, as they possessed but one 
 glass. The rooms he offered were tiny white washed cells, about 
 ten feet square each, with a hole for the window, and one little shelf, 
 and a saloon commanding but little view, and which was then filled 
 with silk- worms ; we did not fancy the gite, especially as we fore- 
 saw that the good monks would inspect us from morning till 
 night as if we were beasts in the Zoological Gardens, and that it 
 would be impossible to have the cloisters to ourselves. The monks 
 seemed good simple-hearted creatures, employed in cultivating their 
 silk- worms and little herb-garden, and in prayer; we heard they 
 were very kind to the few peasants who lived near them, helping 
 them in the mulberry grounds, &c. They were very anxious to 
 have us as their guests, but our bodies being already immensely 
 impressed with the astonishing concourse of fleas in their little court, 
 we departed, determined to look a little farther. 
 
 Another day, therefore, we climbed the mountain to the village 
 of Beit Miry, of whose charms we had heard even in Egypt ; the 
 road lay in the same direction, but instead of continuing to the left 
 to Mar Bonkas, we went straight up the mountain, through brush- 
 wood and thick beds of bright flowers and shady trees ; then came 
 a pine-wood and a long delicious hill covered all over with a low 
 forest of myrtle just bursting into blossom and perfuming the air, 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 107 
 
 as we trod through it, most enchantingly. Next we wound up 
 through mulberry-terraces to another pine-wood, from whence 
 paths branched off to the two horns of the mountain, one leading 
 to the fine convent of Deir-el-Kulah, the other to the village of Beit 
 Miry* ; here, under the pine-trees, is a spring trickling down the 
 rocks, and giving birth to lovely branches of maiden-hair, and 
 other ferns, sprouting from every little crack in the rock over which 
 the water passed. Not knowing the path, which, indeed, had little 
 to mark it, save all the biggest and roughest of stones turned out 
 of the terrace walls, we rode in a steeplechase fashion through the 
 mulberry gardens, till we arrived at the house of the Emir or Prince, 
 which had been twice occupied by English families. Four very 
 small rooms, built of unplastered stones, surrounded a little court, 
 with the village chapel and priest’s house ; they were little stone 
 huts and no more ; they asked a high price for the rooms, and we 
 felt exceedingly dismayed at the prospect of spending the summer in 
 those dirty little holes. The Emir was very civil, and his wife, the 
 Princess, came out to stare at us ; she had been lying in one of the 
 rooms on a couch covered with rich white silk, but was herself 
 dressed in common cotton ; she was old and very ugly, and wore the 
 disgusting open costume of the Maronite women. This Emir was 
 not one of the highest rank, but we were told by several people that 
 he was very much loved and respected, and very kind in sharing his 
 small wealth with his poorer neighbours. The meaning of the name 
 of the village is “ the house (Beit) of Emirs (Miry) or Princes.” 
 Seeing a better looking house in the middle of the village, we 
 rode on and asked if we could have it : it had a pleasant arcade- 
 terrace, but was too small for us, and was not to be let till later, as 
 it was then filled with silkworms, who would not cocoon for another 
 month. The owner, a Druze woman, came out and invited us in to 
 see the darkened rooms filled with the trays (made of mud mixed 
 with straw) in which the silkworms were feeding, placed on a light 
 wooden framework. The worms were still young, not being quite an 
 inch long, and they were awake and feeding ; we were requested 
 not to speak loud or to disturb them, and we beat a hasty retreat, 
 as the silkworm nurseries have a very disagreeable smell, and are 
 horribly lively with fleas. The mistress wore the black serge 
 veil, supported by the long silver horn* peculiar to the Druzes, 
 and her face was of course hidden. They draw the veil across 
 it so as to leave only one eye uncovered, and generally hold 
 it in their teeth, a style that is more convenient than pretty ; but 
 indeed nothing can be more ugly than the horn itself ; it might add 
 * Pronounced Bayt Meery. f Called the tantour. 
 
108 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL C HR ES 
 
 some dignity to the figure if it were worn standing upright, like a 
 steeple, from the head, but it is fixed on the top of the forehead at 
 an acute angle, looking like the sign-post pole over a barber’s shop- 
 door, and is worse than grotesque. Once put on, at marriage, it is 
 never removed from the head, even at night. 
 
 All this time we had seen at the opposite extremity of the village 
 a very large palatial-looking house, which we cod eluded belonged to 
 some sheikh or emir of high rank, but on inquiry we found it had 
 but just been completed, and was the property of three brothers, 
 native merchants. We thought we would at least try if we could see 
 it, and rode on to the door, where we found a large collection of 
 horses, while seven Russian officers, who had ridden up the moun- 
 tain, were smoking and chatting in one of the rooms. The house was 
 large and very handsomely built ; it contained six lofty rooms (one 
 of which was thirty-six feet long), and a delightful arcade in the 
 centre ; the front windows had double arches with stone mullions, 
 with deep recesses in the thick walls ; there was a second terrace at 
 one end, and a nice little garden attached to it. The view from the 
 house was superb, overlooking the road up which we had ridden, 
 with the whole of the exquisitely rich little plain of Beyrout spread 
 out at one’s feet, the river winding along in the midst like a silver 
 ribbon, the town glittering in the sunshine, the beautiful Baruk 
 mountains opposite, and a wide expanse of blue sea. Immediately 
 behind the house rose a nearly perpendicular grey crag, two minutes’ 
 scramble up which led to the brow of the mountain, and opened out 
 the magnificent wooded valley, or rather ravine, of El-Metn, on the 
 opposite side of which rose snowy Sunnin in all his majestic 
 grandeur. 
 
 We were not long in making up our minds about this delightful 
 spot, and the price, 21 1., was soon settled over lemonade and coffee; 
 another half hour was spent in paying compliments before we 
 descended the abominable path back to Beyrout : people said after- 
 wards that we had given too much, but we were afraid of losing the 
 house by hesitation. The canteen furniture belonging to the drago- 
 man, which we had engaged for our future tour to the south, was 
 sufficient to furnish the house enough for one’s simple wants in that 
 climate, with the addition of one table, some carpets, and the divans 
 which already occupied the sitting-room. We took it for three 
 months from the 23rd May. 
 
 Meantime we employed ourselves in exploring Beyrout and the 
 neighbourhood. There is little to see in the town. We visited 
 some Greek, Armenian, and Maronite churches, not particularly 
 worthy of notice, and entered one pretty mosque with delicately 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 109 
 
 painted’ arabesques covering the walls and roof of the interior : 
 service was going on, the congregation chanting and praying in 
 unison — the music of the chant was wild and harmonious. The 
 bazaars of Beyrout are not by any means handsome, but they 
 contain a very fair variety, and plenty of goods : one quadrangular 
 court surrounded 'with arches, where silk cord and tassels are 
 manufactured, is exceedingly picturesque, and parts of the cotton 
 and silk bazaar would supply endless subjects for sketches. Beyrout 
 is famous for its gold and silver-work, in which the jewellers display 
 a great deal of taste and tolerable execution ; but they do not pro- 
 duce the best things at the first asking. There are also some very 
 good German shops for housekeeping articles, situated near the 
 Marina, where it was always a pleasure to go on account of the 
 lovely view from the quay of the mountains and castles. 
 
 One day, in order to save a long ride by a short cut across the 
 bay, we hired a small boat, and taking advantage of a fair breeze, 
 set sail for the Nahr-el-Kelb — Dog Biver ; St. George’s Bay, however, 
 is not a pleasant one for boating, and the heavy swell had a very 
 unpleasant effect upon our party, though it broke up finely over the 
 rocks at the entrance of the river and over the foot of the fine pro- 
 montory ; the surf ran high, tossing up over the volume of fresh 
 water which poured down to meet it, and we sped gallantly in on 
 the crest of a wave, not however without getting a very sufficient 
 wetting. This embouchure is really very pretty; the convents 
 perched on the summits of the hills give much life to the scene, and 
 the indecipherable tablets carved on the cliff-face by ancient 
 Assyrian and Egyptian conquerors (supposed to be those of Sen- 
 nacherib and Bameses II.) add historical interest to it : the fine 
 bold rocks and the winding ravine, with the full, clear river, and the 
 little Khan with its group of bright-coloured figures, and probably 
 a mule, or a horse and rider fording the stream instead of going 
 round by the steep, single-arched bridge in the middle of the 
 picture, — unite into a very pretty scene. The glen increases in 
 sternness and grandeur as it winds back, a few olives and mulberries 
 finding scanty standing-room on the edge of the river, while just 
 beyond the bridge are the romantic-looking arches of an old aqueduct 
 now filled up with tangled masses of luxuriant ferns, sweet-haw- 
 thorns, the splendid leaves of the Arab sweet-potato, and trailing 
 creepers hardly distinguishable from some long pendant stalactites, 
 gemmed with bright drops from the water trickling through. The 
 stream was bordered with flowers, among which flourished a 
 numerous family of enormous green frogs, who were croakingly 
 admonishing each other that some one would soon come to catch 
 
110 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 them for his dinner. We declined making onr luncheon on them, 
 and preferred coffee and lemonade ; after which we returned to our 
 boat, and, tossing up on the top of a wave of river water, slid down 
 the sloping surf on to the sea, and went slowly back to lovely 
 Beyrout, which everybody should linger one whole evening in the 
 bay to see. 
 
 We would not put ourselves again at the mercy of the swell in 
 that bay, so we took horse the next day and proceeded to the same 
 place by land in the morning. The road passes by the fine old 
 bridge over the Nahr * Beyrout and the place where St. George of 
 Cappadocia killed the “ mighty worm” and rescued the Syrian 
 princess : an indubitable fact, since it is witnessed by the stain of 
 the blood which still remains on the spot where the holy warrior 
 washed his hands, after finishing the dragon with a knife. Then 
 we wound through some lanes, and came out on the sands, taking a 
 brisk canter along the edge of the waves till we reached the pro- 
 montory of the Nahr-el-Kelb : the pleasant sands were strewed with 
 the remains of vessels driven ashore during the past winter, two of 
 which were English. Several ships are lost every year in this bay. 
 After crossing the beautiful river we rode a good hour farther along 
 meadows and gardens to the village of Zouk Mehayl, where one of 
 the chief manufacturers of pretty silk and gold stuffs had been re- 
 quested to make us welcome. He took us to his house and spread 
 piles of mattresses for us in the guest-room, his mother and pretty 
 sister bringing snow-sherbet and coffee, and nargilehs for some of 
 our party. We reposed for some time, for it was very hot, before 
 we went up the village to see the fabriques : nearly every house, or 
 even hut, in the place has its loom, sometimes many were at work 
 together. The cloth is a woof of bright-coloured silks on a warp of 
 thick white cotton threads, gold or silver thread being laid in with 
 the colours of the pattern: it is shaped in pieces for cushions, 
 slippers, bags, and caps, which are very pretty and durable, but 
 somewhat costly, and they asked more for them here than in 
 Beyrout. Some were also weaving silk scarfs and shawls — a poor 
 imitation of the Damascus manufacture. Zouk is a thriving town, 
 and very prettily situated on the side of the mountain sloping down 
 into the lovely little Bay of Jouneh. We came home at a great pace 
 in the cool evening air, thinking how charming a winter residence 
 this bay would make for an invalid. It is a pity that this coast is 
 not more sought by those who are obliged to seek a warmer climate 
 than our own ; there are many places on the coast which combine 
 the advantages of the most delicious climate and magnificent scenery, 
 
 * River. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 Ill 
 
 under a clear sky, bright sunshine, and sweet, but not relaxing air. 
 Beyrout is said to be somewhat damp in the winter, but then the 
 winter seldom lasts six weeks, and is not severe enough to render a 
 fire necessary, though a brazier of hot coals in the evening may 
 sometimes, but not often, be agreeable ; and with a little notice and 
 some pre-arrangements, houses might be found at Latakia, Beyrout, 
 and its neighbourhood, Saida and Hhaiffa, all most charming places. 
 Living is certainly less, with a tolerably honest dragoman, than at 
 Naples, Nice, or Malta ; they are easy of access by frequent steamers, 
 and the necessary comforts required for invalids can be had at 
 Beyrout or from Alexandria, while, with a good dragoman, you have 
 as little trouble in housekeeping as in an hotel. Of course these 
 native-built country houses do not look very grand, but our ex- 
 perience can testify that a very little trouble taken, with the help of 
 a dozen nails and a few yards of coloured flannel or cotton, will 
 make the room not only comfortable but pretty also. The coast’ of 
 Syria is at least worth thinking of by invalids for whom the ascent 
 of the Nile is too expensive an affair : Cairo is very damp in the 
 early part of the winter, and feverish, and few people like Alex- 
 andria ; Corfu is said to be dull ; and many persons are tired of the 
 regular Italian watering-places, and are unwilling to encounter the 
 enormous expense of a winter there. Of course, with the exception 
 of one or two families at Beyrout, there could be no society, as the 
 consuls are the only European residents at each place ; but to some 
 persons this would be a minor objection. 
 
 There are innumerable charming expeditions to be made from 
 Beyrout ; and while waiting for our house to be ready, we deter- 
 mined to initiate ourselves into the mysteries of tent-life in an 
 excursion to Deir-el-Kamar,* the capital of the Druze country, which 
 generally takes two long days’ riding ; but as we were new at moun- 
 tain riding, we thought it better to devote four to it. The starting- 
 day of any excursion in Syria is one that calls for extraordinary 
 patience and good temper ; even with these it is immensely weary- 
 ing and provoking. We were ourselves dressed at 5 a.m., and our 
 mules arrived soon after, but they were not finally loaded and 
 despatched till near 11 a.m., and we followed at mid-day ; we had 
 eight mules, and a donkey to carry their master, and we took a cook, 
 canteen, and three tents. This was our kit throughout Syria : — a 
 large tent for ourselves, with double carpets, beds, dinner-table, and 
 two folding arm-chairs, with another tent for our maid, and the 
 kitchen tent ; our personal luggage, which was packed in two tin 
 
 * Alas ! thirteen months after, the scene of horrible and sanguinary- 
 atrocities. 
 
112 
 
 EGYPTIAN' SEPULCHRES 
 
 travelling-baths in stout wicker coverings (a luxury with which 
 I recommend every lady-traveller in this climate to provide herself), 
 and a couple of portmanteaus. This luggage was carried on two 
 mules, one of them surmounted by a little wooden cage, in which 
 the Maltese dog, our inseparable companion and faithful little night- 
 guard, was carried ; he used to distinguish us at an almost incredi- 
 ble distance, and his bark of recognition, his voice of welcome in 
 answer to our footsteps, was always the glad sound which announced 
 that the tents were nigh and the dinner ready, at the end of a long, 
 weary day’s ride. Every one, even Mooslims, petted the pretty 
 little thing wherever we went. His ancestors, of the noble Lion 
 family of Malta, had some time ago settled at Smyrna, where this 
 small scion of the house was given to me. He has long white hair, 
 large black eyes, and a knowing little black nose. 
 
 Our road lay through the pine-forest ; thence it turned off through 
 many winding lanes, hedged with prickly pear, pomegranates, and 
 hawthorn still in blossom, towards the mountains ; in the gardens a 
 few palm-trees are growing, but they look very stunted, sickly, and 
 small, after those of Egypt. Leaving the olive-groves about Hadith, 
 the road crosses a narrow sandy plain, and then begins to wind up 
 the mountain. The beauty of the scenery compensates for all the 
 desagremens of the path. But before we ascend farther let me try 
 and describe what is called a road in Syria, without understanding 
 which no one can by any means fancy what travelling there is really 
 like ; how much it adds to the fatigue ; how much it must neces- 
 sarily occupy the attention, and, still more, how much time is con- 
 sumed in its difficulties. The best of all the mountain-roads are 
 staircases of paved stones, made chiefly by the Emir Beshir : these 
 are all very well in going up, but in coming down most horses give 
 you a kind of jolting bang on each step, which makes one feel sea- 
 sick in a long descent. I had a dear old horse afterwards who used 
 to come down quite gently on the step, but it is at the best a dis- 
 agreeable jogging process. Very frequently these steps are broken 
 or missing, and then one gets down as one can. More usually the 
 path is the dry bed of a torrent, full of stones and big boulders, 
 brought down and left by the rushing stream, loose and awkward 
 to tread amongst ; worse than these are long places like an old stone 
 quarry, or as if the side wall, originally built of large blocks, had 
 fallen down. Over these sharp edges, deep holes, and uncertain 
 footing the horse feels his way as cautiously as if they were burning 
 hot, and in descending it is somewhat dangerous. Nothing, how- 
 ever, is so bad as the dreadful smooth rocks at an acute angle, with 
 perhaps a horrid cleft at the bottom, down which the unfortunate 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 113 
 
 animals slidder in a way that is apt to excite a very unpleasant 
 sensation in the region of the heart and throat — in excuse for which 
 it must be remembered that all these paths, except the staircases, 
 are made by Mother Nature : they are of any conceivable slope, and 
 of course the worst bits of path are always at the most perilous 
 spot, — a winding turn at the edge of a ravine, or overhanging a 
 yawning chasm. Then no one likes to feel the horse under him 
 gathering up his fore-feet for a jump or a drop, which, overdone by 
 an inch, will precipitate you, if not him also, to the bottom of the 
 mountain. True, the horses are extraordinarily sure-footed and 
 cautious, though they seldom seem to have a good point about them, 
 and they climb like cats ; but accidents do occur sometimes, and a 
 lady’s seat has a strong feeling of one-sidedness about it when both her 
 feet are hanging over a precipice, and only one shoulder seems really 
 over terra firma. The Arab saddles save some fatigue in this con- 
 tinual ascent and descent, and where it is very steep indeed, and 
 your horse feels as if he must topple back or fall on his nose, they 
 give better support and steadiness than the English saddle. Most 
 gentlemen bring their own saddles, but I believe those who do not 
 get on quite as well as those who do. We had English side-saddles 
 sent out to us, and our bridles were of anything— bits of rope or 
 leather, often adorned with fine tassels and amulets, fringe and 
 shells, &c., &c., over the head and neck of favourite animals, and 
 excessively pretty the harness often is when they are fresh and 
 good. Well, we have wandered far from our present road, but this 
 description is really necessary, and having been thus given once, it 
 applies to nearly all the paths throughout Syria. 
 
 The road to Deir-el-Kamar, however bad, is charmingly beautiful. 
 After resting a little at a fine fountain called ’Ain Bsaba, we wound 
 round a richly-wooded gorge on a path about two feet wide, and 
 through a pretty village called ’Ain Anoob, full of sweet geraniums, 
 where we looked up to the great English silk-reeling factory of 
 Shumlan, belonging to Mr. Scott, and down over all the road we had 
 come from Beyrout. Then turning up a breezy hillside, we found 
 our tents pitched in an olive grove outside the village of Anab, 
 commanding splendid views of the plain of Beyrout spread out like 
 a map, the miles of olive and pine-woods and gardens contrasting 
 with the white town and the red sands, the blue sea, and the ever- 
 beautiful mountains. All the valleys on this road are richly wooded 
 and luxuriant with flowers ; every stream teams with oleanders ; the 
 pines perfume the air; and every height, if not covered with a 
 village, is topped by a convent. 
 
 Our day had been a short one, but we were very tired, and went 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 to bed at once, after dining by lantern-light under an olive-tree. 
 The next morning, somewhat appalled by the difficulties, not to 
 say dangers of the road, I remarked to the dragoman that I hoped 
 to-day’s would be better : “ Mademoiselle,” he solemnly answered, 
 “ la route devient toujours pire f and with this consolation in my 
 mind we started. Our way led over a hill that was literally rose- 
 colour with wild flax; the old terrace walls were studded with 
 cyclamen, and every here and there the wild hollyhocks shot up in 
 spikes of fine lilac flowers, over a truly atrocious path. This soon 
 opened on the Wady-el-Kady (the Yalley of the Judge), a magnifi- 
 cent valley running N.E. and S.W., with a fine dashing river at the 
 bottom ; but before we had sufficiently enjoyed it we were descend- 
 ing the most fearful winding track through a pine-forest, throughout 
 which, much as I have climbed and descended since, it is still a 
 marvel to me how any one of us stuck on our horses*; however we 
 reached the bottom in safety, and crossed a picturesque old bridge 
 over the foaming river, and began to ascend the other side, amidst 
 ilex and thorn, juniper, myrtle, and cypress, tangled over with wild 
 vines; but we lost the track, and finally had to clamber up an 
 almost impassable place, where one of our horses fell and threw his 
 rider, but happily without hurting him. The summit gained at 
 last, we looked over the sea on the right, with the bright red-sided 
 mountain terraced with figs and olives, and noble cliffs of cold grey 
 limestone ; and on the left, down the fine valley of Deir-el-Kamar, 
 Druze villages on every hilltop, the town itself standing out white 
 and shining on a mountain spur, and at the head of the valley the 
 famous castle-palace of the Emir Beshir, Bteddeen. We were soon 
 in the town, which struck us as handsome and lively; the houses 
 built of smoothly-hewn stone, frequently with arched and mullioned 
 windows, each with its little balcony of flowers, among which we 
 noticed several white lilies ; we passed through some tolerable 
 bazaars and a fine convent, from whence the town takes its name, 
 there having been anciently a figure of the Virgin standing on the 
 moon, carved on a stone outside the convent wallf; it had a small 
 dome surmounted by a cross, and seemed well built. There were 
 also one or two minarets and a gaily-painted Serai, or Turkish 
 Governor’s house for business f ; but we did not stay to see much, 
 
 * The Times correspondent gave (September 21, 1860) a detailed account 
 of all this road, in which we were amused to recognise each particularly 
 “ bad step ” that had horrified us when, like him, we took this path on our 
 first Syrian excursion. f Deir , convent : kamar , moon. 
 
 X Afterwards the scene of the most atrocious part of the horrible massacres 
 here. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 115 
 
 as we wanted to reach Bteddeen early. The descent, however, from 
 the town was so terrific (we took the wrong road, where no horses 
 go, I believe), that we did not get to the bottom, and np the long, 
 steep, zig-zag staircase leading to the palace till 2 p.m. 
 
 Bteddeen has been often described, but yet another description 
 still may perhaps be pardoned : it is a pleasure to me to linger over 
 the memory of its many beauties, all the more as probably ours 
 were nearly the last European eyes that beheld them. We entered 
 by a gateway under a succession of dark arches leading into a 
 spacious square, the right-hand side of which was built on arches, 
 forming the stables of the Emir’s stud (usually of 500 horses it is 
 said), over which was a terrace looking out on the glorious valley ; 
 this square had been the tilting or parade-ground in the Emir’s 
 time. We crossed it into another square of the same size, in the 
 midst of which stood a fountain in a bower of acacias in blossom, 
 and at the opposite end the beautiful palace front itself, with an 
 arcade to which a wooden staircase, fantastically formed and gaily 
 painted and gilt, was attached. The walls were panelled entirely 
 over with medallions of various-coloured marbles, and the doorways 
 and windows adorned in the same way, the whole frontage being 
 thus, with the floorings and balustrade of the terrace, a mass of 
 marble mosaic in the most exquisite arabesques — in fact the 
 patterns and execution of the Bteddeen mosaic are superior to, and 
 more varied and delicate than, the best things of the kind in Venice, 
 not excepting even the flooring of St. Mark’s. In the centre of the 
 terrace, against the wall, a beautiful little fountain still played, but 
 some of the bits of mosaic had dropped out here and there, and 
 were replaced by delicate sprays of light and tender maidenhair 
 fern, bending down to the crystal stream, which seemed to brighten 
 up under the smiles of the green fronds — a mark of ruin, certainly, 
 but sacrilegious would have been the restorer’s hand that should 
 pluck out those graceful wreaths that hung there, hiding the decay 
 of past splendour in their own sweet freshness. Off this terrace 
 were several rooms, the ceilings, doors, and shutters of which were 
 most elaborately painted in bright patterns, the gilding sadly 
 dimmed, but enough remaining to show what charming little 
 bowers, fit for fairy princesses, they had once been. From this we 
 passed into the inner apartments, and went through the bath- 
 rooms: they were considerably finer than any other thing of the 
 kind we saw in the East, excepting one or two of the principal 
 houses in Damascus: they were entirely of mosaic in marble, 
 everywhere, except under each fountain, where porcelain tiles of a 
 very fine make were used. There were plants— oranges, lemons, 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 E G YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 roses, &c.— -growing in every room except the hottest, and fountains 
 trickling or playing everywhere; and the large siesta-hall was 
 divided down the middle by slender, clustered columns supporting 
 a hundred vaultings. Many of these rooms opened into gardens of 
 lemons and oranges that once were doubtless very charming, but 
 they showed the want of care and the rude hand of the Turkish 
 soldier more than the palace itself. 
 
 The commandant of the ugly soldiers quartered there had gone to 
 Damascus, but after we had reposed some time on the terrace a 
 lieutenant, dressed in a complete suit of primrose silk, brought us 
 a pressing invitation from his chiefs wife to enter the hareem, 
 sending her eldest son, a boy of about ten years old, and an 
 old black slave to conduct us there. We were shown first into 
 a hall, full of marble columns, with a square gallery at each end, 
 ornamented with marble and gilding, through which we entered the 
 hareem court, where a large fountain was playing in the hot sun. 
 In this court a number of immensely fat women and slaves, each 
 dressed in a single loose garment of coloured muslin, were romping 
 violently, throwing water at each other, and jumping in and out of 
 the fountain, upon seeing which the boy who had come with us 
 tore off all his clothes save a small pair of drawers, and jumped in 
 with them. Not any of the women were pretty ; they took very 
 little notice of us, and only left off their romps now and then to 
 come and stare at us for a minute. We were taken into a small richly 
 divaned room, where the favourite wife of the commandant was 
 nursing a fat baby, of which she was very proud, as it was a son. 
 She was young and pretty, but her features were more like those of 
 a boy than of a young woman, and her dress, of yellow Manchester 
 cotton, was very ugly ; her hair was cropped in a straight line on 
 the forehead, as Mooslims generally wear it, and hung down behind 
 in one long plait ; afterwards she put on a blue velvet jacket em- 
 broidered with gold, and a dirty tarboosh. Two Christian women 
 who were paying a visit like ourselves, and who were both very pretty, 
 looked beautifully neat and clean beside the Mooslims. The wife 
 asked innumerable questions, all of which we answered to the best 
 of our Arabic powers, when we understood them, and then she 
 showed us the other rooms, of which the ceilings were equally 
 well painted ; they all had plenty of mattresses spread on the 
 floor, but the wife’s room had an iron bedstead with mosquito 
 curtains round it. We saw little to admire ; they wore no jewels, 
 and the only pretty thing was a hand-mirror, in a finely-worked 
 filagree silver frame, which we wanted to buy, but she would not 
 fiart with it. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 117 
 
 We were glad to have been invited into the hareem, if only to see 
 the view from the windows, so romantically beantifnl in the long 
 narrow ravine np which the castle windows look, due west, with 
 the sea at the end ; hill after hill bordering the valley on each side, 
 the nearest one crowned with another small palace built for the 
 Emir’s mother, and the pretty white town farther on at the other 
 side ; both sides richly clothed with mnlberry terraces and fruit- 
 gardens, while from the stream at the bottom the steep zigzags up 
 to the palace are so well seen that a knight of yore might have 
 mounted the whole way without once losing sight of his ladye’s 
 eyes shining on him from her latticed bower, the rest of the fortress 
 proudly and sternly guarding the narrow pass below the lofty cliffs. 
 It is indeed a place for dreams of chivalry and fair ladies ; but from 
 such dreams nothing can awaken one more completely than the 
 sight of the rows of Turkish soldiers, round, fat, and short, in tight 
 blue trowsers, little close jackets, and small red fezs over their ugly 
 heads, — nor can anything be less romantic than the stout, coarse 
 females of the hareem. These soldiers blew a fine flourish of 
 trumpets, and stared at us immensely when we left the fortress : 
 they were probably the same garrison who butchered the unfortu- 
 nate Christians in the following summer (June 19, 1860), and were 
 ill-looking enough for anything ; too horrible it is to think of the 
 beautiful place, with the gnawed and mangled remains of human 
 bodies scattered through its courts, and the snowy marble of those 
 delicately-ornamented floors “ pallid with horror, while the red 
 darkened with blood.” * The Turkish soldiers had done much to 
 spoil its beauty, but the plundering Christian peasants are doing- 
 much more, and if we regretted then that we could not transport 
 the whole place bodily to England, one is more than ever sorry now 
 that ruin and desolation and a horrible memory has laid its heavy 
 hand upon the once lovely and smiling spot. 
 
 The children of the town regularly mobbed us after dinner, 
 bringing bouquets of flowers as we lay upon the sward outside our 
 tents enjoying the beautiful view, the twinkling light, the large 
 shining stars, and the multitudes of fire-flies that danced round us. 
 Now and then a faint sound of singing rose from the valley, or a 
 bird trilled a little evening strain ; but the boys would chatter, for 
 the American mission-schools have done much work here, and not 
 a few could speak both French and English, which they were too 
 glad to exercise upon the strangers. One of them had impudence 
 enough to beg we would lend him fifty piasters, which he assured 
 us he would certainly repay if ever we came back to Syria ! 
 
 * Kuskin. 
 
118 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Every house in the little town had its flower-garden of roses, 
 lilies, geraniums, &c. ; among them we noticed a splendid double 
 sweet-scented moss-rose of a fine deep lemon colour, which would 
 make glad the heart of an English gardener. The inhabitants w^ere 
 nearly all Christians — chiefly Maronites, with a few Greeks under 
 the Mutsellim ; but the valley is full of Druze villages, as it is close 
 to their chief stronghold Mukhtarah, and their Kulw T ehs are seen 
 everywhere, generally perched on some lofty or nearly inaccessible 
 crag. The Kulweh is their place of worship ; there they meet every 
 Thursday evening, and feast after service upon raisins, figs, &c. 
 The meetings are conducted with such entire secrecy that little is 
 known about them, and any one hardy enough to venture too near 
 has invariably been put to death; but from what is known they 
 seem to be more political than devotional assemblies ; only the Aklials 
 (or initiated) are admitted, and the affairs of the community dis- 
 cussed. A wonderful system of rapid and thorough communication 
 is kept up, and the most perfect organisation and discipline reigns 
 among them, — this is one of the things in which they are so far 
 superior to their Maronite neighbours. They buy and sell much in 
 the town, and are far neater and cleaner in appearance than the 
 Christians. The bazaars were lively, and the people crowded round 
 us with antiques, coins, &c., to sell, and sweet snow-water, which 
 they pressed upon us, and for which they seemed unwilling to be 
 paid. We got a fine antique bronze lamp, and a bronze ornament 
 of two rudely-sculptured but very lively bulls, for a few piasters; 
 they closely resemble some of the Phoenician bronzes in the fine 
 collection at Turin. 
 
 The sun was too hot for us to linger, so we started off at 9 a.m. 
 over the hill-top ; there the fresh sea-breeze met us, as we looked 
 down on the winding Da’mour, the ancient Tamyras, and retraced 
 our steps through the Wady-el-Kady, till we reached our tents 
 placed beside the fountain of ’Ain Bsaba among thickets of honey- 
 suckle and wild geraniums ; as the sun sank over the sea I went up 
 and bathed in the bright spring, which is shaded over by noble 
 trees. Late in the evening a terrible khamseen set in, and we had 
 a wild night, the tents every now and then coming down over our 
 heads as we lay panting and suffocating on our beds ; they had been 
 badly pitched on soft ground, where the pins would not hold, and 
 two of them had been unwittingly placed on an ant-march, so that 
 we, the unfortunate occupiers, were swarmed over, the whole night 
 through, by countless multitudes of the black beasties. The 
 khamseen brought up thousands of sand-flies, who operated vigor- 
 ously upon our faces, for we had no mosquito-curtains then, and we 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 119 
 
 became so ill with the unwholesome wind, that we got np at three 
 o’clock to dress in hopes of getting off by daylight; but, 'pour 
 comble de malkeur, I was incautiously washing upon the grass, when 
 a big black scorpion, astounded at the apparition, walked up to one 
 of my feet and stung me, and I fell into such pain for some hours 
 that dressing or moving was out of the question. We sent off to 
 Beyrout for ammonia, but by the time it came I was better. The 
 khamseen began to abate, and we reached the hotel at midday, 
 very ready for breakfast, and thankful it was no worse, for the black 
 scorpions are the least venomous of the race. The yellow ones sting 
 terribly, and cause fearful agony and swelling, but the wound is 
 seldom fatal. 
 
 We found a large party of our Nile companions arrived at the 
 hotel in readiness for the French home-steamer ; it was pleasant 
 to meet with even such slight acquaintances in this distant land ; 
 but the change effected in them all since we had met in Egypt 
 was more or less appalling. The nose of each one had been 
 skinned once or twice or thrice ; several were in the most 
 brilliant process of excoriation, and every face below the forehead 
 was painted in turkey-cockian hues ! It was perfectly awful to look 
 round the table at the indescribable varieties of bed that graced 
 the board. 
 
 Two days after this we rode up to Beit Miry and took possession 
 of our house, which we found indescribably charming and com- 
 fortable; the balconies were filled with carnations, and terraces 
 bordered with hollyhocks and belle- de-nuit, and everything looked 
 smiling; while just as we set foot on the threshold a volley of 
 cannon sounded from the town-barracks and from every ship in the 
 bay ; resounding back in peals of thunder from the mountains all 
 around us. We were a little astonished, and the villagers believed 
 it was to welcome the English ladies ; but in reality it was a royal 
 salute on the landing of the Grand Duke Constantine of Eussia. 
 
120 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OUR MOUNTAIN HOME. 
 
 The village of Beit Miry runs along the top of a mountain ridge, 
 something more than 2000 feet above the sea, which curves round 
 in the form of a semicircle ; the peasants’ houses slope down on 
 either side of the ridge, the Druzes mostly occupying the west, and 
 the Christians the east end. Our house was planted on the end of 
 the western horn, while the Christian Emir’s house and the Maronite 
 chapel faced us at the end of the eastern horn, just above a beautiful 
 little pine-forest ; the whole of the circle between being filled up 
 with curving mulberry terraces and a few of the best houses. 
 Beyrout is so charming till the end of June, that the season of Beit 
 Miry had not then commenced, but by July eight or nine European 
 families had taken refuge from the heat of the town and arranged 
 themselves somehow in three peasant houses — miserable lodgings 
 they were. There was only one other good house in the place, and 
 that was not half as pretty, but from standing at the western 
 extremity of the village it commanded the view in the northern 
 valley as well as the southern view of Beyrout, and in this respect was 
 certainly one of the finest spots in the whole of the Lebanon, indeed 
 indescribably beautiful. Beyond this another smaller semicircle 
 curved out from the ridge towards the south ; this was covered 
 with a forest of pines, planes, and some magnificent oaks, while, like 
 a fortress crowning the summit, the large Convent of Deir-el- 
 Khullah proudly surveyed the glorious country, itself a landmark 
 for many miles. 
 
 Immediately above our house, on the top of the crag, stood a 
 collection of Druze houses ; about half an hour’s steep descent below 
 us was the palace of the Maronite Bishop, called Madrass. When 
 the Europeans had come up we used to think what a curious variety 
 of creeds had met in that one small village — Druzes, Maronites, 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 121 
 
 Eoman Catholics “united'’ and ununited, Greeks, Lutherans, 
 English Protestants, and a few Mooslims. Perhaps the constant 
 communication of the villagers with Beyrout, and the annual stay 
 of so many Europeans among them, has done a good deal to improve 
 the inhabitants of Beit Miry, hut we certainly found them an honest 
 (honesty, bien entendu, a VArabe), simple-minded, and industrious 
 set. The Druzes are more industrious, the men much cleaner, and 
 immensely finer-looking than the Christians, but the Druze women, 
 on the contrary, look filthy and frightful beside the mountain 
 Maronite women, many of whom in Beit Miry were really very 
 pretty, and were always gaily, and generally cleanly dressed. A 
 bright-coloured cotton gown, with usually a thick red woollen shawl 
 wound round the hips, white muslin appearing at the neck (though 
 the gown is always left wide open to the waist in front), a white 
 apron sometimes, and invariably a white muslin veil, often very 
 prettily embroidered in colours, — such is the costume of the Ma- 
 ronite woman, to which must be added string after string of gold 
 and silver coins wound round the throat, falling over and below the 
 bosom, according to the wealth of the owner, and among them, per- 
 haps, two or three little triangular silver boxes containing charms, 
 scraps of the Koran written on parchment. Her headdress is a red 
 tarboosh edged with coins, a piece of bright-coloured crape or gauze 
 tied round it, and then the Christian head-ornament, viz. from 100 
 to 200 strings of black silk cord, about two feet long, into which are 
 woven at intervals little flat bits of gold, oval shaped, each string 
 ending in a solid tassel or knob of gold or silver. I have seen as 
 many as 3000 bits of gold on one headdress, but usually they carry 
 from 1000 to 2000. These strings, which are all joined into one 
 mass at the top, and are called the “ saffah,” are fastened to the back 
 of the tarboosh, the long silk tassel of which hangs over them ; an 
 ornament of filagree gold, called the koors, is generally worn at the 
 top of the tassel also ; while from the front of the head, on one side 
 only, a very pretty festoon ornament, of eight or ten chains of gold 
 or strings of pearls, is added, each one strung with larger bits of 
 gold than those on the saffah ; a brooch of diamonds, or a 
 bouquet of natural flowers, is stuck in on the other side. This 
 head-dress is extremely pretty and graceful. 
 
 In this land of constant petty warfare and blood-feuds it is no 
 wonder that the wealth of every family should be reduced to a 
 portable fortn ; nor is it any wonder either that husband should 
 heap ornaments on his wife’s person year after year to the utmost of 
 his power, since at his death she retains no other possession, all the 
 remainder of his property being divided among his children. It is 
 
122 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 thought unseemly for a man to propose marriage until he has funds 
 sufficient to bestow on his bride a massive gold necklace of a peculiar 
 pattern — de rigueur throughout Syria — and which costs at least 21?. 
 In times of distress one of the coins, or if these are gone a piece of 
 the necklace, is cut off and sold, but to be replaced as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 The Druze women wear a long dark blue cotton chemise like the 
 Egyptian women, and a square of the same stuff, which is drawn 
 over the head and face, and over the tantour, if one is worn. The 
 Christian women are generally very fair, though with dark eyes ; 
 the Druze women are dark, skinny, and ugly, and grow old much 
 earlier than their Christian neighbours, because they do more hard 
 work, and are more exposed to the weather, with fewer clothes to 
 cover them. 
 
 Our housekeeping was soon arranged ; we had eggs, milk, and 
 fowls from the village, and meat, vegetables, and groceries from the 
 tjwn for the first month; after this we had abundance of meat and 
 fruit, &c., from the village. Three or four Druzes went down every 
 morning early to Beyrout with their mules, and, their commissions 
 duly performed, returned in the afternoon. We seldom had 
 occasion to find fault with them, but we had a great grievance in 
 having every little package or parcel turned over and searched by 
 the douane at the gate of Beyrout, even if our dragoman or cook 
 accompanied them. Like Frank in the story, who would look, 
 then touch, then smell, and finally succumbed under the temptation 
 of tasting, large portions of our sugar, coffee, and fruit were mulcted 
 by the soldiers, and very provoking it was to have one’s peaches 
 and figs arrive looking like moulds for their curious and presump- 
 tuous fingers. We applied to Mr. Moore, the Consul, to have a ticket 
 of exemption given to us as consumers, not dealers, but nothing was 
 ever done about it, and the food was too simple and good to admit 
 of our hoping it might disagree with the pilferers. 
 
 It is not easy to say how happy we were in our mountain home ; 
 we were perfectly indifferent to society, as we had plenty of books 
 (thanks to our friends), and many other occupations, besides reading, 
 and sewing to replace the burnt wardrobe. In truth we found very 
 close attention to study remarkably difficult with so beautiful a pro- 
 spect ever enchanting and fascinating our eyes. Many hours that 
 I intended to spend in reading found me looking and looking at the 
 view, with my book in my hand ; and yet we never could decide, 
 all the months we stayed there, whether the landscape was most 
 beautiful by morning or by evening. In every light and under 
 every circumstance I longed to sketch its many beauties, but we had 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 123 
 
 not been able to replace onr paint-boxes since tbe fire, and it was 
 not till ten days before we left it, probably for ever, that paper, 
 pencils, or colours arrived from England. Onr days passed in 
 monotonous enjoyment, every little variety seeming only a fresh 
 pleasure. We were up with the first streak of dawn, about four 
 o’clock, and if Paradise is to be found in this world, it must be in 
 the feel of the air early in the morning on those mountains. How 
 the birds sang — how the fresh air came up, stirring all round one 
 with fragrant perfumes — how the night clouds floated softly away 
 — how the sunlight strode with majestic steps down the mountain 
 side and over the plain — how the sea deepened and brightened from 
 red to blue — how the sun caught the white line of foam on the 
 rocky shore, and tipped house after house and village after village 
 with gold ! Truly this was what Hood calls 
 
 u that breath in the air, 
 
 A perfume and freshness strange and rare, 
 
 A warmth in the light and a bliss everywhere, 
 
 All sweets below, and all sunshine above.” 
 
 Then we sat in the balconies among the flowers, or under our 
 shady arcade, watching the villagers making very brief toilettes as 
 they rose from their beds on the housetops (the children, like dogs, 
 seemed only to shake themselves for their toilettes, while the family 
 washing was invariably deferred till after sunset, when one bowl of 
 water would be brought up for a couple of women or half-a-dozen 
 children), or we watched the goats going by to fresh pastures, 
 or the cows, of which there were not many, and the sheep on their 
 way to be fed in the mulberry-terraces on freshly-gathered leaves, 
 or strings of mules departing to some distant place, or the 
 crowds of women going down in the cool early shade to the 
 fountain to fetch up the water for the day, before the sun came on 
 the spring ; while we sat eating basketfuls of figs gathered before 
 the dew was dry on their yellow skins, or of fresh, cool, golden 
 prickly-pears. About eight o’clock a row of little round clouds, 
 like tufts of cotton wool, rose up in a white line along the horizon 
 of the sea, and the heat soon after became too great to bear out-of- 
 doors; but the little clouds rose and rose and spread, whitening 
 broadly on the sky, and by 9.30 or .45, as punctual as a watch, up 
 came the delicious breeze from their bosoms, and seemed to whisper, 
 “ Never mind the sun, I’m here, and I’ll keep you cool.” And so it 
 did; every day unfailingly it came, and every day it died away 
 between four and five, when the sun’ was going down, and the 
 mountains beginning to cast long shadows on the plain. Then we 
 
124 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 used to go out and climb a new height, or dive down into a new glen 
 or ravine each day ; every day we found a fresh path, or no path, 
 to take, but some fresh object to interest or some fresh beauty to 
 admire, so enticing that we never came home till after the sun had 
 sunk behind the resplendent sea, and the purple night clouds had 
 come up, and the villagers were rolling themselves up in thick 
 blankets on the housetops. Then sometimes the moon would shine 
 with such loveliness, shedding floods of silver over mountain, sea, 
 and plain, that we could not but pace our terraces till quite late, 
 too full of admiration for sleep, — even when sleeping nature seemed 
 near one; for as glass panes were unknown articles in Beit Miry, j 
 our windows had only iron bars to keep out animals, and wooden 
 shutters in case of a storm ; these, however, we never shut, and the 
 fresh air of heaven blew over us while asleep, without a chance, 
 at this height, of bringing fever or any other ill, so delicious 
 is the climate by day and by night, never too hot and never too 
 cold. 
 
 Even our little village had its legend of love and death. There 
 was a small house, consisting chiefly of a verandah, half hidden 
 among the mulberries between us and the pine-forest, which 
 was occupied some few years ago by a half European and half 
 Arab family. The great beauty of the daughter had attracted many 
 suitors for her hand, one of whom was most assiduous in his < 
 attentions ; these were at first accepted, but after some time the 
 affections of the fair one were bestowed on a more fortunate rival, 
 and partly in order to escape the unwelcome assiduities of the first , 
 lover, the family came up to the mountains for the summer. The 
 inconsolable deserted one could not, however, resist the temptation of ] 
 following his beloved mistress, hoping at least to gladden his eyes j 
 with the sight of her. Tying his horse in the wood below, he stole j 
 through the trees near the house, and beheld her standing in the J 
 verandah with his hated rival : the bright moonlight shone down j 
 on both, and the expression of her face revealed to him how I 
 hopeless were his own prospects. In a transport of jealousy 1 
 he drew a pistol from his belt and levelled it at his rival; but, 
 alas 1 the mad passions of his soul had unhappily been beating in 
 his hand, and the ball pierced the heart of the unfortunate girl, j 
 who fell, bathed in blood, into the arms of her more favoured, but 
 not less unhappy, lover. Maddened with horror and despair at the 
 sight, the miserable young man discharged another pistol at himself, J 
 and in another second lay dead at only a few yards distance from 1 
 his murdered mistress ! 
 
 We had rigged a flagstaff soon after our arrival, and there we - 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 125 
 
 hoisted a grand red jack above the house. Of course we had no 
 kind of right to do so (as only consuls are granted the privilege in 
 Turkey), but we had carried our flag in Egypt, and intended to 
 pitch it before our tents in travelling, and we had an idea that it 
 might be of use to us in the mountains. Time proved the idea 
 a good one, and we had reason to thank the kind friend who had 
 provided us with the means of carrying it out. It led to an amusing 
 consequence, for we found afterwards that every individual peasant 
 who came down from the mountains, and all strangers from other 
 villages, invariably stopped and asked who the great person could 
 be whose house was ornamented with such brilliant colours ; and 
 that our dragoman and Arab cook, who- were both mountaineers, 
 and, consequently, tremendous gossips, for their own aggrandise- 
 ment as well as ours, enlarged greatly upon how these English 
 princesses had come all the way alone, over the wide sea and 
 through kingdom after kingdom, to let their greatness sojourn for 
 a while in the highly-honoured village; the which history was 
 received with innumerable " Mashallahs,” and usually produced 
 an amazing number of compliments. 
 
 The first Sunday after we arrived there the dragoman announced 
 that the Maronite priest of the village wished to pay us a visit, and 
 after the morning service he and a companion priest, or curate, 
 arrived. They were dressed in long black robes of serge, with a 
 scarf of the same wound round the waist, and the elder wore the 
 regular mountain-priest’s head-dress, a large globe of black serge : 
 he had a fine open intelligent face and a long white beard; the 
 other looked commoner, and wore only a red tarboosh with a black 
 scarf tied round it. They congratulated us on our safe arrival in 
 their village after the innumerable perils of which they had heard 
 travellers tell, and invoked all manner of blessings on us while we 
 sojourned near them. The old priest was pleasantly communicative 
 as far as his limited subjects of interest and few words of Italian 
 would admit : he told us that every priest must be seven years in 
 the college at Antourah before he is ordained, and that in the act of 
 ordination the bishop places one hand upon the candidate’s fore- 
 head in blessing, while holding the chalice over his head with the 
 other. They are supported by the voluntary contributions of their 
 flock, but if this is not sufficient the bishop provides them with a 
 small allowance. Each priest has a little garden which he cultivates 
 for himself: he is not permitted to labour elsewhere for gain; 
 but we heard of many instances where the priest helped a sick 
 or unfortunate parishioner in his labour, and they seemed to 
 be generally much beloved and respected in all the villages: 
 
126 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 everywhere we were told of their being diligent visitors of the sick. 
 They marry generally the daughters of a sheikh or emir, some one 
 a little above the common peasantry; marriage being one of the 
 privileges which Eome was obliged to concede to the Maronite 
 Church, and the peasantry are very particular in having married 
 priests for the confessors of their wives and daughters. We had 
 not many subjects of conversation, but an Illustrated London 
 News and some portrait photographs seemed to interest them 
 very much, and they asked a great many questions. The convent 
 bell sounded midday during their visit, and both priests stopped, 
 even in the midst of a sentence, and bowing the head, said a short 
 prayer, which they told us they repeated at every third hour in 
 the day. 
 
 Many of the richer Arabs in the village came begging to see the 
 English ladies, and were much pleased to examine us and our 
 clothes, and our books and pictures, &c., &c. : they really seemed so 
 much delighted that we had not the heart to send them away, 
 however much they bored us. The woodcuts in a copy of Lane’s 
 * Modern Egyptians/ representing the costumes of their Arab 
 brethren, were viewed with clasped hands, and many “ Mash-allahs ! ” 
 but they said if we had such good pictures why did we come so far 
 and take so much trouble to see them ? After my paint-box arrived 
 I used to get repeated messages entreating me to take their por- 
 traits for them. On very pretty woman, rich in gold ornaments, 
 came up early in the morning and sat till the afternoon, imploring 
 to have her picture done, until I was really forced to do something 
 like it, with which she was quite enchanted, the colours being very 
 bright, and the bad drawing quite immaterial to her. That woman 
 became a perfect torment to us afterwards, for having happened to 
 see a pair of stays lying on the table, she became so mad to have 
 them, that day after day she returned to the house with new and 
 pressing entreaties, offering me at last coin after coin from her head- 
 dress if I would only let her have the much-coveted articles to 
 make her figure as enchanting as a European lady’s ! We generally 
 found them very quick and intelligent in taking in new ideas, 
 several of the girls learning to play “ solitaire” after once seeing 
 our maid do it, and more than one succeeded in accomplishing the 
 triumphant one remaining ball, much to their own delight and our 
 surprise. 
 
 Perhaps our favourite walk of all was along the back of the 
 village, and through the cool, delightful shade of the wood, up to 
 the Convent of Deir-el-Kullah, There was a little chapel half way 
 along the path, shaded by a group of lofty evergreen oaks, under 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 127 
 
 whose sombre shade we rested many an early morning and sunset 
 evening ; after passing which the path wound up the hill, with the 
 loveliest views of Beit Miry and the coast, through the wood and 
 over the roughest of paths ; for all this wood has grown over the 
 ruins of an ancient town, the smoothly-hewn stones of which would 
 appear to have belonged to well-built houses. Then came the great 
 square of the convent, where some civil black-robed monks bade 
 us welcome, and conducted us to the corridor. Here we loved to 
 sit, for the view, framed in the mullioned double-arched window, is 
 as beautiful as the heart of man could desire : the deep richly- 
 wooded valleys at each side, the cheerful villages, the green uplands, 
 the blue and purple ranges of distant hills, the wide expanse of sea, 
 and Sunnin, rosy and snowy, rising up a giant wall, beyond all. 
 Many an evening we lingered here, sketching or chatting with the 
 monks, and wondering if any earthly view could be much more 
 beautiful. 
 
 This convent is built over the ruins of a very large temple, of 
 which some huge columns and stones are still standing. A great 
 many Greek and Latin inscriptions have been fixed in the modern 
 walls (most of them upside down), all mentioning the god of sports, 
 or Baal-Markos, the god to whom the temple was probably de- 
 dicated. Baal is the title of honour as lord, applied to all the chief 
 gods before the second designation, as Baal-Zebub , Baal-Peor, Baal- 
 Beritu , &c. In Phoenicia the proper name of the great Baal (the 
 Bel or Belus of the Assyrians and Babylonians) was Melkartu. He 
 represented the Sun, the ruler and vivifier of nature, the giver 
 of life. 
 
 Close above our house there was a threshing-floor— a little 
 circular bit of smooth ground in the midst of a wild conglomeration 
 of rocks ; and often in the earliest sunbeams we used to wander up 
 there to watch the bullocks dragging the board round and round 
 over the ears of corn, on which sometimes the three pretty li ttle 
 children of the Emir would sit, helping to press down the rollers on 
 the straw, the under-side of the board being covered with sharp 
 stones fastened, on securely. In some parts of Syria they use 
 knives or short scythes, which chops the straw while they press 
 out the corn ; and on a windy morning they would all be busy 
 flinging up handfuls of it into the air, that the wind might blow 
 away the chaff ere the corn fell back upon the threshing-floor. 
 
 Beyond this a rough path led through a deep, romantic, wooded 
 glen, where, bending low under prickly oaks, terebinth, and hedges 
 of juniper and clematis, we used to come out upon a luxuriant 
 vineyard, truly “ a very fruitful hill,” and sit on the edges of an 
 
128 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPUL CHRES 
 
 ancient winepress of hewn stones, which had probably been there 
 since the days when the Prophet Isaiah sang songs of the spiritual 
 vineyard in the deaf ears of the Jews. There were three or four of 
 the receptacles for the grapes built up of stones, and hollows for 
 the juice to run out of them into a lower place, hewn out of the 
 rock ; all were now tangled over with unpruned vines, honeysuckle, 
 and clematis, making a bower of shade for the workmen when 
 gathering the rich juice, and the mountain torrent dashing past 
 wherein to cleanse the vessels. There were several of these wine- 
 presses on the hills close to us: the upper one had legends 
 attached to it, and stories of jinns and spirits and murders besides ; 
 and close to it ran the aqueduct which brings water down from 
 Sunnin, and, descending into the valley, used to carry a stream 
 into Berytus, it is said. It is a pity it is not still kept in order, 
 for water in Beyrout is very bad and very dear, and the aqueduct 
 works to this day at Beit Miry, where we used to see a stream 
 of pure water trickling through the interstices of the displaced 
 stones. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon we descended the hill till we reached 
 Madrass, the Bishop’s palace, to whom, on a hint from one of his 
 attendant priests, we announced our intention of paying a visit. 
 He sent word that he should be delighted, and we walked 
 through his pleasant gardens and into the well-built, commodious 
 house, part of which is a residence for priests. It was a plain but 
 well-finished building, with a good open staircase, on the balustrades 
 of which crowds of snow-white doves were perched. The Bishop 
 received us at the door of his apartment, — a good room, with a 
 pink and white bed at one side, handsome carpets, and a large 
 writing-table piled over with innumerable papers and letters and a 
 few books. He was a very fine, noble-looking man, with bright 
 intelligent eyes, an intellectual countenance, and a venerable white 
 beard ; he seemed in the prime of life, and perfectly conversant 
 with the affairs of the day in Europe. He asked many pertinent 
 questions about England, but considered her evidently a half 
 heathen land a very long way off, whose only importance lay in her 
 influence on the great European powers ; but he really knew more 
 of the details of the war then going on between France and 
 Austria than we did, and had later intelligence: in fact it was 
 very remarkable, as we often had occasion to observe, how closely 
 the Syrians watched the events passing in Europe, seemingly 
 beyond their personal interest. Here, and farther up in the 
 mountains, it was the same thing : they knew as much, and more, 
 than we could tell them, and the Druzes seemed absolutely to have 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 129 
 
 the news of each engagement in the campaign before the Europeans 
 themselves had had notice of the affairs of the very countries they 
 represented. 
 
 The Bishop was very busy, but he talked a great deal, and begged 
 us to come back soon; he asked many questions about English 
 ordinations, and how and whence we got bishops, &c., &c. ; he 
 seemed very much interested when we told him of our great 
 cathedrals, and his eyes brightened as he said he wished he 
 might go to England to see them. We promised to pay him 
 another visit, and to show him some Illustrated News pictures ; 
 but the very day we had appointed to go there was, alas ! the day 
 of our forced departure from Beit Miry, and we never saw him 
 again. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the beauties and delights of our quiet 
 mountain home, we became impatient to make some excursions 
 from it before the summer had become quite too hot for travelling 
 among the higher mountains ; especially we determined that we 
 must scale that snowy Jebel Sunnin, whose rosy crest was ever 
 before our eyes in every walk. So we sent down to Beyrout for 
 horses and mules, packed up our tents, &c., and set forth very 
 early on the morning of the 6th of June, leaving the little dog to 
 keep house at home with one of the men-servants, as we knew it 
 would be too cold on the mountains for him. 
 
 The guide-books and travellers’ account of the district we visited 
 are so insufficient that we were obliged to trust entirely to the 
 guidance of our dragoman, to whom every path was familiar ; and 
 we were not disappointed in the route he selected. Of all the 
 wanderings we made, from north to south of Syria, no other seven 
 days showed us such a vast variety of ever-changing panoramas of 
 glorious and magnificent scenery as these did. The cedars of 
 Lebanon have a grave, majestic beauty about them which nothing 
 else can equal, — the wild and wooded sides of the Litaany, — the 
 soft, s^d tenderness of the Lake of Tiberias — and the flowery 
 forests of Mount Carmel, each have their own peculiar loveliness ; 
 but the Kesrouan combines every variety of scenery in its stern 
 grandeur and gentle grace, its rich colouring and wild contrasts, to 
 say nothing of the exhilarating mountain air, cool, refreshing, and 
 so fragrant with perfumed sweetness, that Israel, in the perfection 
 of his blessedness, might well be said to “ smell like Lebanon.” 
 
 The blue morning mist was still veiling the valley with its 
 beautiful bright haze when we skirted the valley of El-Metn, 
 passing through the pretty village of Brumana (where the Emir has 
 a nice-looking house actually built with a sloping roof and glass), 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and turned up over a sea-blown mountain brow into a pine-forest, 
 where the rocks looked as if they had been burned like those of 
 Nubia, and the path was, as we always observed it was under pine- 
 trees, abominable. On the left hand the Convent of Mar-Ishayr, the 
 highest of all the convents seen from the mouth of the Nahr-el- 
 Kelb, stands perched on an insulated peak — a fine situation, but they 
 have no water, and are obliged to carry every drop they use up the 
 toilsome ascent. Then winding round two sides of a deep valley, 
 we reached the large village or town of Bukfeyia,- where we alighted 
 to see the French filature , or silk-reeling fabriques : nearly all the 
 workers were boys, each with his bundle of cocoons hopping about 
 in a pan of boiling water before him. After brushing off the coarse 
 outer silk, the ends of the fine silk from three cocoons were in- 
 stantly attached to a spool on the edge of the table, whence it passed 
 to the huge wheel that wound off the large skeins. The silk is 
 sorted into yellow and white — the productions of a different variety 
 of worm — and looked exquisitely fine and glossy ; it is not, however, 
 considered quite equal to the silk of Broussa. The refuse silk is 
 used for tassels or other coarse articles. The boys were mostly ugly 
 enough — one was precisely a Thibetan Mongol, with sloping eyes 
 and eyebrows, high cheek-bones, and a melancholy mouth with 
 thick lips. Bukfeyia boasts a fine palace, where the late Emir Hyder 
 resided, and where the Emir, who is governor of the whole Lebanon, 
 ought to reside ; but it was then empty : the reigning prince, being 
 very unpopular among the Bukfeyians, was living at Beyrout. 
 Bukfeyia is full of pretty gardens, and commands an extensive view, 
 overlooking several valleys and picturesque villages. The wood 
 about it is more than usually varied, the pine and oak being 
 mingled with poplar, willow, plane, ilex, arbutus caroob, &c., &c. 
 
 At midday we reached the foot of the mountain cliff where the 
 large rich Maronite Convent of Mar-esh-Shouwyair stands proudly 
 on the promontory looking up through beautiful valleys to Jebel 
 Sunnin. We mounted the path, hoping to make a comfortable rest ; 
 but the Superior was absent. Most of the monks had gone to a 
 funeral, and the younger brothers seemed so dreadfully frightened 
 at the idea of admiting three women into their salon or their chapel, 
 that we compounded with them for permission to spread our carpets 
 in the cloisters. They managed to bring the alarming daughters of 
 Eve some cushions (upon which we immediately fell asleep), and when 
 we left them they exploded into long fits of uncontrollable laughter 
 on seeing us jump up -sideways on our saddles, and we heard them 
 still laughing and laughing as we descended the winding path. 
 Then came a long narrow, beautiful ravine, on the opposite side of 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 131 
 
 which, among thick mulberry-terraces, we looked down upon the 
 Greek Convent of Mar Hanna * Shonwyair, a very large building, 
 where the first Arabic printing-press ever set up in the Lebanon was 
 made. This good work and the fine cultivation of the mountains all 
 round these convents speak much in favour of the monks ; nor did 
 we ever hear a single word said against any one of the numerous 
 convents of the Lebanon — nothing but respect and gratitude ; and 
 perhaps, until the government of the country is in some degree im- 
 proved and the peasantry protected, and civilisation and education 
 are in some degree spread amongst them, these fraternities of single 
 men are the best methods of accomplishing any kind of cultivation 
 in the unhappily wasted land. 
 
 From first to last, throughout Syria and Palestine, the one great 
 feeling ever present to one’s mind as one’s eyes journey on, mile by 
 mile, is the deplorable waste of land. When one sees what the rude 
 industry of the ignorant and poverty-stricken peasant can accom- 
 plish ; that smiling crops, delicious pastures, luxuriant fruit-gardens, 
 and rich woods result from the meagre, clumsy work done by the 
 mountaineer, unassisted by modern implements or knowledge, 
 one cannot but sigh to remember our half-exhausted homelands, and 
 think how small the capital, how slight the head-work, and how 
 short the time that would turn the plains and mountains of Syria 
 again into “ a land flowing with milk and honey,” and repay the 
 workman, not tenfold, but a hundredfold. At present a little corn, 
 mulberries and olives, figs and vines, are repeated, generation after 
 generation, in the same terraces ; but the amount of work necessary 
 to convert thousands of miles of mountain and valley into fertile 
 ground would be but small, and there are few crops to be found 
 anywhere that could not be cultivated successfully either on the 
 uplands or lowlands ; while the climate is incontestably remarkable 
 for salubrity, and a life in the hill-country would be by no means 
 too hot for even a Scotch Highlander. Cotton could be admirably 
 produced in the plains ; and if the enterprise was commenced on a 
 sufficiently large and imposing , scale, a little firmness, resolution, 
 and judicious conduct would undoubtedly insure success. It is 
 true that the Turks do not particularly like or encourage European 
 settlers, but the Christian Arabs are delighted to welcome those who 
 they know will improve their condition, — will be their guardians 
 and protectors, — and beside whom they could in some degree range 
 themselves against the rapacious and sometimes dishonest cruelties 
 of the government, and of their own lawless sects and tribes. 
 
 A most atrocious zigzag ascent led over the crown of the ravine, 
 
 * St. John. 
 
132 
 
 EG YET/AN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and we found ourselves suddenly on a small meadow, where our 
 tents were pitched beneath a group of truly magnificent oaks, com- 
 manding a view on all sides that was really sublime ; Kunisyeh, 
 Nukh-el-Jurd, and Sunnin stood with numberless other heights 
 majestically round us, — the feet of the two former clad in thick 
 woods, which we were told abounded in wild boars. This place is 
 called El-Merooj. 
 
 We went to bed very much tired, to be awakened from dreams 
 of fine scenery and sunshine by torrents of rain — a very unusual 
 circumstance at this season. Long before morning our tent, which 
 was not a double one, had begun to leak; our clothes had got 
 soaked through in the night, and we had no alternative but to 
 remain in bed, as the only dry place, and to take our breakfasts in 
 waterproof cloaks under umbrellas. Alas ! the rain continued with 
 unabated violence, and towards the middle of the day we unani- 
 mously agreed that we were exceedingly uncomfortable. However, 
 at last a bright thought occurred to Habeeb. At a little distance 
 there was a half-finished stone hut, built to shelter mules, with a 
 roughly-made oven in one corner; into this hut our three beds, 
 which had been kept pretty dry, were carried, and we followed them, 
 conveyed on the back of a mule. The hut was unplastered and 
 windowless, but dry : it seemed uncommonly like a dungeon, and I 
 was in mortal fear of snakes ; but we lit a charcoal fire in the oven, 
 and were sleeping comfortably enough, when we were awakened by 
 low hoarse sounds, perfectly inexplicable, and very alarming. We 
 were at some distance from the tents and men-servants, and were 
 beginning to feel a little odd, when the strange noises waxed louder 
 and louder, shriller and shriller, and at last burst forth into the un- 
 mistakable crows and cacklings of a lot of cocks and hens that had 
 been placed by some peasants in the oven, and were becoming 
 roasted by the heat of the fire ! 
 
 The rain, which is very uncommon indeed in June, continued to 
 fall all night, but in the morning the sky cleared, and we mounted 
 about eleven, and pushed on up steep paths, among loose rocks and 
 crags of blue limestone of the most fantastic shapes, round the head 
 of a valley tributary to the Nahr-el-Kelb, coming suddenly upon 
 thickets of glorious and lovely rhododendrons growing in wild 
 luxuriance among the rocks, with a beauty that made one forget 
 cold and rain, and everything disagreeable. Beds of purple lupines, 
 too, were dotted all along the path as we turned up a short pass 
 into the great valley of the Nahr-el-Kelb itself — a most peculiar 
 and magnificent valley, the mountain sides of all manner of rich, 
 bright colours, with trees and meadows of fine corn up to the very 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 133 
 
 summits ; while half way down commenced, on both sides, vertical 
 walls of blue limestone, straight and smooth down to the very 
 bottom : it looks as if the mountains had turned bottom upwards 
 by mistake. This part of the valley can scarcely be crossed any- 
 where, so unbroken are these rocky walls. We passed along 
 opposite the pretty, scattered village of Biskinta, half hidden in 
 woods and fruit-gardens, and then, having climbed up a very steep 
 conical hill, we stopped at a little hut, placed in a wild, mournful 
 solitude in the midst of a barren waste, where some shepherds were 
 eating their dinner. Here we took shelter from a shower, and had 
 but just rejoined the road when the rain increased tenfold, and a 
 thick blinding fog came up the valley, only breaking here and there 
 enough to give us glimpses of perpendicular depths below, from so 
 dizzy a height and so narrow a goat-track, that perhaps it was as 
 well we could see so little of the perilous way. We were now 
 passing over the southern shoulder of Sunnin, right up among the 
 snow, when Habeeb suddenly stopped, and jumping down, exclaimed 
 that here at last was a piece of sandy ground upon which we could 
 pitch our tents, the ground everywhere else being as soakingly wet 
 and dripping as we were ourselves. He spread a mat for us, and 
 we alighted, huddling under one umbrella until the pitching of the 
 tent was, with much difficulty, accomplished, a large fire lit, and our 
 beds made, in which we immediately took refuge, and where we 
 dined. We needed the fire, for the wind, coming off the snow, 
 was horribly cold : we were now at least 7000 feet above the sea. 
 
 The morning proved fine, and we rode on, enjoying the sunshine 
 along the ridge of the noble valley, catching once a most exquisite 
 view of Beyrout, with the curving shore and blue sea, until we 
 ime to the famous Jisr-el-Hajar (bridge of stone), a grand scene 
 indeed. This Neba-el-Leben (fountain of milk) is the chief source 
 of the Kelb, and here the river rusTies in three tremendous cascades 
 from the top of Sunnin, forcing its way through the limestone walls, 
 under white masses of foam, and falls into a boiling cauldron just 
 above the ridge, whence it tumbles down headlong into the valley 
 in roaring torrents. The rock forms a natural but oblique bridge 
 over the torrent, 163 feet span and 80 feet in height. The view from 
 the bottom of the chasm is truly sublime, the mountains forming 
 fine contrasts of browns and bright reds with the snowy summits 
 and the stern grey crags ; while all about the bridge and the cas- 
 cades the loveliest flowers, including pink convolvulus and blue 
 forget-me-not, grow in wild confusion. In a cavern under the arch, in 
 the very midst of the deafening roar, some shepherds had made a 
 home ; the wife was churning butter from goat’s milk in a very 
 
134 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 primitive churn — nothing more than a goat’s skin filled with milk, 
 which was tied on the end of a long stick, itself mounted on a tripod 
 of sticks stuck in the ground, between which the skin was swung 
 backwards and forwards. 
 
 After this we continued along the side of the valley under the 
 snowy head of Sunnin, rolling clouds of mist occasionally wrapping 
 him mysteriously from sight ; and passing over some very perilous 
 places by the Neba-el-Asel (fountain of honey), for we had lost our 
 path, we began to ascend the very steep pass which separates the 
 valley of the Nahr-el-Kelb from that of the Nahr Ibrahim. It was 
 very difficult and severe for the mules, and Habeeb watched his can- 
 teen with great anxiety. One block they scrambled up was very nearly 
 four feet high, and our horses made a great fuss about it, although 
 we dismounted to ease them. We were, however, well rewarded on 
 reaching the top, for the scene was superbly grand, the snow all 
 round us and under us, and a kind of glacier above our head. 
 Then came a zigzag descent, which it is pleasanter to remember than 
 it was to perform: the muleteers requested us to dismount, and 
 after riding for some way we did so, for the sensation was not a 
 pleasant one, when looking down the fearful depth as one’s horse 
 struggled over the masses of rock at the edge of the very steep and 
 narrow path. 
 
 The valley of the Nalir Ibrahim, the ancient river Adonis, is 
 wilder and sterner than that of the Kelb. We had intended on 
 reaching it to have gone direct to Afka, the source of the river, but 
 the inhabitants seem to be as wild and stern as the valley itself, and 
 our dragoman declared himself afraid to venture without further 
 tidings of their politics at the moment. War had just broken out 
 between the Metouaalees, who chiefly occupy these mountains, and 
 the Christians, and some sanguinary murders had quite lately 
 taken place. We were not at all willing to give up seeing this 
 celebrated spot when we had really got within reach of it, and we 
 felt pretty sure that as English ladies we had not much to fear ; so 
 we told him to settle it as he pleased, and do the best he could, 
 only explaining to him that we intended to go to Afka, and go we 
 would, somehow or other ; but, to give him time to gather tidings, 
 we agreed to defer the visit till the next morning. So we 
 turned away westward, and rode on for an hour or so till we came 
 to a good camping ground, at a place called the “ round meadow,” 
 just opposite the village of Amhaz, on the other side of the magni- 
 ficent and savagely-wild ravine. Immediately above our tents were 
 steep mountains, partly green and cultivated, but with masses of 
 white and yellow crags breaking out on the side, some shaped like 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 135 
 
 grotesque statues; and on the opposite side of the valley uprose 
 stern walls, one above the other, of purple-grey rocks, almost 
 vertical, yet here and there terraced with narrow ledges lined with 
 trees that seemed to have no footing, and a thousand strange shades 
 of colour blending on the mountain tops, till lost in the distant 
 snow. We walked on a little beyond our tents, and there, turning 
 a corner, was the sun shining on a mountain slope, one vast mass of 
 glorious rhododendrons, “ spreading their soft breasts unheeding 
 to the breeze,” and seeming like a soft veil of tender, delicate purple 
 gauze drawn over the whole slope, so radiantly lovely one could 
 never forget it. 
 
 The cold forbade all sleep ; perished and frozen through the 
 night, we gladly welcomed the morning light and hot coffee. Mean- 
 time Habeeb had consulted several peasants about our going on to 
 Afka, and they all declared that it would be very dangerous ; how- 
 ever at last, by good fortune, we captured a peasant whom Habeeb 
 had known before, and believed trustworthy, and who was himself 
 a Metouaalee, — a fine hook-nosed, dark fellow, with a long beard and 
 good teeth, armed with gun and dagger, like every peasant and 
 shepherd in the district, — and he engaged to conduct us safely there 
 and back again. So we rode on along an excellent path for about 
 two hours, enjoying the magnificent valley and the ranges of 
 mountains before us (looking north-east), reaching right up to the 
 snowy Makhmel, the mountain of the Cedars until we began a steep 
 descent into the hollow where the source of the Ibrahim lay ; the 
 wood increasing till it became quite like a park, — pines, lignum 
 vitae, oak, terebinth, and fine lofty walnuts. We were fully occupied 
 with the delightful view, when, on suddenly turning the angle of a 
 cliff, we found the narrow path closed by fifteen men, who started 
 up apparently from out of the rock, and pointing their guns at us, 
 demanded our business ; a parley and explanation ensued, and we 
 immediately became excellent friends, the secret of which sudden 
 transition we did not know till the day after, when the dragoman 
 acknowledged that he had informed them not only that we were 
 English, but also near relations of Mr. Wood, our late consul at 
 Damascus, who did so much for the Metouaalees and Druzes that 
 his very name is a passport still among them. We were equally 
 innocent of the relationship and of the falsehood, but we reaped its 
 benefit. 
 
 The mountains now rose in a close semicircle to the height of two 
 thousand feet from the bottom of the deep dell, their nearly perpen- 
 dicular sides dotted over with tufts of prickly oak and other shrubs 
 the bottom itself filled with houses among gardens of pomegranates 
 
136 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and figs, shaded by noble walnut-trees ; while rushing out from a 
 cavern under the great cliff was the cascade and source we had come 
 to see. There was not very much water in it at this time, but we 
 did not regret it ; the divided cascades were prettier than a larger 
 single one, and the sheets of foam were quite wide enough to be 
 very grand and beautiful. The wild luxuriance of foliage about the 
 boiling waters much increases their beauty, and the dark cavern, 
 with the monstrous black mouth through which they pour, is 
 fringed with tremulous maidenhair and other delicate ferns. A 
 peasant told us that sometimes in summer the stream sinks into so 
 small a compass that persons have crept into the cavern itself, 
 where there is even now a small ruined building at the very back of 
 the cave, probably a shrine or sanctuary for the most secret rites of 
 the Greek worship. At the most picturesque part of the lower 
 cascade, on a little cliff, are the remains of the old Temple of Yenus, 
 one hundred feet by fifty ; little of ornamental work is left beyond 
 bits of cornice, but all the stones we saw were of grey granite, 
 smoothly hewn. This temple was a very famous and highly 
 honoured shrine, for here, beside this foamy fountain, the beautiful 
 Adonis was said to have received his death-wound from the boar, 
 and here Yenus is still heard, by imaginative persons, lamenting the 
 untimely fate of the young hunter, — a victim to the cruel jealousy 
 of Mars, who, distracted at the caresses lavished on him by the fair 
 goddess, took the form of the ferocious animal he felt himself to 
 resemble under such pangs, and pierced the youth with his cruel 
 tusks. The despairing Yenus metamorphosed his white and 
 beautiful corpse into a white rose — a flower ever sacred to herself — 
 which was afterwards changed into a red one, in consequence of a 
 drop of her own rosy blood, drawn by the prick of a thorn, falling 
 on the flower. Thus she still kept him beside her in emblem ; but 
 her grief was so great that the gods in pity permitted him to return 
 to earth for six months of the year ; the time of his departure from 
 her side was announced by the sanguinary hue imparted to the 
 falling waters, which then 
 
 “ Run purple to the sea, suffused with blood of Thammuz.” * 
 
 At this moment, thus advised by Nature herself, the annual and 
 solemn fete was celebrated, chiefly by women, who sat on the 
 thresholds of their houses tearing their hair and weeping loudly. 
 The statue of Yenus was exhibited covered with a veil, the head 
 leaning on her left hand, and the whole figure expressing sadness 
 and weeping ; on the day of her invocation it is said that a fire, 
 
 * Milton. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 137 
 
 bright as a star, invariably fell precipitously from the shy into the 
 water; this they believed to be Yenns herself, but probably it was 
 only an immense tear mingling in the blood of her lover. It is 
 curious that the Jews should have adopted this Phoenician idolatry 
 so entirely as to have carried its observance into the very courts of 
 the sanctuary of the Lord God, where the Spirit shows them to 
 Ezekiel “ weeping for Tammuz,” with their faces turned “ towards 
 the north/’* offering to her cakes and incense, and pouring out 
 drink-offerings before her. The women during this festival wore 
 men’s clothes, while the men wore women’s clothes, as was generally 
 the custom where two persons (as Osiris and Isis, Yenus and Adonis, 
 Hercules and Hebe, &c.) were celebrated together : stores of dresses 
 were kept in the temples for that purpose, — an allusion to this is 
 made in Heut. xxii. 5, and 2 Kings x. 22, and possibly in Eev. iii. 4, 
 in speaking of Sardis, a city consecrated to the double worship of 
 Hercules and Diana. The celebration lasted two days : the first 
 was spent in lamentations and w^ailings, as we have said ; on the 
 second they danced, shouted, and sang for joy, as if Adonis had 
 returned to life. 
 
 So runs the legend, — under which one finds the natural fact of 
 which the story is but the poetic clothing. Adonis, or Adonai — a 
 Hebrew title signifying lord — the friend and favourite of Apollo, 
 was made the personification of the Sun, or Summer, by the Phoeni- 
 cians ; the boar and the bear were both used as emblems of Winter, 
 whose rude onset signifies in the fable the departure of the summer 
 sunshine, vanquished by the cold blasts of winter. So the fable of 
 the daughter of Plenty, carried off to dwell beneath the earth for 
 half the year, — so the Tyrians, Komans, and Cappadocians kept 
 some of their gods in iron chains till the winter was gone ; then the 
 gods were supposed to be re-awakened, and rose up endowed with 
 new strength and power. In the Syrian mountains the winter is 
 short, but the contrast must be quite terrible between the blazing 
 and scorching heat of the long summer and the severity of the 
 winter, especially in a place like Afka, surrounded by the loftiest 
 and most snowy summits of the whole range ; they might well con- 
 sider it an annual death of Nature, and nowhere would Spring be 
 more sudden, beautiful, and gladdening than here, more completely 
 the resuscitation of a dead body. It is related that at the end of 
 the days of mourning a dead man’s head was thrown into the Eiver 
 Adonis, which carried it down to the sea : this is in fact precisely 
 the same legend as that of Osiris, who, after being murdered by 
 
 * Ezek. viii. 14; Jer. vii. 18, xliv. 17-28. It was, in fact, part of the 
 Astarte or Yenus worship. 
 
138 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 Typhon, the Evil One, was cast into the sea, and his mangled remains 
 fonnd by Isis on the Phoenician coast * — to celebrate which mystery 
 the priests of Alexandria used annually to throw a head amidst 
 great pomp into the sea, which held in its month a letter declaring 
 that Osiris had come to life again. Both allude to the desolation of 
 the earth at one season, and the return of verdure and fecundity at 
 another. 
 
 The word Afka is said to be derived from the Hebrew Apheka, 
 meaning to hold or embrace, in allusion to the embraces of Yenus 
 and Adonis ; but as it also means a basin, it is more likely to de- 
 scribe the mountains surrounding or embracing the small deep well 
 of the sacred glen, which is shaped precisely like the interior of a 
 tea-cup, only with one side lower than the rest. 
 
 It is said that a good deal of these old ceremonials still remain 
 among the wild people of Afka, but how much or what we could 
 not learn ; they were much more intent upon questioning and ex- 
 amining us than upon imparting any information, and possibly they 
 might have resented any very curious inquiries respecting their 
 religion, the peculiarities of which are, I believe, very little known. 
 They are said, like the Shyites, to acknowledge ’Ali as the only true 
 successor of the Prophet ; but they have probably many other more 
 peculiar doctrines of their own, besides their scrupulousness in 
 what they eat, drink, or touch, which is carried to the very 
 highest pitch, for they would die rather than drink from the same 
 vessel that a Christian or a dog has touched. It is in truth natural 
 that a band of lawless and savage men, living in secluded and wild 
 mountainous districts, should have adopted local ideas, especially 
 such as were sufficiently exciting to fascinate their untutored minds ; 
 but that any traces of such rites and ceremonies should have sur- 
 vived the fifteen centuries since Constantine destroyed the temple 
 at Afka, is at least curious. 
 
 Wild and savage as the Metouaalees are, they were civil enough 
 to us, — the men assisting us to scramble up and down the rocks by 
 the waterfall, holding our horses, &c. ; the women, who had never 
 before seen a Frank lady, gathered round us with eager curiosity to 
 examine our clothes, which appeared to be quite incomprehensible 
 to them. Our large shady hats were subjects of great admiration, 
 and they laughed long and loudly over the size of our waists, which 
 they insisted on spanning with their hands, until their embraces 
 became so troublesome that we mounted our horses, and, with many 
 
 * At Djebail, ancient Byblos. For a charming account of this festival of the 
 finding the body of Osiris, see Ebers’ admirable story of ‘An Egyptian 
 Princess.’ — Tauchnitz. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 139 
 
 lookings back at the beautiful and romantic spot, re-ascended the 
 hill into the upper part of the valley. Here the cool fresh air was 
 most refreshing after the suffocating heat of the pent-up glen, as we 
 retraced our steps of the morning and passed on still along the 
 south side of the Nahr Ibrahim (or Eiver Adonis) towards the sea. 
 We were half way down the very worst of all possible descents, 
 jumping, slipping, and struggling among huge rocks and impossible 
 crannies, when two of our horses took to fighting, and before the 
 attendants could reach them one horse had toppled down part of 
 the precipice, and was lost to view. We had many more miles to 
 go, and the adventure was somewhat dismaying. However, some 
 stiff bushes had kindly broken his fall, and the horse was picked 
 up ; the saddle, which had been a good deal broken, was patched 
 together somehow, the things tumbled out of the saddle-bags were 
 re-collected, and we continued our tortuous way, not pausing again 
 till we reached a very beautiful spot, where the tents were already 
 pitched, called Watr-el-Jauz — the “ country of walnut-trees/’ but 
 the walnuts have now disappeared. Here we sat under the shade 
 of a grove of fine willows, enjoying fresh views of the beautiful 
 mountains. No day’s ride had given us a greater variety of mag- 
 nificent scenery than this one, and very lovely it had been under 
 the cloudless sky. 
 
 But the next day was almost more beautiful, for after crossing 
 the hill on which we had encamped the sea was added to the still 
 more extended and splendid view. Habeeb averred that Hermon 
 was visible, but we could not distinguish its cone. And then came 
 an apparently endless descent of deep and very narrow ravines of 
 great beauty, one after another, filled with flowers and fragrant 
 shrubs and pleasant villages, with weird and savage rocks and stern 
 grey crags, and such an abominable path that more than once we 
 had to dismount and scramble down on foot. At last we reached 
 Ghazir, a beautifully situated, large, and thriving village, full of 
 fruit-gardens, roses, and myrtles, and with a great number of convents 
 and French filatures. We rested here for an hour in a hospitable 
 merchant’s house, and then continued our way, descending literally 
 through fissures in the rocks, till we had reached the sands of the 
 sea-shore, and gladly found ourselves in the lovely Bay of Jouneh. 
 Nothing could be prettier than the scattering of this bright-looking 
 town over the steep cliffs, crowned with white convents behind it ; 
 the curve of the bay was so graceful, and the little gardens so rich 
 and pretty, and the sea breeze so fresh and pleasant after the hot 
 ravines we had came from. There were several ships in the bay 
 waiting for corn. We turned off from the sea to pass through the 
 
140 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 atrocious paths of pretty Zouk Mehayl, and by the fine college for 
 Maronite priests, called Antourah, . most romantically situated in 
 the bosom of a lofty gorge, surrounded by gardens of arbutus, ilex, 
 and pomegranate, which we should have liked to see, had we had 
 time enough. 
 
 On leaving Zouk we found ourselves in an extensive pine-forest 
 on the upper side of the Nahr-el-Kelb, through which we descended 
 by a winding path. Nothing could exceed the rich beauty of this 
 narrow valley, the river winding at the bottom, and both sides 
 clothed with wood. At the foot of the descent is one of the chief 
 sources of the river, welling forth from a cavern, round which the 
 ferns hang in green wreaths and garlands, as if veiling the source 
 from common eyes. We had to scramble on stepping-stones through 
 a swampy thicket of St. John’s wort, rhododendrons, myrtle, and 
 oleander, in order to reach it ; but it was worth the trouble. There 
 are much finer caverns with stalactites at another source of the 
 same river, somewhere higher up in the mountains, but these we 
 never reached, not having heard of them till shortly before we left 
 Beyrout : they can hardly be prettier than these. It was half-past 
 seven when we had regained the summit of the hill-side, for very 
 steep and difficult it was to our tired horses and our tired selves, 
 and the light was gone. We had still a long ride over the mountain, 
 guided by a shepherd, and then came a descent to the river side, 
 which in the darkness was really most perilous; it was terrific 
 enough by day, and the shepherd seemed so shocked at the ladies 
 having to descend it in the night, that he offered to stay with us, 
 and very useful he was in encouraging the unfortunate horses, who 
 would fain have stood still instead of struggling down the rocks, 
 which in the darkness we could not attempt on foot : and had not 
 the moon helped us in some parts we must have remained on the 
 mountain all night; so we were indeed thankful to reach the 
 bottom without any accident, and to find ourselves close to the mouth 
 of the Kelb, looking doubly lovely in the moonlight. We pushed 
 through the oleanders and forded the stream (though the current 
 was very strong for the weary horses to withstand), finding our tents 
 pitched beyond the river at the edge of the waves, and very gladly 
 went to bed, after being thirteen hours on horseback. Late we 
 stayed the next morning resting, with the tent door drawn back, 
 watching the little waves curling up close to us, and the fishing- 
 boats lazily sailing over the blue waters. 
 
 However we had still a long way to get home, so we mounted at 
 eleven, and rode along the shore as far as Antelyias, where we turned 
 aside into charming gardens, bowered and hedged with myrtle and 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 141 
 
 clematis, both of which the horses greedily devoured, and then up 
 steep mountains, thickly covered with myrtle all in blossom, per- 
 fuming the air delightfully : a lovely ride, but the path turned round 
 and round, till we began to fancy ourselves bewitched, and fated 
 “ never to return.” At last, at near 4 p.m., we reached Brumana, 
 and completed the circle we had been seven days in travelling ; and 
 in another hour we were very happy to find ourselves once more in 
 our pretty home, where the little dog nearly went into fits, sobbing 
 with joy at seeing us again. 
 
142 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OLD PHOENICIANS AND MODERN DRUZES. 
 
 One day early in July we had occasion to go down to Beyrout to 
 despatch some business, and when there we found ourselves 
 suddenly included in a hastily-settled ride to Saida, the ancient 
 Sidon. The opportunity of accompanying some friends was too 
 pleasant to be resisted, and the arrangements were so managed that 
 we were not to be troubled with mules and canteen; a Saida 
 gentleman, Signor Pietri Santi, then in Beyrout, having offered us 
 the use of rooms in his house. The heat in Beyrout was now very 
 great indeed, and the mosquitos almost intolerable : we felt them 
 all the worse as there are scarcely any at Beit Miry, the blood- 
 thirsty creatures seldom taking the trouble of flying so high above 
 the plains. We therefore settled to make our journey by night, 
 and to rest by day. We had, too, a glorious full moon, that lighted 
 us through the narrow lanes of the town and the pine-forest, with 
 a cool flood of silver-coloured light that was infinitely delightful, 
 hiding much of the monotony of what is sometimes considered a 
 tiresome ride, although there is really constant change, the steep 
 rocky shore, here and there dressed with olive-groves, alternating 
 with smooth curving sands. It is very wild, and perhaps dreary, by 
 day, and to add to this impression, in one place where we were 
 treading the broken rocks by the sea, a hyena bounded past, so close 
 as almost to touch my horse’s nose : he had been lying on our 
 track, and we had unkindly disturbed him. Farther on, where the 
 Khan Khulda marks the site of the ancient city of Heldua, we came 
 upon camels swinging along under enormous burdens that seemed 
 like walking houses, almost concealing the beast beneath, while at 
 top of each lay the driver fast asleep, tied on to his own goods. 
 We were told that they will often go on and on in this way, 
 almost without any rest or food, for a week at a time. After fording 
 
AND S YD I A N SHRINES. 
 
 143 
 
 the Damour, where we recognised the richly-wooded valley of Deir- 
 el-Kamar, we stopped at Neby Yunus, the Khan of the Prophet 
 Jonah, and, dismounting, fell fast asleep on the sand over our 
 coffee. The light was breaking as we awakened half an hour after, 
 and found ourselves in a pretty sandy bay, at a picturesque khan, 
 beside a fine grove of tamarisk-trees, a sapphire-coloured sky over 
 head, and the moon — one large mass of glowing silver, most wonder- 
 fully dyed and crimsoned with the flush of morning, — standing on 
 the very horizon of the sea, while behind us, above the grove, the 
 glorious “ Daughter of the Morning” shone with steady golden 
 light, seeming to grow larger and larger, when— all in a moment, 
 up shot a flood of crimson and orange, lighting up the rocks and 
 the sands and the trees and the sky ; and the moon, after lingering 
 a few minutes as if to rival the red light of day, sank down behind 
 the waves, and when we turned round a moment after the morning- 
 star was gone too. It was one of the prettiest scenes possible, a 
 perfect picture of beauty, and the show was not yet over ; for now 
 dark masses, which we had taken for stones and rocks on the sand, 
 wakened, stretched, shook themselves, and arose, and in two minutes 
 their horses and camels and mules were shaken up and mounted, and 
 they, with their bright-coloured burdens, rode off, clearing the place, 
 and changing it really like a magic-lantern slide, or a dissolving view 
 in a theatre. Then the sunbeams streamed widely over the bay, and 
 down came troops of chattering girls, in wide scarlet trousers and 
 white veils, to fill their pitchers at the fountain — the super-excellent 
 fountain, for this water is sacred, and must be particularly sweet, 
 the spring having appeared on the very spot where the good- 
 natured whale was so kind as to come to shore and vomit forth 
 poor Jonah ( Yunus in Arabic) after his long and uncomfort- 
 able voyage in its stomach. It would be difficult to prove which 
 is the truth, but another report says that the whale turned 
 aside from the Great Sea into the quiet bay of Iskenderoon, and 
 laid Jonah among the oleanders that fringe its shore, in 
 imitation of Moses in the bulrushes; and if the whale was only 
 careering about between Joppa and Tarsus, one place is as likely 
 as the other. 
 
 Another mile or so brought us to the brow of the last headland, 
 and to our first view of Saida, and a lovely view it was : there she 
 sat at the edge of the deep blue water, pale brown and purple 
 mountains embracing her in warm, giant arms, with battlemented 
 ■ walls and towers round her, all white and glistening in the early 
 sunshine, like a swan sitting by the sea-shore. We turned down 
 to the beach and continued our road on the soft, slushy sand along 
 
E G YPTIAN SEPUL CHRES 
 
 144 
 
 the edge of the wave, sometimes stopping to pick up some parti- 
 cularly pretty shell, oftener to watch the colours of 
 
 “the last foam 
 
 That trembled on the sand with rainbow hues ” * 
 
 caught from the bright morning sun. The view grew prettier and 
 prettier as we distinguished the high castle above the town, built 
 by Louis IX. of France, and the other fortress, standing on rocks 
 which run far out into the sea, and are connected with the shore by 
 a low bridge of nine arches. We entered the town about 8 a.m., 
 and wound through the narrow streets and gay bazaars, and still 
 gayer, thriving-looking people in bright, clean dresses, to the house 
 of Signor Santi, where we were soon established in a pleasant 
 saloon furnished with divans and mats : one expects nothing more 
 in an Arab reception-room, unless it be a tray of pipes and 
 nargilehs. The heat and the mosquitos drove away all thoughts 
 or hopes of sleep, and we could only lie still and pant till the cool 
 breeze of the sunset hour enabled us to visit some hospitable 
 French Arabs living in the French khan, a huge building as large 
 as a London square, erected by the Emir Fakhr-ed-din for the use 
 of the French merchants in the seventeenth century. A large tank 
 and fountain occupy the centre of the court in a garden of banana, 
 acacia, and lemon-trees, which made the evening breeze come into 
 the apartments laden with perfumes. Each family has its own 
 suite of rooms, communicating with the rest by a wide corridor 
 extending round the court on both storeys to walk and lounge in ; it 
 seemed to us a most pleasant residence, with a promenade on the 
 house-top where one could enjoy fresher breezes and a lovely view 
 of the city. Saida is one of the prettiest towns in Syria; the 
 mosques and baths are particularly picturesque, and almost hand- 
 some; the two castles, and the fine rocks with the breakers con- 
 stantly dashing over them, and the rich fruit-gardens all around 
 the city, form a most charming tout ensemble. The view from the 
 Chateau of St. Louis is equally pretty and more extensive, the head- 
 land of Sour (the ancient Tyre) bounding the scene. This castle is 
 kept in good repair, and was originally a strong fortress ; that on 
 the rocks, although very much shattered, is worth seeing. Saida is 
 a place for endless sketching, both within and without the town, 
 and would repay an artist for a stay of some duration. 
 
 Warned by the heat and closeness of the house on the first day, 
 we established ourselves on the following morning inside a Wely or 
 Saint’s tomb on the sea-shore, a little to the north of the town, — a 
 * ‘ Thai aba.’ 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 145 
 
 spot to be recommended to future travellers, as we found the beat 
 much less intolerable there than elsewhere; we were close to a 
 spring and to the sea, and among lovely fruit-gardens. The tomb, 
 which occupies one half of the building, is walled off, and locked 
 up ; the rest is a small square whose arched roof is supported by 
 sixteen columns and is raised on steps at each side : such are most 
 of the welys in Syria, and they are often very agreeable resting- 
 places. In the afternoon we rode through some miles of the gardens, 
 the richest, we were told, in all Syria ; for here were not merely 
 lofty trees tangled over with thick bowers of vines laden with 
 luscious grapes, — orange, lemon, fig, almond, and plum-trees, 
 fragrant with perfume and bending with fruit, — but bananas 
 also, rare in this country, with enormous clusters of the rich brown 
 and orange fruit hanging down among the splendid leaves and 
 beautiful purple blossoms above them. The prickly-pear hedges 
 were full of fruit, and roses and honeysuckles grew everywhere. 
 But the glory of Saida are her apricot-groves : from her— her sole 
 commerce now — is exported the greater part of the misli-mish con- 
 sumed in Egypt, Damascus chiefly supplying Syria; and there 
 must be nearly as much mish-mish eaten in Egypt as we consume 
 of oranges or apples in the whole of Great Britain. The fruit of all 
 kinds grown at Saida is considered of a better quality than any 
 other in Syria. 
 
 Sidon was one of the most ancient cities in the world, and is one 
 of the very few of those (such as Damascus, Hamah, and Hebron) 
 on which a modern city or town, bearing the same name, exists at 
 the present day. It was the chief port and capital city of Phoenicia, 
 and the mother of a hundred other cities whose very sites have 
 been forgotten in the dark ages of history. Six of the sons of 
 Canaan,* the grandson of Noah, founded the principal cities of 
 Phoenicia (Sidon, Arka, Sinna, Aradus, Simyra, and Hamath); 
 hence their descendants were called Canaanites, the Greeks after- 
 wards giving them the name of Phoenicians. Their coast extended 
 from Mount Carmel to Mount Casius, along which numerous ports 
 and cities were placed : the inhabitants of these appear to have 
 attained a high degree of civilisation and even of luxury. Dismayed, 
 however, at the extraordinary success of the divinely-supported 
 arms of Israel, as step by step they victoriously subdued nearly the 
 whole of Palestine, the Phoenicians emigrated in large numbers — 
 “ fleeing from the face of the robber Joshua/’ as they expressed it— 
 and planted kingdoms and colonies throughout the coast of the 
 Mediterranean, founding cities in Africa, Spain, Italy, Greece and 
 * Gen. x. 15-19. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 the isles of the iEgean Sea. They need not, however, have been so 
 much afraid, for Asher, to whom the land containing Sidon fell, 
 never took the city, or drove the Phoenicians out of the country ; * 
 and God, in His anger against Israel for this, permitted these and 
 some other tribes to dwell in the land in order “ to prove Israel,” 
 and “ to teach them war.”f Unhappily the Israelites not only pro- 
 fited by their teaching in this and in other accomplishments , % but 
 they also learned from them their abominable idolatries : from them 
 came the worship of Baal, the Sun, — the ruins of whose Phoenician- 
 built temples abound in Syria, and especially about Hermon, or 
 Baal-hermon; the Sidonians, however, called it “ Sirion,” or the 
 “ Breastplate.” Prom them came also the worship of Astarte (or 
 Yenus), the enticing goddess, after whom even the heart of the wise 
 Solomon turned from the paths of virtue, and to whose honour he 
 erected an altar or “high place,” on the Mount of Corruption, over 
 the brook Kedron ; and it was from Sidon, also, that Ahab, king of 
 Israel, took the wicked Princess Jezebel for his wife, the great 
 promoter of Baal- worship. 
 
 Sidon was in the height of her glory about a thousand years before { 
 the coming of our Lord; her colonies, of which Carthage was the 
 chief, had then spread the knowledge of letters §, science, and art 
 over all the then-known world, and her ships had sailed round the 
 southern extremity of Africa, in passing from the Bed Sea to the 
 Mediterranean. || Her daughter Tyre was still more flourishing and 
 renowned than herself, — “ perfect of beauty,” “ very glorious in the 
 midst of the seas,” — but she was slain, destroyed, “ brought utterly 
 to ashes and Sidon, conquered first by Tyre, fell successively into 
 the hands of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Persians. Later on it 
 became Syrian, Greek, and Boman, and was much occupied by the 
 Crusaders. “ Pestilence and blood ” has been indeed “ sent into her 
 streets,” and “judgments executed in her.”Y “ Blush with shame, 
 
 0 Sidon ! thou city sitting beside the waters, the strength of the 
 sea ; thou mayest indeed say, I have not travailed, I have nourished 
 neither young men nor virgins ; for now none remain unto me : it 
 is as though I had never brought forth a child ! ” ** 
 
 We left the city at 8 p.m., passing through groups of people sitting 
 in clusters in the streets and on the beach, smoking and listening 
 to gesticulating story-tellers, and had a delightful ride along the 
 shore, in the sweet, fresh, warm night air, by the light of the 
 
 * Judges i. 31, 32. t Ibid. ii. 20-23, iii. 1, 2. 
 
 f 1 Kings v. 6. § Herodotus, book v. 58. 
 
 || Ibid, book iv. 42. IT Ezek. xxvii. xxviii. 22, 23. 
 
 ** See Isaiah xxiii. 4. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 147 
 
 magnificent moon. Twice we stopped at the roadside khans to 
 drink excellent coffee, and morning began to break as we entered the 
 olive-groves and gardens about Beyrout ; they were gay with flowers 
 — among them the colocynth (coloquintida), a queer-looking creeping 
 plant with a fruit like green pills, now (happily) so much disused in 
 medicine, that it no longer pays to collect it. We refreshed ourselves 
 with quantities of the cool, sweet prickly-pear from the baskets of 
 pretty women who were gathering them in the early dew ; and as 
 the blue mist cleared away the mountains looked so lovely, that we 
 felt well repaid for the fatigue of the nocturnal ride. We reached 
 the hotel at 6 p.m., and found occupation for some hours in ridding 
 ourselves of the fleas we had gathered up in the khans en route ; 
 and at midnight we mounted again, to ride up to our dear little 
 home at Beit Miry. 
 
 One morning at Beit Miry the Bruze muleteer who had accom- 
 panied us to Deir-el-Kamar came to request the honour of our 
 presence at his marriage, which was to take place that day ; and on 
 our promising to go to it, he left a present of an oke of pine fruit- 
 kernels, as the Druze custom is to leave a gift with every guest 
 invited to the wedding. We were summoned by a messenger, who 
 said, “the feast was ready,” at 2.30 p.m.; and on reaching the 
 Druze quarter, a volley of muskets saluted us from a group of gaily 
 dressed men surrounding the bridegroom, attired in new clothes, 
 and looking very sheepish and uncomfortable. On arriving at the 
 house, which was at the farther end of the quarter, we found. the 
 little outer court full of old hags, horned and veiled, cooking in 
 stew-pans over fires made on the ground ; the cuisine did not look 
 very ajpjpetissante. The house consisted of only one large room, the 
 roof supported by two pillars in the centre, and quite full of women, 
 to whom we were introduced by the bridegroom’s father, a venerable 
 and handsome man, with a long white beard ; his dirty old wife 
 made many salaams, and kissed our hands, as did nearly all the 
 guests in the room. There were both Druzes and Christians in the 
 room — the latter dressed in gay-coloured coarse muslins and pretty 
 white muslin veils, hanging down behind their heads, some of 
 which were finely embroidered, with quantities of gold ornaments 
 and bracelets ; the Druzes in dirty blue or brown serge gowns, and 
 veils of the same stuff in black, which they held over their faces 
 when any man appeared ; nearly every woman had a small infant 
 in her arms, and the floor was strewed with bigger infants — small 
 and large squalling alike most of the time. The Druze women are 
 usually less pretty than the Maronite women, and their costume 
 makes them appear still plainer: but they are finely made and 
 
 l 2 
 
148 
 
 E G YPTIAN SEPUL CHRES 
 
 have good manners, though, like all Oriental women, less so than 
 their husbands, whose"open, free, graceful, and polished bearing is 
 remarked by all travellers. A place was immediately cleared for 
 us and a carpet spread, on which we sat to take ever so many 
 glasses of eau sacree, which we disposed of to the children, much 
 to the delight of both children and mothers ; but the heat 
 became so intolerable that another carpet was placed for us 
 on a shady terrace: whence we soon saw the bridegroom arrive 
 at his own house, escorted by his friends, who fired muskets 
 all the way. 
 
 Our seat faced the whole of the beautiful ravine of El Metn, and 
 we presently saw some bright spots emerging from the thick woods 
 at the bottom of the valley, and winding up the steep zigzag ascent 
 on our side ; this was the bridal procession. First came three mules, 
 carrying the bride’s bed and a great box, painted scarlet, and 
 adorned with flowers, containing her wardrobe; then her father, 
 with a snowy turban, mounted on an ass, followed by a number of 
 relations on foot; and lastly the bride herself, surrounded by 
 women, but without her mother, whom etiquette keeps at home. 
 As soon as she entered the district firing began ; after this a volley 
 was fired at every zigzag on the road, the unceasing noise and 
 shouting seeming much to annoy the horse on which she was 
 mounted. She was closely veiled, first with yellow silk, then green 
 gauze, and over both a white cotton eezar ; and one of her hands, 
 wrapped in a yellow cotton handkerchief, was held the whole time 
 on the top of her head, in token of submission and obedience to her 
 new duties; sometimes the weary arm was supported by a neigh- 
 bour, but one or other hand was never taken down. When she 
 came near the house the firing and shouting redoubled, and a 
 score of persons went to meet her, among them the bridegroom, 
 who bowed to her; then a very stupid sham battle ensued, one 
 man on each side running into a vacant space alternately, and 
 firing his musket in the air; this lasted about ten minutes, 
 before she was allowed to proceed; her father lifted her from 
 her horse, and the door was shut upon her and the women for a 
 short time. 
 
 When we were summoned inside we found a gaudy shawl hung 
 against the wall of the room, with her back to which the bride was 
 standing on a pile of cushions, like an effigy in a church; she was 
 unveiled, and proved very pretty, fair as an English girl, with light 
 brown hair, the only Eastern characteristic in her face being the 
 highly arched eyebrows, which are artificially formed in childhood. 
 She was dressed in a red silk vest over a white silk chemise, and a 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 149 
 
 green silk pelisse oyer that, fastened with large silver buttons, and 
 several silver chains, to each of which hung a triangular silver case 
 containing a hezdb or charm, and a very massive and costly gold 
 necklace ; a muslin handkerchief lay over her head, but no tantour , 
 the chief Sheikh of the Druzes having just published a command, 
 we were told, that they should be given up by all but the old 
 women. Here the unhappy girl was to stand for three whole days, 
 with her eyes closed and her hand over the top of her head in the 
 presence of the guests ; even in the night, should any visitor come 
 in, she must resume her place ! The friends sometimes whispered in 
 her ear, but she is supposed to be incapable of speech or sight till 
 the contract is signed and her husband appears. During these 
 three days no man enters the room. She looked very hot and 
 tired, and flushed still more deeply as she stepped down from the 
 cushions to kiss the English ladies’ hands, in honour of whom she 
 was allowed to lift her eyelids for one moment, and showed us her 
 pretty brown eyes. After this her nearest relation, a very jolly 
 looking woman, stood before her, and, pushing back the crowd a 
 little, flourished each present brought by the guests, one by one, 
 over her head, screaming out the name of the donor and the 
 substance and value of the gift ; and before she deposited it in the 
 bride’s pocket, spinning round between each announcement in a 
 wonderful jigging dance, and giving the mountain cry of joy or 
 triumph till we were nearly deafened. This cry is a very peculiar 
 whistling scream, beginning on a high note and then jumping to 
 the octave above, something like the Tyrolese jodi , only simpler, 
 and never at any distance musical ; we sadly learned to know the 
 cry well afterwards. 
 
 Having endured this as long as we could, our hands aching with 
 squeezes and kisses, we bade them good-bye and departed, sending 
 our present of three dollars in the evening, as we were told that 
 was considered much more aristocratic and dignified than giving it 
 at the time. The bridegroom and all his friends were sitting in 
 rows on the house-tops, eating an enormous dinner spread upon nice 
 mats ; the dinner continues all day long, giving them fortunately 
 something to do in the long interval before the contract is drawn ; 
 for the Druzes have no religious ceremonial of marriage. The 
 bridegroom, a fine tall young man, seemed very anxious and curious 
 about his bride, whose face he had never seen, and to whom he had 
 never spoken ; he was much pleased with the praises we bestowed 
 on her, which, as Europeans, we could do — an Arab could not 
 have spoken to him of his wife. 
 
 We learned on this day something of the division of property 
 
150 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 among the Lebanon mountaineers. On the death of a man all his 
 possessions are divided among his children, with no distinction of 
 the first-born, the sons each taking twice as much as the daughters, 
 who are supposed to be provided for by their marriage. Should 
 the land-property be too small for division, it is sold, and the 
 proceeds divided in the same proportions ; if there is any choice in 
 the lots, the youngest child chooses first, and so on, the eldest 
 coming the last ; and if there are any young children, the largest 
 portion is reserved for them. 
 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 151 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE BATTLE. 
 
 During the first six or seven centuries after the Resurrection of our 
 Lord a number of sects sprang up in the bosom of the Christian 
 Church, nearly all of them finding birth in the North of Syria and 
 in Egypt. To say nothing of the Sabellians and Arians of Africa, or 
 the Nestorians and Eutychians of Constantinople, the semi-con- 
 verted Jews of Syria split into Nazarenes, Ebionites, and other sects, 
 while among the Arabs of the north and north-east, Jacobites, 
 Monophysites, Mariamites and Collyridians, Gnostics and Docetes, 
 spread themselves over the mountains of the Lebanon, and the 
 countries of Aleppo, Diarbekr, and Mesopotamia. These mountains, 
 and the rocks of the desert, were soon thickly peopled with hermits 
 and recluses, singly, and in bands, living in different degrees of 
 asceticism. Those of the mountain tribes who had been converted 
 to Christianity were united^ under a Patriarch (Batri/c -in Arabic), 
 as their spiritual head, and were governed by Emirs or Sheikhs 
 of the different districts. 
 
 About fifty years after the birth of Muhammad, and before the 
 Reformed Religion taught by him had made any progress beyond 
 the immediate neighbourhood of Medina and Mecca, or the confines 
 of Arabia, one of those Christians who had retired into a cave in 
 north Syria, in order to pursue his studies and meditations unin- 
 terruptedly, made himself remarkable by the peculiar sanctity of 
 his life and the unusual depth of wisdom that fell from his lips. 
 This man was called Hanna (the Arabic of John) Maroun, — the cave 
 where he dwelt was close to one of the chief sources of the Orontes, 
 the ’Ain or spring mentioned in Numb, xxxiv. 11. 
 
 About this time the quarrels between Constantinople and Rome 
 for the spiritual jurisdiction of the Christians in Syria, broke forth, 
 and emissaries from each were spread through the country, for the 
 
152 
 
 E G YET/AN SEPUL CURES 
 
 purpose of influencing the people. Hanna Maroun was at once 
 elected by the united voices of the mountaineers as their adviser 
 and leader. He immediately declared himself for the Latins, acknow- 
 ledged the Pope as his spiritual master, and put himself at the head 
 of a large body of followers. Those who acknowledged Constanti- 
 nople as the throne of their spiritual and political head separated 
 from the followers of Maroun, and gave themselves the name of 
 Meleldtes (from melik, the Arabic for sovereign), which they bear to 
 this day,* but they are more usually called the people of Bourn, as 
 members of the Greek Church, whence they then received their 
 Patriarch and their tenets; they are of course now, as then, equally 
 with the Maronites, subjects of the Turkish empire, but they hold 
 the same doctrines as those of the Church of Bussia, and look to her 
 Emperor as their chief protector. 
 
 The tenets of the Maronites are simply those of Borne — their 
 colleges and schools being presided over by teachers and priests sent 
 from that city. They submitted more entirely to the Pope in 1180, 
 giving up at that time the Monophysitism, which had till then 
 tinged their tenets, and obtaining in return the immense concession 
 of retaining many of their own peculiar customs, — a very remark- 
 able, and perhaps unparalleled, concession on the part of Borne. 
 They have a very large number of monks, who of course take vows 
 of celibacy and poverty ; but the parish priests are almost always 
 married. The people communicate in both kinds, and their service 
 is conducted in Syriac, — a language till lately well understood by 
 them, but now entirely disused, since only three villages are existing 
 where Syriac is still spoken, — the Gospels, and other parts, are read 
 also in Arabic. There are between 90 and 100 convents, containing 
 about 1500 monks and 500 or 600 nuns : the number of the 
 Maronite population is differently stated, but is most probably 
 about 233,000 souls. There are large numbers of them at Aleppo, 
 Tripoli, Beyrout, and Saida, but they may be said chiefly to inhabit 
 the Lebanon, the Kesrouan district of which is almost entirely* 
 occupied by them : the principal number of their convents are 
 placed there ; and about the Cedars, and in the Kesrouan they have 
 their great priest’s college of Antourah. 
 
 Hanna Maroun died in a.d. 701, and was buried at Hamah, his 
 tomb becoming at once, and for a very long lime after, a place of 
 pilgrimage to both parties among the mountaineers; his remains 
 were believed to perform miracles, and were visited by pilgrims 
 from even Egypt and all parts of Turkey. A convent was soon 
 
 * They also separated in the same way from the Copts in Egypt, and took 
 the same name of Meleldtes. See Lane’s 1 Modern Egyptians.’ 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 153 
 
 founded beside the tomb, the monks excavating cells in the living 
 rock for themselves, and building up loopholed walls overhanging 
 the ravine below — as in the convents of Mar Antoun and Khano- 
 bin ; to this convent the Pope sent a present of a fine library. 
 
 Among these monks the belligerent leaders of the Maronites for 
 the future were found. At one time, intoxicated with some successes 
 over the partisans of Constantinople, the Maronites marched down 
 to Jerusalem, when the Mooslims, taking advantage of their absence, 
 seized and pillaged the convent, massacring the unfortunate monks 
 that had remained there ; after this the Maronites and Melekites 
 wisely made peace, having enemies enough to contend with, without 
 fighting their fellow-Christians. 
 
 The Maronites hastened to join the bands of the Crusaders on 
 their arrival in Syria, and did them much service in replenishing 
 their ranks, as hundreds and thousands of gallant Pranks were 
 slain in the field or died in the camp. At Damietta, in 1249, vast 
 numbers of the Maronites fell fighting under the banner of Louis 
 IX. ; a fresh band, however, joined him afterwards at Akka, and 
 there still exist in Paris copies of a letter written by Louis IX. to 
 both the Emir of the Lebanon and to their Patriarch, assuring the 
 Maronites of the protection of France for ever : it is dated May 21, 
 1250. Henri II. was, in 1520, addressed by Sultan Suleyman II. by 
 the title of “ Protector of the Christians of Mount Lebanon and 
 Louis XIV., and still later Louis XV., repeated this assurance in 
 letters addressed by them to the Patriarch of the Maronites in the 
 convent of Khanobin. 
 
 Certain it is that the Maronites have a strong belief that as they 
 are now under the protection of France, they will one day be openly 
 ruled by her : time will show how near this idea is to the truth. 
 There are facts which appear to justify it, for gradually, cautiously, 
 and silently the French have obtained a footing throughout the 
 Lebanon, and nearly throughout Syria. There is scarcely a single 
 large village in the whole of the Lebanon without a mission of one, 
 two, or three monks, and a school taught by Lazaristes, and these 
 are all Frenchmen ; they have also missions and schools scattered 
 throughout Syria; especially in the country round Jaffa and Jeru- 
 salem ; and the Lazaristes teach so well and work their missions so 
 thoroughly, that they are not only a good example to us, but they 
 are sure ultimately of success ; for the Arabs appreciate education : 
 that is to say they love money with all their hearts, and even the 
 poorest mountain peasant is glad to have his sons taught to count, 
 to add up piasters, and to read and write ; accomplishments which 
 they acquire with remarkable facility. In the towns they teach 
 
154 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 French also, which they gladly enough learn, to aid them in 
 commerce, and to enable them to become dragomans. Unfor- 
 tunately their French education usually renders the town Arabs 
 pretentious and impertinent ; the best example of which are the 
 people of Zah’leli, where this education has been in full force for 
 very many years, and of whom Mr. Porter says, they “ are notorious 
 for their pride, insolence, and turbulence. Family broils are in- 
 cessant, and scarce a month passes without bloodshed.” * 
 
 The French have also found another method of gaining substantial 
 influence in Syria. Whenever their Lazaristes tell them of an 
 unusually intelligent Sheikh or person of influence, they send him 
 letters of naturalisation, and make him an honorary French subject : 
 of course this includes, or would be found to include, the peasantry 
 of whom each sheikh is chief, whenever the occasion needed. We 
 learned also, on good authority, that the French consuls along the 
 coast have an ingenious way of recommending the crews of boats to 
 buy a flag, bearing the Jerusalem Cross, wdiich is blessed by the 
 Superior of the French Convent of the Terre Sainte, the Guardian 
 of the Holy Sepulchre; under which they sail in double security, 
 spiritual as well as temporal. France then claims them as her 
 subjects, though of course they are in reality only Turkish subjects, 
 and though all consuls are forbidden to protect any but their own 
 lawful countrymen ; and when France requires them they will be 
 found ready for her service. Our informant mentioned sixty- 
 four well-manned boats which to his knowledge carried the flag. 
 
 Nothing can be more mischievous than the various “ protections ” 
 accorded by the European governments to subjects of the Sultan, 
 Mooslim as well as Christian. They serve but to render them 
 insolent when they have nothing to fear, and cringing when they 
 have; and the protection is very frequently extended to most 
 worthless individuals, merely for the sake of exercising and 
 maintaining the right. It was reliance on this “ protection ” that 
 made the Zah’leh people so insolent to the Mooslims, insisting on 
 their dismounting from their horses on entering the town, and even 
 calling their own dogs “Muhammad”: of course the greatest 
 insult that can be offered to persons who consider dogs unclean 
 animals. They have since been severely punished, and they most 
 certainly brought the penalty on themselves. 
 
 The Maronites are industrious and docile; they are intelligent 
 and capable of immense improvement; they are brave, but they 
 have not the pluck and fortitude of the Druzes, nor the support of 
 an admirable organisation, combination, and obedience, which is 
 * ‘ Handbook for Syria and Palestine,’ vol. ii. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 155 
 
 the very backbone of the Druze people ;* nor have they by any 
 means the high sense of hononr which the Druzes undoubtedly 
 possess, though, of course, there are honourable exceptions among 
 them. The Maronite, when a little educated, prides himself 
 on being ruse , but his ruse is a coarse affair in comparison with that 
 of the Bedouin or the Druze ; he is simply dishonest, though he has 
 just wit enough to try to persuade you that cheating is the only 
 thing of which he is perfectly incapable : if he cannot succeed in 
 this he tries to prove to you what he gains is in some manner only 
 bis real due, or he assures you tout lonnement , that he felt that to 
 your excellent heart and charitable disposition his profit would be 
 equally a pleasure and a gratification. 
 
 When the Greek and Latin Churches of Syria forgot their 
 differences and united in arms against the Druzes, they were 
 frequently victorious; but the great Druze Chief, the Emir 
 Fakir-ed-din, was so accomplished a general that the Druzes 
 shortly recovered themselves, and held up their heads as proudly as 
 ever. This Emir proved the Druzes capable of becoming active, and 
 thriving in commerce, and he probably would have made them a 
 great people had he not taken the unhappy notion of visiting 
 Europe, where he wasted and lost both his patrimony and 
 patriotism. 
 
 The custom of blood-feuds, which exists throughout the moun- 
 tains, is a terrific promoter of discord ; notwithstanding which it is 
 undoubted by all who know the Druzes well that they would live 
 in peace and harmony with the Christians if the Turks would let 
 them ; but these latter are unceasingly exciting them against each 
 other, and urging them on to w T ar for their own purposes. Of 
 course it is all done in an underhand way, but the truth will out ; 
 and no one can be any time in the country without perceiving it. 
 
 One day our Druze muleteer, at whose wedding we had been 
 guests one month before, was driving his mule along the narrow 
 path, when another mule, driven by a small Christian boy brushed 
 up against him. The Druze was a hot-tempered and foolish young 
 fellow, and he immediately thrashed the boy with no moderate arm. 
 The next day the victim’s father and another man hid in a large 
 caroob-tree, waylaid the Druze as he was going down to Beyrout on 
 our commissions, and fully avenged the boy. The Druze went 
 home with a bleeding head, a good deal hurt; upon seeing 
 
 * It is as well to note here that the Druzes have been an independent 
 religious and political nationality for upwards of 800 years. Their creed is 
 derived from the Bible and the Koran, interwoven with allegories. The 
 religious duties of the Akhals are somewhat rigid. 
 
156 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 which the women — never slow to join in a fray — took up the 
 quarrel on both sides. They emptied each other’s pitchers at the 
 fountain, and finally broke a lot of them against the rocks — miser- 
 able, trifling squabbles, but from such bagatelles many a grave and 
 mournful tragedy has arisen. We heard that the village priest was 
 trying to make peace between them, and we hoped that there 
 would be no worse results from this than from a hundred other 
 petty quarrels we had heard of between Christian and Druze. 
 
 The week before an English friend of ours * had arrived in Beit 
 Miry, and taken a house at the same end of the village as our own, 
 but over the brow of the mountain, and therefore commanding the 
 northern view of the valley of El-Metn ; in the centre, in fact, of the 
 Druze quarter. The moon was now, on the evening of the 13th of 
 August, at the full, and we went over to see how gloriously beautiful 
 the valley, headed by snowy Sunnin, looked in the moonlight from 
 his verandah : this was three days after the muleteer’s quarrel. 
 While we were enjoying what was really a magnificent and lovely 
 scene, the mist wreaths, as we thought, which were lying rather 
 thickly in the valley, rose over the moon, and advanced with steady 
 steps, drawing a hard black edge across her face : she was half 
 covered before we perceived that it was an eclipse, f and most 
 curiously beautiful was the effect of the half-obscured light on the 
 mountains. The villagers came out of their houses to observe the 
 phenomenon, and seemed much alarmed by it. “ They say,” said 
 our dragoman, “ that these things always bring misfortunes, and 
 that blood will soon flow ; ” and as if in sad confirmation of his 
 words, before the eclipse was over we actually heard firing on the 
 mountains opposite, and saw smoke hanging about in various spots 
 — the villages on the other side of the Metn had taken up the 
 quarrel ! The Druzes about us seemed very much excited, but as 
 we went home we heard that the Bishop at Madrass had ordered the 
 culprits to come to him on the following morning, and that he 
 would surely induce them to make satisfactory amends to each 
 other. 
 
 And early on Sunday morning the good father did talk very 
 earnestly to both. He desired his Christian son to apologise to the 
 Druze whom he had beaten so unmercifully, which he promised to 
 do ; but he stipulated that the muleteer, as the first offender, should 
 come to his house to fetch the apology ; this the Druze stoutly 
 refused. About 10 a.m. we were attracted to the window by the 
 sound of loud and angry voices, and looking out we saw several 
 
 * The Honourable Roden Noel. 
 
 f This eclipse, which was total, was not visible in England. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 157 
 
 Druzes collected on the roof of a house in the Tillage, a few paces 
 on our left, all shouting and gesticulating at once, and evidently 
 restrained with great difficulty by some of the elders ; they were all 
 pointing and calling down the mountain side, where we saw, about 
 a hundred yards below us, a no less eager crowd of Christians 
 collected on a projecting knoll of ground on the path to Madrass, 
 where, with their quick, eager movements, they looked just like a 
 sv/arm of bees. We easily discerned similar efforts being made 
 among them by the elders of their party, at soothing and appeas- 
 ing their excitement, — they seemed to have formed themselves into 
 a ring, through which they were determined not to allow any of the 
 more impetuous ones to break, or to rush up to attack the Druzes 
 on the summit: when presently up came the little party from 
 Madrass with tidings of the conditions imposed by the Christian 
 upon the apology he had agreed to make. The words were hastily 
 shouted out to those above, and in another moment there came the 
 report of a musket — a Druze had fired ! And now, with a rush on 
 both sides, the restraining elders were unheeded as the impetuous 
 crowd swept by them — the Christians ran up the terraces from 
 below, hiding behind the mulberry-trees to fire up, the Druzes from 
 above firing down in answer, — and though numbers failed of their 
 aim, we saw several deliver the fatal message of death or torture. 
 Meanwhile there was a battle going on in the middle of the village, 
 the Druzes from one end meeting the Christians from the other end ; 
 but this we could not see. The ground was so steep and the 
 terraces stood so high, one above another, that on the mountain 
 side there could be no coming face to face. It was completely 
 guerilla warfare — each one fighting for himself, without leaders or 
 plan, picking out any enemy he could see, and taking aim from 
 behind a mulberry-tree or a bit of rock; but later on a small 
 party on each side met on the open road and the rocks about the 
 fountain, and fought for some time vigorously in the little dell. We 
 saw some fall, and then the rest escaped through the pine-forest 
 close at hand. All this time, high above the noise of the firing, 
 there arose continually a horrible sound — who that has once heard 
 it can forget how it thrilled through head and heart ! — the war-cry 
 raised by the women on both sides, as, standing on the house- 
 tops, they watched the progress of the fight, urging on the men, 
 hanging over the edge with eager gesticulations, or throwing their 
 arms wildly in the air, more like frenzied demons than women. 
 Added to these cries there came sometimes from one or another 
 a piercing wail over the wounded or fallen ; while many others 
 # followed their husbands with pitchers of water on their shoulders. 
 
158 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 giving them drink ever and anon in the heat of the burning sun, 
 standing beside them when they took aim, and every moment 
 shrieking out the fierce shrill scream which excited every man to 
 do his utmost in shedding blood. Three of these women were 
 wounded. 
 
 The principal Druze houses were, as I have said, on the little 
 craggy rock exactly above our house ; their rifles, therefore (and 
 nearly all of them had rifles), were not more than seven or eight 
 yards from it. Of course their houses were one of the principal 
 objects of attack; so every moment the bullets passed over our 
 roof, grating along the walls with that peculiar sharp ivhitzzz which 
 it is far more agreeable to hear at a distance than within half a yard 
 of one’s ears ; sometimes they passed close across the windows, 
 and the answering bullets from below as often hit the walls of the 
 house as others fizzed up over our heads in the open corridor. The 
 Emir and another man were wounded by stray shots in the little 
 house next to ours, and in fact there was scarcely a yard of ground 
 anywhere near us free from bullets. We had previously agreed 
 with our English friends— there were two English gentlemen then 
 in Beit Miry — that we would read our Sunday service together ; but 
 now we earnestly hoped they would not expose themselves to the 
 flying bullets in order to keep the engagement. However, afraid that 
 we might need their protection, they never thought of breaking it, 
 and they happily arrived at our house in safety and unhurt. Our 
 dragoman wanted us to immure ourselves in a room lighted only by 
 a door opening on to the corridor ; but the excitement and . interest 
 of the battle was far too great for us too resist watching it for a long 
 time from this open corridor or from the windows at all sides of the 
 house. We were assured, however, that this fighting might go on 
 for many days, certainly till night, and as we could do no good by 
 watching them, we read our Sunday-service as usual. I do not 
 think that any of us will easily forget that hour of prayer, and with 
 what unusual meaning the petition arose, “ From battle and murder, 
 and from sudden death —Good Lord deliver us !” or how we thought 
 of the same prayers rising at the same moment in hundreds of quiet 
 churches in England, while our little congregation of five persons 
 were assembled here, with the bullets falling thick and fast around 
 us, and the voice of the reader frequently drowned in the sharp 
 click of the muskets, the strange ring of the rifle-balls, and the shrill 
 screams of the women ! Fear, indeed (except from stray shots), none 
 of us had thought of, nor had we any cause for it ; we knew well 
 that our being English ensured our safety among the Druzes, and 
 that their respect for us would not fail : a remarkable instance of , 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 159 
 
 which was afforded more than once during the battle, when one of 
 ns leaned out from a window, and a Druze close by stopped, even in 
 the moment of taking aim, and, lowering his gun, made a salaam to 
 the “ Sitt and they called to our servants to know whether some 
 buildings on our ground belonged to us or not, — of course we said 
 they did, and no one entered them. There was a French family 
 spending a few weeks in some miserable apartments under our house, 
 whereby, happily for them, they were living under our flag , and 
 that flag afforded them equal security and safety with ourselves. A 
 number of Christian women, as well as our landlord and his family, 
 rushed into our house when the battle began, the women bringing 
 their gold ornaments, and took refuge in these lower rooms ; — not one 
 of them was touched. 
 
 About three o’clock the firing suddenly ceased, and the sub- 
 sequent stillness seemed almost stunning after the tumult and noise. 
 We learned that the Christians had exhausted their ammunition, and 
 therefore fled : the Druzes remaining masters of the field. Then 
 came the saddest part of the day : several wounded and one dead 
 Druze were carried past our house, borne on men’s shoulders, 
 bleeding and groaning, and the lamenting of the women was soon 
 heard as, recognising their own beloved ones among the sufferers, 
 they flung their arms over their heads, and sang a wild cry, half 
 Druze war-cry, and half like the Irish keen. Druze reinforcements 
 from other villages now arrived, and we saw some of the deserted 
 Christian houses being sacked, and the furniture burnt : they said 
 this was done only by the strangers. We opened the hall-door, and 
 went out on the steps to breathe more freely in the now still after- 
 noon air, when a venerable-looking white-bearded Druze, one of 
 their chiefs, immediately came up and assured us, with the most 
 expressive signs and words, that amongst them not only our 
 persons but all our property also, was perfectly safe ; that wherever 
 our flag was unfurled everything would be secure, adding that it 
 was already well known in the mountains. And they afterwards 
 told one of the English gentlemen that they had for three days en- 
 deavoured to put off the war on account of the “ sitteh Ingleez ” 
 who were staying among them, till we should have gone. This we 
 heard also in other parts of the country afterwards. 
 
 The stillness and silence of the village in the afternoon was indeed 
 a contrast to the horrors of the day : the Europeans profited by it in 
 sending messages to each other, consulting what they should do. 
 The Druzes were, of course, much elated, and as strangers came to 
 join them from other villages, we heard that this battle was to be 
 only the precursor of many others, and that they fully hoped to 
 
160 
 
 EGYPTIAN SETUP CHRES 
 
 exterminate the Christians thronghont the mountains. The other 
 Europeans determined to leave the place at once— one family indeed 
 had already gone ; for, in the very thickest of the fight, about mid- 
 day, these good people had the folly to fly, passing right through 
 the combatants, and of course putting themselves in a hundred 
 times more danger from stray shots, than they would have incurred 
 by remaining quietly in their house. Their terror and confusion 
 being too great to allow of a moment’s thought of delay, they fled on 
 foot in the burning sun, hatless and bonnetless, carrying their 
 children in their arms, all the way down to Beyrout, a four hours’ 
 walk. On arriving in the town their alarm, increasing at every 
 step, had filled their minds with horrible pictures, and they spread 
 the intelligence that all the Europeans had been massacred, and 
 their houses sacked. So far from this being the case, we heard 
 afterwards that every single thing from their own deserted house 
 •was carried down to them a day or two later, not one object missing, 
 even the lady’s thimble and their provisions prepared for the day 
 included ! Except, indeed, their grey mare, which they had left tied 
 near the house, and which we saw, poor thing, killed soon after by 
 some three or four stray shots. 
 
 I am afraid that the prejudices of some of my readers may be 
 shocked at my confession that my sympathy involuntarily sided 
 with the Druzes throughout the day. Of course, in this particular 
 instance they were in the wrong and the aggressors ; but apart from 
 the cause , the bearing of the Druze, speaking generally, is so much 
 more akin to an English mind than that of the Christians, that one 
 cannot well help such a feeling. The latter were quick and active, 
 but the Druze has a fearlessness and nobility about him — a proud, 
 steady step, a lofty head and eagle eye, a bold athletic form, and a 
 free, open, but perfectly respectful manner, that makes one feel 
 always at ease and safe with him. During the battle it was 
 curious to mark the difference of the ingenious hiding and dodging 
 of the Christian, and the daring boldness of the Druze ; it reminded 
 me continually of a battle between a cat and a bloodhound — if such 
 a noble beast would condescend to do battle with a mere cat. The 
 Christians of the mountains are well made, and have a soft, sleepy 
 kind of beauty, set off by gay-coloured dresses; but if ever you see 
 a noble form both of figure- and face, full of self-respect and native 
 dignity, and a neatly put on, clean, quiet-coloured dress, be sure he 
 is a Druze, or a Metouaalee. These latter have but poor dresses. 
 The dresses of the Christians are more costly than that of the Druze, 
 but the Druze is much the cleaner of the two. Numerically, the 
 Maronites far exceed the Druzes, but the minority of the latter 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 161 
 
 are more than compensated by their courage, coolness, and 
 organisation. 
 
 Mr. Noel now left us to see how things were going on in his own 
 house, which he had given up to the shelter of very many women 
 and children, with their little bundles of valuables and gold orna- 
 ments ; and on going back he found his dragoman had brought in 
 several of the wounded, whose sufferings they did their best to 
 relieve. That long night was a sad one, passed among the women 
 and children, two of whom were wounded; many of the women 
 were wailing for the dead, and amongst these was the muleteer who 
 had begun the quarrel, and whose young wife had been married but 
 a month before. Mr. Noel came back to us at nightfall for linen 
 rags and medicine — a Druze dodged him in the darkness with his 
 rifle cocked, and was just stooping to take aim when he called out 
 “ Ingleez ! Ingleez ! ” upon hearing which the Druze started up and 
 made amends by accompanying him to our door with many signs 
 of respect, repeating “ Ingleez taib, taib keteer ! ” (good, very 
 good !) 
 
 A thick fog came up with the night, and shrouded everything 
 from view, but we sat in our corridor watching the moonlight shining 
 in strange brightness down upon the white masses and folds of the 
 fog below us, and listening rather anxiously for any distant firing- 
 fearing lest the Druzes should think of pursuing the Christians in 
 their flight. We heard nothing, however, until about seven o’clock, 
 when the deep silence was broken by a horrible kind of sound — the 
 Druzes were parading the village in a band, singing a war-song of 
 triumph — very wild and simple was the air, and the voices sounded 
 rich and sweet ; but the meaning was too well expressed, and every 
 note thrilled through one with a strange, sad horror, swelling loudly, 
 and dying away softly, as they came to and fro. Often I think I 
 hear that song still. 
 
 The chant had scarcely ceased when we heard, to our great 
 surprise, drums beating, and the tramping of horses coming up the 
 road. The firing of the battle had been heard in Beyrout ; those who 
 had fled had given the alarm, with all kinds of exaggeration, and 
 the Pasha had therefore sent up a body of thirty cavalry to keep 
 the peace. And at the same time the various consuls had each one 
 sent up horses and mules to bring down their respective country- 
 men, protected by their own janissaries. In a few hours all the 
 European families in the village, excepting ourselves, had quietly 
 packed up and mounted, and before the sun had risen next morning 
 they had all comfortably arrived in their homes at Beyrout. The 
 English Consul alone had sent no help. 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 We had brought several letters of introduction to the consul, but 
 during our long stay in the town he had never called, and we had 
 had no communication beyond a civil note ; in this time of danger 
 and need, however, we fully believed and expected that assistance 
 would be sent, not only to us, but also to the English gentlemen 
 then in Beit Miry : so we sat listening for the arrival of more 
 mules, but nothing was heard, and it became a matter of serious 
 consultation what we should do. The French gentleman, whose 
 family occupied the rooms under us, very kindly sent up to say 
 he could spare us three horses if we liked to go down with them ; 
 but we had not the slightest idea of thus leaving our baggage 
 behind us, having no fears of any kind for ourselves personally in 
 remaining, while to leave our property at the mercy of strangers from 
 other villages was not to be thought of. We knew that the Druzes 
 had sent to summon their comrades from other mountains, and it 
 was believed on both sides that a long and sanguinary war was only 
 then commencing ; and we felt that if we remained we should have 
 no freedom in the neighbourhood for walking, and, knowing nothing, 
 alas ! of surgery, which we deeply regretted, we could not be of any 
 kind of use among them. A minor but unpleasantly important 
 consideration likewise influenced us : the Christians had carried off 
 their cocks and hens, their gardens were trampled down, and it 
 seemed very doubtful that we should get anything to eat ; supplies 
 from Beyrout were easily ordered, but if fighting continued, it was 
 unlikely that any muleteers would bring them to us. Then our men- 
 servants, being all three Maronites, not one of them could go in 
 safety even to the fountain to fetch water, though the cook, braver 
 than the rest, volunteered to do so, on condition that we would let him 
 carry the flag in his hand ! So, all things considered, we came very 
 reluctantly to the conclusion that we had better go somewhere else, 
 and accordingly a note was despatched by one of the descending- 
 parties to beg that mules and horses might be sent up for us. 
 
 We were not, however, uncared for : H.M.S. Tartarus had arrived 
 some days before at Beyrout, and our friend Captain Mansell 
 becoming alarmed for our safety, on hearing the alarming accounts 
 carried down to the town, had himself gone to the consulate to seek 
 for assistance. The Consul and Vice-Consul, the Secretary, and 
 every one else was out ; the consulate was locked, and not a janissary 
 was to be found. It was Sunday, and some hours were lost in searching 
 for them, and then in getting horses and mules, after which he took 
 upon himself the dispatching of janissaries with the animals up the 
 mountain. And as there are always more kind hearts in the world 
 than one counts on, we had been remembered by another : a lady 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 163 
 
 had sent out at daybreak to know if we had come down with the 
 other Europeans in the night, and not hearing anything of ns, and 
 fearing that our consul had not sent up assistance, she requested a 
 gentleman belonging to her husband’s office to ride up at once, and 
 inyite us to her house. This gentleman readily undertook a long ride 
 in the burning heat for persons in whom he had not the slightest 
 interest ; but we were yet more touched by the kind thoughtfulness 
 of the lady who had sent him, to whom we were entirely strangers, 
 and not even countrywomen. Many a traveller struck down with 
 fever in Bey rout, and not a few of the poor and suffering in the 
 town, have had occasion to bless her name. 
 
 In the meantime the Turkish Bey in command of the troop just 
 arrived, sent three of his soldiers to our house for protection, 
 and though we were considerably more afraid of them than of the 
 Druzes, it seemed wiser to accede to the wishes of our servants, and 
 to let them mount guard in the corridor, where they smoked and ate 
 cucumbers the whole night long, while we were packing up our 
 things. We had calculated that the mules might reach us by 5 a.m., 
 and we were accordingly ready to start at that hour, but many 
 another wearily elapsed ere our packages were fastened on the mules, 
 and it was nearly 2 p.m. before we set off. Our escort was a large one, 
 made up of English janissaries and some French kawasses, who had 
 been left behind the night before, I believe for our protection. 
 However, we saw no one from whom to be protected, and not a 
 creature did we even meet on the road save a few miserable 
 Christians, who had fled, despoiled of everything. That evening, 
 with the war-cries and wailings of the battle still echoing in my 
 ears, I sat long in the corridor of the hotel, watching the calm 
 moonlight shining on the little village, now so far off, and our own 
 deserted but beloved mountain home, and — strange and striking 
 contrast ! — looking at the “ crimson and emerald rain ” falling in 
 showers of bright flakes from the rockets and a fireworks of a splendid 
 fete given by Count Bentivoglio, the French Consul, in honour of 
 the Emperor’s birthday. 
 
 Early the next morning the two gentlemen we had left at Beit 
 Miry arrived at the hotel, driven down by the pangs of hunger ! And 
 in the course of the day we learned, on the best authority, “ that 
 one of the English ladies had been murdered in the battle, and that 
 the other had escaped, with the maid, into the depths of the valley, 
 where both the fugitives would be shot or starved to death ! ” 
 
 The question now was, what were we to do with ourselves ? 
 Travelling down to Jerusalem in August was not to be contemplated 
 by any sane person, while the temperature of Damascus was much 
 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 E G YPTIAN SEPUL CURES 
 
 higher than that of Bey rout ; where we found the heat so intoler- 
 ably oppressive that we determined at once to go up as high as we 
 could into the mountains. It was not likely that there would be 
 any disturbance in the northern district about the Cedars unless 
 the war became quite general, when, of course, the Metouaalees 
 would join in it, but before this could take place we should be able 
 to descend to Tripoli, or to cross the Bekaa to Damascus. Some of 
 our friends had settled to go to the Cedars for some time, and as 
 H.M.S. Tartarus was going to Tripoli, the Captain kindly invited 
 us all to go in her that far, an offer which we were very glad to 
 accept. 
 
 In the meantime a hollow peace was, after a few days, patched up 
 between Druze and Maronite,— “ till the next cocoons are gathered,” 
 we heard said on both sides, and too true, alas ! it turned out to be. 
 A good many small circumstances came out: the Governor of 
 Beyrout had strictly forbidden the Christians to purchase arms 
 in the bazaars, but Druzes were allowed to purchase them freely, 
 and they did so, boasting at the same time openly in the streets of 
 how many they had killed, and how they hoped to exterminate the 
 Christians if the war continued; but these spokesmen were, I 
 believe, the young bloods and boasting boys. From all we learned 
 at this time and afterwards it was quite evident that the chief 
 Druzes did not desire war : they were invited, dragged into it, — they 
 are not men to brook even a small injury, and they resented it 
 accordingly; but they would be men of peace if they were let 
 alone. 
 
 It was not only in Beyrout, where it is more difficult than in most 
 other places to separate gossip and canards from truth and facts, 
 that we learned how completely the Druzes were favoured by the 
 Government. The unfortunate Christians were seized, imprisoned, 
 fined, when they attempted to obtain arms for themselves, while, as 
 I have said, the Druzes notoriously purchased largely ; the Christian 
 mountaineers wherever we went were provided only with common 
 old muskets, while the Druze had rifles in great numbers, and 
 many of their sheikhs had revolvers, a weapon unknown to the 
 Christians, for even the Emir of Beit Miry, but three hours from so 
 large a European town as Beyrout, was astonished out of all Arab 
 gravity at a silver-mounted six-barelled revolver, with which I was 
 one day practising at a mark on one of the trees near his house. 
 He implored me with clasped hands to wait while he fetched a 
 beautiful little boy, his son and heir, to see the sight, and then when 
 I had re-fired it for his edification he solemnly applauded his little 
 son’s question, as to whether the weapon came from Sheitan ? I 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 165 
 
 am convinced that the Emir himself believed that Satan reloaded 
 it for me ad infinitum. 
 
 It is an unquestionable fact that the Turks do, and have always 
 encouraged the Druzes against the Christians: they hate both 
 equally ; but their object is plain : the Druzes are exceedingly war- 
 like and dexterous in fighting, the Christians are weak in war but 
 strong in numbers, and they therefore try to make use of the 
 Druzes to exterminate the Christians ; and when they have done the 
 hard work for them they will come in with a strong hand and get 
 the small body of Druzes into their power. I believe that at least 
 some of the Druzes understand their game perfectly, and see through 
 it ; they are quite willing to be assisted into getting rid of their 
 hereditary enemies, whom the Turks are always representing as the 
 authors of all ill against them, and they think they will take care of 
 themselves afterwards.. It will not be a very easy thing to exterminate 
 the Druzes. 
 
 The horrors of the following spring completely confirmed all these 
 reports: the Druzes paraded the streets of Beyrout with the 
 Mooslims, the one boasting of the dogs of Christians they had slain, 
 their boon companions applauding the deeds. It was reported by a 
 gentleman who has lived long in the country that he had himself 
 seen Mooslims ornamenting with flowers the muskets and knives of 
 those who had killed the greatest numbers. Wherever the most 
 horrible of the massacres and butcheries |were perpetrated the 
 Turks had encouraged the deed. At Deir-el-Kamar the Mutselim 
 stood by while the Druzes disarmed the Christians, and invited 
 the unfortunate 530 prisoners into the Serai, of which they after- 
 wards opened the gates when the Druzes came in to slaughter 
 them ! At Hasbeiya the Turkish colonel collected the Christians 
 into the Serai and there disarmed them : he himself admitted the 
 Druzes in to kill the 700 unarmed men, besides the unhappy women, 
 while his soldiers stood by looking on ah the battue ! These are but 
 two out of numberless other cases; at' Damascus the Mushir did 
 everything to invite the Druzes into the town — there were 5000 of 
 them armed within the walls on the day before the massacre— and 
 while they did the horrid work the Turkish soldiers and Kurds 
 carried off the plunder, the Mushir sitting at home in the Serai with 
 the doors closed against every one. 
 
 On the very best authority the fact has been made clear that, in 
 1860, the Christians commenced hostilities. The Druze sheiks endea- 
 voured by every means in their power to preserve peace, in all pro- 
 bability because they felt their own weakness against the over- 
 whelming numbers of their enemies in the Lebanon. When Kurshid 
 
166 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Pasha, compelled by the consuls to interfere, desired the Christian 
 Emirs to send home the fighting men then assembled, they answered 
 that they were confident of beating the Druzes, and would beat the 
 soldiers also if they interfered to prevent them, knowing very well 
 that the soldiers would do no such thing. So confident were the 
 Christians, that they were careless; while the Druzes, fearful of 
 defeat unless joined by their brethren of the Hauran, exerted 
 all their strength, and improved every advantage they could gain. 
 The Christians were everywhere beaten, and the Druzes were so 
 much elated at their almost unexpected victories, that they pursued 
 the Christians and committed barbarous atrocities such as nothing 
 can justify ; although, remembering their hereditary hatreds, and 
 that the Christians had sought to exterminate them, some excuse 
 may be found for their retaliation and revenge. At Hhaiffa and 
 many other places the Christians committed horrible brutalities, 
 about which nothing has been said ; indeed, while deploring the 
 misdeeds of the wild Druze of the mountains it would be as 
 well to remember the acts of many armies of drilled and disci- 
 plined soldiery belonging to the most Christian countries of Europe 
 — civilised Europe — and, not to speak of the atrocities of Austrian, 
 Prussian, Italian, worst of all of French soldiers, to look back at 
 some of our own in the unspeakable horrors that have taken place 
 in Ireland, Scotland, and fair England ! Of course the Druze, in 
 giving loose to his passion, is very guilty ; but he is ignorant and 
 unenlightened : are we, when our passions are excited, pious and 
 progressive though we be, much better ? or were the Irish in 1641 
 or in 1798 one whit less sanguinary or atrocious in their conduct 
 than the Druze ? 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 1C7 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LEBANON POLITICS. 
 
 We were a party of seventeen guests on board H.M.S. Tartarus, and 
 tbe vessel was so crowded that we were glad to find ourselves in our 
 quiet tents on the pleasant shore of Tripoli, after twelve hours at 
 sea. We spent the next day, while the horses rested from their 
 journey up from Bey rout, re-visiting the town and mountains. Our 
 tents were pitched in a garden on the sea-shore, close to the Castle 
 of Raymond of • Toulouse, and we rode thence by the bank of the 
 Kadisha to the fine ravine behind the town, and through the 
 picturesque streets, till it was time to go to bed, as we were to be 
 up and dressed before 3 a.m. ; and so we were, but we did not start 
 till past four, when the sun had risen. We had a very lovely ride 
 of six hours and a half, over a wide undulating plateau with fertile 
 fields, fresh, pleasant woods and purling streams, till the ascent, by 
 a steep and rugged path, to a little chapel perched on the side of a 
 very narrow grand gorge, where we rested for an hour or two. 
 Here some very pretty smiling girls insisted on our admiring the 
 valley, of which they seemed fondly proud, and the lovely views 
 of Tripoli, with her rocks and headlands stretching out into the 
 blue sea ; they would also make us look at the chapel and their 
 own cottage, the windows of both of which were filled up with 
 human skulls, looking most dismal — and they showed us the curved 
 iron bar hung in a tree, on which a hammer struck the call which 
 served for a church-bell. Then came a tremendous ascent, — dis- 
 agreeable enough to mount, but nowhere dangerous — zig-zagging 
 up between two high mountains of curiously contorted strata, 
 clothed with the white cypress, with which we were now to become 
 daily familiar — now and then a pine, or a walnut, or a pomegranate, 
 and every here and there tiny gardens perched on narrow ledges, 
 bearing potatoes or cotton, or a few vines. Then, turning suddenly 
 
168 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 away from a strange peak, came Jebel Arneto, which looked as if it 
 had been chopped off sideways, and meeting the upper streamlet of 
 the Kadisha again bubbling by, we crossed the water-shed, and 
 followed the brow of the mountain to Eh’den, a very large village, 
 nearly hidden in groves of huge walnut-trees. The people 
 crowded round us with warm and troublesome welcomes, as we 
 made our way through them in order to choose a delightful 
 camping-ground under some splendid walnut-trees, perhaps some 
 of the finest trees in the world. As there was a good bit of ground, 
 all the tents were set up in the same place, our three grouped round 
 one enormous tree, with a mountain torrent tumbling and rushing 
 down between them. The other tents were at some little distance, 
 and afterwards, when another traveller came up from Tripoli, he 
 chose the same ground, retiring to the back; nothing could be 
 more picturesque than the whole group, with our flag in the front 
 hoisted in a mulberry-tree, and the six or eight horses and twelve 
 mules picketed beneath with their gay-coloured trappings and 
 attendants, while round the kitchen tents there would always be 
 half a dozen gossiping villagers in the brightest coloured dresses 
 imaginable. The people of Eh’den are remarkably handsome, 
 both men and women, and the children lovely : the women wear 
 a singular headdress under their veils, made of silver, in the 
 shape of the crown of a bonnet— sometimes with a kind of crescent- 
 shaped horn. 
 
 This camping-ground was in fact on a wide terrace or plateau, 
 running the length of the valley along the side of the mountain, 
 which rose almost perpendicularly, like a wall, immediately behind 
 us, with barely slope enough for the white cedars to grow in a 
 feathery veil nearly to the summit. On the opposite side of the 
 valley the mountain was still more richly clothed with woods, 
 gardens, and villages, while between the two the gorge — which is 
 called Wady-el-Kadisha — sunk suddenly down in a deep ravine, 
 very narrow and very romantic, winding away westwards to 
 the sea, which we saw at the extreme right; while the horizon, 
 from the great height at which we were placed, was apparently 
 some way up the sky. To the left the valley was closed by 
 an amphitheatre of perfectly barren mountains, sloping down in 
 bare terraces; * this was part of the great Makh’mel. On one side, 
 at about half a mile from our tents, a copious spring gushed from 
 
 * On one of these terraces there stands a single cedar-tree, not very large, 
 but the only true cedar we saw in the Lebanon besides the famous group in 
 “ Solomon’s garden.” It is said that there is another group in the Anti-Lebanon 
 range. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 169 
 
 the rock, bosomed in a nook of thick woods, dividing itself at once 
 into two streams, one of which flowed down the gorge to the sea, 
 and the other, passing just above onr camp, ran down by the Pass 
 we had mounted into the Eiver Kadisha. 
 
 We had intended to have gone on to the Cedars on the following 
 day, and we always did intend to go on to-morrow but the 
 spot was so very beautiful, and our tents so agreeably placed, and 
 the air so fresh and cool and pleasant, that we had been there nearly 
 a month before we really made up our minds to leave it. We were, 
 in fact, much in need of rest and quiet such as we found here : the 
 horrors of war and bloodshed had been witnessed, but, in the excite- 
 ment of the moment, by no means fully felt ; in Beyrout there was 
 still the daily and hourly anxiety for news from the surrounding 
 villages, and the constant listening to the sorrowful tales of the 
 unhappy burnt-out villagers who came to see our servants, and to 
 reclaim the small articles of their property we had taken charge of ; 
 then came the new journey,— and it was only among the stern and 
 lofty mountains, and the cool green groves of Eh’den, that we began 
 to recover our usual calm enjoyment of Nature. The peasants of 
 Syria declare that it is unhealthy to sleep under walnut-trees, and 
 the dragomans always advise one not to do so; but the air of 
 Eh’den is a remedy against everything — though we all fancied there 
 was some truth in the idea. We were now 4750 feet above the sea, 
 and though the sun was excessively powerful by day, and the tents 
 uninhabitable where they were unshaded, we had plenty of cool 
 resting-places beneath the trees, scarcely any mosquitos, and such 
 cold nights, that we needed all the shawls and cloaks we possessed 
 to keep comfortably warm ; nevertheless we managed to be scram- 
 bling up the mountain by 5 o’clock most mornings, and thought 
 ourselves well repaid each day by the sublime and glorious sight of 
 the sunlight breaking over the mountain, darting down into the 
 gorge, and striding with lightning steps over the valley, bringing 
 out a thousand brilliant colours which belong only to the gorgeous 
 hues of Aurora, veiled and mystified by the blue haze and swans- 
 down mists of morning. I could have watched that sunrise every 
 day for years and never tired of its grandeur. There was only 
 one thing better, and this was the sunset : every day it was the 
 same, and every day it seemed to take one’s breath away with 
 its magnificence, as something too lovely and too glorious to be 
 really of this earth ; then the gorge would fill up with haze as blue 
 as the sea, and the walnut-groves would turn into masses of shining 
 aventurine gold, and the mountains, yellow and bare by day, would 
 flush over with a tender, transparent crimson glow melting into the 
 
170 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 golden light —so delicate, so lovely, and yet so sublimely grand, 
 that no words can describe it, and no pencil imitate its hues. 
 
 Eh’den is said to be one of the oldest villages in Syria, and is 
 thought by some people to be the “ Eden in Thelassar” * mentioned 
 in Isaiah xxxvii. 12 ; the name is Syriac, and this language was 
 spoken there till lately. It is a fine flourishing village, containing 
 an active and industrious population, hardy and brave. The parish 
 priest told us the boys were very intelligent and quick at learning, . 
 but in the Lebanon no girls ever go to school or are taught anything, 
 — even the nuns only learn reading enough to enable them to chant 
 the office in church. M. Eegace, the Lazariste priest here, has two 
 or three assistants in his mission, a large school in Eh’den, and one 
 in every village in the valley. The people of Eh’den are well to do 
 in the world ; they eat meat always twice a week, and there are 
 really no poor, bepause those who are richer help the poorer, lend- 
 ing money at a good interest, which the peasant repays by the pro- 
 ceeds of his land ; he forfeits his property after some time if he fails 
 to pay, but we were told that this seldom or never happens. The 
 noble walnut-trees are many of them five hundred years old — they 
 are found named, their position described, and the quantity of their 
 fruit recorded in parchments of upwards of three hundred years 
 old, in the possession of the Emir and other persons; — some of the 
 trees have passed through the hands of as many as fifty families ; 
 the ownership of many of them is divided among perhaps a dozen 
 different families, who collect under the branches, as we saw them 
 doing at the gathering time, and divide between them the fruit that 
 falls. One of the oldest families of Syrian noblesse , the Dah’reer, 
 once inhabited a village filling up the now barren head of the gorge, 
 but in a Metouaalee war the village was burnt, the family fled to 
 Tripoli, and the soil has lain untouched ever since. This Eh’den, 
 so famous for its vines and luscious grapes, and its flowers, and its 
 summer beauty, is utterly uninhabited in the winter : it is so cold 
 and so long enveloped in snow, that all the people, headed by the 
 sheikh, descend to another village near Tripoli, where they live till 
 the smiles of spring call them back to their vineyards ; only the 
 poor monks remain behind, and sometimes a peasant journeys up 
 through the snow once or twice in the winter to carry them some 
 little luxury to add to their store of bread, lentils, and wine. 
 
 Eh’den produces excellent potatoes, which are carried down to 
 Tripoli and sent to Beyrout, for the natives never taste them, not 
 having an idea how to cook them ; nor do they care to learn, as the 
 
 * Both Schwartz and Jonathan the Targumist consider Thelassar to mean 
 El Ashur, the mountainous part of Assyria, or the country round Adiabene'. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 171 
 
 Arab eats all his vegetable food, except bread and lentils, raw ; and 
 they are disinclined to eat or to do anything but what their fathers 
 ate or did before them. 
 
 It was a pleasure to us to make acquaintance with the Sheikh, or 
 Emir — the “ pretty boy ” mentioned by Lord Lindsay, now a man in 
 the prime of life. He was the second son, but as his talents and 
 intelligence were superior to those of the eldest son, his father gave 
 him a better education, and associated him with himself in the 
 business part of his position, and brought him forward to the 
 Turkish authorities, so as to insure his being his successor. He 
 speaks Italian and French well, has easy, pleasant manners, and is 
 both lively and intelligent, as well as quiet and agreeable in conver- 
 sation ; in person he is tall, well made, and very fair. His name is 
 Yussoof Karram; he is (of course) a naturalised French subject, 
 and the Turks have made him a Bey. He has never been much 
 farther from home than Beyrout, nor does he seem inclined to go ; 
 he says his duty lies in his government, which extends to several 
 villages, and he will not leave it for a day. But his ideas are any- 
 thing but bornees by the mountains of his native land ; he showed 
 himself thoroughly acquainted with European politics, and knew 
 the names and characteristics of some of our Cabinet ministers ; he 
 is, in short, much too well educated for his personal happiness, for, 
 except M. Begace, he has no real companion save a chance traveller, 
 and he feels it impossible to marry among the uneducated, illiterate 
 women of his own villages. He came to see us as soon as we 
 arrived, bringing baskets of grapes and fresh bread, according to 
 the hospitable custom of the village — the only place, by-the-by, 
 where we experienced anything of the kind, for though of course 
 we afterwards made a present to the bearer, the Sheikh begged us 
 to understand that they only performed their duty to the stranger, 
 whom they consider themselves bound to maintain till his baggage 
 arrives. 
 
 We returned his visit on the following day ; he came down to the 
 courtyard of his house to receive us, with some seven or eight 
 persons, and conducted us upstairs into a large, though low-arched 
 room, with stone mullioned windows — the walls and floor of stones 
 of two colours in patterns — and furnished with handsome Tripoli 
 carpets and divans. His servants presented eau sucree , then arrack, 
 candied sweatmeats, and lastly coffee ; after which came nargilehs 
 for those who liked them. Of course we spoke of the war — of the 
 patching up of which he had not then heard any satisfactory intel- 
 ligence ; he said one must not think the war in any way depended 
 upon a personal quarrel anywhere — that was only the opening note 
 
172 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 on which others would inevitably follow; and he repeated most 
 emphatically that the war really depended much more upon what 
 was going on in the principal countries of the civilised world 
 than on anything local ; that the real fact was that, had the news 
 of the Peace of Villafranca not been thoroughly spread through the 
 Lebanon, the war would have been taken up on all sides, and 
 become fierce and general, and that it was only because some were 
 not aware of the Peace that it broke out at all — else this one would 
 only have begun and ended a muleteer’s quarrel. The Emir said 
 also that did England and France go to war with each other to- 
 morrow, or were the attention of Europe thoroughly occupied with 
 some other war, the whole Lebanon would burst into a flame 
 instantly, and not only the mountains but the whole of Syria would 
 .be utterly unsafe for Christians and Europeans, as, if anything 
 really serious had once commenced, all the Mooslims would un- 
 doubtedly join in the fight at once, while the Turkish authorities 
 would try to exterminate all the Christians and Europeans in the 
 country. He dwelt much upon the fact of how much the Turkish 
 Government secretly encourage the Druzes, hoping to use them as 
 tools to get rid of the native Emirs for them, after which the 
 Lebanon would be more easy of access ; but the Sheikh said con- 
 fidently their mountain fastnesses would protect the Christians even 
 after their leaders had fallen. He told us that during the late war 
 between France and Austria the Turks invited all the Druze and 
 Metouaalee chiefs to a secret conference in Beyrout to which not a 
 single Christian was invited ; he regretted much the recall of Lord 
 Stratford de Bedcliffe, believing that no one else could prevent such 
 things and penetrate the secret, underhand doings of the Turks ; 
 and he lamented loudly and bitterly that the famous Hatti-Humayoun 
 had ever been obtained, since it was worse to have it the dead letter 
 it is now than never to have had it granted, and he added that its 
 very fulness of compliance ought to have prevented the Christian 
 Powers from being deceived into putting any faith in it, as nothing 
 could possibly induce the Turkish Government really to fulfil any- 
 thing of the kind ; the Christians have only been worse off ever since. 
 Now, when seeking justice, they are always answered, “ You have 
 got your Hatti-Humayoun ; what more can you want ? ” — although 
 it be but waste paper, serving but to render the Mooslims more 
 jealous and irritated than ever. We afterwards heard, both at 
 Damascus and Jerusalem, exactly the same complaint made, in 
 almost the same words as those used by the Emir, of the impos- 
 sibility of getting any justice in the Turkish tribunals since the 
 Hatti-Humayoun; however, he was but giving in his own way the 
 
 
 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 173 
 
 usual Arab description of the Turkish Government, that “ The 
 Sultan goes to hunt gazelles on a lame ass,” meaning thereby to 
 express not merely its insufficiency, but its intentional inefficiency. 
 
 • The opinions of the Sheikh Yussoof at least deserve the attention 
 due to a man who, although naturally a partisan, is a liberal-minded 
 enlightened person, and who is, next to the Bishops, the chief man of 
 influence, and the only leader of the Maronites. His conversation 
 wound up that day with the prophecy, only too sadly fulfilled, that 
 this would be the last summer of peace in the Lebanon for many 
 a day. 
 
 Sheikh Yussoof told us many legends of the Druzes, currently 
 believed among the Maronites — of how they worship the figure of a 
 calf made in gold or silver, and how they have various logs of wood 
 concealed in their hhulwehs, each one named after the God of the 
 Jews, Christians, &c. ; these they take out on certain occasions and 
 beat, saying that if any of the gods were true and real, they would 
 save or avenge their types from these drubbings. But when the 
 sacred manuscripts of the Hasbeiya Druzes were scattered abroad, 
 and an explanation of much of their abstruse and speculative creed 
 was thus obtained, nothing of an idolatrous nature was found in 
 them. Had they really worshipped idols, something must have ap- 
 peared of it in these books ; and since then a key to various myste- 
 rious signs, not understood by all even of the initiated, has fallen 
 into the hands of Dr. Vandyke of Beyrout, but nothing of idol- 
 worship appeared connected with them. 
 
 Sheikh Yussoof thinks that the Druzes do not believe in the 
 present existence of God; they say that in the beginning He 
 created the world and all things in it — earth, air, sea — and then 
 descended from heaven upon it ; but the great wind, one of these 
 created things, though small in the beginning, had increased mean- 
 while to great power and strength, and, catching the Almighty as 
 He was reascending, killed Him, so that since that time there has 
 been no God, and creation has been left to its own devices. 
 
 Hakeem, |the founder of the Druze creed, taught that on the 
 destruction or death of God His soul became incarnate in some 
 other body — afterwards in his (Hakeem’s) own body; that God in the 
 beginning created a certain number of souls, which number has 
 always and will always exist, neither increasing nor diminishing, 
 as, if one person dies, the soul passes into another about to be 
 bom, and thus the original number always continues somewhere 
 on the earth, to be collected and restored together at the end of 
 the world. At that time the Druzes alone will be happy and 
 blessed; the Christians will be punished for their heresies and 
 
174 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 contempt of the Druzes, by having two cantars of lead hung round 
 their necks ; the Mooslims will have two rotls, and the Jews two 
 ounces, to carry in this uncomfortable manner. They always favour 
 the Jews above all other people, I know not why. Much of their 
 love for the English, at least in the present day, is said to arise 
 from the respect and influence acquired by Mr. Wood, the late 
 consul at Damascus, among them; and then, seeing that the 
 English are neither Maronites nor Mooslims, they imagine they 
 must be in some sort Druzes. 
 
 More interesting were the stories the Sheikh told us of the 
 renowned Emir Beshir, whose ancestors became Maronites many 
 generations ago. He spoke much of his greatness, of his unfailing 
 integrity and uprightness, of his being enlightened so much beyond 
 his age and position, and of how much he managed to effect against 
 all difficulties ; but he spoke also of the cruelty and revengefulness 
 which tarnished his greatness, and was so strong a passion in him 
 as sometimes to overbalance his high sense of justice, entailing the 
 most horrible results. 
 
 Nothing earthly can persuade the Arabs that the Sultan is not 
 the supreme governor of the world, or make them believe that 
 his armies can be defeated, or that, if they were, it would make any 
 difference in his position as Sultan over all nations. For instance, 
 the common people in the Lebanon firmly believe that the Queen of 
 England sends some one of her nobles every year to kneel before 
 the Sultan, with clasped hands and many prostrations, to beg from 
 him the favour of being allowed to continue governing her country 
 for another year ; and they speak of it as an immense grace and 
 kindness of the Sultan that he receives an envoy instead of herself 
 in person, waiving that duty on her part because she is a woman, 
 and has children to attend to ! They also believe that the Sultan 
 kindly exempted England from paying tribute to him during the 
 time of the Crimean war, because we brought our soldiers to assist 
 his own against his rebellious subjects — an honour for our armies 
 for which the ambassador had besought the Sultan on bended knees. 
 
 We often heard described the immense excitement of the Mooslims 
 all over the country at the time of the horrible massacre at Jeddah ; 
 how they exulted over the Christians, assuring them that the time 
 was soon coming for extirpating Christians throughout the Turkish 
 dominions; and then, when the news of the bombardment of 
 Jeddah by the English had arrived, how crestfallen the Turks 
 looked, and how the Druzes went about saying, “ Wonderful is 
 the power of the English! Great are the English! We too are 
 English ! ” 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES . 
 
 175 
 
 Some days after we reached Eh’den the Sheikh invited ns to 
 dinner, sending his nephew and five of his head servants to conduct 
 ns in state to his house, where he came down, as usual, to the court- 
 yard to receive us. As soon as we were seated in the salon a silver 
 basin and ewer were brought, with embroidered towels, and water was 
 poured over our hands by an attendant kneeling on one knee. 
 When this had been performed for each of us, another attendant 
 brought a silver incehse -burner, over the perfumed smoke of which 
 each guest bent for a few seconds, while another servant threw drops 
 of orange-flower water over one’s head and hands. Then came 
 trays of apricots and orange candy, arrack and coffee, and after 
 about an hour we went to dinner, which was served in European 
 •fashion, though the dishes were entirely Arab. The table was set 
 out with flowers and fruit, and the dinner, which was handed round 
 without being placed on the table, consisted of twelve courses of 
 meat, prefaced by a thick vegetable soup— stewed meats, boiled 
 meats, and minced meats, vegetables stuffed with meat, and meat 
 stuffed with vegetables, tjvo or three different pilafs of rice dif- 
 ferently flavoured, and then two sweet dishes — one of square pieces 
 of solidified cream — which I am convinced is the same as the “ cream 
 tarts ” so often celebrated in the - Arabian Nights ’) ; the other of the 
 favourite Arab bakhaldweh, a very light but rich pastry made with 
 honey and almonds. These were followed by quantities of fruit, 
 fresh and dried, besides many varieties of excellent Lebanon wine. 
 We had coffee in the salon ; and a band of servants lighted us home 
 with torches and lanterns. 
 
 In return we invited the Emir and the French Consul at Tripoli, 
 M. Blanche, to dine with us the last day of our stay at Eh’den ; 
 there were some other travellers there at the time, and we made a 
 party of seven persons. M. Begace sent us a basket full of flowers, 
 with which our tent was gaily ornamented, and our Arab cook 
 managed to give them the same number of courses as the Emir had 
 given us; but our dinner ended with real English plum-pudding 
 besides, and excellent peach cream-ice, made by one of the drago- 
 mans, and champagne. It is wonderful what skilful cooks these 
 Arabs are, and how great a variety of dishes they make out of so 
 few materials; their kitchen range, too, being only a pan of 
 charcoal in the open air. 
 
 M. Blanche, a lover of the beautiful Lebanon, with the geography 
 and natural history of which he is thoroughly acquainted, advised 
 us to visit the old convent of Mar Antoun ; so one morning we 
 started on horseback at an early hour, for it was to be a long 
 excursion. Our route lay along the Tripoli road till we came to 
 
176 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Jebel Arneto, where we turned off to the left and commenced 
 descending the side of the valley, all bright and gay with vineyards, 
 fruit-gardens, and flowers, with the blue sea in the vista beyond, 
 till the valley narrowed to a lofty gorge, up which we turned : it 
 was close by a huge rock, through which an open arch was cut, 
 bearing a large white cross, — here began the convent territory. 
 Through this arch the view was magnificent, the mountains of the 
 winding ravine crossing each other at every step, with steep and 
 generally inaccessible sides, covered with woods of low prickly oak 
 and thorn, with juniper and white cypress ; studded with caverns, 
 and crowned with crosses. Perched on the edge of one projecting 
 crest stood the convent, se cramponnant against the rock, and seem- 
 ing to overhang the chasm below. The monks ushered us to a divan- 
 under a vine-covered* trellis, close to a tiny chapel cut in the rock, 
 the only part of the convent open to the unhallowed feet of women, 
 numbers of whom come here in pilgrimage to obtain the miraculous 
 cures for which the spot is famous. The convent, which is the 
 largest in the Lebanon, containing one hundred and thirty monks, 
 has a grand fagade of arches built up against the mountain sides ; 
 the large halls and corridors are chiefly excavated in the rock, and 
 some exterior buildings seemed to be well and ornamentally con- 
 structed. The gentlemen of our party were suffered to see the 
 whole convent, except the enormous natural cavern, wherein un- 
 happy maniacs are confined. The wretched patients are chained to 
 the rock, and left there in utter darkness ; if they show signs of 
 improvement, the chain is knotted to a board ; when they can undo 
 the knot for themselves, they are supposed to be fit to return into 
 the world ; but I should think few of those poor creatures can ever 
 come sane out of that dreadful place. It is a fine cavern, with 
 stalactites forming within. On our return to the Pilgrim’s resting- 
 place the monks sprinkled us with orange-flower water, and gave 
 us a luncheon of delicious honey, grapes and figs, and two salads, 
 one of parsley, the other of raw tomatoes. We regretted that we, 
 ladies, might not see the printing-press, where many monks are 
 busily employed each day; all we saw of their occupations were 
 some three or four spinning goats’ hair in one out-building, while in 
 another it was woven by hand into coarse cloth or carpets. The 
 good fathers gave us a friendly farewell ere we commenced our 
 ascent of the far side of the gorge-^an ascent fitter for goats than 
 horses; but very beautiful was the view looking back on the 
 convent, and on all the various colours and forms in the valley 
 below. At the top we were rejoined by one of our party who had 
 scrambled on foot up to one of the numerous caverns to visit an 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 177 
 
 old hermit, much reverenced for his saintly character ; he, and two 
 others, had once been monks in Mar Antoun, but finding that place 
 too comfortable for their soul's welfare, they had, many years ago, 
 retired into the solitude of separate caverns, their food consisting 
 only of raw herbs and rancid oil, brought at long intervals up to the 
 caves. The old man said that his only occupation was prayer, and 
 that he endeavoured to entertain no thought in his mind but of 
 God. He bestowed his blessing twice on his visitor with much 
 unction, besides being very unctuous himself, placing one hand on 
 his visitor’s chest and the other on his back, so as to insure the 
 blessing penetrating him through and through. The only thing in 
 the cavern besides himself and his goulleh of water was a copy of 
 one of Liguori’s books translated into Arabic. 
 
 We then proceeded along the valley through the beautiful village, 
 full of fruit and flower-gardens, of Forsraab, opposite to Eh’den, 
 each succeeding view being more lovely than the one before ; and 
 crossing round the head of the valley, by the picturesque mill and 
 under the walnuts and willows which overhang the stream, we 
 scrambled up the other side, and reached our tents just as the 
 afternoon mist — a very frequent visitor — filled the valley. Every 
 one who goes to Eh’den should take this excursion, which occupies 
 about seven or eight hours. The thermometer in our tent marked 
 45° that morning at six o’clock, but the heat in the midday hours 
 was very great. 
 
 One of our favourite walks was to a small but very ancient 
 convent, Mar Serkis (St. Sergius)— quite at the head of the valley, 
 by the source, nestled into a nook in a wild little gorge of its own. 
 The kind-hearted old monks always appeared quietly contented and 
 happy among themselves, the want of comforts seeming to be atoned 
 for in their minds by the fine view from their windows. They were 
 very fall of a new church they were building above the convent, but 
 the one underneath it, said to be upwards of 500 years old, was more 
 interesting to us. It is almost entirely excavated in the rock; 
 is entered by a rock-hewn winding staircase, and is very venerable- 
 looking and impressive, with its two or three sombre lamps shining 
 dimly in the darkness, and a few Arabic prayers, written in the 
 Syriac character, for its sole ornament. The source was always a 
 favourite haunt of ours — its ice-cold waters gushing in full volume 
 from the rock, under a pomegranate and some fine walnut-trees 
 — on the one side tumbling rapidly down into a delightful little 
 dark dell shaded over with white poplars and weeping willows, 
 where it was immediately hushed into complete silence, like a child 
 silenced in the midst of its glee, not uttering a murmur till another 
 
178 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 “ fount’s young waters ” had crept from under a rock to meet it, 
 when they both went whispering and babbling and laughing quietly 
 together over the rough way, till they came to the old mill, whence 
 their course was a rapid and bounding one all the way to the sea. 
 On the other side it glided into the white-cypress wood, and along a 
 half natural, half artificial channel on the mountain side through the 
 village, and down the Pass, till it rushed out, the full-grown Kadisha, 
 under the walls of the Castle of Eaymond of Toulouse at Tripoli. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 179 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Solomon’s friends and Solomon’s work. 
 
 At last, after bidding adieu to the Emir, we left our pretty encamp- 
 ment and the merry Tillage with its handsome, gaily-dressed people. 
 It was midday when we started, and we had a ride of two and a 
 half hours to reach the Cedars, along a bare, barren road, crossing 
 the low pass between the valley of Mar Antoun and that of Khanobin. 
 Hill after hill of rock without the faintest trace of verdure was 
 passed, till we arrived at the brink of an immense chasm, and, 
 looking over the edge, beheld the village of Bscherreh hanging on 
 the rocky side of the ravine, embedded in wood and garden. Just 
 above the village the magnificent gorge closes round sharply, 
 holding in its curve most weird-looking and fantastic rocks, and 
 the beautiful Falls of the Kadisha, which tumble down in masses of 
 white foam to the gardens at the bottom ; on the other side of the 
 ravine the village of Hasroun lies on a shelf of verdure and luxu- 
 riance. We turned away from this beautiful view back to the hard, 
 yellow, barren mountains on which the sunshine was pouring in 
 fierce and pitiless rays, — when, in five minutes more, a general shout 
 came from the muleteers, and the sais beside me called out “ Shoof ! 
 shoof ! ya sitt ! el Arz, el Arz ! ” * there, in the centre of an immense 
 plateau, in the very bosom of the giant mountain which closes round 
 three sides of it, lay a single black patch, so black and dark, I 
 scarcely believed that these could be the cedars of Lebanon! We 
 rode on quickly, and forgot all fatigue and heat and everything else 
 directly we had reached their delicious shade, half an hour after our 
 first view. It is difficult to describe the first feeling there : your 
 head must ache with the scorching heat, your eyes burn with the 
 unshaded barrenness of the last few hours — you must feel the sooth- 
 ing coolness of the shade stealing through your heated veins, you 
 * “ Look, look, oh lady ! the Cedars, the Cedars ! ” 
 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 must inhale the powerful and refreshing fragrance of the cedars, 
 and see the venerable forms around you before you can understand 
 that beauty and delight which there sink into your very soul. It is 
 like passing from the noisy din and world-weariness of some 
 great city’s mart into the silent aisles of a vast cathedral, — only 
 that here the solitude is more complete, the columns and arches 
 are of Nature’s raising, and the hymns are sung by sweet birds 
 twittering and trilling from tree to tree, while all 
 
 “ The forest leaves seem stirred with prayer.” 
 
 Afterwards in the fiery heat of the Bekaa, the scorched sands of the 
 desert, and the arid mountains of Judea, how often one’s mind 
 harked back to the cool green shades of the cedars : one then began 
 to understand the glowing description of the Beloved whose eyes 
 are like pools of water, and whose “ countenance is as Lebanon, 
 excellent as the cedars.” (Cant. v. 15.) 
 
 It was hard to choose the prettiest among so many pretty spots 
 for our tents, but we finally fixed them close to the little chapel in 
 the centre of the grove, from whence we had a view of the sea. The 
 chapel is a square construction of roughly-hewn stones, four young 
 cedar- trunks forming the support inside. The altar was hung with 
 pink chintz and ornamented with a cheap French print of the 
 Madonna della Seggiola. Every morning at six o’clock an old 
 Maronite priest came over from Bscherreh, a walk of two hours’ 
 distance, and chanted a short service ; sometimes a goatherd or two 
 would join him, sometimes our servants or muleteers, but whether 
 alone or not the voice of prayer and praise rose there every morning 
 at dawn of day, and always sounded appropriate and due on what 
 seemed holy ground, and instead of breaking the silence, really 
 seemed to make the solitude more apparent. 
 
 The cedars form one group or grove covering an undulating 
 piece of ground not a mile in circumference ; they are not scattered 
 about, but stand in a. dense mass, after passing the boundary of 
 which there is not a shrub to be seen for many miles. There are 
 about four hundred young trees, in themselves a beautiful and 
 noble little forest, thronging round the patriarchs or “ Apostles,” as 
 thpy are called by the Maronites. Of these venerable trees there are 
 yet twelve, besides another as old, which has been lying on the 
 ground for the last five or six years past ; there is another very old 
 one, which has evidently been burnt, and of which so little 
 remains that one cannot be sure of its generation ; but these “ Twelve 
 Apostles ” are unmistakable, although the peasants believe that no 
 one can count them — that some magic puzzles those who try, and that 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 181 
 
 the numbers ever elude their grasp. The largest of the old saints 
 is forty-five feet in girth, the second forty-two, while some of the 
 branches we measured roughly at fifty-eight paces in length; 
 whether they can have lived three thousand years, as the tradition 
 avers, I am not called on to decide, and as the principal trunk of the 
 fallen tree has been destroyed, it is impossible to find any vegetable 
 history written upon its rings ; but one likes to fancy the legend 
 true, and to call them, as the Arabs do, the “ Friends of Solomon ; ” 
 while involuntarily one speaks of them in the language of his 
 father David, as “ the cedars which the Lord hath planted.” One 
 great charm of the encampment here, especially after the society 
 of the good people of Eh’den, is the utter silence and solitude : it 
 is such an indescribable comfort to encamp out of the sound of village 
 dogs and jackals, and to be able to leave one’s tent door open 
 without fear of an intruder. Perchance in the morning a pretty 
 boy or a rosy-faced girl would lead a couple of hundred goats down 
 one of the little dells, their bells tinkling softly as they passed, 
 but no other sound of man ever broke the silence. Nature herself, 
 however, was never silent : the cicale here were extraordinarily loud, 
 and the trees were full of little birds of the brightest green and gold 
 plumage, with a sweet, clear note, while thousands of tiny lizards 
 glided about everywhere ; and to lie upon the soft and the dry bed 
 of cedar- spines under the cool green shade, listening to all the 
 sweet sounds, letting one’s thoughts wander back into the long ages 
 of which these trees are standing witnesses, looking out the while 
 over the hot, barren mountains and down the many-coloured gorge 
 to the snow-white coast and the blue sea twinkling beyond, with 
 the horizon apparently half way up the sky (the effect of our own 
 lofty position)— all this is recompense enough for any extent of 
 fatigue and trouble incurred in reaching the spot. The place has 
 but one drawback : want of water, the nearest spring being three 
 quarters of an hour off ; and also that only the commonest pro- 
 visions are procurable at Bscherreh. 
 
 We were now 6100 feet above the sea, and we had expected to be 
 colder than we were at Eh’den in the nights, but the equinox ap- 
 proached, and we were told that it would be warm after that, — and so 
 it proved ; the thermometer was at 45° one morning, and at 67° at 
 the same hour on the next day ! We had come again to the time 
 of the full moon, and this was indeed the place to be “ read aright ” 
 by its holy beams. Night after night we used to wander through the 
 moonlit glades, watching the light silvering the mountain which 
 stretches its giant arms with everlasting, strong tenderness round 
 the ancient trees, and listening to the owls hooting here and there 
 
182 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 in the thick boughs. One night we had a still more beautiful and 
 striking scene : it was the eve of the 14th of September, the date on 
 which the Emperor Constantine is supposed to have seen the cross 
 of fire shining in the the sky, in consequence of which miraculous 
 appearance both he and his whole army received the Gospel of true 
 Light, and salvation through Christ was proclaimed throughout his 
 dominions. The festival is kept by beacon-fires lit upon every 
 mountain-top in Syria, beginning with the cedar-mountain, besides 
 bonfires in every village, handing on the good tidings, as it were, 
 from one to the other throughout the land. It is a fine idea, and on 
 a calm night it is still finer in reality; the flames of each fire as 
 they rose and fell in the night breeze shining against the deep azure 
 sky were exceedingly pretty, and every here and there a long train of 
 flame was laid up the side of the mountain, like a fiery snake, which, 
 catching the wind now on this side, now on that, seemed really to 
 have caught also the wriggling, gliding motion of a living serpent. 
 
 Mr. Layard mentions a curious fact that occurred when he was 
 at Kouyunjik, of a sweet smell proceeding from some wood burning 
 on a fire made by his workmen : they had taken one of the beams 
 from the excavation, just where an inscription on the building 
 denoted that the roof had been made of cedar wood, brought from 
 the Lebanon 8000 years before. This is doubly curious, because the 
 cedars of Lebanon are not the red cedar so fragrant in burning, 
 but a white, which gives out no particular fragrance when burnt. 
 In one’s encampment there the fire is always made of the small 
 branches broken down by the wind ; and some of the chips and 
 shavings cut off from one of the oldest ‘‘saints,” which lies now 
 upon the ground, were put into ours, but no perfume came from it, 
 save that of the fresh resinous smell peculiar to any kind of pine- 
 tree wood. Perhaps that proceeding from the cedar wood at 
 Kouyunjik was only this resinous fragrance, which, though very 
 sweet, is not that of the red Indian cedar, to which we are ac- 
 customed as a perfume. 
 
 We wanted to see the celebrated convent of Khanobin, which, 
 though not the largest in the Lebanon, is the residence of the 
 Maronite Patriarch ; so we set off one morning at eight o’clock and 
 and proceeded by the same road as we had come, descending to 
 Bscherreh — a large village of very tumble-down houses, planted as 
 thickly as possible with mulberries and poplars, but peopled with 
 very plain men and women — a striking contrast to the handsome 
 merry Eh’denites, with whom they are always at war, perhaps from 
 jealousy or mortified vanity. Outside the village, built into and 
 under and over the most extraordinary assemblage of insane-looking 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 188 
 
 rocks, is the curious old convent of Mar Serkis, and a few minutes 
 farther on comes the white foamy cascade of the Khadisha rushing 
 down amidst ferns and flowers — indeed this whole valley is smiling 
 with flowers of all kinds and colours. Then we ascended the other 
 side, and passing through the beautiful village of Hasroun found 
 ourselves opposite to Hadshit — so close, as the crow flies, that 
 the inhabitants of one village can speak to their neighbours 
 of the other across the valley, while the splendid chasm between 
 descends, first in green terraces and then in perpendicular walls 
 of blue limestone cliffs, to the depth of a thousand feet. Hasroun 
 is the most luxuriant spot we saw in the Lebanon— every inch 
 of soil is cultivated, and the place is buried in thickets and forests 
 of thorns, walnuts, planes, poplars, figs, and prickly oaks, tangled 
 over and wreathed together with immense festoons of vines, besides 
 those in more decorously-pruned vineyards; white and yellow 
 clematis and honeysuckle were in all the hedges, and real fields of 
 wheat and English-looking grass on all the slopes. Biding on over 
 breezy downs we passed a gigantic cavern in the rocks on the other 
 side of the chasm, and a lofty waterfall, which must be very fine in 
 spring, as it has but one perpendicular fall ; and then we looked 
 down, first on the small convent of Mar Elisha, and then on 
 Khanobin, to which, however, we did not descend, as it would have 
 taken us five or six hours more. It did not appear to us equal, either 
 in size or position, to the convent of Mar Antoun, nor is the valley, 
 at least as seen from above, as varied in outline or as brilliant in 
 colouring as the other. We returned to Hasroun, feeling very much 
 like cinders out of a furnace, and put ourselves to cool under a 
 walnut-grove, where the people brought us great baskets of figs and 
 grapes, for which we duly paid some trifle. If you stop in a vine- 
 yard you may eat as much as you like gratis ; any fruit, however, 
 that is carried away you are expected to pay for : this is in accord- 
 ancelwith the old Israelite rule in Deuteronomy xxiii. 24. We were 
 so much tired that we caught at the offer made by a peasant to show 
 us a short cut to the cedars ; but let all weary travellers beware 
 how they lend an ear to such flattering tales of guides, who either 
 scramble over tracks where no horses can follow them, or not un- 
 frequently find themselves at fault, and leave you in the lurch. So 
 if was with our guide, who led us for three mortal hours over the 
 most thoroughly atrocious paths conceivable, and then deserted us ? 
 leaving us in such scorching heat, that not only ourselves, but even 
 our dragoman and sais and the two muleeteers who had accompanied 
 us, were made ill by it. 
 
 Our last afternoon at the cedars afforded us the extraordinary 
 
184 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 sight of what is called, I believe, a false sun : the mist had jammed 
 itself up into dense masses, like a rough sea of ice-pack, filling up 
 and smoothing over the whole valley, and extending over the sea 
 beyond ; behind this the sun in due time sank, — but, ten minutes 
 after, another sun of a flaming blood-colour rose, and after shining 
 with an awful kind of dark brilliancy for about a quarter of an 
 hour, it also faded away and died behind the mist-clouds, — very 
 marvellous it was altogether. 
 
 We took leave of the grand old trees by moonlight, after a week’s 
 stay, mounting on horseback before 4 a.m., and began to ascend 
 great Maklimel, or the Cedar-mountain.* The path was of course 
 steep, and in some places so narrow as to be rather giddy work for 
 climbing, but in no place in the least dangerous, or very fatiguing, 
 except from the violent wind and the rarefied air. Just as it 
 began to dawn we met a troop of goats, the goatherds singing in 
 chorus to the music of a well-played reed-pipe ; very sweet and 
 pleasant it sounded, and a very uncommon incident it was in 
 Syrian travel. Most beautiful were the changing views at every 
 fresh step in the ascent, the early light telling out the colours in 
 the clearest and loveliest purity, while from each valley and nook 
 wreaths of delicate bright blue mist rose like mysterious veils, 
 slowly withdrawing as the dawn advanced. Suddenly the sun lit 
 up the summits of the peaks, bathing each with its own flood of 
 golden splendour, and, resting there, widened in a sudden sheet of 
 light over the valleys below, flying over Eh’den with giant strides 
 as we had so often watched it from the valley itself. The sun had 
 but touched the upper valleys when we reached the summit — or 
 rather very near the summit; our companions ascended the 
 highest peak, but the coldness of the thin air at this height rendered 
 me incapable of going any farther, and our resting-place com- 
 manded such an ample view, that we did not regret much losing the 
 northern part over the wide plain of Homs and Hamah, bounded by 
 faint blue mountains, which can only be seen from the real summit. 
 We spread our large map and compass on the ground before us as 
 we gazed at the living map beneath — more living than a landscape 
 usually appears, from the swiftly-moving light of the rising sun, 
 
 * Makhmel is the name given to this, the loftiest mountain in the Lebanon, 
 by the people of the district of Tripoli ; the mountaineers themselves call it 
 always and only Jebel-el-Arz — the mountain of the cedars; its highest peak is 
 called, as are all the highest peaks throughout Syria, Jebel-el-Khodib — the sum- 
 mit mountain. The height of the Jebel-el-Khodib here, which is now believed to 
 be the highest mountain in Syria, has been lately ascertained to be 10,400 
 feet above the Mediterranean ; this Khodib is at some distance still farther 
 north of the peak our party ascended, which was then believed to be the highest. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 185 
 
 gliding, as it were, with vivifying beams over the picture — now 
 here, now there — waking up each portion, till it seemed really 
 living, breathing, under the rapid, silent changes. 
 
 We were seated on a narrow ridge or backbone between the 
 peaks, — beneath us, on one side, the two rifts of the Kadisha sloped 
 down to the Mediterranean, their blue and grey cliffs contrasting 
 most vividly with the orange rocks and red soil in the same gorges : 
 they were divided from the turquoise-blue — such a blue ! — sea by 
 snow-white cliffs, sweeping in many a graceful curve along the 
 coast. On the other side of our ridge the mountain sloped more 
 precipitously and smoothly down into a region of sand, beyond 
 which came a range of hills, picturesque and rugged of dark 
 browns and purples, dividing it from the perfectly flat Bekka,* 
 stretching out in green and brown to the foot of the opposite 
 mountain range — the Anti-Lebanon — which was now of course 
 lying in deep dark shadow against the magnificently glowing 
 morning sky. A dark spot immediately under these mountains 
 was Baalbek ; and as we looked the sun passed a giant step across 
 the whole plain, and brightened up the green plantations of the 
 village, so that, with a telescope, the temple was soon discerned. 
 Directly to the south rose our beloved Sunnin, from this side a 
 ridge of rosy crags, rugged and jagged ; beyond that, far away, a 
 graceful mountain stood quite alone — the blue cone, precipitous on 
 one side, sloping down gently on the other, striped with lilac shades, 
 it needed nothing to tell us that this was Hermon, — Jebel-esh-Sheikh, 
 the chief of mountains. To its left faint blue mountains faded 
 away in the distance, and these we knew were in the Lejah ; to its 
 right one bright blue ridge, ending suddenly in the sea, was 
 Carmel. Then the sunshine shot down beneath us and lit up the 
 dark shades of the cedars, and the hard, white, solid little clouds, 
 like icebergs on the sea, expanded and joined the lighter mist- 
 wreaths that had risen from the valleys, and the distances became 
 hazy and the glorious colouring more faint. The fact is that for 
 really extensive views in this country the first hour of sunrise and 
 the last of sunset are the only times of day when they can be 
 perfectly seen ; at all other hours the heat has thickened the air and 
 faded that brilliant colouring which is here the greatest charm. 
 The view from Mount Hermon is considerably more extensive, as 
 there are no intercepting peaks near at hand ; but that from the 
 Cedar Mountain is certainly more varied and beautiful : and even if 
 
 * From the Hebrew Bikha , meaning plain, as this is the plain of North 
 Syria. From the Arabic Bekaa the Spanish Vega is derived — signifying a 
 plain between mountains. 
 
186 
 
 £ GYP TIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 it is not, as one traveller calls it, “ the loveliest yet grandest scene 
 that the world possesses,” it is indescribably and grandly lovely. 
 
 We had a long, tiresome descent of nearly two hours before we 
 reached our tents, which had been pitched near a clear and very 
 cold source called ’Ain Ata, where we were thankful to creep under 
 some fine walnut-trees out of the burning, fervid sun. We had a 
 fine view to look at all day — Sermon’s graceful head towering 
 up in the distance, while close to us lay nestled in a mountain 
 basin the pretty Lake Yemouni, and fiery red mountains speckled 
 with prickly oak rose all around us. This spot is subject to sudden 
 squalls, coming over the heads of the mountains ; our tent was not 
 properly secured at first, and was rudely overturned by one of 
 them, and we left behind us a variety of stains on the rocks and 
 ground from the upset inkbottles that must have puzzled the goats 
 for many days after. We were glad of a good sleep that night, but 
 on the next we mounted at 1 a.m., and started for the great plain of 
 Bekaa, the heat of which no one would willingly encounter by day 
 in the summer. The road lay up and down steep glens and vales, 
 thickly wooded with low trees and shrubs, — pine, prickly oak, and 
 white cypress — all of them twisted and stunted into strange, 
 grotesque shapes, which in the deep shades of the waning moon 
 and the starlight assumed most mysterious appearances : — now an 
 old friar begging with his arms stretched out and his head thrown 
 back— now a lady with a long train and a dancrng step — now 
 “ bears with ragged staffs ” on each side of the path like constables 
 — now sturdy dogs, and, more frequently, cocks with or without 
 tails, and their heads perked up till I half expected to hear the 
 horrid crow close to my ear; and in the lowest glade a gigantic 
 knight on a charger seemed to approach, his black armour shining 
 in the moonlight and a white shield glistening on his arm ; but his 
 noble horse suddenly dropped his head, the knight mysteriously 
 vanished, and the shield turned into the white, smooth trunk of an 
 old gnarled oak ! We stopped for five minutes at Deir-el-Ah’mar, 
 which seemed to be a hamlet inhabited by dogs only — no other 
 living thing was moving. The dawn was commencing as we arrived 
 at the dead flat of the great plain, and very pretty it was to watch 
 the light darting on Hermon and the great mountains we had just 
 left, colouring the summits into a 'pink, brilliant as a rose-leaf, 
 above the purple violet and browns of the lower mountains and the 
 green plain on which we now cast long shadows behind us. The 
 morning-star was still shining with serene beauty as we turned 
 aside to the single column in the plain, about which little or 
 nothing is known, as neither inscription nor sculpture remains 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 187 
 
 upon it, although little injured. It is of the Corinthian order, 
 standing on a pedestal of steps, but is not nearly so lofty as that of 
 Diocletian at Alexandria, which is eighty feet high ; this column is 
 only sixty, but there is something grand in its loneliness and silent 
 mystery. Our horses evidently thought it uncanny, for they every 
 one shied at it, and could scarcely be persuaded to go round it. 
 The sun was shining brightly on the famous Six Columns of 
 Baalbek as we reached the village at 5 a.m.; we got into a garden 
 on the north side of the temple, but the heat was overpowering, 
 and we had all fallen asleep before either our tents or our breakfast 
 had arrived. 
 
 As the heat was very great here — 96° in the shade each day — we 
 did not visit the temple till after dinner ; when we thought our- 
 selves fortunate in seeing it first in the evening. It is a fine scene in 
 the morning sun, but no single and incomplete architectural object 
 can be more lovely than the Six lonely Columns standing with such 
 dignity and majesty in the midst of the desolation and ruin around 
 them, bathed in the golden glory shed by the setting sun, with the 
 Temple of Jupiter seen through them, a mosque beyond, and the 
 chain of barren mountains crimsoned into beauty behind them. 
 
 Baalbek has been so frequently and ably illustrated, by pen and 
 pencil, in the last few years, that only a very few words are neces- 
 sary to record the impression made by its graceful majesty upon 
 the traveller. It is to be hoped that many more generations 
 will see these ruins as they are — so enormous and ponderous were 
 the materials used, that the puny hand of modern man can do but 
 little to injure them — earthquakes are the only destroyers to be feared. 
 
 “ Time hath not harmed the eternal monument ; 
 
 Time is not here, nor days, nor months, nor years — 
 
 For sure those mighty piles shall overlive 
 
 The feeble generations of mankind 
 
 A mighty mass remains ; enough to tell us 
 How great our fathers were, how little we. 
 
 Men are not what they were : their crimes and follies 
 Have dwarfed them down from the old hero race 
 To such poor things as we ! ” * 
 
 Ascending a lofty flight of steps at the extreme east, the wor- 
 shipper entered a magnificent open portico with a square hall at 
 each end ; thence he passed through a hexagonal court, surrounded 
 with columns, into the great quadrangle, four hundred and forty 
 feet long, across which a double colonnade f led to another flight of 
 
 * * Thalaba.’ 
 
 f Destroyed to build a Christian church, which in the time of Constantine 
 the Great occupied this court. 
 
188 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 steps, which gave access to the platform on which stood the Temple 
 of the Sun. This edifice was surrounded by fifty-four columns of 
 seventy-five feet in height ; the loftiest, it is said, in the world, and 
 appearing still higher than they really are from their (almost) ex- 
 treme slenderness— they are but six feet six inches in diameter.* 
 No trace of the cella of this temple remains, and there are some 
 doubts that it was ever built ; only six of the fifty-four columns of 
 the peristyle are now standing (although the bases of a great many 
 are still to be seen in situ , the present outside wall being built up 
 between them), but these six are the chief beauty of Baalbek — 
 
 “ Flinging their shadows from on high, 
 
 Like dials which the wizard Time 
 
 Had raised to count his ages by.” 
 
 The exquisite carving of their capitals is of the purest Corinthian ; 
 the acanthus-leaves are cut with remarkable freedom and richness, 
 by no means overloaded, and the abacus, is supported by delicate 
 volutes of the most graceful designs. It is curious to observe the 
 -effect of the weather upon these columns — on the north side almost 
 every leaf and many of the volutes are perfect, while on the other 
 they are shapeless blocks. 
 
 The whole of this temple and the Great Courts rest upon giant 
 walls supported by the platform of Cyclopean masonry, justly con- 
 sidered one of the wonders of the world ; in the western end are the 
 three stones — rocks one ought to call them — from which the temple 
 was called Trilithon by the Greeks ; two of them are sixty-four feet, 
 and the third sixty-three feet long ; all three are thirteen feet both 
 in height and in thickness. The platform, of which every stone is 
 gigantic, is supported by three passages running under its entire 
 length and breadth, vaulted, and of exceedingly fine workmanship, 
 the enormous stones nicely and neatly joined ; they are wonderful 
 places to walk through : handsomer and of finer finish than the 
 vaults beneath the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem. Of course the 
 beauty of Baalbek is in the temples, but the platform was, to me at 
 least, a still greater interest ; one had the same crushing feeling of 
 the long ages of its past history come over one’s mind that one 
 had felt in the temples of Egypt, — and all in vain ; for the shadows 
 of its antiquity elude one’s grasp. It is a relief to seize upon 
 tradition, and pretend to believe it modern enough for Solomon’s 
 workmanship ; one fancies, however, that one recognises the 
 
 * The usual proportion of a Corinthian column is 8| diameters to the height ; 
 whereas the height of the columns of the Temple of the Sun are nearly 12 
 diameters ; those of the Temple of Jupiter have 10 diameters. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 189 
 
 Phoenician (Canaanite) stamp upon its massive simplicity, which, 
 though some may call it barbarous, became sublime in the hands of 
 the Egyptians and Phoenicians. Perhaps Baalbek is much older 
 than Tadmor, and was one of the cities already standing in the 
 country before Joshua marked out the boundaries of the Israelites : 
 it cannot be the Baalath built by Solomon when he built “ Tadmor 
 in the wilderness,” both of them stone cities, because Josephus 
 distinctly explains that to have been near Gezer, in the tribe of 
 Dan ; while the fact of the rocks of which it is built being so much 
 more enormous than anything at Tadmor may be partly accounted 
 for by the quarries at Baalbek being so much nearer to the building 
 than those of Tadmor. Looking up from the exterior of these huge 
 stones, and seeing the Six Columns shoot up skywards with their 
 slender, tapering shafts, they have been not inaptly compared to 
 “ Ariel mounted on a mammoth’s back !” 
 
 Although the ground has filled up the interior of the Great Court 
 to such a height — at least twenty feet — as to render it impossible to 
 form a correct judgment, one can hardly imagine that these beauti- 
 ful walls were sufficiently high inside for the very great size of the 
 area. The court was entirely surrounded with recesses, having six, 
 four, or two columns in front of each, formed of Egyptian red 
 granite and porphyry, quantities of the debris of which lie all about. 
 Each recess contained a number of niches for statues, probably 
 standing above others now buried, in which the priests or wor- 
 shippers sat : these are all richly sculptured, many with eagles, 
 fruit, &c. ; but the Egyptian asp spoken of by some travellers we 
 thought very little identical with its supposed original. This 
 temple was dedicated to all the gods, with Baal as supreme, and is 
 supposed to have been built, or at least the greater part of it, in the 
 time of the Emepror Antoninus Pius, a.d. 138-161. I often 
 pondered where the columns that Sultan Suleyman took in 1550 
 from this temple to adorn Santa Sophia could have stood : I con- 
 clude they were among these small ones closing in the recesses of 
 the Great Court, as they seemed to have been the only columns in 
 Baalbek of coloured marble, or of like dimensions. 
 
 The Temple of Jupiter is about two hundred feet to the south of 
 the Temple of Apollo, beyond the grand court, and is said to have 
 been built at the same time. The ground on which it stands is much 
 lower than that of its imperial neighbour, but it has its own plat- 
 form ; it is larger than the Parthenon, but, probably from the very 
 lofty columns near it and the impossibility of getting a distant view 
 of the whole, it appears considerably smaller, and you have no idea 
 of its real size till you come to measurements. Dr. Bobinson 
 
190 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 remarks that nowhere else does it seem so impossible to reconcile 
 the gigantic size of the fallen stones of the same entablature or 
 column with those still standing, as at Baalbek ; so perfect are the 
 proportions that neither the size, nor any other one characteristic 
 strikes the eye, in the perfect balance of the whole. It has another 
 peculiar charm in its completeness, for although ruined and hidden, 
 Baalbek still remains as a whole; perhaps no temple (always ex- 
 cepting the Theseum at Athens, which is six hundred years older 
 than Baalbek) remains so complete, nor is the execution of the 
 details surpassed by any other work of the kind. The cella is 
 surrounded with forty-two columns, a triple row at the east end 
 forming the portico, within which is the famous doorway, whose 
 sides are formed of single stones forty-two feet high ; it is covered, 
 overloaded, all round with border after border of the most exquisite 
 sculpture, fruit, flowers, leaves, and wheat-ears, interspersed with 
 little Cupids and panthers ; but the most interesting of the orna- 
 ments is the large eagle sculptured on the soffit of this doorway, 
 holding a caduceus in his talons, and the string of garlands, up- 
 held on each side by genii, are twisted in his beak. The ceiling of the 
 peristyle is equally rich, and as a great deal of it has fallen, it can 
 be closely examined ; it is divided into hexagonal compartments, each 
 one filled by a bust or figure carved in such high relief as to seem 
 leaning out of its frame ; the contours of the figures are very graceful. 
 
 These temples had been built about 800 years when they were 
 turned into a fortress ; they have sustained several sieges and much 
 rough usage since. The Saracens and Crusaders built up walls 
 within and without, which now remain to the extreme discomfort of 
 the traveller ; there is, however, a fine Saracenic palace or castle, 
 close to the Temple of Jupiter, whose unadorned architecture con- 
 trasts well with the rich sculpture of its Corinthian neighbours ; 
 the walls are strong and massive, and the octagonal hall in the 
 centre, which is gracefully vaulted, is remarkably handsome. 
 
 At a short distance from the great temple, standing alone among 
 ruins, huts, and gardens, there is a little gem of a temple : it is 
 shaped like a star-fish, the seven columns surrounding it being 
 placed in a circle, and the cella wall receding in a semicircle 
 between each. It had once a domed roof, and is most richly orna- 
 mented within and without with sculpture, the delicately-carved 
 capitals of the fluted columns reminding one of some of the best 
 things of the kind at Venice. The whole temple is only thirty-eight 
 feet in diameter, and, alas, much destroyed ; I am convinced it was 
 intended for a kiosk or boudoir for the gods when they left the Great 
 Temple to take a little recreation. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 191 
 
 Then there are the quarries, to which we rode one evening, where 
 the famous stone, sixty -eight feet long, and weighing probably 1100 
 tons, still lies unremoved. The peasantry believe that the' genii, work- 
 ing amicably with the men of old, carried these stones for them, but, 
 being one day offended at something, this stone was dropped in the 
 quarry, and no human strength has been found capable of lifting it 
 since. It is said to be the largest stone hewn for building in the 
 world — the obelisk in the quarry at Assouan is, however, twenty- 
 seven feet longer, and nearly as wide. These quarries point to such 
 gigantic works, that one does not wonder they have given rise to 
 legends of supernatural agency — adding the craft of jinns and genii 
 to the might of the “ giants who lived in those days.” At Baalbek 
 one learns to think naturally of the Bephaim, the Emims, the 
 Zanzummims, the Zouzims, and the Anakims, whose fathers, it is 
 said, won from Heaven the reward of a more than mortal strength for 
 having given up solitude and celibacy on the tops of the mountains, 
 and returned to a life of usefulness among their kinsfolk in the 
 plains — the best argument for the “ athletic religion” so much in 
 fashion at the present time that I have ever come across. The 
 quarries, which extend over a great distance, are very striking from 
 their sharply-cut cliffs or clefts, and their deep caverns (some of 
 which appear to have been made use of both as tombs and dwelling- 
 places), some supported by pillars, others only open-mouthed. The 
 rock has been left in strange grotesque forms ; and has unusually 
 brilliant covering, — orange and white, blue and gray, and a bright 
 coppery green. From one of these wild mystic-looking nooks a very 
 large eagle soared out slowly and calmly ; he disdained to take any 
 notice of our presence, but setting himself with much dignity on an 
 adjoining point, his mate glided silently out of a hole close to us, and 
 disappeared behind him— they were scarcely four yards from our 
 heads. 
 
 One of the questions of interest concerning Baalbek is its name, 
 which is generally believed to be its original, or at least an ancient 
 one, to which the Arabs, when they conquered Syria in a.d. 630, 
 wisely returned ; but if the bek is a Phoenician (and hence Hebrew) 
 word, it has not yet been found in the language. Some persons 
 think that it may have been derived from the Egyptian bald, mean- 
 ing city, and that the Greeks applied it when Ccelo-Syria fell to the 
 lot of the Graeco-Egyptian kingdom, in which case it would be as 
 modern as their name of Heliopolis, and means only the same thing. 
 Dr. Bobinson, however, suggests that it is from the later Arabic 
 bakka , a throng or crowd, and that it describes the place where 
 worshippers of Baal met in a crowd. Others have tried to derive it 
 
192 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 from the same word as the name of the plain beside it — Beka# — 
 ( Bikha , Hebrew for plain ) as if to denote “ Baal of the plain ; ” but 
 this is untenable, as the k is not the same letter when used in 
 Baalbek as in Bikha. 
 
 A little wely near the town is shaded by a cypress-tree worth 
 seeing; though not nearly as tall as the splendid cypresses of 
 Smyrna, it is so round, so full, and so luxuriant as to make a 
 specimen fit for a picture — it is said to have been as large and full 
 more than a century ago. 
 
 We left Baalbek at 11 p.m., after four days’ stay; our dragoman 
 was ill, and we took a guide, who led us for some time, up and down, 
 over apparently barren mountains, but by so good a path that we 
 did not suspect we were going wrong. There was no moon, only the 
 beautiful stars and one radiant planet near Orion, about the 
 heavenly birth and parentage of which the sa'is told me a long 
 legend, of which, unfortunately, I took in only about half. At last 
 we reached the brow of the mountain, and turned into a tremendous 
 ravine with a torrent roaring at the bottom ; the road became a 
 succession of smooth, sloping slabs of rock, and presently the guide 
 sat down, and coolly informed us that he knew nothing about the 
 route, and could only say that we were on a goat-path, where horses 
 never passed, but which ultimately went down to the bottom of the 
 ravine. The whole side of the mountain was enveloped in pitch 
 darkness, so that we could not see one step before us, and it seemed 
 more than likely that we should reach the bottom by an expeditious 
 but not precisely agreeable mode of descent, as the path was no- 
 where more than two feet wide. We were benumbed with cold and 
 fatigue, and excessively sleepy ; however, there was nothing for it but 
 to go on, trusting to the sure-footedness of our horses. We finally 
 reached the end of the path in safety, but I need not say that the 
 four hours we were on that mountain side were neither very short 
 nor very agreeable. Morning dawned as we emerged into the pretty 
 plain of Surghaya, and the ride through the smiling green pastures 
 was refreshing, with the wild craggy summits of the Anti-Lebanon 
 towering over head, and Hermon filling up the end of the picture. 
 We got to Zebdany at 6 a.m., a bright pretty place, with the hedges 
 covered with sweet white roses and clematis, and English-looking 
 gates, neatly made and painted, to the gardens. This plain is very 
 rich and luxuriant; Bludan, the summer residence of the Eu- 
 ropeans of Damascus, standing perched up, halfway to heaven, on a 
 green plateau near the summit of one of the mountains. We resumed 
 our route early the next morning, passing over the rest of the plain 
 of the Barada with its pretty waterfall and light Koman bridge, and 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 193 
 
 the fine pass of Abila, the modern Souk; the steep cliffs, which close 
 in with beautiful windings, are covered with tablets and tombs, 
 some of them ornamented with columns and carved doorways ; one 
 of the tablets gives the name of the Eoman legate of Syria, by whose 
 order this road was cut through the mountain. This was the scene 
 of an immense triumph of the arms of Islam under Khaled, in a.d. 
 634, over much more than ten times their own number of Christians. 
 
 The road was most lively with passengers ; one troop we pasged 
 was of about two score of Bashi-Bazouks, going out to hunt, with 
 falcons on their wrists and long spears in their hands; then 
 strings of camels and, Bedoueens, sometimes fifty in a string, and 
 mules without end. Unfortunately we took a wrong turn, and 
 instead of following our mules to ’Ain Fijeh, we went along green 
 lanes and woods and streams till a peasant told us we were but an 
 hour or two from Damascus, and we had to go back some miles 
 before we could cross the river. It was midday before we came to a 
 lovely village, wherein we rested, for we were faint with fatigue and 
 hunger, having tasted nothing that day ; then we ascended the hills 
 on the other side, and found ourselves in the desert, El Sah’ra, over 
 which the sun was pouring his fiercest rays as we paced along the 
 winding track, across one featureless hill after another, the wretch 
 of a guide continually refusing to go any farther, and having to be 
 collared and thumped into obedience and utility. Probably this 
 desert is green enough in the early spring, for between the loose 
 stones like that of a sea-beach, over which we trod most laboriously, 
 numbers of pale lilac colchicums were springing up at every step. 
 Wherever one saw the soil beneath the stones it seemed as hard as 
 the stone itself ; and one could not help thinking of the curse with 
 which God threatened the Israelites : “ The heaven that is over thy 
 head shall be as brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be 
 iron.” We were not of course entitled to the protection of Mooslim 
 angels, or we should have been very thankful to be able to say with 
 Muhammad, “ the people in Syria are happy indeed, for the kind 
 angels of heaven spread their sheltering wings above their head,” — 
 certainly no kind angels sheltered us. 
 
 At last, fried and broiled, we descended into a fig-orchard, and 
 soon came to the river ; all the rest of the way was under the deep 
 delicious shades of planes, walnuts, and fruit-trees, beside the rush- 
 ing, tumbling stream whose cool sound was music to our burnt-up 
 ears, we thankfully found the tents placed beside that never-to-be- 
 forgotten ’Ain Fijeh. 
 
 The Temple of Fijeh is thought to be one of those built for the 
 original Phoenician Baal-worship of Syria, like that of Af ka, to which 
 
 o 
 
194: 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 it bears some resemblance : it is built in front of the living rock, 
 which was probably cut out to admit of it, and was very simple, 
 containing only one hall, about 30 feet square, built of very large 
 stones, between which the trees have long ago pushed themselves. 
 The temple stands half on a platform or ledge of rock which has 
 been left bridging over the cavern, whence, out of darkness, 
 mystery, and silence, not a gentle bubbling spring, but a full-grown 
 river leaps into life, rushing past the rocks with a great song 
 of joy for a few yards, when it tumbles headlong over a rocky ledge 
 in masses of snowy foam ; the trees everywhere crowding down its 
 banks, bending over its waters, dipping in and playing with the 
 laughing waves which seem to leap up to meet them, and arching 
 over the broad, full stream in long vistas of watery loveliness and 
 lanes of greenery. This source is remarkable for its size : it is the 
 clearest water possible, and singularly bright in colouring, in the 
 morning a full deep emerald-green — in the evening a sapphire-blue : 
 it was impossible to help thinking of the two gems, so exactly 
 did it resemble their clear hues by turns. Beside the spring, 
 only two or three yards at one side, there is another temple, still 
 smaller than that above the cavern : its very massiveness and sim- 
 plicity telling of its extreme antiquity. One square column still 
 stands, and there is a cornice, a bold but simple cavetto like that 
 we saw at Afka, and afterwards both at Deir-el-Ashayr and 
 Rukhleh ; the whole building is very rough, but a huge, massive 
 grandeur hangs about the now almost formless stones, and the 
 situation is as romantic and poetical as can be imagined. It must 
 have been in a spot precisely resembling ’Ain Fijeh that Egeria 
 taught the Roman king those secrets which made Purity a Religion, 
 and Virtue its own best reward. It is a delicious place — the valley, 
 scarcely 200 yards wide, cannot contain itself for joy at its own 
 luxuriance, but flings up orchard after orchard, vineyard after 
 vineyard, upon the mountain at each side; and the river goes 
 laughing through the woods, pouring out its richness as it 
 goes, and merrily bathing the tree-roots that revel in its cooling 
 stream. We scrambled up part of the mountain to look down on 
 the tangled crowd of trees: the contrast of the beauty below 
 and the yellow barrenness above is most striking. The village is a 
 miserable concern, but we were pleased at seeing two newly-plastered 
 Mooslim graves, with a little bed of bright flowers formed on the 
 top of each: they were the first we had seen blossoming over 
 Mooslims — but afterwards in Asia Minor it became a common 
 sight. 
 
 We found the villagers so troublesome that day and the next 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 195 
 
 morning, that we moved off to a delicious little meadow of real thick 
 springy grass beside the bright rapid river — a favourite bathing- 
 place with travellers, about half an hour on the Damascus road, 
 and settled ourselves under a rock to sketch : a goatherd politely 
 brought up a goat, and feasted us on warm frothy milk from an 
 ancient silver bowl, engraved with Cufic inscriptions. This spot 
 has not the romance or the antiquarian interest of the fountain, but 
 it is extremely pretty, the valley widening enough to let one see the 
 deep blue-green of the river, and the splendid cliffs changing from 
 yellow sameness into blue-grey crags, jagged and broken into rifts 
 of the most picturesque nature. We had had enough of the desert, 
 El Sah’ra, the day before, so we chose to try the lower or river path 
 recommended by the peasants— a river path indeed, for it was 
 chiefly in the river, across the windings of which we waded nine 
 times, the horses nearly up to their middles, and scarcely able to 
 keep a footing in the rushing tide ; and then pushed through the 
 thick groves, dividing the trees and hedges as we went, to the 
 imminent peril of hats and habits that were already well soaked 
 in the stream. At last we came out on the barren mountains, 
 where an eagle wecomed us with a Jupiter kind of nod before 
 he deigned to move on ; and hurrying over the hills, we reached 
 Kubbet-es-Seiyar nearly an hour before sunset. There was a 
 furious wind blowing, but we found shelter in the pretty wely, 
 while we sat down to enjoy the famous scene from which it is said 
 Muhammad piously turned away : se non e vero e ben trovato. 
 
 The vast plain of yellow sand is bounded on all sides by moun- 
 tains — Hermon on the right (west) towering up close at hand dark 
 and craggy ; to the south the mountains of the Hauran, in all the 
 tender hues of distance ; to the east the pass up which the road 
 to Palmyra winds, joining the craggy Anti-Lebanon upon which we 
 stood ; at our feet, and extending to the middle of the plain, is the 
 mass — thirty miles in extent — of gardens and groves in all the 
 riches of the fullest summer foliage, deep and bright green of every 
 shade. In the midst of this, almost buried as it were under the 
 leaves, is the city, oblong-shaped, but with one suburb (the Meidan) 
 stretching out a long thin line to the south : it shines with a dazzling, 
 delicate white, like a city built of pearls, shooting up its tapering 
 minarets and graceful domes, as if in jealousy of the poplars around 
 it. Truly it is no wonder that the Arabs who first bore the banner 
 of Islam through the wearisome desert of Arabia burst into shouts 
 and transports of joy when they beheld these towers and palaces rising 
 among the verdant plains and the murmuring streams that make 
 such sweet music in the air ; one might have thought the pretty 
 
196 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 buildings, like the walls of Ilion, had risen to the tune. One cannot 
 take in a scene like this in a moment, and we had but just begun 
 to understand it, and to feel satisfied with feeding on its beauty, 
 when the sun sank behind Hermon, throwing one last gift over the 
 city of such a crimsoning hue as turned the pearl into an opal, and 
 lit up the trees into almost metallic lustre, bathing the mountains 
 in a flood of peach-blossom that really made the whole view one of 
 quite unearthly beauty. It lasted but a few minutes : the glorious 
 sight passed away, the plain dimmed in shadow, and we descended 
 the hill as quickly as we could to reach the gate before it should be 
 closed for the night. It was just dark when we entered the city, 
 and our first introduction to its long, narrow, winding streets, per- 
 fectly and entirely dark, save where a cafe or some miserable lantern 
 made the rest of the darkness seem still darker, was not of the 
 pleasantest ; and certainly the last appellation any one would give 
 them now is the word “ straight,” unless it meant a passage too 
 narrow or strait to turn in. A succession of horrible yells and howls 
 announced, every now and then that some one had gone over a 
 wretched dog as we went stumbling on over the dust-heaps in the 
 way. At last we reached a very small door, where our dragoman 
 was waiting for us, and we dismounted at the hotel, which seemed 
 to our tired eyes like an enchanted palace, with its brilliant colours, 
 latticed windows, and lamps hanging between oleander and citron- 
 trees, loaded with blossom, and filling the cool night air with 
 fragrance. We went to sleep in good, clean beds, to the music of 
 the falling fountain, which splashed gently over the marble basin in 
 the centre of our apartment ; and lay with a satisfactory feeling 
 even in our dreams that, at last, we were in Damascus. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 197 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE FAIB CITY. 
 
 “ Damascus is the mole on the cheek of Beauty — the plumage of the Peacock 
 of Paradise — the brilliant neck of the ring-dove — and the collar of beauty. ” — 
 Arabian Poet. 
 
 It is curious that of the four oldest cities in the world — Sidon, 
 Hamah, Damascus, and Hebron — not one has lost its first original 
 name : Hamah became Epiphania under the Greeks, but retained 
 the name less than three hundred years ; Damascus is called by the 
 Arabs of the desert Esh-Sham, but is known to them also, as to all 
 the world, by the name used for it by Abraham the patriarch ; it is 
 the only large and flourishing city of the four, having 150,000 
 inhabitants, and immense wealth within its walls ; while Hamah, the 
 Syrian Manchester, contains only 30,000. In architectural objects of 
 all kinds Damascus is incalculably inferior to Cairo, but in natural 
 beauty, how far superior ! so that although there are quite enough 
 fine and striking buildings to lend variety to the scene, the eye 
 does not miss the work of man among the enchanting verdure, 
 rushing streams, lofty shades, and beautiful mountains that sur- 
 round the city. I cannot understand any one comparing ' the 
 bazaars of either Cairo or Constantinople to those of Damascus : 
 the former have no pretension to building of any kind, besides 
 being much diluted with the garb and features of the West, 
 while the latter are entirely Europeanized. Damascus alone is 
 thoroughly Oriental, displaying in its streets such an endless, inde- 
 scribable variety of all nations and classes east and south of the 
 Mediterranean, that it is impossible to weary of its sights or of its 
 interests, in the amusement and pleasure of the moment ; while 
 looking backwards in the stream of Time, few places to the east of 
 Europe can equal it in historical interest. 
 
 The Pachalik of Damascus extends up the whole country to 
 
198 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Hamah along the Orontes, and east of the Jordan down to Petra. 
 There is a large garrision always kept in the citadel, and the 
 town is governed by a Pasha of the highest rank, who is always a 
 Field-Marshal (Mnshir) and — far more important — the Emir-el-Haj, 
 or Prince of the holy Mekka caravan. It is a city of very large 
 manufacture, and there is probably none other existing, unblessed 
 with water-carriage, with such extensive trade. Its silks supply 
 Egypt, and travel eastward till they meet those of Persia and 
 Kashmir ; its cottons and woollens, goat’s or camel’s hair stuffs, are 
 used throughout the East, and also in Egypt and Arabia ; its gold 
 and silver ornaments and its arms supply the Desert, Arabia, and 
 Syria, while its fruit is eaten from Tiflis and Baghdad to the shores 
 of Europe. It is not easy to enumerate a hundredth part of the 
 treasures that are displayed in the bazaars of Damascus : they are 
 mostly divided, as in all Oriental towns, into classes — the silks in 
 one bazaar, the spices in another, and so on; but many booths 
 combine variety enough to dispel monotony. Among the finest 
 and most costly things sold are the golden-wove stuffs of Mekka, 
 which are very beautiful, and are chiefly used for the thick stiff 
 cloaks of sheikhs and emirs, dyed in bright colours, violet, 
 maroon, &c., &c. The carpets, silks, and shawls of Persia abound 
 everywhere; they are of every class, and sometimes of great 
 beauty. From Persia also come finely-ornamented nargilehs and 
 embroideries of all kinds, Kashmir and Bokhara shawls, old porcelain 
 of great delicacy (as well as from China) ; arms from Baghdad and 
 Kashmir, and gold and silver ornaments of all kinds, vases, cups, in- 
 cense-burners, perfume-throwers, coffee-services, and other objects. 
 The bazaar of made-up and second-hand clothes is particularly 
 amusing, and as gay as the saddler’s, which is full of housings and 
 trappings of horses and mules, from the finest gold and silver 
 embroidery on velvet, enriched with pearls, down to the common 
 bright crimson leather saddles, and the many-coloured harness of 
 plaited worsted cords and tassels, decked with rows of white cowrie- 
 shells and charms. Then the preserves and confectionery, gum, 
 spice, and drug bazaars — always graver and more perfumed than 
 the others — and the gay, lively cotton and printed muslin bazaar, 
 full of colours and combinations of which one thought even 
 Manchester must be innocent, but which are manufactured for the 
 special delight of the Arab and the Kurd. Then come the narrow 
 lanes of the red boots or yellow slippers, which seem numerous 
 enough to shoe the population of Syria for twenty years ; and the 
 carpentery bazaar of carved, inlaid, and painted chests, so bar- 
 barously made, but so delightfully pretty. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 199 
 
 Remembering the extraordinary vicissitudes which the beautiful 
 city has undergone, it is more a matter of wonder that any archi- 
 tectural objects should remain in its streets than that there are so 
 few ; * one of the most distant possessions of Rome, farmed out and 
 ground down for its revenues — the battle-field of Arabs, Saracens, 
 and Christians, overrun by Kurds and Tartars, burned, and de- 
 stroyed by Timour — it is a marvel that even the once beautiful 
 church, parts of which are probably older than our era, should be 
 still standing. The city walls have been preserved for convenience, 
 and they bear, in some places, every mark of extreme antiquity ; it 
 is indeed very interesting to observe the different ages, which are 
 frequently very distinctly marked in one small piece of wall, and to 
 see how completely the old form realises in one’s mind the stories 
 of Rahab and the spies, and the two escapes of St. Paul. The moat 
 is still wide around them, and in some places full of water, shaded 
 over by trees; in others it is a dry receptacle for every kind of 
 rotting filth and abomination — in truth, a ride round the outside of 
 Damascus is a severe trial at all times to the olfactory nerves. The 
 gates are mostly Roman, built over, added to, and altered by the 
 Saracens, through whose tumble-down towers and broken battle- 
 ments the fine Roman arch and bevelled masonry may still be 
 distinguished ; they are all of them very picturesque. The castle 
 looks well, and would appear to have been once a strong building, 
 and the serai is handsome. 
 
 There is not much variety in the minarets of Damascus, except 
 those of the Great Mosque, which are models of elegance and delicate 
 beauty, very graceful and rich, though airy; seen together they 
 make a striking picture. The baths and cafes enliven every street : 
 both are nearly always painted in broad, horizontal stripes of 
 scarlet, blue, and white, which, though not in the least elegant or 
 recherche — in fact it is somewhat barbaric — yet is very effective and 
 gay. Wherever you go inside the city you look, at short intervals, 
 into a dark cool chamber, in which are men smoking, lounging, 
 chatting, and lemonade-drinking ; or into a court shaded by deli- 
 cious trees, with a bubbling fountain or a large tank of running 
 water ; or into a larger, airier, lighted hall, gaily painted within and 
 without, where men are resting after the pleasant fatigues of the 
 bath, wrapped in white garments, sipping coffee, and smoking nargi- 
 lehs; the noise that proceeds from both cafe and bath duly an- 
 nouncing their neighbourhood. Near the outskirts of the town 
 they are still prettier, at least in the evening, when they are 
 
 * A slight sketch of the history of Damascus in Note 1 may be found in- 
 teresting to the general reader. 
 
200 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 brilliantly lighted up with lamps hung in the trees, and always full 
 of people. One, by the castle, is particularly pretty, with rude 
 wooden platforms hanging over the rushing river, which seem as if 
 supported by the wreaths of creepers that have flung themselves 
 everywhere, and shaded by innumerable bending trees. Another, 
 near the Bab Tuma, where the river is more foaming and its voice 
 louder, — very rickety and wretched, but all the more picturesque 
 for that, — hidden under weeping-willows and poplars, pomegranates 
 and planes, presented an endless variety of costumes by night and 
 by day in the various groups enjoying kief. Near the castle, too, 
 is another sight, a plane-tree of which the trunk measures forty feet 
 in circumference, and within which several hermits have lived, 
 acquiring a green old age in a solitude they would not find there 
 now (although the little door is yet unremoved in case of another 
 occupant), since it is in the centre of a busy suburb, and always 
 surrounded by crowds of laden mules, donkeys, and camels with 
 their noisy drivers. 
 
 Except for the cafes and baths, the streets of Damascus are duller 
 than those of any other Oriental town, and people say they look 
 poor because they expect so renowned a city to look grand ; indeed 
 I have heard persons who have come back from a hurried visit to 
 Damascus declaring that “ the whole town was built of mud — nothing 
 but mud walls everywhere !” they had only glanced at the exterior, 
 and did not perceive that there was solid masonry beneath the 
 mud. This is a strange, anomalous taste in our eyes, but the 
 invariable Eastern custom : as soon as the stone wall is completed 
 it is covered with a coating of mud, which hides the more lasting 
 material, and looks tattered and miserable as soon as it begins to 
 peel. The new houses are being built with handsome projecting 
 windows, opening on to the streets, and the gaily-painted and gilt 
 lattices are extremely pretty ; but this is quite a modern and 
 unusual innovation ; in general the long lanes wind about between 
 high or low walls, all quite blind, except for occasional insignificant 
 doorways, topped with one small bit of carving, and an apology for 
 a window stuck in here and there, seldom anything better than a 
 rough hole or a long slit closely covered over by a ragged wooden 
 lattice. 
 
 But stop at one of these miserable little doors (that is if you are 
 fortunate enough to have so good an introduction to the inmates as 
 we owed to the English missionary, Mr. Bobson), and let us see 
 what is within- side. A little room, or half dark passage, leads into 
 a small open court with a fountain and a leewan (a recess always on 
 the north side of every court, furnished with a divan, the salon used 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 201 
 
 by the inhabitants of the sleeping rooms which surround the three 
 other sides of the court) : this is occupied by the servants of the 
 household ; and from this another passage admits you into a much 
 larger court, always paved with coloured marbles, and with one or 
 more fountains shaded by pomegranates, lemon, orange, and 
 oleander-trees ; wherever you look, all is marble, both white and 
 coloured. This court has also its raised leewan, splendidly orna- 
 mented on the walls and ceiling, and its divan covered with rich 
 brocades; here you are received, and presented with lemonade, 
 sweetmeats, and coffee. In most rich houses one of the rooms 
 round this court is also a reception-room, of which the walls are 
 entirely covered with marble mosaic and gilding, a fountain at one 
 end, a divan at the other ; coloured matting and handsome Persian 
 carpets on the floor, and near the ceiling a row of windows, latticed 
 with pierced marble or carved wood in patterns of fairy intricacy 
 and lightness; the ceilings are always of wood most delicately 
 carved, painted, and gilt. A closed door in this court leads by a 
 little passage into a third court much the same, only handsomer 
 than the others, where the ladies reside, and beyond which they do 
 not come in Mooslim houses. The houses are mostly two stories 
 high, but some have only one, the flat roof forming as usual the 
 promenade; in Damascus the roofs of the hareem are generally 
 covered with lattice or torn mats and green creepers. 
 
 One Saturday Mr. and Mrs. Kobson were kind enough to take us 
 to see some of the best houses of Damascus, which now generally 
 belong to Jews. On this day they sit dressed in their finest clothes 
 and jewels to receive visitors ; at the first house we visited a large 
 family were assembled round a widowed mother. The eldest 
 daughter, who had been married four years, and was not quite 
 eighteen, was very tall and slender, with a complexion as white as 
 snow ; her black hair and large bright eyes and small mouth made 
 a beautiful face, though the highly-arched eyebrows (a painted line 
 drawn after the hair is pulled out) added to the silly, inane ex- 
 pression of their faces. This girl was very lively, and never ceased 
 asking questions and chattering, showing us all her ornaments, 
 which were chiefly diamonds and pearls, on her head, neck, and 
 arms. All the ladies were dressed in Manchester-muslin skirts of 
 bright colours, and short silk or velvet jackets embroidered in gold ; 
 sky-blue and bright green seemed the favourite mixture of colours. 
 The neck and bosoip. of each was covered, not concealed, by em- 
 broidered muslin, the skin underneath being frequently painted. On 
 the death of the father the house and all its contents becomes the 
 property of the son ; the mother remains there only on sufferance. 
 
202 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 In this one the master was only a child of twelve years old, 
 but he exacted much respect from the servants (who sat in the 
 room all the time, below the divan, and joined loudly in the conver- 
 sation), and he was very finely dressed, wearing several diamond 
 and turquoise rings, and an enamelled watch hanging by a pearl 
 ehain. He served us with sweetmeats, making a salaam to each 
 before presenting the spoon, which we returned on giving it back ; 
 and after he had passed on each one made another salaam to his 
 mother, the mistress of the house. They took us over the whole 
 building. It is extremely handsome, no portion left unornamented, 
 and all done in the finest inlay of coloured marbles, as delicate as 
 any Florentine table : this is the old and good style ; in the new 
 houses the mosaic is only imitated in paint, put on by a pierced 
 form — mere stencilling, in short. 
 
 The little son then conducted us to his grandfather’s, a still 
 more spacious, and handsomer house, with four or five large courts 
 and splendid apartments. Here also even the upper apartments 
 were very beautifully decorated, which is not usually the case, their 
 ornament being generally confined to a little painting. The women 
 in this house were very ugly, but gaily dressed; and a troop of 
 romping boys and pretty girls burst in: the girls wearing very 
 handsome belts of gold bosses sewed on velvet and set with jewels 
 — the handsomest of these come from Baghdad. 
 
 But the finest house we visited belonged to a Jew named Lisbona 
 — a handsome, portly man, who was sitting on the divan without 
 shoes or stockings, chanting Hebrew from a big book on his knee. 
 He was very jolly and talkative, and called to his wife and mother to 
 join us; they apologised much for not being able to offer us coffee, 
 as, being the Sabbath, they could not light a fire ; and then made a 
 close examination of our dresses, &c. The old mother wore a 
 widow’s headdress, a black hejiyeh thrown over and concealing the 
 indispensable gold coins, and a huge bunch of short black ostrich- 
 feathers laid on each side of the head and face ; a large black tassel 
 hanging from the back of her head, below which an immense 
 number of stout black silk cords and tassels reached nearly to the 
 ground — making altogether a heavy and really ponderous affair, 
 only useful as a sort of domestic portable hearse of the ugliest 
 description — so unlike our pretty, modest, English widow’s cap. 
 They showed us numbers of pretty things — nargilehs, zarfs, sugar- 
 stands, &c., &c. — all in the finest silver filagree, so much better made 
 than anything we had seen in the bazaars, that we begged Lisbona 
 to tell us the maker’s name, intending to buy some ; but nothing 
 would induce the excellent Jew to answer anything of the kind 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 203 
 
 until he had inquired again and again from each of us, and entreated 
 Mr. Eobson to assure him of the fact, “ Have you got money enough 
 to pay for them ? Are you sure you have money enough ? ” and 
 when that was settled, he turned coolly to me and said, “ Then 
 why do you wear that common thing on your shoulders? You 
 have got a beautiful dress — why don’t you wear a nice shawl too ?” 
 My dress was of stout English cotton print ; but I had put on a 
 pretty silk shawl which had been given to me in Bey rout, and 
 which, being of native manufacture, displeased his sense of pro- 
 priety, and made him think I was too poor to have anything better. 
 Of course I did not mention that my dress cost about a sixth part of 
 its price, and was intended for use, not beauty ; but we took the 
 hint, and never paid another visit dressed in Arab manufactures. 
 These good people took a lively interest in us and our adventures ; 
 but the women pestered us with ceaseless questions as to what we 
 had done with our husbands — where we had left them — what could 
 have induced them to let us go so far without them ; and I do not 
 think they were ever persuaded that we had none ; though, finally, 
 the old woman ran after us, emphatically entreating us, "‘Oh, 
 maiden ! oh, 'maiden ! if you really have not got a husband, do let 
 me send for such-and-such a marriage-merchant from the bazaar ! ’’ 
 
 The prettiest thing in that house was a fair, sweet-faced boy in a 
 side room, with one hand rocking a cradle containing a fat, pretty 
 baby, and holding in the other a fine Hebrew psalter, from which 
 he was chanting aloud. The cradle was of polished walnut-wood, 
 inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and had “Peace and happiness,” in 
 Arabic, on each side. Lisbona and all the other Jews, on hearing 
 that we were “ Ingleez,” immediately inquired after Sir Moses and 
 Lady Montefiore, and sent scores of salaams and compliments to 
 them to be delivered without fail. 
 
 Then we went to a much smaller house belonging to a Christian 
 merchant, M. Freije, a rich and excellent man, with a lovely wife, 
 handsomely dressed, and wearing a pretty sou fah, the same head- 
 dress as that worn by the Maronite women of the Lebanon, but 
 still handsomer; she had about 3000 bits of gold fastened to it. 
 She was busy superintending her household affairs, mounted on the 
 pattens, ten inches high, worn by every Damascus lady ; but finding 
 us curious in pretty things, she kindly went to her coffers and 
 brought out several splendid dresses and velvet jackets embroidered 
 in gold — the embroidery on one jacket alone had cost Yll . ; she also 
 showed us quantities of antique silver vases, zarfs, &c., and ex- 
 quisite egg-shell and Persian china. Their house was being newly 
 ornamented — not painted, but an inlay of jet-black marble upon 
 
204 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 white; it had rather a sombre appearance, although beautifully 
 done, and was very much mixed with mirror and gilding — the 
 present taste at Damascus, but which does not, I think, harmonise 
 well with marbles. Then we went to see some Mooslims in a 
 beautiful house, known to many travellers from its having been the 
 hotel for some few years ; the rooms were splendidly decorated with 
 marble mosaic and incrustation of gilding, and the very large court 
 was made lovely, like another of the houses we had seen, with 
 several small jets d’eau , besides the large fountain, and a variety of 
 fruit-trees and beds of flowers festooned together with thick 
 wreaths of convolvulus major; the divans and hangings in the 
 different rooms were all of the rich Damascus brocaded silk, some 
 of them embroidered with gold, and the doors of the rooms were 
 handsomely inlaid with mother-of-pearl. 
 
 An immensity of screaming to the unveiled women to get out of 
 the way ensued on our appearance at the door ; however, Mr. 
 Bobson being disposed of and imprisoned in one of the rooms, we 
 were admitted, and found the lady of the house and a beautiful 
 daughter of fifteen, both enormously fat, attired only in gowns and 
 loose trousers of thin pink muslin, through which their stout brown 
 limbs did look remarkably odd ; they were at breakfast, and would 
 take no refusal but that we must sit down too ; so we were placed 
 on little stools round the low koorse , or table, on which the tray was 
 placed, and took a few mouthfuls of the fruits, the pilafs looking too 
 greasy to be pleasant for one’s fingers. 
 
 We spent a good deal of time in the bazaars, wishing to buy 
 many things as specimens of Damascus manufacture, and I never 
 tired, mentally, of watching the endless variety of faces, figures, 
 costumes, and objects in the long, long alleys; then, too, the 
 purchase of each article took as much time as buying a house full 
 of things at home would have taken. I often wished one’s home 
 friends could have had Prince Cheri’s telescope to see us, in our 
 English dresses, sitting duly doubled up beside the well-turbaned, 
 richly-dressed merchant, on his little counter, in solemn conclave 
 over the price of a silk dress or a pot of confiture, or refreshing 
 ourselves after the fatigue of each purchase with a saucer of pink 
 ice and a cup of delicious coffee. 
 
 Most of the dresses made and sold at Damascus are of cotton, 
 with the pattern thrown up in silk; many of the patterns are 
 Oriental, but some of the prettiest are ..European, — these are about 
 2 1. 5s. the dress ; those of unmixed silk reach to any price, and 
 are all of them costly; some are beautiful things, especially 
 those which, like the scarfs, have silver thread woven in one way 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 205 
 
 and gold thread the other. They make some good woollen articles, 
 besides an immense variety of coarse stuffs of camel’s and goat’s- 
 hair. 
 
 Many of the bazaars are lofty stone buildings, handsomely vaulted ; 
 some, less modern and less commodious, are more picturesque, as 
 the Greek Bazaar; but the most interesting of all are the Shoe 
 Bazaar, the Goldsmiths’, and the Carpenters’ Bazaar, in all of which 
 ancient columns, half obscured by the booths, and beautiful vistas 
 of arches, meet the eye at every step. The finest building in the 
 bazaars is the Khan As’ad, — a model of that graceful, simple energy 
 of style which is the best characteristic of the pure Saracenic 
 architecture. The interior is a square of three domes around a 
 large and lofty central dome, supported on square piers ; these domes 
 are pierced with windows, and the whole building is of alternate rows 
 of black and white marble — ornament enough in itself. The goods of 
 the merchants are ranged on the marble floor round the sides of the 
 square, and a large fountain occupies the centre Nothing can be 
 a finer study for an artist than the endless variety of bright- 
 coloured costumes and wares grouped on the ground, contrasted 
 with the grave severity of the black and white bands, while the 
 slanting lines of sunshine fall in dazzling rays athwart the dark 
 shadows of the pillars and recesses under the nine domes. The 
 Khan is entered by a splendid doorway, as fine a specimen as can be 
 found of the rich fretwork and interlacings, slender columns and 
 mosaics, for which Saracenic architecture has no rival. This Khan 
 is modern, but there is nothing of pure Saracenic more beautiful 
 in Damascus. 
 
 Gf course the Great Mosque of the Khalif Waled — once the 
 Christian cathedral of the city — is the most interesting and beautiful 
 of all ; it is extremely difficult to see, as no Christian foot is allowed 
 to cross the threshold, and they are very jealous of Christians even 
 looking in ; it would therefore be quite incomprehensible without 
 Mr. Porter’s plan, connecting the court of cloisters with the 
 colonnades hidden in the bazaars. A hasty glimpse in passing by 
 the outer gates is all the view one can obtain of the inside ; of the 
 outside, likewise, only a few fragments are visible, but these are 
 beautiful. The upper part of a large gateway can be seen from the 
 roof of one of the bazaars, which is delicately executed and in better 
 taste, because not overloaded, than any of the work on the Temple 
 of Jupiter at Baalbek; from another roof the capitals of several 
 columns can be seen : they are in the purest and loveliest style of 
 Greco-Boman art. Peeping in through some gates one can see the 
 noble cloistered quadrangle, surrounded by Corinthian columns, and 
 
206 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 an exquisite fountain in Saracenic style in the centre; the gates 
 themselves are of brass of very good workmanship, still bearing the 
 figure of the sacramental chalice, now placed amid Arabic inscrip- 
 tions, the additions of later years! The head of St. John the 
 Baptist is believed to be really still in existence in the crypt of this 
 church. May the day come — and that soon — when, in both Santa 
 Sophia at Constantinople and in this Church of St. John at Damascus 
 the worship of Christ shall be re-established, to endure throughout 
 all generations, when the mists and veils that now darken the 
 hearts of both Jew and Gentile shall have been torn away ! For two 
 thousand years the inscription (in Greek) on this portal has 
 announced that “ Thy kingdom, 0 Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, 
 and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations!” The 
 Arabs believe that the time is at hand when Christianity will be 
 proclaimed throughout the land, and Christian governors rule there ; 
 and we, too, look forward to the time when the Lord shall have 
 ‘"made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and 
 all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” * 
 Standing on that roof with these thoughts in one’s mind, there 
 was nothing more beautiful in our eyes than to look down at the 
 crowded bazaar beneath one’s feet, and to see, gliding quickly 
 through the crowd of self-satisfied Mooslims, dark, reserved Jews, 
 wild Bedoueen, and savage Kurds — the white cap and simple blue 
 gown of a Sister of Charity. Wherever one went one saw them, 
 generally in couples, hastening along with a basket on the arm 
 containing medicine or food, administered alike to Jew, Turk, 
 Heretic, and Infidel ; every one who spoke of them used but words 
 of admiration and respect. One day we went to see their abode, 
 and found ourselves admitted to an elderly, happy-looking, sweet- 
 faced Mother, who told us that they had arrived — six of them — on 
 that day five years in Damascus, without any house having been 
 prepared for them. Slowly and surely, with brave and pure hearts, 
 they had laboured on, and much have they effected in those few 
 years : now they have a well-built but substantial building f for 
 their convent, rough, but clean and neat, containing seventeen 
 sisters, two of whom are Arabs, and a school of about 150 children, 
 besides many day-scholars, including Mooslims and Jewesses, and 
 one Metouaalee. We heard these children read well and intel- 
 ligently in some religious book, and saw their excellent writing. 
 They were very clean and tidy, and remarkably well-behaved and 
 happy-looking. Their dormitory, with rows of simple mattresses 
 laid on the floor, their kitchens and play-grounds, were all perfectly 
 * Isaiah lii. 10. t N° w utterly destroyed. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 ‘207 
 
 arranged. Bread, olives, and thin soup was their food, all of which 
 the children learned to prepare. The upper classes were well 
 advanced in French, and embroidered beautifully — an accomplish- 
 ment which would insure their future support. It is impossible to 
 see a more pleasing and interesting institution ; and, for the first 
 time in Damascus, one felt some hope of anything being accom- 
 plished towards the Christianising of the people. Well may 
 English people blush, overwhelmed with shame, when we see such 
 self-sacrificing and successful work, and remember that our Church 
 has done nothing, absolutely nothing, in Syria.* I have said that 
 the French have established missions and schools throughout the 
 country, but God knows there is work enough and room enough 
 for both to labour, — and where are ours ? — a few excellent, hard- 
 working men, sent out by the Presbyterians of Scotland and 
 Ireland, are all that Great Britain has ever contributed to the 
 land that gave birth to St. Paul and the Apostles. If they had 
 stopped at home, what would have become of us, and how would 
 the Gentiles have found salvation ? Has England no yearning of 
 love for the land of her Saviour ? no debt of gratitude to pay back 
 to the country whence her redemption came, and which lies now 
 shrouded in mists of thick darkness ? Let us imitate the zeal of 
 our neighbours, and take example by the sagacity and liberality 
 with which their missions are conducted : it is such poor, pitiful 
 work to send a man, single-handed, here, and another there, and 
 bid them “ convert the land,” while experience has indeed taught 
 how little (or rather nothing) the most devoted efforts can thus 
 accomplish here. If anything is ever to be effected, it must be by 
 an organised body, whose labours may be directed simultaneously 
 to the wants of body as well as soul — feeding, clothing, as well as 
 teaching and civilising the natives ; thus, and thus alone, may we, 
 with God’s blessing, look for some results. 
 
 The English Consul, Mr. Brant, from whom, as old friends, we 
 received the kindest possible attentions, lives in a beautiful house 
 of the old Damascus style, in the Mooslim quarter ; the same house 
 has been occupied for many years as the English Consulate, and 
 
 * In Palestine a mission has been established at Jerusalem for the Jews ; 
 but throughout the rest of the land the English are believed to be destitute of 
 religion, and no sign of their worship appears in the length or breadth of the 
 country to contradict the assertion. Even in Beyrout, where Englishmen con- 
 gregate for commerce, and where numerous English travellers are continually 
 passing and repassing, and where a Consulate (with now a Consul-general) has 
 long been established, there is no clergyman to call them together, and not 
 the slightest thing marks the observance of the Lord’s Day, or their remem- 
 brance of Him in the land once sanctified by His presence. 
 
‘208 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 has been over and over described ; perhaps its chief charm is in 
 the large size of the court and the tank in the middle, besides the 
 remarkable variety of the trees and shrubs planted there — several 
 kinds of acacia, orange, lemon, oleander, Japan medlar, varieties of 
 roses and myrtle (on the perfumed berries of which I made my 
 luncheon), besides a great many other shrubs. The large reception- 
 room is very handsomely inlaid and carved, the cost of which, even 
 many years ago, the Consul said must have been 800?. — now that 
 everything is so much dearer, and labour so much more expensive, 
 it would cost twice that sum and be badly done. With all this 
 fine Orientalism around one, it was curious to see English curtains 
 and table-cloths, to hear English music on an English piano, and to 
 eat a thoroughly English dinner two thousand miles away from 
 home. These things have a value we cannot understand until we 
 have been out of England for a good long time : and I confess I 
 was rather surprised to find how much I too enjoyed them. 
 
 One special pleasure Mr. Brant was so kind as to obtain for us 
 was the permission to visit the renowned Abd-el-Kader, * and we 
 went to his house one day, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Brant. 
 We were taken first into the hareem, where Mrs. Brant interpreted 
 in Turkish, which the first lady of the hareem speaks. She was 
 sitting alone in a grand reception-room on a cotton quilt, with a 
 dress of thick wadded quilting, and loads of white muslin folded 
 round her head— the only handsome thing she wore was a gold 
 tissue scarf round her waist. She was old, stout, and very ugly — 
 but it is said that her husband has a great respect and regard for 
 her, and that, although he consoles himself for the decay of her 
 charms by those of many others, he always treats her with much 
 affection, telling her his plans and consulting her about what he 
 does : perhaps her being an Algerian Bedoueen, like himself, is an 
 unfading charm in his eyes. She was suffering much from rheu- 
 matism, and said Damascus was a dreadful place, it was so cold 
 nearly all the year. The younger females remove into the country 
 to some of his gardens in the summer, but this one remains in the 
 city. Her son, a boy of twelve years old, came in and sat on his 
 heels beside her ; she seemed very fond and proud of him, appealing 
 to him about his father, of whom he spoke simply as “Abd-el- 
 Kader we were told that they drop the expression of relationship 
 in the case of a very distinguished person. The room was an odd 
 jumble — the Damascene form and fountain furnished with French 
 hangings, and filled with French china and ornaments : so, indeed, 
 is the whole palace, and nothing can be brighter, gayer, or in worse 
 * Which means, “ Servant of the Powerful One.” 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 209 
 
 taste. The Damascene patterns, so pretty and so suitable in their 
 place, are spoiled by the mixture, and utterly absurd are the French 
 daubs of European ideas misapplied upon the Oriental walls ; for 
 instance, the lower part of the walls of one room, which would have 
 been naturally a beautiful inlay of marble mosaic harmonising with 
 the marble floor, was here replaced by painted views of Buddhists’ 
 pagodas, peopled with French shepherdesses and marquises, placed 
 in the same accurate perspective as appears on the famous willow- 
 leaf plate of long memory. Abd-el-Kader is greatly, and naturally, 
 blamed by his Algerian followers for having so entirely discarded 
 the Bedoueen in himself, and above all for wearing the dress of a 
 Damascene merchant ; it may be urged that it is very fine to see him 
 contented and making the best of his exile, and that it is wiser to 
 “do in Rome as Romans do,” but it does seem strange that he 
 should carry the signs and characteristics of his long French im- 
 prisonment about with him, and thrust it upon the Orientalism with 
 which he is surrounded, and which is natural to him. However, 
 we understood that France is not a very palatable subject of 
 conversation in the house, and of course we did not allude to it in 
 any way. 
 
 The old wife appeared to keep up no kind of ceremony or etiquette, 
 though she is said to be a severe and rigid matron over the younger 
 ' wives ; her slaves were all negresses, dressed in a single garment of 
 pink cotton, and each had a nose-ring with one turquoise passed 
 through the wide flat nostril, looking like a forget-me-not dropped 
 on a bank of black mud they stood at the lower end of the room, 
 below the divan, chatting among themselves and laughing at our 
 conversation, while they finished the sweetmeats we had left uneaten. 
 We went into other rooms to see some younger wives of the Chief, 
 and those of his sons — one of whom was extremely pretty, like a 
 tiny wax doll, with pink cheeks, coral lips, black hair, and eyes that 
 were half closed over by magnificent eyelashes', sweeping the cheek. 
 It is said that he buys a new wife every quarter, and that he once 
 replied to an English gentleman at Broussa, who' asked him why he 
 had so many wives,, that he did not know how he could better 
 expend French money than on such frivolous luxuries 1 * They are 
 chiefly Circassians, but all those whom we saw were the smallest, 
 most delicately-made little creatures possible. 
 
 After taking leave of tho hareem we joined the gentlemen of our 
 party in a marble-floored hall, daubed round with French figures, 
 and the comfortable Oriental divan exchanged for hard French 
 * He has an income of 4000?. a year allowed him by the French. 
 
 P 
 
‘210 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 sofas, on one of which Abd-el-Kader was sitting in European 
 fashion. He came forward to meet us, and we were greatly struck 
 with his appearance : he has a tall, majestic figure, fair skin, grey 
 hair — that once was black — a long white beard, a forehead and keen 
 piercing eye which could nowhere be passed unnoticed. I never 
 saw more intellect marked in the one, nor a more truly eagle 
 expression in the other,— as one of our party afterwards described 
 him : “ His every look is that of a prince, born and accustomed 
 to command, acting upon promptly-formed judgment — in one word, 
 a Leader Abd-el-Kader is a man of much learning ; he has written 
 four large and profound treatises on Controversy and Philosophy ; 
 and he himself gives the daily theological lecture in the Great College 
 at Damascus. His court is crowded every day and all day with 
 persons soliciting audience of him, so that it is difficult to find him 
 for even a moment at leisure. It is said that his Algerian followers 
 are daily, but secretly, increasing round him, and that the last acts 
 of his history are by no means played out ; indeed a noble incident 
 of that life has occurred since the above was written. England and 
 France will ever remember his conduct during the Syrian massacres 
 in the spring of 1860 ; it was not love for France, but the humanity 
 of his enlightened mind and the fervent respect which he felt in his 
 heart for the defenceless Sisters of Charity, which made him sally 
 forth to their rescue, at the head of his own wild followers ; nor 
 would he have been a whit less forward to aid and support the 
 subjects of England if the firm high character and unflinching 
 conduct of the British Consul had not been protection and defence 
 enough in itself. 
 
 Abd-el-Kader is regarded as a sovereign and respected as a man 
 of sanctity by all Mooslims; therefore, when visiting Jerusalem 
 some time ago, he was assigned a small suite of rooms in the mosque 
 of the Moghrebins, a very holy place. One day when the British 
 Consul was paying a visit to the Pacha of Jerusalem Abd-el-Kader 
 was announced : the Pacha went to the door to meet him, and 
 bowed down to the ground before him ; he stayed but a very few 
 minutes, when the Pacna accompanied him to the threshold, and there 
 again prostrating himself to the very floor, he kissed the hem of his 
 garment, which Abd-el-Kader did not withdraw, but, lifting up his 
 hand, he stood there and addressed the Pacha in some such words 
 as these : “ I call upon you, oh Pacha ! to remember what a respon- 
 sible and important position you occupy ; never forget how great is 
 your duty, and how immense an account will one day be required 
 of you for all the power bestowed upon you ; fail not in any 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 211 
 
 particular of your manifold duties ; remember to give alms to the 
 poor, to do justice to the widow, and to succour the oppressed ”■ — 
 the Pacha standing the whole time humbly before him, with folded 
 hands and downcast eyes, in the attitude of a slave. Considering 
 the high rank of the Pacha of Jerusalem, this scene was a very 
 curious one. 
 
EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 m 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE DESERT. 
 
 u The hue of youth upon a brow of woe, 
 
 Which men called old two thousand years ago ! 
 
 Match me such marvel, save in Eastern clime — 
 
 A rose-red city, — half as old as Time ! ” 
 
 Burgon. 
 
 PART I.— THE JOURNEY. 
 
 The world-famous ruins of Palmyra are naturally a common 
 subject of conversation at Damascus, and although we had never 
 entertained a serious thought of reaching them, believing it to be 
 quite out of our power, we made many inquiries respecting them 
 from the Consul and other people ; and one day Mr. Robson, the 
 excellent missionary, and his wife, showed us a portfolio of drawings, 
 conveying so grand an idea of the magnificence and glorious beauty 
 of the ruins, that we were seized with the most intense desire to see 
 them for ourselves : however, the more we asked about the journey 
 the more entirely impossible it seemed for us to accomplish it ; the 
 fatigue and expense combined made it out of the question. 
 
 Now there happened to be some other travellers staying in the 
 hotel, who were also very anxious to go to Palmyra, and among 
 them, happily for us, the famous artist, M. Carl Haag, to whom we 
 recounted the beauty of the drawings we had seen, and he too went 
 to see them next day ; he came back still more enthusiastic about 
 the original objects than we had been. " If I am a ruined man all 
 my life, or if I walk there in Bedoueen sandals, I must go to 
 Palmyra ! ” he kept repeating all that evening. So we all agreed to 
 see whether anything could be managed for us, and the following 
 day Mr. and Mrs. Robson took us to see the Sheikh of the Anazeh, 
 who makes all the arrangements whenever any one does go to 
 Palmyra. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 213 
 
 It must be explained that the fatigue of this expedition arises 
 from the fact that no one has been allowed for many years to remain 
 at the ruins more than twenty-four hours; twenty is the usual 
 time. Of course you must be almost superhumanly strong to make 
 the long journey there and back, fifty hours of camel-riding, and 
 not require those twenty hours for sleep or rest, — while, as the 
 ruins are three miles in extent, no one could take more than a glance 
 at the principal objects, even if ten hours were spent in traversing 
 them ; and as the fear of Bedoueen ghuzoos, and the want of water, 
 necessitate riding that part of the journey nearest to Palmyra at a 
 stretch of twenty-four hours without stop or stay, both going and 
 returning, few persons like to undertake it. Then the fee given to the 
 tribe for allowing travellers to go there with safe conduct is usually 
 30?. each. We came, however, at a fortunate moment ; the Anazeh 
 tribe were encamped close round the ruins, and there was nothing 
 to fear when once we had reached them. The Sheikh was im- 
 mensely impressed with M. Haag’s eagerness, and with the con- 
 viction that all the world would soon know from his drawings what 
 a glorious place Palmyra is ; and the Anazehs really love and value 
 the ruins. And so, to cut a long story short, after many days spent 
 in consulting and debating, with various pros and cons, he engaged 
 to let us stay five whole days ; and, if all the party in the hotel 
 joined together, at the price of 15?. a head, he engaged to choose 
 good dromedaries for us (on which all one’s comfort, and therefore 
 strength, depend), for which we paid 2?. each extra. It was also a 
 golden opportunity of seeing a real true Bedoueen tribe in the 
 desert, and we were promised to go among them as the Sheikh’s 
 guests, and live upon camel’s milk and flesh, &c. 
 
 So, to our own infinite astonishment, as well as pleasure, it was 
 really all settled : two days were allowed us in which to make 
 arrangements for our departure on Friday, the 7th October, after 
 the mosque prayers. Our little dog was consigned to the care of 
 the cook, with the baggage, in which all unnecessary ornaments were 
 safely deposited, that no sparkle of gold might tempt the passing 
 Arab ; and we spent the morning stuffing our saddle-bags with a 
 change or two of linen, drawing materials, and one book each. Stout 
 cotton dresses were put on instead of riding-habits, the provisions 
 were stowed in the dragoman’s saddle-bags, and we started on foot 
 for the Sheikh’s house, outside one of the gates of the city — the Bab 
 Tuma. The Sheikh was ready, in his scarlet cloak and mash’lah, 
 and having hooded his falcon — an indispensable companion-— he 
 took us to the court, where, indeed, was a scene of Babelar con- 
 fusion. Eleven dromedaries were on their knees, all roaring, and 
 
2U 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 growling, and groaning, as if they were being killed, after the 
 manner of dromedaries the moment they are requested to kneel, and 
 the whole time they are kneeling ; all the camel-drivers and armed 
 escort rushing about screaming and shouting — flocks of poultry at 
 one side shrieking, gabbling, and cackling — pet gazelles were hiding 
 in a corner — and a number of beautiful Arab mares were standing 
 transfixed with astonishment at the unwonted crowd and noise. 
 Our minds were soon concentrated upon the art of mounting, which 
 is an ordeal for a novice, and on the first success of which the 
 Arab prophecies whether you will make a good rider or not, and be 
 worthy of his beloved beast. A couple of men held down each 
 dromedary by standing on its fore-knees, while the Sheikh himself 
 lifted us ladies, each with a sort of flying jump, into the middle of 
 the seat, hastily settling our shawls, &c. ; and while directions were 
 shouted on all sides, with such earnest vociferation that it was 
 impossible to understand one syllable of them except to “ hold fast 1” 
 up jumped the animal, raising his hind legs first, when you go 
 nearly over his nose, then his forelegs, jerking you as unexpectedly 
 backwards, against the hinder pommel of your saddle, and affording 
 you a knock on your spine that you remember against all future 
 occasions. 
 
 By four o’clock we had all streamed in procession out of the 
 gate — a goodly cavalcade of eleven dromedaries, besides the Argeels, 
 their owners, who always accompany the camel, sometimes on foot, 
 sometimes mounted behind the riders. The dromedaries carried 
 our party, including the servants, the Sheikh, and the escort of 
 armed Bedoueens, Anazehs and others — thirteen men in all ; while 
 several Damascus acquaintances accompanied us for a mile or two, 
 after the kindly Arab fashion of leave-taking. Such a noise as we 
 made altogether, for the Bedoueens had a darabouka (a drum) to 
 which they sang lustily, shouting their good-byes on all sides, the 
 whole way through the delightful gardens and green lanes that 
 encompass the city ! In two hours and a half we reached the 
 village of Doumah, which stands on the edge of the gardens : it 
 was all alive with men and women gathering the grapes, and 
 spreading them out so thickly on the ground to dry into raisins, 
 that we took them for red carpets; while many were crowding 
 round the fires, by the aid of which they were turning the sweet 
 juice into dibs — a luscious sweet in which the Arabs delight, and 
 which is so often mentioned in the Bible, rendered, in our translation, 
 honey. From this we passed out upon the great plain, and pre- 
 sently met the Baghdad postman galloping in at the end of his 
 nine days’ journey. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 215 
 
 The sun went down at a little before seven ; then suddenly the 
 Sheikh uttered a command, and down went all the camels. “ This 
 is our halting place for the night,” said he. " What, here— on the 
 road? Shall we not go a little on one side and look for some 
 shelter ? ” “ Oh, no,” said the Sheikh, “ this is the best, for here we 
 can see who comes, and we have to look out for robbers ! ” It did 
 look astonishingly bare and strange for a night’s rest, but in a few 
 moments the dragomans had arranged our carpets, thick-wadded 
 coverlids, cloaks, &c. ; the fire, made of the dry thorns which grew 
 all around us, was quickly lighted, and the kettle was boiling ; 
 cold fowl and hot tea were presented; then the camels were 
 arranged, lying down in an external circle, the falcon unhooded 
 and placed upon his perch, the saddle-frames built up into a wall, 
 and our saddle-bags placed under our heads — the resolution was 
 carried, nemine contradicente , that the Desert was both cheerful and 
 comfortable — and before eight o’clock nearly all the party were 
 giving loud and vigorous tokens of a profound sleep. My sister 
 and I, however, were too new to sleeping a la belle etoile, and on so 
 very hard a couch as that rocky road, to find rest easily ; and we 
 amused ourselves watching one of the camels, who, every now and 
 then, would get up and hobble about with his one leg tied up close 
 under him, till, finding he could gain but little by such limping 
 amusement, he would lie down again and snore. Twice the 
 practised ear of Sheikh Miguel gave the alarm of thieves, and 
 prevented their approach. 
 
 Amongst the Bedoueens stealing on a large scale, involving 
 danger and risk — such as coming by night into an encampment and 
 silently making away with the camels — is not considered disgraceful ; 
 but all stealing from one another’s tents without danger is con- 
 sidered entirely mean and bad; so bad that the punishment is 
 cutting off the hand. The greatest penalty for grave crimes is 
 beheading with a sword ; for all lesser offences, such as stealing a 
 camel, &c., branding with a hot iron is the usual punishment. False 
 accusations are always punished by the infliction of whatever 
 penalty would have been awarded to the accused had he been 
 proved guilty. 
 
 The Bedoueens can be plentifully cool in their naive impudence. 
 Our good Sheikh had a little black negro boy — a slave — with him, 
 whom he was taking to the tribe, thinking the winter in Damascus 
 too cold for him; he had lately been ill, and the kind-hearted 
 Sheikh got up early in the night, and taking off a cloak lined with 
 fur, that he had to sleep on, wrapped it round the child ; in the 
 morning it was found that one of the Bedoueens had quietly 
 
216 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 appropriated it for himself as soon as the Sheikh had gone to sleep 
 again. Of course this Bedoueen ms not an Anazeh ; our escort 
 was purposely composed of Bedoueens of several of the minor 
 tribes and villagers inhabiting this Desert, as the best security for 
 our protection. 
 
 A few words about our friend Sheikh Miguel * may not be uninter- 
 esting. His eldest brother, Muhammad, is the head sheikh of the 
 Mizrab, one branch of the Sab’a, a powerful division of the Anazehs ; 
 he is himself of equal rank with his brother, but Muhammad always 
 remains with the tribe, while Sheikh Miguel does all their business 
 with the Government, and escorts travellers, for which purpose he 
 lives part of the year in Damascus. He is like all true Bedoueens, a 
 small man, about five feet three inches in height, slightly made, but 
 erect, very graceful in all his motions, and with a light, easy step. 
 His face is really beautiful — of a perfect oval ; a long aquiline nose, 
 delicately -formed mouth, small regular teeth of dazzling whiteness, 
 and large black eyes that could be soft and sweet as any woman’s, or 
 flash with a fierce, wild eagle glance that really made one start. 
 He wore a short black beard, and long crisp ringlets under his 
 kefiyeh, which was of the very finest and brightest Damascus silk, 
 bound round his head with the pretty alcgal — a double wreath of 
 camel’s hair tied and tasselled with coloured silks. His dress was a 
 kumbaz, or long tight gown of striped and flowered silk, with wide, 
 open sleeves hanging down to the knee ; then his sheikh’s cloak or 
 pelisse of bright scarlet cloth bound with black braid, and three bars 
 of broad black braid across the chest, — this, with the scarlet leather 
 boots, worn over stockingless feet, and reaching to the knee, is the 
 distinguishing dress of the Sheikh. Over all came a mash’lah f — a 
 shapeless but very comfortable cloak — sometimes of thin white 
 cloth, edged with colour, sometimes of coarse, thick brown and 
 white camel’s-hair cloth, sometimes of the same material in black, 
 violet, or brown, with a handsome pattern in gold thread woven 
 in upon the shoulders — this latter kind comes from Mekka, and 
 are costly, but very beautiful. A silk scarf wound many times 
 round the waist, into which a couple of revolvers and a big knife 
 were stuck, and a sword hung round the. neck by a crimson 
 cord, completed his costume. As to his manners, the “ best- bred” 
 English gentleman is not more polished than he, and the Bedoueen 
 chief joins an easy chivalrous grace to his quiet dignified demeanour, 
 which has a double charm. From the moment we left Damascus 
 and became his “ charge ” till we re-entered the city his kindness 
 and thoughtful attention never ceased — morning, noon, and night, 
 
 * Pronounced Midgewell. t Mash'lah means to strip off. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 217 
 
 
 travelling or stationary, whatever we might be doing, alone or sur- 
 rounded with Arabs, he had an eye and an ear always ready for 
 every want of ours; whatever little difficulty might arise, the 
 Sheikh was sure to be at hand to help one out of it. His conversa- 
 tion — of course through an interpreter — was always full of interest, 
 and more might be learned from him, I imagine, than from any one 
 of the ancient histories of the great Arab tribes, of which so little is 
 known. He and his brothers had all been taught reading and 
 writing, but he told us, as people say of vaccination, “ they only 
 took with me.” His Bedoueens and the escort addressed him 
 occasionally with “ 0 Sheikh !” but most often it was “ 0 Miguel !” 
 and they talked and joked with him with a freedom that was some- 
 times rather annoying to us, for they never hesitated to interrupt 
 any of our conversations with him whenever they had a remark to 
 make. At home in their tents they observe some etiquette; when 
 the sheikh enters every person rises, and stands till he bids them 
 be seated, and they do not permit him, when encamped, to do any 
 menial work; but out in the plain a sheikh would be greatly 
 despised who made any difference between himself and his people, 
 or did not attend to his own camel, and eat the same food as the 
 others. The office of sheikh is entirely hereditary ; but a very bad 
 or insane heir is set aside, and either the next of blood, or some one 
 remarkably distinguished by his prowess, is elected in his place. 
 
 The Sheikh awoke us all at sunrise on the following morning; our 
 toilettes, which consisted chiefly of shaking ourselves, were soon per- 
 formed, and our breakfast of fowl, bread, and tea was likewise 
 quickly despatched. We were all mounted and away by seven 
 o’clock, and soon came to some ruins of an extensive khan and a 
 tower, whence we turned up the low pass of the Anti-Lebanon 
 mountains, called the Boghaz — or passage — rather slippery and 
 steep for camels. Their movements, either in ascending or de- 
 scending, are very unpleasant to the rider : they make each step like 
 a stumble, jerking up or down upon it, shaking you all through, 
 and helping you to arrive at the camel’s own opinion when he was 
 asked which was best for him to go, up hill or down, and he 
 answered, “ May the curse of Allah light on both ; for the flat plain 
 is the only place fit for a beast like me ! ” We here met a great 
 number of donkeys with long planks of timber lashed to their sides ; 
 and as they dragged these loads over the rocky ground the roaring 
 noise they made was perfectly astonishing, and much alarmed the 
 dromedaries, who are very timid creatures, and are therefore very 
 unpleasant to ride past unusual sights or sounds, or in towns at 
 night. We passed the ruins of a temple, four columns and a 
 
218 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 sarcophagus, and of some wells excavated in the rock with much 
 care. 
 
 Descending on the other side we were in the Desert , here narrowed 
 between mountains to a valley of, we were told, ten miles wide. I 
 need not say that our eyes were not of the smallest use in judging 
 of any distance in the Desert; the atmosphere is so clear and so 
 heated that objects at many miles off may appear quite close to 
 you, and it is an ever-recurring marvel why you go on hours and 
 hours and never seem to approach any nearer to the objects 
 you have been looking at all the time. Another deception, which 
 is frequently puzzling, is the magnifying of distant objects by the 
 heat, so that a few tamarisk bushes look like a grove of trees, a 
 horse seems a tall camel, and a camel looks like a walking tower. 
 The Sheikh had some business to transact at a large khan which 
 had for some two hours seemed under our feet, called Kuteifeh, 
 and we had therefore the advantage of an hour and a half’s rest on 
 our carpets in the inner court; he despatched his business and 
 said his prayers in the mosque, while we ate our luncheon, which 
 was a sumptuous one, for we had nice cool oranges and fine 
 raisins bought in the khan. Senan Pacha built this khan about 
 three centuries ago, a handsome, solid building, with rows of fine 
 arches; some houses have gathered round it into a small village, 
 and there are gardens with pleasant trees, under whose shade 
 we passed in leaving the place. Our course lay now nearly due 
 east, and we soon crossed the track to Aleppo and Homs, which 
 here turns off to the north. Our camels became very troublesome 
 this afternoon, stopping to browse on certain aromatic plants 
 which appeared on the plain, and as you have no particular bridle, 
 and camels are remarkably self-willed, and reluctant to take 
 advice in a language they don’t understand, you have to sit still 
 and bear it; but it is a very odd sensation when their heads 
 disappear entirely under their bodies and their long forelegs go 
 walking on over their own heads ! After which they suddenly 
 pull up these same heads, and look round in your face with 
 such a meek expression of injured innocence, you are obliged to 
 say, “ All right, good drom, only do go on.” The drivers make 
 them go on capitally, either by requesting them to do so in the 
 politest Arabic, or by enforcing their wishes with the bakourah (a 
 hooked stick), as they sit behind you ; but when the driver is 
 walking your puny efforts of persuasion are ludicrously un- 
 successful : mine were remarkably so, for my heel did not quite 
 reach the neck of the beast, a good kick upon which tells him he is 
 to quicken his pace, and no infliction of my bakourah ever had the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 219 
 
 faintest effect upon his mind or legs; indeed at last it became 
 rather a favourite joke among the Argeels to see the “ Little Sitt ” 
 beating on her camel with impotent fury. I had the most charming 
 dromedary, a dear beast, whose sweetness was described in her 
 name, “ Helweh ” (which means sweet '), — she had the easiest, most 
 elastic step, and the most delightful trot in the world ; but to 
 counterbalance Helweh’s charms, my driver was a horrid old man, 
 who would not walk much, and therefore was always sitting behind 
 me and continually going to sleep, and whenever he did so his 
 dirty head would drop on my shoulder, and get very roughly shaken 
 off. He was besides the most garrulous old gentleman, and 
 considered his conversation worth hearing; so whenever I was 
 speaking to any one of the party, or the interpreter was telling 
 anything particularly interesting, this old man elevated his hoarse 
 voice and began a speech to another of his brethren, always choosing 
 the farthest off, that he might shout the louder. One day I was so 
 angry that I knocked him over the head with my bakourah, and 
 told him to “ hold his tongue,” having learned to make the request 
 in Arabic on purpose. I was rather ashamed of myself, but the 
 other Argeels went into fits of laughter for ever so long, and after- 
 wards they used often to inquire why I did not try him again, with 
 many witticisms about his old head that I did not understand. 
 
 My sister’s first dromedary was a"’ very spirited, frisky creature, 
 upon seeing which the kind Sheikh dismounted and put her on his 
 own, a gentle black animal, called Simri (black), of which she became 
 very fond, and she had a good, well-behaved young driver, who 
 used to teach her the names of the mountains and the plants, &c., 
 and, when she had repeated her lesson correctly, would call to all 
 the others to come and hear the results of his good teaching. 
 Occasionally she shared her luncheon with him, generally dry bread 
 with a few raisins, and sometimes provided herself with lumps of 
 sugar for him, and once, thinking to give him a treat, she gave him 
 a stick of chocolate, all of which he received with true Arab polite- 
 ness, and said “ Taib, taib, kattar-herak,”* but he secretly imparted 
 to the interpreter afterwards that she had given him some horrible 
 stuff made of black earth ! — this was the chocolate. Whenever we 
 gave them anything they always divided it among the whole set, and 
 seemed grateful and pleased. This is one of the delights of the Be- 
 doueen — the true Bedoueen — not only that you know you may trust 
 them, and that they are invariably respectful and polite, but that 
 they seemed pleased and really grateful for little kindnesses. The 
 Syrian seldom looks pleased, and scarcely ever says “ kattar-herak.” 
 * “ Good, good, thank you.” 
 
220 
 
 E G YETI A JV SEPUL CURES 
 
 The falcon-bearer was a true Anazeh, and he always had a good- 
 natured word and an inquiry as to how we felt whenever either of 
 us came near him ; he approved of us mightily because we took to 
 the dromedaries like “ ducks to the water/’ and enjoyed it all from 
 beginning to end. I can well understand the various accounts 
 given by travellers of dromedary- riding : the fact is that your 
 liking it depends wholly upon two things — first, the natural pace 
 of your animal — and they all differ in this, more almost than 
 horses; and secondly, the way in which your saddle is settled. 
 The shedad, the substruction of your seat, is simply an inverted V 
 of wood, very smoothly made, with a stout back-bone along the top, 
 at each end of which is placed a pommel about a foot high ; fastened 
 to the pommels over the top of the backbone is an open square 
 frame, stuffed with camel’s or goat’s-hair — this forms your seat; 
 across this, hanging down on each side, you throw first your saddle- 
 bag, then a carpet, a wadded quilt, two or three cloaks and shawls, 
 and, in short, as many things as you can heap up — the more the 
 better, since these coverings make your saddle by day and your bed 
 by night. You sit in the middle of. the seat with a leg on each side 
 of the front pommel, varying your position according to your 
 pleasure, and you must lean a little forward always, or your back 
 would rub against the hinder pommel. The saddle-bags are two 
 handsome pouches of dark brown camel’s-hair, adorned with rows 
 of tassels of all manner of bright colours, little tufts of ostrich- 
 feathers sewn on here and there, to draw off the “ Evil Eye ” from 
 the good things within, and twelve or more long cords hanging 
 from them nearly to the ground, ending in gay-coloured tassels — 
 these keep up a continual swaying when the camel walks, and 
 when he trots they have a very funny appearance. 
 
 We had plenty to look at on this our first day in the Desert. The 
 mountains on each side were perfectly barren, but they glowed 
 with fine colours ; the ground was riddled with the holes of jerboas 
 and rats, whom we sometimes saw running off into safety, and 
 towards evening several pretty gazelles were seen dancing about 
 in the thorns, and among the hashish-el-kali which covered the 
 ground: this is the plant from the ashes of which they make 
 potash for soap— the Damascus and Jerusalem soap being com- 
 posed only of this stuff mixed with olive oil ; it is the only trade 
 the Desert Arabs carry on with the city, and the smoke from their 
 fires for burning it is seen curling up in a dozen different directions 
 at once : it is a dry, thorny, ugly-looking plant. We passed also 
 a very large salt-marsh, glistening and sparkling in the sun as if 
 it was a lake ; then came the village of Jerood, and after 10 h hours 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 221 
 
 of riding, independently of onr rest at Kuteifeh, we came upon the 
 pretty village of Atny, where there was a stream and a good 
 many trees. We got over a low wall into a small enclosure, where 
 our night encampment afforded unlimited amusement to the 
 villagers until quite late; and we spent a pleasant evening, 
 chatting with the Sheikh over our dinner. Some time after a party 
 of ten well-armed men mounted on horseback arrived, whose 
 appearance the Sheikh did not much like ; and so, to ensure their 
 not attacking us on the' morrow, he engaged them as guards 
 extraordinary from the dangers of the road to Karyeteen. This 
 was not a pleasant resting-place for light sleepers. The jackals 
 prowled round our little enclosure with the most horrible howls 
 and cries ; once or twice they leaped over the wall,, and I had to 
 throw stones at them to make them go away, and three times there 
 came quite close to us the horrid yelling laugh of a hyena, which 
 I confess made me feel a little queer. 
 
 We had now, too, arrived under the desert-dew, which fell this 
 night so heavily upon us that in the morning the thick shawls 
 above our coverlids were wet through, and I wrung a great cupful 
 of water out of a bit of my dress that had unwarily escaped 
 covering in the night. But the curious thing about this desert- 
 dew is that no one ever catches cold from it ; the Bedoueens never 
 have rheumatism or coughs from it, and the most delicate travellers 
 encounter it without harm. One of our party had a very weak 
 chest and throat, my sister was very liable to cold, and I to fever, 
 yet we slept exposed to the heaviest dews for fifteen successive 
 nights without taking any remarkable precautions, and we never 
 found the slightest evil result from it. 
 
 We started soon after sunrise, our ten new friends accompanying 
 us, making a gay scene in- the Desert, as they scoured the plain, ventre 
 a terre, with their white- mash’lahs and gaudy kefiyehs streaming in 
 the wind behind them, pursuing one another in mimic warfare, 
 then suddenly wheeling round, pursuer becoming pursued, and 
 sweeping about in quickly changing circles, uttering their war- 
 cries, and poising their long bamboo lances, as if to throw them at 
 their enemies, quivering from end to end. These lances are twelve 
 feet long, and are ornamented with bunches of black ostrich 
 feathers at the junction of the bamboo with the long steel point ; at 
 the other end is an iron spike, used for planting the lance in the 
 ground when the bearer is dismounted. The horses carry much 
 more trappings than the camels, and their gay-coloured tassels 
 sweep the ground as they gallop along, casting up clouds of sand 
 in the air. They continued this for about a couple of hours, and 
 
222 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 then, getting tired of the play, galloped on before us, promising to 
 send back a messenger if they found any dangers on the road. The 
 Sheikh had judged rightly, however, and it was fortunate he had 
 engaged them as allies ; for on our return we found they had left 
 us to rob three laden mules, and the next day they took possession 
 of the English mail to Baghdad, kept the letters for a time, and 
 appropriated a large portion of Government treasure. 
 
 It was terribly hot this morning, and we all suffered a good deal 
 from the burning glare on the barren ground. It was amusing to 
 see how by various degrees, sooner or later, each of us began to 
 leave off looking much about, and gradually retired into his or her 
 kefiyeh, becoming, as the heat increased, more and more transformed 
 into the semblance of mummies ; indeed our appearance would have 
 been rather amusing in Hyde Park. I had a silk shawl folded 
 thickly above my dress over my shoulders, then the white mash’lah, 
 underneath a very thick, grey tweed cloak with a large hood, and 
 our huge felt hats were covered with some yards of muslin hanging 
 down, kefiyeh fashion, all round, the front part of which could be 
 folded over the face ; and in the middle of the day I always bound 
 a blue veil several times over my lips and nose, as the only means 
 of preserving them from blistering. Once or twice we tried to read 
 — easy enough with the dromedary’s even step — but the glare was 
 so dazzling on the white page that we always gave it up after a few 
 minutes. We put up two hares, and on the Sheikh shooting one we 
 dismounted in the narrow shade of a low wall of what was once a 
 large khan, called El-Kharab — the ruin — and made some coffee 
 while the hare was being roasted whole. Feasting merrily upon 
 its bones, which we handled Arab-fashion, we rode on after nearly 
 an hour’s delay — an hour that seems very short when it is thus 
 snatched in the middle of a long day’s ride for rest ; but we forgot 
 all our fatigues in the enchantment of the scene around us. The 
 whole Desert gradually changed into a pale, sweet blue, looking so 
 like the sea one almost thought it must be water ; then the moun- 
 tains, with their ever-varying crags, became dressed in their 
 evening hues of brightest lilac, purple, and violet, tipped with gold, 
 and the deep blue of the sky paled, as streaks of pink and crimson 
 stole over its length and breadth. M. Haag went into raptures, 
 and the Argeels’ hearts were evidently softened, for, as the sun 
 sank, they permitted us the pleasure of a delightful trot in the cool 
 evening air, though they had complained bitterly in the morning, 
 when we wanted to refresh ourselves under the burning sun, that 
 we should “ certainly kill the camels,” and that we “ might as well 
 be a set of postmen at the rate we wanted to go !” The quick trot 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 223 
 
 of a good dromedary is a delightfully easy, pleasant pace, and a 
 great relief after some hours of the monotonous long swing of the 
 walking-pace. 
 
 The first sight of Karyeteen was very pretty : the western 
 sunbeams showing the bright specks of the white houses, which 
 appeared to be lying under the mountain side, though in reality 
 a long way from them. In the distance the faint blue summits 
 of the mountains over Tadmor, our much-longed-for goal, were 
 eagerly pointed out by the Argeels; for, be it well understood. 
 Palmyra is but the Latin translation for the “ Tadmor-in-the- 
 Wilderness ”* built by King Solomon (Tadmor and Tamar being 
 the Hebrew for a palm), and no one but the European traveller 
 ever gives it such an appellation; the Romans, indeed, called it 
 Adrianopolis, but Tadmor has ever been in all the Eastern world 
 its sole name, and Tadmor, or Tedmor, it is still called by all the 
 Arabs of the “ wilderness ” around it. 
 
 It was moonlight ere we reached the large village of Karyeteen, 
 and as we skirted the outer walls we heard nothing but the 
 loud cries of numerous jackals. We were a very long time 
 threading its lanes before we arrived at the Sheikh’s house and 
 khan — court within court — each one quickly filled with crowds of 
 his relations and dependants, who came out to see us dismount in 
 the outer court, and then pressed round us, trying to touch our 
 faces and finger our clothes, and asking innumerable questions 
 before we reached the large chamber prepared for us. Here, we 
 saw in a moment, the people would be in and out all night ; for 
 they were already packing themselves in, in tight rows, to see us 
 eat and sleep ; moreover I felt the lively inhabitants of the mats, 
 carpets, and cushions rubbing up their forces for the onslaught, 
 and we therefore quietly escaped to a small terrace on the housetop, 
 where, lifted up above them all, we reposed in perfect silence and 
 quiet after our fourteen hours’ journey. Our ten guards of the 
 morning had announced our approach, and the village Sheikh had 
 prepared a banquet for Sheikh Miguel : from our little terrace we 
 looked down to the guest-chamber, where we saw the numerous 
 guests crowding in relays round the enormous pilaf of mutton and 
 rice, a bowl of which was sent up to us, with plenty of compliments, 
 from the village Sheikh, on which we made a very good supper. 
 
 This Sheikh was a very tall, stout man, large-limbed and large- 
 mouthed ; he was wealthy and prosperous ; but he looked un- 
 happy and depressed ; and Sheikh Miguel soon told us the cause : 
 he had an only son, the delight of his heart, for whom he bought a 
 * 1 Kings ix. 18. 
 
224 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 little black slave as a playmate. The two boys, one day, playing 
 together, got hold of the Sheikh’s pistols, and the slave accidentally 
 shot his master’s child,— the father, in a transport of blind rage, 
 killed the slave, and was still miserable with grief for his loss. 
 
 All Bedoueen sheikhs have their black slaves, for they are the 
 only servants they can have ; no Bedoueen of any tribe will hire 
 himself or herself as servant to any one, and however obliging they 
 may be in lending assistance on some special occasion, the idea of 
 rendering it constantly, or as a duty, would be most indignantly 
 rejected by them all. But these black slaves are always kindly 
 treated, and generally become very much attached and faithful to 
 their owners. We used to< see Sheikh Miguel giving his little black 
 boy his food with much care, morning and evening ; and the in- 
 terpreter told us that the boy was most affectionately attached to 
 the Sheikh, and that if his master was to forget him and give him 
 nothing to eat, he would neither ask for food nor complain till he 
 starved. They are really valuable servants, and sometimes cost 
 large sums of money : we heard of one in Damascus who was so 
 highly esteemed by her dying mistress that she had left all her 
 children in her entire charge. 
 
 The banquet continued long after we had fallen asleep, — so 
 numerous were the guests to welcome the highly respected Anazeh- 
 chief. These entertainments are terrible affairs sometimes to the 
 host, for an Arab invitation includes “ you and yours,” and your 
 guest, therefore, brings his brother, and his cousin, and his cousin’s 
 cousin ; and when you have invited a party of ten guests you may 
 have forty or fifty, or, in fact, any number, all arrivals expecting an 
 equal welcome, and, what is more difficult to provide, an equal share 
 in the food. 
 
 We were roused from our slumbers at sunrise, but as the escort 
 were not ready to start till nine o’clock, we might have rested 
 longer ; they were baking bread, I believe, for their journey, while 
 we stood in the crowd below, baking ourselves in the sun. M. Haag 
 made sketches of the faces around us — some superhumanly ugly, 
 but some remarkably pretty. There was a young son of a neighbour- 
 ing Sheikh, so pretty and so girlish-looking that we could none of us 
 agree as to whether he was a boy or a girl, — there not being any 
 remarkable difference in the costume at that age; and when I 
 asked him which he was, he blushed every shade of red, and ran 
 away laughing like a mad thing. 
 
 This Karyeteen is a large village with a mixed population of 
 Mooslims and Jacobite Christians ; the Sheikh’s premises enclosing 
 a rather handsome mosque, which seemed ancient, *and some well- 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 225 
 
 built houses. There are most copious springs and fountains behind 
 the town, which supply innumerable rivulets and streams in the 
 cultivated ground round the houses; they also fill a circular 
 reservoir, a little lakelet, outside the village, where the caravan 
 camels are all watered, surrounded by wild weeds and flowers. 
 From this luxury of water Karyeteen is believed to be the Hazar- 
 enan (village or enclosure of fountains— enan answering to the 
 Arabic ’am) of Numb, xxxiv. 9, 10, describing the north-east 
 corner* of the “ promised land; ” and again by Ezekiel (xlvii. 17) in 
 speaking of the territory promised at some future time to the 
 Children of Israel. Here Abraham and Lot probably rested on 
 their way from Haran to the Land of Canaan; and Jacob, too, when 
 he came out of Padan-aram with his wives and his children and all 
 his property, to return to Isaac his father ; for the natural highway 
 from Mesopotamia into Syria led by the fountains of Tadmor and 
 Karyeteen. 
 
 This was to be our grand day of twenty-four hours’ fatigue, and 
 we were all rather put out at our departure being delayed till 
 the sun was high and burning, though not high enough to prevent 
 the view of the long range of blue hills to the south east from 
 looking lovely as we emerged from the town: such tender and 
 delicate hue? one can only see in the Desert. We were now in the 
 Wady-ei-Kebeer (the great valley), which we were told was from 
 twenty to thirty miles wide : its termination was to be Tadmor, and 
 we looked eagerly on to the faint blue distance throughout the day 
 Very early in the day the Sheikh pointed to a ruined tower on the 
 plain, and said, “ We shall halt there.” It seemed quite close to us, 
 but hour after hour we toiled on over the scorched-up, burning, 
 barren ground, where scarce even a thorn was now growing, and we 
 never, never seemed to come any nearer. There was no use in ap- 
 plying to our good Sheikh, for the Bedoueen has no idea of time 
 or distance; and he invariably answered “Two hours — two hours,” 
 to everything. Before we understood this it was rather trying 
 to have braced oneself up to hold out the time specified, and 
 
 * According to Mr. Porter this much disputed “border” is very simply 
 described : the Mediterranean forms its western extremity, thence the only 
 real valley opening into the eastern country is that of El-Iiusn, which 
 separates the great chain of the Lebanon mountains (here called Mount Hor, 
 probably some local name applied to one of the northernmost peaks) from the 
 Nusairiyeh hills, which end at Antioch ; this valley leads directly to Hamah, 
 whence the border came through Zedad and Ziphron to Hazar-enan, “ the goings 
 out of it ; ” these two places are identified by Mr. Porter, with every appear- 
 ance of probability, as Sudud and Zifroun, villages on the direct track between 
 Hamah and Karyeteen. 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 then find it might be two, twelve, or any number of hours. It 
 is the same with the Druzes and Syrian fellaheen: “I was born 
 the year so much rain fell ; ” or, “ That happened three years 
 before such a pasha came ; ” or something of that kind, are their 
 invariable answers ; and in Palestine a fellah will tell you, “ Oh, 
 my father was quite an old man : he lived in the time of David !” 
 
 At length, near sunset, we found ourselves actually close to the 
 tower, and some of us dismounted to examine it, while the drago- 
 mans made us a little coffee farther on. This place, El-Khasr, is 
 called the Robbers’ Tower, because it is a great place of rendezvous 
 for ghuzoos, or plundering parties, and many an unwary traveller 
 has been seized upon here, and dragged within its crumbling walls. 
 Some fine work is still to be seen on the doorways, windows, and 
 ornamental medallions of the picturesque ruin. The stone of the 
 fallen columns seemed composed entirely of fossils, and we picked 
 out some beautiful little shells with our fingers and penknives. 
 Farther on, and in a line with the Robbers’ Tower, appeared another, 
 at some distance, still more ruined : the remains of a circular 
 reservoir and of an aqueduct are found between them; the 
 reservoir continuing filled with water for some time after the rainy 
 season, adds another attraction to the Ruined Tower for robbers; 
 our Sheikh therefore kept a sharp look-out while we pledged each 
 other in spiced coffee, and watched our own shadows flying out to 
 endless lengths across the plain, as the sun sank below the horizon. 
 One has no idea of the beauty and poetry of shadows till one goes 
 into the Desert; there I never wearied of watching them, and 
 delighting in the new language they spoke to me. 
 
 The moon rose soon after we mounted again, and the little hasty 
 rest had been so refreshing that we more than ever enjoyed the night ; 
 the camels keep better together than in the day, and the Argeels 
 indulged in a number of wild songs, for the special encouragement 
 of their creatures. Some of the tunes were pretty, wild, and sad, 
 though monotonous, and the words poetical : the chief burden was 
 in the style of “ Go on, oh Camel, my love, my beauty, go on 
 quickly, and the prettiest girls of the village shall come out to meet 
 you ; go on, and when you kneel the maidens will feed you with 
 fresh sugar-canes, and stroke you with their soft hands,” &c. Then 
 they improvised verses about the riders, which elicited great 
 applause and some amusement ; they were chiefly personal descrip- 
 tions, which we did not, of course, understand, but sometimes we 
 caught allusions to incidents that had happened in the day, or 
 to things we had said in our very meagre Arabic. M. Haag, 
 who dressed like a Bedoueen, and was always full of jokes, was a 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 227 
 
 favourite with them, and the chief songs were about him, with good- 
 natured fun about bis continually dropping asleep. The songs 
 were very pleasant when the singers walked, or when you were 
 listening to your neighbour’s Argeel, but one soon wearied of the 
 loud voices shouting in your very ears at the full crack of their 
 lungs, when they twisted themselves up by the dromedary’s tail, 
 and arrived behind your own sliedad : moreover, we were sure to lose, 
 in the row they made, exactly the most interesting part of whatever 
 conversation was going on amongst ourselves. And then, whenever 
 one saw two of one’s friends engaged in a comfortable chat, that 
 instant one’s driver was sure to send his camel rushing up, rudely 
 dividing them, for the better arrangement of their own chorus, and 
 one’s apologies for the interruption were all the more supremely 
 ridiculous, because we each knew that none of us had the slightest 
 shadow of control over our own beast. 
 
 The singing one day ceased, on their understanding that my 
 sister had a head- ache; but on being told the same thing the next 
 day the dragoman overheard them inquiring from the Sheikh if 
 the Ingleez women u always had lattal ” that is, good for nothing 
 “ heads ! ” One must converse, if possible, in night travelling, for 
 else it soon becomes difficult to keep awake, and a tumble from a 
 dromedary is not the pleasantest thing possible. We were not quite 
 enough at ease to twist back and lie half behind the pommel as an 
 adept can do, though of course not when your Argeel is mounted 
 behind you; but if one could manage this it would afford a 
 delightful rest, for the camel’s long, swinging, perfectly even step 
 is the most sleepifying thing in the world, and at night, when you 
 have not even your own shadow to watch, or if you are going 
 eastwards and cannot see it, it really is the hardest thing to keep 
 awake after a long day’s ride. 
 
 The dromedary’s pace is something under five miles an hour. 
 One is apt to imagine it slow, for the stride is so long that they 
 seem tardy, accustomed as one is to the short, quick step of the 
 horse ; but see the quick pace at which the Argeels walk to keep 
 up with them, or, better still, dismount and try, and then see if you 
 don’t change your opinion. If one of the party lags behind or 
 dismounts for only a moment, see how tedious the waiting for him 
 again seems ; or if you yourself lag a little, how soon your com- 
 panions disappear into moving specks, and how long you are in 
 overtaking them. Some of the dromedaries, especially those 
 selected for the post, go at a wonderfully quick rate, but their 
 gallop is a very rough pace ; they cannot endure much of it, and 
 die when at all overworked. Their owners are indeed most 
 
 Q 
 
‘228 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 attentive to and careful of them ; the camel becomes very quickly 
 attached to a kind master, and they are very fond of these their 
 valuable possessions. We found our dromedaries soon became 
 acquainted with us, and would come when called by name to 
 receive chicken-bones from our hands; sometimes they roused 
 themselves, and made little observations upon us at night, and at 
 Tadmor I woke more than once feeling my camel gently sniffing at 
 my feet. Their proper food is chiefly barley, but on a journey they 
 ought to have balls made of rice and dhourra mixed up with spices. 
 Our men took none of this food with them, expecting to find supplies 
 of it at Tadmor ; there was none, however, and except what the poor 
 beasts got in the khans and a few plants by the way, they had 
 nothing whatever to eat, till we returned to Damascus, but the 
 green stalks of the dhourra, which they like, but from which they 
 derive little or no nourishment. Meantime they feed, as the 
 natives say, on their own humps — that is, the humps gradually 
 diminish in size : as long as there is any hump visible the camel 
 can keep on; as soon as it disappears he languishes and dies. 
 Every camel is branded with the mark of his owner and of his 
 tribe, and it sometimes happens an Arab may be travelling among 
 a distant tribe and come upon his own long-lost camel, either 
 stolen or strayed, when the indelible brand proving its original 
 owner, enables him to reclaim it. The most curious thing we 
 heard about the camels and their masters, our interpreter vouched 
 for as a fact, and by no means an uncommon one, that, so acute is 
 the smell as well as the eye of a Bedoueen, they will tell, blind- 
 folded, of any track of camels, not only how long since trodden, but 
 even to what tribe the passing camels belonged ! 
 
 Among the Bedoueens of this Desert the red camels are the 
 commonest and the most esteemed ; those of the Nejd (the desert 
 about Baghdad) are generally black. It is of the latter that their 
 tents and abaych, are made, while the dyed colours are woven into 
 their carpets arid hangings, to form the stripes of their abbahs and 
 mashlahs. The camel’s milk is excellent when fresh and warm, 
 but not when cold ; nor is it rich enough to make butter. The 
 flesh of a young camel is as good as beef ; it looks coarser, but 
 has no strong taste, and is considered a great delicacy by the 
 Bedoueens. 
 
 The night was whiled away in hearing about all these things, 
 and many a Bedoueen tale besides, while the glorious moon rode 
 her course and then waned, and the morning dawn came. It was 
 very cold that night, and we dismounted twice to try and warm 
 ourselves ; but in the morning, oh, how broiling hot it was ! The low 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 229 
 
 pass which opened into Tadmor itself seemed quite close to us at 
 daylight ; but wearily, wearily we journeyed on under the scorching 
 sun till one o’clock. A mirage lent its beautiful deception to amuse 
 us, and for a few moments it was difficult not to believe that we had 
 water to pass before reaching the mountains, which had now swept 
 round to the north-east, across our valley; they deepened into 
 the very darkest violet, while to the left they faded into pale 
 amethyst. Presently the Saracenic Castle above Tadmor became 
 visible, and we all got excited and feverishly eager as the tombs 
 cut in the rocks became more and more easily distinguished; 
 then, as we began to ascend the pass, a few more, built like low 
 towers, stood on the summits of the hill, like grave, silent, patient 
 sentinels, beckoning us on to enter the City of the Dead. 
 
 Not all dead, however, for suddenly there dashed up the path 
 towards us some seven or eight men, armed to the teeth, brandish- 
 ing their long lances, shrieking, and yelling, and shouting, to 
 welcome our good Sheikh Miguel : we had been discerned by scouts 
 on the hill-tops, and they had galloped out to meet us. Thus ac- 
 companied we soon reached the finest and best of all the tombs 
 (called by the Arabs the “ Bride’s Tomb,” simply to betoken its great 
 beauty, not because it is supposed by them to have been occupied by 
 any bride), and we dismounted in order to examine it, and to rest a 
 little in its shade while the Sheikh heard all the news of Tadmor. 
 It was very bad news indeed for him, and a grievous disappointment 
 for us all : the famine was so great in the land in consequence of the 
 drought that the Anazehs, knowing nothing of their beloved Sheikh’s 
 approach, had broken up their encampment and departed only 
 three days before, going towards Baghdad in search of pasture for 
 their camels. We discussed the possibility of pursuing and re- 
 maining a few days with them, but the direction of their track was 
 all uncertain ; pasture might or might not have been found in this 
 hollow or in that ; and three days’ start in the pathless desert 
 made the overtaking them too doubtful and hazardous to attempt. 
 So there was good-bye to all our promised plans, and oar hopes of 
 living among the Bedoueens themselves, feasting on camel's meat 
 and milk, and seeing all sorts of Bedoueen games and sports : the 
 Sheikh’s new tent, too, which he had promised for our special use, 
 had been carried off to be “ seasoned.” Altogether the disappoint- 
 ment was very great; but to the Sheikh himself it was much 
 heavier, — he was longing to see his young sons, and he intended 
 to take them back with him for the winter, to give them some 
 education in Damascus : now all was frustrated, or at least deferred 
 to another year. 
 
230 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 We bemoaned Ms disappointment and onr own for some time, and 
 then turned to examine the tomb. It is composed of a square 
 tower, thirty feet on each side, and eighty feet in height, divided 
 into four stories ; the lowest story has three huge blocks of stone in 
 the centre, lessening in size one above another, through which a 
 flat-headed doorway is cut, with deep mouldings and much or- 
 nament ; above this is an arched window, the sides of which are 
 formed of human-headed bulls, much resembling the Assyrian type. 
 Under this a recumbent figure, like a swathed mummy, lies on a 
 projecting slab, and a tablet, bearing an inscription in Palmyrene, 
 with a Greek translation, says that it is the tomb of the Elabelos 
 family, with a date of the Seleucidse era, corresponding to a.d. 102. 
 The chamber on the ground-floor is on each side divided into four 
 compartments, which narrow pyramidally as they ascend ; a fluted 
 Corinthian pilaster ornaments each division. These recesses have 
 several stone shelves across them for the reception of bodies 
 embalmed and wrapped in mummy-cloth, of wliich large quantities 
 lie about ; at the end of the chamber opposite to the door there are 
 two rows of fine busts, nine in all, standing on shelves, and other 
 busts on the walls. But the chief beauty inside is the exquisite 
 ceiling, carved in medallions, like that of the peristyle of the Temple 
 of Jupiter at Baalbek, containing busts, birds, and flowers delicately 
 sculptured upon a bright blue ground ; they are somewhat broken, 
 but we thought we discerned the eagle with Ganymede in one of 
 them ; a handsome cornice surrounds the chamber. One of the 
 eight compartments is occupied by a small staircase leading to the 
 upper stories, which are lighted by narrow loopholes for windows ; 
 the ceiling of the second is of elaborate geometrical patterns ; the 
 third had only a pretty cornice, and the fourth was quite plain ; the 
 recesses round this upper chamber are vaulted ; all the ceilings are 
 of enormous stones laid quite across the chambers, and like the rest 
 of the building within and without, most beautifully united ; the 
 stone, too, is of the purest white. The general proportions of this 
 building are charming, and the details are carried out with such 
 artistic skill that it is a perfect gem. Sad and mysterious it looks 
 as it stands there alone, in the middle of the pass, against the deep 
 blue sky. 
 
 We w^ere soon remounted, impatient to go on : only a few steps 
 farther to the very middle of the Wady, and then — what can be more 
 beautiful, more glorious in all the world than the view that burst 
 upon our eyes! There — like nothing in Nature but the first time 
 one sees the wide ocean spread before one — lay the desert in its 
 apparently boundless infinitude, glowing in radiant colours of 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 23] 
 
 unnumbered variety; while, like jewels laid upon her bosom, 
 stood Tadmor, though 'in ruins, still empress of the plain, majesti- 
 cally grand ! First, ; though farthest off, the Temple of the Sun 
 rose up in giant massiveness ; then as we advanced another step 
 the splendid Colonnade, with the Triumphful Arch, its noble 
 gateway opened out : one building succeeding another, each and all 
 dazzlingly white, save where touched with shining gold or rosy 
 pink. How absolutely interminable it seemed as column succeeded 
 column in endless succession, up to the very mountain foot, 
 meeting other colonnades which branched off at right angles and 
 then faded down in ruins, — lone columns standing up here and 
 there, and those of the Amphitheatre curving round in a broken 
 semicircle, amidst the miles and miles of scattered stones, broken 
 pillars, fallen pediments, and huge blocks, which covered the whole 
 ground ! A few dark masses told out from among the light columns ; 
 these were the platforms of smaller temples and halls, and one the 
 palace of poor Zenobia ! On the left, above all this, the Saracenic 
 castle looked down very grandly from its lordly height upon the 
 elder ruins below, while green gardens of fruit-trees and graceful 
 palms clustered together at the extreme right of the great temple. 
 
 On we went, our armed escort, in triumph at our safe arrival, 
 screaming and shouting, and the horsemen, who had come out to 
 welcome us, careering about on their wonderful horses over rock 
 and ruin with utter heedlessness of all obstacles, like persons 
 possessed ; and as soon as we began to cross the plain and to near 
 the ruins, the townspeople came streaming out in a great mob, 
 shrieking their noisy welcomes, and crowding round the Sheikh as 
 if they would pull him off the camel with their impetuous embraces, 
 kissing his hands and knees at ever half-step. We rode to the 
 eastern side of the temple and debated whether to encamp there in 
 the shade, or farther off among the gardens; but the crowds of 
 people soon decided the point : we saw we never should have had 
 one instant’s peace near the town. So we went on, the camels 
 starting aside every now and then from the dead carcase of some 
 wretched camel left mouldering in the way, till, down a little 
 descent, we reached a small terrace, secluded and quiet, from 
 whence a very low, ancient stone door, still turning on its original 
 stone hinges, admitted us into a delicious garden of olives, plums, 
 and pomegranates. The camels were unloaded on the terrace, and we 
 ladies retired into the thicket of the garden to enjoy the welcome 
 luxury of a good bathe in the little river which runs through it. 
 
 In spite of our fatigue we wandered out after dinner among the 
 ruins, under the irresistible temptation of a full moon. Our last 
 
232 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 full moon had been spent under the Cedars : we had seen Karnak 
 and Baalbek by moonlight, and we were thankful to see Tadmor 
 also, with the Desert around it dipped in molten silver. The light 
 and graceful colonnade, and the heavy masses of the great temple, 
 are above all things lovely in the solemn holy light of the moon, 
 and we could have stayed there all night had we not known that 
 we were risking a good deal. We had taken the interpreter with 
 us as our guard and guide, and we believed all the people to be 
 asleep at this hour within the gates of the town ; but as we were 
 standing in the ruins of Zenobia’s palace suddenly voices were 
 heard. “ E Wullah !” and “ Mash’allah !” exclaimed the guide, “ if 
 these are stranger Arabs we are undone ! and here they come !” 
 He quickly motioned us to keep behind him, and advanced to meet 
 them as two Bedoueens came tumbling over the stones, laughing 
 loudly. They stopped short when they saw we had an Anazeh with 
 us, and on being told we were friends of Sheikh Miguel they made 
 a rough salaam, and said, “ Allah give you peace !” but we took the 
 hint that there might be others about, and quickened our steps 
 towards the encampment without any loss of time. The Sheikh had 
 been obliged to go into the village to eat pilaf and receive welcomes 
 without end, and was much displeased with us for having ventured 
 so far at night without him. Probably the Bedoueens knew he was 
 in the village, as they were townspeople themselves, and had kindly 
 followed us to relieve us of any superfluous articles we might have 
 in wear, but finding one of the Sheikh’s people with us, they did 
 not dare to do so. 
 
 The Sheikh’s tent having been sent away, we were under the 
 necessity of sleeping here, as well as on the journey, under the 
 unveiled stars ; but it was no subject of regret to my sister or 
 myself : we had become accustomed to our hard couches upon the 
 dry stony ground, with sketch-books and saddle-bags for pillows; 
 here we had the graceful branches of a palm-tree waving above us, 
 and we slept well, night after night, in the warm, soft, delicious air. 
 
 PART II. — THE RUINS. 
 
 The Temple of the Sun is of course" the first thing to be thought 
 of at Tadmor. It is an immense pile of gigantic masonry, enclosing 
 a square of 740 feet each way, one-fifth larger than the court of the 
 Temple at Jerusalem, the structure to which it is best comparable ; 
 for, unlike the beautiful temples of Greece, which stood with all 
 their charms of light and oft-repeated shafts disclosed to the first 
 and most distant glance of every eye, those of Tadmor and Jerusalem 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 233 
 
 were jealously enclosed in a double row of cloisters against a high 
 massive wall, the temple itself standing isolated nearly in the 
 centre of this cloistered court ; the whole structure is, like that at 
 Baalbek, raised up on a platform of large stones, surrounded by a 
 broad moat, now nearly filled up, but still distinct. It would be 
 very interesting to ascertain whether there are the same, or any 
 substructions formed beneath this platform, as there are under 
 those on which both Baalbek and Jerusalem stand: so similar is 
 the idea of all the three platforms, that it is probable they exist, 
 but from the filling up of the ground the entrances are very likely 
 hidden. The surrounding wall was seventy feet high on all sides ; 
 the flat surface broken by a row of pilasters, supported on a slightly 
 projecting base, and a few false doors and pediments unsymme- 
 trically placed. The west side was pierced by a magnificent door- 
 way and portico ; the latter has disappeared, and been replaced by 
 a strong Saracenic wall with a lofty door. Through breaches in 
 the external wall many of the columns of the cloisters may be seen, 
 while above all the lofty columns of the temple itself tower up 
 with much beauty and elegance. 
 
 As great things stoop to mean uses, this wall now encloses the 
 whole town of Tadmor : the miserable hovels thickly fill up every 
 portion of the court, clustering in the corners round the columns 
 up to their very capitals, hanging on to the carved ornaments like 
 decayed birds’ nests, and poisoning the once sacred enclosure with 
 foetid squalor and indescribable filth. It is almost impossible to get 
 any general idea of the ruins even as they are, through this horrible 
 swarm ; and probably before many generations have passed these 
 people will have succeeded in destroying every vestige of the 
 interior of this once glorious edifice. 
 
 The Great Portal was thirty-two feet high and sixteen wide, 
 standing between two smaller doorways ; the sides and lintel were 
 each of a single stone, and all are exquisitely ornamented with bands 
 of carving, in wreaths of fruit and flowers, quite as graceful and 
 artistic as those of Baalbek, but not as deeply cut. One of the 
 great sides of the central door has half fallen from its place, and 
 leans like a tired giant against the Saracenic wall : all are blackened 
 with the smoke of the fires which the Arabs, who make a dwelling- 
 place of this portal, are constantly burning there. Above each 
 doorway are two huge projecting brackets, which look very 
 mysterious— possibly they once supported statues. A hundred 
 columns, perhaps more, of the double cloisters still stand ; but it is 
 excessively difficult to see the half of them, even though one 
 clambers on to the tops of some of the Arab houses. 
 
234 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Opposite the portal stood the Temple itself; the cella was 
 surrounded by a single row of lofty columns with bronze capitals, 
 all of which have of course disappeared, as the natives even now 
 constantly throw down the pillars and friezes in order to wrench 
 out the clamping irons between them. Parts of the beautifully 
 carved entablature remain; the festoons of flowers held up by 
 winged figures or genii are still quite visible ; and when gilded by 
 the rays of the western sun, with the bronze capitals shining in the 
 light, it must have been a noble and striking picture ; even now it 
 is one of the finest bits at Tadmor, when the sun sinks low enough 
 to illumine the lofty columns only, and the western wall throws the 
 miserable wretchedness at their feet into shade. Several fragments 
 are left, both here and in two small temples at some distance, in 
 which a row of short columns are mounted upon others of ordinary 
 size, forming, in fact, a clerestory, like that in the Hypostyle Hall 
 at Karnak, and as is shown by Mr. Fergusson, like the House of the 
 Forest of Lebanon (1 Kings vii.) at Jerusalem, and the Hall of 
 Xerxes at Persepolis. 
 
 The Sheikh took us into the mosque, which was once the temple 
 sanctuary : a large hall, with a single row of Corinthian columns on 
 each side; but one cannot be sure whether these stand in their 
 original positions or not, they are so strange a patchwork of various 
 remains ; capitals, turned upside down, now acting as the bases 
 of some of them. At the north end is a large arch with much 
 sculpture, which has probably been added by the Arabs ; and at 
 each side are two small chambers with richly-carved ceilings, one 
 of which has the signs of the zodiac, with figures of the deities still 
 visible, despite the efforts of the Mooslims to destroy them. On 
 the soffit of the arch is the eagle with expanded wings, resembling 
 the famous eagle at Baalbek. A small staircase leads to the roof of 
 this mosque, whence the view is as grand as it is extraordinary : 
 such a strange mixture of crowded wretchedness in the living 
 present, contrasting with the faded witnesses of the splendour of 
 the past ; the gloom of the broken friezes and prostrate columns, and 
 the majesty of those that still soar up against the cloudless sky 
 with their richly-carved capitals; and then the graceful rows 
 of colonnades in the plain outside, leading the eye into the 
 boundless Desert beyond, dying away on the horizon in its garb of 
 many colours. It is curious that an earthquake has so skaken the 
 external wall of the temple that two sides — the north and the 
 south — lean very considerably inwards, without the stones being 
 relatively displaced ; it is now as if they had been so built inten- 
 tionally to give them an Egyptian or pyramidal air. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 235 
 
 At about 300 yards’ distance from the north-west angle of the 
 temple is the grand Triumphal Arch commencing the chief 
 Colonnade : a very curious and remarkably beautiful structure. 
 The central arch is flanked by a lower one on each side; but 
 between them, on either side, are inserted two oblique arches, 
 projecting southwards, but so as to be invisible in a front view : 
 taken with the central arch alone they are gracefully pretty, but 
 then the side arches cannot be seen at the same time. Flanking 
 the gateway on the south are three columns on each side, very 
 curious ones, — round and square columns united together, the 
 square sides facing each other, and the same with the round, — 
 with double capitals placed one above the other; these capitals are 
 in bad taste, but all else about the triumphal arch is very fine. 
 The sculpture on the inner (north) side is rich and uninjured: 
 endless varieties of wreaths and scrolls, and bands of fruit and 
 flowers, and fantastic ornaments gracefully mingled, cut with equal 
 skill as those at Baalbek, and in better taste, because not so loaded ; 
 heads are carved on the great door-jambs, and beautiful bits of 
 sculpture lie in half-buried heaps all around. From this arch four 
 rows of columns, forming a triple colonnade, ran towards the 
 mountains for very nearly a mile in length !— not quite straight, for 
 it bends slightly to the north-east, enough to prevent a vista to the 
 very end. The columns are fifty-seven feet high, formed of three 
 drums, of which nearly all the lower ones are now covered up with 
 loose sand, while between the second and third a narrow stone is 
 inserted, from which a bracket projects, probably intended to 
 support a bust, as they are too near the top for statues. Doubtless 
 this must have had a fine effect when the busts stood there ; but at 
 present they have a very singular and awkward appearance : several 
 of them still . bear inscriptions in Palmyrene, and also in Greek, 
 giving the names of the persons whose portraits they bore. The 
 capitals are of richly-sculptured acanthus-leaves, rather stiffly 
 arranged; and on the abacus is an ornament very common at 
 Tadmor — a row of oval balls with roses sculptured between each. 
 The columns are united by a plain architrave, supporting a very rich 
 entablature of the pine-cone pattern extending the whole way; 
 above that came a frieze of billet moulding, with a row of the 
 egg-and-rose moulding finishing the whole; only very few stones of 
 this frieze yet remain in situ. A double gateway, one beyond the 
 other, on the west side, ornamented with a broad band of the pine- 
 cone pattern bent round the arch, and a well-executed moulding of 
 the egg-and-rose ornament, leads to a row of columns placed in a 
 semicircle, which is supposed to have been the Amphitheatre. 
 
236 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Nine of the columns here are still upright, and many others broken 
 off; they have all brackets on each side, looking, in their present 
 meaningless position, like the handles on a paviour’s pound. A rich 
 frieze still unites some of the columns, and finely-sculptured pedi- 
 ments and other stones are heaped up in huge masses on the ground. 
 There is another gateway similar to this farther on, and opposite 
 to it a colonnade branched off to the east, or a small temple may 
 have stood here, for there are one or two tall slender columns, and 
 some others supporting a second story of little columns. Not 
 far from the great Triumphal Arch, at the entrance, are four 
 monolithic shafts, only one of which is standing upright now ; they 
 are of dark red granite, with capitals and bases of the ordinary 
 stone. This granite is said to be Egyptian, and to have been brought 
 here by Solomon at the foundation of Tadmor ; the tradition may 
 be false, but it is not a bit more extraordinary than half the facts 
 appertaining to Tadmor and Baalbek. 
 
 Between these two gateways, a little to the west, are enormous 
 heaps of masonry : one heap is said to have been a Hall of Justice ; 
 the other, to which a street of columns appears to have led, has 
 time out of mind been declared to be the ruins of Zenobia’s palace. 
 It has all the appearance of a palace ; and the tradition seems con- 
 firmed by the very remarkable quantity of broken ornaments with 
 which the loose sand is filled. If a stone is displaced hundreds of 
 fresh pieces of glass, sometimes prettily shaped and of every colour 
 of the rainbow, are turned up, with beads of all shapes. Many 
 metal ornaments also, evidently for female use, have been found 
 here, and are now T worn by the Bedoueen women. 
 
 Towards the end of the Colonnade are four large square masses 
 of masonry some twelve or fourteen feet high ; and here, probably, 
 was the central intersection of the city among the royal and public 
 buildings; it is believed that these square masses were the pedestals 
 on which statues or groups of statues once stood, or the bases of 
 a four-sided triumphal arch like that at Latakia and many 
 other places. These pedestals are found still existing at Shuhba in 
 the Hauran, a city of unknown date; also in the centre of the 
 ruins of Jerash ; in the middle of ancient Antioch ; and, I believe, 
 at Bozrali. 
 
 About a quarter of a mile to the east of this there stands a little 
 gem of a temple, almost perfect in form, though the sculpture is 
 sadly mutilated ; it is called by tradition the Temple of the King’s 
 Mother. It is very small, simply a cella with pilasters against the 
 outer wall, and a portico of six beautiful columns and two half- 
 columns, which (if my memory does not fail me) were fluted. The 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 237 
 
 whole building is mounted on a small platform ; the stones are, as 
 usual at Tadmor, very finely joined, and the capitals are richly and 
 well carved, preserving their freshness and sharp cutting still. The 
 view from it is perhaps the best of Tadmor as a whole — it is 
 superb. The little temple faces that of the Sun ; the eye then 
 sweeps up the whole length of the Colonnade, with the distant 
 gardens seen between the columns, then the dark masses of 
 Zenobia’s palace, and interminable columns beyond, up to the fine 
 mountains dividing the Baghdad desert from the Wady Kebeer, by 
 which we had come. 
 
 One afternoon that we walked out here is worth a few words of 
 record. The day had been changeable and stormy, but the sunset 
 came with its usual magnificent glow, and the stones of the 
 little temple seemed literally overspread with burnished gold, 
 contrasting with the crimson and pink splendour of the western 
 sky. Suddenly, and while the sun was still bright and warpo, the 
 great silver globe of the refulgent moon sprang up from the distant 
 horizon, throwing an instantaneous flood of blue-white light over 
 the immense plain, meeting the sun-glow in which we still stood ; 
 and scarcely had we time to observe the peculiar harmony melting 
 into one another, when, with the rapidity of change belonging to 
 an eastern sky, in the Desert especially, a densely black storm- 
 cloud burst suddenly forth from behind the mountain close beside 
 us, and pouring down over our heads came the dark, heavy shower, 
 actually falling between the calm and lovely moonlight and the rich 
 glory of the setting sun ! It was, perhaps, just one of those 
 moments in Nature which one might live a hundred years without 
 ever seeing a second time ; but it was something, once seen, never 
 to be forgotten. 
 
 There is no spot like this small temple for obtaining a general 
 idea of the immense proportions and mass of the Temple of the 
 Sun, with the huge platform on which it stands ; but it struck me 
 still more here than even at Thebes and Baalbek how little these 
 magnificent temples were built for external beauty. Exquisite and 
 splendid as they were, the coup d’oeil was always after entering the 
 doorway, since in every case, the temples were shut in by a wall, 
 above which only the most lofty of the columns towered. With the 
 Greeks it was exactly the contrary — the splendour of their temples 
 was chiefly on the exterior; and we moderns strive more for 
 external rather than internal effect. One would have thought that 
 the Temple of the Sun above all would have been more open than 
 any others ; but perhaps the ancients knew best : like the sur- 
 passing splendour and the golden lining to the House of the Lord 
 
238 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 in Solomon’s Temple, the rays of the sun were collected in the 
 temples of Baal between the shadows of the surrounding walls, 
 and thus concentrated the attention of the worshipper on the 
 immediate shrine of the deity. At Baalbek it is doubtful whether 
 the walls on the west and north sides were ever built, or intended 
 to be built, much higher than the bases of the columns ; but I could 
 not help fancying, as I thought over the other examples, that it 
 had been as lofty as the rest, or as it is now. With the idea of 
 concentration, these walls would be less required at Baalbek than 
 anywhere else, for there the view is hemmed in by the lofty moun- 
 tains that bend round three sides of the temple; whereas at 
 Tadmor, Karnak, or Thebes, one can imagine the sort of want — 
 almost a necessity — for the mind to feel some arrest or refuge from 
 the boundless infinitude all round, before it anchored on the shrine 
 of the holy Symbol within. 
 
 Between the giant and the little fairy- like temple there is a 
 spring of good water, and a deep hollow, which for half the year is 
 a small lake ; it has been well lined with masonry, and the stream 
 murmurs over the pavement with a pleasant sound. An aqueduct 
 also crosses the plain here, which once carried water from the 
 mountain to the Great Temple. Nearer, indeed quite close to the 
 Colonnade on this side, are the remains of the women’s Baths ; they 
 are much ruined, and covered over with sand ; but two or three 
 openings are still kept free with narrow stone steps, where the 
 townswomen come all day to fill their pitchers : the water is of a 
 high temperature. 
 
 Beyond the extremity of the Colonnade, among heaps of ruins of 
 all manner of beautiful things, there are several temples (possibly 
 mausoleums or baths, but they seem more like the remains of 
 temples) : one has a pediment elaborately sculptured ; a portico of 
 another seems to have stretched across the end of the Colonnade, 
 some portion of which is still standing. A sarcophagus inside a 
 small temple near this, sculptured on the sides with garlands of 
 fruit and flowers held up by satyrs, it worth looking at. It is 
 perfectly impossible to describe the details of the immense 
 amount of ruin closely heaped together in this part— friezes and 
 capitals and nameless fragments richly and beautifully sculptured 
 .with vine and acanthus-leaves, fruits and flowers, wreaths and 
 medallions in endless variety, among scrolls of geometrical network 
 and fantastic ornaments— all cut in that richly-coloured stone, 
 which is in itself a beautiful thing. As you hold it in your hand 
 or step over it, it is couleur de rose tendre , blushing at itself; as the 
 sun shines on the vertical mass it is dyed over with gold, rich. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 239 
 
 luscious, and gleaming ; while, at a few miles’ distance, it is of a 
 dazzling white. The buildings of Tadmor would be beautiful and 
 grand in anything and anywhere; but they owe much to their 
 material. In the stern, grim granite of our cold North, and 
 in this vast and lonely position, they would be solemn and 
 mournful — a very spectacle of grief; but in this lovely stone 
 endowed with such rich and tender hues, the otherwise human- 
 made thing seems spiritualised into a solid fancy — a dreamlike 
 fabric of some delicate thought, congealed by a magician’s hand 
 into tangible stone. Sydney Yendys* has a fine simile of the 
 Colosseum resembling an old gladiator, slowly dying, crumbling 
 away in mouldering grief— a true picture of the ruins of the West, 
 where Time flings funereal garlands of autumn-fallen leaves over 
 her dead. Palmyra seemed to me, from the first instant I saw it 
 stretched out before me in all its investiture of bright colours, like 
 a fair maiden, a flower-crowned bride lying down in a repose that was 
 really death, though it appeared only a deep sleep, with her white 
 robes and her fair flowers still around her — tliry living, though she 
 was dead — floating down the stream of Time — “the queenliest dead 
 that ever died so young !” Yes, and even though 
 
 “ The Crown is withered, yet the Queendom lasts ! ” 
 
 There are countless more ruins of temples, and colonnades, and 
 monumental columns extending on all sides; but I spare the 
 reader further description the more readily since I myself never 
 got so far as to see the half of them. 
 
 Tadmor has been a good deal run down by those who have not 
 seen it : the difficulties of getting there are so great that it was best 
 to find out the grapes to be fed on when there were sour. Then it 
 was thought a good way of exalting Baalbek to declare that even 
 the city of Adrianopolis was not to be compared to that of Heliopolis : 
 whereas the fact is that Tadmor is not comparable with any single 
 group of temples such as Baalbek : there is scarcely another city in 
 the world standing, with its streets and public buildings still dis- 
 tinctly marked out, without a modern city overlying the ancient one ; 
 it is not only a few temples, but a whole city, once vast and com- 
 plete : and thus Nineveh, Persepolis, and Thebes are, perhaps, its 
 only prototypes. I was once asked whether Palmyra was “ not a 
 broken-down old thing in a style of slovenly decadence ?” It is 
 true its style is neither pure nor severe : nothing over which the 
 lavish hand of hasty and Imperial Rome has passed is ever so : but 
 
 * Sydney Dobell : Yendys being the former name spelt backwards. 
 
240 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Tadmor is free from all the vulgarity of real decadence; it is so 
 entirely irregular as to be sometimes fantastic; the designs are 
 overflowing with richness and fancy, but it is never heavy : it is 
 free, independent, bizarre , but never ungraceful; grand indeed, 
 though hardly sublime, it is almost always bewitchingly beautiful. 
 
 The union of the square-and-round column in one — one of the 
 characteristics of Syrian architecture — is commonly repeated ; the 
 chief ornaments employed are the egg-and-rose moulding and the 
 pine-cone, as I believe it is called usually : here, in the Colonnade 
 frieze, this ornament is like a succession of pine- apples ; but it is 
 very difficult to see it distinctly, as, though much has fallen within 
 reach of examination, it is also much worn. The pattern might be 
 a representation of fish-scales, when it would be in connection with 
 the worship of Derceto, the mother of Ninus — one of the names of 
 the sun in Phoenicia, where a fish was an emblem commonly adopted 
 for Baal. Or perhaps it is a pattern formed of the cone, under 
 which form the Syrians adored the sun, and also Jupiter; as the 
 Paphians adored Yenus, mysteriously representing her in a pyra- 
 midal or flame-shaped stone. That the pine-cone was a religious 
 emblem throughout India and Assyria is well known ; it was sacred 
 to Bacchus for the intoxicating quality of its resin, with which the 
 old Romans medicated their wines : the fiercely-burning, fiery cha- 
 racteristic of its balsam or resin was, it is supposed, used as a type 
 of the life-giving properties of the sun. Of the Phoenicians one can- 
 not help thinking in looking at Tadmor : that platform chants the 
 same mysterious strain as the platform of Baalbek ; and whether 
 these “ great stones, and costly stones, and hewed stones ” date only 
 from the mighty hands of King Solomon, or they stood there for 
 ages before, when there were giants in the land, they must have had 
 the same origin as those at Baalbek. The Phoenicians, or Canaan- 
 ites, as they are usually called in Scripture, planted cities in the 
 Hauran and the Lejah : may they not also have had a city here, by 
 the abundant desert-spring, of which Solomon took advantage when 
 he built his store-cities, “ Baalath and Tadmor, in the wilderness ” ? 
 It was in fact the bulwark or outpost of the kingdom of Israel, 
 which extended to the banks of the Euphrates (Gen. xv. 18 ; Exod. 
 xxiii. 31 ; 1 Kings iv. 21, 24), and had been built for the protection 
 of his caravans bringing merchandise from India and Assyria. 
 
 At the foot of the range of hills we had crossed in arriving at 
 Tadmor, and at the distance of a good mile from the farthest end of 
 the Grand Colonnade, there is a hollow in which a little chasm opens, 
 ending with a cave which is said to go some way underground, but 
 which we could not explore, as we had brought no candles from 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 241 
 
 Damascus. From this cave the Bas-el-’Ain (the head of the fountain) 
 a stream comes bubbling quietly out, and thence the little river flows 
 for about three miles before it is lost in the thirsty sand. Nothing- 
 can be more limpid than this stream as it runs away over the little 
 stones ; it has no other beauty save the clusters of brilliant sulphur 
 which cover the rocks of the chasm, for the water of the spring is 
 saturated with this mineral, and is of a very high temperature ; but 
 it had cooled, and the taste of sulphur decreased, in the two miles 
 of its windings, before it reached the spot where we encamped. 
 Gardens and fruit-trees cluster round its banks and shade the 
 waters, and certainly the sulphur does not lessen the luxuriance of 
 the vegetation. We used to fill a large leathern bag, called a zemzi- 
 meer , every morning, and hang it in the branches of one of the trees : 
 in a couple of hours the sulphur had precipitated itself, and the 
 water was perfectly cold and sweet. But before we left Tadmor 
 we thought that the daily bathing in the hot stream, and the 
 having no other water to drink, had made us all feel weak and 
 languid. There were other causes for this feeling, however; the 
 year had been one of excessive drought and consequent famine : 
 the desert pastures had all failed, and there was but little food of 
 any kind for the camels, of whom vast numbers had died, and the 
 town was thickly strewn and surrounded with rotting carcases ; for 
 where they dropped down the bodies were left. The Tadmorites 
 have an idea that the smell is wholesome, and when they are sick 
 they go and sit beside one of the putrid carcases to inhale the bene- 
 ficial perfume! Inside the town every one possessing a camel 
 keeps it, like the Irish pig, with the family in their tent or hovel, 
 or it lives outside the door, in the lane. If the poor beast dies there 
 it stays, all the same ; and unhappily, because one year lately some 
 dogs went mad, the people shot them all , so that now there are 
 only vultures to do the scavenger’s work, so fearfully necessary 
 everywhere, but especially under the powerful Eastern sun. There 
 were scores of carcases within the gates ; and as we were walking 
 along the narrow lanes, especially once when darkness overtook us, 
 it was impossible to avoid stumbling over and crunching into the 
 disgusting heaps, and stepping not only over, but through them ! 
 It was only among the ruins that we ever escaped the smell; and in 
 spite of the opinion of the Tadmor people, and of some French 
 philosophers, I am convinced that we all suffered seriously from the 
 horrible stench: the whole place was poisonous. Several of our 
 Argeels got fever, and lay groaning and shivering by day and by 
 night; the Arab remedy for which disease — on the homoeopathic 
 principle of “ like curing like ” — was to place the unhappy patient . 
 
242 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 without any covering but his ordinary clothes, to lie in the full 
 blaze of the midday sun! I need scarcely say that we did not 
 observe any beneficial results from this treatment. 
 
 The people of Tadmor are unmitigated barbarians; they are 
 fellaheen of the lowest order, permitted by the Bedoueens to live 
 within the town on condition of their acting as purveyors for the 
 tribes. The caravans from Aleppo and Damascus to Baghdad all 
 touch there, and leave the kefiyehs and mash’lalis, &c., which the 
 Bedoueen requires ; then they tend the groves and gardens along the 
 stream, one half of the fruit of which the Bedoueens buy, while the 
 other half they take. The townspeople are a rough, rude set, and 
 have all the vices of the Bedoueen without any of his virtues. It was 
 a perfect ordeal to go even for a few moments inside the gates : men, 
 women, and children would instantly pour forth from their hovels 
 and mob us, examining our clothes, pulling us about, trying to feel 
 whether our arms and legs were made of flesh and blood, like those 
 of the Arabs, or of some W estern substance quite differently composed ; 
 while they roared, screamed, and shouted in our ears enough to 
 deafen us. One day that we wanted to climb up one of the houses 
 to see the view, the Sheikh of Tadmor himself accompanied us, and 
 two of our Argeels, in hopes of keeping the peace ; but it was entirely 
 useless ; the scrambling process was difficult enough of itself, and 
 with the whole population swarming round us to see the show, not 
 even the whip of the Sheikh, nor the sticks of the Argeels, had the 
 slightest effect in clearing the way. Several times they took us by 
 the shoulders and turned us round to see our faces ; and more than 
 once I received a heavy thump on my head — for the purpose, I 
 believe, of ascertaining that I had a natural head under my large 
 brown hat, which was in itself a source of high astonishment to the 
 savages. So it is not to be wondered at that we only thrice endea- 
 voured to see the inside of the town, nor that we turned deaf ears 
 to the numerous enticing invitations from the Sheikh to dinner, as 
 well as to the more serious offers made to my sister and myself. The 
 morning after our arrival, in our first walk out to the ruins, a 
 crowd of townspeople mobbed us in the Great Arch ; and several 
 men eagerly begged to know how much our relations would expect 
 for us. In spite of the assurance that Frank women were never 
 thus sold, they continued to bid for us : one man enthusiastically 
 rose to the sum of 10,000 piastres; but, like the fox in the fable, 
 when told decidedly that he could not buy me at any price, he 
 turned away and said, “ I would have offered another thousand if 
 her eyes had been black !” 
 
 The Sheikh of Tadmor himself held out tempting promises. He 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 243 
 
 had already four wives, who occupied, he explained, one large room 
 in his house, each one with her family inhabiting a corner; but 
 he was tired of one of them, and would willingly get rid of her ; 
 and he impressed upon us, with a bewitching leer on his coarse, 
 ill-favoured countenance, that he did so much wish for an Ingleez 
 wife ! He rose to the astonishing price of nine camels, and added a 
 tenth when he heard I was a good rifle shot! He was a horrid 
 savage, this Sheikh Haras, cruel and mean, a very different character 
 from his brother, Sheikh ’Ali, who was set aside from the sheikh- 
 ship on account of his being lame and deformed, but who was the 
 friend and adviser, the judge and consoler of all the townspeople : 
 he could read and write, and had a great deal of intelligence and 
 quiet good sense. A dreadful story was whispered to us of 
 something Sheikh Haras had done a year or two before, when 
 the Anazehs were encamped round the town, but both the 
 sheikhs were away in war. Haras stole about a score of camels 
 from the tribe, and was manufacturing a tale of how he got 
 them, prior to bringing them home, when Sheikh Miguel unex- 
 pectedly returned to Tadmor without affording him an excuse for 
 going out through the camp to the place where he had concealed 
 them. The war was suddenly concluded, and the Anazehs did not 
 move ; four months after the miserable animals were found by acci- 
 dent, tethered in a small deep hollow as the wretch had left them. 
 The poor creatures had gnawed each other as they stood tied to- 
 gether, and the skeletons, picked by the vultures, yet remained 
 standing leaning one against the other, whitening in the sun ! 
 
 There never had been known such a year of distress as the pre- 
 sent one in this Desert. To the south of Tadmor, at this season, it 
 is generally green with herbs, affording pasture to the camels : now 
 it was all parched and burnt up ; and though towards the east 
 some of the ground appeared green and smiling at a distance, the 
 herb was not high enough to be browsed on by any animal. 
 Scarcely any rain had fallen in the preceding winter; the torrent- 
 beds remained dry, and the ground unsoftened : now even the wells 
 and springs were dry also. Another such year, they said, would be 
 absolute destruction to the tribes, and their hearts were very sad 
 and heavy ; for the time of the early rains had come, but none had 
 as yet fallen. The Anazehs, as I have said, had gone eastwards, in 
 hopes of finding pasture ; but the camels were so weak and so few, 
 from the frightful mortality among them, that great numbers of 
 their women had been left in the town of Tadmor to get on as well 
 as they could till the next spring. Those women and children who 
 had gone with the tribe had most of them walked, leaving their 
 
 e 2 
 
244 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 
 “ carriages ” behind them. These carriages, or howdahs, are wooden 
 frameworks, covered with scarlet cloth, and gaily ornamented with 
 ostrich-feathers and shells, placed over the back of the camel for 
 the women and children to be carried in ; but this year the camels’ 
 humps were so reduced that the howdahs could not be fastened on, 
 and the weak legs had to be spared all unnecessary burden. All 
 this distress falls most heavily on the sheikh ; for should one of the 
 Bedoueens lose his camels — their only wealth — the sheikh must set 
 the example of giving him one of his own, and those who have most 
 contribute in order after him, until the poor man has again as 
 much as he had lost. The sheikh is essentially the father of his 
 people ; and in years of distress, when he has many losses among 
 his own camels, and has to share what he has with those who are in 
 want, he is sometimes reduced really to poverty. In time of war 
 the sheikh takes by right a large proportion of the spoil ; at other 
 times what a man gains by his own prowess he is entitled to keep, 
 though he generally makes an offering of some part of it to the 
 sheikh. 
 
 One evening, just at dark, as we were seated round our dinner, 
 a heavy cloud broke into rain : we hastily concluded the soon- 
 diluted soup, and retreated under our carpets ; but the Sheikh ran 
 joyfully up the bank, and stood there with a light heart, watching 
 the clouds, and listening to the thunder as sweet music, praising 
 Allah for His goodness, and calling out to assure us that we should 
 have a thorough wet night ! We were as glad as we possibly could 
 be under the circumstances : all the more readily as we had for- 
 tunately that day purchased a nice thick Tadmor carpet, which, 
 however, did not prevent the rain from soaking down in little lakes 
 beneath us. But the next morning all was dry; it had rained 
 but an hour or two, and the Sheikh was as sad as ever : “ Mash- 
 allah ! it is God’s will,” was all he said, with the submission and 
 acquiescence, not fatalism only, of a really good Mooslim, “ and He 
 knows best !” The very next day we heard a dreadful story. Some 
 Arabs came in from a journey they had been making, and told the 
 Sheikh that not very far from Tadmor, only three or four days’ 
 journey, they had come upon an encampment of black Bedoueen 
 tents. Surprised at hearing no barking of dogs, and still more at 
 seeing no smoke from the cooking fires, they approached the tents : 
 still the same silence, and not a moving thing to be seen. At last 
 they dismounted, stuck their lances in the ground, and entered 
 one of the tents, with the customary “ Peace be to all here it 
 was peace indeed; for, lying on the ground, were stretched the 
 corpses of women and children in every tent of the encampment ! 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 245 
 
 It was an encampment of the dead ! Their hnsbands and fathers 
 had left them to seek food and water; bnt they never returned, 
 and were afterwards found at various distances strewn about, 
 as they had dropped by the way, lying dead beside their dead 
 camels ! 
 
 We heard while at Tadmor (for he never told us any stories about 
 himself), two anecdotes, among many others, of Sheikh Miguel, 
 characteristic of the courage and daring for which he is so justly 
 noted : the real cool courage, free from all Arab boast or bluster. 
 Some hostile Arabs of another tribe came down one night last 
 winter, and stole all the cattle of the Tadmor townspeople. Sheikh 
 Miguel was staying there at the time en passant , just as he was now 
 staying there for us ; but of course the affair was no concern of his ; 
 nor do the Bedoueens like interfering with each other’s quarrels. 
 So he sat in his tent smoking, not thinking to be mixed up in it, 
 when Sheikh Faras and some of the Tadmorites came and petitioned 
 for his help. He could not resist the appeal of distress, for he is a 
 generous and most kind-hearted man, and in a few moments he 
 rose and mounted his mare. Then turning round quietly to the 
 Sheikh of Tadmor and his companions — great blusterers and little 
 doers— he said, “ You can keep in the valley ; I will go up yonder 
 mountain and bring back the cattle.” He galloped off, and before 
 long caught sight of the plunder, collected together, and guarded by 
 seven or eight men. Though perfectly alone, he rode straight up 
 to them, demanded in a loud voice, “How dare you take cattle 
 when I am here ? ” and fired off his revolver among them. In a 
 moment the whole set of men ran off, and the Sheikh himself quietly 
 drove back all the cattle to the town. 
 
 Another time he happened to be quite alone with several camels 
 and a large flock of goats, when a Ghuzoo appeared in sight at a 
 distance ; away flew the Sheikh on his swift steed directly towards 
 them, beckoning with his hand as if encouraging those behind him 
 to follow, and singing his own war- songs very loud. They recog- 
 nised him on hearing them, and the whole body turned about, took 
 to their heels, and fled away. 
 
 We had not as much of Sheikh Miguel’s society during our stay 
 at Tadmor as we should have liked ; for by sunrise we were all out 
 in different directions — sight-seeing, curiosity-hunting, and sketch- 
 ing ; and though we took refuge in our pretty shady garden during 
 the midday heat, he was then always settling business in the town, 
 or surrounded by visitors and friends who came down to our 
 encampment. The^ Bedoueens have little curiosity, thinking few 
 people worth as much consideration as themselves, but the towns- 
 
246 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 people were glad enough of the excuse to come down and stare at 
 the Frank ladies, asking endless questions about everything, and, if 
 they could get an opportunity, feeling our dresses, inquiring how 
 much they were worth, &c., &c. ; they also particularly enjoyed 
 seeing us eat, just as we like to visit the Zoological Gardens at 
 home at feeding-time. We fed, indeed, on much the same food as 
 themselves — Arab bread (which is always good when fresh), and, 
 morning and evening, a fowl stewed in a basin of dhourra, called 
 lourghoul, with sometimes a few dates. But what amused them was 
 seeing us all eat together ; for with the Arabs the men and women 
 always feed separately ; and our knives and forks astonished them 
 not a little. They brought down quantities of curiosities to sell us ; 
 unfortunately they have begun to learn their real value, and where 
 they used to ask a piaster they now demand a mejidi, and as often 
 price bits of natural stone or pebbles quite as high as the real 
 antiques. Sometimes these trifles are of as much value to them as 
 the best antiques ; for instance, a black stone marked with a cross in 
 any way is called a “ luck stone/’ and insures to the fortunate 
 owner the fidelity and warm affection of her husband or lover as long 
 is she possesses it. Anything bright or pretty they string together in 
 long necklaces, with coins, &c., and sometimes they, unconsciously, 
 possess very beautiful and valuable things among the veriest 
 rubbish. Several women had some beautifully engraved gems and 
 cameos, with which, however, they would not part at any reasonable 
 price ; some have ancient gold coins, and many small square pieces 
 of stone, or some composition, with figures impressed upon them, 
 which are supposed to have been Palmyrene weights, and have 
 been picked up in great numbers in the ruins where the private 
 houses of the city stood ; they have also numbers of coral and agate 
 beads, and sometimes some good uncut jewels, picked up generally 
 near Baghdad. We were always looking out among the women’s 
 necklaces for the small Assyrian cylinders, some of the best of which 
 have been so discovered ; and one day the Sheikh took us into the 
 town to the house of one of the richest women to see a cylinder she 
 had, and which he thought she might be induced to sell to us. We 
 made our way into a large windowless room, full of smoke, in which 
 the mistress was weaving one of the excellent carpets the Tadmor 
 people make, of brightly-dyed camel’s hair, thick and close, striped 
 with pretty patterns. Of course we were soon in the midst of a 
 crowd, with all the women trying as usual to kiss us — a hobby of 
 theirs that cost us a great deal of trouble in dodging round each 
 other and making ingenious escapes. At last she brought the neck- 
 lace with the cylinder of pale pinkcarnelian, cut with several Assyrian 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 247 
 
 devices, one of them a priest in the act of making offerings on an 
 altar before the snn. Seeing how mnch we were interested in it, 
 she asked un prix fou, and we went off to pay a promised visit to 
 Sheikh ’Ali, the Moollah of the mosque, who gave ns coffee in a 
 clean nice room — the only clean one we saw in TadmOr — and 
 begged ns to dine some day with him, enumerating* on his fingers 
 the various dishes he would provide for our entertainment. He 
 was an intelligent old man, and seemed respected, for he was able 
 to keep the crowd from tormenting us ; and after some days he 
 induced the woman to give us the cylinder at a reasonable price. 
 We had the good fortune to issue from the great gate of the town just 
 as Sheikh Faras was coming in mounted on his finest mare, a grey 
 of beautiful and splendid form. She was considered priceless, and 
 he would not have sold her for any sum ; but Sheikh Miguel said 
 if any misfortune obliged him to part with her, he would probably 
 value her at 18Q0Z. sterling. Very beautiful she was ; and it was as 
 great a surprise as pleasure when, in a fit of intense and very 
 unusual politeness, he invited one of the gentlemen of our party to 
 mount her. There was no bridle of any kind, but he vaulted on her 
 back, and the fleet creature was off like an arrow in a moment, 
 galloping over the heaps of loose stones and ruins without a 
 check or stumble, while the Sheikh stood in the most amusing 
 anxiety watching for his return and saying, “ Where is he gone ? 
 how far will he go ? ” as if he thought her rider would run away 
 with the beautiful creature in the wide desert : I believe he would 
 gladly have done so, so delightful was her pace and her extraordinary 
 fleetness. When he came back, the Sheikh actually offered my 
 sister and me a ride also — a high honour, which we declined very 
 unwillingly ; but we were much penetrated with the compliment, as, 
 among themselves, it is the greatest indignity for a mare to be 
 mounted by a woman. 
 
 The Sheikh’s pretty little son, a child of about eight years old, 
 was riding home another spirited but gentle mare, with beautiful legs 
 and a fine small head, and some of his followers were careering 
 about, brandishing their long lances, while we lingered at the gate 
 of the great temple till the sun was sinking; but this grand 
 double gateway — one of the now old Saracenic work, and the other 
 the still older structure of Imperial Eome — always interested us 
 so much that we were apt to linger beneath its shadow. It was 
 such a curious feeling to stand here in the very narrow space 
 between the two lofty walls, looking through the inner one to the 
 temple-rcolumns towering up within, lighted up with the dying sun, 
 and to think back over the magnificent processions of worshippers 
 
248 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 that had so often gone up here to the Temple of Baal — venerable 
 priests and eager devotees, and the kings who reigned here 
 sovereigns of the desert; and, in the centre of all, Zenobia, the 
 proud empress, coming from her palace all down that pillar- shaded 
 colonnade, in her beauty and her jewels, entering at this very portal 
 to bend her knee before Apollo’s shrine. So thinking, while our 
 eyes watched the stream of modern life continually passing 
 through — modern and savage, yet probably but little differing in 
 appearance from the ancient inhabitants of this desert. The mind 
 travelled back, far beyond the proud Boman, to Scripture pictures 
 of camels and sheep and goats, and the Arabs, in their simple, 
 dress, like the fierce, robber-looking son of Ishmael, plentifully 
 armed, as though “his hand was against every man:” — while 
 we, the children of the far West and of to-day, stood there in the 
 shadow of the Boman and the Arab, among the desolation of all 
 the Past, and the degradation of the Present, gathering up all in 
 one shadowy Thought, — the only eternal thing in the whole 
 scene. 
 
 And so, wondering over the long past, we will go and visit the 
 tombs of Tadmor. Very interesting indeed they are. There are 
 two sets of them : some, far away on the sides of the mountain, are, 
 like the “ Bride’s Tomb ” before mentioned, built in the form of 
 towers; the others are almost entirely underground excavations, 
 with a few towers scattered among them, now so much ruined as to 
 be little worth examination : these underground tombs are supposed 
 to be those of the people — the towers those of the nobles. They 
 are all built in successive stories, usually four in number, sometimes 
 more ; the form invariably pyramidal, though in some cases with 
 interrupting stories of perpendicular sides. Inside in each story, 
 a narrow passage or chamber runs across from end to end, with 
 three or four compartments or cells on each side, each cell contain- 
 ing stone shelves for the bodies, which seem to have been run in on 
 grooves when required, as the shelves were wanting in many in- 
 stances. A pyramidal-shaped opening leads into a cell at the end 
 of each chamber, originally closed by a stone door ; and in some of 
 the larger tombs this opens into other chambers. The compart- 
 ments are separated by pilasters, and in one instance by fluted * 
 columns with very peculiar acanthus-leaved capitals. Staircases, 
 usually still perfect, lead from one story to another ; and, strangely 
 enough, in some instances, on the second story, where the end cell 
 is wanting, there is a doorway, high above the ground like those in 
 the Bound Towers of Ireland ; the stone hinges for the door and 
 the hollow for the bolt yet remain. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 249 
 
 The ceilings of most of the chambers are richly ornamented with 
 graceful patterns geometrically arranged, and many of them are 
 still very perfect. In one tomb the ceiling is divided into diamond- 
 shaped compartments, those in the centre contain sculptures of 
 winged genii, and the others hold busts in high relief. Yery rich 
 cornices surround each chamber, and are frequently employed on 
 the outside of the tomb also. In one there is a handsome variety of 
 the egg-and-rose ornament, with a battlemented moulding above and 
 below ; all are delicately but vigorously executed. Each cell has 
 its own loophole for ventilation. 
 
 In the inside of one chamber, over the doorway, we saw the 
 sculptured representation of a mummy placed on a sofa with carved 
 legs ; the foldings of the cloth with which the mummy was swathed 
 very distinctly shown, and the body garlanded with an embroidered 
 band or wreath of flowers. The exterior of another tomb is dis- 
 tinguished on the second story by a pediment, and on the third or 
 fourth story is a tablet for an inscription, guarded or supported on 
 either side by the head of an aged man with a long beard ; beautiful 
 heads, and finely executed. These old busts have grand, calm, 
 restful, mighty faces, with closed eyes, which one fancied seemed 
 yet silently conscious of the unnumbered ages that have passed over 
 them, and have left there an expression of grief, but also of noble, 
 perfect rest, mingled into glorious harmony “ of more than human 
 beauty.” Above these, again, were two kneeling figures, much 
 destroyed, whether of men or women we could not tell ; on a still 
 higher story two small heads, with wings folded back, perfect and 
 well sculptured ; and on the highest story of all a row of small 
 pillars and a cornice. 
 
 Outside the second story of another tower there is an arched 
 recess, with a fine band of vine-leaves and grapes moulded round it. 
 Within the recess lies the figure of a mummy, reposing on a carved 
 sofa ; and above that another figure, in a half-reclining posture, with 
 three other figures standing behind it, all in good relief — the heads 
 had been knocked off every one. A Palmyrene inscription is here 
 carved under the couch ; these inscriptions, containing the names 
 of the dead and a date, are usually placed outside the tombs, and 
 are very frequently both in Palmyrene and in Greek. All that 
 have been found are prior to the date of Aurelian’s conquest, and 
 many of them date about the commencement of our era. The tombs 
 are mostly lined with white stucco, on which a good deal of colouring 
 remains. 
 
 The score of tower tombs scattered among the underground 
 tombs in the other cemetery, near the Kas-el-’Ain, are believed to be 
 
250 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 of older date than these ; but they are so much ruined, and so much 
 encumbered with sand, that they are scarcely comprehensible — 
 many of them have been patched with more modern constructions. 
 In one of them we discovered two headless statues, life-size, repre- 
 sented on one stone — husband and wife, doubtless, sitting together 
 — the male leaning back in a carved arm-chair ; the female in a more 
 reclining position, as if on a sofa, her left hand on the shoulder of 
 her husband, and holding in her right a pine-cone like those so 
 common in the Nineveh marbles; both are attired in graceful 
 many-folded drapery, with rich bands of embroidery and jewels 
 down the front and round the shoulders and necks of the dresses ; 
 the drapery is gathered lower down into embroidered boots. 
 
 The arrangement of the excavated tombs is that of a passage or 
 passages, with a tunnel vault overhead, usually four cells on each 
 side, and three at the end of the passage. The whole of this hill 
 may be honeycombed with these tombs, concealed in the long 
 accumulation of sand ; those that are known have been discovered 
 by such accidents as that of a camel falling into a hole, which 
 proved to be the hollow before the entrance, or gazelles taking 
 refuge there from the hunter ; many of the tower tombs are full 
 of gazelles’ bones and horns strewn on the ground. In all the 
 tombs we saw heaps of human bones, but tossed together — thrown 
 away after the mummy-cloth had been unrolled from the bodies ; 
 for the Bedoueens set great store by this gummy cloth, with the 
 old spices still adhering to it, to use as plasters for their sick 
 horses. We saw no bodies yet lying there, but the Sheikh told us 
 he had seen many ; and there is no question but that in numbers of 
 the upper stories, now inaccessible from broken staircases, or in the 
 tombs below the present surface of the ground, vast numbers of 
 mummies must still lie untouched. The Sheikh mentioned having 
 seen some in perfect condition with bronze lamps on their bosoms ; 
 and many gold ornaments have been found in them, some of which 
 are now worn by the Bedoueen and Tadmor women ; we remarked, 
 indeed, how much more elegant and tasteful some of their ornaments 
 were than the usual run of Arab women’s things. 
 
 These tombs are all far away from the ruins and the town, and 
 stand on the sides of a sand-blown valley. The dead calm, the 
 lonely silence, and the utter desolation of the place are very striking ; 
 and to the most thoughtless, sitting there among the dead, and look- 
 ing out over that grand and lovely view, a thousand painfully in- 
 teresting thoughts and questions cannot but be suggested. The 
 illimitable desert spread out beyond the mass of once luxurious 
 palaces, crowded temples, and busy streets, with these tombs full 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 251 
 
 of fleshless bones, that seemed scarcely farther removed from life 
 than the now empty, ruined buildings, alike wrapped in the same 
 mantle of deathly silence — the warrior, the ruler, the merchant, the 
 prince, and the people — all now swept away, with only the shadow 
 of the shadow of their earthly glory yet remaining ! Where are 
 their immortal souls now stored, waiting the great Day of Account ? 
 And what has He, the All -merciful, in store for those who knew not 
 His revelation, nor His gracious Promise, nor even of His imposed 
 Laws ? What shall be the portion reserved for guiltless ignorance ? 
 The answer of unwavering trust, even in such unfathomable 
 mystery, came in the wide-stretching desert all around us, bound- 
 less as His mercy ; in the unmeasured sky above, trackless and 
 incomprehensible as the mystery of Eternity; and in the all-glorious 
 colouring in which that scene was clothed by the Hand of Love 
 that showers mercy and blessing alike upon the evil and the good ; 
 and who will one day “ bring the nations ” into the city which will 
 need no sun nor moon, for the “ glory of God ” will lighten it. 
 
 To make up for our terrible disappointment in not seeing the 
 Anazehs, the Sheikh good-naturedly told us a variety of customs 
 common among them, and one evening we got him to describe their 
 favourite “ sabre-dance.” The men stand close together in a half 
 circle, elbow touching elbow, jerking themselves quickly to and fro 
 in concert with a sideway movement, while a woman, generally the 
 wife of the Sheikh, stands alone in the middle, swinging a sabre 
 rapidly round and round in her hand. From time to time one or 
 another of the men darts forward, and pretends to seize the hem of 
 her dress. If the woman is awkward, or the man not excessively 
 agile, a hand or a finger is cut off, or a wound of some kind given, 
 and these accidents frequently occur ; but in spite of this they are 
 very fond of the dance. It requires, of course, great nerve and skill 
 on the part of the woman ; the women of the tribe, however, are not 
 wanting in these virtues. In time of war a curious custom prevails 
 among them. The most beautiful woman of the tribe, or rather 
 she who combines with beauty the most sense and courage, and has 
 therefore most influence among them, is placed on a camel which is 
 adorned with colours, scarlet cloth, shells, feathers, &c. The camel 
 is then led out among the warriors, and placed in the very thickest 
 of the fight, where the woman remains, inspiriting and encouraging 
 them by her songs and her exhortations. At the conclusion of the 
 battle, whoever has fought the best comes to her, and with his sabre 
 cuts through all the legs of the unfortunate camel, when of course 
 the woman is precipitated to the ground. If this valiant man is one 
 of her own people she is his lawful prize and well-earned wife ; but 
 
252 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 if the enemy are the conquerors she is taken away by them, and 
 must afterwards be ransomed. A married woman is very rarely 
 selected, never but when an unmarried girl cannot be found suffi- 
 ciently courageous and spirited ; but this is very seldom the case. 
 While she is thus placed on the field of battle, the rest of the women 
 guard the tents, assisting in the fight as much as possible with stones, 
 which they are most expert in throwing. If their enemies are the 
 conquerors they are quickly expelled, and their tents plundered 
 and stripped of everything in a moment ; but if their own people 
 win the fight the women instantly rush out to the tents of the 
 defeated and strip them ; it is the women always who are employed 
 as plunderers of the tents. 
 
 When the warrior returns from a distant fight it is the invariable 
 custom that his own tent is the last he comes to, and in this tent 
 the wife must remain : brothers, sisters, every one in the encamp- 
 ment goes out to meet him, but the wife must await the meeting 
 with her husband till all the others have seen him. It is sometimes 
 a hard rule to keep, for there is much love among them ; but any 
 deviation from it would be considered a great breach of propriety. 
 
 When a woman is newly married she is, a few days after, dressed 
 out in her best attire, with all her richest ornaments, and taken 
 round by her husband to visit every tent in the tribe, or at least in 
 the encampment, in turn. She has to drink coffee with every one, 
 in token of their friendliness and acceptance of her as a wife among 
 them. Nor is the choice of a wife quite so simple an affair among them 
 as we are apt to imagine. The Anazehs are exceedingly proud, and 
 particular to an extreme degree about descent and pedigree. The 
 rank of husband and wife must be equal; and if marriage with 
 a stranger is in question, there is as much search and inquiry 
 made about the age of the family and the pureness of her descent 
 as in the case of any Spanish grandee ; and if every step in the 
 pedigree is not satisfactorily ascertained, the engagement is broken 
 off. We saw one girl at Tadmor who^was really extremely pretty, 
 with soft sweet eyes and long black hair reaching to the ground- 
 She was immensely admired by and spoken of among the Bedoueens 
 wffio frequented the town ; she was of a good station among her own 
 people, and not a word had ever been whispered against her ; but 
 she belonged to a tribe which the proud Anazehs consider inferior 
 to their own, and not a man among them would think of marrying 
 her. The true-blooded Bedoueen, in fact, values no one but one of 
 themselves ; and to marry a woman not a Bedoueen is considered a 
 grave dishonour, of which expulsion from the tribe is almost invariably 
 the consequence. Moreover a Bedoueen man of a high tribe, such 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 253 
 
 as the Anazehs and Shemmaars, &c., would think himself utterly 
 degraded if he condescended to dishonour a woman of any other 
 race, blood, or religion but his own ; stranger women, prisoners in 
 their hands, would be made to labour, and possibly be harshly treated, 
 but they would be safe to the last from dishonour or insult. The 
 real Bedoueens are not in the least affected by any display of dress, 
 or ornaments, or riches, or rank in any out of their own tribes. We 
 were told of a Pasha who had charge of some Government negotia- 
 tions with one of the more northern tribes, who was exceedingly 
 surprised that no one but those commissioned to deal with him 
 had the curiosity to come out and look at him. He had taken great 
 pains to attire himself grandly, and to have his standing and rank 
 duly blazoned forth among them ; but he had the mortification of find- 
 ing they did not care one jot about it at all, or value it in the least. 
 
 The most flattering description a Bedoueen can give of a woman 
 is that “ she has hair like a mare’s tail,” and “ a neck like a camel’s.” 
 We wished to have heard more of their love-songs, but translation 
 is very difficult in Arab songs, where much depends upon the play 
 of words, and even of letters ; and it is scarcely possible for any 
 foreigners, however fluent in the language, to enter into the beauties 
 of the verses. The Bedoueens are all extremely fond of poetry, and we 
 used to like to listen to them, sitting round their fire every evening 
 reciting and singing song after song, while one of the party ground 
 coffee in a mortar, beating time, as all expert coffee-pounders do, 
 with the pestle, in a tuneful cadence. Many a night we went to sleep 
 to that pretty, quiet music. They have as many love-songs as war- 
 songs, and often they recount the exploits and describe the beauties of 
 a favourite mare, sometimes of a camel ; but there is never anything 
 coarse in their songs, as there almost always is in the songs of 
 Egypt ; nor even in the talk of the men among themselves, as they 
 sit chatting together, is there ever a word which a woman need 
 blush to hear. 
 
 Unfaithfulness on the part of a wife is immediately and invariably 
 punished by death ; her head is cut off, if not by her husband, by 
 her father or brother ; her crime is looked on as the dishonour of 
 her whole house and family, and by them must be wiped out. 
 
 The Anazeh women have not good tempers, and the men do not 
 consider them patient or gentle enough to be fit to milk the dear 
 and precious camels ; this office is therefore always performed by 
 the men. But they are allowed to ride them, and are most expert 
 and fearless in doing so. It is very pretty to see them mount, as they 
 are accustomed to do without stopping the camel ; they place one 
 arm on his neck, which he bends down as he walks along, and then 
 
254 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 resting one foot for a second on his knee as he crooks it forward, 
 they spring up standing on his neck, and so get into their places, 
 the camel assisting them with a little jerk for the second jump ; they 
 are quite at ease when mounted, and think nothing of standing 
 upright on his back while settling their children in the howdahs as 
 he strides along. We could not hear that they had medicine of any 
 kind for the camels when sick ; and all they do in cases of sores is 
 to burn the flesh round the sore with a hot iron — an operation we 
 were twice obliged to witness, to our own sorrow. 
 
 The dress of the Anazeh women consists of a long robe or chemise 
 of dark blue cotton, reaching from the throat to the feet, and con- 
 fined by a belt of embroidered leather ; over this a kumbaz or pelisse 
 of some bright colour in silk or cotton, according to the wealth of 
 the wearer ; yellow leather boots if she is rich, and as handsome a 
 necklace of varieties of things strung together as she can obtain ; 
 over this a mash’lah of white or striped camel’s-hair cloth, which 
 must, as well as her kumbaz and chemise, be long enough to hide 
 her feet, and the sleeves of the blue chemise must also be long 
 enough to trail on the ground behind her ; she ties up the ends 
 when busy. On her head she wears, if she is rich, triangular gold 
 ornaments hung at each side of her face, with from ten to twenty 
 short gold chains and coins depending from them, long earrings, 
 and, in “ full dress,” a nose-ring, generally of turquoise. Her veil, 
 called the shembar, which is placed across her face close under her 
 eyes, and reaches to her knee, is of dark brown crape, and she wears 
 a gay silk kefiyeh over it, bound with a rope of dyed camel’s - 
 hair prettily twisted up. Zenobia is a common name among 
 them to this day ; they call it Zenobeeah, which is said to be the 
 original pronunciation. They have mostly black hair, but the 
 lighter and redder it is the more it is admired, and they are always 
 washing it with henna to give it a red tinge. They use kohhl on 
 the eyes, and all the Bedoueen men use it also ; it is considered a 
 great preservative in the glaring sun, and I certainly found it very 
 cool and pleasant on the lids, keeping them from blisters. If a 
 Bedoueen woman appeared without kohhl on her eyes she would 
 be thought as untidy and undressed as an Englishwoman without 
 shoes, and they always have a little bottle containing it close at 
 hand.* There is a great knack in applying kohhl ; the eyelids are 
 closed lightly upon the freshly-blackened pin, which is drawn quickly 
 from between them, darkening the edges of both lids at the same 
 
 * Keren-happu^h , the name of one of the beautiful daughters with whom Job 
 was rewarded for his patience, is the Hebrew word for the little bottle con- 
 taining the kohhl. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 255 
 
 moment. The use of this substance has been always general in 
 the East : Herod the Great, we are told, painted his eyes with kohhl, 
 and also dyed his beard and hair with henna, : but it was considered 
 very effeminate, and St. Cyprian indignantly denounces it as “ the 
 deyil’s grease.” 
 
 They are very much afraid of the “ evil eye,” and the women wear 
 certain round stones hung to their waistbands to preserve them from 
 such a misfortune. They have generally a number of silver brace- 
 lets, which come from Baghdad, and the name of their husband is 
 invariably tattooed upon the back of the left hand. A line upon the 
 temples and the chin is all the face-tattooing in which they usually 
 indulge ; they express great surprise at our dislike to it, as their 
 idea is that it imitates the blue veins showing through the skin, 
 and is therefore a natural ornament. 
 
 There was an old hag of a woman at Tadmor who was much 
 considered by the townspeople, on account of her having twice 
 made the pilgrimage to Mekka; she was in consequence called 
 Hajji Elleerieh — but we called her “ Meg Merrilies.” She was the 
 greatest chatterbox woman could be, and had quantities of legends 
 and stories to relate. She was a very successful curiosity-finder, 
 and we used to take her out with us sometimes, hunting along the 
 ground where the ancient houses had stood, in hopes of finding 
 coins, bits of porcelain and glass, &c. One day, when she saw me 
 busy cleaning a pretty little pebble I had found, she began with, 
 “ Oh, lady ! I have found something much prettier than that ; it 
 must needs be a stone belonging to some jinns, for I never saw any- 
 thing dike it before.” She would not for a long time tell us any 
 more about the wonderful stone ; she said she was afraid, and she 
 knew we should not believe her if she told us all she had seen : 
 however, after a whole day’s coaxing and flattering, she told us that 
 she had been out one day among the ruins of Zenobia’s palace, not 
 long before, about midday, when, the sun being very hot, she sat 
 down by a low wall to rest. Presently she heard the hissing of 
 serpents close to her, and turning her head to look over the wall, 
 she saw, at a few yards off, two serpents fighting ; their heads were 
 curved far back, as their bodies glided and wriggled about, facing 
 each other ; and every now and then they would dart like lightning 
 one at the other, each trying to seize his enemy’s head. At last 
 ofte gave the other a mortal bite, and he fell bleeding on the sand. 
 Then she made a noise, and the victor glided frightened away, 
 while she went to look at the dead snake, curious to see for what 
 they had been fighting. And lo ! out of his mouth came the apple 
 of discord— this little white stone! and she opened her hand, 
 
256 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and showed ns a large, round pearl ; a costly one in any place, but 
 doubly valuable in my eyes with this marvellous tale attached to 
 it, and, above all, for having been picked up in Zenobia’s palace. 
 The Bedoueens did not know it was a jewel, nor had any of them 
 ever seen a pearl before ; and as it is too fine a pearl to have belonged 
 to any traveller passing by, I am morally convinced, and always 
 shall be, that this identical pearl was dropped off the necklace of 
 the beautiful Zenobia herself, just before she left Palmyra for ever ! 
 I need not say that we bought the pearl. The Sheikh said that, 
 although the old woman was a great rhodomontader, he did not 
 think the story of the serpents untrue ; it was not a story that she 
 would have invented, and he had himself more than once seen 
 serpents fighting in the manner she described for some such object 
 as a bit of stone. 
 
 One of the gentlemen of our party was anxious to get up to the 
 fine Saracenic castle which overlooks the town, and Meg Merrilies 
 offered to show him the way ; so one afternoon they set off together 
 by a path that she assured him was quite feasible. She missed it, 
 however, and after two or three hours’ walk they arrived at the 
 foot of an almost perpendicular cliff. She wanted to go back, but 
 he insisted on proceeding, and, taking off his shoes, he managed, 
 being an expert Alpine climber, to ascend the rock. She scrambled 
 after him by another way, a long time after, holding on with her 
 long hands, which were like eagle’s claws. He entered by a loop- 
 hole, for, though the castle is nearly perfect, the drawbridge and all 
 legitimate entrance is destroyed. He described it as the gloomiest 
 castle he had ever seen, with numerous vaulted chambers and 
 extensive dungeons, occupying a very strong position. Meg 
 Merrilies most unwillingly followed him, and kept on exhorting 
 and conjuring him <f not to be afraid of the jinns,” of whom she was 
 herself evidently in mortal terror, and when she came down she gave 
 us a most lively account of all the trouble she had had in persuading 
 him to go on, describing his misery and the dread of the awful jinns, 
 and all she had done to soothe and comfort him ! She would stop 
 on the way down the mountain continually to gather the potash 
 plant, and when she had got a good bundle in her veil, she 
 addressed him with, “ Oh, young man, in the flower of thy blooming- 
 youth ! carry this load on thy back for me, for thou art young and 
 strong, and I am old, — and then I will perhaps give thee part of the 
 profits of my bundle!” He good-naturedly helped her, but her 
 version of the story to us was that he was so completely worn out 
 with fatigue and terror that she was obliged to carry the “ welled” * 
 * Young man.” 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 257 
 
 (who is about six feet high) on her back for a long distance. To 
 this castle, in seasons of drought, the people of Tadmor go in grand 
 procession, dressed in their best clothes, and when there they 
 sacrifice a lamb, and offer up prayers for rain. 
 
 Our promised five days had expired, but most reluctant were we 
 to leave the enchanting spot. Every day new points of view were to 
 be seen, other tombs to be examined, and fresh sketches to be 
 taken ; we therefore made a joint petition in due form to our good 
 Sheikh for leave to stay longer ; he was, as usual, full of kind desire 
 to accede to our wishes. The tribe was indeed gone, but he had 
 heard of nothing but peace round the place, and if we liked to stay 
 we might do so as far as he was concerned ; but the matter was 
 more difficult with the Argeels: they earned more per day in 
 Damascus than we gave them, and, the time of our contract having 
 expired, they wanted to go back. We made them a handsome 
 present, however, to be divided among them, as well as ten piasters 
 a day for the food of each camel, and they agreed to stay a few 
 days more. 
 
 Our English ideas of the desert — the expression we use for the ne 
 plus ultra of all that is horrible — are so vague and so unlike the 
 truth, that I despair of making any one understand by words alone 
 the exceeding and glorious beauty of the scene around us. At 
 home we think of the desert as of a white sea of gloomy though 
 glaring barrenness,* a wearying monotony of ugliness ; instead of 
 which no scene in nature can be clothed in more brilliant, more varied, 
 or more quickly changing colours. In the narrow space between the 
 foreground and the horizon, when laid down on paper, no brush 
 could ever be made to lay in the countless streaks of variegated colour 
 filling up that space; in despair of catching them by any other 
 means, I have scribbled down upon the margins of my drawings a 
 score of descriptions of the view at that moment before me, — 
 such as this, beginning with the foreground : — “ Brown, dark red, 
 violet, lilac, gold, rose, crimson, pale green, orange, indigo-blue, 
 sky-blue;” these all blending into delicious, strange, incalculable 
 harmonies, ever and ever changing. Each effect seemed the most 
 beautiful, and one wished it to last for ever, — when, in another two 
 minutes, all would be changed into something so much lovelier 
 still, one never knew whether to admire or wonder the most. 
 Many and many a time, anxious though I was to draw all I could, 
 
 * Many of the deserts of Africa are, I believe, like this. Where the sand is 
 loose, and consequently wind-blown, of course nothing can grow ; in the Great 
 Desert the sand binds, and much of the varied colouring is owing to the appear- 
 ance of the thorns, &c., growing upon it. 
 
 s 
 
258 
 
 E G YETI A N SEPUL CURES 
 
 my pencil remained still in my hand while I was engrossed in watching 
 the rapid and beautiful changes which no brush could copy and no 
 tongue describe. Then the mountains that approach Tadmor on 
 one side would shine out in shades of violet, purple, and a delicate 
 misty lilac, of such brilliant hues that one felt startled at the sight ; 
 and, late in the day, the ruins used to look literally like things 
 built of pearls set in burnished gold, as they stood against the 
 background of wine-empurpled mountains, or, as sometimes, on one 
 of the fine dark stormy evenings we had, against a sky of deep 
 sapphire blue, unlightened by the sunshine which touched acci- 
 dentally on their fair whiteness only. It seemed, indeed, to my 
 fancy as if the ruins sometimes, in the very intensity of their 
 glowing colours, found a silent voice, unheard by the ear, but 
 understood by the mind that listened to their “ eloquent teachings 
 as if they were the clear upper notes, the sweet treble of the deep 
 harmony evoked all around in the sublime colouring of Nature. 
 Holy and noble indeed are these colours, which God has given to 
 clothe and invest His creation : “ of all God’s gifts to the sight of 
 man the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn; ”* and they who 
 see the fair things in the Desert in their most radiant brilliancy, as 
 though they were fresher there from the Creator's hand than in any 
 other place, may well fancy with me that one heard them saying — 
 
 “ Though heedless man might quite forget Thy praise, 
 
 We praised Thee ; and at rise and set of sun 
 Did we assemble duly, and intone 
 A choral hymn that all the lands might heal*. . . . 
 
 We, the Seven Daughters of the Light, to praise 
 Thee, Light of Light ! Thee, God of very God ! ” f 
 
 I often thought, too, of the legend, which may be truth, of how 
 Solomon built a palace here for the daughter of Pionkh, King of 
 Egypt, who sighed for her native deserts even among the fair 
 palaces and gardens round about the hill of Zion, and how she 
 dwelt here in the Desert, so like and yet so unlike her own grand, 
 wild, and impressive wilderness of sand ; the one grand in barren- 
 ness and desolation, the other sublime in beauty and fruitfulness. 
 The sky, indeed, was the same over both : unclouded and serene, 
 and with that most exquisitely lovely hue that ever earth has seen ; 
 and what must not that sky have been to the men of those early 
 days, with simple minds but high thoughts, who, intimately per- 
 suaded that directly behind its slight though ever undrawn veil 
 Jehovah and all His angels were assembled in awful majesty, “ looked 
 upon every cloud that passed as literally the chariot of an angel, 
 * Ruskin. t Hon. Catherine Maynard. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 259 
 
 and every ray of the morning and the evening as streaming from 
 the throne of God !” * No wonder, in truth, that they worshipped 
 that snn, from whose light and warmth all generation seemed to 
 proceed, as God, or at least the chief token of God ; more wonder if 
 they had not done so ; and no wonder either that, when they raised 
 such buildings to His honour, and filled them with the shining gold 
 and the ivory, and the gems and the incense, and all that could 
 intoxicate and enchant the senses, the rough and rude-minded son 
 of the Desert asked no question and wondered no more, but fell 
 prostrate in awe-struck adoration before the shrine of Baal ! 
 
 Here, too, most probably came the Magians of old, passionately 
 yearning after light — a light more tangible and nearer to their 
 hearts than the purely spiritual religion they had been taught to 
 follow — with their pulses beating high, and their hearts big with 
 expectation and hope, which the Divine spark was working out 
 within them, as they followed the Star which their science had told 
 them must have brought a message to them. Eeverently they 
 followed the high and holy and solemn messenger, not pausing in 
 their sacred journey even at this famed and beauteous shrine ; but, 
 laden with the best that they had, the poor outward symbols of that 
 which was better within, they followed steadily on till the beautiful 
 angel of the Lord (as they in their simple creed believed that Star to 
 be) stopped above the low hills of Judaea. Then with the un- 
 questioning, childlike humility of the true philosopher, they, the 
 great priests, the Wise Men of the East, knelt down with exceeding- 
 joy before the little Child, and recognised in Him the Divine Man, 
 the Day-spring of a new and brighter day, which should give light, 
 not to the children of Abraham only, but to all those who “ sat in 
 darkness and in the shadow of death,” and would “ guide their feet 
 into the way of peace.” 
 
 M. Haag’s beautiful sketches proceeded with great rapidity : the 
 people molested him very little, and I am certain some of those 
 who did see him at work believed that his drawings were done by 
 magic. It was a great thing to get out of the way of the rude 
 curiosity of the townspeople ; for though we always had a man of 
 the town or one of the Argeels for our protection wherever we went, 
 they bored us dreadfully when we were within reach. My 
 companion was generally a fine young Bedoueen, so very black, but 
 so erect and handsome, that we called him “ Black Adonis.” He 
 used to lie on the sand close to me while I drew, twisting up and 
 smoking cigarettes ; but after a day or two he began to be interested 
 in my performances, and got nearer and nearer: at last I was 
 
 * Ruskin. 
 
260 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 amused to find him gazing intently oyer my shoulder, looking up 
 when I did, and watching my pencil as it moved. I doubted whether 
 he really understood the picture, and, to prove him, I made a long 
 line which did not exist in nature, when a deep grunt just at my 
 ear startled me into the sense of my error : I rubbed it out, and 
 was rewarded with a “ ta'ib, taib and for the next three hours 
 that young savage sat there, forgetting to smoke, looking on with 
 the deepest attention, keeping up a running accompaniment of 
 grunts, and rebuking me with an indignant “ la, la ” (no, no),' when 
 I put in a figure that I had seen sitting there the day before, but 
 which was not there now. At last I gave him a bit of paper and a 
 pencil, and said “ ente amel soora ” {you make a picture), — be burst 
 into a long, low, grave chuckle, and said “ Anazeh fingers too big 
 but we were fast friends ever after : and I heard him relating my 
 invitation to his fingers, with much gusto, that night round the 
 evening fire. 
 
 One afternoon my sister and I went out together, with only the 
 guide, a Tadmor man, to carry our sketch-books, and stationed 
 ourselves at the Temple of the King’s Mother. Beyond this neither 
 man nor woman of the town would go alone after dusk ; they said 
 the place was full of jinns, — but the jinns were of flesh and blood : 
 stray Bedoueens of small tribes might be, and were almost always, 
 lurking about to plunder any thing or person they could find, and 
 they were gentlemen not to be lightly adventured with. We had 
 plenty of time, as we thought, before us, and we settled quickly 
 to work, my sister choosing a fallen capital for her seat, which the 
 guide was moving a little into position, when a serpent of deadly 
 venom darted out from behind it, with head erect and hissing 
 tongue : fortunately the guide had a huge stone in his hand at the 
 moment, and the creature was crushed at once. The man said it 
 was an evil omen ; but he lay down beside us, and was soon fast 
 asleep, and we sat drawing, and never looking round, till, all of a 
 sudden, we saw two mounted Bedoueens not very far from us, and 
 coming in the direction from Baghdad ! It was rather a startling 
 sight at this distance from protection, and we wakened the man, 
 who immediately seemed in an awful fright, and hid himself in the 
 inside of the temple. It was too late to hide, we knew, and moving 
 would be more likely to attract their keen eyes than keeping still ; 
 but I am free to confess that for once my heart did beat un- 
 commonly quickly (though we both assured each other there was 
 on danger whatever), remembering very well that we were two miles 
 from our people, and that the sun was fast sinking behind the 
 mountain. But, to our immense relief, the men passed on without 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 261 
 
 seeing us, and as they skirted the town, and turned down towards 
 our camp, the guide pronounced them Anazehs. 
 
 So they proved to be, as we found when we got back to the camp, 
 and bad news they brought, viz., that they had seen hostile Arabs 
 on the way— at some distance, indeed, but possibly scenting us 
 from afar. So the Sheikh issued his decree at once, that off we 
 must go at sunrise the next morning. We ate our last dinner, 
 much to the joy of the Tadmorites, who had sent down a formal 
 message that morning to the camp, saying that they did hope we 
 would soon “ move on/ 5 for that we had eaten nearly every cock, 
 old and young, in the town, and they could not supply us with any 
 more ! We were, indeed, aware we had eaten the old cocks, but 
 were all unconscious of having ever tasted a young one. So we had 
 to make the best of our departure, and to believe it was time to 
 leave: we were all feeling ill and languid, from the heat, our 
 overtaxed strength, the sulphur, and the carrion ; and the camels 
 were evidently getting weak from want of proper food. The 
 precious sketches were packed up, we made our last notes by 
 starlight, filled the saddle-bags, took a farewell bathe in the sulphur 
 stream, and lay down for our last sleep in the air of the warm, 
 sulphur-scented stream. 
 
 THE RETURN. 
 
 Though brightly still shone down the moon’s soft ray 
 Upon the hard rough pillows where we lay, 
 
 The wary Bedoueen watched her orb decline, 
 
 And waked the sleeping camp from dreams divine. 
 Then, one by one, each prostrate figure rose, 
 
 Around his head the gay kefiyeh throws, 
 
 And as the bright light reddened into morn, 
 
 And flushed with crimson hue the sand and thorn, 
 
 We bade adieu to that strange resting-place, 
 
 And tow’rds the West again we turned our face. 
 
 But first our way we slowly paced beside 
 The tepid stream, where maid and stripling tried 
 ’Mid thirsty beasts the hideous skins to fill ; 
 
 Then by the mighty Temple Wall, where still 
 The lingering shades in cool grey masses hung, 
 
 And gazed aloft, where early sunbeams flung 
 Their light upon the carven columns tall 
 Which tower up above the huge, grand wall, — 
 
 Across the plain, by many a look delayed, 
 
 We passed beside the long, long Colonnade, — 
 
 All solemnly serene those pillars stand, 
 
 As some fair forms uprisen from the sand, 
 
 Which, ever gathering round their long-hid feet, 
 
 Pays thus with jealous care its homage meet. 
 
262 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPUL CHRES 
 
 There, lost in boundless blue infinitude, 
 
 The Desert lies with every colour hued, 
 
 While over all the last faint shades of night 
 Dispersed before the morn’s triumphant light. 
 
 And there the Temple, all her grace displayed 
 By bright Hyperion’s first and latest rays, 
 
 Gives back the mute response of golden praise 
 Which pitying Time upon her stones hath laid ! 
 
 Then past the stone heaps, once the Palace fair 
 Of her whose feet in jewelled sandals bare 
 To worship proud within that glorious fane — 
 
 Imperial Princess of the Desert plain ! 
 
 Oh ! slowly then we clomb the barrier hill, 
 
 Where stand a hundred tombs of ancient story, 
 
 With one long gaze regretful eyes to fill — 
 
 Fit place of farewell to Palmyra’s glory ! 
 
 Here stood the sad dethroned Queen, and wrung 
 Despairing hands where golden fetters clung, — 
 
 Here stood to upbraid those mountains stern and great 
 She deemed sure guardians from the younger world, — 
 Here gazed upon the splendid home where late 
 The widowed Queen her own proud banners furled, — 
 
 Now — o’er Palmyra, Roman eagles wave, — 
 
 Her Temple courts profaned — her Queen, a slave ! 
 
 But yet, I trow, the anguish of that gaze 
 Dwelt less upon the pride of brighter days 
 Than on the Tombs — now of their treasures reft — 
 
 Where thrice four hundred years of honour slept ; 
 
 And half in envy burned as she descried 
 The Tomb of that first Queen — th’ Egyptian Bride 
 (For whose delight ’tis said Ring Solomon raised 
 This home, more lovely far than that she praised 
 On mighty Egypt’s shore of still unrivalled fame) ; 
 
 And thought how calm she slept — untouched by shame, — 
 With those proud hearts that Death alone could thrall — 
 Closed eyes that wept not. for their Daughter’s fall ! 
 
 ’Tis said Zenobia made another home 
 By Tiber’s banks, in stern, ungrateful Rome, 
 
 That on her brow, divinely calm, there reigned 
 The impress of serenest peace unfeigned : 
 
 Not such the mark that guilt or shame confers, — 
 
 Nor chains nor fetters could that soul degrade, — 
 
 Erect, she bore the vassal’s sign — and made 
 The shame Aurelian’s — and the triumph hers ! 
 
 Yet oft I ween, when Evening’s golden haze, 
 
 In clouds of sunlight wrapped her wondering gaze, 
 
 Rome’s cruel walls no more the heart enthralled, 
 
 By memories fond to that loved home recalled ; 
 
 Beneath the shade of waving palms she dwelt, 
 
 Before Apollo’s sacred shrine she knelt, 
 
 Her homage paid as fancy saw again 
 The crimson glory flood the Desert plain, • 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 263 
 
 The pearly columns shine with roseate hue 
 Against the violet hills and deepening blue, 
 
 And cried, “What though my voice no more I raise, 
 
 This ceaseless beauty offers up glad praise !” 
 
 And we too turned away — our last look bent 
 
 On those old Tombs, — while, like a bright dream spent, 
 
 The wild, free life upon the Desert plain, 
 
 The beauteous and sublime infinitude, 
 
 The gorgeous-coloured ocean, rainbow-hued, 
 
 Those rosy Temples with their golden stain, 
 
 All lovely things we shall not see again, 
 
 Sank down behind the bander hill, which closed 
 From view the living Tomb where calm reposed, 
 
 In marble letters writ upon the sand, 
 
 The dim but yet proud story of the land : — 
 
 And, happier far than they who here adored 
 Mysterious gods, and their dark aid implored, 
 
 We lifted up our hearts in mute appeal 
 To that true Son of God whose righteous Heel 
 Hath trodden down the Serpent’s sinful head, 
 
 O’er Death’s dark shades His healing radiance shed, 
 
 And spread from north to south, from east to west, 
 
 The Faith which makes both Jew and Gentile blest ! 
 
 Then passed we to a narrow vale, among 
 Dark violet mountains, where light mist-wreaths clung, 
 Gazelles and jerboas bounding through the thorn 
 Brush off the sparkling dew-drops of the morn, 
 
 And, dancing lightly on the path, the bird, 
 
 The camel-lover’s * little note is heard. 
 
 So slowly paced the camels one by one, 
 
 So, one by one, each long slow step was done, 
 
 Each measured footfall’s swinging cadence sung, 
 
 As higher sunbeams shortened shadows flung : 
 
 The wild fierce rays seemed scorching every brain 
 As all around they scorched the barren plain ; 
 
 And then on either hand th’ unbroken walls 
 Of purple crags grew streaked with shades of red, 
 
 And darkening browns upon the lilacs spread, 
 
 As blazing up the midday sunshine falls. 
 
 And still the same slow step went calmly on, 
 
 And, one by one, th’ unmarked hours were gone, 
 
 Till, blessbd sight ! blue waters coolly lave 
 The purple mountains’ feet with rippling wave, 
 Delicious creeks and little bays appear, 
 
 And seem our hot and burning eyes to cheer, 
 
 * Rabeeb-el-gemmal, the lover of the camel : a little black and white bird, 
 that is always dancing on the path, about a yard before the camel as he paces 
 along, especially in the morning. 
 
264 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 And all th’ horizon gleams with shining lakes — 
 When lo ! they quickly vanish like the flakes 
 Of snow that fall beneath an April sky, — 
 
 And all the Desert seems more hot, more dry. 
 
 At last the boundless, unflecked dome of blue 
 Deepens behind us into sapphire hue, 
 
 While radiant westering floods of brightest gold 
 In warm embrace sweet rosy clouds enfold ; 
 
 Dark hues of plum upon the mountains shed, 
 
 And on the Desert plain a ruddy sea is spread 
 O’er which the long blue shadows fleetly fly ; 
 
 Then darkening clouds were all around unfurled, 
 And sank the sun into another world, 
 
 Whence long, long after o’er the eastern sky 
 Sweet pictures of bright pink and gold he flung — 
 The evening echoes of the hymn he sung 
 At break of day, — like Farewells floating back 
 From lips unseen upon a winding track. 
 
 A moment on the soft warm sand we lay, 
 
 The fragrant coffee made, and longed to stay, 
 
 But as the deepening night around us came 
 A distant spai’k revealed a hostile flame. 
 
 And quickly quenched was ours, and we had gone 
 With slow soft footstep calmly striding on, 
 
 And aught but whispered tones the Sheikh forbade, 
 Lest we by tell-tale winds should be betrayed. 
 
 For now the night-breeze fluttered o’er the plain, — 
 Now fragrant with sweet-scented herbs it came — 
 Now whistling with a hard and rustling tone — 
 Now sighing with a low and tender moan, — 
 
 Anon a swift and savage gust would rise, 
 
 And with a solemn fury sweep the skies ; 
 
 Then hush — and softly clinging round the face 
 A sweet and balmy breeze with loving grace 
 Would breathe — most like a cloud of rosy hue, 
 Alone and matchless in a heaven of blue ; 
 
 Or, like the memory bright of one sweet day, 
 Shining throughout the weary life-long way. 
 
 So with the same long step we glided on, 
 
 And, one by one, th’ unmarked hours had gone, — 
 No change came o’er the darkened way, 
 
 Save where the stars moved on in bright array, 
 
 Or flung themselves athwart the gleaming night, 
 And fell with glittering glances out of sight. 
 
 So ever “ ohne Hast und ohne Rast,” 
 
 Till since the dawn full twenty hours had past, 
 
 And by the Robbers’ Tower we glided fast, 
 
 Lest lurking Bedoueen the troop descry, — 
 
 When suddenly the red Moon leaped on high, 
 
 And, in black masses mingled on the ground, 
 
 The silvery beams our shadows all confound, — ■ 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 265 
 
 Dismayed we thought discovery sure at hand, 
 
 And listened for the Arab’s rough command ; 
 
 But all around unbroken silence spread, 
 
 And nought disturbed us as we onward sped ; 
 
 One enemy alone appeared unsought, 
 
 With whom we each with painful efforts fought, 
 
 While every hour he more victorious grew, — 
 
 Sweet Sleep ! unwelcome then, though friend most true ! 
 
 The pitying Sheikh the camels bade to kneel, 
 
 That we a hasty hour of rest might steal, 
 
 And in a shallow wady on the ground 
 
 All soon were wrapped in dreamless sleep profound. 
 
 While there we lay and wearily reposed, 
 
 Th’ eternal eyes of every star was closed, 
 
 And night’s cold grey had turned to ruddy morn 
 When we awaked to find the Desert thorn 
 Was bending o’er our heads its little arch : 
 
 Then hastily we rose — resumed our march, 
 
 And chased our own blue shadows flung before 
 The rising ray, — no living thing moved o’er 
 Th’ unchanging yellow sand, till formless shade 
 And quivering air the midday hour betrayed ; 
 
 When lo ! a cloud of moving dust appears, 
 
 And to our little band it quickly nears, 
 
 Now circling round in front and flank, 
 
 Then swerving off as though they shrank 
 With pity from our little troop, 
 
 Then turning back with sudden swoop, 
 
 In narrowing circles wheeling round, 
 
 And hoofs scarce lighting on the ground, 
 
 With tightened bit and poised lance, 
 
 With savage shriek and fiery glance, 
 
 With angry words and hostile mien, 
 
 On, on, they came, Wild Bedoueen ! 
 
 Our guns were fired — and quickly they 
 Reined up, — and then we guessed the play 
 Which welcomed us in Desert style to share 
 Their homely shelter' from the scorching glare : 
 
 With kindly toil they led our beasts to drink 
 Delicious draughts within the lakelet’s brink, — 
 
 This done, our steps to Karyeteen we pressed, 
 
 And in the spacious khan at last found rest. 
 
 We were not destined to find much repose at Karyeteen, as we 
 were obliged to keep in the shelter of the gnest-room from the heat 
 of the sun, and no entreaties, coaxings, persuasions, objurgations, 
 or anything else could keep the people out of the room. They 
 made us very comfortable upon cushions and mattresses; but, 
 seating themselves beside us, if we closed our weary eyes for one 
 moment, a finger stole up to feel our cheeks, or stroke our hair, or 
 pulled at our dresses to see how they were made. At last we gave 
 up trying to sleep, and retired into another room for the still 
 
266 
 
 £ G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 better refreshment of a good bath ; onr dragoman standing outside 
 the door en garde, about forty or fifty women crowding round him 
 and abusing him for keeping them out and preventing their 
 climbing up to the windows to look at us. “ I tell you the Sitts 
 are bathing !” “ E wullah ! isn’t that what we want to see ?” And 
 at last they tried to break open the door. We then returned to 
 the guest-chamber, where fresh and fresh relays of people came in 
 to inspect us as we lay on our cushions; my sister patiently 
 answered as many of their questions as she understood, while I 
 amused myself with writing the foregoing lines, as a history of our 
 return ride. 
 
 Towards sunset they brought us a banquet of meat and rice in 
 various shapes, with vegetable-marrow and lentils, ending with a 
 huge dish of fine dates stewed in butter, or rather oil, smoking hot ; 
 very good it was, but one could eat but a little of it. It was rather 
 a picturesque scene, for the room was a large one, and the whole 
 town seemed crowded in to inspect the Tranks feeding. The 
 dinner was placed on the ground, and lighted up by two brass 
 candelabras, each of them five feet high and handsomely made, 
 which threw bright lights upon the swarthy faces ranged around 
 us, with the many-coloured kefiyehs of the men, and the gold 
 ornaments of the women. Some of the men were very handsome ; 
 and they were highly delighted when M. Haag made a hasty sketch 
 of one or two. 
 
 We mounted as soon as it was dark, a large caravan of camels 
 and donkeys accompanying us out of the town, as they had asked 
 permission to benefit by the Sheikh’s escort. The donkeys seemed 
 like so many mice running beside the camels, but the long strings 
 of baggage camels, tied in dozens and scores, were very trouble- 
 some, for our dromedaries were continually getting entangled 
 among them ; and as there was no moon and the night was very 
 dark, they fell very often. It was so cold by midnight that, coming 
 after our many sleepless hours, we were all continually falling 
 asleep, and at last the whole party got down to walk, so the Sheikh 
 said we had better have tea, and we lit the fire, and then Sheikh, 
 Argeels and all, went fast asleep, and we slept till near sunrise, to 
 the Sheikh’s great annoyance, for the night’s halt had been quite 
 unintentional, but a very great relief. 
 
 Our journey back was not so pleasant as the journey there, for 
 the camels were so weak they would lag, and we had the sun nearly 
 all day in our eyes, which is much harder to bear than when it is 
 behind one ; moreover we were ourselves pretty well tired out. 
 But we had a lovely view all day of the snowy mountain range 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 267 
 
 reaching np to Homs, a beautiful feature in a desert-view: the 
 snow had fallen while we were at Tadmor, but, curiously enough, 
 although it had been very thick on Hermon as we left Damascus, it 
 seemed to have almost quite melted away as we returned. We 
 were joined in the course of the morning by an armed Arab, 
 mounted on horseback, who would answer no question as to where 
 he was going, or to what tribe he belonged. The Sheikh looked 
 grave, and after some time offered him a piece of the bread he was 
 himself eating, but the Arab declined it ; and there could not be a 
 more unfriendly sign. After an hour or two the Arab was suddenly 
 missed from us, and the Sheikh became anxious, still more so 
 when at dusk he was descried at a distance waiting for us with 
 two other Arabs; of course there might be two dozen concealed. 
 So we were desired to close in a compact body and to ride on 
 quickly, the Sheikh advancing in front, and we got a little excited, 
 and some of us hoped to see a little “ fun when, on reaching the 
 men, the Arab’s companions turned out to be two of our own 
 escort, who had ridden on while we had delayed to let our camels 
 feed on some tamarisk -bushes we had happened to find: the 
 stranger wished us good-bye soon after. There is no doubt that he 
 intended mischief, but if he belonged to a Ghuzoo, he probably 
 told them we were too strong a party to attack ; and so ended our 
 last chance of an adventure. 
 
 We rested that afternoon at Atnv, and, starting again when the 
 moon got up, mistook our way into Jerood, and got into an encamp- 
 ment of Bedoueen tents, setting all the dogs into a chorus of furious 
 howls ; a great annoyance, for they run at and bite your camel’s 
 legs, and make him wrathful. The camels stumbled and fell a 
 great deal, but the night work was pleasanter than the very hot 
 days ; indeed I always enjoyed the night journeys, both in the 
 Desert and in Syria (when I was not sleepy), almost as much as 
 those of the bright-coloured day. The night was so clear and 
 light, and the sky so blue instead of black, that one can still see 
 something of the scenery, although the contrast of the silver 
 moonlight and the densely black shadows are deceptive ; and then 
 one can think so quietly and uninterruptedly, with one’s head cool, 
 and one’s eyes unscorched, while truly there was always food for 
 thought around one, above all in the full, softly-glowing, God- 
 created lamps of Night that shone in the sky. In the far East it is 
 easier than under our gloomy skies to understand how naturally the 
 men of old turned to them for worship ; and how they yearned for 
 the changeless purity and Eternal Order they saw there and no- 
 where else. Often I thought of the child with his pure heart so fresh 
 
268 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 from the Hands of God that he saw Him everywhere, and asked if 
 the stars were not “ gimlet-holes to let the glory through,” and felt 
 how fully his innocent eyes had seen, in spirit, the glory revealed 
 in their beauty ; as the miracles manifested through the simplicity 
 of Christ’s human life : the Divine Glory within it revealing the 
 Light which was already shining in the darkness of the world that 
 comprehended it not. 
 
 It is beautiful to look out at any moment of night upon the glow- 
 ing stars, but you cannot read their meaning clearly unless, night 
 after night, you have watched “the bright procession” move “down 
 the gleaming arch till you have seen the whole “ celestial army ” 
 sweep across an “ endless reach of sky,” and pass out of our poor 
 human sight to rise in other skies. Not till you have learned the 
 bright lesson of the “marshalled brotherhood of souls,”* moving 
 calmly, silently on, held up in the Hand of God the Father of all, 
 “binding” their “sweet influences”! into one harmony, as He 
 permits the souls of some to ride in majesty through the world, and 
 others to shine meekly and dimly, but in His sight not a whit less 
 radiantly. If there was one thing more in my mind than another, 
 by night and by day, in all my long rides through the Desert, it 
 was the oft-repeated words, “ Heaven and Earth are full of the 
 Majesty of Thy Glory !” 
 
 These are some of the thoughts that occupy one almost un- 
 consciously in the long silent hours of Eastern travelling; and 
 difficult as it is to carry the mind of the reader along with one 
 in descriptions, and hopeless as it is to paint in expressive words 
 the scenes that met our eyes, it is yet more impossible to make them 
 enter into trains of thought that arise from the accidents of the 
 atmosphere and the silence and the beauty around one. I ought 
 to apologise for trying to do so. 
 
 We found the Bourghaz pass perfectly stifling, and were thankful 
 that the good Sheikh ordained a rest for the sake of the camels, 
 under the shade of the thick lofty trees about Doumah, which had 
 seemed hopelessly far off. My sister’s camel, the dear Simri, had 
 lagged latterly very much, and she dismounted, hoping thus to 
 relieve the tired beast, but within a few yards of Doumah the poor 
 thing knelt down on the road side, and lay there till she died two 
 days after. We had a most refreshing meal of grapes and delicious 
 fresh lebben (sour milk) under the trees before we remounted ; my 
 sister was given a very fine white dromedary, and we all set off 
 racing each other at a brisk trot. 
 
 We had a grand entry into Damascus ; about two hours’ distance 
 * Buchanan Read. t Job xxxviii. 31. 
 
AND S YRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 269 
 
 from the town we met the beautiful and almost priceless mares of 
 the Sheikh out exercising, and he immediately mounted his 
 favourite, and galloped wildly and gaily all round the cavalcade. 
 The dromedaries knew very well how near they were to home, and 
 they went merrily along while the Argeels brushed them up, re- 
 arranged their own kefiyehs, and then burst out into choruses of 
 songs, screaming and shouting, and some of them standing up and 
 dancing on the camels’ backs amid peals of laughter, while the 
 darabooka played unceasing rub-a-dubs of the noisiest description. 
 Very merry and bright it was ; the road was lively with people, to 
 whom the astonishing fact of our long stay at Tadmor was again 
 and again related, and a thousand welcomes were shouted to Sheikh 
 Miguel as one after another recognised him. Most cool, refreshing, 
 and delightful did the green trees overhanging the rough paths, the 
 bright gardens, and thousand rushing streamlets appear to our 
 desert-used eyes. I need not say how still more welcome the 
 excellent hotel beds felt to our wearied bodies as we sank to sleep 
 to the music of the fountain in our room, after fifteen days’ absence. 
 But I may add that, for my own part, I would willingly undergo 
 twice the fatigue again to re-visit that magnificently lovely Tadmor. 
 
270 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 CHAPTEE XYI. 
 
 STRONGHOLDS OF NATURE AND ART. 
 
 We stood much in need of rest after our return from Tadmor, and 
 we were not sorry to spend a few days in the hotel, varying our 
 time with pleasant rides in the suburbs of the city — the justly 
 famous gardens of Damascus. We are told that one might take a 
 new ride every day for four months among these charming groves, 
 fields, and orchards, with pleasant-looking villages every here and 
 there ; the roads, too, are mostly ^excellent, and there are many fine 
 views of the city to be seen from between the trees. A net-work of 
 little canals and channels of water extends over all the cultiyated 
 plain, cooling the air and soothing the ear with the pleasant murmur- 
 ing of the streamlets to which all the glorious verdure is owing ; miles 
 and miles of those tiny rivers are spread over the ground, every one 
 coming originally from the Barrada, the river whose course we had 
 followed from ’Ain Fijeh. This river is the Abana of Scripture, 
 which Naaman considered, with natural pride, as fine a river as 
 any in Israel; the Hebrew name meant “the clear” river — the 
 Arabic means “the cold.” The other “river of Damascus,” the 
 Pharphar, was described in Hebrew as “ the fugitive ; ” while its 
 Arabic name of the Awaj signifies “ the tortuous.” The latter is not 
 as long a river as the Barrada, and contains scarcely a third as much 
 water; it rises on Mount Hermon, and both rivers after passing 
 Damascus are lost in marshes on the sandy desert beyond. The 
 Barrada was named Chrysorrhoas by the Greeks ; it flows on the 
 north side of the city, while the Awaj passes on the south. 
 
 There are many varieties of trees in the gardens of Damascus, 
 but the most numerous are the apricots, the dried fruit of which 
 forms so very large a part of its commerce. The apricots are 
 either dried in the sun and then pressed flat in slight wooden boxes, 
 or else they are stoned and mashed into a thick paste, which is 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 271 
 
 dried in masses a yard or two long, and is exported in large rolls 
 looking like brown leather, — this is called kumrredeen — the apricots 
 dried whole are called mishrnish. It is said to be a lovely sight to 
 look over the plain of Damascus in the spring, when the innumer- 
 able apricots are in flower, the effect being exactly that of light snow 
 resting on the trees; but many persons think it more striking 
 when the fruit is just ripe : then the trees glow as if illuminated 
 with thousands of tiny lamps hung among the branches, giving a 
 most curious golden gleaming effect from the heights above. 
 
 The gardens are separated by primitive walls formed of cakes 
 of mud, sun-dried, about three or four feet square and six inches 
 thick; they are generally topped with dhourra straw or palm- 
 branches, and have a most curious appearance. There is something 
 of the same kind used in Greece, but in smaller cakes. 
 
 One of our pleasantest afternoon rides was to the village of 
 Jobah, lying hidden among walnut-groves, at about an hour’s 
 distance from the city ; this place has been time out of mind held 
 sacred by both the Jew and the Mooslim, on account of a very ancient 
 synagogue built over the cave, in which it is believed that Elijah 
 hid himself from the persecutions of Jezebel. We were invited to 
 descend into it, without shoes, through a narrow hole with nicks, 
 instead of steps, cut in the rock to tread on ; but we declined to enter, 
 hearing that there was nothing to see within. In the centre 
 of the synagogue there is a space railed off where Elijah is said to 
 have anointed Hazael king, — here no one entered, but otherwise 
 the floor was quite covered with people. A school was going on in 
 one corner, numbers of women were tailoring and making shoes, 
 and men reading aloud in groups. 
 
 Passing through the streets on our return to the hdtel, we met 
 an infant’s funeral : the father, preceded by a little boy dressed in 
 his best, carried the child laid out on his arms, with an embroidered 
 handkerchief thrown over it, but the small face left uncovered ; it 
 seemed smiling in its sleep. Two friends followed him, and they 
 were all chanting a not inharmonious hymn, or more probably 
 verses from the Koran. The simplicity of the funeral, and the 
 contrast of the little dead face and the bright colours of the dresses, 
 were quite touching. The Arabs all dress in their finest cloths at a 
 funeral, and the widows sit in their richest silks, with all the gay 
 colours they can put together, for three days after the death of the 
 husband : it is partly from the idea that he is gone to happiness, 
 but more to do him honour and pay respect to the corpse. 
 
 The hotel at Damascus is a good specimen of the modern style 
 of ornament in houses, and is both clean and comfortable. A 
 
272 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 miserable little passage is as usual the entrance from the street 
 (“ called Straight ”) into a large court, with a lofty leewan on one 
 side and a good room at each corner : in the centre a tank of water 
 is shaded by pomegranate, lemon, and oleander-trees. Opposite 
 the leewan is the best room, which my sister and I inhabited: it 
 was forty feet high, with a floor of variegated marble, and a roof 
 ornamented in the old delicate style of painting, which is now 
 disappearing before a gaudy, coarser kind. A fountain played in 
 the centre of the apartment, which had three alcoves on raised 
 floors, — two of them, screened off by curtains, formed bed-rooms, 
 and the other was fitted up for the general sitting-room ; the walls 
 were painted with a stencilled imitation of the beautiful old marble 
 mosaic, and the upper windows near the ceiling were closed with 
 carved lattices of intricate Saracenic patterns. It made a very 
 pleasant room, but when we came back from Tadmor w~e felt half 
 suffocated from sleeping under a roof with closed doors and 
 windows after being accustomed to the open air ! It seemed very 
 absurd to have caught the Bodoueen dislike to a house, but we had 
 dreadful headaches, and were glad when the nights were once more 
 passed in our airy tents. 
 
 We mounted donkeys on our last evening in Damascus and 
 strolled through the streets. They were generally very dim, 
 sometimes pitch-dark except for the lantern carried by one of our 
 attendants, to prevent our stepping on the horrid dogs lying asleep 
 everywhere ; but here and there one came on a brightly-illuminated 
 cafe or a barber’s shop, or that of a grocer or tobacconist, noisy with 
 late bargainers and coffee-drinkers. The bazaars seemed endless in 
 their darkness, a single oil-lamp now and then revealing a figure rolled 
 up in a dark abbah, asleep on the boarding which served as the 
 counter by day ; the shop itself being closed in by a heavy wooden 
 lid, which is lowered by night over the recess and locked. Some- 
 times a long vista of arches ended picturesquely in a brilliantly- 
 lighted cafe , or a group of white-turbaned Turks sitting on the ground 
 smoking nargilehs. But the prettiest sight was afforded by the 
 various Mosques, most of them lighted with hundreds of hanging 
 lamps and filled with rows and groups of men kneeling in prayer : 
 in one, which was much less illuminated than the others, the 
 polished marble floor shone darkly, like a lake of black water, 
 reflecting back the few lamps like stars, and throwing out finely 
 the figures of the Mooslims, dressed in bright colours and white 
 turbans, standing in groups, or prostrated in prayer. As one 
 passed quickly by it gave one the impression of a dream, the beauti- 
 ful Mosque with its numbers of slender columns and horse-shoe 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 273 
 
 arches in party-coloured marbles, and the dim light shining on the 
 worshippers, chanting their prayers in a wild and sweet harmony. 
 
 We left Damascus on the afternoon of the 2nd November, by the 
 Bab-el-Salahiyeh, our last view of the fair city having been from 
 the same point as the first ; then we descended into a lovely wind- 
 ing glen, full of thick foliage and the rushing, tumbling stream of 
 the Barrada, and emerged from it on to the Desert and the desolate 
 Sah’ra mountains just as darkness fell upon us. The country was 
 so hideous that we were rather rejoicing that the young moon gave 
 scarcely light enough to show it in its dreary loneliness and silence, 
 when — voices called to us to stop. The dragomans immediately 
 fell back to ask what they wanted, and we soon guessed they were 
 the robbers or Syrian banditti which, as we afterwards learned, infest 
 this road. Fortunately we were, every one of us, dressed in the white 
 mash’lah of the country, and we believe that they mistook us in the 
 dim light for men ; at all events they seemed to think we were too 
 strong a party for them, and let us alone, and we made the best of 
 our way on. Of course, as contretemps always come together, one 
 of the horses was lame from a bad shoe, and we could only go at a 
 walking pace ; and the fun of the thing was that, though we all 
 showed our pistols and revolvers, not one of us, even the dragomans, 
 had remembered to reload them on leaving Damascus. We expected 
 the robbers would pursue us in great numbers, but they kindly 
 changed their minds if they had such intentions, and we heard no 
 more of them. We continued the dreary road, however, with the 
 pleasing expectation of finding they had possessed themselves of all 
 our baggage and tents, which had been sent on before us ; so that 
 the little dog’s bark and the mules’ bells seldom sounded more 
 melodiously in our ears than they did two hours later, when we came 
 upon the tents near the village of Dimas. 
 
 The ride of the following morning led through a charming green 
 vale, full of sweet bright flowers, and lively with caravans of camels 
 bringing corn from the Hauran. Two men among the camel-drivers 
 recognised one of the horses, which had been purchased in Damascus, 
 as having belonged to a brother of theirs, and fell to kissing and 
 hugging the pretty creature most enthusiastically, to the apparent 
 delight of the horse, and the immense surprise of its rider, until 
 the origin of their affection was explained by the dragoman. We 
 crossed a circular plain with a pretty lake at one side, and then 
 reached the Druze village of Deir-el-Ashayr, where the villagers were 
 so poor that they could not even give us milk or bread or fruit. 
 But we had an interesting temple to examine, under whose shade 
 we rested for some time, admiring the fine view of the Anti-Lebanon 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 mountains, with the whole valley of Zebdany lying at their feet, and 
 Bludan perched on a mountain nook among dark green woods. The 
 temple is small, standing on a platform of fine blocks of stone 
 which measures 126 feet by 69, and about 20 feet in height, curiously 
 finished with a simple but bold cavetto cornice, exactly the same as 
 that at ’Ain Fijeh, only inverted. The platform reminds one in 
 miniature of those at Baalbek and Tadmor, and in the extensive 
 ruins strewed at one side of the temple a large court leading 
 up to it is still traceable. There was an entrance under the 
 platform into a vaulted passage, as we are told; above there 
 are the remains of a hall with three small chambers at one end, and 
 a portico in front. Only one column of this is standing, but two 
 capitals lay on the ground carved with a simple circular horn or 
 roll, something like the Ionic, but very rude. This temple is the 
 more interesting as it is one of the semicircle of temples closing 
 round the foot of Hermon, all built to face the sacred mountain, — 
 and was most probably, therefore, one of the Baal Temples — like 
 those of, Baalbek and Tadmor ; the style of the building is simple 
 but good, strongly resembling that at ’Ain Fijeh, except in the Ionic 
 kind of capital. 
 
 We rode on through a wild pass of rocky hills, covered with 
 prickly oak and hawthorn, where we saw hundreds of goats with 
 long black silky hair. They came at the herdsman’s call, and gave 
 us plenty of milk, which we drank from a fine old silver bowl en- 
 graved with Kufic characters. Early in the afternoon we reached 
 Bukhleh, a Druze village, where our tents were pitched, but we rode 
 on half an hour farther, or more, to examine some other temples of 
 which the villagers told us ; we found the remains of three temples, 
 which seemed all of them to have been turned facing Hermon, but 
 they were now only such heaps of jumbled stones that one could 
 make out little or nothing of them. The faces of the cliffs in these 
 little valleys are quite full of tombs, which ought to be much more 
 narrowly examined than they have been as yet. We entered one 
 large excavation fronted by two arches ; it contained places for five 
 bodies, and two huge stone sarcophagi with high peaked lids, 
 broken, but unusually deep ; three or four bodies might have lain in 
 them. There seemed to have been a bracket carved in each angle of 
 the cave, but we could find no further ornament or inscription. 
 There were stone sarcophagi lying about in many places, and several 
 hewn in the rock under one’s feet, so that now the lids were gone, 
 they were open pits into which one might unwarily step. We 
 passed soon after this by the face of a rock, smoothed to about 
 thirty feet high, with a rude pilaster at each side, and the remains 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 275 
 
 of an altar before it. Close in front of the altar was a large deep 
 hole, which the guide said was the opening of a passage hollowed 
 underground for several yards’ distance ; one could not help think- 
 ing it might have been made to carry off the blood or water from 
 the altar: it was a curious, mysterious-looking place altogether. 
 Passing back to our tents, we saw a well-cut bit of frieze, and then 
 the mouldings of an arch built into a terrace-wall — in fact the 
 whole of the valley seemed strewn with architectural or sepulchral 
 remains. 
 
 Then we went to the large temple, of which a great deal still 
 remains in situ ; it was placed with the angles to the cardinal 
 points in order that the S.W. side should face the Baal-Temple 
 raised on the highest point of Hermon. In the centre of this side is 
 sculptured in high relief a face, five feet in diameter, supposed to 
 be the representation of Baala (or Baltis, the feminine of Baal), who 
 was called by both the Phoenicians and Hebrews “ the queen of 
 heaven.” * The remarkable face on a temple at Kunawat in the 
 Hauran is the only other example that has been found of this sin- 
 gular and interesting subject : this one is a good deal defaced, but 
 there is a soft and solemn grandeur still expressed in the large eyes 
 and mutilated features. Several mouldings surround the face, wide 
 at the top and narrowing under the chin, showing that it was to be 
 seen from below : the innermost moulding seemed to represent 
 thick curls — the outer one was of the egg-and-dice pattern ; there was 
 something touching in the large sweet face, still looking out through 
 centuries of long years at the setting sun, whose last rays were now 
 passing a mellowing tint over the unchanging features. 
 
 The style of the temple is massive and simple: a lofty triple 
 doorway stood on the N.W. side, a smaller one on the S.W. side, 
 and the S.E. end terminated in an apse. The lintel of the great 
 doorway has fallen, but it lies on the ground, showing the figure of a 
 large eagle well sculptured on the under- side ; the wings are ex- 
 panded, and the claws hold a long wreath of palm-branches, and a 
 laurel-crown sculptured on each side of the eagle ; these ornaments 
 closely resemble those around the eagle on the famous onyx of 
 Augustus in the Imperial Cabinet at Vienna, but the bird itself is 
 very different. Palm-branches and laurel-leaves were sculptured on 
 other stones near by. A row of columns extended through the 
 centre of the temple, with the same rude Ionic capitals we had seen 
 
 * Jer. vii. 18 ; xliv. 17 ; 1 Kings xi. 5, 33. Her great temple was at 
 Sidon, but there were very many others raised to her in Syria : she was also 
 called by the Hebrews Ashtaroth, by the Greeks Astarte, and by the 
 Assyrians Mylitta. 
 
 T 2 
 
76 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 at Deir-el-Ashayr ; the rolls, which formed the volutes on two sides 
 of the capital, passed horizontally along the other two sides, and 
 were bound in the centre of each by a fillet, with leaves curling up 
 from underneath them : on the other two sides, besides the volute 
 at each end, were scrolls and other ornaments. Dr. Eobinson thinks 
 that Banias may be the site of “ Baal-gad,” in the Yalley of Lebanon, 
 under Mount Hermon (Josh. xii. 5) : I should like to suggest that 
 if Baal-gad be not a collective name for the whole group of Baal- 
 Temples * that encircle the N.W. and S. sides of Hermon, which 
 seems the most natural interpretation, it may be applied with 
 more probability to the numerous remains — of four at the least 
 — of temples at Eukhleh rather than to Banias. Banias, though 
 certainly “ under Mount Hermon,” is completely south of the range 
 of country usually called “ Lebanon while Eukhleh, on the northern 
 foot of Hermon, seems to be more indicative of a land extending 
 from “ Mount Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath,” a place 
 precisely to the N.E. of Hermon, and therefore “ toward the sun- 
 rising.” 
 
 Winding glens, thickly wooded with prickly-oak, led from Eukhleh 
 to Kefr Kook, the Lebanon mountains opening before us as we 
 advanced towards the sea, and the double peak of Jebel Niha forming 
 a pretty point in the view. As we came to Easheiya the view ex- 
 tended far up northwards, and the snowy summits of our beloved 
 Sunnin, Kunisiyeh, El-Jurd, and Makhmel came in with much 
 beauty. Easheiya is very picturesque ; the houses overhang each 
 other on the sides of a steep hill rising out of vine-terraces, and 
 crowned by the Emir’s Palace, a castle-like building looking very 
 grand in contrast with the low stone village houses. We spread our 
 cloaks under some shady rocks while we had our usual luncheon of 
 fresh leben , and looked at the silver ornaments which are largely 
 made here. Presently the Emir’s brother came down to visit us, 
 with numerous attendants, and invited us to rest in the palace, 
 which we declined. He seemed very intelligent, and sat a long 
 time examining with pleasure the few things we had to show — 
 lunettes, travelling-fans, measuring-tapes, &c., and our large map 
 of Syria, which always delighted the Arabs. He left us at the sound 
 of the bugle in the castle, and we went on, an hour farther, to a 
 large pool of brackish water in a little plain, where the mules, re- 
 leased unusually early in the day, enjoyed a thorough scamper and 
 gallop. We had to send back to Easheiya for water, which makes 
 this otherwise pleasant spot an awkward camping-ground ; there is 
 
 * The same word precisely — gad — is used here in the Hebrew, as in 
 Gen. xxx. 11, where it signifies an indefinite number. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 277 
 
 a large pond here, but it was then too brackish to use ; we had chosen 
 it in order to shorten our expedition to the summit of Hermon on 
 the following day, which would, we knew, be very fatiguing. 
 
 We started at 8 a.m. — much too late — on the following morning, 
 sending the mules by Easheiya to Hasbeiya. The path commenced 
 among pretty woods and tangled vineyards, until it became very 
 steep, and had to be ascended in zigzag, the horses slipping con- 
 tinually, and the saddles occasionally coming off, not having been 
 properly secured with braces across the chest. With good horses 
 three hours is ample for reaching the end of the path ; after this 
 the ascent is really difficult and very bad, a long, steep slope of 
 loose, small shingle, in which both man and horse sink up to the 
 knees, slipping backwards at every step. All dismounted but my- 
 self ; my gallant old horse, a Crimean charger, carried me, with the 
 aid of two strong human arms, to the top of the second summit 
 from the north, whence all the northern view is shut out ; thence 
 we found grassy dells and little hills along the lofty ridge to the 
 highest and most southern summit. Here we stopped a couple of 
 hours to enjoy the magnificent view, for seeing which we were 
 highly favoured by the weather. The heat was tempered by a cool, 
 gentle breeze instead of the terrible wind usual at this height, and 
 the distance was perfectly clear and cloudless. 
 
 To the south-east the Hauran lay mapped before us, blue hills on 
 the horizon faintly bounding the far, far distance, deepening in 
 colour as they swept round to the south ; Damascus lying, gem-like 
 in its verdure, on the barren country towards the north. Then 
 came the long white ridge of the rugged Anti-Lebanon ; the heights 
 of Makhmel and Sunnin, &c., all rosy beneath the snow, headed the 
 confusion of peaks, and slopes, and craggy heights of the Baruk 
 range, occupying the whole of the western country between Hermon 
 and the blue sea ; while we looked down into the very heart of the 
 deep narrow ravine of the dashing Litaany, with its sharp, sudden 
 bend towards the sea, half hidden in thick woods. Saida and Sour 
 lay underneath the cliffs, range after range of mountains filling up 
 the space between the Litaany and the coast, till Carmel ran a deep 
 blue promontory into the sea; then came the purple and green 
 mountains of Galilee to the south, among which Tabor, and Hattin, 
 and Jermuk stood conspicuous, while, paling in blues behind them, 
 lay the Judean hills, the mountains of Gilboa and Samaria. At our 
 feet the lake Houleh (“ the waters of Merom ”) seemed close to us, 
 and beyond that, shining in clear blue' serene loveliness, the beau- 
 tiful lake of Tiberias sank deep down in the dark purple mountains, 
 like a sweet smile on an aged, rugged face. From thence one 
 
278 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 could trace the winding hill-tops of the Ghor, the valley of the 
 tortuous Jordan, till it was lost in the faint distance of the Dead 
 Sea mountains. Just underneath us the craggy summits of the 
 lower spurs of Hermon clustered over Banias : on one of these it is 
 supposed Christ our Saviour was transfigured. 
 
 Hermon was to the Israelites the principal mountain in the land ; 
 it stood like a sentinel commanding their northern border, and they 
 did not much concern themselves about those beyond it ; it is, 
 however, supposed to be about 300 feet lower than the Cedar 
 Mountain. Its beautiful cone, snow-covered nearly throughout the 
 year, is seen from many parts of Palestine ; we saw it distinctly from 
 the Dead Sea. It is so much loftier than any of the more southern 
 mountains that it naturally takes the name of Jabel-esh-Sheikh — 
 the chief or prince of mountains ; this is its commonest Arabic 
 name, but it has many others. Its ancient Hebrew names have much 
 the same meaning, Hermon and Sion both signify the “ upraised,” 
 the “ lifted upon high,” the chief thing : so Sion was the name 
 given Jerusalem to express that which excelled all others ; and it is 
 perhaps in the same sense that the word is applied in Ps. cxxxiii. 3, 
 where it expresses the fact of the loftiest mountains catching the 
 most dew from the clouds. The Phoenicians called it the “ Breast- 
 plate,” in the language used by them at Sidon — Sirion ; and in that 
 used by the Amorites — Shenir ; both words, in the two dialects, 
 having the same meaning. It is natural, also, that Scripture should 
 mention names peculiar to these tribes of Phoenicians, as Hermon 
 appears to stand over Sidon, and the possessions of the Amorites 
 extended to the skirts of the mountain itself.* It may be worth 
 noticing also that in the days of Abraham the Amorites were 
 settled in the mountain of ’Aim Jidi, on the coast of the Dead Sea,t 
 from whence on clear days Hermon is well seen— almost the only 
 view of it to be obtained from the south of Palestine. An old 
 pilgrim tells us that every morning at sunrise a handful of dew 
 floated down from the summit of Hermon, and deposited itself upon 
 the Church of St. Mary, where it was immediately gathered up by 
 Christian leeches, and was found a sovereign remedy for all diseases : 
 it was of this dew, he naively adds, that David spoke prophetically 
 in his Psalms.^ 
 
 A massive wall once encircled the highest peak of the mountain, 
 and a temple stood here. The ground is covered with the large 
 hewn stones of the outer wall ; a few of them were bevelled, and we 
 saw some bold, simple sculpturing on some of the others, the style 
 reminding us of Dier-el-Ashayr. That a temple dedicated to Baal 
 * Deut. iv. 48. f Gen. xiv. 7. % Itinerary of St. Antony. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 279 
 
 once existed here is to be gathered from the name of Baal-Hermon 
 applied in Judg. iii. 3, and 1 Chron. v. 23, and St. Jerome testifies 
 to the fact ;* nor could one stand on that summit and look from east 
 to west and from north to south without feeling that worshippers 
 of the sun could not have left so grand a spot unconsecrated to 
 their god. One seems, standing here, to enter into something of the 
 feelings of the untutored child of Nature who daily witnessed the 
 incomprehensible mystery of the sun’s all-glorious course, and 
 believed his quickening rays to be the source of all the life and well- 
 being of the world around him. The stones of the old wall were 
 mostly covered with a very minute lichen of a bright scarlet colour ; 
 while between every stone grew tufts of a velvety thorny plant, 
 very dense and tough, covered with the tenderest little pale, fragile 
 blossoms ; a kind of immortelle , which fell or blew away at a touch 
 or a breath ; they grew on the Cedar Mountain also, and we after- 
 wards found them near the Dead Sea. 
 
 We refreshed ourselves with a little snow or ice melted in some 
 wine which we had fortunately carried up with us, and at two 
 o’clock commenced our descent, which, after the first half hour, 
 became really terrible. We thought it quite hard upon the horses 
 to have taken them to the summit on either side, but from Hasbeiya 
 it is really a cruelty. We were three long hours and a half 
 descending that gully, jumping and scrambling from stone to stone, 
 the horses following as best they could, often standing still, trembling, 
 and casting imploring looks at us, as if for help. The walls of the 
 ravine closed in boldly and sometimes quite perpendicularly on each 
 side. N umbers of caverns and holes were observable, which are, 
 they say, infested with bears and jackals ; eagles’ feathers, often 
 bloody, lay about on the rocks, and numerous lovely fossil shells, 
 
 | which we could not stop to detach, lay half imbedded on their sides. 
 
 1 Alas ! the sun set when we reached the beginning of a path, and 
 we were soon in darkness, though when the moon rose she lighted 
 the rough path every here and there, and showed Hermon towering 
 up very grandly over our heads. The descent was very steep, but 
 most of it seemed richly wooded, and, we doubted not, commanded 
 fine views by daylight. About half past eight we arrived at the 
 village of ’Ain ’Ata, where the people seemed to commiserate us 
 very much for being so late on the road. It was vexatious to find 
 that our tents had passed through this village, and that had we been 
 better informed of the distances we might have been saved all the 
 long additional and disagreeable descent which we were compelled 
 to make in the dark. How we ever got safely over the succeeding 
 
 * Porter. 
 
 
EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 road is a mystery to me; it seemed nothing but a succession of 
 smooth beds of rock turned up at a steep angle, down which the 
 poor horses slipped and sliddered hopelessly. Hill after hill had to 
 be passed, until at last we reached the town of Hasbeiya, the rows 
 of lights in the houses on the terraces looking very pretty up and 
 down the sides of the mountains. We descended to the very bottom, 
 and learned there, to our intense vexation, that the tents had gone 
 on two hours farther, and there was nothing for it but to follow 
 them through a very narrow ravine along the edge of a dry torrent 
 bed. The path was frequently not eighteen inches wide, and darkly 
 shaded with trees, and at last my poor tired horse slipped his hind 
 legs over the edge, was too worn out to recover himself, and fell, 
 turning over in the air, on to the rocks below ! We were both of us 
 soon picked up, and I remounted for the very long two hours which 
 ensued — very thankful to have escaped without serious injury ; but 
 I was so much bruised that I could not stand unassisted for three 
 days after. At last we reached a thick grove of fine old olive-trees, 
 and after firing pistols and shouting repeatedly, to our great joy we 
 were answered, and soon after reached our tents at exactly one 
 o’clock in the morning, having been seventeen hours on horseback, 
 and without any food but a bit of Arab bread. 
 
 Our tents were pitched in a delightful spot near the village of 
 Kaukaba, not only under the shade of the olives, but on rich green- 
 sward, an uncommon luxury in the East, with the waters of the 
 Hasbany close by, coming from a large spring, one of the most 
 northern sources of the Jordan; the rocky vale between us and 
 Hasbeiya was filled with tall white asphodels and fern, and every 
 little crevice held its bunch of pink cyclamen. The fair of Souk-el- 
 Klian was going on a mile farther down the valley, and we had 
 plenty of gaily-dressed passers-by : this fair is said to have been 
 held annually since the time of the Eomans. After some days’ rest 
 we went into Hasbeiya to pay a visit to the Emir, whose palace ! 
 stands, with much the air of a fortress, above the town on the steep 
 mountain side. The castle walls are quaintly ornamented with 
 square bay windows, supported on carved machicolations, and 
 brightly painted — pink, red, blue, and green. We dismounted in a 
 small court in front of the building, in which several servants and 
 gaily-caparisoned horses were standing. We had omitted to send 
 beforehand to announce our coming ; but the Emir received us very 
 graciously, and led us into the palace by a long flight of steps, and 
 through several darkish passages and chambers, till we reached his 
 reception-room, a small and ordinary apartment, with the dais railed 
 off, below which stood a crowd of attendants. This Emir is called 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 281 
 
 Sa’ad-ed-din, and is chief of the ancient family of Shehab. They 
 are now Mooslims; but having once, some generations ago, been 
 Christians, they are much despised by the true believers. He 
 looked about fifty years of age, small, and not handsome, with a 
 crafty expression of face. He made us many pretty Arab speeches, 
 for which he is rather famous, assuring us that he had never 
 admired his palace until we praised it, and that our words had 
 made it lovely, &c., &c., and then he offered to show it to us, stating 
 that it had been built by the Crusaders about a hundred years 
 before his family came into possession of it, and that they had 
 occupied it eight hundred years. It has been a fine old building, 
 but is now much decayed and dilapidated. He took us through a 
 handsome inner court and up two stories of staircases to a lofty 
 leewan arch, the entrance to the hareem — the most perfect specimen 
 of Saracenic architecture possible — a fairy-like structure of rose- 
 coloured limestone, inlaid with various polished marbles most 
 delicately and tastefully carved ; the deeply receding arches, with 
 honeycombed semi-domes, were supported on slender spiral columns, 
 with wreaths of flowers twisted round them : there were many 
 richly-carved medallions, and in the centre a broken fountain ; the 
 whole thing was both rich and elegant. The hareem apartments 
 seemed gaily painted, and a number of female slaves and hand- 
 somely-dressed little girls kept peeping out at us. The Emir’s 
 father, too old to govern now, but consulted on every occasion, sat 
 in one of the courts wrapped up in fur. Sa'ad-ed-din himself was 
 shabbily dressed ; but his servants were all well clad, and seemed 
 respectable Arabs, not slaves. He accompanied us down to the 
 court, standing while we mounted our horses, and sent a janissary 
 to guide us to the Druze Khulweh (place of worship), to which my 
 sister rode with a friend, while I remained sketching in the town, 
 not being as yet very active again. 
 
 They found it rather a long mount up to the Druze settlement, 
 but the way commanded wild and beautiful views of the mountains. 
 At last they reached some low houses and an arch, under which was 
 a strong screw press, for extracting honey from the comb, the janissary 
 said ; above this was a well-built stone terrace in front of the chapel, 
 called a Khulweh, which means “ solitude.” Some very old Druzes, 
 with long beards as white as their turbans, came forward to meet 
 them, and led them into a small enclosure, shaded by a large oak- 
 tree, where eight others were sitting in conclave on a stone divan ; 
 they were most cordially welcomed, and carpets spread for them to 
 rest on, while the old men reseated themselves in European fashion on 
 the divan. One of them was said to be a hundred years old, and had a 
 
282 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 white beard reaching below his waist ; he was bent, and rather deaf, 
 but with all the fire of youth in his clear blue eye. They said he 
 knew the English were always good friends with the Druzes, and, in 
 reply to the request of their visitors, professed themselves happy to 
 show the inside of their chapel to them ; so the oldest Druze led 
 the way into the chapel. In the outer passage they took off their 
 shoes, and thence went into a room where two rows of pillars sup- 
 ported an arched roof ; the floor was covered with thick carpets, a 
 divan of cushions round it, and piles of small cushions in the corners ; 
 they apologized that it was very poor, and that they had no orna- 
 ments to show, no hanging lamps, like the Christians, or fine 
 priests’ dresses. They said they had no distinguishing dress for 
 those in authority, and no ceremonies ; they only prayed the prayers 
 transmitted from generation to generation, and read from the sacred 
 books ; they had, they said, thirty Priests or Ukkals (the initiated), 
 who lived in this chapel during the winter. They insisted on their 
 visitors eating or drinking with them : it was “ their rule,” and they 
 “ must,” a refusal would pain them so much ; so they brought an 
 osier tray heaped up with raisins, figs, and roasted maize, of which 
 they partook ; but the Druzes were much grieved that they could 
 not stop to take a real dinner with them, and implored them to 
 return on another day : they made the servants fill -their pockets 
 with all that remained of the dried fruits. Opposite the window of 
 the room there was a very strong-looking door of pblished metal or 
 stone, which they saw by the outside must have led into a room 
 which had no outer windows ; this was probably the real chapel, 
 into which they never admit a stranger, and the outer room perhaps 
 had only been passed off upon their visitors to prevent their asking 
 any more questions. This was the very Khulweh plundered by 
 Ibrahim Pasha, when their sacred books were scattered about and 
 many of them burned. Their visitors left them with many salaams 
 and good wishes, and returned to Hasbeiya, where the Emir came 
 out to salute them as they passed by. I had in the mean time been 
 sketching on the road, to the immense surprise of the people, who 
 crowded round me, explaining to each other what I was doing, and 
 at last fell into a discussion which greatly edified me as to whether 
 I was man or woman — “ welled ” or “ bint — they became quite 
 excited in their perplexity, and propounded the difficult question in 
 a loud voice to every fresh arrival. "When I stood up and they saw 
 my long riding-habit, besides the hat, which they admired greatly, 
 they were overcome with astonishment ; but they agreed then that 
 I must be a “ bint,” not a “ welled,” while the dragoman chaffed 
 them for their stupidity. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 283 
 
 From Kaukaba we determined to make a long detour to see the 
 natural bridge over the Litaany, so we left our tents the next morn- 
 ing at 9 . 30, and ascended the other side of the yalley, passing the 
 mines, whence the workmen brought out huge cakes of pure bitu- 
 men to show us ; there are about thirty pits containing bitumen of 
 the finest quality lying in horizontal strata. At the top of the hill 
 came lovely views, looking back, of the Lake of Galilee, and looking 
 forward, of the ravine of the Litaany, into whose depths we saw 
 more distinctly as we rode along the uplands, and over brow after 
 brow of the mountains, until we reached Yah-mour, a miserable 
 Metouaalee village. Thence the mules were sent on by a more 
 practicable route, while we descended a break-neck path, cut out of 
 the rock, and overhanging the river, to the natural bridge of El- 
 Kouweh — a scene of splendid beauty, enthusiastically admired by 
 Dr. Eobinson — where the grand cliffs rise perpendicularly about 
 400 or 500 feet at each side in masses of grey limestone and bright 
 red soil, with oak, oleander, ferns, crocuses, and cyclamen bursting 
 out from every crevice. The bridge, which is formed by masses of 
 rock which have tumbled down, is about forty feet high : some fine 
 fig-trees grow under it, leaning over the madly-rushing, foaming 
 water, which throws up its white spray among their branches. It 
 -is a glorious spot, and we lingered there long before we commenced 
 the very steep and difficult ascent on the other side ; this surmounted, 
 we found a good path up the pretty, wide green valley of Mush- 
 gharrah, along which I imagine many a band of Crusaders passed 
 wearily. The wady opens up into the Bukaa, with a fine view of 
 the Anti-Lebanon range, which was then crimsoned in the setting 
 sun. Mushgharrah is situated at the foot of Jebel-Tom-Niha — the 
 twin peaks — to the west of the valley of the Litaany ; the village is 
 large, and thickly shaded with trees ; at the bottom of it, beside the 
 dashing river, is a bright little cemetery under fine walnut-trees, 
 and near it a picturesque waterfall, embosomed in foliage, rich ferns, 
 and flowers ; travellers should encamp in this pretty meadow rather 
 than mount into the village as we did. Opposite to the village, on 
 the very summit of the mountain, are two thick groves of aged trees, 
 doubtless one of the “ groves and high places ” of Baal-worship ; the 
 peasants have many legends about their sacredness. 
 
 Our ride of eight hours on the next day was one of much beauty. 
 An excellent road led through the whole valley, and we had pretty 
 views in every direction ; by-and-by we crossed a ridge which 
 divided the valley of the Litaany from the district of Esh Shukif, when 
 we found ourselves among the rich red soil and stone pines familiar 
 to us at our beloved Beit Miry. We then followed a very tortuous 
 
284 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 path over the shoulder of Jebel Bihan, with beautiful views of the 
 lakes Houleh and Tiberias, and of Hermon, looking excessively 
 grand under a dark stormy sky, with thick black clouds gathering 
 about his head, from whence peals of thunder saluted us at inter- 
 vals. We passed a rock thickly incrusted with a brilliant sulphur- 
 coloured salt, and quantities of fine fossil wood ; while all the paths 
 were shaded with myrtle bushes in full flower, from which the 
 mountain takes its name of rilian, the Arabic for myrtle : the horses 
 ate the flowers most greedily. Then came two hours of descent 
 among a forest of prickly oak and arbutus, but in which all the 
 really fine trees had been burned for charcoal : several were burn- 
 ing as we passed, the fire lighted round the roots and left to burn 
 till the tree falls. The sound of a pipe attracted us, and we searched 
 the bushes till we found a shy sheplierd-boy playing really pretty 
 airs on a rude pipe of two reeds, surrounded by his goats, who 
 seemed enchanted with the melody ; two of them were standing on 
 their hind legs with their fore paws on his shoulders. 
 
 We found our tents pitched on the hill-side by the black-looking 
 village of Jermuk. A rich valley lay beneath us, closed at the 
 southern end by the noble Castle of Belfort, called Kulat-esh 
 Shukif, which we were very anxious to visit, as a spot famous in 
 crusading annals, and because it is frequently mentioned in the old 
 chronicles by the same name as our own. The thunderstorm we 
 had been expecting broke upon us in the night, and we were nearly 
 drenched by the morning, our tents not having an outer cover; we 
 therefore determined to push on to the castle, contrary to the 
 advice of the dragomans, as we thought it quite as unpleasant to 
 sit in the rain inside as outside the tent.* So we wrapped ourselves 
 up and started: whereupon the sun came out approvingly, and 
 turned the clouds into a beautiful fresh day. We sent the tents by 
 a different route, and followed ourselves a pretty path, over breezy 
 downs, through two villages, Nubatiyeh and Arnoun, to the foot of 
 the castle hill ; thence we had an ascent of about an hour, partly 
 on foot, to the summit. 
 
 This castle is well worth a visit. It is perched on the brow of 
 an absolutely perpendicular cliff, rising 1500 feet from the bed of 
 the Litaany, which dashes in white foam over the rocks at the 
 bottom of the chasm. The other side of the ravine is not so lofty, 
 but beyond it the country slopes up to the foot of Hermon, in 
 every variety of colour, and the chasm of the river is thickly 
 
 * I may as well remark that the rain of this night and the day on Sunnin 
 in the month of June, was the only rain we had during all the months we 
 were travelling with tents. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 285 
 
 wooded. There is a deep moat round the other three sides of the 
 castle, only a': very narrow ledge on the river side being left for 
 entrance. Some of the towers are sixty or eighty feet high, with 
 sloping masonry at the foot of each, resembling the Tower of 
 Hippicus at Jerusalem. Much of the foundation of the castle is 
 built with massive stones, bearing the Phoenician bevel; probably 
 the Crusaders only added their own work to an already strong and 
 ancient fortress, since, commanding, as it did, the principal road 
 from Sidon to Damascus, and to Laish (Banias), it could never have 
 been left unfortified ; and the name still used being the same as the 
 Hebrew, seems to indicate that it was a Hebrew fortress. Shukif 
 means to overhang, or to look out from, and is used to signify the 
 same kind of overhanging or projecting rock in Numb. xxi. 20. 
 The walls are very thick, and a great number of finely-vaulted 
 chambers remain uninjured, as well as five or six staircases. In 
 the centre is the now ruined chapel built by the Crusaders, with a 
 groined roof, and a little ornament remaining on the doorways and 
 walls. How many an ardent prayer may have arisen under its 
 arches for the restoration of the Holy Sepulchre, and victory against 
 the infidels, before the pious and valiant knight went forth to 
 conquer, or— far more often — to die ! 
 
 Various are the stories connected with this castle and its posses- 
 sion by the Crusaders and by the gallant Saladin. It must ever 
 have been a place of great importance to either party. The view 
 from it is very fine indeed, and the two sister fortresses of Banias 
 and Hunin are easily distinguished. We sat here a long time, 
 sketching, and thinking over its old history, with visions of the 
 pious Louis, and Philip Augustus, and our own brave Coeur-de- 
 Lion, and listening to the utter silence of the lonely spot, when, 
 from the ruined keep of the castle, a huge eagle, disturbed by the 
 unwonted voices, uprose on 
 
 u proud and ample pinion .... 
 
 Sailing with supreme dominion 
 
 Through the azure deep of air,” 
 
 and flew majestically over to the opposite heights. 
 
 A quarter of an hour farther, the river, which flows due south 
 from the valley of the Bukaa, turns at a sharp angle to the west, 
 and the chasm, scarcely three feet wide at the bottom, bends round, 
 presenting a lovely and splendid picture. The sides are richly 
 covered with wood of many kinds, and, as far as we could see down 
 by leaning over the edge of the cliff, bright with flowers. This is 
 
286 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPUL CNEES 
 
 one of the finest spots in all Syria, and it is indeed of very singular 
 beauty. 
 
 We walked down to Arnoun, and then descended a very rough 
 path, full of lovely views, to a delightful old bridge, at the very 
 foot of the castle cliff, called Jisr Khurdeli, of high, pointed arches, 
 half hidden in trees and oleanders. We had a steep ascent on the 
 other side, ere we reached our tents, placed on the top of the ridge 
 of hills between the Litaany and Hermon, near a village called 
 Khurbeh. The great mountain was densely shrouded in clouds, 
 and for the last hour or two had appeared awfully grand and 
 black ; but the sun set just as we reached the tents, and the whole 
 scene was in a moment transformed as if by magic. The thick 
 clouds changed to sheets of rose-colour and gold, and, breaking 
 asunder, revealed the majestic mountain standing in the midst, 
 robed in a mantle of deep, dark violet and indigo blue, from whence 
 the snowy cone shone out like silver. The glorious colouring 
 lasted about a quarter of an hour, and then paled and darkened 
 away, till, from behind the immense mass, the moon rose like a 
 globe of fire, her beams touching all the mountain-tops and the 
 white villages in the valley below, where only the screaming jackals 
 disturbed the exquisite beauty of the night. 
 
 The wide valley which we had to cross the next morning — the 
 Merj Ayun, or meadow land at the southern end of the Wady-el- 
 Teim — was delightful ground for cantering on ; indeed nearly all 
 the roads in this part of the country are good, as they pass usually 
 along wide valleys. These paths not being known to dragomans, 
 we had brought an old guide, on muleback, all the way from 
 Mushgharrah, who was clever at avoiding any “ bad steps.” In 
 consideration of his venerable white beard I had addressed him 
 with “ 0 Sheikh !” which so delighted him that he stuck close to 
 my side ever after, and insisted on talking to me. He was a fine, 
 intelligent old man, and knew the country thoroughly. He told us 
 quantities [of stories about the mountains and the flowers and the 
 people, and asked numbers of questions about the “ Ingleez what 
 did we do ? how we did dress ? what did we eat ? &c., &c. ; and 
 concluded all by telling us he knew very well how to go to 
 England, — viz. “you must go to the great water with many mule- 
 loads of figs and bread and clothes, and get into a great ship, and 
 the ship would wabble very much — here he nearly fell off his mule, 
 with the excess of the wabbling — and then would go “aha-ha-ha-ha” 
 
 a note prolonged for about two minutes, to signify the 
 
 immense length of the journey. We volunteered a letter of re- 
 commendation for him to future travellers, and parted, the best of 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 287 
 
 friends, for — oh rare exception! — the old man was actually con- 
 tented with the money given him, and did not ask for more 
 baksheesh ! 
 
 We came after a conple of hours to the dyke of the Hasbany, 
 whose windings we followed, looking down on the river, tumbling 
 over black basaltic stones, and, by-and-by, reached a bridge with an 
 unpronounceable name, which belonged to a tribe of half-breed 
 Bedoueens in the neighbourhood — Jisr Gkhujar — where there were 
 delicious nooks for bathing under thickets of nebbk and oriental 
 plane, gay with oleanders. In half an hour thence we reached 
 what is called the Source of the Jordan, a beautiful spot, where the 
 water wells out with wonderful copiousness from under a grove of 
 lofty valonidis oak-trees, in a wide circle of clear crystal water, one 
 one of the largest fountains known.* Above this is a hill of rubbish, 
 covered up with trees, and stones, and huts, which cover the ruin 
 of Dan, the northern limit of the land of Israel, — “from Dan to 
 Beersheba a good situation for an important town, the hill being 
 just high enough to command the whole plain, with the “ Waters of 
 Merom,” now Lake Houleh, beyond, and the mountains closing in a 
 fine circle all round it. It was from this place that Abraham 
 chased the Mesopotamian chiefs who had taken his brother prisoner, 
 and pursued them as far as Damascus ; from here that the Children 
 of Dan expelled the careless colonists from Sidon, who had settled 
 in the “ place where there was no want of anything that is in the 
 earth,” and set up a city and an altar for themselves ; and here 
 that Jeroboam erected a golden calf to save the people the trouble 
 of making pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The meaning of the Hebrew 
 name Dan was “ Judge,” and thus the Arab of to-day does but 
 translate the ancient word into his own language, calling it Tell- 
 el-Khady, the hill of the judge. From under this hill another, 
 or part of the same, fountain flows out, and the old pilgrims, Arculf 
 in the sixth century, and Saswulf in the tenth century, relate that 
 these two fountains were called Jor and Dan — the union of the two 
 waters making the river Jordan ! This was always the frontier 
 town of Palestine, and our next twelve or fourteen days were spent 
 in Galilee. 
 
 The two hours after this lay through a charming forest of lofty 
 oaks of several kinds, the vallonea, or “oaks of Bashan,” plane, 
 caroob, and the bright foliage of the nebbk, covered with its pretty 
 little fruit, which we pulled and ate as we rode along ; the trees 
 were tangled over with vines and wild roses, making bowers from 
 
 * There is another source of the Jordan on the eastern side of Banias, called 
 Lake Phiala, from its circular shape — mentioned by Josephus. 
 
288 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 one to the other. Then we passed all through Banias, and fixed 
 our tents in an olive-grove on the other side of the town, by the 
 bank of the stream, commanding a beautiful view of the castle and 
 country. This village is so infested with serpents and scorpions 
 in the summer that every house has a sort of cage, made of 
 branches and dried leaves, erected on poles above the roof, into 
 which the inhabitants mount by a ladder to sleep, — very odd these 
 airy bedrooms look. The people are disagreeable and troublesome 
 to strangers, and we had several alarms of robbers during the 
 three nights we stayed there, besides paying a large price for the 
 permission to encamp under the olive-trees. But it was a delightful 
 spot : the ruins of the old citadel were close by, and the path led 
 through an ancient square tower of bevelled stones, over a pic- 
 turesque bridge, under which a cataract of foaming water, the 
 Za’areh, dashed down to the Jordan; the rocks over which it 
 tumbled, and the old stones of the bridge, were thickly hung with 
 long streamers of vines and blackberries, bending down to catch 
 the light spray from the water, and with lovely fronds of hart’s- 
 tongue and giant maiden-hair fern ; then the stream tumbled on 
 under an arched avenue of large plane and willow- trees, which met 
 and interlaced at the top, shading a pool that made a bathing-place 
 par excellence. It is no wonder that travellers coming up from the 
 arid, stony ugliness of Judaea should think Banias a perfect 
 paradise of loveliness, and, as Josephus calls it, a “ place of great 
 pleasure, famous and delightful;” its freshness and luxuriant 
 verdure are remarkable even to eyes lately come from the thick 
 foliage and flowers of Damascus. 
 
 Quite on the other side of the town, at the foot of a cliff of bright 
 red limestone, one of the lowest spurs of Hermon, are the remains 
 of the old Greek shrine of Pan, from which the place derives its 
 name — Pan being the Grecian representative of the Syrian god 
 Baal. A deep cave and a very copious spring made the spot suit- 
 able for the commemoration of that sylvan god ; and though not 
 now a pretty place in itself, it must have been a fine one when the 
 cavern was open and the sculptured niches perfect : still more so 
 when the “ beautiful temple of white marble ” erected by Herod the 
 Great, in honour of Caesar- Augustus, was standing. Now the 
 cavern is half filled up, and the water only oozes out at some dis- 
 tance : the niches are broken and hidden under the heaps of debris 
 of stones, broken so small that the ruins of a temple are scarcely 
 discernible, and the only <f odour of sanctity ” to be perceived at 
 present is a handsome little Wely, dedicated to the Mooslim St. 
 George, called El Xhudr, This Tomb is prettily built with twisted 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 289 
 
 and scnlptnred columns, and we found in it a carved stone, hollowed 
 at the top, which seemed like the remains of an ancient altar. The 
 view from it is fine. We scrambled down the hill, and followed the 
 stream into its delicious and lofty thickets of ash, bay, laurustinus, 
 myrtle, vine, clematis, nightshade, ever so many different roses, and 
 a thousand other plants, shading the little cascades of water and 
 hiding many remains of ancient buildings. 
 
 But the grand object at Banias is the noble Castle of Subeibeh, 
 which stands on a cliff something more than 1000 feet above the 
 town. It took us nearly two hours to reach the top, partly on foot, 
 for the way is very steep. It has been an enormous castle : but its 
 chief merit is in the splendid workmanship of the masonry. The 
 stones are very large, and nearly all of the Phoenician bevel ; the 
 plan of some of the towers and sloping substructions closely 
 resembles the Tower of Hippicus, while near the west end a 
 Saracenic hall has been built, like that at Baalbek : the groined roof 
 supported upon a central pillar. At the eastern end the castle 
 expands into almost a second castle, mounted on much higher rocks. 
 There are some remarkable cisterns hewn in the rock, one so vast 
 that it must have been able to supply a large garrison for a year 
 or two ; this is finely vaulted over, and has two stone staircases 
 descending to the bottom. Altogether this has been, I suppose, not 
 only the finest fortress in Syria, but probably was one of the most 
 ancient strongholds in the world : indeed it is said to be “ the most 
 perfect specimen extant of Phoenician military architecture.” It 
 commands a noble view from one side, but is not in itself well 
 placed for modern warfare, as, instead of being an isolated eaglet 
 eyrie, like Kulat-esh-Shukif, Subeibeh is commanded on three sides 
 by mountains closely bending round it : for the ridge on which it 
 stands is like one finger running out in the space between two other 
 fingers, both of which are loftier than itself. Some peasants 
 were cultivating tobacco in the light soil on the summit, and in the 
 turned-up earth we found bits of ancient pottery and glass, some 
 of fine colour and delicate texture, with the iridescence of time 
 very beautifully marked upon them. The slopes of the rocky 
 hill are now thickly wooded, and the whole place was spangled 
 with flowers. 
 
 The prophetic blessing pronounced by the patriarch Jacob on his 
 death-bed comes naturally to one’s mind in Banias ; for the little 
 colony of Danites seem to have been planted here exactly in the 
 spot where there could be “ a serpent by the way, an adder in the 
 path, that biteth the horse’s heels, so that his rider shall fall back- 
 ward.” The children of Israel were always subject to the incursions 
 
 v 
 
290 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and raids of the Syrians of Damascus, the Assyrians, and others ; 
 and whether they entered the land of Israel by one side or the other 
 of Hermon — whether they swept down theBukaa and the Wady-et- 
 Teim, or chose the shorter route through the upper part of Ituraea, 
 the men of Dan were always lying in ambush, as it were, under the 
 foot of the mountain, to intercept their progress, or to attack them 
 from behind ; and thus make them “ fall backward.” But Banias 
 had a deeper interest for us than any mere historical one : this was 
 the first place in which we came upon the Footsteps of our Lord, — 
 for it is the Csesarea-Philippi of the Gospels, — a name given to it 
 when it became part of the territory under the jurisdiction of 
 “ Philip Tetrarch of Ituraea, of the region of Trachonitis.” It was 
 here that the Son of Man pronounced a special blessing on the 
 ardent Peter’s confession of His Divinity, and promised that His 
 Church, built upon a rock, should be sustained through all ages : 
 
 “ six days after ” He went “ up into an high mountain apart, and 
 was transfigured before them ” : most probably, from what can be 
 gathered from the Gospels, it was to one of these lofty peaks that ! 
 He went, wooded and lonely, immediately above the town, as no 
 change of place is mentioned between His coming to Csesarea-Philippi 
 and His going up into a “ high mountain.” Hermon was; both in 
 reality and in name, the loftiest of all the mountains of Syria — the ; 
 “ high mountain ” par eminence : it had also always been considered 
 a holy mountain, probably from the worship carried on in the 
 temple upon, and those all around it; and perhaps St. Peter 
 alludes to this, as well as to its after and holier consecration, when 
 in his second Epistle (i. 18) he calls it the “ holy mount.” 
 
 It was to Banias that Agrippa II. withdrew with his sister i 
 Berenice when he found the Jews would not be ruled by him, nor 
 submit to the Bomans ; the city was afterwards visited by both j 
 Vespasian and Titus when the Roman army was encamped on the I 
 plain of Esdraelon previous to the Fall of Jerusalem : and it 
 was here, 1100 years after, that Baldwin IV., King of Jerusalem, 
 disgraced the word of a Christian and a knight, by carrying j 
 off the numerous herds of the Arabs and Turkomans to whom I 
 he had vouchsafed his royal protection: a treachery amply 
 avenged by Nour-ed-din. The coins of Csesarea-Philippi are still 
 extant. 
 
 On leaving Banias we retraced our steps to the Jisr Gkhujar, and 
 thence crossed the valley to the opposite side, among herds of 
 buffaloes and the fine horses of a Turkish Bey, put out at grass 
 among the rich pastures, and guarded by the tents of the Bedoueen 
 shepherds. A number of buffaloes followed us up the long and 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 291 
 
 
 
 steep ascent to the Castle of Hunin, and made themselves very dis- 
 | agreeable companions on the narrow path. This fortress is small 
 , and poor after Shhkif and Subeibeh, and much mined : it is a 
 j umble of Phoenician, Eoman, and Saracenic masonry. A fine hall 
 I yet remains, which has been a mosque, and is now a cow-stall ; 
 the most curious thing about the castle is the large deep moat, 
 which seems to have been hewn out of the solid rock. We passed 
 on by a very pretty path with fine views, shaded by arbutus-trees 
 | full of red berries, and found our tents on a bleak barren spot beside 
 a pool of very dirty water, the only water in the neighbourhood : 
 close to a village called Meis-el-Jebel, of strict Metouaalees, the only 
 village of that sect down here, I believe. A storm passed over our 
 heads without breaking, presenting a beautiful scene of stratified 
 clouds — five and six layers piled over each other on one spot with 
 the thunder growling through them. 
 
 Early in the morning we rode on to Kedesh, the royal city of one 
 of the Canaanite or Phoenician kings smitten by Joshua (xii. 22), a 
 “ fenced city,” and a “ city of refuge ” of the tribe of Naphtali (xix. 
 37 ; xxi. 32) ; and a holy place, as its name signifies in Hebrew, the 
 name which it still retains. We were very anxious to see the ruins 
 here, and dismounted at a small square edifice built in a very mas- 
 sive but simple style, wholly unornamented, save one bold moulding, 
 j The entrance faced the south ; inside, the four angles are filled up 
 with solid masonry, continued between each to the height of about 
 j three or four feet ; the lower parts contained three cells for bodies 
 I on each side — these had evidently all been used as tombs ; in some 
 ! of them the lids of the sarcophagi were yet remaining, and all of 
 j them were full of bones ; some of them may have been brought in 
 ! by jackals, but among them were human bones. In all there were 
 j eleven sarcophagus beds, the place of the twelfth being occupied 
 j by the doorway. The conjecture of its having been a synagogue 
 ' seems more than extraordinary, as no Jews could ever have met for 
 j prayer in such close proximity to dead bodies. The style of the 
 j building appeared to us Eoman. 
 
 Somewhat further on were several sarcophagi — two of them 
 i double ones, with places for two bodies, cut in one stone and under 
 one lid, which was peaked and sculptured all over with a pattern 
 of pine-cones or scales. The sculpture on the sides is almost quite 
 j worn out and corroded by the weather, but in some lights one can 
 ! indistinctly see an eagle sculptured at one end. On other sarco- 
 ] phagi, wreaths of leaves or pine-cone, bound together with fillets or 
 J ribbons, are really distinct ; at the angles we all thought we dis- 
 j tinguished rams’ heads with horns curling round, or ends of ribbons 
 
292 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 united with the wreaths ; there seemed also to have been rams’ 
 heads between the wreaths. 
 
 Beyond these, some parts of a temple still stand on a platform ; a 
 triple doorway, handsomely ornamented with egg moulding and 
 wreaths of leaves, resembling those of Baalbek, is much worn ; on 
 the lintel of one of the side doors we espied an eagle displayed, but 
 without crest, or streamers, or wreath, sharply carved and still very 
 clear, a double rose and other flowers sculptured on each side of 
 him ; and in a small niche a graceful-looking little figure in a toga 
 or flowing drapery. On the ground lay some capitals of rich 
 acanthus leaves ; and half buried in the soil, and overgrown with 
 thorns, we found a stone, which we thought looked like the slightly 
 curved side of an altar. We made our sais and some others dig it 
 out and turn it up, and found that it had indeed been an altar, j 
 ornamented with three cones on each side at the top, and having a 
 depression in the centre ; on one side was a representation of itself, 
 and on the other, between two palm-branches, a Greek inscription, 
 in which the word ©EOI2 was alone distinct. It appeared to us 
 that all the buildings here, and all their details, arel indubitably 
 Grecian or Boman ; and we sought in vain to discover any of the 
 grounds upon which Dr. Bobinson founds his “ conviction ” that 
 the sarcophagi were of Jewish tombs, or where he found the 
 “ splendour ” of which he speaks so strongly. 
 
 Here lived Barak, a man of much consideration among the 
 children of Israel, whom Deborah the prophetess desired to go with 
 his 10,000 men to Mount Tabor, and thence to give battle, in the 
 name of the Lord, to Sisera the Phoenician general, which he did, 
 near the Biver Kishon. Everybody remembers how the defeated 
 Sisera was treacherously assassinated by Jael, the wife of Heber, 
 the Kenite, whose tent was pitched under “the terebinths of 
 Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.* Curiously enough, all about 
 Kedesh there is still a remarkable number of lofty terebinth trees — 
 fine, large, old trees, with their pointed leaves and pretty bunches 
 of red berries, which turn green when they are ripe enough for 
 eating, and from which the Arabs press an oil, good for burning, 
 but which is very irritating if applied to wounds ; from the stem a 
 great deal of gum exudes, smelling strongly of turpentine. It is 
 curious that, though the Arabic name for these trees is Butm, 
 they call the young, tender, bright green foliage in spring “ tara- 
 binth,” a name we often heard used for them at Beit Miry. The 
 inhabitants of Kedesh-Naphtali were among the first Jews carried 
 into captivity by the Assyrians. 
 
 * Wrongly translated the “plain of Zaanaim,” Judges iv. 11. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 293 
 
 Our road led us up and down deep and wild ravines in steep, 
 zigzagging paths. We stopped for luncheon in the village of Alma, 
 where in the cemetery we saw a long plait of woman’s hair bound 
 upon one of the tombs, perhaps all the mourner had to offer ; 
 flowers lay upon another, twined into a wreath ; and upon a third, 
 a covered tomb, was a pottery vase full of ashes, in which incense 
 had been burnt. Splendid views of the Lebanon and beautiful 
 Hermon made the road pleasant : and late in the day we reached 
 Safed, a city set upon a very high, steep hill, up which our weary 
 horses toiled. The hamlet at the bottom was full of gaily painted 
 houses and little gardens, neat and tidy enough to do credit to an 
 English gardener ; but, indeed, all Safed is neat, being inhabited 
 chiefly by Germans and Poles, thrifty, industrious, and thriving. 
 The town was almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake in 1837 ; 
 it remained in ruins for many years, and all the houses are newly 
 built or building. We saw numbers of very handsome girls and 
 boys in the village. 
 
 Safed is one of the “ holy cities ” of the Jews, and Israelites from 
 all parts of the world come to reside here. It once possessed 
 celebrated schools, at which many a learned Babbin was educated, 
 both before and after it had been one of the chief strongholds of the 
 Latin kingdom of Jerusalem : now the streets are full of foreigners, 
 and the variety of costumes and countenances is very grotesque. 
 The views from it are magnificent, extending over what was the 
 Kingdom of Bashan to the east, with the lovely Lake of Tiberias at 
 one s feet, and the mountains of Hattin and Tabor to the south : on 
 the other side are the stern, wild-looking hills of Jermuk, very dark 
 and bold. In truth the view from the crumbled Castle of Safed 
 is one of the loveliest in Syria ; for all the country round it is varied 
 and mountainous, with rich woods and green valleys. The path by 
 which we left it wound down a steep ravine with ever-changing 
 views of the Lake, while from every crevice between the broken 
 rocks bloomed an infinite number of giant pink cyclamens and 
 purple auriculas. By-and-by we came into a green grassy valley, 
 and were slowly crossing it, when suddenly a Bedoueen appeared 
 in the distance, and soon after another and another. They re- 
 connoitered us a little, and then rode straight down upon us. As 
 this part of the country has a tolerably bad character, we all 
 thought we were in for it, and closed up in a body; but they 
 only parleyed with our guide, kissed him, and rode off. We, 
 however, took the hint, and waited till our baggage came up, 
 uniting our forces for our mutual protection. Turning round the 
 next hill, we looked down upon their encampment of black tents. 
 
294 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 with large herds of cattle; and further on we found a delicious 
 valley of nebbk trees, where scores of graceful camels with their 
 young ones were feeding. A lovely scene it was, increasing in 
 beauty as we reached the shores of the Lake, so dear to the heart of ; 
 the Christian, constantly trodden by the feet of our blessed Lord, 
 that one almost looks to find some visible trace remaining of His 
 Presence. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 295 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HIS OWN CITY AND HIS EARLY HOME. 
 
 “ But all things feel 
 
 The power of Time and Change ! thistles and grass 
 
 Usurp the desolate palace, as the weeds 
 
 Of Falsehood root in the aged pile of Truth.” — Thalaba. 
 
 There are few places about which the reports of travellers seem to 
 differ more completely than the Lake of Tiberias. Miss Martineau 
 says she thought, at first sight, that she had never seen a sheet of 
 water with so little beauty : Lord Lindsay calls it lovely : Dr. 
 Robinson says its attractions lie in the associations, not the scenery : 
 while Strauss pronounces it the most beautiful place in all the 
 earth. Much of these diversities of opinion arise, doubtless, from 
 the road by which it is reached ; but very much more is owing to 
 the season at which it is visited. Most persons go there late in the 
 spring, hurrying over the end of their Syrian tour, after witnessing 
 the Easter ceremonies at Jerusalem; doubtless then, and for 
 probably six or seven months after, it is intolerably hot, feverish, 
 unhealthy in the extreme to strangers, and very dreary; grey 
 vapours, hot mists and fogs, thicken the air and obscure the 
 delicate tints of the colouring. The fact is, that in spring and 
 summer the barren mountains of Palestine have no colouring : they 
 are veiled in a monotonous dust-coloured mist, neither interesting 
 nor striking. At all times of the year the basin in which this Lake 
 lies is very hot, for the country rises in a steady though gentle 
 ascent, from the coast of the Mediterranean to the brow of the 
 mountain which forms the western shore of the Lake ; while from 
 that brow the Lake is sunk down 653 feet below the level of the 
 sea, the cliffs on the other side rising to about 1000 feet. The 
 thermometer in summer frequently rises above 100° in the shade 
 and fevers are prevalent : the hot and cruel blasts of the sirocco 
 
296 
 
 E G YET/A N SEPUL CURES 
 
 commence in the spring, filling the air with the burning sand of the 
 Desert, but ripening the melons (for which Tiberias is famous), 
 tobacco, and grapes, a month or six weeks before those of Damascus 
 or Saida. Towards the end of .the year the southern and eastern 
 winds die away, and pleasant breezes from the north and north- 
 west take their place, laden with the cool freshness they gather 
 from the snowy summit of Lebanon ; and it is said that snow has 
 occasionally fallen on the Lake in the winter. 
 
 We arrived there on the 17th of November, and found, although 
 the full sunshine was intolerable and the air altogether oppressive, 
 yet it was not sufficient to make any of us feel ill ; we were, on the 
 contrary, very comfortable in the shade : there was sometimes a 
 refreshing breeze, especially on the water, and the colouring of the 
 scenery was really beautiful : the mountains, arid and barren 
 masses of rock on the eastern side, were clothed nearly all day in 
 delicate lilacs and purples, sometimes rosy, sometimes golden ; the 
 water was always of a light greyish blue ; the nebbk and walnuts 
 that fringe the western shore were in their highest luxuriance, and 
 the blossoms of oleanders were absolutely glorious. 
 
 The Lake is about twelve and a half miles long : the miserable 
 town of Tiberias with its broken walls, the single dome of the Hot 
 Baths, and the hamlet of Mejdel, all : on the western side, are the 
 only signs of humanity to be seen around its waters, — north, south, 
 and east, the same silent, arid, almost desolate aspect meets the eye ; 
 the little sail of one rickety old boat, on rare occasions, is seen 
 on its sacred waters; and the most really beautiful object in the 
 panorama is the lofty cone of glorious Hermon, snow-crowned, and, 
 for most part of the year, snow-covered, filling up the whole of the 
 northern end of the Lake. Probably few places in Palestine present 
 a more striking and complete contrast in its modern appearance to 
 what it once was. In the time of our Lord seven or eight cities 
 graced its banks, several of them magnificently adorned with stately 
 palaces, spacious halls, theatres, forums, racecourses, and splendid 
 temples ; the wares of every known country, from the far shores of 
 Spain, Greece, and Egypt, to those of Persia and the Indies, mingled 
 in the market-places with those of Damascus, Tyre, and Jerusalem, 
 while the white sails of numerous ships crowded its waters, carrying 
 merchants or their merchandise, fishermen, or troops of Eoman 
 soldiers. Now, not one stone lies upon another of all the edifices 
 that lined the shores ; silence reigns on all around ; and the dis- 
 appearance of Sodom and Gomorrah is not more complete than that 
 of the cities of the Lake. 
 
 It was in Tiberias that Herod Antipas held his court when 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 297 
 
 Tetrarch of Galilee, and it is said that there, seated on a throne of 
 Parian marble inlaid with precious stones, he gave the fatal order 
 to Salome, the daughter of the miserable Herodias, for the exe- 
 cution of John the Baptist, while not one of the dissolute crowd 
 gathered around the person of the infamous king put forth a hand 
 to save the stern saint. Well might it be said of the inhabitants of 
 the voluptuous cities then standing on the shores of the busy Lake, 
 that they were “ a strange intermixture of Hebrews without faith, 
 Bomans without honour, men without courage, and females without 
 modesty.” Among such as these, how must the gentle spirit of the 
 pure and holy Jesus have been bruised, stricken, and afflicted! 
 Yet here He, who came not to do His own will, was found more 
 often than in any other place. Here, after He had “ increased in 
 wisdom and stature,” He removed from the home of His childhood, 
 and dwelt in Capernaum, thenceforth called “ His own city,” with 
 the sufferers whose infirmities He had taken and whose sicknesses 
 He had borne, the woman whose sins He had forgiven, and a few 
 poor fishermen who had left all to follow Him as His companions 
 and friends. Here He was especially the Son of Man, the Friend 
 Who sticketh closer than a brother, encouraging the weak fears 
 of one, healing the little daughter or faithful servant of another, 
 restoring the lost, and taking little children in His arms, binding 
 up the broken-hearted, bringing good tidings to the meek, and 
 opening the prison to those that were bound— the Comforter of all 
 that mourned, changing the spirit of heaviness into the garment 
 of praise — the Consoler and Giver of Best. Here, too, He was 
 essentially the Divine Teacher, whose lessons sunk into the hearts 
 of His hearers by their homely words and examples taken from all 
 thatUheir eyes gazed on day by day; the Conqueror also of the 
 spirits of darkness and evil, and of the stormy wind and sea ; the 
 Anointed of the Lord proclaiming the acceptable year, as well as 
 the day of vengeance of our God. Here, “ the people which sat in 
 darkness saw great light,” — and thence, He departed and began 
 that long journey which was only finished on the Cross of agony. 
 Every spot seems living with Gospel associations — and here, more 
 than in any other place, save Jerusalem, the natural features of the 
 landscape bring to mind His discourses and daily teachings. This 
 is the great charm of the Lake of Galilee. 
 
 We reached the shore at ’AinjTabighali ; and pitched our tents 
 beside the bubbling, rushing stream, which gushes out from among 
 thickets of nebbk and agnus-castus; the hum of the tent pitching 
 soon died away, and we wandered out to the low rocks and loose 
 stones upon the sandy beach, just at the edge of the water, and spent 
 
298 
 
 E G YETI A N SE PUL CURES 
 
 the evening in watching the lovely scene before ns. The hills that 
 sloped down from Safed, backed by Jebel Jermuk, and Kurn 
 Hattin, all green and verdant, swept round on our right at the back 
 of the little plain of Gennesaret, to the mountain behind the town of 
 Tubariyeh (Tiberias), now dark and purple in the shade, while the 
 dark brown town, and the white Baths, were distinctly to be seen 
 beyond the luxuriant foliage of the little plain ; on the left, every 
 gully, ravine, and crag of the rugged mountains of Bashan were lit 
 up by the dying rays of the sun, while to the south both sides united 
 in the blue, clear distance of the Jordan hills at the foot of the Lake. 
 The flowers of the agnus-castus perfumed the air, the fish sported 
 visibly in and out of the waters, and not a sound was heard but 
 the bubbling of the fountain and the little tinkling bells of the 
 mules. 
 
 This ’Ain Tabighah is the only creek on the shores of the Lake 
 where, from the shelving, instead of rocky, nature of the beach, a 
 boat could be drawn up on the land ; and it has, therefore, been 
 conjectured (with good reason) to be the scene of the second miracu- 
 lous draught of fishes ; it is also with much probability considered 
 as the home of Simon Peter, and Andrew, James and John. It is 
 now agreed upon by most learned men that there were two Beth- 
 saidas — one of which was exalted into the dignity of a city by 
 Philip, the tetrarch of Gaulanitis Itursea and Trachonitis, and to 
 which the name of Julia, the daughter of Caesar, was given by him 
 after he had enlarged and embellished it. This town, of course, 
 stood on the east side of the Jordan, where only Philip had jurisdic- 
 tion : no more than a few heaps of stones now mark the spot, but 
 much more is probably hidden under the mound that covers the 
 site. Looking down from the hills above, we had been able to 
 discern the place with the river flowing past it into the Lake : there 
 is a deep ravine behind it, and some uplands of green grass, on 
 which, or on the grassy meadow between it and the river bank, it 
 must have been that the multitude was miraculously fed by our Lord ; 
 and from thence that He “ passed over the Lake to Capernaum” 
 (John vii. 15,17). The other Bethsa'ida was called “of Galilee” 
 (John xii. 21), thus implying that there were two towns of the same 
 name, and that this must have been on the western side of Jordan ; 
 it probably stood near the beach, since its name, “ house of fish,” 
 seems to denote a village of fishermen. It has been supposed to have 
 occupied a position near this little creek, though no remains of 
 buildings have fixed the spot. It was to this place, when sad and 
 lonely at His absence, knowing, indeed, of His Resurrection, but no 
 longer dwelling familiarly with Him, as^of old, that seven of His 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 299 
 
 disciples returned, with their hearts full of deep but awed affection, 
 pondering over His sufferings and their own weakness, and recom- 
 menced their old occupations. Here therefore, close by that little 
 creek, after a night of weary and fruitless toil, they saw Him 
 standing on this shore, in the dim twilight of the dawn, and heard 
 His sweet, gentle command to them, to cast in the net for the fish 
 they sought : then the loving heart of St. John quickly recognised 
 his Lord, and St. Peter, trembling with eagerness and affection, 
 threw on the rough garb that lay beside him, and hastened through 
 the shallow water to the spot whereon He stood, yet durst not ask 
 Him, Is it Thou, 0 Lord ? Here, too, the solemn question came to 
 Peter, “Lovest thou Me ?” to which the zealous disciple, his heart 
 beating with the joy of having again found his Lord and Master, 
 readily answered “ Yea, Lord and a second time, thinking, perhaps, 
 that the strength of his love was doubted, or that the Saviour 
 desired, as the affectionate disciple would have done himself, another 
 assurance of his devotion, he answered with the same readiness, — 
 but when yet again, the third time, the question was repeated, Peter 
 paused ; had he been unmindful of its true meaning ? did the love 
 his Lord demanded imply another kind of love, than the half careless 
 mind though ready heart had fathomed? Pangs of conscience 
 perhaps struck him, memories of opportunities wasted, warnings 
 forgotten, advice and precepts thrown away ; a horrible remorse arose 
 from the threefold question, when he remembered how three times 
 he had denied his Lord in public, while again, in the stillness of 
 the morning, the crowing of the cock sounded in his ears : and who 
 can tell whether in that moment visions swept not across his mind 
 of future sorrow, and pain, and suffering, and something told him 
 of a love, so far exceeding all he had felt that it would enable him to 
 bear agony and wrong in patience and gladness of soul and so, 
 with a heart bursting with, humility and self-abasement, and yet of 
 profound love, he answered, “ Thou only, 0 Lord, knowest ! fain 
 would I have this love, but Thou only canst give it, or keep it in me. 
 I am Thine, do with me as seemeth good in Thy sight and Jesus 
 gave him His divine command. He laid the Cross upon his 
 shoulders, and put the Cup of which He had drank into his hand, and 
 when He had done this He said unto him : “ Follow Me unto the 
 fountains of living waters, where God Himself shall wipe away all 
 tears from thine eyes.” 
 
 There was not the faintest ripple on the water as we rode along 
 the shore the next morning, skirting the hillside, to the ruins of 
 Tell-Hum, the difficulties of exploring which are recounted as very 
 terrific by most travellers, owing to the dense crop of thistles, about 
 
300 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 the height of a man on horseback, which flourish over the ruins : 
 now, in the autumn, they were all dead, and gave us no incon- 
 venience. The site, which is close to the beach, is covered thickly 
 with heaps of hewn stones, of a very dark limestone, almost black ; 
 those in situ are only foundations with bases and plinths of columns, 
 while masses of ornamental lintels, doorposts, cornices, and friezes 
 lie on the ground confusedly piled up. There was one acanthus- 
 leaved capital, and many stones with the egg moulding and a pro- 
 fusion of other ornaments. Among the broken columns were several 
 bases composed of one square and two round columns combined, 
 one side of the square being rounded out into two half-circles, and 
 all cut in the same block, — the same combination as we had seen on 
 the Triumphal Arch, and other buildings at Palmyra : Dr. Robinson 
 and Mr. Porter say that they are indicative of a Jewish synagogue. 
 But our interest soon centered in a large stone, on which, stooping 
 down into a hole, we saw some curious figures, and immediately got 
 three men to upturn it for us, in order to obtain a more distinct view ; 
 and of which, in spite of the burning midday sun, I took a careful 
 drawing. The stone was of a very white limestone, about three feet 
 and a half long and eighteen inches high ; on one side was carved, 
 not in high relief, the representation of a temple on wheels, with 
 pilasters against the wall, the capitals of which were a rude kind of 
 double nick or tooth, something like the usual top to a Greek altar : 
 the door, a double one with panels, has one side sculptured so as to 
 appear ajar, or pushed a little open outwards ; in the tympanum 
 was an ornament resembling rays, or possibly leaves. The roof was 
 arched over with regular depressions on the arching, to our minds 
 unmistakably representing curtains pressed down, or drawn in 
 with cords ; two wheels, with six spokes in each, were carved 
 beneath the side. Beyond the temple three large fiaZ/’-acanthus 
 leaves were rather richly sculptured, with a border of leaves 
 curling up from under them. The stone was broken at each end. 
 It occurred to us each at once. Should Dr. Robinson be right in 
 supposing that a Jewish synagogue stood here, might not this be 
 a representation of the Ark ? possibly part of a panel or a frieze 
 commemorative of tlie return of the Ark to the people of Israel when 
 it was sent back by the Philistines*? or of “ the Ark of God set 
 upon a new cart,” and brought up by David from Kirjath-jearim to 
 Jerusalem, with music and dancing, and the sound of the trumpet;! 
 the half-acanthus leaves may have been a comparatively modern 
 representation of the flowers, and wreaths, and green branches spread 
 in the way? In the Mishna we are told that the sanctuary of 
 * 1 Sara. yi. t 2 Sam. vi. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 301 
 
 Shiloh “ was a structure of low stone walls, with the tent drawn oyer 
 the top."’ # The Ark was undoubtedly only covered over at the top 
 by hangings, one of which was hung entirely inside the woodwork, 
 the others were thrown over it. f In the embellishment of the sides 
 of the edifice the artist may have added imaginary pilasters, accord- 
 ing to the buildings of the time in which he lived ; but the fact of 
 the open roof, with only the curtain of fine linen and embroidery 
 between it and the sky, he was not likely to forget. 
 
 I cannot but hope that the account given here may arrest the 
 attention of some scholars whose researches have been directed 
 to the subjects connected with Hebrew archaeology, and that some 
 interesting result may be drawn from the consideration of this very 
 remarkable stone. $ 
 
 It would seem, from the expressions used by Christ in up- 
 braiding the cities in which His mighty works had been done, 
 as if Capernaum (Capher, a village; naum, of Nahum, a proper 
 name), had been a city superior (“ exalted to heaven”) to the 
 others ; but so immediate had been its downfall, and so complete 
 was its abasement, that Josephus only mentions it as “ a village 
 called Capernaum.” The splendour that evidently once existed 
 here, from the unusual profusion of ornament, seems to indicate 
 that Tell Hum must be the site of a city more than ordinarily 
 handsome. It is also worthy of mention that Josephus, being 
 wounded in a skirmish fought where the Jordan falls into the 
 Lake, “not far from the banks,” was carried, naturally, to the 
 nearest place for aid, and that place was Capernaum §; and if 
 Capernaum stood upon an elevation, as has been thought probable 
 from our Lord’s custom of singling out those characteristics of 
 places which most obviously struck the eye. Tell Hum’ is the only 
 site between the Jordan and Mejdel, where ruins have been found, 
 that is placed on a hill : the city which once stood here, whichever 
 it was, must have been much more conspicuous than any other, 
 except Tiberias, on the western side of the Lake. There are no 
 
 * Mishna, ed. Surenhusius, vol. v. p. 59. 
 
 f See Munk, pp. 155, 156. 
 
 J The Jews first commenced the institution of synagogues in their towns 
 after the Captivity, or about the time of Ezra. They were at first only, rooms, 
 and afterwards buildings, set apart as places of meeting for the purposes of 
 joint prayer and religious instruction. Each synagogue was served by several 
 ministers, under one chief or principal, one of whom recited the prayers and 
 expounded certain chapters of the Pentateuch, or Prophets. At other times 
 the synagogues served, then as now, as school rooms for the children, who 
 were gratuitously taught to read by the scribes and doctors who frequented 
 the synagogue, or by the ministers attached to it. — Munk. 
 
 § Joseph. Life, 72. 
 
302 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL C HR ES 
 
 other ruins between Tiberias and the Jordan to be at all compared, 
 either in extent or richness, to those of Tell Hum ; but beyond it, 
 two miles further north, there are heaps of hewn stones, enough 
 for a town, called by the Arabs Kerazeh, exactly answering to the 
 description given by St. Jerome of the situation of Chorazin. 
 Probably the positions of Capernaum and Bethsaida will never be 
 ascertained ; but the remains at Kerazeh deserve to hold a place 
 as one of the three, all the more as there are really no remains of 
 ancient buildings at ’Ain Tabighah, unless, indeed, the ground has 
 closed over them. 
 
 We were unable to make any investigation to the north, beyond 
 a general view, and, much to our regret, we found it impossible to 
 ride to Kerazeh or to cross the Jordan ; Bedoueens were encamped 
 at both, the two tribes were at war with each other, and we could 
 not find a guide to take us to either in safety. Two men offered 
 themselves for the ^purpose, announcing that they were Bashi- 
 Bazouks, but we had no means of ascertaining that they were 
 such, and it would have been highly unsafe to venture among the 
 Bedoueens without protection. So we reluctantly turned round 
 and rode back to ’Ain Tabighah, whence the tents had already 
 gone on, as we thought a second night in such close neighbourhood 
 to the Bedoueens might be too strong a temptation for them to 
 resist, and we had been warned by several prowlers coming in the 
 previous night about the tents, who received a somewhat warmer 
 reception than they expected. 
 
 In about a quarter of an hour, passing along a rock-cut road, we 
 had reached the little Plain of Gennesaret, a semicircular plain 
 left by the suddenly receding hills, and covered with rich vege- 
 tation, the only flat meadow land on the borders of the Lake, except 
 just where the Jordan falls into and runs out of it. On the north 
 side of the plain a few stones lie scattered about, and a few more, 
 it is said, lie under the trees and little mounds further on ; if this 
 be really the site of Capernaum, as some believe, never was there 
 a city more entirely levelled and annihilated ! The principal 
 argument for this idea is that here, gushing from the base of the 
 cliff which borders the plain to the north, is a fountain or spring 
 containing numbers of very tiny semi-transparent fish gliding about 
 among the pebbles : these have been suggested to be the same as 
 the fish alluded to by Josephus, similar to some in a lake near 
 Alexandria, which fountain, he says, the people of the country 
 called Capernaum. The spring is shaded by two fine fig-trees, 
 whence its name, “’ Ain et teen” (teen, Arabic for fig): a number of 
 camels were browsing on the nebbk bushes and drinking from the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 303 
 
 clear water, while the baby camels were gambolling about the 
 plain. A little further on, some old walls are all that remain of a 
 khan mentioned by many writers even 300 years ago, as Khan 
 Mineyeh. This little plain, once the rich garden of whatever city 
 stood here, is now covered only with deep thickets of oleanders 
 loaded with blossoms, giant thistles of beautiful colours, nebbk and 
 agnus-castus, whose pretty spikes of lavender flowers made the air 
 fragrant ; the shore was one mass of tiny shells, which the mule- 
 teers kept picking up, begging us to admire them; we brought 
 away great numbers after strolling over the plain. Mejdel, the 
 modern representative of the old Magdala, from whence Mary 
 Magdalene is said to have derived her name, is only a collection of 
 wretched hovels, which looked picturesque enough at the moment, 
 from a large caravan which was resting there, laden with apples 
 and pears, en route from Damascus to Nazareth. We found our 
 tents pitched by the cemetery on the site of ancient Tiberias, a 
 little to the south of the modern town, and close to the edge of the 
 water ; this position was very quiet, cool and pleasant, free from all 
 the annoyances and uncleanness for which the town is so famous. 
 
 We engaged the one fishing boat of Tiberias to take us on the 
 following morning to the ravine directly opposite the town, Wady 
 Fik, the site of ancient Gamala ; but finding that some Bedoueens 
 were encamped between the shore and the Tombs, we turned 
 southwards, and in two hours reached the pleasant grassy banks 
 where the Lake passes quietly into the Ghor, or valley of the 
 Jordan : we landed on the eastern bank of the river, and walked 
 across the meadows between one or two of its windings among 
 nebbk trees and flowers and dhourra fields. The banks were 
 bordered with thick cane-brakes, with their long lank leaves 
 floating like streamers on the wind and the waters, and we heard 
 the wild boars moving about in the depths of the brake; a 
 camel was suckling two pretty little camels under a tree, and kids 
 were sporting in the stubble. Then we got down to the river’s 
 edge and began picking up lovely shells, when presently I saw a 
 little snake, about two feet long, come swimming slowly towards 
 me ; its body was lying in curves just under water, and its pretty 
 head stood erect some three inches out of it, perking about from 
 side to side in the most knowing fashion, but very gracefully : it 
 stopped and regarded me with wonder, and I threw a little stone at 
 it to see what it would do ; the creature swam rapidly to shore at 
 my very feet, stopped a moment, turning round for another look at 
 me, then rushed among the pebbles and darted away into a hiding- 
 place. 
 
304 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 We sat down under the shade of the rocks, and one of onr 
 boatmen walked knee-deep into the Lake with a little net ; in a few 
 minutes he had a dozen fish, each about the size of a mackerel ; 
 the other man collected two or three sticks and built up a little 
 pile over a morsel of charcoal, on which he placed the fish; the 
 sticks were lit with his cigarette, and in five minutes he brought 
 them to us nicely broiled : most excellent they were. One could 
 not help remembering the “ fire of coals ” (charcoal), and “ the fish 
 laid thereon/’ and the blessed invitation of the Eisen Lord to His 
 apostles, “ Come and dine,” while we could look round at the very 
 mountains and Lake that had met His own human eyes, and feel 
 that we were indeed seeing the same objects, breathing the same 
 air, and treading the same shell-covered shore that our blessed 
 Saviour Himself had done. We went very slowly back to Tiberias 
 late in the afternoon, enjoying the sweet, gentle air and the lovely 
 view — the sunshine purpling the barren eastern mountains, and 
 illuminating the old fortress above Gamala, Safed Castle standing 
 up aloft on the left, while the golden clouds mantled in long 
 ribbons across the head of noble Hermon, and tinged all the snow 
 with beautiful rose-colour. If any one wants to feel the beauty of 
 the Lake of Gennesaret, let him spend a November or December 
 evening on its bosom, watching the varying scene, till all has faded 
 into darkness ; till he has done that, he has not understood that 
 Lake ; here above all places one realizes in the scenery, over which 
 the familiar associations of Scripture have cast their halo, that 
 
 “ The colouring may be of this earth, 
 
 The lustre comes of heavenly birth.” 
 
 This Lake is literally teeming with fish : we had four kinds at 
 dinner, caught by a man standing on the shore in front of our tents ; 
 but as no one catches them in any other way, of course very few, 
 comparatively, are taken. Josephus says the water in it is very 
 remarkable for its coldness and “ subtle flavour;” we thought it, 
 however, particularly flat and mawkish. The bread made by the 
 Polish Jews in the town is delicious. Tubariyeh, as it is called, is 
 most melancholy-locking, from the utter ruin caused by the earth- 
 quake of 1837, when several hundred houses were thrown down, the 
 walls crumbled into heaps, the towers broken into gaps, and the 
 place more than half destroyed. This is one of the four holy cities 
 of the Jews, in one of which they expect the Messiah will come upon 
 earth; the chief part of the population is composed of Jews from 
 Poland, Bohemia, Eussia, and Spain. When the Jews ceased to 
 fight for Palestine as their country, many learned rabbins retired to 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 305 
 
 Tiberias, where a celebrated academy was founded ; and here, about 
 the year a.d. 180, the holy Eabbi Judah, who traced his descent 
 from one of the skeletons restored to life by Ezekiel, made the 
 famous collection of Jewish laws and traditions known by the name 
 of the Mishna. The Jews in Palestine were united into a sort of 
 religious society, under a Nasi or patriarch, who resided at Tiberias. 
 The town was originally built by Herod Antipas, who bestowed 
 lands and privileges on the Jews to induce them to settle there, in 
 spite of the repugnance they felt for a town, the foundations of 
 which had been laid among many ancient tombs. The hot baths 
 close by are said to resemble those of Aix-la-Chapelle, and not far 
 from them, to the south, is the site of Tarichsea, the unhappy town 
 taken by Titus, aided by a small fleet, when the whole Lake was 
 discoloured with blood, and 6500 corpses left upon its shores, while 
 30,000 still more unfortunate Jews were taken captive and sold in 
 the market-place of Corinth. 
 
 The governor of the town came down to our tents on Sunday 
 morning, to answer our inquiries for a guide to Uni Keis, the 
 ancient Gadara in Gilead, on the eastern side of Jordan; he brought 
 a man whom he warranted a safe guide, as he declared him to be 
 one of the Beni-Sahkr Arabs who inhabit the mountains about Um 
 Keis— a great and noble tribe whom we were anxious to see ; but 
 the man turned out to be one of the pretended Bashi-Bazouks at 
 ’Ain Tabighah, and we therefore thought that he was likely to make 
 a very indifferent guard or guide. The next morning the governor, 
 meeting one of the dragomans in the town, whispered to him that 
 the man was altogether a rogue, but that he knew of no other more 
 honest to go with us, so we were obliged to give up that expedition 
 also, and a very great disappointment it was. In consequence of 
 this delay it was late before we started for the caves of Wady-el- 
 Haman, of the fortified caverns of which Josephus gives such an 
 interesting account (B. J. i. .16) : Herod the Great only succeeded in 
 dislodging the banditti who inhabited them, by letting his troops 
 down in chests by ropes, from the brow of the perpendicular cliffs 
 above ; he subdued them, but not one yielded to his entreaties that 
 they would save themselves by surrender ; one father slew his wife 
 and seven sons, before he threw himself down the precipice, rather 
 than yield to the hated Boman.* It was a steep and hot ride up the 
 romantic glen of the little river, the horses barely finding room for 
 their feet along the mountain side, after which we had a great pull 
 
 * These caves had been the scene of another bloody massacre of Jews, who 
 had taken refuge in them in B.c. 160, by the troops of Demetrius, King of 
 Syria. 
 
 X 
 
306 ] 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 on foot up to the caverns. They are natural caves artificially 
 deepened, with internal passages and staircases communicating with 
 each other hewn out behind and in front of the rock : story after 
 story, one above another, here and there a strong wall or a tower, a 
 passage or a bastion, prettily built of yellow and black stones in 
 alternate layers ; there were cisterns also in each, but all were now 
 full of the bones of bears and jackals, and crammed with bats, smelling 
 powerfully and sickeningly. We reached the bottom with some dif- 
 ficulty, and continued our way as best we could through the thickets 
 in the ravine, where monstrous boulders were lying, and whence 
 the cliffs on either side rose, often quite perpendicularly, to the 
 height of six or seven hundred feet. Then we turned up suddenly 
 to the left, to visit the remains of Beth Arbel (Hosea x. 14), the 
 Arbela of Josephus. The ruins extend for a considerable distance 
 in heaps of broken stones, with here and there a roughly-built arch 
 which looked Boman ; but in the midst of them there is an important 
 ruin, which has been suggested to be that of a Jewish synagogue. 
 The columns of two portals, one within another, still stand erect, 
 remarkable for being dissimilar in the pairing, a round and a square 
 column supporting the same arch; an acanthus-leaved capital lay 
 on the ground, and a slab on which two small columns with their 
 bases were sculptured in high relief, one of a close spiral pattern, 
 the other enriched with vertical flutings filled with roses or quatre- | 
 foils. Probably many more pieces of sculpture are buried under 
 the debris. It was a noble site for a city, overlooking the ravine 
 below, and the blue Lake to the right, as well as the sites of more 
 than one of the cities that surrounded the Lake ; Safed sitting aloft j 
 in her shining whiteness seeming quite close on the summit of her 
 peaked mountain — “ a city that cannot be hid and Hermon filling 
 up the distance. 
 
 We were now in the plain or plateau where it has been conjectured 
 the Sermon on the Mount was delivered beneath the two horns of ■ 
 the curious-looking mountain called Burn Hattin : it seems a very 
 long way from the Lake and from Capernaum, near which such 
 numbers of people were more likely to have been collected than on 
 this rather out-of-the-way upland. But here, certainly, the dreadful 
 battle of Hattin was fought by the Crusaders against Salah-ed-din 
 in 1187, when Guy de Lusignan, the King of Jerusalem, and the j 
 Grand-master of the Templars were both taken prisoners. Here 
 also, only a few years ago, Agheel Agha, the Sheikh of the Hawara 
 Arabs, fell upon the Governor of Tubariyeh, and killed him and 
 ninety of his followers. We plodded on through fields of stubble j 
 and tall thistles, teazles and wild caraways, with the round 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 307 
 
 ungraceful hump of Tabor as our goal. But, alas ! our long detour 
 had taken more time than we had counted on, and the sun set ere 
 we had crossed the desolate, lonely hills and reached the Khan of 
 Tughjar, a place famous for robbers, but beautifully situated in a 
 park-like country of noble oaks. Our guide would not face the 
 Bedoueens whom we found encamped at the foot of the mountain, 
 and we had no idea how to reach our tents on the summit ; it was 
 very unsafe to go up to their camp without a guide or introduction, 
 but we could not help ourselves; we had not shawls or cloaks 
 enough in which we could lie down till daylight, and we were 
 besides dreadfully hungry, so we rode boldly in among the open 
 tents and glaring fires, and were soon in a crowd of men, women, 
 and children : we told them we had a letter to Agheel Agha, their 
 chief, and wanted a guide up the mountain. They gave us water, 
 and three men accompanied us beyond the savage-looking camp, 
 but it was impossible, in the thick darkness, to ride ; the guides 
 felt with their hands in advance, and then called to us to come on, 
 but they were often at fault, and then we had to retrace our steps 
 amid the dense thickets of trees. After three whole hours of 
 groping, clambering, and scrambling of a very unpleasant nature, 
 we gained the summit, and arrived at our tents at 10 p.m. When 
 we saw the side of the mountain by daylight afterwards, it seemed 
 a miracle how we had ever got up it in the dark ; even the regular 
 path is bad enough. 
 
 Tabor* is an isolated hill, clothed on two sides with a thick 
 covering of oaks, some of which are said to be peculiar to this 
 mountain ; they grow only too closely, but there are many noble 
 trees amongst them, besides quantities of terebinth and nut-trees, 
 with lentisk and other shrubs, while the rich, soft grass is covered 
 with gum-cistus, gigantic cyclamens f, and white crocuses. The 
 other sides of Tabor are entirely bare ; it is said to stand 1400 feet 
 above the plain, and 1860 above the sea. It was probably the 
 boldness and peculiarity of its outline, and the impression of 
 strength and mightiness that the mountain gives, rising abruptly 
 from the very flat plain, that caused the Prophet Jeremiah to say 
 the King of Babylon shall come up “ like Tabor among the moun- 
 tains ” (xlvi. 18) to destroy Egypt. Except for its delicious verdure 
 
 * Archbishop Mislin says that the word Tabor expresses something of the : 
 purity or light attainable at an elevation, figuratively speaking, a sort of 
 “ excelsior.” 
 
 f We found great numbers of the leaves of the cyclamen measuring eight 
 and nine inches in length ; they were like thick, soft, green velvet, most 
 beautifully marked and mottled. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and lofty trees it has no great beauty, and its outline is remarkably 
 ungraceful. It seems to have beeen always a gathering place for 
 the northern tribes of Israel, standing as it did on the line that 
 divided Zebulon from Naphtali, whence they descended, sword in 
 hand, into the rich plains below ; and it probably soon became one 
 of the “ high places ” of idolatry (Hosea v. 1). A strong fortress, it 
 is believed, has ever existed on its summit, and extensive remains, 
 possibly of the fortifications erected by Josephus, are still to be 
 seen. All this entirely precludes the idea of this mountain having 
 been chosen for the scene of the Transfiguration, which was 
 evidently on a place apart from the world. The view from the 
 summit — our first into the south of Palestine — is fine ; the plain of 
 Esdraelon lies immediately below, with “ Little Hermon ” (Jebel 
 Duhhy) and the graceful mountains of Gilboa beyond ; Carmel and 
 the “ great sea ” on the right ; the Jordan with the hills of Gilead 
 and Bashan, and a corner of the Lake, on the left; to the north, 
 Hermon, Safed, and Hattin, with some of the mountains behind 
 Tyre, shut out the Lebanon. One feels one has left the romantically 
 beautiful country north of Hermon, but the country one now sees 
 is very verdant, and not less interesting. 
 
 A Eussian hermit used to live on the top of Mount Tabor : he 
 was the son of the Archimandrite of a monastery in the Crimea, and 
 took holy orders at a very early age, the intention being that he 
 should succeed his father at the head of the brethren ; but soon 
 after he had settled down in this quiet life, a vision, as he thought, 
 appeared to him, in which he saw a mountain of most peculiar ; 
 form, and heard a voice saying, “ Arise, my son, and behold thy 
 home upon earth.” The dream was repeated seven nights 
 running, and at last the dreamer did arise ; he knew not where to 
 go to find the mountain, and no one gave him any information 
 about it; however, he set out, and went first to Mount Athos; I 
 there was no mountain there like that in the vision. Then he 
 went to Mount Sinai, and then to Mount Ararat in Armenia; 
 but none answered to the picture in his dream. He travelled j 
 far into the East, then into the West; eleven years of journey- 
 ing, and at last he stood before Mount Tabor. “ This is it,” he 
 said, “ I have found it, this is the strange shape I saw in my 
 dream ; I have sought and found nothing like this ! ” so he ascended 
 the mountain and never left it again. Many years he lived there, ' 
 studying and praying, and doing all kinds of good works ; attending 
 to the sick, and labouring among the peasants and shepherds 
 around him. They soon loved him with grateful affection, and 
 sought him in every sorrow and difficulty, and he never wearied of 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 309 
 
 administering to them. One winter’s day a panther approached 
 the cave in which he lived : he threw him a piece of bread, and the 
 panther crouched down at his feet ; he soon became quite tame, and 
 thenceforth, wherever the hermit went, the beautiful creature was 
 seen at his side, following him like a dog. Mr. Eogers, the English 
 Consul at Hhaiffa, who told me this story, frequently saw them to- 
 gether on the mountain ; he had learned the history of his dream 
 and of his wanderings from the hermit himself. He lived to be very 
 old, but had died about two years previous to bur visit to Mount 
 Tabor. 
 
 We should have been glad to stay here for some days, but we 
 had not time enough to spare, and were obliged to go on at once : 
 our mules, therefore, were sent on the following day direct to 
 Nazareth, while we descended the north-east side of the mountain 
 and rode away over wild valleys and among pleasant woods to the 
 camp of Agheel Agha-el-Hasy. We were curious to see something 
 of Bedoueen life when actually in camp, and as the Consul at 
 Hhaiffa had been kind enough to give us a letter of introduction to 
 him, we took advantage of having some friends with us at the 
 time, with whom it was both pleasanter and safer to go than by 
 ourselves. The Hawara were not, indeed, a tribe that we at all cared 
 to visit, but we were not sure of another opportunity of seeing the 
 inside of a camp, and we therefore determined to go. The Hawara 
 Arabs are not, in fact, a real tribe : they were formed only a few 
 years ago by Ibrahim Pacha, who appointed Agheel as their 
 Sheikh, and gave him the rank and title of an Agha : he is of good 
 family, but a Syrian, and originally an Osmali or Bashi-Bazouk, the 
 generic name given to any of the Arabs of this country who 
 attached themselves to the Government and fought for pay. The 
 tribe is composed of fellaheen or peasants, chiefly Egyptians, or of 
 any one. discon tented with his former position who chooses thus to 
 enrol himself in a new confederation : many are scamps and ne’er- 
 do-wells from Barbary and Tunis, united under a bloodthirsty 
 chief, with the title of Hawara, or “ destruction.” 
 
 We sent on one of the dragomans with our letter and to 
 announce our coming, and some Bedoueens came to meet us : wild 
 and ill-looking men, who seemed to us quite vulgar when we 
 thought of our dear Anazelis. They led us into the camp, and we 
 dismounted among a number of tiny baby horses tethered in a ring. 
 At the door of a low tent, somewhat larger than the others, stood a 
 tall, heavy, stout man, with his back to us, dressed in a long blue 
 cloth coat or k if tun, the sign of a Turkish agha : he wore also a 
 kefiyeh and the red boots of a Sheikh. He was busy giving 
 
310 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 directions to his black Nubian slaves about preparing his tent for 
 pur use, and scarcely condescended to turn round and look at us ; 
 at last he nodded carelessly enough, a half salaam, to a gentleman 
 of our party, but he took no notice of us, and went on talking in a 
 monotonous, oily, lifeless kind of voice, while he fingered his beads. 
 The slaves hung a variety of gaudy Tunisian shawls round the 
 inside of the tent, and placed carpets and couches of cushions for 
 each of us on the ground, some of which were pretty and em- 
 broidered. Agheel waited till we were seated, and then he squatted 
 on a bit of stone outside the tent : we begged him to enter, but he 
 said it was “ not the custom, and his people would think he gave 
 himself strange airs if he entered a tent when his guests were 
 inside ; in fact, he only sat down anywhere in sight because we 
 were Europeans; had we been Arabs it would have been im- 
 possible.” We had scarcely any conversation, for he did not seem 
 disposed for any ; he spoke sometimes to the dragomans, but he 
 asked no questions and had evidently no curiosity whatever about 
 us, and the only remark he made was, when we took off our hats, 
 he laughed a long unctuous chuckle, saying, “ Europeans always 
 uncover, Arabs never do.” We mentioned Sheikh Miguel of the 
 Anazehs, and Mr. Eogers of Hhaiffa, but though he listened, he 
 made no answer, and there is scarcely any expression on his sleek, 
 fat face, with his small, sunken eyes, low forehead, and thick lips, 
 smooth but repulsive ; if it has any expression it is one of mingled 
 sensuality and cunning. 
 
 The tent which he had given up to our use, of course his own, 
 was about six or seven feet high, of dark-brown camel’s or goat’s 
 hair, “ black as the tents of Kedar,” closed on three sides, but open 
 in front, and supported by three poles ; the earth was left uncovered 
 between our couches, and a skin of fresh water was brought in and 
 placed in one corner for our use. A sheep was killed according to 
 custom for guests, and in about two hours the dinner arrived, a 
 metal basin having been handed round just before by a black 
 slave, and water poured on our hands ; then came a huge wooden 
 bowl containing a heaped-up mountain of stewed rice, covering 
 over and hiding lumps of boiled mutton, with the bones broken 
 small : but it seemed to us as if the meat had been taken off : at 
 least we never could find any, though we gnawed the bones for 
 some time perseveringly, throwing them to the dogs when they 
 were done with. There is much knack in taking up the rice : the 
 fingers should be lightly closed so as to grasp a little ball of it, as 
 otherwise the hot grease only runs down the hand and the food is 
 spilt; the rice was very good, but we burned our fingers so 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 311 
 
 horribly in getting at it, that we soon gave it np, and left off nearly 
 as hungry as when we began : the Agha and the slaves, with a rude- 
 ness very unlike the fine manners of true Bedoueens, stood round 
 us laughing at our awkwardness in this new experience. They 
 gave a small piece of bread to each of us, and then the bowl was 
 lifted up and carried to our servants, after which it was given to 
 the slaves, one of whom brought us a calabash of water, and tried 
 with much energy to rub the grease from my fingers with a morsel 
 of dirty soap. 
 
 A few minutes after, the Agha got up from the fire outside the 
 tent beside which he was sitting, and asked if we wanted anything, 
 and then went away to his own dinner and to sleep ; sending us, 
 alas ! as a compliment, two large mash’lahs and a cloak from his own 
 person. They were very splendid, for my sister’s was lined with 
 wolf-skin fur, while mine was of sky-blue silk embroidered with 
 gold; and of course we were very grateful when a slave laid one 
 upon each of us ; but the consequences were fatal. There we lay, 
 “ martyrs all o’er,” as the hymn says, a prey to thousands of fleas, 
 every now and then pacing up and down in the open air before the 
 tents with our maid, trying to cool our unhappy skins ; and we 
 looked the next morning as if we had had erysipelas, and we thought 
 that morning never would come : but of course it was very in- 
 teresting, in a natural history sort of way, to have ascertained that 
 fleas belonging to Bedoueen tribes are, like those children of 
 nature, far more agile and sanguinary than their civilised and 
 domesticated cousins. We had a little lamp of olive-oil in an 
 earthen cup brought to us at dinner-time, and two bits of candle, 
 for which we built small towers of stones by way of candlesticks, 
 much to the amusement of the Nubians, but the stars gave plenty 
 of light. However, we were very glad when they paled, and we 
 could send word to the Agha that we wished to go on to Nazareth; 
 there was nothing to stay for, as we had discovered they would not 
 show us any of the amusements we had hoped to see ; the Hawara 
 considering it unbecoming in men to dance. We begged to see his 
 mares, to which the Agha consented, not very willingly, and four 
 were brought up and walked past us as quickly as possible. He 
 said he had no more of his own, but he showed us a horse com- 
 pletely covered with saddle-cloths and trappings of gay-coloured 
 tassels, &c., which the gentlemen requested to have removed. He 
 hesitated long, but at last gave the order, and for half a secoDd 
 they were lifted up ; the horse was a fine creature, and he probably 
 feared if we saw his good points, that we might cast the “ evil eye” 
 of envy upon him. Thinking to please him, we asked to go to the 
 
312 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 hareem, but he did not seem much gratified: however, we were 
 taken to a tent close to his own, in which we found his two wives, 
 who kissed our hands. The first wife was handsome enough to 
 have been really beautiful, if she had not been tatooed all over her 
 chin, cheeks, and lips; her features were well cut, and her eyes 
 large and soft ; she was showily dressed all in silk, but very dirty, 
 and had a very fine Bedoueen necklace of coral and gold coins, 
 among which were many Napoleons and Austrian eagles, eight or 
 ten bracelets, very fine onyx rings on every finger, and gold ends 
 to the long plaits of her hair. She looked very sad, however, and 
 seemed filled with sorrowful envy of the younger second wife, who, 
 though dressed in cotton and with few ornaments, was very happy 
 and merry nursing a ten -days-old son, tightly swaddled up, but 
 with its little eyelids carefully painted with Kohhl. We left them 
 very soon, and returned to take leave of the Agha, to whom we 
 paid the usual compliments, which he only received with a stolid 
 smile, and we parted with little regret on either side, the Nubians 
 only appearing interested in our departure on account of the 
 baksheesh. The fact is, that encamped, as he always is, in one or 
 other of these valleys, just in the route of travellers, he is con- 
 tinually being visited by Europeans, who are moreover sent to him 
 frequently by the Consuls ; those, however, who see Agheel Agha, 
 and the Hawari tribe only, have little idea of the fine manners and 
 high breeding of a real Bedoueen. 
 
 We were guided over the hills by a guard of honour of several 
 Arabs with their long lances, and came in sight of Nazareth in an 
 hour and a half. This first view was rather striking: the hills 
 closing round the city “ like a rose enclosed in its leaves,” as old 
 Quaresimus says, in an almost circular basin, very fertile and full 
 of olives at the bottom, but the hills are flat-topped and barely 
 covered with a scrubby thorn, so that the town and hills are all 
 glaringly white together ; there is but little beauty in the view, but 
 all is gentle, harmonious, pleasing : just the kind of scene one would 
 wish to see round the earthly resting-place, for thirty years, of our 
 Blessed Lord. The views from the hill-tops are on every side 
 extensive (the city stands 1237 feet above the sea), and beautiful in 
 their variety : the hills of Tabor and Tiberias in front of the heights 
 of Jordan and Bashan : Hermon standing up proudly to the north- 
 east, and to the north-west the rich plain of El Buttauf, and thickly 
 wooded hills sweeping round to meet the forests of Carmel with its 
 sea- washed bluff : then the plain of Esdraelon and the mountains 
 of Gilboa and Nablous, blue and graceful in the distance. The 
 town is a pretty one, containing a few goodly houses, and some 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 313 
 
 mosques, round each of which fine cypresses cluster ; olive-groves 
 and walls of prickly pear surround it. 
 
 Our tents were pitched close to the fountain, the mouth of which 
 is a long hole sunk in the ground, and paved in with stones : this, 
 as it is the only spring in or near the town, must be (happily 
 without question) that from which the Blessed Mother of our Lord, 
 and He Himself, in the life of loving obedience that He led when 
 “ subject to His parents/’ daily drew water, like the hundreds of 
 women, girls, and boys who now throng around the fountain at all 
 hours of the day, and even of the night. The women of Nazareth 
 are certainly handsome ; they have fresh, bright complexions and 
 merry faces, but they have been a good deal overlauded by 
 travellers in my opinion, for, like that of the rest of the women of 
 Palestine, it is a coarse, bold, unlovable style of beauty. They 
 wear a curious head-dress of large silver coins overlapping each 
 other, and sewed on to a cushion which is put round the face like a 
 bonnet: the colours of their dresses and wide trowsers are un- 
 usually gay, and they add a gaudy cotton scarf hanging down from 
 the back of the head. The Greek Christians are the best-looking, 
 but even they, like most Syrian women, are very untidy and rather 
 dirty, and extremely unlike one’s idea of the Blessed Yirgin ; indeed, 
 three or four Jewesses in Jerusalem, some of the women at Nablous, 
 and the sweet-faced, soft-eyed, gentle-looking women of Suediyeh, 
 near Antioch, are the only women I saw in Syria who made me 
 think of her face. 
 
 We went, of course, to the Latin Convent to see the Grotto of the 
 Annunciation, so often described: the church was full of people 
 attending the funeral of the Superior, who lay, with the head 
 uncovered, on a bier in the centre of the church, and I could not 
 help thinking that the happy look of peace on the wasted and 
 care-worn features was a better explanation of the “scripture 
 fulfilled ” in this place than all the sights of the Virgin’s kitchen and 
 the angelically-upheld column, &c. &c., shown to the faithful pilgrim. 
 
 The Protestant Bishop in Jerusalem has established a Mission 
 here, which appears to be well worked : the clergyman, Mr. Zeller, 
 has a school of sixty boys, including Mooslims, and both Greek and 
 Latin Christians, who read the Scriptures in English as well as 
 Arabic. Mrs. Zeller teaches a few girls, the number of whom are 
 constantly increasing, and who are, indeed, as many as she could 
 manage unassisted; they had also established evening classes for 
 young men, which seemed to be successful so far, and from which 
 they hoped much. There is a small church in which the service 
 is performed in Arabic. 
 
314 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 We rode the next morning along a pleasant path to Sepphoris, a 
 town bnilt by Herod Antipas as the capital of Galilee, bnt destroyed 
 by the Romans to punish a revolt of the citizens in 339 ; it was 
 called by them Diocsesarsea. A square tower or fortress on the top 
 of the hill is interesting from the lower part being built of stones 
 with the Jewish bevel on them, a good deal less “ rough ” and pro- 
 minent than the Phoenician or Roman. Further on there are very 
 picturesque remains of an old Gothic church, the cathedral of the 
 town when Sepphoris was the seat of a Bishop. Then we rode on 
 through charming olive and caroub groves, and drove across the 
 pretty plain of El Buttauf ; the wild caraway plants reaching above 
 our heads and the thistles to the horses’ shoulders ; underneath the 
 shrubs several sarcophagi, handsomely carved with wreaths, like 
 those at Kedesh, lay almost hidden, and also some wells. On the 
 other side of the little plain, rising a few feet up the hill- side, are 
 the ruins of a lately deserted village, believed to be the real Cana of 
 Galilee : its name has been time out of mind, as it still is, in Arabic, 
 Kana-el-Jelil, and all the early pilgrims in Palestine so accounted it 
 by the unquestioned tradition of the natives, until the journey of 
 Quaresimus in 1639, when the monks at Nazareth chose to find 
 another at a village called Kenna, a few miles to the south-east, 
 more easy of access from their own convent. There is no water in 
 the village itself, but at some little distance in the plain there is a 
 deep well, a shadow of a reason for the previous collection of so 
 large a quantity of water for the marriage-feast. 
 
 This Kana-el-Jelil is one of those sites of the truth of which the 
 traveller longs to be assured ; the winding valley with the pleasant 
 flowery meadows at the bottom, the wooded hill-sides, the unbroken 
 stillness and yet cheerful loneliness of the spot all seem most 
 thoroughly appropriate to the place w T here, doubtless, the feet of 
 our Blessed Lord frequently wandered, watching the lily of the field 
 and the fowls of the air, the ripening of the grape and the growing 
 of the corn, conscious of the glory of His Father in each and all, 
 and conscious of that hidden glory in Himself which He waited to 
 manifest because His “ hour ” was “ not yet come.” And dear to the 
 heart of every Christian must be the place where He sanctified all 
 human relationship by His loving Presence, and consecrated to 
 Himself those human joys and natural instincts, through which, by 
 not destroying, but ennobling man’s nature, the human heart 
 ascends to immortality and infinity. 
 
 We returned to Nazareth by Kefr Kenna, so as to be quite sure 
 of having been at least along the road travelled by the Saviour. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 315 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ROYAL CITIES OF ISRAEL. 
 
 In about an hour after leaving Nazareth, we found ourselves safe 
 at the bottom of the rocky ravine by the so-called Mount of Preci- 
 pitation (the most unlikely of all the monkish traditional sites we 
 had yet seen), and entered the rich, fine Plain of Esdraelon : it was 
 a pity to have to ride over it when covered only with stubble and 
 dead thistles, but at any time and under all aspects it is a place of 
 so much historical interest that one is apt to forget the present in 
 the past. We took the path down the eastern side, passing close to 
 the mountains of Little Hermon (Jebel-el-Duhhy) and Gilboa* on 
 the left ; both of these run out in promontories on the plain, and 
 both are of graceful outline, but Gilboa is by far the more so. On 
 the northern end of El Duhhy, lying on a little grassy slope half- 
 way up the hill, there is a small quiet hamlet, with white houses 
 shining among the trees ; this is Nain ; still bearing the name it 
 bore when our Blessed Lord made the widow’s heart to sing for joy. 
 Lower down, and more to the east, then wrapped in a dark shadow, 
 is Endor, where the prosperity-spoiled Saul heard his doom, and the 
 sombre voice of the spirit announced to him, u to-morrow shalt 
 thou and thy sons be with me and so on the morrow, and only at 
 a few miles’ distance, was the prophecy fulfilled : for “ the men of 
 Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell down slain on Mount 
 Gilboa,” and David, forgetting all the injuries done to him by the 
 ungrateful Saul, sang in the sorrow of his affectionate heart, “ The 
 beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places ! how are the mighty 
 fallen ! ” The dry and barren sides of the unsmiling mountain recall 
 vividly to the mind the curse which came upon it, that there should 
 be neither rain nor dew, nor green crops upon the soil where the 
 father and son had fallen. On the southern side of El Duhhy is yet 
 * Gilboa means the gushing-out fountain. 
 
316 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 another site of interest : a little village prettily nestled in a green 
 nook of trees at the foot of the hill, Solem, the ancient Shunem : 
 and one conld readily fancy, while riding oneself among the wide 
 flat fields, how the Shunammite’s child was snn-stricken, and the 
 reapers carried him home, and then the mother urging on the tardy 
 steps of her ass, all across that wide plain, to the home of the good 
 Prophet, on that side of Carmel — there, on our right, — and her joy 
 in his restoration to life. 
 
 A low, round, isolated hill, called El Fouleh “ the bean,” stands 
 in the midst of the way, bearing the ruins of a strong castle called 
 the Chateau de Faba by the Crusaders, where Richard of England, 
 surprised by the Saracens at daybreak, leaped from his bed and 
 slew four men in his tent, taking captive seven more. A little 
 further is the point of Gilboa, where the miserable mud hovels of 
 Zureen huddle together over the royal city of three kings of Israel, 
 first planted here by the wicked king Ahab. Though the whole 
 place is filthy, and the people crowd round you as if you 'were part 
 of a wild beast-show, and though there is neither tree nor shrub nor 
 any plant on the hill save a few hedges of prickly pear, it is one of 
 the most interesting of sites mentioned in the Old Testament to 
 stand on. Not the faintest trace remains above ground of the 
 palace of Ahab, whence Jezebel was thrown from a window, trodden 
 under foot, and gnawed by the dogs of the foul city : but one looks 
 down into the green “ valley of Jezreel,” * between Gilboa and Little ! 
 Hermon, where the smiling vines of Naboth grew which Ahab | 
 coveted to his cost ; the very same valley where sixteen years later ' 
 Jehu, the avenger appointed by the Lord, came up with his compaDy 
 and met the son of Ahab in the very vineyard and shot him there, 
 while the King of Judah, who was on a visit to his brother-in-law 
 of Israel, tried to escape yonder across the plain, but was overtaken 
 and slain at Megiddo (now Lejjun). Seemingly just under one’s feet j 
 among the green grass, at the bottom ot the hill on which one is i 
 standing, a spring of clear water attracts the eye, now called ’Ain 1 
 Jaloud, but in the Bible the well of Haroud, where the Lord de- 1 
 livered the Bedoueens of Midian and Amalek into the hands of ! 
 Gideon and the three hundred who had lapped the water of the 
 spring. Further on in the valley, nearer to the Jordan, is a curious- 
 looking low hill, covered with the ruins of Bethshean (or Scythopolis, i 
 as it was called after the captivity), whence the grateful men of 
 Jabesh-Gilead fetched the mangled corpses of Saul and his sons, < 
 and buried them under their own village tree. Burckhardt says 
 that this once great city was three miles in circumference ; many 
 * Jezreel means God sows. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 317 
 
 columns (easily distinguished from Jezreel) and a very perfect 
 theatre still remain ; this city was the seat of an archbishop in the 
 time of the Crusaders. A little to the south, near the Jordan, so 
 that the mountain of Gilboa hides it from Jezreel, it is supposed, 
 lay the Salim or iEnon, where John baptized the multitudes who 
 flocked to him ; and across the Jordan, recognised by its band of 
 rich foliage bordering the sacred stream, one can just see the ruins, 
 or rather site, of Pella, the place of refuge of the Christians during 
 the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. This is all seen in looking 
 east ; while, to the north, the mountains of Galilee stand as a great 
 wall across the country, only breaking down before they reach 
 Carmel, which is green and smiling at every season of the year, 
 stretching back southwards along the whole side of the Plain of 
 Esdraelon, even to the wooded hills of Samaria, with the Kishon 
 running near its verdant foot the whole way. This was the great 
 battle-field of the wars between Judah and Israel — the plain of 
 Megiddo where Barak triumphed over the Philistines — where Josiah 
 was killed by the King of Egypt, for whom the mourning and 
 lamentation was so great, that the “ lamentation of Hadad-Rimmon ” 
 (a town on this plain) became a proverbial phrase for the exjjres- 
 sion of any extraordinary sorrow : as Zechariah uses it to describe 
 the mourning of the repentant Jews, in the day of their restoration, 
 for the crucifixion of their Messiah ; the name of the plain is also 
 taken by St. John in the Apocalypse, as a type of the great gather- 
 ing-place for “ the battle of the great day.” * The name Esdraelon 
 is but the Greek form of the Hebrew word Jezreel. We were to see 
 this plain again in the spring, standing on Mount Carmel, with our 
 thoughts full of Elijah the prophet and his good works ; now we 
 were thinking chiefly of all this kingly strife and of the tents of 
 Issachar resting in the pleasant land. 
 
 The palm trees of ’Ain Jenin — the En-gannin of Scripture and 
 Ginea of Josephus — were a pleasant sight at the southernmost point 
 of the great plain after our long ride : very bright and refreshing 
 to the eyes were the green gardens of the town, watered by the 
 abundant springs from whence it has evermore been called “ the 
 fountain of gardens,” and plentiful indeed seemed the supply of 
 cabbages, cucumbers, sweet lemons, melons, &c. &c., that we saw in 
 the streets as we passed along to our tents. This place used to be 
 considered very unsafe, and travellers generally found some of their 
 property appropriated by the villagers, but a new Mutsellim has 
 brought the people into better order, and it is now as safe as any 
 other town in Palestine. This was to be our last night in Galilee, 
 * Zech. xii. 11 ; Kev. xvi. 16. 
 
318 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and in the land of Issachar, on the morrow we were to enter the 
 kingdom of Samaria and the tribe of Ephraim. 
 
 There could scarcely be a prettier combination of mountain and 
 meadow, wood and rock, with the bright sand of the beach and the 
 bine sea in the distance, than the scenery throughout this next 
 day’s ride, changing at every quarter of an hour ; the sun was very 
 hot, and the eight hours were fatiguing enough, but on the whole 
 it was a delightful ride, full of variety and beauty. The road was 
 generally excellent, frequently passing under the shade of thick 
 olive-groves, gay with women and children gathering the fruit 
 shaken down by the men from the fine old trees; others were 
 picking up the broken sticks or storing the olives in sacks : while 
 the hills and plains were alike gay with the large white stars of the 
 sweet-scented crocus, and real English daisies, not, indeed, very 
 “ wee ” or very modest,” but fine luxuriant things, golden-eyed and 
 crimson-tipped.” The whole day was a continual change of hill 
 and dale and valley ; we crossed one little round plain, or basin, 
 rightly called Merj-el-Ghuruk, the Drowning Meadow, as it is under 
 water throughout the winter, but which was now full of stubble ; 
 near to this is the Dothan where poor Joseph was sold to the 
 Ishmaelites, (whose caravans still take this road from Egypt to 
 Damascus,) and where the servant of Elisha was allowed to see 
 plainly that if God be for us none can be against us. Beyond this 
 is a fine old fortress called Sanour, which is supposed to be the 
 ancient Bethulia, the scene of the acts of Judith while the army of 
 Holofernes was lying encamped in this little valley extending to the 
 fountain near Dothan : then the venerable woods of Jeba, till, 
 coming down into a bare, rocky valley, we found ourselves at the foot 
 of the least pretty side of the City of Samaria, still called in Arabic 
 by its Roman name of Sebaste ; a steep hill, surrounded by such 
 ancient terraces, that they look now like natural formations of the 
 rock. There are many ruins scattered about on the hill, chiefly of 
 decapitated and sunken columns, but neither the broken colonnades 
 nor the Church of St. John are very picturesque or interesting : the 
 church, a semi-ruin of the Crusaders’ time, and now a mosque, is 
 poor, ugly, and of a debased style of architecture ; a scrap of 
 moulding here and there, and a few small lancet windows, are all 
 that there is to see, except some marble tablets, with oddly 
 sculptured crosses on them, the tombs of some Knights of St. John 
 of Jerusalem, and the entrance to the cave or tomb in which St. John 
 the Baptist is said to have been buried. The finest view of Samaria 
 is from the hill on the south-west side, from whence one readily sees 
 how splendid a site it was for a city, and how grand it must have 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 319 
 
 looked when encompassed by colonnades and triumphal arches, and 
 crowned by one noble temple, such as Herod the Great built in 
 honour of Augustus on the summit of the hill, with the thick olive- 
 groves richly grouped about its feet. Samaria must have stood 
 there like a crown or a wreath round the top of the mountain, the 
 “ crown of pride to the drunkards of Ephraim,” now “ trodden under 
 foot a “ glorious beauty on the head of the fat valley,” now withered 
 as “ a fading flower and as the hasty fruit before the summer.” * 
 Ephraim seems to have been most famous for its rich vineyards ; 
 but, in sad consequence, so habitually drunk were its sons, that their 
 chief city, Sichem, had acquired from the Jews of later times the 
 contemptuous sobriquet of Sichar f, from the word sichar, to drink 
 to inebriation. Omri, King of Israel, left his royal abode on the 
 beautiful hill of Thirzah, a few miles off, for this place, which he 
 bought from Shemer, and made it his palace and the seat of govern- 
 ment, which it seems to have been for many years after, although 
 Jezreel was also occupied by some of the kings. Two hundred 
 years after its erection Samaria was taken by Shalmaneser, the King 
 of Assyria, who removed the inhabitants and placed colonies of his 
 own people in the half-ruined houses. In the time of the Maccabees 
 it was again destroyed, and after having been slightly rebuilt by 
 Gabinius, the Koman Governor of Syria, Herod the Great em- 
 bellished it with fine buildings, and called it Sebaste (Augusta) after 
 Augustas Caesar. It is called by the Arabs Sebaste or Sebastiyeh. 
 
 Noble and grand as Samaria must have been, the site of Nablous 
 is more picturesque and beautiful. The town is fixed on a low 
 eminence filling up the centre of the narrow valley, almost hidden 
 by, but with its domes and minarets rising out of, the rich olive 
 gardens and deep foliage of all kinds ; the one is proudly “ set upon 
 a hill,” the other lies nestling in the shade. There are not many 
 cities older than Nablous, for the “ place of Sichem ” w r as known in 
 the days when Abraham pitched his tent in the forest of terebinth, 
 called Moreh, or Moriah, as it is written in the Samaritan scripture ; 
 but the city was probably founded by Shechem, son of Hamor, the 
 Prince of the Hivites in the time of Jacob, and it was here that the 
 bones of Joseph were buried after they had been brought up from 
 Egypt. The possession of the “ land of Israel ” was declared by 
 Joshua when, after crossing the Jordan and taking Jericho and Ai, 
 he advanced straight to this valley, and having ascended Mount 
 Ebal, built an altar, on which lie offered sacrifices, and read out to 
 the people all the words of the Law of Moses. Abi-melech the un- 
 worthy judge, and Eehoboam the wicked king, were both proclaimed 
 * Isaiah xxviii. 1-4. f John iv. 5. 
 
320 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 here, and Shechem was for some time the capital of the kingdom of 
 the Ten Tribes; it had originally fallen to the lot of Ephraim, but 
 was afterwards chosen as a Levitical city. When the Assyrians 
 came to Syria under Tiglath Pileser, all the wealthy or influential 
 inhabitants of Samaria were carried off, and made emigrants by 
 force, to the countries watered by the Euphrates, while their places 
 were filled by various peoples brought from other parts of the vast 
 Assyrian empire. Again, in the invasion of Shalmaneser, the same 
 thing took place, and more strangers were brought into the land : 
 probably it was chiefly the men who were carried off, while the Assy- 
 rians who took their places married the Samaritan women who had 
 remained in the country. These people, who went under the generic \ 
 name of the Cuthseans, each served idols after the custom of the j 
 several countries they had come from, until, having suffered much 
 from wild beasts and disease, they began to think that they must be 
 offending the “God of the land so they petitioned for the return 
 of one of the priests who had been carried from hence into exile, 
 and under his instructions they “feared the Lord,” keeping up, 
 however, their own idolatry at the same time. The restored priest 
 of Samaria, who established himself at Bethel, probably taught them 
 to worship Jehovah under a visible image, that of the golden calf 
 set up by Jeroboam : until the good king Josiah, by breaking all 
 their images, forced them, ostensibly at least, to worship Jehovah : - 
 they are believed at this time to have received the Pentateuch from 
 the hands of the King of Judah. It was in consequence of this ! 
 strange anomaly, the mixture of idolatry and true religion, that 
 the Samaritans or Cuthseans were refused a share in the building of I 
 the Temple under Zerubbabel, and although closely intermixed with I 
 a few of the old Jewish families of Samaria, they were ever cordially I 
 hated by the Jews. In the time of Darius, Manasseh, the brother of 
 Jaddoua, the High Priest of Jerusalem, who had married the 
 daughter of the Persian Satrap of Samaria, Sanbalat, got permission 
 from the Persian King to set up a rival Temple on Mount Gerizim, L 
 of which he was himself to be High Priest ; a few years after it was j 
 established, the people of Shechem (a mixture of old Assyrian i 
 colonists, a few older Ephraimites, and those Jews who did not choose , 
 to conform themselves to the stricter laws and vigorous reforms of 
 Ezra and Nehemiah) declared it their opinion that Moses had clearly 
 indicated their mountain, Gerizim, as the place whereon the sane- j 
 tuary was to be established ; they rejected all Jewish traditions, as 
 well as the Books of the Prophets, accepting the five Books of the 
 Pentateuch as the only really sacred Scripture. Seventy-six years 
 later the Samaritans applied to Alexander the Great to accord them 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 321 
 
 the same favours as he had accorded to the Jews, but as they could 
 not reply with a direct affirmative to his question whether they 
 were Jews or not, he said he would tell them his wishes at another 
 time, and meanwhile, accepting their addition of 8000 men to his 
 army, to whom he afterwards assigned lands in the Thebaid. On 
 his return from Egypt he found the governor he had left in Samaria 
 had been foully murdered, and he expelled the Samaritans entirely 
 from the city ; they settled at Shechem, at the foot of Gerizim, and 
 when Antiochus Epiphanes forbade the celebration of the Jewish 
 religion under pain of death, they declared themselves descendants 
 of the Baal-worshippers of Sidon, and dedicated their temple to 
 Jupiter Olympius. This temple was completely destroyed by John 
 Hyrcanus, the Jewish prince, in b.c. 129, but. the Samaritans, with 
 their hatred to the Jews redoubled, continued to perform their own 
 rites on the ruined site of their 200-years old temple. Vespasian 
 rebuilt the city, and called it Neapolis (whence its present name of 
 Nablous), but it is believed that the temple on Gerizim was never 
 rebuilt. The message of salvation through Christ was first taught 
 here by the Saviour Himself in His memorable conversation with 
 the woman at the well, and afterwards by the Apostles, and Chris- 
 tianity appears to have flourished here early, bishops and martyrs 
 bearing witness to the true faith. One church was enclosed in a 
 strong fortress built by the Emperor Justinian, and there were pro- 
 bably others. The Samaritans had colonies in Gaza, Damascus, 
 Cairo, and even in some parts of Europe, but the little community of 
 133 souls at Nablous are all that now exist in the world. They 
 believe Mount Gerizim to be the Moriah on which Abraham was 
 ordered to sacrifice his son Isaac, because of its original name, but 
 the distance from Beersheba would appear to be far beyond the foot 
 journey in three days, of men laden with wood. 
 
 The first person we saw, on reaching Nablous, was Jacob Shellaby, 
 a Samaritan who went to England some years ago, and having in, 
 terested very many clergy and laymen in the present state of the 
 Samaritan sect, returned to his home with a rich harvest of subscrip- 
 tions to aid in their education and general improvement. He speaks 
 English well, but he can neither read nor write in any language, 
 even Samaritan, although he professes to be able to do so ; as he is 
 the showman-general of the place however, and we then knew no 
 other, we set out under his guidance to see the schools, &c. He 
 took us first to his own house to show us a large stone inscribed 
 with Samaritan characters, which he says he found fixed in a 
 wall in a dark lane where a Samaritan synagogue once stood. He 
 told us the inscription was of the Ten Commandments, but on his 
 
322 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 producing a copy of a translation made by Mr. Rogers, the English 
 Consul at Hhaiffa, we found it was a short summary of the first 
 chapter of Genesis, in which the name of God is given as “the 
 Ancient but it is written Shema, which Rabbi Schwartz says, 
 quoting from the Talmud, was the word used by the Samaritans to 
 express God, from the name of the idol worshipped by those who 
 came from Hamath (see 2 Kings xvii. 30), an idol made in the form 
 of a goat. The idol of those who came from Cutha was in the 
 form of a cock, and called Nergal, which meant a bird, and Schwartz 
 says that they had a bird carved in wood always fastened on the 
 upper end of the rolls of the Law. Dr. Levisohn, however, a Jew, 
 who since his conversion to Christianity has devoted himself to the 
 study of the Samaritan Pentateuch while living in Jerusalem, and 
 who maintains that the Samaritans are but Hebrews of the tribe of 
 Ephraim, declares that this is all Jewish fable, that they have no 
 carved birds on the Law, and that the word Shema here used is Ha- 
 Sheina, “the Name/’ a reverential manner of alluding to a name too 
 holy to be expressed more definitely. The Samaritan language is 
 the same as the Hebrew, but written in a different character : the 
 Samaritan character was formed on the model of the more 
 ancient Phoenician, while what is now called Hebrew, or square 
 writing, was modified from the Samaritan, little by little, under the 
 influence of the Chaldean writing, with which the Jews had become 
 familiar in their exile; the more ancient Samaritan finally dis- 
 appeared among them, and was replaced by the Chaldean cha- 
 racter, which is retained to this day, and to which the Palmyrene 
 was closely assimilated.* It is interesting to observe an incidental 
 proof that this change had been fully established before the Chris- 
 tian era, in our Lord’s reference to the Yod, as the smallest of letters 
 (Matt. v. 18), which it is in the later writing, but was not in the 
 Samaritan. When the Asmonean or Maccabean princes restored 
 the Jews to be a free and independent nation, and established a 
 coinage of their own, they inscribed it with the more ancient 
 character, from a natural wish to return to the purer times of Israel’s 
 glory ; five final letters have been added in the later writing : while 
 the earlier is evidently an alphabet more suited for carving upon 
 wood or stone. 
 
 We obtained from Shellaby a copy of this inscription, but we 
 learned afterwards in Jerusalem that though genuine, it is impos- 
 sible to be sure that the stone is very ancient, as up to fifty or one 
 hundred years ago it was the Samaritan custom to place such 
 
 * The square Hebrew commonly in use was probably not in use before the 
 time of Christ. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 323 
 
 inscriptions on the lintels of their doors, and to use them as orna- 
 ments on their walls; this one, therefore, may have belonged to 
 some Samaritan house, taken down to make way for the mosque 
 which now stands on the site of the old synagogue. 
 
 We then went to the school, which is held in the outer room of 
 the synagogue. Shellaby said that he paid the schoolmaster 
 entirely from his own funds, and that there were usually about 
 twenty scholars; at this time there were only ten or twelve, 
 but nearly half the number were girls, quite a novelty in a 
 Samaritan school. One pretty little creature, who wore quantities 
 of rings and gold ornaments, and was about seven years old, read to 
 us with much clearness and fluency from the Samaritan Pentateuch, 
 blushing immensely at this exhibition of her accomplishment. She 
 is the first Samaritan girl who has learned to read, and he said she 
 had been in school only eight months. She, as well as all the other 
 pupils, had the most extraordinary ears: large round construc- 
 tions of flesh falling forward like elephant’s flappers; they were 
 intelligent-looking children. 
 
 The synagogue is a small low room, with two recesses, in one of 
 which the Law is kept behind an old curtain, embroidered with a 
 pattern something like censers. It is rolled round two tubes of 
 metal, and each end of the vellum is cased in metal : it was wrapped 
 in a crimson velvet embroidered cover : the handwriting on the roll 
 is remarkably fine and firm ; the parchment on which it is written 
 is old and torn, and has been remounted on another vellum, now in 
 its turn alike old, dirty, and ragged. The Law is read out from a 
 copy in a book, in order that the ancient roll may not be handled. 
 Shellaby affirmed in the most positive and solemn manner that this 
 was really the ancient copy — the Poll of the Pentateuch, written, as 
 they declare, by the hand of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the 
 grandson of Aaron— that is, about three thousand years old — 
 though most of the Samaritans believe that it was written in the time 
 of Moses. Amram, the High Priest of the Samaritans, however, 
 assured us later on that the old copy has never been shown to any 
 one but a member of their own congregation, and as we found after- 
 wards that there was little dependance to be placed on Shellaby’s 
 word this is probably the truth. Numbers of dirty, torn books 
 were lying on a shelf at the end of the room, seeming still 
 less cared for than the dirty room itself. A few tin lamps and a 
 broken stool, besides one desk, were the only furniture or ornaments. 
 The men and women sit separate. They assemble in synagogue 
 every Saturday, and the Poll is read through once in the course of each 
 year. The priesthood is hereditary, descending from father to son. 
 
 y 2 
 
321 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 Almost at the summit of Mount Gerizim, at the foot of the 
 crowning knoll, there is a level piece of ground, to which the 
 Samaritans ascend four times a year — at the Passover, Day of ] 
 Atonement, Feasts of Tabernacles and of Dedication, — and where 
 they pitch their tents ; a small pit in the ground is lined with stones, a 
 fire lighted within it, and the paschal lambs, suspended from sticks 
 laid across it, are roasted, or rather baked, in the hole : there is I 
 another small pit, where they are cleaned, and a trough into which j 
 the calcined bones are afterwards thrown; when all is ended the 
 oven is unbuilt, and the stones dispersed, lest infidel hands should 
 touch them. The Passover is eaten standing, with a staff in the 
 left hand, while, with the right, each person seizes from the animal 
 whatever portion of meat he can reach; they afterwards wipe j 
 the grease from the hand with handkerchiefs, which are then j 
 thrown into the fire, and the remaining bones are burnt. They I 
 have no objection to Mooslim or Christian being present at the 
 sacrifice, but they must not taste the lamb : and they have been some- ! 
 times obliged to pay a penalty of five thousand piasters to a Turkish 
 governor, rather than allow him to eat the smallest morsel of it. 
 
 A little above this place there is a natural ledge of rock cropping 
 out, divided at rather equal distances by chance cracks ; these, they 
 say, are the twelve stones brought by Joshua from the Jordan. 
 They also declare that a sloping mass of bare, smooth rock near this 
 is the spot where Abraham commenced the offering of Isaac, and 
 they show the natural cavern evidently existing underneath as the 
 pit into which the blood was intended to run off. This sloping rock 
 they believe to have been also the scene of Jacob’s vision of the i 
 heavenly ladder. Some old ruins on the summit of the mountain 
 (which is 2650 feet high) have been thought to be the remains of 1 
 the Samaritan Temple, but Dr. Robinson considers them to be some j 
 of the stones of the fortress built by Justinian ; the church which 
 then stood there is now represented by a small Mooslim wely. ' 
 Probably the Temple of the Samaritans enclosed the sloping rock, j 
 and that they had chosen it in imitation of the Sacred Rock in the 
 Temple of Jerusalem : they entertain the most profound reverence ‘ 
 for it, never approaching it without taking off their shoes : and it is ‘ 
 said that they always turn to it, as the Mooslims do to the Kiblah, \ 
 in prayer ; there are some very old-looking remains of walls near it. 
 
 The view from the summit extends over an expanse of sea, with 
 Jaffa among its green gardens and light-coloured sands; it prepares j 
 one for the Judaea one is to enter at a very few hours’ distance : so 
 barren and dreary are the mountains all round, one is glad to have 
 one last view of pale, blue Hermon. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 325 
 
 The eastern end of the narrow valley, in the centre of which 
 Nablous stands, opens ont into a small circular plain called the 
 Wady-el-Mokhna : just before the plain commences there is a semi- 
 circular recess exactly corresponding, on each side of the valley — 
 and hence it seems self-evident that this was the spot (as no other 
 appears as suitable), where Joshua assembled the children of Israel, 
 and, ranging six tribes in the one recess on Mount Ebal, and six in 
 the other on Mount Gerizim, with the elders and officers, the judges 
 and the Levites assembled round the Ark in the centre, read out 
 “ the blessings and the cursings ” and all that was “ written in the 
 book of the law.” How often, in after times, did these two moun- 
 tains that then echoed back the solemn words of warning and of 
 promise, resound to the tumultuous shouts of the idolatrous 
 multitudes who brought “ strange gods ” from their heathen homes 
 to be worshipped in the once holy valley ! 
 
 Just at the commencement of the little plain, the eye , as it were, 
 of the valley, are the melancholy remains of “ Jacob’s Well;” some- 
 what further on a little wely marks the site of Joseph’s Tomb ; and 
 on the slope of the hill, to the east, “before the city” of Shechem, is 
 the village of Saleem, the ancient Shalim; there Jacob pitched his 
 tent and built an altar to the Lord God of Israel, “ the parcel of 
 ground” which he bought and gave to his son Joseph, and in which 
 Joshua laid the bones which he had brought up from Egypt. 
 
 But nearly all one’s interest settles in “ Jacob’s Well,” of which 
 now, alas ! one can see only the site, as even the hole, still visible, 
 is but the choked up entrance to the vaulted chamber above the 
 well, part of a church which was standing in the time of Bishop 
 Arculf, a.d. 700. It seems strange that a spot, reverenced alike by 
 Christians and Jews, Mooslims and Samaritans, and a site in which 
 all traditions have ever and ever agreed without shadow of doubt 
 or question, should have been allowed to fall into such a miserable 
 state of ruin and decay. We inquired in Jerusalem whether we 
 might be permitted to restore it into use and order, but we found 
 that only two or three weeks before the Greeks had bought it, 
 intending to build a Russian convent around it. The well is said 
 to have been excavated entirely in the solid rock, with the sides 
 hewn smoothly and regularly in a perfect circle : the last measure- 
 ment known of it gave nine feet in diameter and seventy-five in 
 depth: but it was then probably much filled up at the bottom. 
 There are few sites more interesting to a Gentile than this, few where 
 the scene around has been so little changed in the long intervals of 
 ages ; we looked now on the fields that were then “ white already 
 to harvest yonder is the path by which the “ disciples had gone 
 
326 
 
 E G YET/A N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 away into the city to buy meat':” women carrying pitchers on their 
 heads were passing to and fro : and towering grandly above us was 
 the head of “ this mountain” of Gerizim, to which the Samaritan 
 woman pointed as she spoke of the Temple wherein " our fathers 
 worshipped.” One fancies one hears the grand message of universal 
 salvation in the spiritual religion of the true and pure heart, 
 echoing silently, as it were, still in this quiet spot : one enters into 
 the mingled astonishment and joy of the woman, who perhaps had 
 felt something stirring in her heart, a groping after something 
 better and holier than the jumble of idolatrous fetishes around her, 
 who, accustomed only to the harsh bigotry of the narrow-minded 
 Jews, heard now for the first time that religion was confined neither 
 to one place nor to one name : that God was not “ like unto gold or 
 silver or stone, graven by art or man’s device,” but a Spirit “ in 
 whom we live and move and have our being;” that Messiah was 
 come neither to judge nor to condemn, nor to destroy, but to save 
 men, to gather them into one fold under one Shepherd, Whose yoke 
 was easy and Whose burden was light, Who was ready to lay down 
 His life for His sheep, and to be “ indeed the Saviour of the world.” 
 
 The Crusaders had a church in Nablous, which is now of course 
 a mosque, but the nearly perfect doorway is well worth seeing : it 
 is in the Gothic style, then prevailing in France, with a good dash 
 of Saracenic about it ; it is very richly and well carved. We found 
 the people of Nablous, unlike their former selves of even only ten 
 years ago, remarkably civil and obliging: the present governor 
 punishes any instance of incivility in the severest manner, and it is 
 now an agreeable resting-place for travellers : we stayed two days, 
 and walked much about the town, admiring the handsome and 
 well-dressed women and children. Seeing we were strangers, some 
 men invited us into a large court filled with some hundreds of water- 
 skins, for the making of which Nablous is famous; the roots of the 
 red-oak, which grows very plentifully in the valley, being used for 
 the tanning : they are then sewn up at the extremities, filled with 
 water, and laid out to season them. I never saw anythiug look 
 more horrid than this immense family of black sheep, all lying on 
 their backs, with their heads cut off and their legs in the air ! The 
 chief trade of Nablous is in soap : there are four large manu- 
 factories, and heaps of ashes and refuse nearly as large as those of 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 We traversed the whole town on leaving it, and met so cold a 
 wind as we rounded the stern cliff of Gerizim, that my lips were 
 cut and chafed. This whole day’s ride was very dreary ; the little 
 valleys between the hills would have been cheerful enough in 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 327 
 
 summer, but they were now filled with stubble or with yokes of 
 patient oxen turning up the soil with a primitive plough, or rather 
 a couple of ploughs employed on each field closely following each 
 other. Scarcely three trees were seen in the whole day, and the 
 hills were barren, rocky and ugly to the last degree ; one narrow 
 winding glen, W ady-el-Har amiy eh — the Bobber's Valley — was all 
 the beauty we had: there the rocks were relieved by olives, the 
 ground sprinkled with starry crocuses, and the terraces covered 
 with tangles of red hawthorn berries and a beautiful yellow bell- 
 shaped clematis, with a drooping head and pretty leaf. We 
 stopped beside the fountain of Yebroud, and had enough to do to 
 warm ourselves in the very cold night, which we were glad to 
 shorten in our impatient anxiety for the memorable day which was 
 to give us our first view of Jerusalem. Yebroud seemed as if it must 
 be a pretty place in summer, and soon after leaving it we came to a 
 fine barranca, where the perpendicular walls of four small valleys 
 met in a little plain full of trees : but after this all was utterly 
 stony and hideous, however interesting from the numerous sites 
 mentioned in the Scriptures still to be traced on the country. 
 After three hours' riding, we came to a conical steep hill, called 
 Tuleil-el-Foul — the ancient Gibeah — so long the home of Saul and 
 the seat of his government. We insisted on mounting it, as we felt 
 sure it would command a fine view of the neighbourhood of 
 Jerusalem, nor were we mistaken; for after we had seen all the 
 views about the City many times over, we always returned in 
 thought to this one, as, with two exceptions, the most beautiful of 
 all, for from no other place is the simile, used by the Psalmist, of 
 God’s love encompassing His people “as the hills stand round 
 about Jerusalem ” so well illustrated as from here. We looked over 
 Scopus, to where the domes and minarets of the holy City seemed 
 rising directly from thick olive-groves, enclosed and surrounded in 
 the embraces of the wild hills and blue mountain ridges on all 
 sides: Jericho and Bethany were alike hidden, but the Mount of 
 Olives stood up proudly with the little Church of the Ascension on 
 the summit : while under the stern range of the Moab mountains 
 lay the Dead Sea, in a sweeping curve of the most lovely turquoise 
 blue, calm and peaceful, scarcely sad, but lying among the dreary, 
 barren mountains like the smile of peace on the rugged face of a 
 dead man. I never afterwards saw the Dead Sea without remem- 
 bering the peculiar feeling of solemn but tender beauty that it gave 
 me from Tuleil-el-Foul. 
 
 Passing the desolate hill where stood Nob, “ the city of priests,” 
 destroyed by Saul, we came to the brow of Scopus, where hundreds 
 
328 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 of small stones, mounted in threes and fours upon each other, told 
 of the farewells or first views of generations of pilgrims to the Holy 
 City. The view is here confined to the City and its own olive - 
 groves, with a few of its domes and minarets rising above the 
 walls, which are more quaint than grand, for they have a very 
 fanciful Saracenic parapet above them, the olive-trees looking so 
 infinitely sad as they grow out of the white stony ground ; the half- 
 ruined tower in each garden, the dreary heaps of grey ashes by 
 which one passes, and the utter silence, so unlike the outskirts of 
 a great city, all combine to press down with a very solemn, very 
 sad weight upon the heart, yet strangely harmonising with the 
 instinctive feeling of its beauty, with the prettiness of its graceful 
 minarets, and the happy peaceful feeling of being, at last, in the 
 haven where one would be. The quaint expression of old Fuller 
 came naturally into my mind, describing the arrival of the way- 
 worn Crusaders at the longed-for goal: “All had much ado to 
 manage so great a gladness ! ” 
 
 We went into the City for our letters, and then, passing along the 
 northern wall, descended into the valley of the Kedron and climbed 
 the Mount of Olives, on the summit of which our tents were 
 pitched. The first sight of Jerusalem from here would be solemn 
 at any time, but we were greeted with a scene of such glorious 
 magnificence as probably few persons see twice in a lifetime, and 
 which it is hopeless to render into words : floods of flame and fire 
 had spread over the Mediterranean Sea, above which heavy clouds 
 of a deep plum colour were closing down, crimsoning the brown 
 plains below : the City domes seemed stained with absolutely 
 bloody tips, above which a strange, orange glow was hanging in the 
 air : the bare flat hills on each side paled off in indigo and pale 
 blues : while behind us were the mountains of Moab*, wrapped, 
 covered in a mantle of silky, shining gauze of the most exquisite 
 shade of peach blossom, like the petals of a rhododendron, which 
 seemed absolutely unearthly; this gradually deepened into violet, 
 and the glory of it faded away : the stars came out, and the new 
 moon rose, and everything relapsed into silence and darkness, broken 
 only by the howling of the jackals and a light here and there in the 
 City, while the wind blew with a bitter whistle through the tents ; 
 but never, while life lasts, shall I forget our first view of Jerusalem 
 by the sunset light of the 30th November, 1859. 
 
 We stayed here for some days: the nights were bitterly cold, for 
 Olivet is nearly 3000 feet above the sea, but the days were lovely, 
 
 * “Une ligne droite, tracee par nne main tremblante,” as Chateaubriand 
 well describes them. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 329 
 
 and the quiet enjoyment of the sacred view, which we could now 
 study at leisure and in all the changing lights, was worth almost 
 any discomfort. We found reason afterwards to rejoice that we 
 had been thus able to get the general topography of the City, 
 and the relative position of the hills within, and of those without 
 its walls, thus thoroughly into our minds ; for the narrow tortuous 
 streets, and the constant up and down of apparently steep hills 
 (which are on so small a scale that one cannot at first rightly 
 distinguish one from the other), is so very confusing to the mind, 
 that one needs to be really conversant with the general lie of the 
 ground, before one can understand or reckon up the connection of 
 the details. But yet without this, there is an inexpressible pleasure 
 in the feeling of a rest on the holy mountain, while encamped 
 under the shade of the olives, gazing on the City, which from this 
 point is really beautiful ; only one thing was still more impressive 
 to us wanderers, and that was the descent on the following Sunday 
 morning, by the steep winding path on the hill-side, across the 
 narrow Kedron, through the gate of St. Stephen, till “ our feet stood 
 within the gates of Jerusalem ! ” along the Yia Dolorosa up to the 
 little Hebrew-and-English church, where the familiar prayers of 
 our beloved service fell with holy sweetness, “ sweeter than honey 
 and the honeycomb/’ on the long unaccustomed ear, and we sang 
 those words, to the well-known notes, that recalled many a happy 
 Sunday in Christian England, in company with fellow-Christians 
 met together on Mount Zion, literally from all the quarters of the 
 globe— 1 “ the holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge 
 thee!” 
 
330 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE SEPULCHRE OF ABRAHAM AND THE SEA OF LOT. 
 
 As the Syrian winter does not commence till January, and 
 December is the best of all months for travelling in those regions 
 where the heat is intolerably oppressive during the summer, we 
 thought ourselves fortunate in having secured it for a visit to the 
 Dead Sea, as we were not inclined to make the hurried excursion 
 which the heat renders imperative upon most travellers. We 
 therefore only remained a few days on the Mount of Olives, and 
 started afresh on the 5th of December for Urtass, skirting the Holy 
 City, passing over the plain of Rephaim, and by the rich woods of 
 Beit Jala, along the rocky hills of Bethlehem to the Pools of 
 Solomon. Between Beit Jala and Bethlehem a little Mooslim wely 
 marks the spot where the beloved Rachael died (a site on the 
 authenticity of which there is happily no doubt), whence Jacob went j 
 sorrowfully on, and pitched his tent beside the little tower built for 
 the flocks of the neighbouring herdsmen to take refuge in : close to J 
 the spot where, many hundred years after, our Tower of Refuge* — 
 a “ strong tower of defence ” — was born in the mean and miserable 
 stable of an inn, taking for His earthly mother one yet more weak, 
 tender, and pure than the dutiful and affectionate Rachael. 
 
 Our tents were pitched in the gardens of Urtass, and on the 
 morrow we borrowed a labourer from the owner of the rich valley j 
 to be our guide among the mountains : the man was instructed by 
 
 * Genesis xxxv. 21. Migdol Edar means the “ tower of the flock not only j 
 every vineyard had its tower of defence, but there were small towers or 
 fortresses built for the shepherds and their flocks to sleep in on cold nights, ' 
 and into which the flocks could be gathered on a sudden alarm from the raids j 
 of the Bedoueens. The Targumist Jonathan, says : “ And Israel pitched his . 
 tent at the Tower Edar, the place where the King Messiah will manifest Him- \ 
 self at the end of time, as saith the prophet Micah in that remarkable verse J 
 — iv. 8. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 '331 
 
 Mr. Meshullam, in case we were attacked by Bedoueens, to say 
 that we were friends of his. Onr dragoman was not particularly 
 willing for the expedition, as these Bedoueens of the Ta’amreh tribe 
 are remarkably unruly and belligerent, but as Mr. Meshullam, who 
 is thoroughly acquainted with the whole country, had not seemed 
 to think it unsafe for us, we determined on proceeding, and con- 
 tinued our route over as dreary a succession of barren stony 
 mountains as one could see anywhere; there was not even the 
 common little thorny plant among the pebbles, although in the 
 valleys, and under the stones which encumber every slope, the ground 
 is mostly as rich as any soil in Syria. We passed round the foot of the 
 Frank Mountain, an odd shaped hill like a cone with the top cut off, 
 familiar in almost every view about Jerusalem. Its Arab name is 
 Jebel-el-Fureidis, the Mountain of Paradise ; but in its present 
 barren condition it certainly does not merit such a name, whatever 
 it may once have done when crowned by the palace of Herod and 
 beautified with his gardens ; it was probably then a delightful spot, 
 the fine houses and palaces built beneath the hill encircling it with 
 splendour ; its having been fortified by the Crusaders is the cause 
 of its present name. These barren and dreary hills and dales are 
 the commencement of the wilderness of Judaea where most of the 
 history of David and Saul was enacted, and we were now on our 
 way to the Cave of Khurieytin, which is believed to be the cave of 
 Adullam : it must be undoubtedly near it, if it is not the cave itself, 
 and it is a fine specimen of the enormous caverns with which these 
 limestone hills are riddled in every direction. 
 
 We were in the middle of one of these silent desolate valleys, when 
 a Bedoueen, dressed in a couple of unshorn sheepskins, suddenly 
 started up and stopped us, informing us that the paths here had 
 not been made for travellers, but for Arabs (their usual formulary 
 when they intend mischief), and then another and another head 
 appeared, peering over the brow of the hill. As we were 
 entirely at their mercy, the only plan was to make friends by the 
 mammon of unrighteousness, and we therefore engaged Sheepskin as 
 a guide : once in our service, we knew he would be faithful to us. 
 Soon after we came to a deep, narrow ravine, on the perpendicular 
 cliffs of which not even a thornwas to be seen : here we dismounted, 
 and proceeded along a little ledge, about two feet wide, left on the 
 side of the cliff ; and a very dizzy path it was, overhanging the pre- 
 cipice. Across it lay a single block about six feet high, over which 
 we had to be pulled up on one side and let down on the other, after 
 wriggling over the top, between which and the overhanging rock 
 there was a space of only a couple of feet : it was not exactly 
 
332 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 pleasant, but Sheepskin’s foot and |hand were firm, and grasping 
 tightly his horny fist, without venturing to glance below, the last 
 jump, an oblique one, over the chasm, and in at the mouth of the 
 cave, was successfully performed. A low passage leads into a 
 rather fine hall, arched at the top, about 120 feet long by 40 wide, 
 with many recesses, from whence winding passages lead for an 
 untraceable distance under the hill, one of which has, I believe, been 
 followed to an opening near the top of the hill. The hall is large 
 enough to contain a great many men, but not 400, 1 should think, 
 unless they were packed as closely as the bats which hung like thick 
 curtains, one overlapping the other, on the sides of the rock : we 
 were careful not to disturb them, as the Bedoueens said they were 
 very vicious. It is scarcely worth encountering the peril of the way 
 to see the cave, except for the association of David and his mighty 
 men with it : Adullam is said to mean “ to quit the true road,” and 
 certainly if this is Adullam there is no true road at all to it. 
 
 When we had made our way back to the horses, another Bedoueen 
 joined us, demanding baksheesh as well as those who had helped in 
 getting us to the cave and had held the horses; this we refused, 
 and rode off a few paces, when the disappointed Arab wrenched a 
 bag from off our maid s saddle, and ran down the ravine with it ! 
 The other Bedoueens pursued him, the dragoman succeeded in 
 knocking him down, and the others gave him a drubbing; while to 
 impress them with a sense of our power, I fired three shots over 
 their heads, and told Sheepskin when he came back that I could 
 fire six shots all at once at bad men. He looked grave and astounded 
 — as well he might, for I soon remembered I had told him sixty 
 instead of six in my bad Arabic, and doubtless he thought my little 
 revolver a gift from Sheitan himself. 
 
 He was dismissed in content, and we proceeded on our way to 
 the ruins of the ancient Tekoa, a hill on which a Christian town, 
 founded by St. Saba, existed for six hundred years, but which has 
 been deserted since 1138 : the only ruin of interest is that of the 
 church, in which lies a noble font of rose-coloured limestone* 
 sculptured with Christian symbols : it also has a seat round the in- 
 side. From this hill there are lovely views of the Dead Sea, which 
 shone as blue as the Mediterranean in the mid-day sun. Tekoa is 
 interesting as the birthplace of the prophet Amos, who was, in the 
 time of Jeroboam II., keeping his father’s sheep, and feeding on wild 
 figs in these hills when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. 
 
 The country becomes prettier between Tekoa and Hebron, as the 
 valleys are full of terebinth — then crimson-tipped with the autumn 
 *■ There is much rose-coloured limestone in the hills about Tekoa. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 333 
 
 tint — lentisk, and oak, and the hill-sides were clothed with vineyards 
 which were now, however, very nearly leafless : only great bare 
 stems straggling about on the ground. The country seemed very 
 silent, for there are no villages, but we stopped among a flock of 
 sheep and milked some of them into our tin mugs, by way of 
 luncheon, as we found no water till late in the day, when, reaching 
 a small village, a woman drew some and then coolly demanded my 
 sister’s gold bracelets in payment ! They were uncouth people, for 
 the children spat at us as we passed ! the only real rudeness we ever 
 experienced in Syria. The villagers were busy with a number of 
 little new-born lambs, which they were laying out on soft mats in 
 the sun. At last we turned into the valley of Eshcol, rich in fine 
 vineyards : and Hebron opened out at once, rising up one side of 
 the valley, enclosed in olive-gardens. It is a very large town, 
 handsomely built and rather picturesque, as every house has one or 
 two little domes, and the windows are furnished with brightly 
 painted shutters. The mosque is in the centre of the town, which 
 forms a good picture, although the hills around are each one uglier 
 than its neighbour : they are but shapeless brown undulations of no 
 external interest till one remembers that there, on the brow of one of 
 them, Abraham stood to watch the burning cities of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah. 
 
 Between 2000 and 3000 years before Christ, Palestine and the 
 neighbouring countries were inhabited by eight different races of 
 men of giant stature : one of these races, the children of Anak, had 
 inhabited, we know not how long, the hills and valleys about 
 Hebron, when a tribe of strangers, probably from the shores of the 
 Persian Gulf, arrived in the country, over which they soon spread 
 themselves ; they did not, however, destroy the children of Anak, 
 who continued to dwell in the land for at least a thousand years 
 after; these strangers were called, from the country of their 
 adoption, the Canaanites, and afterwards the Phoenicians. Some 
 time after a little band of travellers one day passed by, going down 
 into Egypt because there was a famine in the land of Canaan ; they 
 returned in two years, but they were now very rich in gold and 
 silver and cattle, and so numerous that they had to divide them- 
 selves into two parties ; he who chose for his portion the borders of 
 the river Jordan, where it afterwards became a lake, was called 
 Lot ; and he who pitched his tents under the fine oaks in the valleys 
 about Hebron was called Abraham. And here, nearly a hundred 
 years after this, Abraham was laid by his sons in one of the caves * 
 on the hill-side which he had bought from the children of Heth, a 
 * Machpelah means the double cave. 
 
334: 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 family of the Canaanites * settled there. By this time the children 
 of Anak had built the city which they called after their forefather 
 Arba — Kirjath-arba — “ which is Hebron and the valleys had been 
 named after Abraham’s friend, Mamre, who belonged to the 
 Amorites, another family of the Canaanites.* Damascus was at this 
 time a city also, but which was the oldest of the two we shall 
 probably never know. 
 
 Hebron seems to have been in the centre of the land assigned to 
 the tribe of Judah on the partition of the country, and after Joshua 
 had slain its Canaanitish king; and thence Caleb, to whom the 
 valley was specially given, drove out the original inhabitants, the 
 children of Anak. Hebron was afterwards apportioned as a city of 
 the Levites, but in 400 years it became again a royal city, as David 
 was there “ anointed king over the house of Judah ” and Israel, 
 and there he reigned seven years and a half until he had taken the 
 stronghold of Zion and made it “ the habitation of the Lord.” Long 
 after, the sacred caves containing the bones of Abraham and Sarah, 
 Isaac and Bebekah, Jacob and Leah, were enclosed within massive 
 walls ; and it is believed that these sepulchres still remain intact 
 and unrifled of the dust which has lain there for more than three 
 thousand years, for although the Idu means and the Mooslims have 
 alike at different times had possession of the city, the bones of the 
 Patriarchs are sacred alike to all. The Crusaders in 1167 built a 
 church over the tombs, calling it the cathedral of the “ bishop of 
 St. Abraham : ” but it was soon after turned into a mosque by the 
 Mooslims, to which they gave the name of the “ Mosque of the 
 Friend of God ” — Mesjed 7 Khalil 7 Allah. Neither Christian nor 
 Jew have ever been admitted into the enclosure since the day when 
 the Mooslims took possession of the city, nor, indeed, are Mooslims 
 even of very high rank allowed a sight of the real sepulchres : all 
 they ever see are a set of marble tombs, built on a higher story, as 
 it were, in the building, each one over that which it represents 
 below. 
 
 The structure enclosing the caves is a very remarkable one ; it is 
 of an oblong form with a wall of massive stones, hewn smooth and 
 beveled identically the same as those in the substructions of the 
 Temple at Jerusalem ; and there is no reason to doubt the tradition 
 that these walls were built by David when he reigned in Hebron. 
 There are fifteen pilasters against the two long walls, and nine 
 against the short walls : at each end there is a lofty staircase and a 
 
 * Heth and Amori were both sons of Canaan, grandson of Noah. Both 
 families were settled in the mountains about Hebron and ’Ain Jidi : they were 
 therefore brothers of the founders of the cities of Sidon and Hamath. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 335 
 
 Saracenic door. Jews are allowed to ascend only to the third step 
 of the flight, and the guards are very chary of letting one even look 
 in at the doors. The stones of the walls are some of them twenty feet 
 long, hut they are mostly squares, or nearly so, of from three to four 
 feet: against these in the outer angles Jewish men an d„ women are 
 usually to be seen kneeling in prayer, rocking themselves and weep- 
 ing. These massive walls have been heightened a few feet all round 
 with a very poor Saracenic wall, plastered over, and castellated; at 
 each end is a minaret, while in the centre, the dark tiled sloping roof 
 and arched window of the Christian Church rise up, looking more 
 incongruous and unusual than one can say after seeing all the flat- 
 roofed towns and villages of Syria and Palestine. 
 
 At the bottom of the valley is the Pool of David, not hollowed in 
 the rock, but built round with stones of the ancient Jewish bevel 
 (since plastered over by the Arabs) with two staircases down to the 
 water : it is 130 feet square : it contains only rainwater and is very 
 dirty : there is another smaller tank some way further, built in the 
 like manner, and, doubtless, it was over one of these that David 
 caused the murderers of Ishbosheth to be hanged. 
 
 Sheikh Hamzeh, the Wakeel of the Bedoueens on the west side of 
 the Dead Sea, lives at Hebron for the purpose of making arrange- 
 ments for travellers desirous of going into the Desert, and we spent 
 one whole day in bargaining with him. The price was fixed, after a 
 great deal of bother, for 600 piasters, including baksheesh. Sheikh 
 Hamzeh and Abou Dahouk, the son of Sheikh Salam, the famous 
 chief of the Jeh’aheen Arabs, were to accompany us themselves with 
 ten Bedoueens. We were to have five full days, and to go where we 
 liked, and camp wherever we chose. So we started at mid-day,. 
 Sheikh Hamzeh, a most courteous, white-bearded old man, leading 
 the cavalcade, and never failing to make a salaam and say “ Mar- 
 haba ! ” whenever he came near us, though it might be twenty times 
 in an hour. Abou Dahouk was most anxious to enter into conver- 
 sation, and was as polite and well-mannered, in his simple way, as 
 any English gentleman. Abou Dahouk was the name of his grand- 
 father, father, brothers, and cousins. It means the father of David, 
 and so strict is the custom of calling a son after his father’s father, 
 that every Arab is called among his friends “ father of so-and-so,” 
 even before he is married, in boyhood or babyhood : since, if ever he 
 has a son, that must be the child’s name. Our dragoman, Habeeb, 
 was always addressed among his intimate friends as “ Abou Faras 
 ! his father’s name had been Faras, and therefore if he ever married 
 his son would bear the same. “ I have gotten a man from the 
 I Lord/’ seems among the Arabs to invest the mother with peculiar 
 
336 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 dignity (Gen. iv. 1), and a wife does not bear the name of her 
 husband, but that of her son. We used to be amused to hear the 
 English Consul’s wife always addressed by the natives as “ Om 
 (mother of) Iskender ” her eldest boy’s name being Alexander, and 
 they would inquire from her after the child as “ Abou Jacobi,” his 
 father’s name being James. 
 
 The road from Hebron soon changed from dreary hills to absolute 
 desert, with nothing particular to look at save the openings of a few 
 caves here and there, the scenes, doubtless, of many of the adven- 
 tures and escapes of David during his wanderings in the “ wilderness 
 of Judaea.” One cave was fronted with columns, and we regretted 
 not being able to examine it : the Arabs call it “ the mother of 
 bells,” and seemed to regard it with interest and respect, so it may 
 contain some remains of interest. The word here translated wilder- 
 ness or desert should not be misunderstood to mean a sterile place : 
 the root of the original Hebrew word midbar means to conduct, to 
 lead, and describes an open country fit for the pasturage of flocks : 
 they were frequently fit for cultivation, but were left open for the 
 occupation most congenial to the early Israelite. Soon after we 
 came to Tell Ziph, the site of the city whose inhabitants tried to I 
 betray David into the hands of Saul ; and in half an hour more to 
 Carmel, where there are ruins of some interest : an old tower of the I 
 same masonry as the Tower of Hippicus, and the remains of several 
 churches and other ruins of some extent. It was in this place that 
 Amaury I., King of Jerusalem, occupied, in a.d. 1172, so saith the I 
 Chronicle, the identical dwelling-house of Nabal, the churl whose I 
 beautiful Abigail became afterwards the wife of David ! 
 
 We went on over still drearier hills, till, turning suddenly up 
 a low rise of coarse, gravelly sand, we found ourselves close to 
 the tents of the Jeh’aleen Bedoueens, a small number of whom 
 were encamped in a shallow wady below ; there were about forty 
 long, low, black and brown tents placed in two rows : a few horses j 
 picketed at a little distance, some dogs, and one baby-camel : the 
 camp camels were all in another wady. The Bedoueens were soon 
 swarming around us, and were immensely excited at our little dog, 
 whom they firmly believed to be some kind of lamb ; these good 
 people are such troublesome beggars, and so handy in assisting one 
 to give them what they want, that our servants dared not even take 
 their tobacco bags out of their pockets, and with all their care one 
 of the silver spoons was missing before morning ; while a boy kindly 
 picked up a torn bit of newspaper from outside our tent and offered 
 it to us for six piasters ! we made the little dog growl at him in 
 return, and he ran away in the greatest terror. 
 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 337 
 
 Abou Dahouk left his horse here and continued all the way with 
 us on foot, walking beside our horses and assisting them in diffi- 
 culties : about every ten minutes he looked up in one’s face and 
 inquired “ Ya sitt, taib?” a sort of Bedoueen cabman’s “ All right, 
 mum?” Bor some six hours we went on and on, over the same un- 
 interesting downs of bare sand, without seeing a bush, scarcely even 
 a tuft of thorn, and with no variety in the shapeless hills to break 
 the monotony : one never seemed to know where one hill ended, or 
 the next commenced, except by following the rings or long lines of 
 white rocks cropping out, in unnaturally regular bands, round or 
 up the slopes. This was the desolate scene of the wanderings of 
 St. John the Baptist, and well the dreary view harmonised in the 
 mind with one’s idea of the stern Saint — a scene far more dreary, 
 forbidding and harsh, than the finest picture of Spagnoletti or 
 Salvator Bosa ; they painted the ascetic under the gloomy terrors of 
 darkness ; more picturesque though less terrible to endure than the 
 fierce rays of the scorching sun upon the shadeless, glaring moun- 
 tains of sand. At last we turned into a very narrow little ravine, 
 the bed of a winter torrent, where a few seyal trees had procured it 
 the name of Wady Seyal. The path was rough enough, but nothing 
 to what followed when we had entered the W ady-en-Nemriyeh, the 
 valley of the Leopardess, which was too magnificent to be dreary ; 
 the monotonous slopes were left behind, and there were now only 
 lofty walls of 1000 feet high, meeting at the bottom in the wildest 
 confusion. Every mule had to be unloaded at the very beginning 
 of the ravine, the first ledge being too narrow for a loaded mule to 
 hold a footing : and there were many places where they could not 
 scramble up or down with any weight to carry beyond their own. 
 We had been slowly getting down the zig-zag for more than an 
 hour when the path was reported good enough for us to mount ; 
 but at the very first step the horse our maid was riding slipped over 
 a smooth slope of rock and threw her on her face, which was severely 
 cut. She lay so long insensible, that we had time to realise in its 
 full horror the sensation of helpless solitude in a desert in time of 
 need : we had no water : however, the only thing we could do turned 
 out to be the best cure of all, and that was to wash |the wounds 
 with pure wine, after which they heal with wonderful rapidity. 
 Fortunately we had not much further to go, for the tents were 
 pitched on a small level spot in the very heart of the ravine, close 
 to the only spring to be found for many miles. I do not think there 
 is in all Syria a finer spot : the cliffs went down about 300 or 400 
 feet beneath us as perpendicularly as a plumb line : they towered 
 above us about 1000 feet more : while seen through the narrow 
 
 z 
 
338 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 opening at the eastern end, the Dead Sea lay in calm loveliness, with 
 the opposite range of the mountains of Moab, varying, with the light 
 of evening, from every shade of the brightest rose-colour to the 
 deepest violet. In the very middle of the blue lake the end of the 
 Lisan or tongue *, shone out in the most staring white. The silence 
 of this valley, or rather chasm, was almost oppressive ; yet it did 
 not quite want life, for the trickling of the little stream fell loud 
 and clear on the ear, and every now and then a little gazelle would 
 come and stand daintily on the very edge of the cliff overhanging 
 the tents, and look down with wonder on the unusual scene below. 
 
 We left it at nine o’clock the next morning, and rode for a couple 
 of miles, due south, along the foot of the mountains that border the 
 lake, but at a long distance from the shore ; then we turned sud- 
 denly up a zig-zag cut out of the cliff, which is here about 500 feet 
 high, with 300 or more above it a little further back. How the 
 horses ever got up that zig-zag I don’t know, but they seemed to 
 cast reproachful glances at us at every fresh pull. We found a 
 level plateau at the top, sunk down, however, so as to afford no view 
 on either side : here and there among the sand and white stones 
 there were lumps of stone as black as coal, increasing in number at 
 every step : they rang with a metallic sound at the touch of the 
 horses’ hoofs. Soon the whole ground sounded like the crackling of 
 volcanic scoria ; yet amongst the very blackest of the stones lay 
 thousands of tiny, delicate, white snail shells such as we had seen 
 in the Tad m or Desert, and in other desert places since ; and our 
 Arabs picked up great lumps of gypsum, which they offered to us 
 as valuables. We met a couple of goatherds, whose shining bodies 
 were nearly black, and almost naked ; they were overwhelmed with 
 astonishment, not merely at the unusual sight of travellers, but at 
 their being ladies ! Sheikh Hamzeh engaged one of them as guide, 
 and he led us to a little spring at the foot of the mountain, now 
 called Sebbeh, once crowned with the famous Jewish fortress of 
 Masada. He told the goatherd to show us the way up, but for some 
 time the only answer he got was that woman’s foot could never 
 mount that rock. It certainly looked rather appalling. 
 
 The rock on which Masada stands is a perpendicular of 1500 feet 
 high, facing the Dead Sea : it projects from the line of cliffs, and 
 would be entirely separated from them by the deep chasm which 
 runs behind it, but for a narrow connecting neck of smooth sloping 
 rock; up this neck we were to climb. Sheikh Hamzeh and the Be- 
 doueens took off their sandals and abbahs, and we pinned up our riding 
 habits closely around us (they were, nevertheless, in rags when we 
 * Joshua xv. 2. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 339 
 
 descended), and then we slowly crept np the slope. Above this 
 there was about fifty feet of naked rock wall to be got up somehow : 
 once there was but a ledge of some three inches wide to stand on 
 whilst Abou Dahouk scrambled up the smooth face seven or eight 
 feet higher, and then, leaning over, pulled us up by main force : one 
 false step and we should have gone to the bottom of the chasm. 
 We found a paved path at the edge, probably the road leading to 
 the “ White Promontory/’ on which Flavius Silva raised the bank 
 for his battering rams, and were soon on the wide plateau above. 
 Safely landed there, it may be interesting to relate, in a few words, 
 something of the magnificent tragedy* which has made the name of 
 Masada famous for all history. 
 
 Simon Maccabseus, the last of the seven hero- brothers of Judah, 
 built this fortress about the year 140 b.c.; but it is probable that 
 it had always been a fortified retreat during the wars of the country. 
 Little is known of its history till Herod the Great took possession of 
 it, enclosed the flat top in a strong wall, rather less than a mile in 
 length ; on this he erected thirty-eight towers, and added a lofty and 
 magnificently-furnished palace for himself : the rest of the ground 
 was left for growing corn, as the soil was rich, and a great number 
 of tanks or reservoirs of water were hewn in the rock, so that the 
 garrison holding it could live independent of supplies from the outer 
 world. To this inaccessible fortress he intended to retire in case of 
 revolt among his subjects, or any other great danger. There were 
 but two ways of ascending to ft : one by the narrow neck we have 
 described, which was defended by a tower, and the other by a zig-zag 
 path up the cliff facing the lake, called the Serpent , the danger of 
 which Josephus describes as “ sufficient to quell the courage of 
 everybody by the terror it infuses into the mind ... for that he who 
 would walk along it must go first on one leg and then on the other, 
 and there is nothing but destruction in case your feet slip.” Herod 
 laid up stores of all manner of arms in it, and vast quantities of 
 food. A few months after, he made good his retreat from Jerusalem 
 when that city was attacked by the Parthians, and having placed his 
 mother and his beautiful betrothed, Mariamne, in the stronghold, 
 he went himself to Pome, while Antigonus besieged Masada in vain 
 for three months. A hundred years later, the imperial. army having 
 got possession of the fortress, a band of the Zealots, maddened by the 
 outrages of the infamous Florus at Jerusalem, managed to get into 
 the citadel — probably by ascending the Serpent in the night— and 
 massacred the whole garrison. Within the next five years Jerusalem 
 had fallen, after indescribable sufferings ; and of all their fortresses, 
 * Josephus, ‘ War/ vii., viiL 
 
 z 2 
 
340 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Masada alone remained in the possession of the Jews. To this, 
 Flavins Silva, the Roman envoy and Procurator of the miserable 
 country, determined to lay siege, and led his army there early in the 
 spring. In the meantime the cisterns had been filled by the winter’s 
 rain ; and such is the dryness and purity of the air, that the remains 
 of the corn, wine, oil, and dates, stored up by Herod, were found to j 
 be perfectly fresh and good, while the supply of arms was sufficient 
 for ten thousand men. The Romans surrounded the whole rock, 
 and, blockade being useless, they at last succeeded in building a 
 bank of earth and stones just above the neck, on which to place their 
 battering rams and other engines. The garrison made an ingenious j 
 machine of wood and earth to resist the ram ; but the Romans set 
 fire to it, and then the soldiers within knew that resistance was j 
 hopeless. Their commandant was Eleazar, the grandson of Judah 
 the Galilean, one of the first of those who had encouraged the Jews j 
 to resist the cruelties and impious demands of the Romans : neither 
 flight nor submission entered into the mind of his noble descendant ; 
 he knew that on the following day the Romans would make a 
 general assault on walls that would crumble beneath their irre- I 
 sistible power, and he determined to unite the whole company in 
 one grand sacrifice. Assembling his garrison at nightfall around 
 him, he made, with all the eloquence of a dreadful enthusiasm, one 
 of the grandest appeals on record ; he described to them the horrors ; 
 that awaited them should they fall into slavery and dishonour, and 
 dilated upon the blessed assurance of the immortality and rewards | 
 promised to the soul that should escape unstained from its earthly 
 bonds ; and having worked them up to a state bordering on frenzy, 
 he conjured them to meet an awful but triumphant death with un- 
 failing courage. The little band of heroes were not unworthy of 
 their noble leader : death was easier to every true Jew than impiety 
 or dishonour ; the liberty of the soul was sweeter than the freedom j 
 of the body. Without one instant’s hesitation each man embraced j 
 his wife and his children, and in the next moment stabbed them to 
 the heart ; then, choosing by lot ten men to complete the dreadful 
 sacrifice, they lay down beside the corpses of those dear victims ; 
 already gone, and, one by one, each offered his throat to the knives 
 of the chosen ten, who, after piling up all their wealth in one heap, 
 set fire to it and to the palace. One was again chosen to consummate 
 the bloody deed— to put an end to his companions and lastly to him- 
 self: and when the morning dawned of Easter-day a.d. 73, the sun 
 rose on nothing but smoking ruins and bleeding corpses! The 
 Roman mounted the breach with a shout of triumph but only 
 an awful silence met them, broken at last by the appearance of 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 341 
 
 two women and five children, who had concealed themselves in one 
 of the cisterns, and now came forth to relate the speech of the heroic' 
 Eleazar, and to point to the ghastly heap of immortalised patriots ! 
 Thus closed, with an awful grandeur, the last scene of the long 
 tragedy of the Jewish War of Independence. 
 
 Masada must have been abandoned soon after, for even tradition 
 is silent as to the bloody spot. Nearly eighteen centuries passed 
 away before Mr. Eli Smith and Dr. Eobinson, coming in view of the 
 mountain, conceived that it might be the long-lost Masada ; and in 
 1842 two travellers, Messrs. Walcott and Tipping, having succeeded 
 in climbing to the top, discovered the remains of the fortress and 
 palace. It has since been ascended by three or four other travellers 
 who agree in thinking that the ridge or neck on the western side, 
 “ fit only for a rope-dancer’s foot,” as says De Saulcy, is covered 
 with the remains of the mound built up by the Eoman general. On 
 reaching the summit, the gateway formed of a single pointed arch is 
 the first thing seen ; it is neither handsome nor particularly well 
 built : the stones have several marks rudely scratched upon them 
 of crosses and circles, one of which, the circle with the cross be- 
 neath it, is said to be the sign of the planet Yenus: this is the best 
 piece of building on the whole plateau. There are four sets of ruins, 
 but they are all of the roughest character, and either Josephus’s 
 account of Herod’s palace must be enormously exaggerated, or the 
 remains of it have totally disappeared. Had the Crusaders ever for- 
 tified so remarkable a mountain some tradition or record of it would 
 have been handed down, or some token of their building would 
 remain apparent : but certainly none is existing there now. The 
 work is very rude and coarse : the stones are not large, and the 
 interstices are filled in with little loose bits without being mortared 
 or even mudded over : inside the largest building, which has a semi- 
 circular apse to one of the rooms, the walls are plastered over with 
 a hard cement, into which common bits of stone or fragments of 
 pots of any shape are stuck in rude stripes or diamonds, with a 
 rough attempt at arrangement of colour, but nothing could be 
 coarser or rougher in appearance : there is also a pavement of the 
 same kind of coarse pebble-mosaic. The cisterns, which have been 
 evidently very large, are now filled up, from the ground and stones 
 having fallen in ; and the only sign of life was an eagle, who, dis- 
 turbed at our approach, soared up into the sky, dropping a feather 
 at our feet : this we carried down as a trophy. 
 
 It is worth a great deal, even such an ascent as it is, to stand on 
 the blood-stained soil of Masada; but it is really worth double 
 the toil to see the view from the summit of that rock : one of the 
 
342 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 things to remember through life. Somebody says there is no 
 “ beauty ” in it : I can only suppose he saw it in the spring or ; 
 summer, when Syrian views are colourless ; but to me every other ; 
 view I have ever seen fades in my memory when I think of the wild, 
 stern, peculiar magnificence of that scene. The great Desert is 
 indeed far more impressive from its apparent infinitude, and ; 
 nothing, in my opinion, can come up to the strange beauty of 
 Palmyra, standing in the midst of its many-coloured ocean : nor, I 
 perhaps, to the lovely luxuriance and wealth of Nature displayed at 
 Broussa : the view from the Second Cataract of the Nile has some- 
 thing of the same character, untouched by aught that is human, 1 
 while the vast extent of the scene there makes up for the variety in 
 this : — yet here, with every trace of man, past or present, seemingly 
 swept away, with the vaporous colouring and quivering mists rising 
 from the hot and accursed sea, and with the great variety in its out- 
 lines of land and water, this view is beyond all others for the 
 splendour of its savage and yet beautiful wildness. To the south, 
 Jebel Usdoum, the Mountain of Salt, believed to be the site of 
 Sodom, seemed closed beneath us : a compact low mountain, standing 1 
 out in the water, in front of range behind range of other mountains, 
 stretching away to the south and curving round the end of the 
 lake : there the pale grey shore was backed by a range of low, 
 dazzlingly white hills, shining and sparkling in the sunshine, for I 
 these are the famous salt-hills : the mountains of the east side of 
 the sea come down to meet them in ranges of varied form, while i 
 behind all ros.e up the noble blue line of the mountains of Edom, 
 among which is Petra. The whole length of the sea, from end to , 
 end, lay before us, with the Lisan, or large tongue of white land, 
 only a few feet above the water, stretching out from the south- 1 
 eastern side: Kerak, the scene of so many events in ancient and 
 modern history, was visible on the mountain over it ; while from j 
 three several fissures in the rocks, curls of vapour rose up in the 
 still air from the hot mineral springs of Calirrhoe, and from others 
 of which we did not know the names. Utterly barren and treeless , 
 was the whole view, save the beautiful thickets of foliage that j 
 marked ’Ain Jidi to the north, and that lay in two of the wadys ! 
 opposite : but the most striking peculiarity in the view was the 
 leaden colour of the lake itself: it seemed formed of some liquid 
 thicker than water, with trails of scummy matter meandering over 
 it. It was mid-day— and yet the colouring was superb : the dark 
 hues of Jebel Usdoum and the snow-white glitter of the salt-hills j 
 contrasting with the vaporous purples and lilacs of the eastern shore; 1 
 the dull yellow- white of the Lisan and of the coast beneath us was 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 343 
 
 very remarkable; while all around us the rich brown rock of 
 Sebbeh, the burnt appearance of the crags and the lumps of black 
 stone filling up the deep rents and chasms, made an extraordinary 
 scene, but a perfectly dead one : one longed for even a ruin in the 
 distance to give some sign of man. The Arabs who accompanied us, 
 and who had never been up there before, appeared much impressed 
 with the grandeur of the view, but, with the instinct of nature, 
 were still more interested in the accursed sea itself, repeating 
 vehemently again and again, “ Moieh battal, battal ! ” (good for 
 nothing, bad water). 
 
 We retired with cautious steps down the side of the rock by 
 which we had mounted: I cannot say it was by any means a 
 pleasant operation : and thankfully availed ourselves of the clear, 
 cold water bubbling from the spring at the botton of the neck — for 
 there is a spring, although its existence has been strongly denied ; 
 and probably an unfailing one, as we found plenty of water in 
 December, and the goatherd said they had not as yet had any rain. 
 The horses were sent on to descend the zig-zag we had walked up, 
 at about a mile and a half distance, and we descended by another 
 “ serpent ” to the bottom of the chasm — may my feet never pass 
 down such another ! The Bedoueens said the goats had made the path, 
 and certainly it was only fit for them ; we were heartily glad when 
 we reached the bottom, though we had a long way to walk before 
 we met the horses, and plenty of time to observe the stupendous 
 cliff of Masada, much bolder and loftier and with a finer 'crowning 
 crag than any other on the Dead Sea. The northern face has 
 several caverns in it, which must have been occupied by hermits who 
 had little temptation to “ look back : ” for no one would willingly 
 retrace any of the steps that led to them. 
 
 Perhaps the shore, along which we had now to ride for a good four 
 hours, is one of the most remarkable features of the Dead Sea ; it is 
 about a mile in width from the foot of the mountain to the water’s 
 edge, and more than double at the mouth of the Wady Seyal, the 
 delta of which is cut through in strangely regular terraces by the 
 action of the winter’s torrents ; the ground is a chalky mud, some- 
 times so soft and slimy that it will not bear the weight of a foot. 
 It is strewn with lumps of white gypsum, brown pumice, black 
 bitumen, salt, and sulphur (but the bitumen was in pieces 
 not , quite “ as large as a horse,” as old Mandeville describes 
 the lumps that “ the water casteth out every day”). Nowhere was 
 the ground level for the space of twenty yards : it was altogether a 
 succession of fissures and mounds, intermingled with quicksands 
 like a field that has been long under water, and cracked in the drying 
 
344 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 of the hot sun: such, I believe, it is, for this plain is usually 
 flooded in the spring. Down in the deepest part of the wady we 
 found several trees : some were “ sont ” (mimosa) trees, with tiny 
 leaves and long straight thorns; the others, our old friends the ! 
 nebbk, here called sidr. The mimosa, called sont or sunt in Egypt, ; 
 is believed to be the “ shittim wood ” of Scripture ; it is here called 
 “ seyal,” nearly the same word as the Hebrew esal, mentioned in 
 Gen. xxi. 33, 1 Sam. xxii. 6, and xxxi. 13 : it is probably a tree of 
 this kind, therefore, to which each of those passages alludes. There i 
 is a wady on the east side of the Dead Sea, called Wad y -el- Esal, 
 and on the west as we have seen, called es Seyal : the one on the 
 eastern side is said to be also full of these trees. When we came j 
 to the large depression on the shore called Birket-el-Khulil, we 
 found the ground covered with a crust of salt ; and the smell, for 
 the next two hours, of sulphuretted hydrogen was very strong 
 indeed, and immensely more nauseous than that of the springs of 
 Tadmor : it is said to be emitted from the ground, not the water, j 
 The shore was thickly strewed with trees : bare, black skeletons, j 
 encrusted over with a mantle of salt ; they are brought down by 
 the Jordan and the winter torrents in the ravines between the 
 mountains. 
 
 The splendour of the sunset colouring had scarcely faded when j 
 the full moon— a globe of pure fire — started up from behind the 1 
 eastern mountains, and spread a broad flood of silver and gold over j 
 the sea and land : even the Eedoueens seemed subdued into silence I 
 by the superb loveliness of the scene, and left off singing, to repeat 
 again and again, in low tones, “ Quiyis, quiyis keeter ! ” and the I 
 sweet cool breeze tried to console us for the excessive fatigue 
 which had now overtaken us. About seven o’clock the welcome - 
 sound of rushing waters met our ears, and we were soon struggling j 
 up the steep ascent, too steep to ride in the dark, to the " fountain 
 of the kid,” ’Ain Jidi, where our tents were pitched, just beyond 
 the thick bosquets of deliciously shady trees that cluster round the 
 spring. We were thankful indeed to see them, all the more when 
 we heard that the servants had had rather a skirmish in getting i 
 there, the Rashaidya Bedoueens of the place having refused to admit 
 the Jeh’aleen Bedoueens, as escort, into their territory; nor would 
 they, even to the last, allow the camp to be placed very near the . 
 water. We went to bed, rejoicing in the prospect of a quiet l 
 Sunday’s rest on the morrow in this beautiful spot. 
 
 Nothing could be more delicious than the climate here : although, 
 probably, oppressively and most unhealthily hot in summer and 
 spring, it was now quite perfect, warm, fresh, and balmy. We could 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 345 
 
 gladly have stayed for many days, enjoying the superb colouring 
 and the pleasant trees, but that no food being procurable nearer than 
 Hebron, for either man or beast, we could have only one day to 
 linger; and the Arabs were unwilling to grant even that much use 
 of the spring. Soon after breakfast we heard loud and angry 
 words : the Eashaidya Bedoueens refused to let our men take any 
 water from their fountain, and, after some blows, out came the long 
 knives (yataghans), and a serious storm seemed impending. They 
 demanded the payment of tribute for entering their territory, and 
 we did not choose to pay a single piaster beyond the sum agreed 
 upon with the JelTaleen Arabs for our safe conduct throughout the 
 journey, as we thought the quarrel might be a ruse, got up by the 
 Arabs together for the extortion of money, and that our yielding 
 would be a bad precedent for future travellers. But for peace’ 
 sake we made them a present of a kid, and took some of them as 
 guards in a walk along the sea-shore, after which they might be 
 supposed to deserve a baksheesh. Sheik Hamzeh and Abou Dahouk 
 came too, and took as much care of us as if we were wax dolls, besides 
 helping to collect plants and bitumen, &c., and teaching us with much 
 care the Arabic names of each. 
 
 ’Ain Jidi is the Hazezon- Tamar — “ the pruning of the palm ” — 
 which was occupied by the Amorites, when Chedorlaomer, the King 
 of Elam (Susiana), came up to chastise his rebellious tributaries, 
 the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and Zoar, &c., and smote them. 
 The Kenites dwelt here on whom Balaam looked as he said, “ Strong 
 is thy dwelling-place, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock.” And 
 here the Moabites and Amorites gathered together before they 
 went up to Jerusalem, in the time of Jehoshaphat, from whence not 
 one of them ever returned. Solomon sings of its delightful vine- 
 yards : Josephus and Pliny tell of its palm-groves and balsam. 
 Hasselquist found vines there in the last century, and the zakkhoum 
 still bearing its healing oil ; but both vine and palm tree have now 
 entirely disappeared. The tangled woods round the stream are of 
 acacia, nebbk, mimosa, jujube, tamarisk, and almond-trees ; while 
 the ground is strewed with wild mignonnette, growing plentifully 
 among the strange fantastic grass and huge boulders that cover 
 the little plateau. Besides these there is the henna, with its small 
 bright green leaf (translated in the Bible as camphire, copher and 
 cypress), to a branch of which Solomon likens his beloved among 
 “ the vineyards of En-gedi and large thickets of the Sodom apples*, 
 mentioned by Josephus as “the ashes,” or “remainders of divine 
 fire reproduced in those fruits,” the Asclepias gigantea of botanists, 
 * Deut. xxxii. 32. 
 
346 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 called by the Arabs osher. This plant grows about twelve feet 
 high, and has large oval leaves, growing in pairs, very thick and 
 fleshy, of a pale bluish green : they discharge quantities of acrid 
 milk when broken, which the Bedoueens are most careful not to 
 touch : it has a horrid smell. The fruit, which also hangs in pairs, 
 is a large blue-green globe, about ten inches long : it is evidently 
 filled with air, and very light ; when torn or burst open the thin 
 rind is seen to contain a small pod filled with seeds, imbedded in 
 delicate white silky threads, which the Arabs use as matches for 
 their guns. Perhaps the fruit looks more tempting in the spring, 
 but Jn the autumn the plant is as ugly and poisonous-looking as 
 one can imagine. The small plant ( Solarium Melongena), which is 
 also called Sodom apple, grows plentifully here. It is remarkably 
 pretty, the large, rough, hairy leaves and the thorny stem bearing 
 both the purple flower and the golden fruit at the same time : the 
 fruit, which is like a very small lemon, contains only brown gum 
 and a few seeds. The water of the fountain is of 81° Fahr. 
 temperature, but when cool it is excellent drinking. The source is 
 five hundred feet above the lake. 
 
 ’Ain Jidi is exactly opposite the ravine of Wady Mojib, on the 
 eastern coast, the River Arnon of Scripture. The view from the 
 fountain is beautiful, but by no means so fine as that from Sebbeli : 
 Jebel Usdoum stands out well, but from hence it hides the salt hills 
 at the southern end of the sea: the three promontories we had 
 rounded between Sebbeh and ’Ain Jidi rose grandly, one behind 
 another, with the ruined fortress crowning the last and loftiest. 
 This was the view, with the still, sullen-looking lake below, which 
 met the eyes of the Essenes, those earnest strivers after purity and 
 holiness, who inhabited these caves in the time of our Lord. Here, 
 too, long after, came many a Christian hermit to spend the evening 
 of his days, in silent communion with his God, apart from the noisy 
 world : and in the short, sweet twilight I almost fancied I heard 
 them— the 
 
 “ anchorites beneath En-gedi’s palms 
 Pacing the Dead Sea beach, 
 
 And singing slow their old Armenian psalms, 
 
 In half-articulate speech ; ” 
 
 but, alas ! no sound of Christian prayer or praise rises now from the 
 shores of that beautiful but desolate lake. 
 
 All sorts of stories have been related of the horrible aspect of the 
 accursed Sea, of the lurid glare that illuminated its banks with 
 supernatural light, of the strange sounds and terrible forms that 
 were seen around its shores ; and until lately it was really believed 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 347 
 
 that no bird could fly oyer its waters, and that every creature, man 
 or beast, that inhaled its malaria either perished or went raving 
 mad, as if its very atmosphere was impregnated with the visible 
 wrath of God. The story of the malaria ought to have been proved 
 false by the remembrance of how many hermits and recluses lived 
 beside its waters, especially congregating at the very spot where the 
 odours are stronger than at any other : many of them may, indeed, 
 have been mad, but not from the effects of the climate, although 
 doubtless it is one of the very hottest and most oppressive to be 
 found in the world throughout the summer. The smell of the bitu- 
 men and sulphur, the slimy ground, the sparkling salt hills, and, 
 more especially, the singular thick, viscous appearance on the 
 surface of the water, are all extraordinary and strange enough; but 
 there is nothing, really nothing, about the lake, as we saw it, bearing 
 evidence of the miraculous vengeance of an angry Deity, however 
 frightful and awful an appearance it may occasionally wear 
 when the hot mists and vapours are lifted from the surface of the 
 water, in the middle of summer, by the sirocco of the Desert, and 
 hang in dense rolling masses over the lake alone. Such was the 
 description given to us by the Bedoueens; but this is not of 
 very frequent occurrence, and is confined to the hottest part of the 
 season only. 
 
 This lake has had a great many names ; in the first books of the 
 Bible it is usually called “ the salt sea/’ and “ the sea of the plain,” 
 while Joel, Zechariah, and Ezekiel call it “ the eastern sea the 
 Greeks and Romans spoke of it as the “ Lake Asphaltitis Euse- 
 bius and Saint Jerome write of it by its common modern name of 
 the “ Dead Sea,” applied because its waters hold no living thing 
 within them. The Arabs have but one name for it — BalTr Lout — 
 or the Sea of Lot ; and for the asphalt or bitumen cast up upon the 
 shores they have retained the old Hebrew name of hamor in their 
 word liamr. After the earthquake of 1837 such an enormous lump 
 of bitumen was detached from the bottom of the lake, and floated 
 on to the shore, that the Jeh’aleen and Ta’amreh Arabs sold 
 18,750 lbs. weight of it in Bethlehem and Jerusalam, where it was 
 carved into plates, vases, &c. &c. Deeply interesting are the scien- 
 tific speculations as to the formation of the lake, sunk as it is at 1371 
 feet below the level of the Mediterranean ; and many savants find it 
 difficult to conceive that even the rapid evaporation, caused by the 
 extreme heat of the depressed valley, can be sufficient to carry off 
 the immense bulk of water poured into its bosom by the Jordan.* Tt 
 has even been imagined that some subterranean communication or 
 * Six millions of tuns per diem, it is said. 
 
348 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 channel empties it into the Eed Sea ; I have, however, no business 
 to meddle with these difficult questions. It was enough for us to 
 think back upon the affluent fountains of the river we had seen 
 pouring out from springs shaded over by luxuriant trees and 
 flowers : to remember the green meadows through which it wound 
 its way into the silvery Lake of Tiberias, teeming with countless 
 multitudes of fish, and the pleasant cane-brakes at the southern 
 end of the lake, whence it flowed, as from its cradle, between lands 
 of richest verdure and wealth of wood ; while now the riante bright- 
 ness cf the sacred stream was suddenly quenched as it laid itself 
 down in the deep silence and stern solemnity of its tomb in the 
 Dead Sea : 
 
 “ Besando su sepultura, 
 
 El Jordan viene a morir.” 
 
 Beyond this tomb there is yet one more thought on which to 
 meditate in reverential silence : the mysterious prophecies of Ezekiel 
 and Zechariah, of the “ living waters ” that shall one day “ go out 
 from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea/’ down through 
 the “ desert ” plain and “ into the sea, and the waters shall be 
 healed ; the fishers shall stand at En-gedi, and shall spread forth 
 their nets, and the fish shall be according to their kinds as the fish 
 of the great sea, exceeding many.” * 
 
 We left ’Ain Jidi, very regretfully, early in the morning, and 
 turned many a loving glance at her fresh bright trees as we toiled 
 up the wady behind the spring : such an ascent as it was 1 worse 
 than that of Wady-en-Nemriyeh, without the wild grand beauty 
 which there compensated for its difficulty. Within a few hundred 
 yards of ’Ain Jidi, the mules had to be unloaded, and all the heavy 
 part of the luggage carried up on the backs of the staggering mule- 
 teers, whose strength seemed to us marvellous, in men who never 
 taste meat ; the Bedoueens are wonderfully firm of foot, and sur- 
 prisingly active and agile, but they have not this kind of strength 
 in their muscles, and do not carry burdens as this class of men do. 
 We were just one hour mounting the zig-zag ascent, and when we 
 reached the top we found the Sheikh and the muleteers dancing 
 about in the liveliest manner, congratulating each other upon having 
 surmounted these difficulties without accident. We had then a 
 monotonous ride of six hours among the utterly barren rounded 
 peaks of the wilderness : they can be compared to nothing as well 
 as the waves of the sea in a violent storm suddenly turned to stone; 
 not a weed is to be seen, nor any change of colour save bands of 
 
 * Zech. xiy. 8 ; Ezek. xlvii. 8, 1 0. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 349 
 
 white rock cropping out in ribbons along the mountain sides, and 
 here and there a few black stones. We followed a N.W. course all 
 day, and at five p.m. came to a miserable village, called Beni-naim, 
 at so short a distance from Hebron that probably no travellers had 
 ever encamped there before ; so the people tormented us so much 
 with their pertinacious curiosity; they informed us that this was 
 the burying-place of Lot, and they showed us his gigantic tomb, 
 into which, however, we were of course not admitted. An hour and 
 a halffs Aide through narrow wadys, green with prickly oak and 
 thorns, brought us to Hebron in the morning. 
 
 While the tents were being pitched we yielded to Sheikh Hamzeh’s 
 earnest entreaties to take coffee at his house, and alighted there : he 
 soon brought in his three wives and a pretty sister to make many 
 salaams and “ mar’habas,” and then showed us his beautiful boys 
 with much pride. The children at Hebron are very remarkable for 
 their beauty, superior even to those of Bethlehem ; and, like them, 
 they are dressed very gaily and handsomely. The Sheikh gave us 
 excellent coffee and sugar-plums ; and then dinner was brought in 
 on a metal tray and placed before us with plenty of hot bread : the 
 first dish, called mafrukka , i.e., half-baked bread shredded into hot 
 butter, with abundance of sugar, was excellent ; then came poached 
 eggs swimming in oil, and cakes of quince jelly : the tray was passed 
 out, when we had done, to the servants, and then to the Bedoueens. 
 We gave dinner to the Sheikh and Abou Dahouk in the evening, 
 seated on the ground by our tent : they had behaved so well and 
 been so untiringly attentive to us that we were anxious to testify 
 our satisfaction in a pleasanter and more uncommon way than only 
 the inevitable baksheesh. They were very much pleased at our 
 invitation, and conducted themselves with the utmost good breeding 
 and grave politeness, only showing a little puzzlement as to how to 
 carry the spoons to their mouths, and at the unaccustomed heat of 
 the soup, as they never take any hot liquid or food except coffee, 
 which they sip : we had Mooslim-killed meat on purpose for them : 
 but they took more kindly to the mishmish and rice : the rest of the 
 escort were feasted on a sheep, at the same time, in the cooking- 
 tent. We parted with many “ katter herraks ” (thank you), and 
 Abou Dahouk expressed his firm resolution that soon, very soon, he 
 would go to England : he would begin at once to wear grand clothes 
 and to speak English : he seemed to think that putting on a Frank 
 dress would make the speaking English much more easy. We were 
 much amused to hear, six months after, from some gentlemen who 
 went down to Sebbeh, that the Arabs of his tribe, the Jeh’aleen, 
 were singing a long song, describing in flowery language the two 
 
350 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 “ Sitteh Ing'leezeeyeli ” who had sojourned among them (the poet did 
 not record at what period of the world’s history) ; princesses they 
 must have been, for they had given food and drink and a feast to 
 the poor Jeh’aleen, and refreshed them with coffee : not common 
 coffee only — but actually coffee with sugar ! 
 
 Hebron stands 3000 feet above the sea, and after the delightful 
 climate of the Dead Sea we were so dreadfully cold, that we were 
 very glad to leave it, and to bend our steps along the Jerusalem road, 
 trodden probably by the feet of nearly every person we read of in 
 Scripture from the days of Abraham to the Christian era. In half 
 an hour we had reached the noble oak ( Quercus pseudo-coccifera), 
 which the Hebron people believe to be the tree under which Abra- 
 ham received the angels : it is a very fine lofty and beautiful tree, 
 one of the finest trees in Syria : the trunk is 23 feet in girth ; but it 
 is needless to remark that it is not of such great antiquity, being 
 yet in the prime of its life ; nor, as this is the prickly oak (the 
 sindian or ballut of the Arabs), could it be the terebinth (butm in 
 Arabic) under which Abraham pitched his tent. The branches 
 were full of fruit : they bend down more weepingly than those of 
 the smaller and younger trees of the species ; it is beautifully placed 
 among the vineyards of the rich valley of Eshcol. 
 
 About half an hour further we turned off the road to visit some 
 ruins that are said to be those of the singularly beautiful basilica 
 built by command of Constantine “ over the terebinth of Abraham,” 
 in order to put an end to its worship by the common people and to 
 destroy the idolatrous altars set up around it. The remains consist 
 of the three lowest courses of two sides of a building 290 feet long; 
 many of the stones are more than 16 feet long by 4 feet wide, and 
 by their size and workmanship appeared to us to be of a higher 
 antiquity than the time of Constantine; near the top of the hill 
 there are several ruins and some broken columns which seemed 
 more like work of that age. Here we had an extensive though not 
 pretty view, catching sight of the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, 
 on either hand, at the same moment. All the hills along the road 
 have once been terraced and planted, and then the country may 
 have been pretty : now the hill-sides have returned into almost 
 their natural condition, and are varied only with a scanty sprink- 
 ling of prickly oak, arbutus, and juniper, with here and there the 
 winter-crimsoned leaves of the butm or terebinth ; and despite the 
 verdant nooks where the plough is occasionally used, the whole 
 road seemed very bare, bleak and dreary. It became still barer and 
 still drearier as we neared Bethlehem, a handsomely built white 
 town lifted up on the very end and ridge of a rocky spur, which 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 351 
 
 runs out into the valley due east ; there are gardens round Beth- 
 lehem and the glorious olive-groves of Beit Jala are not far off, but 
 the whole scene is one of intensely dreary, rocky barrenness. And 
 yet, so much is everything in Judaea changed, that Bethlehem was 
 formerly distinguished by the name of “Ephratah” — fruitful; 
 doubtless every hill was once clothed with forest and every valley 
 full of foliage or smiling fields ; indeed, there are some living even 
 now who have heard their fathers tell of the fine trees that shaded 
 the road the whole way from Bethlehem to Hebron, where now 
 nothing better than a shrub appears; and one chief source of 
 labour among the fellaheen is digging up the huge roots of the 
 trees from the old broken terraces and ledges of the rocky hills to 
 sell for fuel in Jerusalem : we were told that almost all of these 
 roots were of oak. 
 
 Bethlehem * is one of the brightest villages in Palestine : it is in 
 truth a town of considerable extent, of substantially and smoothly 
 built stone houses ; and the people, who are all Christians, are a 
 race apart, marrying chiefly [among themselves, and taking much 
 pride in their origin ; they are the descendants of the Crusaders and 
 the beautiful women of Bethlehem, then degraded and despised, but 
 now proud and haughty. They are excessively quarrelsome and 
 unruly, but also very industrious, and a handsome, bold-looking, 
 blue-eyed people: the children especially are, many of them, 
 remarkable for their beauty, which is set off by the scarlet or 
 crimson mash’lahs they all wear, neat and clean of their kind. The 
 women wear a quantity of silver ornaments, and headdresses, 
 shaped like bonnets, of silver coins sewed on, overlapping each 
 other: their dress is invariably a thick gown of dark blue woollen 
 drugget, striped with crimson, and a coarse white linen veil, 
 with coloured fringe, drawn over the head, but not covering the 
 face. 
 
 The church at Bethlehem is said to be one of the oldest in the 
 world, and there is no reason to doubt the assertion: much is 
 believed to remain of that erected by the Empress Helena, though 
 much was added by the Crusaders; it is a large building, con- 
 sisting of a nave with four aisles, separated by rows of columns, 
 monoliths of red limestone, veined with white and polished: the 
 Corinthian capitals, which are peculiar and handsome, appearing 
 quite poor through their veil of whitewash ; the columns have been 
 painted over with figures of saints, and the upper part of the walls 
 and the roof were once covered with a fine mosaic of high antiquity, 
 
 ^ * Beit-lahm, as it is. called in Arabic, means the “house of flesh.” Beth- 
 lehem, in Hebrew, means the “ house of bread.” 
 
352 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 of which, but a very little yet remains.* The Greeks occupy the 
 centre chapel in the choir, adorned with quantities of gilding and a 
 very rich screen; the Armenians are on the south side, and the 
 Latins have a large chapel to themselves at a few yards’ distance) 
 dedicated to St. Catherine. From the Armenian Chapel, a small 
 semi-circular staircase descends to a pair of fine silver doors, which 
 open into the Grotto — an irregular, oblong cave, with a recess not 
 three feet high, scooped out at one end, where sixteen silver 
 lamps are always burning over the inscription on the ground, in 
 silver letters, “ Hie de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est 
 over the recess is an altar used in turn by the three communions. 
 Upwards of forty lamps of gold and silver hang from the roof of the 
 cave ; they are always lighted, and are all gifts from the pious of 
 other lands, mostly from France and Eussia ; a marble trough in 
 one corner represents the Manger, and pictures are placed above 
 the altars ; the cave is lined with marble, so that, if it is the real 
 place, little of Nature remains visible in it. 
 
 We passed through the Latin Church to descend into the grottos 
 still lower down, dedicated to martyrs and saints, and to the tomb 
 containing the so-called bones of the Innocents : then came the cave 
 where there is every reason to believe St. Jerome spent great part 
 of his life, and where he wrote most of his books ; it is now neatly 
 whitewashed and lined with a stone vaulting, which robs it of all 
 reality ; indeed, the sacred sights enclosed in the church at Beth- 
 lehem pleased me as little as those at Nazareth, and I was most glad 
 to leave them and to sit outside our tents among the fig-gardens, 
 listening to the shepherd boys, leading home their sheep and goats, 
 and singing as they went. It was so dreadfully cold, that we were 
 glad to close in the tent at night with a good charcoal fire. 
 
 We sent our dragoman into Jerusalem, early the next morning, 
 to engage a Bedoueen guard for our journey to Jericho, and we 
 pursued our way for three hours, over very ugly, bare, and barren 
 hills, towards Mar Saba : we looked down upon two camps of the 
 Ta’amreh Arabs in wadys below us, but they did not molest or notice 
 us : and once we had a lovely glimpse of the Dead Sea. Then we 
 descended suddenly upon the Convent of St. Saba, perched on a 
 lofty cliff, running out between two deep wadys, one of which is 
 the Kedron : two high towers first meet the eye, but on approaching 
 nearer, one is bewildered with the pile of massive walls, domes, 
 battlements, staircases, and five splendid buttresses supporting the 
 
 * The fragments still on the wall have been admirably reproduced in a 
 4to. volume, “ Sur les Eglises de la Terre Sainte, par le Comte Melchior de 
 Vogue. Paris, 1860.” 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 353 
 
 building on the edge of the precipice from the giddy depths below ; 
 a small garden of orange and pomegranate trees is enclosed within 
 the walls, and the monks were busy at sunset in feeding flocks of 
 little black and yellow birds, which were twittering about the place. 
 They keep a vigilant watch from the towers, and no Bedoueen is 
 ever knowingly admitted within the walls on any pretence: but 
 they have more than once succeeded in robbing the convent. The 
 original cave was selected by the holy Saba in a.d. 483, and his 
 sanctity and wisdom drew several thousand disciples round him 
 there : he was not often allowed to rest in solitude or retirement, 
 being frequently compelled to take an active part in the troubled 
 scenes of the Holy City, and having been made Archimandrite of 
 the anchorites in Palestine, he went even to Constantinople to 
 implore justice and favour from Justinian for them and for the 
 clergy of Syria. The Emperor came out to meet him, prostrated 
 himself at the feet of the holy man, and granted all his petitions. 
 Many men of note have since that time lived within these walls, 
 and the library is said to contain MSS. of great value. The monks 
 observe a very severe rule, but they are hospitable and kind; 
 willing to admit guests of their own sex, or to do any service in 
 their power for those to whom their rule does not permit entrance.* 
 We only needed water, but they sent us hot bread and some wine, 
 and they are willing to supply any travellers encamped outside 
 with food if they desire it. 
 
 On the following day we found a good, but often very steep road, 
 leading over wearisome, sand-strewn, desert hills ; the alternations 
 of ground seldom extending more than two or three hundred 
 yards each, were more tiresome, undulating as regularly as the 
 waves of the sea. The whole range of mountains in this 
 “wilderness of Judsea” has been aptly described as a multitude 
 of gigantic limekilns, yellow and white towards the south, about 
 ’Ain Jidi, red and pink towards the north ; the variety of colour 
 alone saved them from being painfully monotonous. Soon after 
 leaving Mar Saba we had a sudden glimpse of Jerusalem, between 
 two steep and lofty cliffs : the view was striking, the city standing 
 so completely alone and lifted up on her own mountain, like a queen, 
 but so triste and desolate, in strange harmony with the utter 
 barrenness around, that it seemed, as Chateaubriand well ex- 
 presses it, “ the City of Desolation, in a desolate solitude.” Dr. 
 
 * A vulgar trick was lately played upon the monks by some travelling lady, 
 who entered the monastery in men’s clothes, concealing her hands in her 
 pockets while going over the whole building ; but whilst taking coffee her sex 
 was discovered, and she was immediately expelled by the justly offended 
 j monks. 
 
 2 A 
 
354 
 
 E G YETI AN SEPUL CURES 
 
 Barclay supposes somewhere near this to have been the spot where 
 “ Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off ” (Gen. 
 xxii. 4), and that thence he went up the valley of the Kedron to the 
 foot of Moriah : from this place Mount Moriah, and that only, can 
 be seen ; and the valley is strewn at the bottom with large building 
 stones of high antiquity, called by the Arabs “ Khirbet Ibrahim 
 it does not seem the road he would have taken from Beersheba, but 
 the idea is worth considering. 
 
 Somewhat further on we came to the tomb of Sa’a-ed-deen, the 
 herdsman of Moses ; and soon after to the Tomb of Moses himself, 
 according to the Mooslims; a large pile of building, but partly 
 ruined ; it is visited every year by thousands of Mooslim pilgrims. 
 From near this tomb a splendid view of the valley of the Jordan, 
 the plain of Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Moab mountains, opens 
 suddenly before one : very rich and lovely was the bright green of 
 the plain, from the thick groves of nebbk, which is at this season in 
 very full leaf, and the ribbon of foliage on the banks of the Jordan 
 wunding down the centre of the valley. We descended upon the 
 plain by a good path, and were more than an hour on the sand 
 before we reached the trees, among which our tents were pitched, 
 beside the fountain healed by Elisha, now called ’Ain-es-Sultan : it 
 is a lovely spot : the clear, pure, warm stream of this source, and of 
 another a little further on, called ’Ain Douk,* gushing out over the 
 plain, carry delicious verdure wherever their waters pass. The 
 nebbk f here forms lofty trees, the lower growth tangling into 
 perfectly impenetrable thickets, for the slender and somewhat 
 pendent branches are thickly set with long, sharp thorns : in 
 spring, when the leaves have fallen, the tree looks like a heap of 
 thorns thrown together for burning ; now they were charming, the 
 gay little rosy yellow fruit hanging among the small leaves, which 
 are shaped like hawthorn-leaves, and of a very bright green. Then 
 there was plenty of agnuscastus, still in flower, and quantities of 
 the smaller “ Sodom,” or “mad-apple,” as the Bedoueens call it, 
 
 * The “ fountain of watching,” or, “ of the watch tower.” The ruins of a 
 castle are still to be seen on the rock above the spring : this was the castle 
 to which Ptolemy, the Governor of the district, invited his father-in-law, 
 Simon Maccabasus, and had him assassinated during the feast ; and when John 
 Hyrcanus besieged it to avenge the murder of his father, Ptolemy brought 
 John’s widowed mother and brothers on to the battlements, and scourged them 
 cruelly whenever he made an assault : the dreadful sight compelled John to 
 withdi'aw his troops, although urged by his mother to persevere ; Ptolemy 
 managed to escape, but not before he had had the hex*oic woman and her sons 
 put to death. (Josephus, W. I. ii. 3.) 
 
 f Called, by the Ax-abs of this neighbourhood, the dom : its botanical name 
 is, I believe, Rhamnus ndbeca. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 355 
 
 with its purple flowers and golden fruit, tempting enough almost to 
 provoke to taste : they declare that if the goats browse on it, they 
 go mad for five days. The sun left us under the shadow of the 
 Quarantania mountain only too soon, but for an hour or more after 
 we were in shade, the mountain-tops and lake and the bright trees 
 on the plain were all lit up in glorious colours, and made an 
 enchanting scene. How fortunate are those who come to Jericho in 
 December! Instead of the “ suffocating air, like the blast of a 
 furnace,” such as most travellers experience there, we revelled in 
 the moderate warmth and the refreshing shade of the thick 
 foliage, we enjoyed the gentle bubbling of the fountain and the 
 sweet singing of the birds, and even tried to forgive the 
 abominable jackals who howled all night most cruelly, for the 
 caves in the mountain of Quarantania are favourite abodes of 
 these beasts. 
 
 There is no plain more often mentioned in Scripture than this one 
 of Jericho, yet upon none have the historic evidences been more 
 completely swept away : it is so well watered by the streams of the 
 Wadys-el-Kelt and Es Sidr, and those of the fountains of Es Sultan, 
 Douk, and some others, that there is no lack of verdure ; but such 
 is the neglect and utter waste both of land and water, that scarcely 
 a tenth part of the plain is cultivated : the climate is quite tropical, 
 and the soil is so rich that a very short time, two or three years 
 of care, would restore the whole valley to the “ divine region” it 
 once was. It is now overrun by very unruly Bedoueens. On the 
 western side the fine mountain of Quarantania rises abruptly from 
 the plain, marked with the openings of scores of caves and grottoes 
 once inhabited by hermits. Between the foot of the mountain and 
 5 Ain-es-Sultan, are many ruins and some large mounds : this is all 
 that remains of what is believed to have been the ancient City of 
 Jericho taken by Joshua, the fortifications of which he forbade the 
 Israelites to raise again : the city, however, was either not wholly 
 destroyed or else soon rebuilt, for it is mentioned by its name of the 
 “ city of palm-trees ” in Judges i. 16 — afterwards as having been 
 taken by the Moabites (iii. 13) — and as the place where the mes- 
 sengers of David tarried till their shaven beards had grown again. 
 Hiel of Bethel did, in the time of Ahab, rebuild the fortifications, 
 and the curse pronounced' by Joshua was fulfilled in the fact of his 
 losing one son at the commencement, and the other on the comple- 
 tion of the walls. A school of prophets settled here, and much of the 
 history of Elijah and Elisha look place at and near the city. By a pass 
 between Quarantania and Wady Kelt a path leads in six hours to 
 Beitin, the ancient Bethel ; it was by this road that the Israelites 
 
 2 a 2 
 
356 
 
 E G YETI A N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 “ went np to Ai,” and “ made it a heap for ever, even a desolation unto 
 this day.” Little more is known of ancient Jericho, bnt one wonld 
 like to excavate these large mounds and seek for further remains. 
 
 Eight across the centre of the plain runs a stream called the Kelt : 
 upon the banks of this, a mile and a half east of ’Ain-es- Sultan, 
 stood the fine city of Jericho, built by Herod; it was adorned with 
 a splendid palace, an amphitheatre, and a hippodrome : to this new 
 Jericho our Lord came when He visited Zaccheus the publican ; here 
 he healed the blind man, and told the multitudes that followed him 
 that the Son of man was come to seek and to save them that were lost ; 
 here, too, John the Baptist preached to them repentance and good 
 works, baptizing them in the Jordan, as the type of the new birth and 
 purification of the heart : his own coarser food and coarser garments 
 contrasting with the voluptuous luxury, delicate living, and “ soft 
 raiment ” of the “ king’s houses ” and the palace of the infamous 
 Herod — great only in wickedness. Herod,, indeed, was, among the 
 “ generation of vipers ” against whom St. John warned them, and 
 before whom he “ spoke the truth, boldly rebuking vice near this, 
 too, on one of those mountains on the east side of Jordan, was the 
 fortress of Macherus, where this bold and mighty man was put in 
 prison, and where he “ patiently suffered for the truth’s sake.” In 
 this City of Jericho, Herod had his brother-in-law Aristobulus 
 “ playfully drowned” in bathing* ; and here he himself died in great 
 torments a few years after. Vespasian destroyed the city and Adrian 
 rebuilt it ; the Crusaders burned it to the ground. Now the most 
 miserable of all wretched villages stands upon the site, bearing the 
 name of Er Eiha, a word that means swell ; the squalid hovels of the 
 filthy, savage-looking people are hedged round with the dry branches 
 of the nebbk, forming a most impenetrable barrier; once it was 
 surrounded by a forest of lofty palm-trees, and by large gardens of 
 the balsam, which was so precious that a handful of its gum was a 
 present fit for a crowned head. Judaea derived great part of her 
 revenues from the balsam grown in the gardens of Jericho and ’Ain 
 Jidi, and Pompey carried a tree of it to Eome as a trophy for his 
 triumph. Not a palm-tree remains in the land, and the only apology 
 for the balsam is the zakkhoum, which grows abundantly ; it is a 
 thorny tree or shrub, with tiny leaves growing on very thick twigs : 
 the oil pressed from its fruit, which resembles an olive, is much 
 sought after by the Arabs for healing wounds, even though this tree 
 is said by the Koran to grow in hell, and its fruit to form the food 
 and drink of the damned. 
 
 Somewhere rather nearer to the Jordan must have been the City 
 * Josephus, ‘Antiq.’ xv. iii. 3. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 357 
 
 of Gilgal, the first encampment of the Israelites in the Land of 
 Promise, where the Tabernacle remained till it was placed at Shiloh : 
 here Saul was made king over Israel, and here also he learned that 
 the kingdom would be taken away from him because he had not 
 believed that God desired obedience more than sacrifice from his 
 people. It was strange they should bring the unholy spoil of the 
 Amalekites to the very neighbourhood where Israel had received so 
 great a lesson on the sin of covetousness*, and had been so signally 
 taught that their conquest of the heathen nations who had in- 
 habited the land of Canaan was to be a religious enterprise, done 
 only in purity of heart, not for self-aggrandisement, but for the 
 glory of God alone. 
 
 We rode early the next morning to the village of Er Eiha. Our 
 Bedoueen escort were soon stopped to pay the tribute due to the 
 Arabs of the village for conducting strangers through their ter- 
 ritory : twenty piasters for each of us, and a sheep added to the 
 bargain. We were glad to leave the noisy crew, and ride on along 
 the bank of the Kelt, which some have supposed to be the “ brook 
 Cherith,” where Elijah was commanded to go, although the Bible 
 distinctly says, “ which is before Jordan,” and “ before ” means to 
 the east of Jordan.f One would rather look for Cherith among 
 the little known valleys, which we see with longing eyes on the 
 opposite side of the Jordan, among the barren mountains of Moab : 
 now inhabited by such wild Bedoueens that their exploration is 
 nearly impossible. It is interesting to remember, in thinking of 
 them, that the word translated as “ ravens” in our Bible, who 
 brought food to Elijah, also means Arabs. 
 
 Deceived by the clearness of the atmosphere and the level plain, 
 the Dead Sea appeared so near to us that we expected to reach it 
 in half an hour: it was, however, a ride of two hours and a half, 
 before we had arrived at the shore, passing over low undulations, 
 covered with sharp cones, little queerly-shaped peaks, and much 
 sandy mud. The shadeless plain was very hot under the mid-day 
 sun, and the horses occasionally sank so deep in the mud that our 
 progress was slow ; but the view was interesting : we soon recog- 
 
 * The Valley of Achor is believed to be the same as the Wady Kelt. 
 
 f Of the three words used in Hebrew to denote the East, one means literally 
 the sun-rising , while the two others signify in front, or in face of, and some 
 difficulties have arisen from the translation of the latter in our Bible, as in 
 Num. xxi. 11 ; but it is easy to remember that the spectator is always sup- 
 posed to face the sun rising, and therefore the “ right hand ” denotes the 
 South — the “left hand” the North — while “behind” is the West. The word 
 Saracen, signifying “ men of the East,” was derived from the Arabic Sharak, 
 corresponding to the root of the first of these three words, sarak, the sun-rising. 
 
358 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 nised the headland of ’Ain Jidi, and the well-known cliff of Sebbeh, 
 with Jebel Usdoum behind it, apparently forming the end of the 
 sea ; on the left the wreath of warm vapour showed the ravine of 
 Callirrhoe ; and one point of the mountain range, which appeared to 
 be higher than the rest, we chose to fancy must be Pisgah. While 
 we looked at the view our dragoman built us a grand little tent 
 with driftwood and shawls, under which we spread our carpet, and 
 made our preparations for bathing in the lake : the water was 
 as cool and refreshing as its clearness had looked inviting, and 
 very pleasant it was to float upon the strangely buoyant water. 
 The taste is quite indescribable: the first sensation is of the 
 saltness of brine, very naturally, for, whereas there is four per 
 cent, of salt in the ocean, there is twenty-six per cent, in the water 
 of the Dead Sea ; the next is of a sickening, greasy, bitter flavour 
 which is most disgusting : of the many descriptions of it, M. de 
 Saulcy’s is much the best—' “a mixture of salt, colocynth, and oil.” 
 The strangest part is the sensation on the skin afterwards : without 
 any touch of a towel one was instantly dry all over — literally “ dry 
 as a bone ” — drier than anything one could think of, and yet greasy 
 withal : not exactly sticky, but oily : the most disagreeable feeling 
 inside one’s clothes and gloves. The salt dried on one’s hair and 
 clothes visibly, just as it lies on all the driftwood on the shore, but 
 a touch brushed it away. We picked up a small fish quite dead, 
 and a number of very tiny black shells, similar to some we had 
 found in the Lake of Galilee, with indubitably living fish in them ; 
 I have it noted in my journal that they were still alive thirty hours 
 after : but the Bedoueens said these had been only lately washed in 
 from the Jordan, and that they could not live long in the Dead Sea 
 water. Chateaubriand relates that he heard a murmur in the 
 water, which his guides told him arose from millions of little fish 
 rushing into the lake : I conclude he means that they were singing 
 their little death songs. Certainly all the shells that we picked up 
 on the shore at ’Ain Jidi contained only dead fish: but probably 
 some current washing round from the mouth of the Jordan along 
 the curves of the northern end, enables the fish to live in that 
 particular spot ; those we picked up were stationary, adhering to 
 the stones. About twenty feet from the shore there is an islet of mud, 
 which is said to be covered with ruins of great antiquity, but we 
 saw none from where we stood. We gathered great bunches of 
 tiny pink flowers, something like heath, very dry and very pretty ; 
 they made the shore quite gay, and we put bowers of them on our 
 horses’ heads in the hot ride of two hours more to the bank of the 
 Jordan, where we were glad to undress again, under the shade of a 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 359 
 
 friendly tree, and wash off the nncomfortable feeling of the “ bad 
 water;” the Jordan did not look as inviting as the Dead Sea. It 
 is muddy and of a dark leaden colour, and we found the water very 
 cold, but it was refreshing and pleasant. 
 
 We had skirted the band of foliage from the shore of the lake 
 delighting in the varied tints of orange, red, and greens of every 
 ' hue, against the background of dark blue mountains behind it: 
 now, descending into the depth of the glior, or deep valley which the 
 rushing Jordan has worn for itself, we entered into the charming 
 shade of the tall fine trees — poplars, willows, tamarisks, planes, 
 terebinths — and a thick jungle of agnuscastus and everlastings, 
 both in blossom, the fine tall canes waving their beautiful flowery 
 heads and flaunting leaves in the breeze, “the reeds shaken by the 
 wind.”* The river turns in a sudden bend at this spot, the 
 bathing place of the Greeks, and the eddy is strong and dangerous ; 
 but, a few yards further on, the path between the trees on the 
 opposite side shows that it is one of the fords of the Jordan. 
 Perhaps no one at home can quite enter into the feeling with 
 which one bathes in the sacred Jordan : when one has “ come up 
 to Jerusalem ” all through the Holy Land, following each hallowed 
 footstep, and remembering each sacred story, noting sadly the ruin 
 and desolation that are spread over every historic site — apt illus- 
 trations of how the Light has shined and yet the people still sit in 
 darkness— and then one comes here where the river has been 
 passing on with the same steady, ceaseless rush, ever renewing the 
 same lovely thickets, since the day when the Ark of God passed 
 over, and since the Son of God fulfilled all righteousness. One can 
 hardly help fancying oneself no longer only a silent spectator of the 
 distant scene, as, plunging into the river one seems to enter into 
 the past, and to be united something more than spiritually, to the 
 sacred histories of the stream : truly we have each our “ Abana and 
 Pharpar ” at home in which we may indeed wash and be clean, 
 without or within ; but a new feeling rises in the heart, and a new 
 prayer murmurs on the lips, as we feel the water of that hallowed 
 river pass over us. “Among all the travellers who visit the 
 Jordan, is there one, however far removed from superstition, 
 who is willing to turn away without having bowed his head in 
 these sacred waters ? ” f 
 
 The plain of the Jordan, now called El Ghor, would appear to 
 
 * These reeds are the Arundo donax , the u pride of Jordan,” in which the 
 young lions lay when they mourned — because the floods came and hid the 
 reeds, and they were chased away. (Zech. xi. 3.) 
 
 f Miss Martineau’s ‘ Eastern Life, Present and Past.’ 
 
360 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 have been always the most important plain in Israel, as its name in 
 Scripture is Ea-arabah*, the plain par excellence : and the river is 
 the only really large one in the land of Canaan. Its three sources 
 we had seen already, at Hasbeiya, at Tell-el-Khady, and at Banias ; 
 but the ancient inhabitants reckoned only the last as its veritable 
 source ; the Hebrew name is Yarden, the descender, and the old 
 Arabic writers preserved this in the word ’Ordoun for the upper 
 part of the stream : below the Lake of Galilee it is called Sheriat- 
 el-Kebeer, the great watering-place. The valley is enclosed between 
 ridges, rising with steep precipitous sides, between 1000 and 2000 
 feet (the eastern side is the loftiest), the breadth of the valley here 
 is about nine or ten miles ; but it becomes very much narrower 
 farther north. The river is itself sunk below the level of the valley 
 between two sets of banks ; those confining the water are low, the 
 upper ones are much higher, and at a considerable distance from 
 the stream : the continuous rush of its volume of water has worn 
 this track for itself ; lower down, all along the Jericho plain, there 
 are three sets of terrace banks ; the middle one is covered with 
 shrubs, canes, and low herbs. The average breadth of the river is 
 about 150 feet. The one remarkable characteristic of the Jordan is 
 its being tortuous beyond all other rivers in the world, I believe, 
 so that in its 60 miles’ course (as the crow flies) between the two 
 lakes, it winds to the length of 200 miles ; it is still stranger that 
 its fall is 660 feet, without a single descent of any very sudden 
 depth, but all one continued downward slope ; it is probably from 
 this peculiarity that it bore the name of “the descender.” Its 
 valley, from being so much depressed below the level of the 
 Mediterranean, is of an intensely hot climate: “a gigantic fur- 
 nace,” as poor Van de Welde calls it, in the vivid account he gives 
 of his own sufferings there : he was in the Ghor in the month of 
 May, when, of course, the inevitable sirocco was constantly upon 
 them, and he says that the heat was considerably worse to bear 
 than anything he had ever felt even in South Africa. 
 
 We turned regretfully away from the “ sweet and sacred river,” 
 at about an hour before sunset, and adapted our speed to the 
 short time we had in which to find our way to the tents before 
 dark: it was a lovely evening, and even our dragoman forgot 
 his usual fears “ de se casser le cou ,” and galloped on merrily. We 
 put up a hare and a gazelle and plenty of khuttar — the sand- 
 grouse — some of which were shot; and then the two Bedoueen 
 Sheikhs went off, darting about, pursuing each other with war- 
 cries, making their long spears quiver in the hand from end to ' 
 * Joshua xviii. 18 ; Josephus, 1 Wars,’ iv. vii. 2. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 361 
 
 end, and turning them cleverly over their heads as they wheeled 
 smartly round, each by turns pursuing and pursued. The next 
 evening, for we spent a quiet Sunday beside the fountain, they 
 offered to exhibit one of their dances, and we were summoned to 
 sit at the tent door as soon as it was quite dark. Here we found a 
 wild-looking group ready for us, standing by the light of a huge 
 fire of dry nebbk branches piled up high, the sparks of which went 
 flying about, lighting up the pretty trees abovn us, and illumi- 
 nating the eager faces of the swarthy Bedoueens who stood in a row 
 before us, with the muleteers and our servants squatting on the 
 ground in a ring around them. One of the Bedoueens stood 
 opposite the others, and whichever way he swung his body or 
 threw himself, they did the same, while he improvised a long song, 
 with a verse for each of us, bringing in our names as the Sitteh, 
 Habeeb, Suleiman, Nakhleh, Marshet, and so forth, the others 
 repeating the final words of each line, or answering by a rhyme : 
 the verses were about our journey and their good wishes for us, 
 &c. All through they beat time loudly, throwing one fist into the 
 palm of the other hand, bringing out between each verse a strange 
 hoarse sound, like a camel’s grunt, “ Adjja, Adjja,” to each beat, 
 and swinging or rocking the body vigorously from side to side : 
 sometimes they suddenly dropped on one knee, and seemed to feign 
 to strike the one opposite, but they never touched each other. 
 
 We left ’Ain*es-Sultan early the next morning, and turned west- 
 ward up the pass of the Wady-el-Kelt, the “ going up of Adummin,” 
 that is, “ the red pass,” which was on the western border of Judah ; 
 the word is the plural of the same Hebrew root as Adam, Edom, &c., 
 all meaning red. St. Jerome says that the name refers to the blood 
 so often shed by robbers on this road ; but in the Septuagint it is 
 given as the “ pass of the red ones.” It is a steep and rugged ascent, 
 with sharp angles turning on the edge of the cliff, with the 400 or 
 500 feet of chasm below : but the road is everywhere protected by 
 rough walls : it bears traces of the old Boman work at intervals all 
 the way to Jerusalem. From the summit we looked back once 
 more over the plain, now beautiful in the morning light : the orange 
 and green foliage by the winding river, like a green serpent on the 
 sand ; the blue sea and the stern andj lofty cliffs, with the cleft of 
 Wady Hesban, through which, probably, the Israelites arrived at 
 the Promised Laud ; the eastern and western mountains gradually 
 closing in at the far north, with the castle, Kulah-er-Bubud, standing 
 up prominently on one of the cliffs farthest north ; the castles of 
 Jericho and El Hajla on the plain, and the ruined arches, aqueducts* 
 and nameless buildings at the foot of Quarantania, with all the 
 
362 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 delicious spread of verdure far away across the plain ; make a fine 
 and striking picture. 
 
 Everybody knows how gloomy and wild is the road from Jericho i 
 to Jerusalem : chasms and ravines succeeding one another with 
 dreary monotony, now bordering the road with precipices, now sunk 
 between walls of naked rock that, collecting the sun’s rays and seem- 
 ing to exclude the air, produce an atmosphere of scorching, suffo- j 
 eating heat, and a’ dazzling glare that makes this day’s ride one of 
 the most trying in Syria : even at this season we found it, to a 1 
 certain degree, distressing. It retains as ever its bad name, and no 
 part of it can be traversed in safety without a Bedoueen escort ; 
 the ruins of two large khans are on the roadside, and probably one 
 of them marks the site of “ the inn ” alluded to in the beautiful 
 parable of the Good Samaritan. An ancient fountain further on, j 
 usually called “ the fountain of the Twelve Apostles,” is believed to j 
 be the En-shemesh of Joshua xv. 7. One can well fancy the weary J 
 followers of our blessed Lord, and He Himself, resting at the end of » 
 the day beside this fountain, in the shade of the rocky height behind , 
 it ; and then, because “ The Son of man had not where to lay his I 
 head,” lying down beside the trickling water, and sleeping by the 
 roadside as one sees people doing twenty times a day in Syria. I 
 Surmounting the steep path above this spring, Bethany and Abou 
 Dis, supposed by some to be the “ village over against Bethany,” j 
 come in sight at once, and formed a sad, but pretty picture in the 
 evening light. Very mournful are the bare heights about here, j 
 but fig-gardens and fruit-orchards are now beginning to fill up the 
 valleys ; and the bottom of the curving slope, on which Bethany J 
 nestles with a look of meek, quiet confidence, is filled with luxuriant 
 plantations. 
 
 There are few places which hold such a tender, homelike asso- -I 
 ciation with the life of our Lord as this little village, where, as in 
 His “own city,” among the poor fishermen on the banks of the : 
 Lake of Galilee, He had a resting-place with Lazarus and the loving 
 Mary, who, here, in the house of one Simon, anointed His sacred ' 
 feet with precious ointment. Bethany and Bethphage are rea- J 
 sonably supposed to have been different parts of the same village, or 
 rather that Bethany was the name not only of a village, but of a 
 district : Beth-hina, in Hebrew, meant the “ house of date-palm a 
 species of palm, mentioned in the Talmud, as having a remarkably 
 hard wood, “ hard as iron.” Beth-phage means “ house of figs,” and 
 is spoken of three times in the Talmud as close to Bethany : that 
 they were close together, we learn from Mark xi. 1, and that palm- ■; 
 trees grew there and on the Mount of Olives we know from 
 

 AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 363 
 
 Jolm xii. 13, and Nehem. viii. 15, as Bethany stands on the north- 
 sastern slope or end of the Monnt of Olives : not a palm remains 
 in existence now, but the figs grow luxuriantly. The houses are 
 rudely buiit, chiefly of old materials, sometimes with the ancient 
 
 * Jewish bevel, loosely put together : a ruin on the top of the hill 
 ippears to be the remains of a tower of which the once massive 
 vails have quite fallen down. 
 
 A tomb, excavated in the rock, is shown as that of Lazarus ; of 
 [, 30 urse such sites can seldom be ascertained with perfect certainty : 
 >ut there seems no good reason for doubting this tradition, one more 
 ikely than most others to have been preserved : the objection that it 
 [ s now within instead of outside the village seems over critical, as, in 
 he lapse of eighteen centuries, it is far more probable than unlikely, 
 
 ! hat the houses should have gathered round the scene of so remark- 
 able a miracle. The tomb stands now at the north-western corner 
 
 * )f the village, and where (should Bethabara have been at “ Jacob’s 
 ord,” as Origen says) it would be passed by one coming by the path 
 'ver the Mount of Olives to Bethany : this is the road that, coming 
 i lown from the north, our Lord would have chosen without diverging 
 o enter into the city where they “ sought again to take Him,” and 
 
 ; vhere Mary, “ going unto the grave to weep there,” would meet Him 
 \hen He “ was not yet come into the town.” The entrance is by a low 
 » ioorway cut in the rock, and a passage with several steps descend- 
 l ag into a vault, with another vault immediately below it reached 
 y a few more steps : some masonry inside may have been added 
 ince: the tomb is alike sacred to Christian and Mooslim. The 
 illage is now called El Azariyeh from El Asar, the Arabic form of 
 iazarus. 
 
 We stayed a couple of days at Bethany, studying the three paths 
 h Jerusalem, round and over the Mount of Olives, delighting in the 
 n uietness of the spot, and in the views of and from the village, 
 here is nothing more striking or more beautiful in its mournful- 
 ess than the view of the Holy City, which, by the sudden turns of 
 ■ lie lower road from Bethany round the projecting spurs of the 
 ;> luthern shoulder of Olivet, bursts twice upon the eyes of the 
 ilgrim ; and most thrilling are the remembrances of all that met 
 re eyes of the bleksed Saviour as He passed along that same old 
 lad in His last and most memorable entry into Jerusalem; but 
 $ escriptions of the actual scenery would be useless after the vivid 
 ai icture drawn by the graphic pen of Hr. Stanley. 
 
 It wanted three days of Christmas, 1859, when we took up our 
 Hi bode in Jerusalem. 
 
364 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ANCIENT JERUSALEM. 
 
 “ The perfection of beauty — 
 
 The joy of the whole earth ! ” 
 
 “ ; Ciudad de las tristezas ! ” 
 
 Jerusalem, with its mixture of Past and Present, is not by any 
 means to be realised to the mind’s eye by a rapid description, nor 
 can it be understood at a glance : weeks, and even months, are abso- 
 lutely required to take in the details which make up the whole ; and 
 these must be weighed and balanced, examined and considered, unless 
 the traveller desires only to follow some one particular crotchet, or 
 submits passively to the dictates of some one particular theory. If 
 he chooses to think for himself, or to compare the thousand-and-one 
 opinions of those who have gone before him, he will soon find himself 
 launched into a maze — a labyrinth — a confusion worse confounded 
 — from which he will at last turn away in despair, almost with a 
 feeling that as they cannot all be right they must all be wrong. The 
 most trustworthy method for a scholar is to come here with only the 
 Bible and Josephus in his hand, and to study the ground with these 
 guides only ; but even then the results would probably be far from 
 satisfactory until a generation or two has passed away, during which 
 the building of one or another house, the clearing of this or that 
 locality, may give from time to time glimpses of the foundations 
 which lie concealed under the thirty or forty feet thickness of debris 
 heaped over them — the seal on the long closed book of the Past— 
 the sod growing over the grave ; in this way only can a knowledge 
 of the true facts of what has been ever be attained. So much, bit 
 by bit, has been discovered in the last few years, and each discovery 
 has made its predecessor so much more comprehensible than it was 
 before, that one may reasonably hope that many further truths will 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 365 
 
 come to light : if only the eyes that see them and the mind that 
 connects them are unbiassed and unbound to some one prejudice. 
 
 It would be very presumptuous, and quite as useless, for me to 
 ' attempt a detailed description of Jerusalem; but as most of those 
 who are anxious to glean a more distinct image of that one holiest 
 spot on all the earth, have derived some faint idea of the locality 
 from the various accounts of travellers or from panoramas, models, 
 
 | drawings, and photographs, we may as well try to add some touches 
 : to the picture, and to bring out here and there a strong light or a 
 dark shadow. I need hardly say that this small work has no pre- 
 tensions whatever to any kind of learning : its only aim is to give an 
 outline of what appears to be the plainest and most nearly indisput- 
 able evidence towards the elucidation of the great whole : to assist those 
 who are at home in the realising of what they cannot see, and perhaps 
 to guide the traveller, who can give but a few days to his examination, 
 in the unravelling of the tangled knot. There will be scarcely one 
 word on this controverted subject that some one would not dispute, 
 if they thought it worth the trouble; but as I do not pretend^o have 
 discovered any one single fact, nor to cling to any one particular 
 theory, I shall be the first to rejoice at any absolute mistake being 
 corrected by abler heads and hands than mine. 
 
 Jerusalem was one of those cities founded by the sons of Canaan, 
 the grandson of Noah*, of which we have already spoken in mention- 
 ing Hamath and Saida ; it seems to have been always regarded as a 
 sacred place, as would appear from Josephus having reminded the 
 Jews, during the siege f , that when the Egyptians came up and took 
 possession of “ Queen Sarah,” Abraham “ spread out his hands 
 towards this holy place ” to obtain God’s assistance, and so the King 
 of Egypt, “ adoring the place, fled away.” It was probably the 
 Salem where Melchi-zedek worshipped the true God, himself both 
 king and priest, having been called to the true faith, although sur- 
 rounded by idolatrous Canaanites, and therefore “ without father or 
 mother ” in his faith X . Perhaps the remarkable circumstance of this 
 single instance of an altar raised to' Jehovah, caused the rock to be 
 looked on as holy : and it does seem as if some special reason must 
 
 * Gen. x. 16. 1 Chron. xi. 4. 
 
 f Joseph. W. y. ix. 4. 
 
 j Munk considers that this Melchi-zedek was a Canaanitish priest of the 
 god “ Elioun, father of Heaven and Earth,” according to the description given 
 by Philo of Byblos and Sanchoniathon of the mythological gods and goddesses 
 of Syria: the words used in the Hebrew by Melchi-zedek are not those 
 expressing the name of Jehovah, whilst Abraham in his reply takes care to 
 precede the same “ El Elioun ” with the name of Jehovah, as though he wished 
 to declare his God to be the one true and only Most High God. Josephus 
 evidently also believed him to be a Canaanitish priest. War, vii. xi. 1. 
 
366 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 have existed for Abraham’s having been desired to take Isaac a 
 journey of three days’ distance in order to sacrifice him on that very 
 hill. Abraham gave it a name indicative of that perfect unquestion- 
 ing faith in Almighty God, of which he had given so signal a proof 
 on the rock, Jehovah jireh, the Lord will provide: the period at 
 which this name became transmitted into that of Jerusalem, and the 
 exact meaning of the latter, are both disputed points. It is gene- 
 rally believed to be a combination of the last syllable of the new 
 name given to the rock by Abraham, prefixed to that borne by the city 
 in his time, Jireh Salem ; thus signifying that the Lord will provide 
 peace, and prophetic of the daily Sacrifices to be there offered for a 
 thousand years, by the people He had chosen, and of the Lamb, 
 Whose death on that spot should make our peace for ever with God. 
 It was also called Jebus, from- the name of its founder, and Zion to 
 denote its pre-eminence and excellence. It is spoken of both by 
 Isaiah (xlviii. 2, lii. 1) and Nehemiah (xi. 1, 18) as “the holy city,” 
 Kodesh, the name which it has retained in Arabic, El Kodds : which 
 appears in Herodotus under the Greek form of “ Kady tis.” 
 
 It is only in reaching Jerusalem from the East, that the length 
 and breadth of the Holy City is seen at one glance : from the South, 
 only the part outside the Zion gate, and the walls and towers on 
 the Western side are visible at the first view, crowning the brow 
 of the hill ; the view from the Jaffa road, which has first met the 
 eyes of pilgrims for more than a thousand years, and is therefore 
 in some sort hallowed, is the least striking of all ; little or nothing 
 is there seen but the Western wall and the old square Tower of 
 Hippicus at the Jaffa Gate, and these rise from the uneven plain 
 apparently undivided from it by any valley or ravine. From the 
 North road, the whole of that side is well seen at once, relieved by 
 the olive-groves before ; yet little more than the wall itself can be 
 seen, with the top of the Greek Convent, and a few domes, among 
 which those of the Mosque of Omar and of the Holy Sepulchre are 
 conspicuous above the others. 
 
 Every traveller, from whatever side he arrives, should ascend the 
 Mount of Olives before he loses himself in the confusion of narrow 
 streets and crooked houses within the gates, and should, for some 
 hours, study attentively the general features of the view before him, 
 the different elevations within and without the town, the chief 
 buildings, and all the details he can distinguish. Let him sit there 
 from the moment when the first silvery shining ray darts over the 
 mountain wall of the eastern Desert, tipping here a grey dome and 
 there a gilt crescent, till the sun has waxed high and strong, and 
 pours down in the naked, white, shadowless light of noon : let him 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 367 
 
 stay there till the dark red hills and the grey rocks melt into a maze of 
 deep violet, and the white stones turn rosy, and the old walls change 
 into piles of yellow gold, and the sun goes down behind the far away 
 hills, putting out its fires in the “ great sea,” yet lingering to throw 
 back grand loveliness of rose and lilac upon the Moab mountains, 
 whence he will come again in the morning. Then the quiet city 
 gradually sinks, as it were, into the deep shades of the ravines on 
 each side, and the Turkish soldier’s shout for the Sultan comes up 
 upon the last ray of sunshine ; a twinkling light appears in every 
 building, till all is hushed and dark and silent, save the horrible 
 dogs quarrelling in the valley of the Kedron below. It is surprising 
 how necessary it is to watch this view for a whole day, as the 
 varying light brings out one point after another : one such continual 
 comparative observation does more for the right understanding of 
 the whole, than a hundred disjointed, quickly- caught views of 
 passage. 
 
 We will sketch in slightly what we see: the bare hill to the 
 south of the city, with one miserable wind-worn tree on its brow, is 
 the Hill of Evil Counsel (where Caiaphas and the elders are said, 
 upon no authority, however, to have taken counsel together, Matt, 
 xxvi. 3) : it is rocky and irregular, sloping off to the west and dying 
 down in the plain of Eephaim ; on the north, long ridges of low 
 barren hills or plains, stony and bare, though dotted with olives 
 here and there, stretch one behind another: they seem to rise 
 gently from the city, until the monotony is broken by the low peak 
 of Neby Samwel, marked by a tower, the ruin of an old convent 
 church, since converted into a mosque. 
 
 Between these two sides of the picture the Holy City stands, 
 
 I apparently on a square, rocky hill, enclosed in crenelated walls, with 
 here and there a bastion or a zig-zag : very quaint and very sad those 
 old walls look, and yet something proudly, too, they stand. Beyond 
 them, a long, dull, flat ridge rises slightly towards the west, and 
 two deep narrow ravines sweep round the holy mountain : the one 
 is the Valley of Jehoshaphat, or of the Kedron, commencing from 
 some distance to the north of the city, and running along the eastern 
 side of it to the south : the other is the valley of Hinnom, coming 
 round from the western side and uniting with the Kedron at the 
 I south-east corner, embracing at that point, between them, the spur 
 of Mount Moriah, which is called Ophel. Furthest from us, on the 
 B western wall, is the Tower of Hippicus. Near it, to the right, are 
 the Latin Convent and the two domes of the Church of the Holy 
 | Sepulchre ; to the left, on Mount Zion, the extensive Armenian 
 Convent, the domes of some new Synagogues, the English Church, 
 
368 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and the tomb of David are seen (the last outside the wall). These 
 are almost the only buildings on which the eye can rest among the 
 confused mass of little brown and white domes and grey walls : nor 
 are any of these seen at first, for the Mosque of Omar, in the famous 
 Haram, the second most beautiful building in all the world, rivets 
 the spectator’s whole attention. The wall enclosing the mosque 
 occupies more than half of the eastern side of the city : in the centre 
 of this space stands the mosque, an octagonal building, pierced with 
 seven windows on each side, narrowing above into a small circle 
 also pierced with windows, and surmounted by a most graceful 
 dome, bearing aloft the gilt crescent of Islam : the w T hole building is j 
 cased entirely in encaustic tiles, chiefly blue, green, purple, and j 
 yellow, formed into intricate and delicate arabesques, and so mingled ] 
 that it is impossible to say whether the building is green or blue ; 1 
 the cornice is replaced by an Arabic inscription in large and prettily 1 
 interlaced letters. The mosque stands on a marble platform, which I 
 is reached by broad flights of steps, and round the edge of which | 
 are several groups of slender arches and small houses, while little 1 
 circular mihrabs, or praying-places, shaded by a light canopy of |j 
 fretted stone, are dotted over its surface. Round this platform are j 
 grassy slopes, with noble cypresses and a few other trees, the bright | 
 and dark green of which contrast beautifully with the white and j 
 coloured marbles of the buildings. 
 
 At the southern end of the enclosure is the Mosque of El’Aksa, 
 ornamented with a dome and. covered by a sloping roof. The 
 Mosque of the Mogharibeh, the College of the Dervishes, and the 
 Serai, the residence of the Pasha, stand on the west and north sides ; 1 
 while the whole extent of the eastern side of the city is only broken i 
 by St. Stephen’s Gate, and the long-closed ‘‘Golden Gate,” with its ■: 
 two round arches and small domes. 
 
 This is the view over which Jesus wept, when He beheld its 
 beauty, and thought upon its ruin and desolation: and strange ;! 
 and thrilling indeed is the feeling it gives to one now: the gloomy | 
 ravines lose much of their effect seen from above : the surrounding 
 hills are one and all the very dreariest, barrenest, and ugliest one ! 
 can find anywhere, and yet — the whole is beautiful : and even .the j 
 fastidious and trifling are impressed by it. 
 
 There are two other views of Jerusalem which specially deserve 
 mention, all the more as they are seldom seen by travellers : the one j 
 is from the easternmost point of Scopus, whence the plateau of the | 
 Haram is well overlooked, and the upper part of the city. Mount 
 Zion especially, appears as a good background to it, while the olive- 
 gardens seem richer than usual from being taken in perspective, > 
 
* 
 
 < 
 
 AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 369 
 
 ■ gp— 7— : — — -■ ■ — ; | : 
 
 ] and contrast well with the bare hill of Olivet rising on the left,, the 
 | ever-beantiful Moab mountains behind all. The other is, in my 
 opinion, the prettiest of all the views of Jerusalem : it is from the 
 i eastern end of the Hill of Evil Counsel, and should be seen when 
 the city is overspread with the bright rays of the western sun, when 
 j the Mount of Olives appears more lofty than in the earlier light, and 
 ; the elevated position of the city is well displayed by the deep shadow 
 of the ravines of Kedron and Hinnom. 
 
 It is believed that the present enclosure of the Haram is about the 
 ! same size as that of the Temple of Solomon ; the marble platform 
 on which the Mosque, stands, as the Temple stood, was rendered 
 ; necessary by the inequalities of the summit of Mount Moriah, and 
 I because it was not naturally large enough to contain all the Temple 
 ! buildings ; in fact it acted in something of the same way' as the 
 | platforms beneath Tadmor, Kukhleh, Baalbek, &c., but that here it 
 i was only required for giving the Temple a level standing-place on 
 the summit of its own stronghold ; in the others it was required 
 also for elevating the Temple to view. But this platform was not 
 | intended to cover the sacred rock, a rock sanctified to the Israelites 
 by two of the most holy and sacred events in their history : one, 
 i the binding of Isaac for sacrifice; the other, the appearance of 
 Jehovah to David in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite * ; 
 and it was therefore left to be seen naked and natural in the Holy 
 of Holies, the place of solemn sacrifice and communion with Jehovah. 
 The platform was consequently sunk about twenty feet lower than 
 the summit of the rock : and as on the south side the mount slopes 
 down suddenly, while on the north side it is scarcely of a lower 
 ! level than the summit, the platform was supported on the south 
 | side upon rows of arches, closed in by the exterior wall, which is 
 consequently very deep without and shallow within. As there is no 
 doubt that these substructions supporting the platform must have 
 I been made previous to the building of the Temple, they are intensely 
 interesting as being indubitably of the time of Solomon, made 
 I “ immovable for all future times.” (See the interesting account of 
 these foundations in Josephus, xv. 11, 3.) 
 
 These substructions were entered from the exterior by a door in 
 the south wall, which is now closed up, but into one of the halls 
 under the platform the Mooslim pilgrim is allowed to enter, because 
 a stone niche, lying here on its back, is an object of devotion among 
 them as the so-called u cradle of the Lord Issa ” (Jesus) ; the vault 
 of this hall within is supported by a single column, short, but 
 
 * That these two places were the same is an immemorial tradition, con- 
 i firmed by 2 Chron. iii. 1. 
 
 2 B 
 
 , 
 
370 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 enormously massive, which used to be a monolith, with a curious 
 capital of leaves ranged in a stiff row all round it : they are more like 
 feathers than leaves, and have a very Egyptian look about them : 
 the capital is carved in the lowest relief possible, as if intended to 
 be further adorned by colour * The double passage leading from this 
 hall to the platform, by an inclined plane, occupies but a very small 
 portion of these arched vaults : they appear to have been built in 
 chambers, divided by very thick walls of enormous bevelled stones 
 rather roughly chiselled ; into these no one is allowed to enter, but 
 from a loophole in the wall of the hall before mentioned, one can 
 have a good glimpse into their gloomy but grand recesses. It is 
 outside this part of the Haram that the wall of Solomon’s time 
 appears in such beauty. f It reaches from about the last sixty feet 
 of the east wall to some short distance on the southern side : there 
 are sixteen courses of stone still uncovered, but, on the southern 
 side, they are soon hidden beneath the accumulated soil, or else have 
 ceased ; while on the east the rest of the wall has evidently been 
 rebuilt, as small stones and fragments of columns are jumbled in 
 with many of the very large stones of the original wall : the broken 
 columns are of porphyry and verde-antique, and doubtless orna- 
 mented the Temple itself or the cloisters. The masonry of the angle 
 is most beautiful : the finely-closed joints, the finish of the bevelling, 
 and the smooth faces are so wonderful in these enormous stones 
 that the words of the Psalmist naturally occur at once to the mind 
 of the traveller, “ That our daughters may grow up as the polished 
 corners of the Temple besides the solemn thought of that Saviour, 
 who has become “ the chief corner stone.” 
 
 Go from this angle down into the Valley of Siloam, where the 
 valley of the Tyropaean falls into it, and climb up the opposite cliff 
 face, the eastern end of the Hill of Evil Counsel : look thence at this 
 magnificent Temple wall, a marvel of masonry, great even now : 
 fancy what it must have been, when it was complete in the same 
 grandeur all along to the western side; fancy, beyond this, the 
 Bridge (the remains of which were so happily discovered a few 
 years ago), crossing the (then) deep valley of the Tyropaean to the 
 cliff of Mount Zion — still steep and lofty — connecting the Temple 
 with the Xystus (the house of archives ; is it any wonder that the 
 Queen of Sheba was overwhelmed with admiration when she saw 
 this “ ascent ” by which Solomon went up from his palace to the 
 Temple ? but still more when she looked on the other side of the 
 
 * The drawing of this capital in Mr. Fergusson’s Handbook is very in- 
 accurately done. 
 
 See Dr. Robinson’s ‘ Bib. Researches,’ vol. i. 288. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 371 
 
 Temple and saw, extended right across the valley of the Kedron, 
 another but mnch loftier Bridge, uniting the Temple to the Mount 
 of Olives ! This Bridge we are told was constructed upon two rows 
 of arches, of which the upper row was much smaller and closer than 
 the lower ; and over it, in grand procession, the High Priest went 
 with the red heifer to sacrifice her on the summit of Mount Olivet ; 
 the point of its junction with the Wall of the Temple is distinctly 
 traceable if compared with that of the Bridge on the other side, and 
 | some day it is to be hoped the foundations may be discovered on 
 the slope of the hillside, or at the bottom of the valley. 
 
 At the north-western corner of the enceinte of the Haram the 
 rock rises to a considerable height above the level of the platform : 
 it has been cut down vertically: below it the rock-surface is 
 perfectly level, and has been thought by some persons to be the 
 threshing-floor of Araunah, partly, I believe, from tradition, and 
 partly because Josephus, quoting Hecateus of Abdera, seems to 
 describe the altar as being near, not in, the Temple itself, although 
 contained within the same surrounding wall. The Serai, or Pasha's 
 palace, stands on the summit of this corner rock, considered to be 
 the site of the fortress of Antonia, “ the Tower of the Corner,” which 
 was originally built, it is believed, by Judas Maccabseus, and re- 
 constructed with great splendour by Herod. From the roof of the 
 Pasha's house a beautiful view of the Haram is obtained, of course 
 in better detail than that from the Mount of Olives : the light colon- 
 j nades and the mihrabs are much better seen, and prove to be mostly 
 exquisite specimens of Saracenic work ; one, opposite the eastern 
 ! door of the Mosque, is called the “ Judgment seat of David :'' the 
 | delicately-painted roof is supported on seventeen slender marble 
 I columns, no two capitals of which are alike, and all are richly 
 sculptured; straight simple leaves round one, like an Egyptian 
 capital, basket-work on another, trellises of vine-leaves on others, 
 
 ; and so on ; they have probably all been taken from some much more 
 ancient building. The next in beauty stands on the top of the steps 
 | opposite the Mosque of El Aksa : it is called “ the Pulpit,” and is 
 most richly carved in various coloured marbles. 
 
 The magnificent Mosque in the centre of the platform is believed 
 to have been commenced by the Khalif Omar, and very much 
 enlarged, beautified and enriched, in fact, quite rebuilt by the 
 Khalif Abd-el-melek in a.d. 686. It was seven years in building : 
 the Mooslims believe it to stand over the rock on which Jacob was 
 I sleeping when he saw the vision of the heavenly ladder : but it is 
 1 still more sacred to them, as to us, from having been the sacred rock 
 j beneath the" altar in Solomon’s Temple, whereon the daily sacrifice 
 
 2 b 2 
 
372 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 was offered. During the time of the Latin kingdom in Jerusalem 
 this Mosque became a Christian Cathedral, where the service was | 
 daily sung and an altar erected on the summit of the rock : the 
 building was called by the Crusaders the “ Temple of the Lord.” 
 
 The fanciful and intricate patterns of the porcelain walls of the j 
 Mosque, the graceful letters of the inscription round it, and the ! 
 tracery of the windows, are still more beautiful on a closer inspect |j 
 tion : nothing can be more perfect of their kind, or more peculiarly 
 charming than the harmony of the colours ; the windows are filled | 
 with stained glass of the very richest and most brilliant tints, | 
 that even the palmiest days of the mediaeval ages could produce in 
 Europe, and the effect of the dim religious light upon the interior 
 of the dome, which was once entirely gilt, on the adornment of the . 
 walls and columns, and on the bare, naked, rough rock below, is 
 singularly beautiful. Two rows of columns encircle the centre, J 
 forming a double corridor, and support the clerestory and the 
 dome : these columns have evidently belonged to some other build- 
 ing : their capitals are mostly of acanthus leaves. The Eock itself I 
 is enclosed in a metal screen of lattice-work about six feet high, and 
 to it, we are told by the Bordeaux Pilgrim in a.d. 333, the Jews | 
 came every year, anointed the stone with oil, wailing and rending j 
 their garments, thus proving its authenticity in their minds ; it had 
 been for many years polluted by an equestrian statue of the Emperor j 
 Adrian elevated on the very rock itself. The Bordeaux Pilgrim , j 
 specially mentions that this Eock adored by the Jews was 'pierced: 9 
 below it is the “ noble cave ” spoken of in the Mishna, into which 
 the blood, &c., from the altar drained, and descended thence by 
 a conduit into the valley of Siloam, the gardens in which were I 
 enriched by this drainage : and this appears to be corroborated by . , 
 the special name of the valley being Kedron, which comes from | 
 Jeedar, meaning dark, gloomy, sad, filthy. The gardeners, it is said, j j 
 paid as much money as a trespass-offering for a share of it to ( 
 fertilise their gardens, which were called the “ king’s gardens.” . ! 
 (Nehem. iii. 15 ; Jer. lii. 7.) Dr. Barclay, Signor Pierotti, and 
 others have themselves passed up from the mouth of this passage 1 
 in the Pool of Siloam to the “ noble cave,” and the latter gentleman 
 has also ascended by a branch subterranean conduit, hollowed in 
 the same way from the valley of Siloam to a spot under the so-called I 
 Hospital of Omar, some way to the west of the precincts of the I 
 Haram, and not far from the bridge of St. Gilles. 
 
 The Mosque of El Aksa stands at the southern extremity of the j 1 
 Haram, over the substructions built by Solomon : it was a Christian | j 
 basilica of seven aisles, and is so much more church-like in the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 373 
 
 interior than even the Holy Sepulchre, that it is striking to the 
 European eye. Most of the columns are of marble, chiefly of dark 
 green serpentine : two of them standing about the centre of the 
 nave are very thick square monoliths, and some are supposed to be 
 Jewish, on account of the lowest fillet of the capital and the upper 
 fillet of the base being carved on the plinth ; these two are both 
 ornamented with very peculiar leaves, not in the least conventional, 
 but well-carved examples of the commonest weeds in Palestine ; the 
 arches are supported by beams of wood laid across from capital to 
 capital, which gives a most singular appearance to the structure. 
 Several recesses, chambers, and additions at the southern end ol 
 the Mosque form other mosques, and there are many Kiblehs, or 
 prayer-niches and pulpits, that have been given by pious khalifs. 
 In the Mosque is a well, descending into the vaults of Solomon, 
 some of which were probably used as reservoirs of water. The 
 Mosque of Omar is lovely and beautiful ; that of El Aksa is grand 
 but triste. 
 
 Near the northern end of the Haram, in the eastern wall, is the 
 Golden Gateway, now much sunk below the level of the soil and 
 overgrown with picturesque wreaths of caper and other plants : the 
 architecture is more rich than chaste, and only the general effect is 
 good. Outside, two small arches are ornamented with wreaths of 
 leaves and various mouldings bent round the arch : within, there is 
 a large hall, with two rows of lofty columns down the centre and a 
 rich cornice round the wall. Some of the bevelled stones used here 
 are as gigantic as those of the time of Solomon : one of those in this 
 hall is the second largest in the Haram ; the largest of all is in the 
 eastern wall. 
 
 Leaving the Haram, there is a deep ditch or fosse immediately 
 beyond the northern wall, believed to have been excavated to make 
 the walls of the Temple or the Fortress of Antonia still loftier from 
 the outside : it seems also as if it had been intended to have been 
 filled with water, as the sides, roughly built of small square stones, 
 some of them bevelled, and filled up in the interstices with loose 
 pebbles, have been caked over with mud or cement. It is now 
 half full of rubbish, and looks most melancholy ; several small arches 
 or open passages round it may have been for conducting water to 
 or from other reservoirs ; these may have been “ porches ” in which 
 “ impotent folk ” sat to ask alms of those who came down to draw 
 water. There is no sufficient reason, I believe, for the tradition 
 which supposes this to have been the Pool of Bethesda, but the 
 construction reminds one of the description given in Scripture. 
 
 This fosse is close to St. Stephen’s Gate, at which the Via Dolorosa 
 
374 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 commences ; after a short distance along this line, there are portions 
 of very ancient walls, and the remains of the only fluted columns 
 existing in Jerusalem; just beyond them, beside the Serai, a mean 
 and modern-looking Eoman arch crosses the road, called the Arch 
 of the Ecce Homo, as the monks say that it was from the window 
 above the arch that Pilate exclaimed to the multitude “ Behold the 
 man!” A convent for the Filles de Sion was being built on the 
 north side of the street when we were in Jerusalem, and in digging 
 the foundations, the architect, Signor Pierotti, came, to his great 
 surprise, upon a pavement of good-sized flags, and afterwards upon 
 a covered passage of very large stones, of the time of Herod, similar 
 to those in the Wailing-place of the Jews and at the South-East 
 corner of the Haram’, bevelled and finely joined ; this passage has 
 square openings carefully finished in the top, and is about fifteen 
 feet high and eighteen feet wide.* The “pavement called Gab- 
 batha ” must have been somewhere close to this, as the Governor’s 
 or Pilate’s house was close to Antonia (Dr. Barclay believes it to 
 have been an apartment belonging to or adjoining the tower of 
 Antonia) : and the passage may possibly be the “ certain, dark sub- 
 terranean passage ” mentioned by Josephus (War, i. iii. 3) as the 
 scene of a dismal tragedy. i ; 
 
 The Via Dolorosa then passes by a very pretty old Saracenic 
 house, built of alternate grey and red stones arranged in patterns : 
 this is believed by the poor pilgrims to have been the house of 
 Dives, the rich man in the parable, and the dogs who lie under the 
 archway below the house to be the descendants of those who licked 
 the sores of Lazarus : doubtless, both house and dogs have an equal 
 right to their ancient pedigree. 
 
 The Via Dolorosa then turns up the hill, and arrives at the back 
 of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre : passing round to the front or 
 south side, we find a small square, entered by a door at each side, 
 
 * In continuing this excavation last December (1860), Signor Pierotti came 
 upon a quantity of water shut up in a rock-cut conduit : for several days 
 about 250 gallons were drawn out per diem without lowering the level of the 
 water ; it was at first very brackish, but it soon became quite drinkable ; 
 after this a heavy fall of snow caused the superincumbent earth to fall in, and 
 the works were discontinued. The most interesting feature of the discovery 
 was the intense excitement it caused among the Jews : a tradition of ancient 
 standing exists among them that when three springs «are discovered in 
 Jerusalem or in its immediate neighbourhood, the Messiah will come, and on 
 hearing the news they flocked to the spot in excited crowds of both sexes ; 
 many wept for joy, others knelt down and prayed, all tasted the water 
 reverentially and carried home bottles of it as relics. It was not, ho.wever, 
 really a spring, but only an accumulation of water which had been collecting 
 there, perhaps for hundreds of years, and is now, I believe, dried up. 
 
I 
 
 AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 375 
 
 
 
 
 of only three feet high, through which a Jew could pass only at the 
 peril of his life, as the crowd of pilgrims, bead sellers, &c., would at 
 least do their best to tear him to pieces. Parts of the Greek convent 
 surround three sides of the square, which was evidently a court or 
 cloister in front of the Church : the bases of several columns are 
 still in situ , and one column has a rich basket-work capital, of which 
 there are several examples in Jerusalem. A double portal once 
 gave entrance to the Church, but one of the doors is now walled 
 up : they are both deeply receding, each as six small columns of 
 porphyry alternating with verde-antique, the capitals very richly 
 carved with leaves and flowers and feathers bent sideways, as if blown 
 round the capital. The arches are surrounded with bands of the 
 most delicate and finely-carved sculpture, besides a row of the book 
 moulding (resembling a row of books set edgeways), and lintels most 
 richJy carved, one with a fanciful arabesque, the other with a repre- 
 sentation of our Lord’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Over the 
 door are two windows similarly ornamented, and a smaller one 
 further to the right; the whole facade is horribly spoilt and mis- 
 used. Above it the dome over the centre appears, and on the left 
 the tower, now broken down nearly to the height of the Church 
 walls, but still picturesque. The large dome over the Eotunda, the 
 subject of so much discussion, is behind this. A row of sixty small 
 capitals surround the smaller dome, sculptured with remarkable 
 delicacy ; they may have been taken from Herod’s Temple, as the 
 tradition says, but, at least, they are evidently a vast deal older than 
 anything else in the building. 
 
 Inside, the whole church, although covering what those who 
 worship there believe to be the most sacred spot on all the earth, is 
 in the most painful state of dilapidation and dirt. The Eotunda, or 
 Bound Church, built over the Holy Sepulchre itself, never was 
 handsome or solid, and is now crumbling to decay. It is surrounded 
 with a double gallery, apparently supported by pilasters, which are, 
 however, only painted, and that very rudely, on the wall : every- 
 thing about it is coarsely done, in imitation compo style,” now 
 falling to pieces, to say nothing of the dome above, which, as every- 
 body knows, is much torn away, leaving free entrance to the air, 
 light, and rain * The Sepulchre stands in the centre, enclosed in a 
 high structure or chapel of polished yellow marble, with pilasters 
 and twisted columns, topped with confectionery looking plaster 
 angels, and bunches of artificial flowers, besides numbers of pretty 
 silver lamps hung in festoons in the front. The Tomb of our Lord, 
 
 * The cupola was repaired, at last, under a protocol signed by the Governor 
 of Palestine, and the Consuls-General of France and Russia. 
 
376 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 in the interior, is covered with slabs of marble, and therefore quite j 
 hidden from view and touch : silver lamps are ever burning here ; |j 
 a priest keeps watch beside it by night and day, and the sweet- 
 smelling flowers of the mimosa are daily strewed upon the marble, 
 and bestowed afterwards on some few of the pilgrims. 
 
 At the western extremity of the Eotunda are two ancient tombs I 
 hewn out of the living rock : these are very interesting here, being 
 perfectly natural and unadorned, and as there is no reason for sup- 
 posing them counterfeits they testify incontestably to the fact of 
 there having been sepulchres in the rock of this place. The Church 
 of St. Helena, furthest to the East, from its remaining, like these I 
 tomb sin its original simplicity, is more impressive and striking than li 
 the rest of the building : it is a crypt of simple, massive architecture, ] 
 round arches supported on very short, thick columns, with the j 
 curious basket-work capital of which we have spoken before. It is 
 impossible not to believe that the form of these came originally from \ 
 the “ nets of checker- work ” made “ for the chapiters that were upon 
 the top of the pillars,” in the Temple built by Solomon (1 Kings vii. 
 17). Descending several steps more, we reach the Chapel of the J 
 “ True Cross a vault in which the Cross is said to have lain hidden 
 and forgotten for 300 years ; it is rudely excavated, and is believed - 
 by some people to have been an old cistern. 
 
 The Chapel of Calvary is at the southern side of the church, near . 
 the entrance door, but above a very steep staircase : the rent in j 
 the rock is shown, like every other relic here, enclosed in metal cages 1 
 or hidden beneath slabs of marble. The chapel is dressed up with 
 all manner of tinsel ornaments, artificial flowers, pictures, &c., but 1 
 there is one beautiful altar, sent from Italy, with fine groups of 
 figures round it in relief : it is of bronze gilt. 
 
 The Greeks have the centre of the church, and show “ the centre 
 of the world,” in the middle of it, as well as the tomb of Adam 
 (Melchizedek lies close by); their church is a mass of gilding and 
 carving and marble ; the Latins have a plain, ugly chapel on the 
 north side of the Rotunda ; they have also an organ (on which they 
 play most extraordinary things by way of sacred music), and some 
 good singers in their choir. The services of each Communion are 
 celebrated at different hours on the same spot, viz. the space ] 
 between the Holy Sepulchre and the Greek Church ; an altar is here 
 erected and dressed, and seats are arranged for each service. There 
 are also large aisles and passages and chapels innumerable, besides 
 a host of “ stations” for the pilgrims, each containing some “relic” of j 
 our blessed Lord or the Virgin, in which none but the most credulous 
 of all can believe. These shrines are dilapidated and dirty, and 
 

 AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 377 
 
 form a strange jumble of architecture ; there are five periods very 
 , distinctly discernible in the construction of the building — 1st, that 
 of Constantine, a.d. 330 ; 2nd, after the destruction of the Basilica 
 by the Persians in 614, when it was rebuilt by Modestus, the prior 
 of the Greek convent; 3rd, when having been destroyed by the 
 i Khalif Hakem in 1010, another church was built by his mother, 
 : Miriam, assisted by the offerings of all Christendom ; 4th, when it 
 was completely remodelled by the Latin kings of Jerusalem, after 
 a.d. 1099, and so remained till, 5thly, half the building was burned 
 down in a.d. 1810, and was soon after patched up into its present 
 condition by a Greek architect. 
 
 Directly to the south of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there 
 is a large green field, one-half of which has lately been bought by 
 the Russians, the other half was given by the Sultan four years ago 
 to the Emperor of the French. On the northern side of this field two 
 aisles of an ancient church are still standing, beside which the soil 
 has accumulated to the depth of some forty feet or even more : 
 these are the remains of the Church of St. Mary ad Latinos, and the 
 Hospital for female pilgrims, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene : both 
 were built in a.d. 1048. A little further on is the gateway which 
 Once gave entrance to the fine buildings of the Knights Hospitallers 
 of St. John, constructed at the same time as the churches, but 
 much enlarged and beautified during the Latin kingdom in the 
 Holy City. The gateway is a fine object from the street, with its 
 broken wreaths of flowers and queer figures illustrating the signs of 
 the zodiac, but the interior has till lately been used as a tannery, 
 and the whole place is so filthy that explorations are more than 
 difficult ; we managed, however, two or three visits, and penetrated 
 to a very picturesque square, still quite perfect, and closely resem- 
 I bling that at Rhodes ; it consists of two stories of Saracenic arches, 
 
 | four at each side, forming a double corridor, looking like a khan. 
 There are numbers of fine vaulted chambers and halls further on, 
 without much ornament, and buried in soil and rubbish : but in- 
 I teresting as the dwelling-places of that noble band whose best blood 
 . dyed the soil of the Holy Land. 
 
 But something else far more interesting than even these historic 
 : ruins has lately been discovered in this field : the Russians were 
 | excavating part of their newly-acquired territory, or rather digging 
 | through the accumulated rubbish to see at what depth the real soil 
 lay, when at about thirty feet deep the spade struck on stone, and a 
 ' few turns more laid bare some depth of wall, built in precisely the 
 same style as the Wailing-place of the Jews, and other Herodian 
 masonry : this piece of wall is in the form of a right angle ; only a 
 
378 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 very few stones were uncovered, but these appeared to be about six . 
 or seven feet long and three or four feet high, all bevelled ; but it 
 was not easy to get at them for examination. Their grand interest | 1 
 is that they lie exactly in the line supposed to he that of the Second 
 Wall; these stones lie further north, but parallel to the Sook-el- i 
 Kebeer (the Bazaar) of t^ie present city, about half a dozen feet to j 
 the west of it, in the middle of which, some time ago, Signor 1 
 Pierotti came to stones of the same style of work in an excavation 
 he had occasion to make for the Pasha * At the time these stones 
 were apparently unconnected with ’anything, but taken now with the 
 stones in the field they lead directly to the arch, a little further to 
 the south, built of large stones more rudely fashioned, but so much j 
 covered up as to be more than half concealed, which was long ago • 
 pointed out as the Gate Gennath from whence the second wall 
 started. Another link in the chain of evidence seems to be, that in 
 digging the foundations of the house of the late Dr. McGowan, 
 about fifty yards to the west of the buried gate, various stones, 
 bearing the mark of high antiquity, were found at a great depth, 
 which appeared to have formed the lower part of a wall ; while one j 
 has only to climb up some roof or eminence in this neighbourhood, 
 to see that a line drawn from Hippicus to the remains of the Bridge 
 at the south-west angle of the Haramf exactly crosses over this deeply j 
 sunken Gate. The Gate is placed at right angles to the line of the j 
 Wall, according to the usual custom, it seems, of placing the gates j 
 of such walls in the return of a projection or recess : as may be seen ; 
 now in the walled up “Gate of Herod/’ the “Gate of the Mog- 
 haribeh,” and others : as well as in the gates of a later age, like those I 
 of Damascus. Gennath meant the Gate of the Gardens, for which J 
 a natural situation would have been on the slope of the Tyropseon : j 
 they are not likely to have been very extensive in so small a city, 
 placed on such rocky ground. 
 
 The identity of the Gate of Gennath is one of great interest, j 
 because on it depends, in a great measure, the probable truth or 
 falsehood of the site of the Holy Sepulchre. Supposing the line of ; 
 
 * Signor Pierotti holds the office of architect to Sooraya, Pasha of Jerusalem. 
 
 f The words used by Josephus are as follows: “Now that wall” (the 
 first) “began on the north at the tower called Hippicus, and extended as far 
 as the Xystus, a place so called, and then joining, to the council-house, ended 
 at the west cloister of the Temple. . . . The second wall took its beginning 
 from that gate which they called Gennath, which belonged to the first wall : 
 it only encompassed the northern quarter of the city, and reached as far as 
 the tower Antonia — (Whiston’s Josephus, 1860 v. iv.) Another translation 
 is given that the wall was “ carried in a circle ” to Antonia : the result will 
 be nearly the same. 
 

 AND SYRIAN SHRINES . 
 
 379 
 
 
 | the second wall to be identified with that of these ancient stones in 
 the Enssian territory, I think any unprejudiced observer must 
 I acknowledge the distance between that line and the site of the 
 | Church to be more than “ fifty yards,” named in the Talmnd as the 
 prescribed distance from the walls of the City for the interment of 
 criminals : a Talmudic yard being equal to two feet, the distance 
 would be consequently only 100 feet. It is true that our Lord was 
 | not buried in the place where criminals were usually interred, but 
 in the tomb hewn for the “ rich man of Arimathea ; ” the bodies of 
 j criminals would probably have been removed further from the city 
 I than those of men less unclean and impure : and the objection that 
 none could have been buried so close to the walls must fall to the 
 ground. The place chosen for the crucifixion of our Lord was 
 certainly not the usual place of the execution of criminals, since it 
 is not likely that in that spot a “ rich man ” would have made a 
 “ garden ; ” even though it were but a graveyard, he would have 
 chosen some place he could visit without risk of becoming unclean. 
 The usual place, the Talmud says, was to the south of the city; 
 but this would have been too far to reach, hurried as they evidently 
 i were to get all concluded. The priests, as Dr. Barclay observes, 
 were afraid of the voice of the people, and would not have hazarded 
 : sending Him right across the city, as the path from the Judgment 
 Hall to the Dung Gate would have led : it was not only “ nigh to 
 the city,” but the priests, it is said, looked on, reviling Him while 
 He hung upon the Cross ; and one need only mount on the roof of 
 the Serai, or on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself, to see how 
 well they could have seen all that took place on its site from the 
 wall of the Temple, without leaving its precincts, and thus defiling 
 themselves on the eve of the Passover, by approaching an execution 
 or entering an unclean place. 
 
 Along this second wall were the towers of Phasaelus and 
 Mariamne, “ hard by ” to the Tower of Hippicus, “ on the north 
 j side ” of “ the old wall ; ” the palace of the king (Herod) “ adjoined 
 thereto,” and was so near to the Temple that “ the fire which began 
 at the tower of Antonia went on to the palaces, and consumed the 
 i upper part of the three palaces themselves.” The identity of the 
 i Tower of Hippicus with the citadel at the Jaffa Gate has been little 
 I questioned : it is a remarkable building, and the peculiar circum- 
 stance of its being formed out of the living rock to a considerable 
 height, faced with stoh.es, is a feature by which Josephus has 
 happiiy caused it to be recognised without doubt. A short time ago 
 | some stones fell out from the inside of an upper chamber in the 
 tower, and with them a few arrows fell also : and on peeping 
 
380 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 through the hole thus made, a great store of arrows were seen laid I 
 up in a recess, prepared for feathering, and closed up there perhaps I 
 by mistake! The wood was in most cases uninjured, and some I 
 of them were given away ; but on finding the Christians very eager H 
 about them, the Mooslim guard walled the remainder up again. 1 
 From this Tower of Hippicus, the third wall, built by Agrippa in 
 the time of Claudius Caesar, a.d. 41-54, commenced : it went north- I 
 wards to the Tower of Psephinus, an octagonal tower elevated at 
 the north-west corner of the city, and very lofty, affording a view U 
 of wide extent. Accordingly, at the north-west corner of the hill, I 
 in its natural position, situated on the highest point of the city,* 
 there is a ruin of a tower, plainly octangular, but of which only j 
 one side is now standing entire, answering to the dimensions given I 
 by Josephus, and incontestably containing many stones of an 1 
 ancient bevel and very large size’ coinciding, in fact, with Herodian fl 
 work. Josephus says that “the third wall . . . reached as far as : I 
 the north quarter of the city and the Tower of Psephinus, and then I 
 was so far extended till it came over against the monument of 
 Helena . . . Queen of Adiabene ... it then extended farther to a 
 great length, and passed by the royal caverns, and bent again at the 1 
 tower of the corner at the monument, which is called the Monument i 
 of the Fuller, and joined to the old wall, at the galley of the 'I 
 Kedron.” (War, v. iv. 2.) It is a curious coincidence that close to I 
 this ruin of Psephinus, under the roots of a remarkably fine | l 
 terebinth tree, which every traveller will remember, some workmen 
 discovered, two or three years ago, a large Tomb, apparently < 
 Jewish, with ornaments of circles and triangles, &c. : and a tradition ' I 
 is attached to the spot among the natives that “ a king of the 
 country ” lies buried there ; why should it not be the tomb of one of 
 those Davidian kings who were not buried on Mount Zion, but in 
 “ a garden/’ such as this slope probably was then, as it is now? A 
 deep fosse, cut in the living rock, flanks the whole of this northern , 
 wall, until it arrives at the “ royal caverns ” not long ago discovered j 
 by Dr. Barclay: these are huge caverns running under a very large I 
 portion of Bezetha, and about (as well as I remember) 1000 feet in 1 
 depth — that is, speaking roughly, half as far as the Via Dolorosa: I j 
 they are lofty and wide, with several branch passages, and are t 
 evidently the quarries whence came all the stone used in the 
 building of the Temple, and whence no sound of “ hammer nor axe ; 
 nor any tool of iron could be heard in the house while it was , 
 building.” The quarrying marks of the workmen are still to be ob- 
 served, and the sizes of the blocks such as are seen in the wall of the 
 Haram are easily traced here : one almost fancies one can match the 1 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 381 
 
 blocks to the spots from whence they are cut. An ancient excava- 
 tion, very lately discovered, at the north-east angle of the present 
 wall of the city, may possibly be the “ Fuller’s Monument/’ as it 
 seems to fall in with the place described by Josephus : there is also 
 an ancient double cistern, close to the wall, between the Damascus 
 Gate and this angle, about which there is an Arab tradition that it 
 was “ the tomb of a dyer.” If these points have been rightly assigned, 
 the third wall would appear to have been almost identically on the 
 same line that the modern wall occupies at present. Dr. Eobinson 
 has carried it out about half a mile to the north, but it seems most 
 j difficult, after seeing the supposed remains, to give credence to 
 his theory ; the bit of “ the wall ” is only about three or four 
 yards long, formed entirely of small insignificant stones, unlike any 
 really ancient work, and without a single other piece to carry on 
 the line to the Valley of the Kedron: while the foundation of the 
 “tower” has much the appearance of an old cistern. The wall 
 was dragged out here to meet the so-called Tombs of the Kings ; 
 but at the time when Dr. Eobinson wrote, the “ royal caverns ” had 
 not been discovered, and there is now happily no need to choose for 
 them a position for w r hich little evidence can be adduced: besides 
 the impossibility of conceiving that such a “wonderful” wall 
 as this is described by Josephus to have been, could have so 
 wholly and entirely vanished without leaving a trace even of its 
 “solid towers” and “beautiful stones.” Had the wall stood out 
 here, Titus would have looked into the town from the brow of 
 Scopes, where his army was then placed, , and would certainly have 
 had no need for the reconnoitring ride which was so nearly fatal to 
 him ; while, on the contrary, the artificial filling up of the valley 
 j for the approach of his battering-rams, is easily discernible to a 
 1 practised eye within this distant wall ; and if, on the taking of the 
 | third wall, as soon as the camp of Titus was removed within it, he 
 : came face to face with the “ faction in the Tower of Antonia,” how 
 j could the wall have been out here? (Joseph. War, v. vii.) 
 
 The conflicting opinions concerning the original sites can never 
 be really settled till the actual foundations or remains of the 
 , different buildings in question are seen, by dint of extensive ex- 
 | cavations. Every step made underground is, or ought to be, so 
 | much gained towards the elucidation of the truth, since that truth 
 j can never be attained by reasoning alone, especially when the 
 reasoning is framed to suit preconceived notions: while least 
 | convincing of all it is to talk of this line or that being impossible, 
 because, had the walls so run, the city would have been such an 
 | odd shape, &c. &c. ; and arguments founded upon the consequent 
 
382 
 
 EGYPTIAN- SEPULCHRES 
 
 smallness of the city are the last to impress one after a glance at 
 the localities themselves. Onr minds have been so filled from 
 childhood with the vastness of the subject, and onr memories are 
 burdened with such a variety of far-reaching histories and details, 
 that, looking at them through a mental perspective, we fancy that 
 so vast a history must have had as vast a theatre. We have every 
 proof that Josephus’s numbers as to persons are almost always 
 exaggerated, to harmonize with his descriptions of buildings 
 when constructed by persons whom he wished to flatter; that 
 he exaggerated immensely in his numbers relating to the in- 
 habitants of Jerusalem was but an error naturally due to his 
 wish to magnify the greatness of the conquest, as well as the 
 sufferings of his countrymen. As the first wall of Jerusalem 
 included the whole of Mount Zion and Ophel, there must have 
 been nearly as much ground contained within its compass as there 
 is now in the modern city, in which there is so large a proportion 
 of waste land : and when the second wall enclosed the “ northern 
 quarter,” there must have been quite as much. The natural 
 dimensions of the city are declared by the summit of the hills 
 which time cannot change for any historian, and the history must 
 be fitted to the facts, not the facts to the history : but instead of 
 this, endeavours of every kind are now made, in order to accom- 
 modate preconceived notions, to stretch the city on the rack of 
 theories, and torture it into whatever size or shape may suit the 
 fancy of the reasoner. 
 
 Unfortunately no one now investigates the subject with a 
 thoroughly unprejudiced mind: not merely must the “true 
 Protestant ” avoid every place venerated by the Eoman Catholic, 
 but even the ancient sites of Jewish history must be dragged into 
 the abysses of party feeling and garnished with party names. 
 That much has been overlaid by a very grievous and blind super- 
 stition is, indeed, too true : but is it any reason for sweeping away 
 the whole fabric that the pinnacles are ill -built or may be formed 
 of unworthy materials? I would not have an inch of ground 
 taken upon tradition only, for it is better and best to have a reason 
 for everything, and there should be no limit to honest and earnest 
 inquiry ; but it is more than melancholy, it is pitiful, to see reason 
 and study laid aside because Protestantism has fixed on one thing, 
 and it would be “Bomish,” and therefore “superstitious,” to believe 
 anything else. In Jerusalem people are mourned over nearly as 
 lost sheep, or as brands in the burning, if they choose to think and 
 study, to read and examine for themselves : if they will not throw 
 themselves down with unquestioning faith before the Protestant 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 383 
 
 i idol, they are supposed to gulp down at once the whole draught of 
 I superstition, no via media is possible, or rather none is permitted ; 
 
 ! and if any one, great or small, hesitates to declare that the site of 
 | the Holy Sepulchre, could only have been within the second wall, 
 j he is at once believed to be lying under the deepest folds of such 
 ! darkness as encompasses the Spanish or the Russian pilgrim. 
 
 I believe myself that Dr. Robinson, as not only a learned, but an 
 honest and honourable man, would be the first to disapprove 
 1 of the Protestant banner set up in his valuable book, and the last 
 : to think that the pure faith of the Church, in England or in 
 America, would be endangered, if even the time-honoured spot, 
 j hallowed at least by the prayers and tears of fifteen hundred years 
 i of pilgrims, should in time prove to be the true, real, and un- 
 ; questionable site of the Holy Sepulchre of our Lord. 
 
 Returning into the city the traveller may walk along a very 
 | distinct, deep depression running the whole way across Jerusalem, 
 
 | from outside the Damascus Gate to the Gate of the Mogharibeh, 
 i and through that into the valley of Siloam : as elsewhere this is very 
 much filled up with the accumulated soil, but it is still a broad 
 and deep valley, into which the wet of even a single rainy day 
 drains so much that it quickly becomes an almost impassable 
 morass in some parts ; the southern half of this valley contains a 
 number of very interesting objects, besides its being itself the 
 i ancient Tyropseon mentioned by Josephus. From the extreme end 
 J the remains of the ancient Bridge and the Wailing-place of the 
 | Jews are seen ; the latter, believed to be a portion of the ancient 
 Temple Wall, is a sad and melancholy place, which no one, I think, 
 can visit on a Friday without feeling that the sorrow of the Jews is 
 real and ud affected ; their lamentations are probably not only for 
 , their desolated Temple, but they pray here, as Catholics do at a 
 particularly holy spot, bringing their private troubles or trials to 
 \ “ lay them before the Lord ” with tears and sobs : many pass the 
 | entire morning, reading and reciting psalms and prayers, beneath 
 j the sacred stones, and, whatever may be the cause of their emotion, 
 ! the effect is real enough. 
 
 Close to this is the lane leading to the very beautiful “ Bab-el- 
 j Silsileh,” the Gate of the Chain, into the Haram : a lovely little 
 ! fountain stands close to it, and in the fine old Hall of Justice at 
 one side a handsomely carved sarcophagus may be seen, which was 
 brought from the “ Tomb of the Kings.” Then comes another 
 beautiful Arab fountain close to some ancient Baths, from which 
 the Mooslims say there is a subterranean conduit connected with 
 ; that under the “ noble cave;” the Baths are now deserted and 
 
384 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 broken ; a few steps further on is the old Cotton Bazaar, also 
 deserted, and another pretty gate into the Haram, said by an 
 ancient tradition to be the “ Beautiful Gate of the Temple.” Fine 
 old Saracenic arches enrich this long street at every step: at a 
 third pretty fountain, spoilt by whitewash, a lane turns up to the 
 so-called “ Hospital of St. Helena,” probably a confusion between the 
 Empress and Sultana, the wife of the Sultan Selim, who erected 
 it to serve as . a khan for all pilgrims. The exterior of this build- 
 ing is beautiful of its kind, rich and yet simple, of the same style 
 as the Mosque of Sultan Hassan at Cairo : within are numberless 
 halls and chambers and terraces, with vaulted ceilings and marble 
 columns, and here and there a pretty bit of carving ; from the roof 
 a fine view of the Haram is obtained. Soup and bread are still 
 given away from the original funds, though they have been much 
 diminished by the Government : still very many are fed every day : 
 we tasted the soup when cooking in an enormous caldron, and 
 thought it, as well as the bread, very good. 
 
 A branch of the valley of the Tyropseon is observable through 
 the Jews’ quarter to the end of the Bazaar, where it is for a few 
 steps steep enough, but it soon stops, and all is level ground for a 
 considerable distance within the Jaffa Gate: while the measure- 
 ments taken at different times on reaching the actual rock beneath 
 the Armenian Convent, the English Church, the Latin Patriarchate, 
 the Casa Nuova, and some others, were all so nearly the same as to 
 show that there is no great depth of soil accumulated here. It was 
 probably this connecting neck which caused the northern hill to be 
 called by many writers Zion, as well as the southern hill: William 
 of Tyre says that “ the City is built on two mountains divided by a 
 moderately deep valley ; the western mountain is called Zion, and 
 the eastern, Moriah. On the mountain of Zion is the Church of the 
 Holy Sepulchre, standing on its eastern declivity.” 
 
 Passing out of the Jaffa Gate one turns to admire the fine 
 massive construction of the ancient Tower of Hippicus, the long 
 slopes of masonry in the fosse below, and the large bevelled stones 
 of the walls, with odd holes left in many of them, nicely 
 though roughly squared, probably made by the instruments used 
 for quarrying or carrying the stones. They look like the holes 
 for supporting the scaffolding, which are left in the walls of 
 even the best finished buildings in Spain, to the great astonish- 
 ment of the traveller. The Damascus Gate, called Bab-el-Amud, 
 or column, because it has two small columns at the inner side, is 
 interesting from the two very ancient chambers adjoining it ; these, 
 as well as an external piece in the gateway, all have massive, 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 385 
 
 bevelled stones, some of which are identical with those at the 
 south-east angle of the Haram, and some with the masonry of the 
 Herodian period; indeed this spot is remarkably interesting as 
 showing the style of four several periods — the wide bevel of the 
 most ancient Solomonic or Phoenician — the narrow bevel of the 
 time of Plerod — the unbevelled stone of the Romans, — and the arch 
 above of the Arab. The castellations and battlements of this gate 
 are so quaint as to be quite ludicrous.* The Gate of St. Stephen 
 is not particularly handsome ; it is called by the Mooslims “ Bab-es- 
 Sitt Mariam,” the Gate of the Lady Mary, as that leading to the 
 Tomb of the Blessed Virgin. This gate is ornamented with 
 medallions of two funny-looking lions, whose origin is accounted 
 for by this fable : Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, while contem- 
 plating tbc sacking of the city, had a dream, in which he saw two 
 lions on the point of springing at him, with the intention of 
 tearing him to pieces, whereat the good Sultan was so much 
 alarmed that he cried out for help, and on being awakened 
 related his dream. One of his attendants wisely explained to him 
 that this was a heavenly message intended to prevent his de- 
 stroying a city rendered sacred by the presence of so many of the 
 Prophets and of the Lord Issa; whereupon Suleiman renounced 
 his project, and instead of ruining the Holy City, surrounded it 
 with a new wall (the present one), and had these lions sculptured 
 upon one of the gates in commemoration of his dream. So runs 
 the Arab legend : while exact likenesses of the lions may be seen 
 on several coins of the Seljukian Sultans. 
 
 The Zion Gate is the most ornamented of all, of course entirely 
 in the Saracenic style : it has several of the pretty medallions 
 formed of those delicate and elegant intricacies which are one of 
 the great characteristics of this style, and all of which M. Salzmann 
 ingeniously finds have been taken from various sections of the 
 Arab’s favourite fruit, the water-melon. The double triangle, 
 which is seen everywhere, has, however, a more ancient origin than 
 anything purely Saracenic : it is believed throughout the East to 
 have been the signet seal of Solomon, and is therefore dear to th e 
 Jews : it is also commonly called the Shield of David. It was a 
 cabalistic sign, as well as the usual symbol of recognition in the 
 secret language of the Pythagoreans, and is said to have been the 
 
 * While writing the above, news has reached me of the discovery of an 
 ancient gate of Herodian work, encased in the Saracenic work of Sultan 
 Suleiman’s wall, close to the Damascus Gate which is said to envelop it in all 
 its parts. The details of this and some other interesting discoveries made by 
 Signor Pierotti will be given to the public before long. 
 
 2 o 
 
386 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 sign among the ancient Indians expressing the trinity of fire, water, 
 and air, or spirit. 
 
 Outside this gate is the reputed, and probably the real, Tomb of 
 David, into the chamber of which not even the Pasha is allowed to 
 penetrate. The old Sheikh of the mosque politely allowed us to see 
 the imitation room above the real tomb, and then showed us the 
 so-called Cenaculum, a very pretty old Latin church, with fine 
 vaultings and pointed arch windows, with the billet moulding 
 common in all the buildings of the time of the Latin kings of 
 Jerusalem ; the columns with handsome and fanciful capitals, one 
 of pelicans, another of vine-leaves, another of fruit, but all sadly 
 disfigured with whitewash. The tradition respecting this site, that 
 it was that of the upper chamber of the Last Supper, is as old as 
 the fourth century. 
 
 One of the most interesting of all the ancient places about 
 Jerusalem is the great sepulchre called the “ Tomb of the Kings,” 
 about half a mile, or rather more, to the north of the Damascus 
 Gate : a large square has been excavated from the rock, forming a 
 court (now sadly filled up) in front of the entrance, the sculpture of 
 which, although not apparently of a very early date, was till lately 
 an object of much interest and beauty, when an American knocked 
 the greater part of it down, in order to take a few bits to his own 
 country. (What a pity it is that there is no law for inflicting 
 similar injuries on the persons of such depredators !) The maiden- 
 hair fern and some shrubs have done their best to re-ornament the 
 excavation, but the two columns supporting the rich frieze, and 
 nearly all its ancient beauty, are gone. The tomb was closed by a 
 most curiously-fitted stone door, which could only be opened by 
 means of a lever removing it along a grooved passage, and was 
 secured in its place by another slab, also sliding in a groove, placed 
 at right angles to the door : the whole arrangement was carefully 
 concealed by a huge flag-stone. Besides the ante-chamber there 
 are five other chambers branching off, containing fifty or sixty 
 receptacles for bodies. Some marble sarcophagi have been found 
 within these tombs, all of them richly carved with wreaths of 
 flowers, and therefore probably not very ancient : one of these may 
 be seen in Paris, another I have mentioned before, and broken 
 portions of others lie about. Dr. Eobinson identifies this tomb 
 with that of Queen Helena of Adiabene on account of the description 
 by Pausanias of the miraculous opening of the door on the same 
 day and hour annually : but the authenticity of the story is doubted 
 by many scholars, and might apply with equal force to any other 
 tomb in the place to which some concealed bolt had been attached. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 387 
 
 There are many reasons both for and against the identification, and 
 it is much to be hoped that learned men will not rest satisfied with 
 any one idea merely because Dr. Robinson has uttered it. The mind 
 of the honest inquirer in Jerusalem is half wearied and half provoked 
 at the continual answer now given to everything, viz. that as the 
 champion of Protestantism has settled such and such a question, 
 there is no further need for discussion, especially if the reason given 
 for such a decision happens to be unsatisfactory to his mind. 
 
 Many other very handsome tombs, of apparently more ancient 
 date, lie dotted over this low valley, the first beginning of the slope 
 of the Yalley of Jehoshaphat; they are all without the faintest 
 trace of inscription of any kind, and it is much to be feared that 
 nothing certain will ever be known about them. One is a large 
 grotto cut out of the living rock in a very pretty corner of the vale, 
 .its roof, till lately, supported by two massive square columns, with 
 a side gallery, and a pulpit, or stand for the singers— for the ex- 
 cavation was once a Jewish synagogue. The Emperor Adrian 
 permitted the Jews to return once a year, on the 9th day of the 
 month Ab, to the Mount of Olives, to gaze on and to weep over the 
 beloved and Holy City, and also allowed them to have a synagogue 
 to the north of Jerusalem; and the Jews still come here to pray 
 once a year in the month Sivan on the day of Pentecost : that is, 
 they did so till a year ago, but since that the Austrian Consul has, 
 with unpardonable Vandalism, chosen that particular spot as the 
 quarry for the new hospice, as if the whole valley was not equally 
 fit for the purpose, and has nearly destroyed the old synagogue ; it 
 is now almost filled up with the chippings of the stones, but is still 
 picturesque with almond-trees and caper bending down over the 
 opening. 
 
 The so-called “ Tombs of the Judges” are further north; they 
 have, here and there, a good deal of ornament, but it does not 
 appear to be of a very ancient date : possibly they are the tombs of 
 Asmonean kings and princes, and it is to be hoped that they will 
 some day be much more uncovered; even as they are, they are 
 very interesting. Scores of tombs are to be found throughout this 
 valley excavated in its rocky sides ; after which it opens up a little 
 branch at the northern end of the Mount of Olives, all filled with 
 olive-groves and patches of corn, the prettiest bit of country in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem : the valley soon narrows 
 into the deep ravine separating Bezetha and Mount Moriah from the 
 Mount of Olives ; at the foot of the latter is the so-called Tomb of 
 the Sitt Mariam. This chapel is deeply sunk below the present level 
 of the ground : but whether it is really a grotto excavated in the 
 
 2 c 2 
 
388 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 rock, or that the ground has accumulated round it, and the long 
 steep steps descending to the chapel have been since added, is 
 doubtful. It is rather an impressive place in its darkness and 
 roughness, contrasting with the exquisite gold and silver lamps and 
 other ornaments which have been presented to the shrine. The 
 altar is divided by a low wooden screen down the middle : half is 
 Greek, the other half Armenian; the noise must be perfectly stun- 
 ning when both are chanting with their usual energy doubled, in the 
 hope of drowning each other’s voices. The Latins have three small 
 altars in the church, and the Mooslims a niche for prayer close to 
 the altar, in memory of the “ Sitt Mariam, the mother of our Lord 
 Issa.” 
 
 Very triste and mournful is this valley of the Kedron, especially 
 after mid-day, when all is in shade : steep paths wind like ribbons 
 over the sloping sides, and a few olives grow here and there 
 between them, under which violets and scarlet ranunculuses 
 blossom in the pleasant spring time, followed by quantities of 
 asphodels; two small bridges cross the bed of the torrent, in which 
 there is never any water, save a little stream after some days of 
 rain in the winter, nor does the water ever flow for more than a 
 day, or a day and a half: the word translated “brook” in the 
 Bible, properly means such a torrent-bed as this, so common in the 
 dry soil of Palestine. There is no site from whence the sadness of 
 Jerusalem is more impressive than from this spot : the sudden slope 
 on one side is crowned by the bare smooth wall of the Temple, even 
 at this distance plainly patched and time-worn, with the walled-up 
 gateway seeming strangely silent and lifeless : on the other side, 
 the white road and widely sprinkled olives and figs on the moun- 
 tain slope are seldom enlivened with passers-by, though there is 
 something cheerful and encouraging in the group of smiling houses 
 and the little domed mosque that mark the (reputed) site of the 
 Ascension; while below, the eye rests lovingly on the little 
 enclosure of venerable olive-trees within the garden of Gethsemane.* 
 Those who cannot venture upon the pleasure of believing in the 
 truth of any reputed spot in Palestine, for fear it might be a 
 mistaken one, object that this group of trees is too near the 
 highway to have been the place of our Lord’s retirement ; but at 
 that time the whole hill-side was probably covered with wood, in 
 which but a few steps would be necessary to find solitude and some 
 sort of concealment, especially if, as is almost unquestionably the 
 case, a wall enclosed what is particularly described as a garden : and 
 
 * Gethsemane means the “ Garden of the oil-press.’ 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES . 
 
 389 
 
 the expression used, that “ He went forth . . . over ' the brook 
 Kedron, where was a garden/’ seems to point to this bridge as the 
 one nearest the city, and to some place directly at the other side of 
 it. How many years this tradition has lasted I do not know ; but 
 one thing is evident — that there are no other olive-trees nearly so 
 old in the whole neighbourhood of Jerusalem: and if some trees 
 have been known to live for 1000 years, surely these carefully 
 cherished and tended trees may well have borne the burden of 
 eighteen hundred years. But at least, it would be strange indeed 
 if their drooping forms and “ color di mestizia” did not touch the 
 heart with a deeper feeling here than in any other place where, if 
 not the very spot where the blood of our Redeemer was shed for 
 us. His holy Footsteps must have often and often passed on their 
 mission of Love and Mercy. The monks have sadly disfigured the 
 place with gaudy pictures, and utilised the ground into plots of 
 impertinently gay flowers and fat cabbages ; but one forgets these 
 incongruities in the silence and sadness that reigns around, while 
 sitting under the shadows of the venerable trees ; and once while we 
 went there holy strains filled the air, for the old Archbishop (sent 
 on a special mission from Borne) was chanting a Litany of the 
 Passion of our Lord, kneeling on the moist soil, with his silvery 
 hair uncovered, in the midst of a band of French pilgrims, beneath 
 a dark and cloudy sky, that seemed in unison with the sorrowful- 
 looking trees, and with the sweet and solemn harmony. 
 
 About the centre of the short valley of the Kedron are the singular 
 monuments to which the names of Absalom*, Jehoshaphat, and 
 Zacharias have been given : they are most picturesque and fine exca- 
 vations, all three being cut out of the living rock ; and the mystery 
 that hangs over their origin and date endows them with double 
 interest. The strange mixture of Doric architecture and some other 
 style less easy to name, with an air of Egypt through both, is 
 thought to point to an Herodian age ; in which case the “ Tomb of 
 the Kings ” may be- thought, from the strong resemblance between 
 them, to be connected with that royal line of Idumeans. The “ Tombs 
 of the Prophets,” as they are called, are also interesting from their 
 unusual arrangement : they are excavated in the side of Mount 
 Olivet, in long parallel lanes of concentric semicircles, with various 
 other branches and small cells, a circular hall giving entrance to the 
 whole ; the opening is choked up with trees and shrubs, but it is 
 
 * The real tomb of Absalom was in “ the king’s dale,” which, according to 
 the Talmud, is the same place as “ the valley of Shaveh,” “ the vale of Siddim/’ 
 and “Succoth;” and is in the Ghor or valley of Jordan. (2 Sam. xviii. 18; 
 Gen. xiv. 17, 3.) 
 
390 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 worth visiting from its great extent and curiously theatrical form ; 
 the entrance is just opposite to the south-eastern angle of the 
 Temple. 
 
 Descending the valley and following the bed of the Kedron, 
 between the hill of Ophel and the strange, uncanny-looking village 
 of Siloam, with its half-built, half-excavated houses, the little dell is 
 arrived at where the Valley of Hinnom sweeps round from the west, 
 and passing the south side of the double hill, falls into the Valley of 
 Jehoshaphat. This is the spot where the ancient horrors were 
 enacted by the idolatrous Israelites of offering their children to the 
 gigantic brasen idol of Moloch, on w’hose burning hands these 
 unhappy human sacrifices were laid : the “ king/’ as his name 
 signified, of idols, or rather of abominations, and the chief deity 
 of tbe Amorites. On the eastern slope above Siloam, tradition says 
 that Solomon’s strange wives and women lived, and there he built 
 altars for them each to worship the idols of their own country ; the 
 vile place, we are told, was “ on the right hand,” that is, the south, 
 “ of the Mount of Corruption ”* or the Mount of Olives, the hill to 
 the east of Jerusalem. A whole neighbourhood of horror and cor- 
 ruption this part must have been, for at the mouth of this Gehennam, 
 or Valley of Hinnom, was “ the potter’s field, bought to bury strangers 
 in,” and called in the Aramean dialect of the day, “ Hakl-dam,” the 
 field of blood. The whole cliff face above it is pierced at every few 
 feet with a multitude of rock-cut tombs: about 800 have been 
 counted immediately about this spot: in one very peculiar-sbaped 
 tomb, to which the name of St. Onofrius has been given, there are 
 seventy recesses for bodies ; the under part was used as a cemetery 
 for those who died of the plague some few years ago, and each inner 
 place is still filled with bones and skulls and bits of clothing ; the 
 workmanship of the excavation is good of its kind and very simple, 
 a well-cut cornice outside and some small pillars with rude capitals. 
 Above this is a large ruin, half excavation, half building, originally a 
 cistern, but since that a church dedicated to St. Bridget : from it 
 there is a beautiful view, but a sad and funereal one. Wherever the 
 eye can reach, far and near, above and below, one sees tombs — 
 tombs — tombs everywhere ; all the southern side and the bottom of 
 Hinnom is lined with tombs f; on both sides of the Valley of Jeho- 
 shaphat, from its very first rise on the north, even from the foot of 
 Scopus, into the dark ravine of the Kedron, the tombs lie as thick as 
 the ears of wheat in the corn-field; under the very wall of the 
 sacred Haram they cluster in long rows ; while on the plain to the 
 
 * 1 Kings xi. 7, 8 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 13. 
 
 f Jer. xix. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 391 
 
 north, and on the plain to the west, they coyer the ground with 
 their white and melancholy faces. At the foot of the Mount of 
 Olives the white stones form a complete pavement to the hill-side ; 
 many a poor Jew has laboured all his life, early and late, to gain 
 enough to bring him to the beloved and Holy City, merely to lay his 
 bones, a few days after, in the holy ground ; for they believe that 
 those who are laid in the sacred soil lie at rest in their graves, 
 while all who are buried in strange countries must work their way 
 underground to that Holy Land whence alone they can rise ! Nor is 
 this idea of the valley confined to the old Jews : the Mooslims also, 
 and even the early Christians, had a strong belief that the awful 
 Judgment of the Last Day will take place in this dark ravine : strange 
 indeed it is how widely spread was this tradition. Solemn and mourn- 
 ful it is to see how these acres of graves mingle in every view of the 
 city, and to think of how, like silent “ watchmen set upon thy walls, 
 0 Jerusalem,” the whole city is encompassed, enwreathed, as it were, 
 with “ an exceeding great army ” of the dead ; a City of the Dead it 
 seems, for the dead are more numerous than the living. And 
 looking at those gloomy valleys one cannot help thinking of the 
 “ great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and 
 kindreds, and people, and tongues,” the Jew and the Mooslim, the 
 Greek and the Armenian, the Syrian and the Egyptian, and the 
 little band of the children of the West, all lying waiting, waiting 
 for the opening of the Great Book, and the awakening of the heathen, 
 — “multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision,” or judgment, 
 where the corn shall be threshed from the chaff*, — waiting, for 
 the day of the Lord, and for the glories of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 “ If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her 
 cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the 
 roof of my mouth; yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief 
 joy!” 
 
 Joel iii. 14. 
 
392 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 FROM CHRISTMAS TO EASTER IN JERUSALEM. 
 
 We had thus reached Jerusalem only two days before Christmas, 
 when, through the kind introduction of a Roman Catholic friend, 
 we received an invitation from the Latin Patriarch to attend the 
 Christmas services at Bethlehem, which, delighted to be enabled to 
 spend that : night on the real and long-hallowed spot, we gladly 
 accepted, and accordingly mounted our horses on the afternoon of 
 the 24th. We found the whole road from the Jaffa gate gay with 
 crowds of pilgrims, on foot and on horseback, on donkey and mule- 
 back, men, women and children, including Franks and dragomans 
 of all countries hastening to the same goal. The wind was 
 piercingly cold on the plain of Rephaim, and as we turned over the 
 brow of the Mar Elyas hill, the rain came up in light, chilly 
 showers : not enough, however, to damp the spirits of the Bethle- 
 hemites, who were waiting in two parties, one of about fifty men, 
 and the other of about one hundred, standing beside their horses, to 
 receive the French Consul and conduct him into the town; he 
 comes here this day in state, as representative of the Imperial 
 Protector of the Holy Places and Christians of Syria. Very 
 picturesque indeed they looked, with their gaily-tasselled horse 
 trappings, the scarlet dresses, and white or yellow ke/iyehs, which 
 nearly all the Bethlehem people wear. 
 
 We alighted at the Convent, which appeared to be in the wildest 
 and noisiest state of confusion with its hosts of guests, and were 
 shown into a small dormitory, where we waited till the good 
 brothers summoned us to supper — cabbage-soup, cold fish, and 
 raisins. The service, which was held in the Latin Church of St. 
 Catherine, commenced directly after, but we did not go into the 
 church till nearly ten o'clock. It was crowded to excess with 
 tightly-packed rows of peasant women in their white eezars, and 
 men in bright-coloured mash’lahs : the gay Jcefiyehs were removed. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 393 
 
 and only white cotton caps remained. We were conducted to seats 
 which had been provided for us near the altar, immediately 
 behind the state chair of the French Consul : we were surprised at 
 the reverence paid to him throughout the service ; they were con- 
 tinually bringing him the cross or relics to kiss, censing him 
 specially, and bowing to him repeatedly, whenever any of them 
 crossed the chancel. The service was very grand and splendid : the 
 Patriarch was re-attired six or seven times in exceedingly rich 
 robes, his mitre sparkling with the very large jewels with which it 
 was inlaid, all which accorded well with his superb face and figure, 
 majestic, haughty, and proud, yet with a sweet smile, and a very 
 intellectual countenance. He sang his part of the service beautifully 
 and reverently; indeed the singing would have been altogether 
 charming, had the music been less incongruous : but it wandered 
 from opera to opera, and from overture to overture, until, just at 
 the moment of the elevation of the Host, every solemn thought and 
 feeling took flight as the organ struck up “ Strida la vampa,” and 
 Patriarch and Priest seemed to melt away into the figures of 
 Azucena and Manfredo, with the gipsy band around them ! But we 
 thought we had never seen a Romish service so reverently performed : 
 in no one of the assistants, even among the small choir boys, was 
 there an irreverent look or gesture, so unlike many of the Church 
 ceremonies on the Continent ; the secret of this we learned the next 
 day, on visiting the Latin seminary, where they are all under the 
 watchful eye and training of the Patriarch, and a most devout and 
 serious-looking set of young men and boys they were. The Beth- 
 lehem peasants joined in the responses and hymns with energy and 
 apparent earnestness ; they are a rough, passionate set, and dis- 
 turbances among themselves are very frequent, and often break 
 out during these services : especially when strangers join them, and, 
 consciously or unconsciously, give them offence, when a serious 
 emeute sometimes ensues. 
 
 About 2 o’clock a.m. the wax Bambino, which had till then 
 adorned the altar, was laid with great eeremony in the arms of the 
 Patriarch r the procession moved slowly through the church to the 
 chanting of hymns, and descended the narrow steps to the Grotto of 
 the Nativity, where no one was admitted besides the clergy and 
 the French Consul, but ourselves and two of our friends, and as it 
 was, the Grotto was more than crammed. The Bambino was laid 
 on the silver star, which is supposed to mark the holy spot, and was 
 afterwards removed to the marble “ manger : ” the Gospel narrative 
 was read aloud, a few prayers offered, and some hymns sung, and 
 this part of the service was simple, intelligible, and really impressive ; 
 
394 
 
 . EGYPTIAN- SEPULCHRES 
 
 the rough cave and small space contrasting with the exquisite gold 
 and silver lamps and crosses, the rich embroideries, the apparently 
 devout faces of the assistants, and the sweet harmony of the chant- 
 ing. The service was finished in the upper church about 3.30 a.m. 
 We went back to the dark dormitory, and waited more than an hour 
 in silence, thinking over the service which had certainly been, on 
 the whole, fine, and in some ways, striking ; but how completely the 
 whole scene vanished — like a cloud of its own incense — from my 
 mind in the hours that followed ! 
 
 While our companions were attending another mass, we mounted 
 our horses and rode slowly out of Bethlehem ; the night was so 
 bright and clear that the sky was more blue than black, and after 
 the exciting, sleepless night, and the noise and bustle in the Convent, 
 the calm silence and fresh air was most soothing and delightful. 
 Then, away from all human interventions and interruptions, one felt 
 really alone with God and the great Past; alt the intermediate 
 centuries seemed to fade away into a further distance than the mere 
 time in the face of unchanged and unchangeable Nature, and the 
 chords of all that is dearest to a Christian’s heart seemed to ring as 
 if touched by a living finger ; the “ bright procession ” of the stars 
 shone brilliantly in the clear heaven, over these wild and lonely 
 mountains — the very same where, eighteen hundred years ago, on 
 this very winter night, “ shepherds were abiding in the field, keep- 
 ing watch over their flocks by night,” — like that boy whom I hear 
 singing to his sheep in the valley below, and doubtless vratching 
 with deep attention those same stars, among whom a new and 
 sacred meteor had appeared to guide the sages of the East to this 
 very spot. There, on that silent hill-side, they stood when “ the 
 glory of the Lord shone round about them,” and the “ multitude of 
 the heavenly host sang, Glory to God in the highest ” : and the 
 poor shepherds were no longer afraid, for they knew that these were 
 indeed “ tidings of great joy,” and their hearts told them that now 
 God was beginning to “ comfort Zion,” and to make her wilderness 
 and her desert like a garden : that joy, and gladness, and thanks- 
 giving, and the voice of melody would sound there, for that the 
 “ Redeemer was come to Zion,” and the everlasting light was shining 
 through the darkness around them. 
 
 Already, as we skirted along the hill-side, the light of morning 
 was breaking in blue, misty haze, when, with all the suddenness 
 of an Eastern sunrise, in a moment up shot the bright rays from 
 behind the dark wall of the Moab mountains, straight and stern 
 barrier though it seemed to be, and spread in one lightning glance 
 over the whole country ; the night was gone, the beautiful stars had 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES . 
 
 395 
 
 vanished back into heaven, and the sunlight in vast tides of 
 brightness had come in — 
 
 “ In its sumptuous splendour and solemn repose, 
 
 The supreme revelation of light 
 
 it lit np the hill-tops, and brightened the terraces and the little 
 meadows, while all the distant mountains of the Dead Sea deepened 
 into hues of blood-red and deep purple. Then I looked back to 
 Bethlehem, white and radiant like a pearl of great price, as the 
 bright beams shone on the convent walls where many hearts were 
 then bowed in prayer : the vines and the corn around it soon 
 lightened up in yellow sheen, and I thought of Buth, the gentle, 
 brave-hearted girl, and half fancied I saw her following after the 
 broken-spirited Naomi, as she turned back to the home of her child- 
 hood : I seemed to see her threading the oak woods of Moab, de- 
 scending those steep and rocky mountains yonder, crossing the 
 rushing river and the wide, hot plain of Jericho, cheering and 
 supporting her mother-in-law across the barren, desert hills and 
 vales of Judea with firm but tender words : herself strong in the 
 unselfish, earnest purpose of her heart, until the instinct of her 
 guileless purity had led her to her kinsman Boaz, and she went 
 singing through the golden corn with her heart full of the glad 
 promise within her. I thought of David, the beloved of God, chant- 
 ing on those breezy hills his own sweet hymns and psalms, which 
 not only Judah and Israel, but all Christendom, as long as the 
 world shall last, will sing with him in hallelujahs of glad praise ; 
 and of her, another meek and guileless Virgin yet more pure and 
 more lovely than even Buth of old, who arose and went rejoicing in 
 God her Saviour into the hill-country of Judea, and bare a Babe in 
 the little Bethlehem- the-fertile, the city of Buth and David, by whom 
 she and all the whole world shall be blessed. 
 
 And so we went up by Solomon’s aqueduct and the rich groves 
 of Beit Jala, while the light broadened on the mountain tops all 
 round : and when we mounted the steep, rocky path to the Convent 
 of Elijah, Zion, the blessed and the beautiful, burst upon our eyes, 
 lifted up on the “ glorious holy mountain between the seas.” The 
 western wall lay all in dark shadow, but the south wall glowed like 
 bright metal in the golden light, which touched the domes and 
 minarets ; there the fair thing stood, bathed in splendour : all the 
 rocky country, and the desert hills, and the dark mountains of the 
 Dead Sea, all in deep shadow, and only these two cities of Jerusalem 
 and Bethlehem, with the little plain of Bephaim at our feet, shining 
 in the newborn light of day. And it seemed to me as if the very 
 
396 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 trees around me sang, Behold “the tender mercy of our God, 
 whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us, to give 
 knowledge of salvation unto His people for the remission of their 
 sins — to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow 
 of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace ” — “ for thy 
 light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” 
 
 That scene — a type, as it were, of all the Christian’s hope, assured 
 to him by the blessed event of this day — was one moment in a 
 thousand never to be forgotten : the light of it was still shining round 
 one’s heart, when, three hours after, we joined, with all the little 
 community in Jerusalem, in the service of that glad Christmas 
 morning in the Hebrew and English Church on Mount Zion. 
 
 A few days later, we spent a pleasant afternoon with the Latin 
 Patriarch, Monsignore Valerga* at his palace at Beit Jala, to which 
 he had kindly invited us. Here he watches over a seminary, chiefly 
 of Arabs, preparing for the priesthood. His career has been more 
 than usually interesting from the adventures he met with as an 
 intrepid missionary among the wild Kurds, by whom he was twice 
 taken prisoner in the Desert, receiving some severe lance wounds, 
 and a bullet in the neck which could never be extracted. He reads 
 Hebrew as well as Arabic, and speaks some of the dialects of the 
 latter ; and he showed us a genealogical tree he was compiling from 
 some old Arabic histories, alleged to have been written before the 
 time of Muhammad, giving many of the names mentioned in early 
 Scripture history, from which he was trying to trace out the 
 origin of the great Bedoueen tribes. Some of these names are, ac- 
 cording to his view, identical with those of the descendants of Esau 
 • — as, for instance, the two greatest of all the tribes, the Shammah 
 (Gen. xxxvi. 17) and the Anazeh (verses 20 and 29) — zeh or zie 
 signifying tribe throughout Western Asia. He appeared to be a 
 well-read man on other subjects, though perhaps most conversant 
 at present with the questions regarding the policy of Rome, em- 
 bodying in himself all the magnificence of the thrice-holy Throne 
 he so triumphantly upholds in Jerusalem. He was so kind as to 
 take us over the seminary, which appears to be well organised : a 
 very simple building, but airy and comfortable ; and we heard that 
 the education which the students receive is both substantial and 
 extensive. We were present at the evening prayers in the chapel, 
 which were reverently and well sung by the students, and we were 
 much pleased with the intelligent brightness of their countenances. 
 
 * He died in 1872. I have quoted his theory without wishing to commit my 
 readers to its truth, as it is more than doubtful whether any authentic Arabic 
 histories of an earlier date than Mohammed are extant, or even ever existed. a 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 397 
 
 The chapel, which is pretty within, is ugly enough without ; it 
 occupies the centre of the group of buildings which are surrounded 
 with gardens, wherein cherries were being cultivated for the first 
 time in Palestine. The land was not obtained without a very fierce 
 struggle, in which the Patriarch acted with the firmness and adroit- 
 ness of a practised diplomatist, and finally obtained all he wanted. 
 During our stay in Jerusalem he allowed us to pay him many visits, 
 and we always found him kind and friendly ; to us he never showed 
 any of the stiffness and pretension of which he is accused ; his conver- 
 sation was invariably that of a man enlightened and without bigotry, 
 and he was far more ready to promote and encourage discussion 
 on the authenticity of the " holy places ” than many of the Pro- 
 testants who have set up a Pope for themselves, and would impose 
 his infallibility on every one else. 
 
 The Patriarch has established large and flourishing schools, of 
 which we heard an excellent report : and also a sisterhood, les 
 Soeurs de Saint Joseph, for attending the sick and poor at their own 
 houses ; they have a large field for work, and seemed to be doing well. 
 
 On the last day of the year we went, by the Patriarch’s invitation, 
 to see the ceremony of investing a French gentleman with the Order 
 of the Knighthood of the Holy Sepulchre : but the ceremony was 
 wholly unimposing, and its uses and duties are now merely nominal. 
 A short address was made to the candidate in Latin, and the Creed 
 repeated, during which the Sword and Spurs of Godefroi de Bouillon 
 were fastened upon the newly-made knight.* We went into the 
 Sacristy, the first day we saw the Holy Sepulchre, to examine these 
 relics ; and I thought the old Franciscan monk who showed them 
 would have embraced us both, he fell into such an ecstasy of joy 
 and respect, when he heard that we were ourselves descendants of 
 that great and noble warrior king, the flower of all chivalry : he 
 who refused to wear the crown he had justly earned in the city 
 where his Saviour had worn a Crown of Thorns. Alas! after having, 
 as in duty bound, devoutly kissed the relics belonging to our 
 illustrious ancestor, the Patriarch assured us that there was no 
 authority for believing them to be the real sword and spurs of 
 
 * The investiture of this Order of Knighthood is now but a compliment, or 
 a gift, I believe, in return for a certain sum of money : the new Chevalier 
 informed us that he had undergone no fasting or preparation of any kind, and 
 undertook no special duties even in behalf of the Holy Sepulchre. Yet one 
 must hope that, like the words which the sentinels of the Crusaders’ armies, 
 in the Holy Land had to cry aloud every quarter of an hour through the night, 
 even the Knights of the nineteenth century would at least in the depths of 
 their hearts “ Remember the Holy Sepulchre !” which, even in olden days, was 
 hardly in a state more disgraceful to Christendom than it is at present. 
 
398 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 the Conqueror of Jerusalem, as they are of a much more modern 
 construction, and that Chateaubriand had been the first to dis- 
 cover their claim ; indeed it must be acknowledged that they are 
 strangely small, and the sword must have been a most insufficient 
 weapon for a warrior who could cleave a camel in two at one blow. 
 
 There are many noble memories, and sad ones too, connected 
 with the brief reigns of the Latin kings in Jerusalem ; but one of 
 the most touching has always appeared to me that the seven 
 Christian kings, the successors of the noble Godfrey, used to be 
 crowned at the altar in this little chapel : and then, solemnly and 
 humbly ascending the steep steps of the rock on the other side, 
 laid their earthly crowns on the altar of Calvary ! 
 
 Up to the year 1808, the tombs of Godefroi de Bouillon and his 
 brother Baldwin I. were to be seen at the entrance of the small 
 chapel to the east of the great south door : they were modest 
 structures, with penthouse roofs raised on four little columns of 
 white marble, with the touching inscriptions known to all the 
 world; while opposite the southern entrance were the tombs of 
 their seven successors ; but the spiteful Greeks took advantage of 
 the terrible fire which in that year destroyed nearly all this part of 
 the church to clear away every vestige of the tombs. It is said, 
 however, that long before this, in the invasion of the ferocious 
 Mongols in 1244, the bones of the heroes of the Western world had 
 been already torn from their resting-place and scattered to the 
 winds by the barbarians of the East. 
 
 We spent the 13th of January pleasantly enough in accompanying 
 the English Consul aDd Mrs. Finn to pay the annual complimentary 
 visits to the Greek, Syrian, and Armenian convents, as this was 
 their New-Year’s day. A narrow lane near the English Consulate 
 divides the largest of the Greek convents from their Patriarchal 
 Palace, the convent extending until it has enclosed the western end 
 of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, of which the Greeks have the 
 largest share. We were received at first by one of the Bishops, and 
 then by the Archbishop (the representative of the Patriarch who 
 lives at Constantinople) in a large corridor : a few good pictures of 
 saints at one end, and a gigantic clock, was all the furniture it 
 contained : this had been fitted up for the Grand Duke Constantine 
 in the foregoing summer. From this we were conducted into the 
 grand saloon, a well-furnished, handsome room, with green divans, 
 on which we ranged ourselves in a row, a preliminary struggle 
 having taken place as to which of the gentlemen should take the 
 lowest seat : the contest ended in the old Archbishop clasping Mr. 
 Finn round the waist with his fat arms, and depositing him in the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 399 
 
 seat of honour. Numerous compliments passed in Greek and Arabic, 
 partly with the aid of an interpreter ; while shibouques, Curasao, and 
 sweetmeats were presented with the coffee by two deacons. All the 
 ecclesiastics were dressed in full black cloth gowns edged with fur, 
 and the black, saucepan-shaped, tight caps peculiar to the Greek 
 Church. This old Archbishop is known generally by the name 
 of the “ Fire Bishop,” as it is he who annually produces that 
 astounding miracle for the edification of the mob assembled in the 
 Holy Sepulchre. Two pretty little gazelles were playing about the 
 room, and a little toy ship was tossing on some blue waves in the 
 middle of the table ; these occupied us during a not very entertain- 
 ing visit, and, as we took leave, a jocose deacon performed a won- 
 derful whistling of birds, ending with the yells of a hyena, “ done 
 to life,” for the amusement of the visitors : it sounded rather odd in 
 an archiepiscopal palace. 
 
 This convent is enormously rich ; the chapel belonging to it con- 
 tains some very old, and a few really good, pictures, with massive 
 gold glories studded with jewels : two of them were found some 
 years ago buried under the ruins of an old convent on the plain of 
 Jericho at Beth-hogla, where they had long lain forgotten. In these 
 Greek pictures only the face and hands of the subjects are seen ; the 
 rest of the figures are always covered with plates of gold or silver 
 of rich beaten work. There is also a valuable library, containing 
 some 2000 volumes, and 500 manuscripts, about 100 of which are 
 Greek, written on vellum. We saw a noble copy of the Gospels 
 in Greek, with golden initial letters and enriched with very tasteful 
 and well-preserved illuminations : this was pronounced by Mr. 
 Coxe* of the Bodleian Library, to be of the ninth century. But 
 the most beautiful of all is a large copy of the Book of Job in Greek, 
 the Scripture written in large characters with very long notes in 
 smaller writing ; with hundreds of curious portraits of poor Job 
 enduring his various misfortunes, seated on a circular dunghill, his 
 body * ■ powdered,” as the heralds say, with carefully painted sores, 
 and brilliant sky-blue hair and beard contrasting with his otherwise 
 melancholy appearance! he did indeed look as little like “the 
 Morning-Star of Song ” as possible ! The illuminations are much 
 spoiled, but they are most highly finished, illustrating the various 
 wonders of Nature mentioned by Job and his friends ; and which 
 are doubtless explained in the Commentary. The book concludes 
 with illustrations of the last chapter of Proverbs, displaying the 
 “ virtuous woman ” at her various employments. 
 
 We then crossed the nice convent-garden, gay in summer with 
 
 * The old fathers were continually quoting “Howadji Cose of England I” 
 
400 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 peacocks and canaries, and after a short walk reached the convent, 
 where Mar Gregorius*, the Patriarch of the Syrians, resides. He 
 received us in the outer court, and seemed proud to show us the new 
 buildings of his convent, a hospice for Syrian pilgrims ; the rooms 
 are small and very plain, but neatly finished ; a not very common 
 characteristic in this country. The Igood Patriarch is really an 
 interesting person : he has but lately returned from India, where 
 he went to collect money for the building of his hospice. A few 
 years ago the Kurds committed such terrible depredations upon the 
 scattered Christians and Nestorians of Diarbeka and the country 
 around it, that pilgrims ceased entirely to come thence to Jerusalem, 
 and the Syrian convent, which depends, like all the other convents, 
 mostly on their alms and fees, was nearly ruined. In this emer- 
 gency, the Patriarch thought of applying to the Christians of the 
 primitive church on the coast of Malabar — the Christians of St. 
 Thomas as they call themselves — and to them he actually went in 
 person, relying on his own prestige as a Bishop coming from 
 Jerusalem. The English Consul gave him letters to the authorities 
 in the States under British protection, and the event proved that 
 the hopes of the courageous old man were well founded. The Rajah 
 of Travancore, a Christian Prince, received him with royal honours, 
 turning out the soldiers and firing salutes of cannon ; and he after- 
 wards assisted the Bishop to collect a very large sum of money in 
 his territory. He showed us with great pride a roll of paper 
 containing a sort of panoramic representation of his travels, and the 
 procession in which he went to the church at Travancore, done by 
 a native artist. There was the long boat, the head of the Patriarch 
 appearing at the cabin window, with a deacon holding cross and 
 crosier at each end, and the eight rowers, all done in fiery reds and 
 yellows ; followed by the same head appearing in a palanquin, in 
 the midst of a long train of blacks carrying drums and some other 
 wonderful musical instruments, and a great many brilliant umbrellas, 
 one of which, made of straw, had greatly delighted the good Bishop. 
 As a border, round the paper, were very Chinese representations of 
 the houses and trees he had passed on the road, and of the ladies in 
 each house lighting lamps to illuminate his passage : while groups 
 of cannons, shaped like drums, were being everywhere fired by 
 matches a deal bigger than themselves or the soldiers who held them. 
 The good old man seemed immensely impressed with the won- 
 derful riches of the country, and especially with the gaslights in the 
 streets. He has a very interesting face, very fair, with soft, bright 
 
 * His baptismal name was Nour-ed-din — “ the light of religion ” — but it 
 is customary to take another name on becoming a 'bishop. 
 
AND S YRIA N SHRINES . * 
 
 401 
 
 eyes and a fine white beard ; he wore a violet-coloured cloth gown 
 over a red satin underdress, and a wonderful globe-shaped headdress 
 covered with black crape, with a smaller black knob fixed in the top 
 like a door handle. We afterwards learned that liis extreme pale- 
 ness was owing to the attentions of a would-be successor, who 
 flavoured the Patriarch’s soup one day with corrosive sublimate, from 
 the effects of which be was, with the greatest difficulty, restored 
 by the physician of the English Mission. 
 
 As a mark of great favour he then showed us a tiny copy, about 
 two and a half inches square, of the Four Gospels, written very 
 beautifully in Syriac; it was on parchment, each page bordered in 
 lines of blue and gold ; the first page illuminated simply but prettily, 
 and the commencement of each paragraph written in red. He said 
 it was known to be more than a thousand years old ; so we begged 
 one of the priests to read us the last chapter of the Gospel of St. 
 Mark, which he did, translating it into Arabic, as we wished to see 
 whether it contained the final seven verses in our version, said by 
 Tischendorf to be modern interpolations: the Syriac was identical 
 with our own. But Dr. Bosen, the learned Prussian Consul, told us 
 that this Gospel, though certainly 1080 years old, was originally 
 translated from the Greek, since written Syriac, as it is now, is not 
 as old as the Christian era : his opinion was that without doubt these 
 final verses were interpolations. The book was enclosed in a 
 beautiful case of silver-gilt, embossed with figures, and closed with 
 curious clasps. 
 
 The Patriarch then took us into the church, which they believe 
 to be the very same as the house in which “ Mary the mother of John 
 whose surname was Mark ” abode. The font in which she and Mark 
 were baptized stands at one side of the church, plated over with 
 silver, and just outside is the door in the wall, now built up, where 
 St. Peter is said to have come knocking, to the alarm of Bhoda ; the 
 doorway is evidently of the time of the Crusaders. More interesting 
 antiquities were a Byzantine picture of the blessed Virgin over the 
 altar, said to have been painted by St. Luke himself ; it is a very 
 sweet and well-painted face, one of the very dark Madonnas 
 frequently seen in the East ; and some fine old copies of the Gospels 
 and prayers in Syriac, with interlinings and headings in red. 
 
 In the street we soon after met a very brilliant procession of the 
 Bussian Bishop, Kyrillos, returning from the ceremony of laying 
 the first stone of a new convent, church, and hospice, on a very 
 large scale, outside the walls to the north of the city. The Bussian s 
 have lately purchased much land in and about Jerusalem; indeed 
 the Greek Church is obtaining vast acquisitions and influence in 
 
 2 D 
 

 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 the place, neither secretly nor silently. After the coarse, nnintellectual, 
 white-bearded faces of almost all the Oriental clergy, it was delight- 
 ful to meet the figure which now presented itself, with a face sweet 
 and pleasing enough anywhere, 'but which was rendered much 
 more so by a singular and graceful costume. Young and very fair, 
 with blue eyes, his intelligent and refined features beamed under a 
 tall straight cap, round which a black scarf or veil was smoothly 
 folded, the ends hanging down behind over a quantity of very long 
 and glossy golden hair, flowing straight down over his shoulders : 
 while the breast of a full, graceful robe of light purple satin was 
 adorned with four or five jewelled stars and orders, the episcopal 
 golden cross hanging from a gold chain over all. He carried a 
 golden-headed staff, the finely-worked crosier being borne before 
 him : and altogether, surrounded by a troop of grave, intellectual- 
 looking ecclesiastics, and a host of Russian pilgrims, with his gentle 
 manners and animated countenance, the Bishop made a picture more 
 like dreams of olden times than anything one is likely to meet now- 
 a-days — at least in any other city than Jerusalem. He is a man of 
 much influence in the Russian world, being a great favourite in the 
 Imperial family. 
 
 We went on next to the grand convent of the Armenians, which 
 occupies, with its many buildings and gardens, a very large portion 
 of the south-west corner of Jerusalem. A numerous retinue of 
 priests, &c., were grouped round the Patriarch as he stood in the 
 hall of reception ; we had heard of the Armenian as the richest of all 
 the communities in Syria, but we were not prepared for the noble 
 gallery through which we passed into his salon ; the gallery must be 
 about 250 feet long, and is very lofty ; it is well finished with marble 
 pavements and coloured walls. The Patriarch seemed quite to enjoy 
 the fun of receiving so many visitors at once ; he is a jolly kind of 
 old man, but with a coarse, heavy face, very unlike our Syrian 
 friend, Mar Gregorius ; we were told he is not a man of any learning, 
 and is only interested in counting the riches of the convent, every 
 para of which passes through his hands. A great variety of sweet- 
 meats, and little cakes, besides the usual pipes and coffee, were 
 handed round, and the room was perfumed with burning ambergris ; 
 and there was altogether more ceremony than with the other 
 patriarchs. Mr. Finn told us that on a visit he had lately paid him 
 during an illness, the Patriarch had received him in bed, attired in 
 the same black robes and mitre-shaped cap of blue velvet that he now 
 appeared in, tucked up under three or four thick and heavy cover- 
 tures, though it was in the middle of summer : the old man, never- 
 theless, insisted on performing the usual ceremonies, struggling up 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 403 
 
 on his knees and feet, under all the bedclothes, to make the proper 
 number of bows and salaams ! 
 
 The Babel of tongues which had amused us in the other visits 
 was still greater here, for the Austrian Consul, a Venetian, and his 
 wife, the Contessa Pizzamano, a Florentine, having joined us, added 
 German and Italian to the Armenian, Turkish, Greek, Arabic, 
 French, and English, in which the conversation had been previously- 
 carried on ! One envies the Consular dragomans the ease with 
 which they slip from one language to another, almost in the middle 
 of a sentence, until they really seem to be speaking all the eight 
 languages at once. 
 
 Of course the Patriarchs truckle to the Pasha of Jerusalem, 
 upon whose free admission of the pilgrims nearly all their riches 
 depend ; on this subject we heard a characteristic story of the ex- 
 cellent Sooraya, the Pasha now governing Jerusalem. One day, in 
 passing through the Bazaar, a fanatic Armenian pilgrim struck the 
 Pasha and endeavoured to stab him : a European gentleman who 
 was walking beside him, threw himself between them and warded off 
 the blow : upon hearing of this the Armenian Patriarch came down 
 into the street, and knelt down at the Pasha’s feet, with servile 
 gestures, entreating him to come into the convent. The Pasha 
 turned away in disgust and refused, though he had really been on 
 his road to him, and that evening he wrote a letter to the Patriarch 
 expressing his strong opinion of the unbecomingness of a dignitary 
 of the Church kneeling down at the feet of the secular authority. 
 On the following evening he went to visit the Greek Patriarch ; but 
 he for some private reason, or rather intrigue of his own, did not 
 particularly wish to see the Pasha ; on entering the saloon, the 
 attendants came to beg he would excuse the Patriarch as he was 
 already in bed. The Pasha walked up to the unlighted candles on 
 the table and put his finger on the wick — then turning to the atten- 
 dants he said, “ Tell the Patriarch that Sooraya Pasha desires to see 
 him at the Serai at midnight,” — and he abruptly left the convent. 
 Then he said to the gentleman who was with him, “I was disgusted 
 at the Armenian Patriarch for kneeling to me yesterday evening, 
 because I bate cringing and servility — but I hate a lie still more : 
 those candles were still hot and soft, and were blown out as I came 
 up the stairs : so the Patriarch will have to walk to my house in the 
 night for his pains.” 
 
 No one knows better than Sooraya Pasha what good manners are, 
 or understands better the good breeding which marks a gentleman , 
 whether his face is black or white, or his creed that of East or West. 
 He is not fond of our countrymen, because unfortunately many of 
 
 2 d 2 
 
404 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 the specimens he has seen he has found rude, rough, and bearish ; 
 that is to say, paying no attention to those ordinary rules of good 
 breeding which are at least due to his rank : but he thoroughly enjoys 
 a conversation upon subjects of universal interest with an enlight- 
 ened or well-educated European. He speaks French well and with 
 a good accent, but he considers it “ uve langue d’amitie,” and will 
 only speak Turkish to his general visitors, when he receives them as 
 Pasha of Jerusalem ; the language of his Government is the state 
 language for state visits. He is not fond of the European Consuls 
 in his city : very naturally, for their chief and almost only inter- 
 course with him is their application for the redress of wrongs 
 committed against individuals under their protection; and in Jeru- 
 salem they are inevitably, one and all, more or less mixed up with 
 the small quarrels and questions of the place: each, of course, 
 anxious to persuade the Pasha to see everything that takes place 
 through the spectacles of the particular Government which he 
 represents. The Pasha is very earnestly anxious about the good of 
 his own rule, and is very resolute to hear for himself, and, if possible, 
 to see with his own eyes, all that happens ; he frequently peram- 
 bulates the city at night in the dress of a Turkish merchant, with a 
 single attendant, in the style of Haroun-al-Baschid ; and sometimes 
 makes discoveries which are very astonishing to those not in the 
 secret. He is himself a fine-looking handsome man, slow in manner 
 and reserved in conversation like most of the Turks : but he is not 
 to be surprised into a gaucherie , and is one of those men who always 
 know what to do, and when to do it. 
 
 One little illustration of this I heard from an eyewitness : an Eng- 
 lish traveller (whose name I do not know) came to call on the Pasha. 
 Either from ignorance or from that bull-headed, stupid passion that our 
 countrymen indulge in of showing themselves superior to all the for- 
 malities and common courtesies of society, he appeared dressed in a 
 rough shooting coat and high riding boots : the Pasha had risen to 
 receive him, but the moment he saw this costume, he turned with 
 dignity to the gentleman beside him and said, “ Je dois me retirer/' 
 and instantly left the room. He was indeed extremely annoyed at 
 the disrespect, almost tantamount to insult, so rudely shown to him 
 and to the Government he represents : but the only remark he made 
 was, “ Je croyais que e’etait un monsieur qui desira me voir : mais 
 je comprends maintenant que e’est un homme qui ha jamais vu la 
 bonne societe.” If travellers do not choose to encumber themselves 
 with dress clothes, they ought at least to be contented not to thrust 
 themselves upon those whose station demands that respect and 
 courtesy which all men of good breeding ought to be, and always 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 405 
 
 are, willing to pay. It is, moreover, very incomprehensible why 
 Englishmen should think it becoming to be offensively and systemati- 
 cally rude to the Turks, while they really do manage to be decently 
 respectful to the authorities of other countries, such as Austria, 
 Greece, Naples, Spain, &c., whose Governments they despise, 
 perhaps, equally with that of the Sultan. 
 
 After this digression we must return to the Armenians, whose 
 very splendid church we visited next; it contains a shrine over 
 the spot where St. James was beheaded, and the own particu- 
 lar chair of that Apostle — a chair that was probably made by a 
 French carpenter about three hundred years ago. The shrine is 
 enclosed with doors of tortoise-shell, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, of 
 very beautiful workmanship ; the columns and walls are loaded with 
 gilding and pictures, and the roof is hung with a profusion and 
 confusion of ostrich eggs and silver lamps hung upon silver chains 
 in festoons, which has a bizarre btit very elegant effect. The mosaic 
 pavement in the chancel was the best we had seen in the East : it is 
 quite equal to that of St. Mark’s at Venice, and is in better preser- 
 vation. The most curious thing in the church is a large curtain 
 occasionally drawn across the chancel, of very ancient and exqui- 
 sitely fine embroidery ; it is covered with portraits of saints, &c., 
 and the whole genealogy and life of the Virgin illustrated in groups 
 of figures. In the convent garden are some splendid pine-trees of 
 an uncommon kind, branching and shady ; a great delight to eyes 
 accustomed to the treelessness of Judaea : a tine cypress is growing 
 up in the very centre of each pine, tree struggling with tree for the 
 mastery. 
 
 The Armenians were the first to introduce printing into Jerusalem, 
 and they have now quite a fine printing-establishment in this 
 convent; at the moment of our visit they were printing a “ Guide- 
 Book to the Holy City.” They gave us as a specimen a paper prepared 
 for the pilgrims, containing a few prayers, a receipt for a gift of 
 money, and the picture of an angel holding the decapitated head of 
 St. James, their patron saint, on a dish; there was a pretty ara- 
 besque border round it of roses, the type of which we were surprised 
 to see was engraved on mother-of-pearl and ivory. 
 
 The Armenian Patriarch had a fine engraving of our Queen and 
 another of the Prince Consort in his salon , and more than one of the 
 high dignitaries we saw that day inquired about Prince Alfred 
 who had then lately visited the Holy City. It was, indeed, very plea- 
 sant to hear how favourable an impression our Sailor-Prince had 
 made wherever he went in Syria : how he charmed everyone with 
 the sound information and bright intelligence which he inherits from 
 
406 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 both his royal parents: how his unaffected boyishness won all 
 hearts, ready as it always was in an instant to change into the 
 demeanonr of a Prince when the occasion required it : and of his 
 consideration for and attention to all around him in the midst of 
 his own merriment. His visit called forth much kindness from the 
 European Consuls and some others in Jerusalem, who vied with 
 each other in sending furniture and European comforts to the 
 English Consulate to prevent the difficulties and inconveniences that 
 must inevitably occur in such an unlooked-for event : even an old Turk 
 sent up a precious morsel of embroidery of gold and precious stones, 
 an heirloom in his family and a gift from Sultan Selim. The Pasha 
 of Jerusalem sent horses to meet the Prince and his suite at Jaffa, 
 and for the Prince’s own use he sent a horse which had been a gift 
 from a Turk of very high degree, and was considered priceless. The 
 unhappy animal was covered with housings, loaded with gold of 
 nobody-knows-how-many-pounds’ weight, and had, according to 
 the Turkish fashion, been fed up to its furthest limits — in 
 fact blown out with fat. The day was intensely hot, with a 
 sirocco blowing : no one seemed to know that the Turks never 
 gallop tbeir horses for more than a few minutes at a time, and the 
 journey was in itself twelve long hours ; all the horses, and indeed 
 the riders also, suffered very much, but on the following day the 
 Pasha’s precious animal expired ! a loss for which the gold-mounted 
 revolver, afterwards presented to him by the young Prince, must 
 have been considered by the Pasha as a poor consolation. The 
 presents given by him, indeed, gave satisfaction to none of the 
 natives in Syria : they were really handsome as coming from the 
 young Sailor- Prince, travelling as such ; but the people could not 
 be made to understand the difference between a Prince travelling in 
 state and incog, as it were. Nor could they ever realise the fact of 
 his being on service ; and therefore as the son of the great Queen of 
 England, and received as he was in Jerusalem with all the honours 
 due to Royalty, the presents appeared poor, and afforded an unfortu- 
 nate contrast to the lavish profusion with which the Russian Grand- 
 Duke had thrown about his diamonds only a short time previously. 
 
 A day or two after this we heard that there was to be a very 
 grand wedding of a Russian lady in the chapel of the Greek 
 Convent, and as the bridegroom was an Ionian gentleman, and there- 
 fore under the protection of the British Consul, whose presence 
 was necessary at the marriage, they were so kind as to send us an 
 invitation to the chapel, on hearing that we wished to see the 
 ceremony. Unfortunately on the day appointed there was a 
 continual down-pour of rain, which in Jerusalem is not a very 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 407 
 
 convenient accompaniment to “ going out.” There are two sedan 
 chairs in the- city, but both of them are private property ; every lady 
 resident there has her own donkey, but there are none to hire, so that 
 if you choose to go out you must walk, and there are few things 
 much less agreeable than a nocturnal promenade by the light of a 
 lantern, picking one’s steps along the filthy streets of an Eastern 
 town, disturbing the dogs and cats, with a shower-bath pouring 
 down over one’s head. The inner chapel was only about twelve 
 feet square, and being filled with the bridal party we had to 
 uncloak and ungolosh in the muddy outer court before we could 
 mix with the gay dresses within: but as everybody was in the 
 same plight it did not much matter. The Metropolitan Bishop of 
 Petra officiated, assisted by various bishops and clergy, himself 
 handsomely robed as well as the bishops : the rest wore only the 
 every-day black gown, and observed no order. All of them 
 continued chatting among themselves, and laughing, scarcely in an 
 undertone, during the whole service: nobody seemed to know 
 exactly the right order of the service, and they kept correcting and 
 expostulating with and advising each other all the time: the 
 difficulty, we were told afterwards, was to decide which piece 
 should be in Bussian and which in Greek ; and they all laughed at 
 every mistake. After several prayers and some reading to which 
 no one seemed to attend, and at which no one knelt, the hands of 
 the bride and bridegroom were joined by the Bishop, who then 
 blessed two wreaths of coarse artificial flowers (answering to our 
 rings) touching the Gospels with each flower ; then presenting one 
 to the bridegroom, he crossed him with it on the forehead, 
 shoulders, and chest, doing the same with the wreath of the bride, 
 and then again changing the wreaths and crossing his hands and 
 theirs: last of all he laid each wreath on his own head, where 
 it looked supremely ridiculous, the gay flowers on the snowy locks 
 with the satin ribbons streaming down. Then came a great many 
 prayers and blessings, no one kneeling : after which the Bishop of 
 Petra put himself out of the way in a little pew, and the other 
 bishops and priests, joining hand in hand with the bride and 
 bridegroom, walked or rather scuttled in a ring round and round 
 the altar, chanting a psalm, two gentlemen walking behind bride 
 and bridegroom, holding the wreaths above their beads ; a cere- 
 mony that was remarkably undignified, for they all laughed the 
 whole time. Then the Patriarch took a common glass tumbler in 
 his hand, and administered the Holy Communion in a spoon to the 
 newly-married pair and to the Bussian Consul, mumbling some- 
 thing out of a book, while all the priests laughed and chattered on. 
 
408 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and finally exploded in fits of laughter because the Bishop of Petra 
 had tumbled down with the glass in his hand and broken it. The 
 whole service was so entirely irreverent, and the attempts at 
 chanting so ludicrous that we were quite glad when they all 
 disappeared, the lights extinguished, and all hands had hurried 
 away to the banquet: nor did we care to see another Russian 
 wedding — though I would fain hope that the irreverence of this 
 one was exceptional. The Greek ceremonies at Jerusalem are by 
 far the least reverent or edifying of any, but the services of the 
 Russian Church impressed us more than anything of the kind that 
 we witnessed in the East. 
 
 The next ceremony at which we assisted was a very different 
 scene : it is the custom among the Protestants living in Jerusalem 
 to keep the anniversary of the arrival of Dr. Alexander, the first 
 Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, as a festival by attending morning 
 service together in the Hebrew and English Church : they meet in 
 the evening in the girls’ schoolroom, the walls of which were 
 prettily ornamented with palm branches and wreaths of passion- 
 flower, with words formed of olive-leaves. The Bishop and Mrs. 
 Gobat, kindly invited us to join them, and we gladly availed 
 ourselves of the invitation. We found the assembly were chiefly of 
 Europeans, with the addition of converts from the Spanish and 
 German Jews: in a smaller room upstairs the Christian Arab 
 congregation were feasted together, the men on oue side, the women 
 on the other; the Bishop made them a short address in Arabic, to 
 which they seemed most earnestly attentive : they were, of course, 
 all in their native costumes. The medley of tongues in the room 
 below was curious : one of . the clergy addressed the meeting in 
 Spanish, another in German, the Bishop having read a chapter in 
 the Bible in English, while the singing of psalms and hallelujahs 
 was in Hebrew, — the wild melody of the old chant was one of the 
 sweetest I have ever heard ; — and German hymns were added at the 
 end. For once the petty jealousies and narrow-minded bigotry of 
 the small cliques that poison the Holy City and seem to set its very 
 stones at enmity and evil-speaking one with another, appeared to 
 have died away, and peace and Christian feeling reigned over all. 
 r ihere were other strangers besides ourselves, and some travellers 
 from the New World of America, as well as the still newer of 
 Australia : and one could almost believe the legend of the Greeks, 
 in looking round, that Jerusalem is the “ centre of the world.” 
 There are schools provided by the three Mission Societies, for 
 which funds are collected in England, all under the general super- 
 vision of Bishop Gobat : a large but uncommonly ugly building, a 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 409 
 
 perfect eyesore in tlie view, has been erected for the boys outside 
 the city walls on the south-western brow of Mount Zion : it contains 
 several airy rooms, capable of holding a great many more children 
 than they have in the school at present : a garden is attached to it, 
 leading into the quiet little English burying-ground (already be- 
 ginning to be sown with one or more infants from every family of 
 the European Protestants living there), in which some curious 
 remains of ancient baths have been found. The girls have a school 
 near the Hebrew and English church ; and there is a very small 
 infant school under the care of a young Eussian, who was educated 
 in the Bishop’s school, which seemed to be getting on very well. 
 
 The Prussians have a very successful establishment of Deacon- 
 esses, which appeared to be doing good work, Pastor Eliedner having 
 himself gone to Jerusalem at the special request of the late King of 
 Prussia to commence the institution ; his niece is one of the sisters : 
 they have a large building, under the care of five sisters, a beauti- 
 fully clean, well-arraDged house, including a girls’ school, a dispen- 
 sary, and a hospital where men and women of all or any creed are 
 taken in, and seemed to be most kindly and well nursed. The 
 sweet, cheerful faces of the sisters must in themselves do good to 
 their patients : and their pretty blue dresses and neat caps are 
 much to be preferred to the black costume of the Latin Soeurs de la 
 Charite. Another institution, belonging to the Anglo-Prussian 
 mission, is the House of Industry, where a number of boys and 
 Jewish converts learn carpentering and shoemaking, and earn a good 
 sum by the variety of pretty things they make of olive wood. 
 
 Besides these there is a school for Jewesses, which interested us 
 very much : it was founded a few years ago by a Miss Cooper, who 
 went to live at Jerusalem in order to devote herself to the improve- 
 ment of poor Jewesses, her cherished purpose from her earliest 
 years. Her income was very small, but by means of extraordinary 
 self-denial and frugality, she contrived to house and feed one or two 
 poor girls, spending the whole of every day, not devoted to them, in 
 visiting the Jewesses in their miserable homes, helping them with 
 her own hands, working for them, and teaching them to work for 
 themselves : and though for several years she met with but little 
 encouragement or assistance from others, the persevering earnest 
 labours of this single-minded woman, working alone, in poverty and 
 weak health, effected a real change in the idle, dirty, ignorant state 
 in which she found the Jewesses of Jerusalem sunk. After some 
 years had passed away, she received some small grants from the 
 London societies, and was able greatly to enlarge the number of her 
 boarders, several of whom she had the happiness to see comfortably 
 
410 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 and honestly settled. She had just succeeded in providing a good 
 house for her little family of orphans when her worn-out frame sunk 
 under a slight fever : she died a few days before we reached Jeru- 
 salem. Just before her death she had placed the school under the 
 care of the Jews’ Society, endowing it with all her little fortune ; and 
 delightful it was to see the bright happy faces of the orphan girls, 
 and the large room filled with the strangely-dressed Jewesses, who 
 came daily to work there for several hours. Some of them thus 
 earned enough to keep their families from the state of beggary not 
 unusual among the Jews of Jerusalem. 
 
 These institutions are all for the very poor : but Jerusalem stands 
 most grievously in need of a thoroughly good school for children and 
 youth of a higher class than these; every year the number of 
 Europeans resident in the Holy City increases largely : a great 
 many European shops are now open, and families are beginning to 
 settle there; very few of these can afford to send their children 
 away to Europe for education, or are inclined to do so, yet they 
 earnestly crave the benefit of such teaching. Jewish converts, with 
 the love of learning so remarkable among the Hebrews, are always 
 most anxiously desirous to secure the practical and wholesome 
 education unattainable among themselves: while a very large 
 number of both Jews and Mooslims would thankfully entrust their 
 children to a Christian school, rather than lose their only chance of 
 improvement. The Greeks and Armenians have already commenced 
 institutions of the kind, while the Latin Patriarch has, as we have 
 seen, opened an establishment at Beit Jfila, where the thoroughly 
 good education given has induced several members of other com- 
 munions to join it, not, as they say, " to learn the religion,” but for 
 the sake of the grammar, geography, languages and arithmetic 
 taught there. For girls, if their parents do not send them to the 
 schools of the Latin Sisters, they must go without any tolerable 
 education of any kind. The absolute necessity of distinguishing 
 between class and class is more felt in the East than we can well 
 imagine at home, and consequently the necessity of schools for a 
 superior class is far more imperative there than in England. 
 
 An English college was opened in 1854, with a very few resident 
 pupils and several day scholars; the education was of a more 
 advanced nature, and was chiefly for young men intending to become 
 missionaries; lectures were given on the fundamental principles 
 and history of the Church of England, and a course of critical 
 lectures on the Greek text of the New Testament were delivered by 
 the Principal, which excited much interest among the residents in 
 the city : in fact, the college answered well, and might have been 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 411 
 
 the means of accomplishing much, but the excellent Principal was 
 obliged to return to England, and funds enough could not be 
 collected for obtaining another. It is difficult to overrate the im- 
 portance of both a school and a college at Jerusalem, or the benefits 
 that would arise from such an institution; like the Theological 
 Seminary at Beit Jala, it would form a nursery for those well- 
 trained labourers in Christ’s vineyard, the supply of whom from 
 England has been so sadly small ; it would serve also for those who, 
 having been educated for the ministry in European schools, desire 
 to perfect themselves in the languages of the countries to which 
 their lives will be devoted : besides the advantage of studying 
 Eastern manners and habits, and becoming themselves acclimatised 
 before they begin to work in hot countries. In a city where Hebrew 
 Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Amharic, Syriac, Hindoo, Eussian, German, 
 French, Spanish, Italian and English are daily spoken, there ought 
 to be uncommon advantages of education for missionaries to the 
 heathen nations around, besides the wild field of work among Jews, 
 Mooslims, Druzes, Metouaalees, &c., in Syria itself. In fact it is im- 
 possible to say into how wide-spreading and valuable an institution 
 such an establishment might grow : in the meantime, it is lament- 
 able to see the children left untaught and untended from the want 
 of a tolerably educated schoolmaster. How many young men there 
 are in England who, having had the advantage of a grammar-school 
 education, might devote themselves to this good work : there are 
 plenty of families capable of and willing to pay a reasonable sum 
 for good schooling, and if any one, with knowledge enough in him- 
 self to impart well and thoroughly such an education as our middle- 
 class schools in England afford, holding the sound religious principles 
 of the English Church, and with temper and self-respect enough to 
 keep out of the miserable cliques and parties that disgrace the Holy 
 City, would only go there and begin, he would succeed in support- 
 ing himself comfortably, and would, with God’s blessing, confer a 
 lasting and incalculable benefit on the Christian community of 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 The “ Maison des Filles de Zion” was instituted four years ago 
 by M. Eatisbonne, a converted Jew of Paris, for the purposes of 
 spreading conversion and education among his brethren : the diffi- 
 culties, however, proved so much greater than was expected, from 
 the intense aversion of the Jews to any approach to image worship, 
 that the unoccupied sisters, finding nothing to do in their chosen 
 line, opened a school for the daughters of the higher classes in 
 Jerusalem, which, for lack of any other, is attended even by some of 
 the children of Protestants. A small house was found for them, in 
 
412 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 which they made a nice little chapel, enriched with pretty gifts of 
 pictures, &c., but lately money has been collected in France for 
 building them a convent in the Via Dolorosa, close to the Serai, the 
 residence of the Pasha; the building that the monks call the House 
 of Pilate. The so-called Arch of the Ecce Homo here stretches 
 across the road, and it was in digging the foundations of the new 
 convent that a pavement of very large flag-stones was found, as well 
 as the smaller side-arches which stamped it at once and indubit- 
 ably as a Eoman triumphal arch of a not very early date. The 
 Latin monks at once seized on the pavement as the veritable 
 Gabbathu : and what was their joy, when, a few days after, a hewn 
 stone was discovered, about two feet long and one toot thick, bearing 
 an inscription in some unknown and curious characters. At first 
 the story went that they were Samaritan letters, — they were quite as 
 like Chinese; but before long the true story was hit upon. A 
 sister, who had the good of the Mission much at heart, and who 
 suffered constantly from fever and ague, had for some time past had 
 dreams : and, one night, the whole Passion of our Lord revealing 
 itself to her, she beheld Pilate’s wife sending him the message that 
 he should “ have nothing to do with that just man,” written on 
 a piece of stone which she at once recognised as the identical stone 
 so lately discovered ! the words in which this advice was conveyed 
 being “ Judex iniquitus,” and signed “ Claudia Procla ! ” Here was 
 the whole truth miraculously revealed, and great was the rejoicing 
 at this fresh proof, as they naively said, of how good “ le bon Dieu ” 
 was to His people in Jerusalem in thus constantly assisting them to 
 unravel every mystery. It was indeed, to say the least of it, a 
 valuable illustration of the manners of that age, that a lady, desirous 
 of sending such a message in all haste to her husband, should be 
 obliged to have recourse to such a ponderous billet-doux : but there 
 was the benefit of the miraculous assurance of what would other- 
 wise have appeared strange. Not feeling perfectly satisfied with 
 this sapient explanation, we obtained, through the kindness of the 
 French Consul, a tracing of the inscription and sent it to Dr. Eosen, 
 who saw immediately that it was Cufic of a late date, and translated 
 it thus, — “ The son of Obeid Allah, the son of Shem, the son of 
 Muhammed,” the last word being incomplete from the breaking off 
 of the stone : it was probably an inscription stuck into a wall to 
 announce the name and generation of the occupant of some tomb close 
 at hand. And so ended the pious trouvaille of the Filles de Zion ! 
 
 The English Consul, Mr. Finn, whose heart and soul are entirely 
 devoted to the good of Jerusalem, and who is esteemed and respected 
 by all who really know him, has established a library and a 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 413 
 
 museum in connection with the Jerusalem Literary Society ; both 
 languish sadly for want of funds, and the antiquities of the latter 
 are wholly undisplayed and concealed, from the want of a place in 
 which to keep them ; yet among them are many objects of great 
 interest and value. Mr. Finn is naturally and justly anxious that 
 Syria should not be entirely stripped of her own antiquities for the 
 enrichment of cabinets in other countries, where one or two isolated 
 objects convey little of the intelligence they bear when collected with 
 many more of their kind. At least a specimen of every coin and 
 curiosity should be left where they form links in the chain of the 
 history of the past; but money is required to secure them, and 
 hundreds of opportunities are annually lost for the want of a few 
 piasters. Among the objects already collected are several very fine 
 and perfect Osteophagi found in the Mount of Olives ; one with a 
 pent-housetop and much ornament, mostly like wheels, on the sides ; 
 another with a double top, the under one flat, the upper one 
 rounded : some curious ancient lamps in pottery and in bronze : 
 two very beautiful, delicately- fine glass vases found at Tyre ; and a 
 splendid bronze helmet found on the other side of Jordan among 
 the Mountains of Moab ; the form is said to be Greek, and from the 
 style of the figures, which stand in fine relief around it, it is judged 
 to be of the time of Demetrius, b.c. 160. There are also some slabs 
 from Nineveh, some fine specimens of ancient mosaic of different 
 periods, and a few Hebrew and other coins. 
 
 In fact there is no place in the world where the interest and 
 memorials of religion and of history harmonize to such an extent 
 as in Jerusalem ; and no place, surely, can be so delightful a resi- 
 dence as this, where it is impossible to walk a yard within or out- 
 side the city walls without coming to some fresh subject of interest ; 
 or where one can never raise one’s eyes without beholding some 
 place or view entwined in the deepest fibres of the Christian’s heart. 
 Without natural beauty, with many discomforts, and with a bad 
 climate in winter, we jet found in a very short time that the city 
 had taken such firm hold upon our affections that it was impossible 
 to leave it ; the longer we stayed, the more we loved it, and we 
 lingered on from week to week till four whole months had passed 
 away ; till Christmas and Lent and Easter were over ; till we could 
 say with the “ beloved ” in the song, “ lo, the winter is past, the rain 
 is over and gone— the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of 
 the singing of birds is come ; ” then we rose up, and sorrowfully 
 went on our way. 
 
 1 believe it is impossible for any one to understand this who has 
 not stayed there for some little time : the hurried traveller, rushing 
 
414 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 through with only a week, or, as it very often happens, only three 
 days at his disposal, has so much more to see than he can possibly 
 manage, even physically, that he has little time for any real compre- 
 hension, and still less for any right feeling of such scenes. Travellers 
 mostly go there in the end of the spring, when Jerusalem is very hot, 
 dusty, and continually oppressed with sirocco ; they are disappointed 
 with the want of natural beauty, and are at once tired out and 
 unnerved with the many discomforts of the place, and with the 
 vexatious feeling of trying to realise their old associations through 
 the thick veil of ruin and superstition which has overlaid them. 
 They are confused with the modern life and secular scenes, carried 
 on under the shadow of those ancient names which they have been 
 accustomed to consider all their lives as set apart for sacred things 
 and thoughts ; and a vague feeling of irritation arises unconsciously 
 in the mind of each, wondering at his own coldness and unde- 
 votional feelings in that spot where he £had expected, of all others, 
 to feel impressed and hallowed : till at last, knowing that ! he has 
 honestly tried to feel aright, he consoles himself with thinking the 
 fault must be in the place, not in himself, and he goes away 
 declaring it is “ a dreadful place,” — “not fit to live in” — &c. &c. &c. 
 
 We had at first some comfortable apartments near the new 
 Austrian Hospice, but which were situated at the very bottom of the 
 Tyropaeon Valley : and as I had taken the “ Jerusalem fever,” as it is 
 called, immediately upon arriving, we became very anxious to get 
 other lodgings. After some time the English Consul kindly obtained 
 for us the use of a charming house, at the moment untenanted, 
 standing on very high ground near the Damascus Gate : the change 
 was of great use to me, and the improvement in our position was 
 most enjoyable ; our windows commanding the whole of the Mount 
 of Olives and Bezetha, the Mosques of Omar and El Aksa, and the 
 Moab Mountains ever dyed in radiant colours in the background. 
 
 The climate itself would not be much in fault at Jerusalem 
 during the winter if the houses were better arranged, but every 
 house in the city, however small, is built over its own cistern ; many 
 have three or four, and even more, the whole supply of water for 
 the consumption of each family in a year being contained in them. 
 These cisterns are stone chambers, generally vaulted, into which the 
 rains that fall on the flat terraces drain. Then the walls and roof 
 of every house are built of porous stone ; they are very thick, and 
 the rooms very low, and altogether they are as gloomy as they are 
 damp and unhealthy : while the eternal expanse of white plaster 
 everywhere, varied only with stains from the damp, is most 
 depressing. Moreover they are all so ill built, especially in the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 415 
 
 roofing, that, except the house of Dr. McGowan, which is built a 
 VAngluise, the gallery at the Armenian convent was literally the 
 only room we ever heard of in the city into which the rain did not 
 enter. Of course ague is the inevitable consequence of sleeping in 
 this damp atmosphere, and scarcely a creature escapes it in the 
 winter: even infants of a week or two old take the disease, and 
 many fall victims to it. Dr. Barclay told us he had never known 
 Jerusalem in the winter without from two to three thousand cases 
 in it under medical treatment. The most successful system of cure 
 appeared to me to be that of taking plenty of food and quantities of 
 wine ; the long-kept drinking water is, I am sure, very provocative 
 of the disease. I feel convinced also that much of the quarrels 
 and hatreds between set and set of every communion arise from 
 the unconquerable depression and lassitude caused by this miserable 
 complaint, and which unfortunately is scarcely shaken off under 
 the balmy skies of the early spring, before the sirocco begins to 
 blow. This dreadful wind continues usually, in fits of three days 
 at a time, from about the middle or end of April till July, and 
 adds to the languor and lassitude which overcome both man 
 and beast, an irritation of the nerves which extends to both mind 
 and body; it appeared to me to be as severe and intolerable at 
 Jerusalem as in Egypt. The south wind is only hot and drying : 
 it. is the east wind, blowing over the desert, which is so malignant, 
 and which fills the air with a thick, fine dust that veils the view, 
 darkens the sky, and penetrates everywhere. One day, February 8th, 
 the air was so completely thickened as to assume almost the brown 
 appearance of a London fog, and from our house we could not see 
 even as far as the Mount of Olives. Some of the dust was collected, 
 and on examination in the microscope, it proved to be the same 
 kind of thing as had fallen three years before, when specimens were 
 sent by Dr. Both to the great Liebig ; viz. a dust composed of very 
 minute shells, unbroken, and not of these latitudes, but from the 
 islands of the Indian Ocean, blown here in one of the great circular 
 storms, about which we are daily gaining more information. It was 
 curious that the dust, when placed in water, did not sink in the 
 shape of sediment to the bottom of the vessel, as sand or long-dead 
 shells would have done : but being still alive and full of air they 
 remained floating on the water. We heard afterwards that this 
 wind had reached to Malta, and carried some of the same shell-dust 
 to that island. 
 
 Vv r e had seen two heavy showers of sleet in the early part of 
 February, and once the snow had lain on the ground for about an 
 hour ; but very little had fallen in the time of the “ early rain ” 
 
416 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 (which is always in the month of November), and the people were 
 much distressed for water. There were but nine days in January in 
 which any had fallen, and there was much suffering in consequence ; 
 many of the poor Jews, who had no cisterns of their own, had to pay 
 three piasters * for a skin holding about two quarts, since, when the 
 cisterns are empty, all the water has to be fetched from below 
 Siloam : on this account the “ Dung Gate,” which is always kept 
 closed* was opened to give greater facility to the troops of donkeys 
 who brought up the skins. Public prayers were offered repeatedly 
 by Jews, Mooslims, and Christians for rain ; the Jews also ordained a 
 fast : but scarcely as much rain fell in February and March combined 
 as had fallen in January— and by the end of March the “ latter rain ” 
 is over. We had one storm of thunder and lightning and a great deal 
 of south -west winds, called by the Arabs “ the father of rain,” but in 
 this case he was not paternal, and had brought but little with him. 
 
 It is easy to understand the immense importance of rain to the 
 inhabitants, and the wisdom of having provided the number of vast 
 cisterns believed to exist beneath the Haram : from whence all these 
 arc fed is still a mystery. The magnificent aqueduct from Solomon’s 
 Pools, which is supposed to have supplied the temples and poured 
 a continual stream into the “ noble cave ” for its cleansing, has been 
 allowed to get choked; yet there is water in many of the cisterns 
 now ; there is, therefore, some reason to suppose that another subter- 
 raneous passage will be found some day carrying water from a 
 concealed fountain without the walls. Water may be heard at any 
 time rushing by underneath the ground just outside the Damascus 
 gate. The finest of all the reservoirs of the city is an enormous 
 place, excavated wholly in the solid rock which rises only a few feet 
 directly behind the eastern end of the Holy Sepulchre : it is worth 
 seeing, and is considered to be as old as the time of Helena ; but, 
 although her name has been attached to it, it does not probably owe 
 its excavation to her : the water stored there was so low when we 
 visited it that we descended upwards of twenty steps of the fine 
 massive staircase before we reached it ; and it was said that so 
 many had never been uncovered before. It is close to the Convent 
 of the Copts, in which there are several interesting fragments of 
 early Byzantine architecture. 
 
 The fountain of the Virgin and that of Siloam both lie in the 
 valley of the Kedron at the foot of Ophel ; they are connected by an 
 underground conduit, and, as we have said, with the “ noble cave ” 
 beneath the Sacred Bock ; the first is reached by a double flight of 
 stairs within a cave, and is very picturesque from the figures of the 
 * A piaster is about equal to two-pence. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 417 
 
 women always washing there : the pool of Siloam is an oblong basin, 
 with some old shafts of columns stuck in the modern walls : it is 
 pretty, but from being open to the sun does not give the same 
 idea of refreshing coolness as its sister fountain. Below these 
 is the Well of Nehemiah or En-rogel, called by the Arabs the Well 
 of Job ; it is arched over with large hewn stones of great antiquity, 
 about which the weeds and flowers nestle luxuriantly. After two 
 days of heavy rains that had taken place in February, this pool, 
 which is 125 feet deep, became quite full, and numbers of people 
 went down out of the city to bathe in it ; they were disporting 
 themselves very happily when suddenly the water fell, and down 
 they all tumbled with it to the bottom ! and there had to wait 
 till ropes could be fetched to pull them out ; probably some sub- 
 terranean passage had been choked and was then suddenly relieved. 
 
 The streets of Jerusalem are less filled with beggars and repulsive 
 objects than those of most Spanish and Italian towns; nearly all 
 the horrors, in fact, are collected together at one gate, that of Zion, 
 which one avoids as much as possible. These poor creatures are the 
 lepers, for whom rows of huts are built just within the Wall of the 
 City, in which they hide their wretchedness, except when begging 
 in little groups of hideousness outside the Zion and the Jaffa Gates. 
 We learned from a physician, who had paid a good deal of attention 
 to the disease, that the suffering is not at all equal to what one 
 would suppose it to be from its dreadful appearance; sensation 
 becomes deadened as the malady proceeds, and the flesh to be eaten 
 away has long before ceased to feel; at one time he had been 
 sanguine as to the possibility of arresting the disease, but one system 
 that he had tried after another having ultimately failed, he now, 
 he said, believed it to be entirely incurable and unmitigable, but not 
 contagious in the ordinary sense of the word : although probably one 
 sleeping or living constantly with a leper, and breathing his breath, 
 might become affected by it. The children of lepers he had fre- 
 quently seen apparently sound and pure, but he was convinced that 
 the soundness never continued long after they had reached the age 
 of puberty. The Arabs all dread it as most strongly infectious, and 
 any person in whom the disease shows itself is instantly chased 
 from all communication or intercourse with his people ; and some- 
 times leprosy declares itself in some family till then wholly untainted 
 by it. He related some touching stories of mothers who had brought 
 him their handsome fine-looking children, whose features were just 
 beginning to show the taint, and of their agonised entreaties to him 
 to cure them, and how he had, in consequence, consulted with 
 medical men in every country on the subject — but all in vain. 
 
 2 E 
 
418 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 There is also another set of these unhappy creatures near the 
 Gate of St. Stephen, but they will probably be removed whenever 
 the Emperor of the French really commences the restoration of the 
 Church of St. Anne, of which the Sultan has lately made him a 
 present. The church, which was built during the twelfth century, 
 is in very bad order, and is indeed little more than a shell : the 
 facade is good, with some nice work about the arches, which are 
 ornamented with the pretty billet and book mouldings : inside it is 
 poor and modern and much defaced, having been occupied latterly 
 by an Arab school ; the proportions, however, are very pleasing ; and 
 there is a fine apse at the east end. Beneath are the grottoes, 
 entirely closed from both light and air, in which St. Joseph and St. 
 Anne are said to have lived, and where the Virgin was born : the 
 rock is much chipped, and the fragments are sold or given away in 
 large quantities, as the possession of a morsel is believed to ensure 
 good health to any young mother. 
 
 Of good architectural work, of about the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries, there is indeed no lack in Jerusalem; the Holy Sepulchre 
 exhibits a vast number of very beautiful details, beside those of St. 
 Anne, the Hospital of the Knights, the Church of the Flagellation, 
 and many others. Perhaps there is nothing more striking than the 
 score of small but exquisitely worked capitals on the columns which 
 surround the Arab-built Church of the Ascension on the summit of 
 the Mount of Olives : the Empress Helena is said to have erected a 
 handsome church here, but nothing remains of it, unless it be these 
 fragments, which some have thought must have been copied or 
 perhaps borrowed from a building of a yet more ancient date. 
 Adjoining this church is a mosque with a picturesque minaret, 
 from whence there is a glorious panorama over the Head Sea, the 
 intervening mountains and the Holy City. I must again repeat 
 that, to be evjoytd, it should be seen in the autumn, not the spring. 
 
 An interesting visit may be made to the Convent of the Holy 
 Cross, about three quarters of an hour’s walk due west from the 
 Jaffa Gate: the view as you suddenly descend upon the convent is 
 pretty. The church is supposed by competent judges to be the 
 oldest in Palestine, having been built before the Church of the Holy 
 Sepulchre was completed by the Empress Helena. It was founded 
 by the Georgians — the earliest Christians of the Greek or Anatolic 
 rite in Palestine, — and the walls are covered with frescoes of their 
 saints, each holding a scroll, containing probably his own name and 
 history, written in old ecclesiastical Georgian. These frescoes are 
 mostly as brilliant as they were fifteen centuries ago, and though 
 many of the figures are too grotesque and rude to suit our modern 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 419 
 
 eyes, they are all full of life, vigour, and expression. The most 
 ludicrous are those of the earliest date, where all the saints have long 
 thin spiderlike legs: St. Jerome has his lion, and St. Anthony a 
 beard that reaches below his knees. On the other side the figures 
 are interesting as examples of the ecclesiastical vestments worn at 
 that period; the procession ends with the figure of a Georgian 
 queen who gave the stone for the building, a model of which she 
 holds in her hand. The church is seventy feet long, with nave and 
 aisles divided by four square pillars, with strange battlemented 
 capitals, frescoed all over ; it has a small dome over the centre. 
 The whole of the church is floored with a very fine mosaic, chiefly 
 white, which is the most ancient : but in the middle there is an 
 Arabesque pattern in black and red, of cocks and flowers in medal- 
 lions, very spiritedly done : it has been cruelly mended with blue 
 tiles in modern days. One part near the door is strangely stained, 
 it is said, with the blood of the monks slain by Chosroes the Persian : 
 the church was spared, however, when all others were destroyed, 
 because he used it as barracks for his troops. 
 
 The convent has undergone many vicissitudes : it has just been 
 restored by the Russians, and is both handsome and commodious : 
 the young students, who were forty-six in number at the time of 
 our visit, are said to receive a really good education, such as 
 will fit them for profitable employment afterwards ; it includes 
 modern Greek, French and Italian, with arithmetic, geograph y, 
 and drawing. The dormitories, class-rooms, &c., are all large* 
 airy, and well, almost handsomely, built; there are apartments 
 provided for the Greek Patriarch, but he always resides in Con- 
 stantinople. The belfry is exceedingly pretty of its kind, which 
 is the filigree confectioner’s style of work common in Russian 
 buildings. Some fine olive-groves and gardens are rapidly growing 
 up round the convent. 
 
 A quarter of an hour’s walk further on is the Church of the 
 Visitation, where the faithful may be edified by a grand picture of 
 the Virgin Mary attired in a cloth riding habit, with a hat and 
 feathers, ascending the stairs of Elizabeth’s house, Joseph giving 
 her his arm with an air of great politeness, and Elizabeth receiving 
 her with outstretched hand in splendid robes of the eighteenth- 
 century cut ! 
 
 One day, towards the end of March, we made an excursion with 
 our kind friend M. de Barrere, the French Consul, to ’Ain Karim, 
 supposed by the monks to be the “ desert” frequented by John the 
 Baptist : the village is situated in a little branch of a deep long 
 glen, running from south-west to north-west, called Wady Beit 
 
 2 e 2 
 
420 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Hanina, and the views about it are very fine. The mountains are, 
 as usual, very bare, rocky and dreary looking : but the bottom of 
 the valley is filled with vineyards and fig-gardens, and olive-groves 
 rise up the Hill-sides, where a few little villages lie dotted about. 
 This fertility probably gave rise to its name — kerem being the 
 Hebrew for a vineyard or orchard. The path was very bad, but the 
 ride was pretty, and the view; on arriving at the brow of the 
 mountain, looking down upon the little nook in which ’Ain Karim 
 nestles, is very fine. There is a large Franciscan convent here, 
 built from money collected in Spain, and inhabited by Spaniards 
 only, where visitors generally stop : but we went on to a large 
 house belonging to the First Dragoman of the French Consulate, 
 who received his master with a salute of five or six muskets, and 
 had the French ensign flying over the house, the windows of which 
 command a view of the glen right up to Neby Samwel. Near 
 this is a Grotto where the Virgin visited St. Elizabeth in her 
 “ country residence,” over which the Crusaders built a church, now 
 in ruins : in the village there is another Grotto, where St. John the 
 Baptist is said to have been born, and over which a really fine 
 church has been erected ; it has a beautiful mosaic pavement, and 
 quantities of pictures and marble sculptures : lamps are arranged 
 over the holy spot as at Bethlehem, and an inscription in silver 
 declares “ Hie Precursor Domini natus est.” 
 
 The village was full of flowers, and seemed both gay and flourish- 
 ing— a pleasant place to stay in : we did not leave it till late in the 
 afternoon, and then, as we mounted the hill-side, and turned round 
 to take a last look at the valley, we found the opposite mountains 
 darkened over with shadow, and behind them, far away between two 
 heights, lay the Mediterranean, glowing in the most wondrous way 
 beneath the sinking sun, literally, 
 
 “ a leaf of gold , 
 
 Of Nature’s Book, by Nature’s God unrolled 
 
 it was soon hidden from us, but altogether it was a grand and 
 beautiful scene, in spite of the barren, wild, featureless mountains 
 all around us. 
 
 Another very pleasant ride we took was to Neby Samwel as it is 
 called, the only mountain approaching to a peak, and the highest 
 near Jerusalem : it lies at the north-west end of the same long glen* 
 Wady Beit Hanina, but the valley here is neither as rich nor as 
 smiling as at the end near ’Ain Karim ; it would be utterly dreary 
 from its extreme stonyness, were it not carpeted, in the spring, with 
 brilliant and lovely wild flowers, growing more thickly than the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 421 
 
 grass : even in the depths of winter large white and pink cyclamen 
 and white crocuses are seen in every nook. 
 
 The village is small, but from being entirely built of ancient 
 materials, large hewn stones, many of them bevelled, it looks better 
 than it really is : many of the houses are partly excavated in the 
 steep rock, at the summit of which stands the mosque, once a 
 Latin church built by the Crusaders, but now much ruined. The 
 minaret can still be ascended, and the view from it is very fine : 
 not, however, equal to that from Tuleil-el-Foul. Jerusalem is just 
 seen and Bethlehem may be guessed at ; the Frank mountain, and 
 all the various confused crossing ranges of mountains between 
 Hebron and Jaffa, Jericho and Jerusalem: while to the north 
 “ Gibeah of Saul,” “ Bamah of Benjamin,” Bimmon, Beeroth, and 
 Gibeon are close at hand, stretching round to the west, where the 
 plain of Philistia begins, on which Bamleh, Lydda, and Jaffa are 
 distinctly seen. 
 
 Neby Samwel is supposed by Dr. Bobinson to be the Mizpeh 
 where the people elected and Samuel crowned Saul king over Israel . 
 Two thousand years later, when the unfortunate but noble king of 
 England, Coeur de Lion, had been forced by his companions into a 
 treaty with Saladin, instead of conquering him by force of arms, he 
 was led to this, “ the Mountain of Delight,” as the old Chronicler 
 calls it, to see the Holy City ; but the king, in the bitterness of his 
 disappointment, covered his face with his shield and burst into a flood 
 of manly tears : and although permitted by the gallant Saladin to 
 enter those sacred walls as a guest, he turned away and refused to 
 tread the holy ground to save which from the feet of the infidel he 
 had in vain shed his own and his faithful soldiers’ blood. 
 
 Long after, old Sir John Maundeville thus writes of this spot : 
 “ Two miles from Jerusalem is Mount Joy — a very fair and delicious 
 place. There Samuel lies in a fair tomb, and it is called Mount Joy, 
 because it gives joy to the hearts of pilgrims, for from that place 
 men first see Jerusalem.” 
 
 The arrival of the pilgrims, intending to assist at the Easter 
 ceremonies in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, began very early 
 in the year to make a difference in the appearance of the city : those 
 from Bussia and her dependencies arrive at all seasons, but they 
 become very numerous about the latter end of January, and in this 
 year (1860) on account of Lent commencing in February, they were 
 earlier even than usual : almost before one thought the Christmas 
 holidays were over, the streets began to fill with the sleek, cunning 
 features of the Armenians, the fair stolid faces and thick dresses of 
 the Bussians, the lank locks and high fur caps of the Circassians, 
 
422 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 the coarse, heavy, greasy garb of the Bulgarians, and the shiver- 
 ing, dark-faced Copts, while every variety of speech, from soft to 
 hard, guttural to liquid, struck upon the ear in the various 
 languages they spoke.* The Russian and French steamers are 
 loaded with these hajji, who find shelter in the Holy City at the 
 numerous Greek and other convents. Doubtless there are some who 
 undertake this pilgrimage, partly at least, in hopes of gain, and as 
 a pretext for soliciting alms, but vast numbers come purely from 
 religious motives: who would not do the same, if they could 
 implicitly believe, as these poor creatures do, that their eternal 
 salvation is absolutely secured by the washing in the sacred river, 
 the obtaining of the Holy Fire, and as a reward for the perils and 
 dangers bravely incurred, the hardships and sufferings cheerfully 
 borne of their long and very painful pilgrimage ? Whatever may be 
 said of the deplorable superstition under which they labour, their 
 faith in the providence of God, and the intense earnestness of their 
 piety, is as remarkable as it is exemplary : we were told of a thousand 
 instances in which these poor creatures have sold all their little 
 possessions to purchase the means of transport to the sacred goal ; 
 for their own support on the journey they provide little or nothing, 
 trusting to the alms of the charitable ; and one might almost envy 
 them the perfect simplicity of faith and trust, with which they expect 
 the Hand of God to be used almost visibly in tlieir service, while 
 they are doing so much in His — as they think. “ The Lord will 
 provide” is their simple answer to every anxiety; the same con- 
 viction has moulded many a lovely character in every clime and 
 creed, and the same trustful faith has been answered by a blessing 
 on many a noble institution. 
 
 What little money they can scrape together before starting is 
 kept with the utmost care for the payment of the enormous fees 
 extorted from them in the convents and for the indulgences to be 
 purchased at the various shrines, all which they are assured are 
 indispensable for the completion of their salvation : they frequently 
 bring ornaments in gold and silver, or pieces of fine embroidery, 
 with them to sell or barter in Jerusalem to obtain the requisite sums. 
 When all is concluded, the title of hajj, the odour of sanctity ex- 
 haled from them, and above all the comfortable assurance of their 
 
 * These people are generally profoundly ignorant peasants, knowing nothing 
 but what the Priest tells them : we heard that the Greek clergy in Syria 
 always told them that the English are a people subject and tributary to Russia, 
 like most of the provinces they come from — and that Russia allows us to send 
 a few people to live in the East, but that very soon she will not permit us to 
 do so any more ! 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 423 
 
 being marked as pious pilgrims by the angels of death, are 
 sufficient reward for all they have undergone. 
 
 In consequence of the variety of communions into which the 
 Greek Church pilgrims are split, there are only two occasions on 
 which we can see them all united together, not only in one spot, but 
 actuated with one idea, and combining in one action : these are the 
 Washing in the sacred Jordan, and the Descent of the Holy Fire 
 in the Sepulchre. We determined to see both. Formerly all the 
 pilgrims endeavoured to go down to the Jordan on the same day, 
 the Monday in their Passion Week, and much inconvenience arose 
 from the multitudes assembled there : but of late years the Pasha 
 and the Superior of the Greek convents have combined to organise 
 them into separate bodies of from 500 to 800 persons, each body 
 marshalled in a great caravan ; these set out at the beginning of 
 each week in Lent. We took the opportunity of the mid-Lent 
 caravan, joining a large party formed at the French Consulate, with 
 all our arrangements for the little trip made in common. As too 
 close vicinity to the pilgrims is not agreeable, our tents were pitched 
 at ’Ain-es-Sultan, and a very pretty encampment they made, with 
 the flags of three or four nations flying above them. To avoid the 
 annoyance of the caravan on the road, we had preceded them by a 
 day, and we intended to do the same in returning : we had therefore 
 a day in the plain of Jericho at our disposal, which we employed in 
 visiting the various ruins to be seen there. 
 
 The first was the Greek convent of St. Jeronymas — the Kusr 
 Hajla of the Arab— the Beth-hogla of Scripture : the ruin is mounted 
 on a low hill, and shows that the convent must have been extensive 
 and handsome. Its interest at present is in the variety of frescoes, 
 still remaining in fresh and brilliant colours, on the walls of the 
 chapel and some of the chambers : they are open to both rain and 
 sun, yet there they remain, bright as ever ; four or five hundred 
 years ago the monks who worshipped there passed away, and have 
 been long forgotten : not a trace of their individual history remains : 
 but alone in the wide and silent expanse these lifeless images endure, 
 while the ghost of such a “ grave Jeronomyte,” as spoke to Monckton 
 Milnes, in the Escurial, whispers 
 
 “ these were the living men, 
 
 And we the coloured shadows on the wall ! ” 
 
 The names of the pictured saints are still visible, and the representa- 
 tion of the symbols peculiar to each, and of their priestly dresses, is 
 very Greek, and interesting to the archaeologist. 
 
 We then made a detour to revisit the head of the Dead Sea, and 
 
m 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 both here and at 5 Ain-es- Sultan were exceedingly struck with the 
 change produced by the difference of the season from that at which 
 we had formerly seen them. Instead of the glorious colouring and 
 vivid green foliage in which we so much delighted, and the descrip- 
 tions of which must, I fear, have wearied my readers, we found 
 now only dust-coloured mountains, a thickened atmosphere, and 
 a completely obscured distance ; Hermon was invisible, and the 
 southern end of the Dead Sea had faded into only a faint bank 
 which fitly closed in the unlovely mountains around the heavy, 
 leaden-coloured lake. On the plain the change was yet more 
 apparent : the splendid orange tints which had then varied the band 
 of green on the river banks had disappeared : and, what was much 
 worse, only the green of the early crops smiled upon the ground ; 
 the lovely foliage, so peculiarly vivid of the nebbk, was altogether 
 gone, and the trees looked nothing better than tangled masses of 
 straggling thorns : the bright flowers and fruit of the smaller Sodom 
 apple were few and far between, and the large leaves hung withered 
 on the bushes : not a blossom of, the agnuscastus was to be seen; 
 nevertheless in their place, wherever the plain was cultivated, the 
 crops were full of blue bells, ranunculuses, speedwell, violets, and 
 campanulas, in bright and lovely luxuriance. 
 
 We gathered a great many of the Jericho roses* as we rode 
 along; very ugly and unfloral they look: but they arc curious 
 things from their opening out in water, many hundred years after, 
 in precisely the same dry freshness as on the day they were 
 gathered : they are interesting too from the fact of their having 
 been added to the blazon of so many of our oldest families, both in 
 England and France, when the head of the house returned from 
 pilgrimage or from a Crusading campaign. 
 
 We found the sun so oppressively hot that we were glad to 
 take refuge in the ruins of another convent, close to the Jordan, 
 dedicated to St. John the Baptist by the Latins: some massive 
 buildings still remain, and we ensconced ourselves in a large 
 vaulted hall, which we found cool and pleasant. This convent was 
 built over that very remarkable cavern which, for about six 
 hundred years, always contained seven virgins; when one of them 
 was about to die, her next door neighbour excavated another cell 
 beside her own, and no sooner had the sick one expired than her 
 body was immured in her own cell, and on the same day another 
 virgin, in the tenderest years of infancy, arrived to take possession 
 of the newly-made cell. The seven virgins watched over the linen 
 which had wrapped the dead Saviour in the tomb, and their ghosts 
 * Anastatica hierochuntina. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 425 
 
 are supposed to haunt the convent ruins still. As we left it before 
 nightfall, we did not, unfortunately, see any of them. 
 
 We rode back to our camp at sunset, passing on our way through 
 the cavern of pilgrims arrived at Er Eiha, where the motley com- 
 pany had just settled into their tents, some hundreds of which are 
 pitched, for those who can afford to pay for a place in them, on 
 the banks of the Kelt close beside the village: there were also 
 about fifty green tents for the band of 200 Turkish soldiers who 
 are sent down by each caravan. The arrival of the French Consul, 
 with his kawasses, made some commotion among them : the 
 officers all came forward to greet him, and the confusion was so 
 great between the noise of the pilgrims, the soldiers, and the 
 villagers, that we were very thankful our own encampment was 
 pitched at so great a distance from them. 
 
 Our night was a short one, for we were on horseback before four 
 o’clock the next morning and had to go some way across the plain 
 in the darkness : our servants and the kawasses carried lanterns, 
 lest any of the party should get entangled in the straggling 
 branches of the nebbks with their terrible thorns: a necessary 
 precaution, as our cavalcade consisted of about seventeen persons, 
 and the path was often narrow. We were some way beyond Er 
 Eiha before the growing light showed us a long black line, winding 
 like a snake over the plain : most curious it looked, and still more 
 so when we were able to distinguish that this was the caravan. 
 We were soon in the midst of them, but many had reached the 
 river bank before we got there — and what a scene it was! For 
 two or three hundred yards before the actual bank, the ground was 
 thickly covered with men, women, and children, each standing 
 beside his horse, mule, or donkey, in various stages of undressing; 
 till leaving his heap of clothes on the grass, he rushed into the 
 water. We made our way to a little rise among the trees which 
 had been kept clear for us, whence we could look down at ease 
 upon the struggling crowd : the Greek Bishop had just given his 
 benediction to the people and to the water, and the mass had 
 rushed in pell-mell, husbands and wives each with their party 
 of sons and daughters, helping each other, for the head must be 
 bathed three times in the name of the Holy Trinity before the body 
 is immersed : every one crossing himself many times, and most of 
 them repeating prayers aloud as they undressed, and a few praying 
 while in the water. The gowns or shirts they each wore were 
 carefully preserved to serve them as shrouds in their coffins, but 
 almost every one had handkerchiefs or sheets, &c., to dip in the 
 sacred stream and take home to their relatives and friends for the 
 
426 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 same purpose ; most of them carried away branches of tamarisk, or 
 poplar, or the long canes as memorials, making the caravan look 
 quite green as it passed back. There was more bustle than 
 solemnity about the whole affair: they had come, and gone, in 
 little more than an hour’s time, and the appearance was that of a 
 people who had something to do and to get it done, rather than 
 of being engaged in a religious rite. In the previous year the 
 good Russian Bishop, Kyrillos, came down himself with the 
 principal band, erected an altar under the trees and commenced 
 mass at ten o’clock the evening before, and not an individual was 
 allowed to enter the water before he had confessed and received 
 absolution from the Bishop. This must have had an excellent effect 
 on the pilgrims, and one can hardly fancy anything more impressive 
 than the psalms and prayers rising among the trees beneath the 
 open sky, and the rushing sound of the holy water chiming in with 
 the beautiful chants of the Russian choir. The Bishop was much 
 annoyed when he heard that no mass had been said for them, and 
 he declared they should never go down again without himself or 
 some one deputed by him, to give them a really religious service 
 and to keep order, as he had done, dividing the men and women 
 into separate bands. Two or three poor creatures who had come 
 the whole distance on foot, died on the way back to Jerusalem, of 
 sunstroke or fatigue, after the sudden cold bath ; and one sick man 
 who had been warned not to risk the chill, said he only wished 
 for baptism, and death as soon as possible after it : his wish was 
 fulfilled, for he died upon the river bank. 
 
 The caravan proceeded back to Jerusalem without stopping for 
 an hour’s rest, and we therefore remained through the heat of the 
 day at ’Ain-es-SuMn, to let them pass : after this we found our 
 ride home pleasant, and the coming in sight of the city under the 
 rays of the full moon was very beautiful and striking. It was 
 midnight when we entered the Damascus Gate. 
 
 A curious ceremony is still observed at the Holy Sepulchre, 
 though few persons are now aware of its origin, which is however 
 attested by an Arabic inscription near the entrance door. On the 
 first Saturday in Lent, the Latin Patriarch, attired in very grand 
 robes, and accompanied by the French Consul in uniform, walks in 
 procession to the door of the church, which is closed just before he 
 appears : his attendants knock : it is opened from within, and the 
 procession enters, chanting the Te Deum in chorus, as a hymn ot 
 praise that the Christians have prevailed over the Mooslims, and 
 have entered the holy place in triumph ! The custom is said to 
 date from the time of the Crusaders, and the right of entry to all 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 427 
 
 pilgrims is thus celebrated still, in their behalf, by the Patriarch : 
 he then visits every “ station ” in the church, chanting a Litany 
 and a hymn appropriate to each ; this is done frequently throughout 
 the year, but on this day it is especially grand. 
 
 On the following Saturday, the Greeks and Armenians make the 
 same procession (their Lent commencing seven days later than 
 ours), but without the same hint of the closed door. It is curious 
 to follow the gorgeous and grand procession of each communion, 
 resplendent in gold and jewels and all manner of colours, passing 
 to each shrine with all the eclat of a fresh scene on the theatre : the 
 rush of the pilgrims belonging to each, crowding round them, and 
 then the sudden ebb, as they hurry on to the next “ station,” and 
 the half-hour of silence and solitude till another scene comes on 
 the stage. We thought the Latins the best drilled, and the most 
 civilised and reverential ; the Greeks are very splendid, but noisy 
 and irreverent; and the Armenians, though perhaps the most 
 solemn of them all, make such a terrible screeching and yelling 
 as quite to mar the effect. Their jewels are exceedingly fine. 
 
 On their first Sunday in Lent (our second) the Greeks and 
 Armenians perambulate the Holy Sepulchre between lines of 
 soldiers, precisely as they do on the Easter Eve, with the grand 
 exception of the heaven-sent Eire: we had places provided for us 
 in the Latin gallery as the processions took place at a much earlier 
 hour than our own service. The Greeks, carrying about a dozen 
 or more silken banners painted with representations of the life of 
 our Saviour, proceeded three times round the Rotunda, each Bishop 
 holding in his hand a jewelled cross and a small picture, which the 
 pilgrims scuffled up to kiss, as well as the hands of most of the 
 Bishops themselves : there were evidently favourites among them 
 as the people crowded much more to some than to others. Nothing 
 can be more splendid than the robes of the Greek Bishops : the gold 
 and silver tissues for which Bussia is so justly distinguished, and 
 the silks of richest hues, embroidered in gold and loaded with 
 jewels, cut in the forms one sees in ancient frescoes, each bearing 
 its own symbolic meaning, form altogether a very grand picture. 
 A great many of the Greeks are fine tall men (of various countries), 
 with interesting and intelligent faces : the Russians are usually less 
 so : their faces are fair, but their features are coarse, although the 
 long, flowing, light hair combed back over the shoulders has always 
 a peculiar and graceful effect. The Archbishop of Tabor, the chief 
 officiator of the day, was a figure not easily to be overlooked as he 
 walked along ; very tall, and with a fine thoughtful face, his dark 
 beard flowing down over the jewelled crosses on his breast, wearing 
 
428 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 a circular crown, enriched with emeralds and surmounted by a 
 cross in rubies, while his superb robes, stiff with gold, swept 
 behind him as he passed slowly by, with a huge pastoral staff in 
 his hand. 
 
 The Armenian Bishops and Priests came round a quarter of an 
 hour after, more slowly, and more solemnly, arrayed chiefly in green 
 and gold, and red and gold, with their mitres and the astonishing 
 black silk hoods which tower up from the forehead into a point — so 
 singular, and yet not ungraceful in its way. 
 
 The service that pleased us almost more than any other in Jeru- 
 salem, and seemed to us the most solemn and impressive, was that 
 of the Russians, conducted by Kyrillos (the Russian Bishop men- 
 tioned before) in a small church close to his own convent. The 
 Liturgy generally used is that of St. John Chrysostom, but during 
 Lent it is changed for that of St. Basil, of which the Bishop had 
 kindly sent us a French translation on the previous evening. The 
 whole service was performed in a reverent and untheatrical manner 
 that was very delightful to witness. The Russian Bishop, shocked, as 
 he well might be, at the horribly inharmonious screaming of the 
 Greeks, has imported a choir from Russia : and in no country or 
 church have I ever heard sweeter or more devotional singing than 
 that of the seven men’s voices, unaccompanied by any instrument, 
 repeating a hundred times the ** Kyrie eleison,” and the “ ameen ” 
 of the litany and prayers, between the beautiful anthems. The 
 service is very fatiguing, for there are no seats in the church, nor 
 do they ever sit on the floor : but the whole congregation stand 
 throughout the two hours or more, only occasionally kneeling down, 
 but making frequent genuflexions down to the very ground. The 
 vestments were most magnificent, but it was pleasant to forget 
 them, in the apparent earnestness and devotion all around; as, 
 indeed, it was pleasant also to forget the fearful garlic of the 
 Russians and Greeks in the clouds of sweet incense, which were, 
 nevertheless, rather suffocating. 
 
 Some days after we inspected the ecclesiastical wardrobes of the 
 Bishop, which he was so good as to have displayed for us during a 
 visit we paid him at his convent : there were fifteen or sixteen sets 
 of robes ; in England we should scarcely know what to do with such 
 stuff, since, besides its splendour, it is too thick and heavy for any 
 one but a man to wear. 
 
 My readers would be dreadfully weary if I were to detail to them 
 all the various ceremonies of the Holy Week, celebrated in the 
 Church of the Holy Sepulchre : a few of the principal ones will 
 suffice. Perhaps the prettiest of all was that of Palm Sunday, when 
 
AND S YD IAN SHRINES. 
 
 429 
 
 a grand high mass is said before the Holy Sepulchre itself, after 
 which the Patriarch pronounced a solemn benediction on scores of 
 green palm-branches, -which he then presented to the clergy and 
 assistants, the French Consul, and others, one by one. We were 
 surprised at his sending his secretary to hs to say that he wished 
 to give them to us also, as a mark of his regard, and we were glad 
 to receive them not only for this, but as appropriate souvenirs of 
 this day spent in Jerusalem. The palm-branches used on this 
 occasion are all grown in a garden at Gaza, where one family of 
 Christian Arabs have had for many generations the hereditary 
 right to supply them. 
 
 The services on Good Friday were really impressive ; we were at 
 the door of the Holy Sepulchre before 6 a.m, and found it closed, 
 as the service had commenced some time earlier ; but the French 
 Consul had left two kawasses to conduct us into the chapel of 
 Calvary, where chairs had been provided for us beside his own. 
 The chapel was almost entirely dark, and densely crowded; the 
 vestments used by the priests were all of black velvet embroidered 
 in silver. The Patriarch had given up his place to Monseigneur 
 Spaccapietra, an old Archbishop, who had lately arrived on a special 
 mission of inquiry from the Pope : a fine-hearted and enlightened 
 oid man. The service, which was most solemnly and reverentially 
 conducted, consisted of the Gospel narrative of the Passion of our 
 Lord, and the words of the Saviour, of the people and of Pilate, 
 recited by different voices. The old Archbishop chanted the 
 Scripture with much earnestness and simplicity — but he was in 
 Jerusalem for the first time in his life, he was worn out with a 
 severe attack of the fever and with fasting, he was standing on the 
 very spot where, the tradition of his church told him, the Eedeemer 
 had suffered, and when he came to the portion describing the con- 
 summation of that awful Sacrifice, the gentle-hearted old man was 
 so completely overcome, that he laid his head on the altar and 
 sobbed aloud ; and a thousand times more impressive than all the 
 splendour of the services on the previous days was it to see the 
 aged, silver-haired Archbishop realising the sacred and sorrowful 
 story with such an intensity of earnestness as made the solemn 
 words themselves come doubly home to the heart. 
 
 In the evening the church was so densely crowded that it 
 required all the efforts of the six kawasses of the French Consul to 
 get us to our places and to preserve us from utter suffocation : the 
 people of Bethlehem come over in great numbers to attend the 
 Franciscan service, which is given entirely for them ; the Patriarch 
 and all the superior clergy disapprove greatly of the sacred farce 
 
430 
 
 E G YPTIA N SE PUL C HR ES 
 
 into which it has degenerated. Unfortunately the Franciscans and 
 the Patriarch are often at issue concerning the services, and it was 
 on this account that the Pope had sent Monseigneur Spaccapietra 
 to decide between them ; both, however, agreed in denying the 
 power of the Pope over either of them on the subjects in dispute. 
 The service is performed by the Franciscan monks, and consists in 
 the taking of a figure of the Saviour down from the Cross, and re- 
 moving each nail and the crown of thorns, with many kisses. After 
 this six or seven short sermons were preached in various parts of 
 the church, each in a different language, by monks appointed to 
 the task, who are at least supposed to have studied the language 
 they preach in ; when we had heard the French sermon we did not 
 regret that the crowd prevented our getting near enough to hear 
 the others. The last was preached in Spanish, before the Sepulchre, 
 which was dimly illuminated only with the torches and candles 
 carried in the procession, the whole of the Rotunda remaining in 
 darkness : it had a very fine effect. This service was not over till 
 near midnight. 
 
 On the Saturday, Easter Eve, some curious ceremonies are 
 observed. After the customary benediction of the baptismal water 
 for the year and the lighting of a new lamp, the priests assem- 
 bled before the entrance of the Sepulchre; twelve or thirteen 
 chapters of the Gospels were read recounting the events of the 
 week, and when that part of the narrative was reached describing 
 the placing of our Lord in the Tomb, the Patriarch, dressed in a 
 plain white robe with a priest on each side of him in a white 
 surplice, laid themselves flat on the ground on their faces, before 
 the door of the Sepulchre. Psalms and hymns were chanted for 
 about half an hour before they rose, and throughout the mass that 
 followed the two priests knelt on one knee at each side of the door 
 of the tomb, exactly as the angels are always represented in old 
 pictures of the Entombment. 
 
 The services of these days were dreadfully long, and the poor 
 little children of the French school fell asleep with their heads on 
 each other’s shoulders, like rows of little scarlet ninepins, but else, 
 every person joining in them had the appearance of thoroughly 
 reverential devotion. The good Patriarch is rigidly strict in his own 
 fasts, and by the afternoon of this Saturday he was so weak 
 that his voice was nearly inaudible and his face flushed with fever. 
 
 On the following Friday evening we went again to the Holy 
 Sepulchre to see the Good Friday ceremonies of the Greeks and 
 Armenians; the Greeks of course take the precedence, but the 
 Armenians join themselves on at the latter end without much 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 431 
 
 confusion. As the French Consul did not wish to parade himself 
 and his kawasses in the church this night, we were placed under 
 the care of Signor Pierotti, who, is so great a favourite with the 
 Turkish authorities and with many of the Greeks, that everything 
 was thus made easy for us. The church belongs to ten Turks, one 
 or more of whom must he present on all the greater days of 
 ceremony : there is also a guard of a few soldiers appointed by the 
 Pasha, who are always to be seen sitting in a recess at the entrance; 
 it is by their permission that any one enters. The officers and the 
 Bimbashi (the chief of the battalion) were most polite and pressing- 
 in their attentions to us the moment they saw we were friends of 
 Signor Pierotti’s, and insisted on our taking their chairs to stand 
 upon when the crowd became too dense for us to stem or to see 
 through. 
 
 The ceremony began in the square before the door of the church, 
 with a very long procession, from the convent, of the Greek 
 Bishops and clergy joined by a number of Copts, chanting all the 
 while they perambulated the little square lighted by the lanterns 
 and torches they carried in their hands; then the Copts entered 
 the little chapel which belongs to them on the north side of the 
 square, in the south wall of the church, and the Greeks entering at 
 the great door went into their own large chapel in the centre, 
 under the second dome, which was most brilliantly illuminated 
 with a circle of lamps round the lowest edge of the dome and a 
 double cross across it, which showed well against the dark height 
 above it. After a long service here the procession ascended to 
 Calvary (which the Greeks share with the Latins). Both chapels 
 were at once crowded to that degree of denseness that neither hand 
 nor foot could move save those of the celebrants, and as every one 
 held a lighted candle in his hand, the heat was suffocating, as 
 indeed it had been almost to fainting, on the Good Friday night of 
 the Latins. All the clergy wore splendid copes of black velvet 
 richly embroidered with silver. After some prayers the Bussian 
 Bishop, Kyrillos, mounted one step of the altar, and, facing the 
 people, addressed them in what appeared to us an unimpassioned 
 almost monotonous manner, but it must have been effective, for, 
 one after another, most of the Greeks around us were moved to 
 tears. After this they descended to the ‘ Stone of unction,” where 
 an old and much respected Bishop again addressed the people — 
 this time with much energy and warmth — to which they listened 
 with earnest attention. 
 
 We then mounted into the gallery of the Latins which the 
 French Consul had kindly engaged for us, and waited there till the 
 
432 
 
 E G YPTIA N SE PUL C HR ES 
 
 procession came round: it was really very grand indeed: the 
 Eotunda was brilliantly illuminated, and several rows of silver 
 lamps and flowers were hung round the sepulchre itself in festoons; 
 the Bishops appeared innumerable: among them the venerable 
 Bishop of Petra and the Archbishop of Tabor with his long dark 
 beard were striking objects. All were most splendidly attired in 
 robes and copes of every hue covered with gold and silver 
 embroidery, and all bore crosses or pictures of saints in their 
 folded hands, which the pilgrims pressed forward to kiss : some of 
 the Bishops had kawasses on each side of them, and as they went 
 they chanted the Te Deum and some psalms with an earnest 
 heartiness that seemed as if the procession was not all for show — 
 there was no irreverence this day — each one looked grave and 
 serious. Several ancient banners, said to be some of those used in 
 the armies of the Crusaders, were carried round at the head of the 
 procession ; they represented scenes of the Passion, some of which 
 were very well done in painting and embroidery; after them 
 came a really interesting relic of olden times, the alleged history 
 of which is believed to be correct: this was the banner of the 
 Emperor Heraclius, which was borne before him when he entered 
 Jerusalem bringing back the “true Cross;” this relic is considered 
 too precious to be seen by any one except on this day, for all the 
 rest of the year it is most carefully locked up ; it was now borne by 
 four Bishops, whose pious hands each held a corner, and had been 
 placed on the altar of Calvary during the service; we could see 
 that it was a most singular piece of embroidered work, representing 
 the Saviour in his Tomb, with an inscription surrounding it as a 
 border. The procession went round the Eotunda three times, and 
 then a very short service was performed within the Sepulchre itself ; 
 it finished about 1 a.m. We walked round the church before going 
 home to see the curious sight of the Greek pilgrims covering 
 every available morsel of ground to secure places for the “Holy 
 Fire ” on the morrow ; they had been in the church the whole of 
 this day for the purpose, and now one and all, men and women, 
 boys and girls, lay in heaps, like mere bundles of clothing, fast 
 asleep, with here and there a foot or a leg sticking out from the 
 heap. Great numbers of the Latin pilgrims also consider it a 
 meritorious act to spend one night in the church : some few 
 employ it in prayer and devotional exercises, but the greater part 
 retire to the Latin gallery, where quantities of cushions are 
 provided, and sleep away as comfortably as possible. The church 
 is never left unguarded ; a few Priests or monks of both communions 
 are invariably there by night and by day. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 433 
 
 The morrow — Saturday — was of course the day for the Greeks; and 
 at a very early hour travellers are obliged to take their places in 
 the church before the crowd becomes too dense or too uproarious 
 for Franks to penetrate. But the full glory of that strange, wild 
 scene of tumult, called the “ Greek Holy Fire,” has passed away ; 
 the ceremony is conducted with as much splendour and superstition 
 as ever: but in the previous year, 1859, Sooraya Pasha, having 
 witnessed the whole affair with his own eyes, was so much shocked 
 and disgusted with the make-believe miracle, and with the dis- 
 graceful scenes which took place under the excitement of religious 
 frenzy, that on this occasion he concerted plans with the French 
 Consul, and lined the whole church with his soldiers, separating 
 the pilgrims into such small bodies, and keeping such strict order 
 among them, that neither enthusiasm nor confusion could break 
 out into anything very frantic. 
 
 The Superior of the Greek convent had had the extreme polite- 
 ness to place the whole of the upper gallery round the dome ot the 
 Holy Sepulchre at the service of the French Consul : the key was 
 sent to him the day before, and a guard of soldiers waited to con- 
 duct us through the crowd in the large convent up to the rickety, 
 dilapidated, half-ruined place it was, so that we were not obliged 
 to go there more than an hour before the service commenced; chairs 
 were already placed for us, and lemonade and coffee followed; the 
 gallery was the most delightful place to see from, as we could thus 
 walk round the whole building and see the crowd on every side. 
 Very amusing indeed it was to watch the pilgrims being packed 
 more and more densely into their places, after having struggled 
 and fought to secure the nearest spot possible to the hole in the 
 marble wall of the Sepulchre whence the Fire was to issue; the 
 soldiers allowed them to struggle to a certain point, beyond that, 
 when mischief seemed brewing, the combatants were separated and 
 stopped. Every few minutes some man or group of men amongst 
 them seemed trying to excite himself and his neighbours up to 
 howl and yell and dance : sometimes they made short runs, in the 
 wild manner described by former travellers, sometimes one man 
 running with two others, or even three, standing on his shoulders : 
 but their frenzy and excitement seemed put on, as if acted, and soon 
 came to an end, the warmth of their religious feelings was damped or 
 blighted by the presence of the Mooslims, and the flames of its fire 
 in a manner quenched. 
 
 Not the least amusing part to me was the crowd of spectators in 
 the lower gallery : such a motley company as they were : the 
 venerable Homan Archbishop Monseigneur Spaccapietra and his 
 
434 
 
 E G YPTJA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 Maronite secretary, beside a number of noisy irreverent Americans, 
 and two or three grave Presbyterians. Then came the French caravan, 
 a score of gentlemen organised into a travelling party under the 
 special protection of their Government, and therefore of course 
 occupying the best places in the Latin gallery: next to them a 
 young Austrian baron, keeping somewhat hidden behind a column 
 lest some fanatic in the multitude might recognise him as one of the 
 Jews who are forbidden to enter the building: he was safe enough 
 where he was, but if a Jew were seen in the crowd he would most 
 probably be torn in pieces. Close to him were the fair, quiet faces 
 of the Comte de Paris and Due du Chartres ; and beyond them a 
 number of young English gentlemen, one of whom, before long, got 
 into a squabble with an unfortunate monk who had remonstrated 
 against the overbearing insolence with which the Englishman, 
 according to the custom of John Bull, had endeavoured to take the 
 best place from one of the French caravan, and who so far forgot 
 himself and the place he was in as to strike the Franciscan. The 
 French Consul had much ado to soothe, scold, and appease the 
 wounded feelings of the poor monk into forgiveness and forgetful- 
 ness of the insult, while we blushed for shame at the unseemly 
 conduct of a countryman : but alas ! such occurrences are but too 
 common among those who would be the first to revenge any 
 disturbance or irreverence shown by a foreigner in our churches at 
 home, but who have the stupid folly of thinking they assert the 
 dignity of their own religion by deliberately insulting those with 
 whom they do not agree. Whatever they may believe or disbelieve 
 themselves, it is simply disgusting to see an Englishman walking 
 about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with his hat on, or to hear 
 loud voices profaning the sanctity of the place ; and one grieves 
 to think, however wanting they may be in sentiments of piety or 
 religion, that they should not have learned either good taste or good 
 feeling enough to keep away from places sanctified to others, unless 
 they can refrain from such conduct as is not only unchristian and 
 ungentlemanly, but indecent.* 
 
 * I once saw an American, when the Chapel of Calvary was full of devout 
 pilgrims, deliberately lay Murray’s Handbook open upon the altar, and, 
 standing on the upper step, place both elbows beside his book, and in that 
 position proceed to read aloud Mr. Porter’s remarks upon the time-honoured 
 spot ! I saw the colour flush deep into the cheek of a Franciscan monk beside 
 me, and a Greek turn away with a bitter scowl, and I could not help wishing 
 to ask that man, however little reverence or devotion he might have in him- 
 self, if he had ever heard of that charity which “doth not behave itself 
 unseemly,” or of that “ knowledge ” which is “ puffed up,” while “ charity 
 edifieth,” or if he thought he was practising the golden rule of doing to others 
 as we should wish them to do to us. [Having 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 435 
 
 The crowd had now become quite dense, and were so well packed 
 that there could be no more striving to get near the wall of the 
 Sepulchre, or to displace the three happy men— wild, insane-looking 
 creatures they were — who had had their hands clenched in the 
 sacred hole for several hours : cries were continually being raised, 
 and the same words constantly repeated with a sort of scream ; of 
 course we supposed these to be, as they have frequently been 
 reported by travellers, expostulations with, and reproaches to the 
 Almighty for delaying to send down the Fire, but previous experi- 
 ence of Latin misrepresentation of all Greek doings made us inquire 
 from a Greek gentleman on whom we could depend the meaning of 
 each cry as it arose; it turned out that the exclamations were 
 “ This is the house of God — this is the tomb of the Saviour — this is 
 the day on which He rose from the dead — let us raise up our hearts 
 unto new life and then they all beat their breasts ; then another 
 cry came still more frequently, " Life was dead — was buried in the 
 grave — now is new life come to us from the tomb — let us live unto 
 God — life and light are come to us again and again repeated. 
 Sometimes the words were in Kussian, sometimes in Greek, but 
 the sense was the same. They were repeated louder and louder, 
 quicker and quicker, and the excitement became greater, those on 
 
 Having said thus much, I feel in duty bound to relate an anecdote of an 
 Englishman : he was standing in the midst of a crowd of Greek pilgrims, all 
 kneeling at some sacred service with his hat on ; many of them were giving 
 visible signs of discontent and anger at the insult, and to be the object of 
 wrath to such a crowd might not improbably lead to some very disagreeable 
 consequences : a friend of ours went quietly up to him and remarked that the 
 pilgrims were beginning to notice it ; the Englishman abruptly advised him to 
 mind his own affairs, upon which our friend coolly lifted the hat from his 
 head, and said gently, “ You have forgotten, sir, that you are in a church 
 in an instant the natural answer of a “ true Briton ” was prepared in a 
 doubled fist ; but better thoughts came in another moment, the direction of 
 the uplifted arm was changed, with the candour of a gentleman, he held out 
 his hand to our friend, and said, “ You are right — thank you for reminding 
 me of it.” 
 
 I am convinced that there is nothing like a sojourn in the East for enabling 
 one to value and thoroughly appreciate the sterling qualities and noble 
 character of our countrymen : their integrity, truth, and solidity shine out in 
 brilliant and glorious contrast to all other human surroundings ; but why, 
 oh, why, should so many of them consider these virtues incompatible with 
 good manners, moderation, and consideration for others? Why should one 
 always have to blush for the rough, rude, coarse bluntness for which they are 
 notorious in every place where they pass ; and why should their dignity and 
 independence be uniformly supported by manual violence and bluster? We 
 laugh at the French for their vainglory, and at the Yankee for his bragging 
 and boasting ; but dear John Bull is often worse than either of them, for he 
 behaves exactly in the same manner “ according to his kind and if he wishes 
 to prove he is better, he ought to do better. 
 
 2 f 2 
 
436 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 the outside of the crowd almost beyond the Eotunda, struggling, 
 jostling, and fighting with each other, when the procession appeared 
 and slowly edged its way round the building, the soldiers, by main 
 force, keeping room for it to pass. Arrived at the door of the 
 Sepulchre the Bishop of Tabor took off all his rich vestments, and 
 clad only in a white surplice, entered in alone and closed the door 
 behind him. Now the multitude did indeed sway backwards and 
 forwards in one intense frenzy of excitement, but, in three minutes, 
 a deafening shout arose, and the sacred Torch was thrust through 
 the hole ! in less than four minutes the tapers of the whole [crowd 
 were lighted from end to end of, the Eotunda, and in another 
 moment had run round the more distant parts and into the small 
 Greek gallery with surprising swiftness, for not only were whole 
 bundles of tapers lighted at one touch, distributed from one to 
 another, but others were let down by cords from above, and were 
 drawn up with many crossings and much rejoicing. The whole 
 thing lasts literally but a few minutes, for not only are the tapers 
 short and thin, but most of them are blown out directly after they 
 have been lighted, to be carried home as precious relics, and burned 
 beside the death pillow of the owner : hundreds of handkerchiefs and 
 sheets are held in the flame to have a hole or two burned in them, 
 after which they serve as shrouds, ensuring a welcome from the 
 angels for the souls of their fortunate possessors. Of Course, as is 
 well known, none of the educated Greeks believe in this absurd 
 “ miracle,” which the " Fire Bishop ” does not hesitate to acknow- 
 ledge proceeds from the application of a lucifer-match ; but these 
 miserably ignorant pilgrims still devoutly believe in it, and the 
 delusion is encouraged for the sake of the fees, by which the convents 
 are supported. It is curious indeed to see the complete change 
 that suddenly comes over the lately expectant multitude: the 
 expression of every anxious, haggard, and eager face has given place 
 to the look of triumph and rejoicing, the intense happiness of success : 
 now their long, weary, and often painful pilgrimage is over, and 
 every object is accomplished : all the sacred places have been seen 
 and kissed with reverent eyes and lips : the sins of a life have been 
 washed away in the cleansing waters of the Jordan: the grave- 
 clothes bathed in the sacred stream are secured, and now is added 
 the holy taper lighted by the miraculous Flame which arises from 
 the Tomb of their Saviour, which is to cheer them through the 
 death struggle, and light them along the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death into Abraham’s bosom. Easter is entirely forgotten ; for the 
 “ Fire ” is the real object, so directly obtained from Heaven that 
 the commemoration of the Eesurrection is quite secondary. This 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 437 
 
 afternoon many hundreds have left the city, and begun their home- 
 ward journey, unmindful of the Sunday that is to follow. Deluded, 
 superstitious, and ignorant indeed they are but perhaps the eyes 
 of the Almighty Father may discern underneath all this, buried and 
 hidden from the sight of men, some faithful and loving hearts more 
 worthy of His blessing than many an enlightened, self-esteeming, 
 and well-informed Pharisee, who looks upon them only with con- 
 tempt. These poor pilgrims in truth we may regard with that love 
 and “ mercy which rejoiceth against judgment,” though one would 
 not willingly express one’s opinion of those who keep up what they 
 know too well to be a falsehood for their own “ filthy lucre’s sake 
 indeed one might say, as Sooraya Pasha said after contemplating 
 the frantic scene that so much shocked the grave Mooslim — “ Yous 
 croyez que c’est une maison du bon Dieu, et que cette ceremonie 
 est une chose religieuse — je vous dis que le bon Dieu ne peut 
 pas etre ici, et que, tout bonnement, ce n’est qu’une profanation 
 horrible ! ” 
 
 On this same day, April 30th, 1859, as the Pasha sat looking on 
 at the tumultuous scene, and stroking his beard with astonishment, 
 a fanatic Russian pilgrim thrust his flaming torch into the 
 Mooslim’s face, growling out, “ Dog of a Turk ! ” Signor Pierotti, 
 who was standing beside him, instantly knocked the Russian on the 
 head, and the kawasses rushed up to seize hold of him ; but the 
 Pasha interfered to prevent them, and only said to his friend, 
 “ Monsieur, il faut avoir patience avec les fous ! ” — apiece of advice 
 which the traveller will do well to keep in his mind in modern 
 Jerusalem. 
 
438 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE JEWS OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 “ Glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good ; to the .lew 
 first, and also to the Gentile.” 
 
 “ The cedars wave on Lebanon, 
 
 But Judah’s statelier maids are gone!” 
 
 The population of the Jews in Jerusalem is variously estimated, and 
 probably differs much from one season to another: the numbers 
 usually given are from six to ten thousand, and these are divided 
 into two classes — the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim ; the first are 
 descendants of those Jews who were driven out of Spain by Ferdi- 
 nand and Isabella in 1497 ; they amount to two-thirds of the whole, 
 and, although they have been in Jerusalem ever since, but very 
 few of them speak Arabic : bad Spanish is their language ; the 
 Ashkenazim, are those who come from Germany and Poland. Some 
 few of the Sephardim are able to support themselves, but many of 
 them and all the Ashkenazim are maintained by alms ; each family 
 obtains but little, and the poverty and suffering among them is very 
 great, yet scarcely any of them ever attempt to earn a piaster for 
 themselves ; they are paupers, with the slavish disposition and bad 
 habits of that class in every country, deepened and degraded by the 
 inactivity and indolence common to the Oriental. Nevertheless, 
 when incited to work, when interested and encouraged, they are 
 found to be as intelligent and industrious as those whom adver- 
 sity, example, and necessity have taught to be independent in all 
 other countries. They arrive yearly in large numbers, and would 
 naturally increase very fast, but the dirt, even among those who are 
 better off, and the state of degradation in which they all live, 
 carry off a much larger number than the annual incomers. There 
 is a great improvement in the feeling of the Arab-Christians 
 towards them in the last few years, and even among the Greeks and 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 439 
 
 Latins ; but it is extremely difficult to persuade them that these 
 modern Jews whom they see coming daily from Europe, speaking only 
 European languages, are of the same nation as the children of Israel : 
 and, in fact, very few of the Arabs are ever brought to believe it. 
 
 They are one and all most grossly and deplorably ignorant : they 
 bring no money with them, or, if they do, it is soon gone, and they 
 all live upon what the Eabbins give away, implicitly obeying them 
 in the smallest trifles, and submitting to the strictest surveillance, 
 for fear their miserable pittance should be stopped. Large sums of 
 money are sent yearly from the richer Jews of other countries for 
 the support of their brethren here ; the Eabbins, however, waste and 
 appropriate the lion’s share of these, and at the best the funds are 
 quite inadequate to the support of so large a number. The Spanish 
 Jews have a poorhouse, containing four or five rooms, and two 
 closets ; in one room of which eleven persons were living when we 
 were in Jerusalem ; they had each paid forty piasters on entrance, 
 which entitles them to remain there for life ; they had no means of 
 livelihood, and were not allowed by the Eabbins to accept relief from 
 any hand but their own : so they lived miserably on the scanty 
 alms doled out to them. 
 
 A Prussian gentleman, himself a Jew, who was on a visit to the 
 Holy City, told us much of the utter degradation and shocking dirt 
 in which he found his brethren living ; of their want of principle, 
 their avarice and covetousness, their perfect shamelessness when 
 convicted of falsehood or perjury, their cringing servility even to one 
 who has boxed their ears in public on some such conviction ; and he 
 declared that the chief Eabbins were among the very worst. This is 
 probably true, for the Eabbins seem only anxious to keep the people 
 from improvement, and throw every difficulty in the way of their 
 doing any work except under their own direction ; nor is there work 
 enough in Jerusalem to support the fourth part of them, unless they 
 are put to agricultural employments. 
 
 Their ignorance and consequent superstition are really appalling, 
 and are an immense hindrance to helping them in any way : any- 
 thing given to them is immediately sold to enable them to observe, 
 not the law, but some custom connected with a superstition, so low 
 and gross, that even the Eabbins can hardly be supposed to coun- 
 tenance them, or at least to inculcate them ; for instance, after a 
 child is born, even though the parents lack bed and bedding or a 
 morsel of mouldy bread, a lamp must be kept burning for forty days 
 beside the infant to prevent the approach of evil spirits ; and this is 
 invariably done, whatever starvation and suffering may be the con- 
 sequence of it. They believe most strictly in purgatory, and declare 
 
440 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 that the body remains sensitive and conscious of what befalls it, 
 and in torment after death, until the prayers of the children shall 
 have released the soul from suffering ; the prayers of more distant 
 relatives may avail, but it is a source of deep sorrow if a man or 
 woman in dying leave no children to pray for their souls. The 
 transmigration of souls is also believed among many of them : we 
 heard of a Jewess from Adrianople who applied to the Eabbins to 
 rid her of the soul of a man who, she firmly believed, had possessed 
 her ; she said she had drunk some water in which this man’s soul 
 had found refuge, and he having thus gained an entrance into her 
 body, she could not get rid of him ; he had told her that on account 
 of his sins neither heaven nor hell would receive him, and that he 
 would not leave her body, because, if he did, he would have to 
 enter that of a dog, where he would be continually disturbed by its 
 barking ! 
 
 One of the women working in Miss Cooper’s school was divorced by 
 her husband just before his death, as a mark of affection and kindness 
 on his part ; he had had no children, and she would consequently have 
 been obliged to marry his next brother, who was still a child ; he, 
 therefore, set her free that she might avoid years of waiting, and 
 might marry again by her own choice. Before dying he desired that 
 his corpse might be dragged from one door of the synagogue to the 
 other by the feet, in expiation of his sins. On the day of his burial 
 it was raining heavily, and a covering was laid over the bier, in 
 order, as they said, to keep his clothes from being wetted, that he 
 might present a decent appearance fit to come into the presence 
 of God. 
 
 Ludicrous and degrading as these superstitions are, surely they 
 ought to rouse something better than disgust in the mind of the en- 
 lightened Christian ; if the heathen have claims on our benevolence, 
 our kindness, our teaching and example, how much more have these 
 poor outcasts, now indeed erring and miserable, but once the Chosen 
 People of God our Father. If, in the end of time, the veil is to 
 be lifted from their eyes, and their hearts opened to acknowledge 
 Christ Jesus as their Saviour, our part, at least, meanwhile, should 
 be to raise their moral position, enlighten their ignorance, and make 
 them meet to receive His Holy Word. 
 
 Of course the observances commanded in the Mosaic Law must 
 be respected, and, therefore, all gifts should be prepared accordingly. 
 A Jewess cannot rightly wear a flannel petticoat if it is sewed with 
 cotton thread instead of woollen, and a strict Jew will always refuse 
 a blanket, lest thread or cotton should be mingled in the yarn. 
 Much of their poverty arises from the early marriages customary 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 441 
 
 among them: the German Jewesses marry at twelve years old; the 
 Spanish Jewesses are forbidden to do so in Jerusalem before thirteen, 
 but they evade the law by marrying outside the walls. They have 
 large families and little food of either body or mind to give them. 
 
 An excellent hospital was established near the Zion Gate by Sir 
 Moses Montefiore, and we heard much of its good management ; an 
 equally good school, however, which had been instituted by him for 
 young Jewesses about the same time, had come to an end before our 
 visit to Jerusalem, owing, I believe, to jealousies and squabbles 
 among the Eabbins. 
 
 Their synagogues have had many vicissitudes : one was erected 
 in 1267, in which Ashkenazim and Sephardim worshipped together, 
 hut the Mooslims turned it into a mill: it was restored to the 
 Jews a hundred years after, but the Mooslims burned it in 1721, 
 when forty rolls of the Law were lost in the flames. At the requests 
 Of the Russian and Austrian Consuls, Muhammad ’Ali gave them 
 the site again in 1836, and a synagogue now stands upon it. There 
 are, indeed, four standing altogether, neither handsome nor particu- 
 larly interesting ; in only one were there seats provided for the con- 
 gregation, who are expected, in the others, to squat on the pavement. 
 Papers, containing the name of God and some extracts from the 
 Talmud, are pasted upon the walls : a recommendation to alms- 
 giving, for the good of the donor’s soul, is placed over the poor-box : 
 and the Ten Commandments hang above the chest in which the Law 
 was kept. These were all in Hebrew : the sermons, I believe, are 
 given in Spanish or German. There are two new synagogues build- 
 ing ; both of them very handsome, good work and tasteful design. 
 
 The most interesting building to us in the Jews’ quarter was, on 
 account of its great antiquity, the synagogue of the Karaite Jews ; 
 from the accumulation of the soil it is now quite underground : it is 
 very plain, but contains some fine old manuscripts, most beautifully 
 written and well worth seeing : one was a copy of the Pentateuch, 
 more than 500 years old, with notes, and the number of words and 
 letters in each page written in lines forming fanciful patterns, a 
 different border for each page : the object of this strict enumeration 
 is to prevent alterations or additions — even to “ a jot or tittle ” — 
 creeping in : there were also a few bits of good illumination in it. 
 The desk on which the Law is placed was covered with a very fine 
 piece of most curious ancient embroidery, quite peculiar of its kind. 
 The Karaite Jews are an interesting people ; they reject the Talmud 
 and all tradition, declaring the Mosaic Law, as given in the Pen- 
 tateuch, sufficient in its own integrity, and they endeavour to live 
 up to it with an earnest and sincere devotion. They are, in fact, the 
 
E G YPTIAN SEPUL CHRES 
 
 m 
 
 Puritans among the Israelites, and are by some supposed to have 
 been the “ just men ” and “ devout men ” mentioned in the Gospels : 
 by others they are believed to be descendants of the Sadducees. 
 There used to be a large body of men at Cairo, but they are now 
 much dispersed, and though there are very many in Turkey, only 
 six reside at Jerusalem. 
 
 We were very anxious to see the Passover kept in Jerusalem, and 
 were glad to receive an invitation to the house of one of the most 
 respectable Jews for that evening : the night of our Good Friday. 
 We went there between eight and nine o’clock, and found the whole 
 family, including four generations, assembled in the principal room, 
 which was well lighted with lamps and several wax-candles ; these 
 they were obliged to ask the Mooslim kawasses who came with us to 
 replenish, when they burned out later in the evening, as the Jews 
 cannot kindle a light, or do any kind of work during the feast. We 
 were placed upon the divan at one side of the room, the women 
 of the family, with the servants and children, remaining together 
 at the bottom of the room ; only one of the women, the venerable 
 mother and mistress of the house, was seated with the men and boys ; 
 these were all together in one corner, with a small table before them 
 covered with silk and velvet cloths, richly embroidered with gold, 
 some of which were heirlooms of great antiquity. 
 
 A little boy, the youngest member of the family, then asked, 
 “ What mean ye by this service ? ” (in accordance with Exod. xii. 26) ; 
 upon which all the males stood up, rocking themselves, without 
 ceasing a moment, and recited very rapidly, in Hebrew, the story of 
 the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. Then a boy repeated a very 
 long legendary tale in Spanish, with a rapidity that was perfectly 
 astonishing. All had books before them, and continued rocking 
 their bodies to and fro, while only one was speaking: this is in 
 illustration of the text, “All my bones shall praise Thee.” After a 
 long time the. men sat down, when a long white and black cloth was 
 placed upon their knees, and the old mother brought in a metal 
 ewer and basin, and poured water upon the hands of each, which 
 were wiped in the cloth, while they continued reading out aloud. 
 Then the master laid a white cloth over one shoulder, and removing 
 the coverings from the table, he took one of the large cakes of 
 Passover bread, till then concealed, and, breaking it in half, tied it 
 into the end of the cloth and slung it over the shoulder of the 
 youngest boy, who kept it for ten minutes, and then passed it on to 
 the next, and so on : all continuing to recite from the books without 
 stopping; after this the mother brought another basin, and the 
 master took up a glass vessel containing a mixture of bitter herbs 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 443 
 
 and vinegar, and some other ingredients, and, separating ten portions 
 from it with his fingers, threw them into the basin — these repre- 
 sented the ten plagnes of Egypt. There were plates of lettuce and 
 other herbs, and the bones of the roasted lamb, in dishes on the 
 table, besides the unleavened bread and four cups of wine ; three of 
 these at certain parts of the ceremony were passed round, and 
 partaken of by each individual, including the women and baby. 
 One cup of wine remained untouched, which was said to be for the 
 Prophet Elijah; and we were told that in most families, towards the 
 end of the supper, the door of the room is opened and all stand up, 
 while the Prophet is believed to enter and partake of the wine: 
 among rich Jews this cup is frequently of gold, with jewels. Some 
 other dishes were laid on another table containing nuts and dried 
 fruits, of which they afterwards partook : except in this the females 
 entered into no part of the ceremony. All were dressed in their 
 best and gayest clothes, with jewels and flowers in their hair. 
 Before the conclusion they expressed to each other the usual wish, 
 that at the coming of the next Passover they might all be in 
 Jerusalem, while the customary prayer was offered, that by that 
 time the Messiah might have come to redeem Israel. 
 
 Passover cake is made of the finest wheaten flour and water, rolled 
 into a very thin paste, and quickly baked. Many Jews go out in 
 the previous year to watch the growth of the corn until it is 
 reaped and threshed, and stored away in a clean place : it is ground 
 with much care, as, if water should fall on it, fermentation might 
 ensue, and it would then be unclean ; or if a mouse or rat should 
 come near it, it would be equally impure ; very often a patch of 
 corn is sown separately for the Passover bread, and is then care- 
 fully watched. The ovens in which to bake it are hired by the 
 synagogue authorities some days before, and are thoroughly cleaned 
 out, plastered within anew, and large flagstones laid down, on which to 
 bake the bread : these are afterwards taken up again, and locked up 
 in some place belonging to the synagogue till the next year. Many 
 of the Jews have a totally distinct set of vessels for use during this 
 week, to prevent the slightest taint of leaven on the food : some even 
 keep a room locked up the whole year, and only open it for this 
 week; and on our expressing surprise, we were told of a Jewish 
 family in Germany who kept a small house set apart for this purpose. 
 All these minute observances make the Passover bread very expensive 
 and difficult for the poor to obtain for a whole week’s sustenance ; 
 the synagogue gives away a rottl to each person, and the richer Jews 
 also give it away to their poorer brethren ; but, at the best, they are 
 always very poor and starving after Passover, having spent every 
 
444 
 
 E G YETI A N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 piaster they can beg or borrow to observe the feast with due 
 honour. 
 
 It is extremely difficult to persuade a Jew to come to the house 
 of a Christian for work or presents, and nothing will induce 
 them to enter it on any pretext : they have such a passionate horror 
 of the cross, that they are in constant dread, even amounting to 
 terror, of seeing it by accident : they firmly believe that we look 
 upon the figure of a cross as a fetish, and that every Christian is 
 compelled to have one in his room as well as to carry one upon his 
 person ; nor are they ever convinced to the contrary ; if they cannot 
 see it on you, they still believe that you carry it concealed somewhere. 
 The reason of this is their rooted conviction that it was the form of 
 the idolatry practised by the Canaanites, and against which the Jews 
 were particulary warned; the converted Jews like to wear a cross, 
 but it is with a feeling of self-imposed humiliation, and is done as a 
 proof of the depth and intensity of their conversion. They say that 
 the Egyptians were all Christians ! and worshipped the cross, and 
 that it was for this reason that the infant Moses refused to go to an 
 Egyptian nurse, as his eyes always met the cross upon them ; and 
 so the princess had to send for a Hebrew woman at last, on whose 
 breast he could lie in peace. Mrs. Finn once, during the dangerous 
 illness of one of her children, after many prayers and entreaties, at 
 last persuaded a young Jewess to come to her as wet-nurse, and 
 rejoicing in her unusual success, she took her up to the child’s bed- 
 room : no sooner had she opened the door a few inches than the Jewess 
 uttered a loud shriek, and rushed out of the house, never ceasing 
 to run till she had reached her own, where she sobbed violently : 
 she had caught sight of the corner of the iron bedstead, and, without 
 waiting to see more, believed it to be a large iron cross hung up for 
 her special annoyance, the mere glance at which would bring more 
 fatal consequences to herself and all belonging to her than the worst 
 mal occhio ever seen ; there was no use in explaining it to her— she 
 would never enter that house again. Perhaps this horror and hatred 
 of the cross explains why St. Paul, in writing to the Hebrews, 
 writes entirely of sacrifice, but never once mentions the cross ; 
 and it accounts in some degree at the present day for the un- 
 successful efforts of nearly all Roman Catholics in the conversion of 
 the Jews. 
 
 Yet, however rejected and abhorred by the Jews, let us never forget 
 that it was through them that Cross came to us by which all the 
 world may receive salvation ; they were the good olive-tree on whose 
 “ root and fatness ” the wild olive and the Gentile were grafted* ; 
 
 * Rom. xi. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 445 
 
 upon the Law given to them our Christianity was raised up, and 
 the Jew was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ ; from their fall 
 came the riches of the world, and through their unbelief we have 
 obtained mercy, that through our mercy they may obtain the same. 
 What shall we say to those who gain everything and give back 
 nothing ? Ought it not rather to be that from every “ uttermost 
 part of the earth” something of our abundance should be gladly 
 spared for the sons of those from among whom came the humble but 
 glorious Twelve who carried and spread the seed, the rich harvest of 
 whose labours we reap ? If we have received of the Jew spiritual 
 things, is it a great thing if he shall reap our carnal things ? Theirs 
 was the land, and theirs it will be again, by the same sure promise 
 whose fulfilment is certain ; theirs was the Zion which “ the Lord 
 shall comfort,” and theirs were the “ waste places,” and the “ wilder- 
 ness,” and the “ desert,” which " He will make like Eden, and like 
 the garden of the Lord the land which their fathers possessed they 
 shall possess, although “ desolation and destruction, and the famine 
 and the sword ” have come upon them ; while our part is to remember 
 that “ this cup of His fury ” will be transferred “ to the hand of them 
 that afflict ” His people, and the blessing of Him who charged us to 
 “ help one another ” will be given to the Gentile who tries, in all 
 humility and faith, to enable his poor Jew brother to possess his own : 
 to show him the light of truth by the hand of real charity : and to 
 help him to raise up and exalt himself from the low and degraded 
 condition of the Jews now living in the Promised Land of Israel. 
 
 Another reason also exists for endeavouring to raise the Jew to 
 independence : when, by God’s grace, they have hearkened to the 
 teaching of the missionary, when his eyes are opened, his heart 
 softened, and his ears unveiled, what is to become of the Jew? The 
 doors of his home are closed against him, his kindred have become 
 his bitterest enemies, and the misery, which he feels he might 
 bear for himself, becomes impossible to face when he looks on the 
 wife and children around him, who will be left destitute and starv- 
 ing from the moment of his listening to the voice of faith in his 
 heart. In Europe this struggle is sometimes a terrible one, but 
 there the honest man can always earn a crust ; in Jerusalem who 
 can describe its sufferings to those from whom the lowest ana 
 meanest source of maintenance, that of alms, is taken away? At 
 present, if a Jew is converted, he struggles on miserably for a short 
 time, until he and his family are forced with deep reluctance into 
 exile, and they pass away to Europe or some country where they 
 can support themselves by their own labour, instead of remaining 
 in the land of their fathers, where they would be not only examples 
 
446 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 to others, but also firm ground from which to work for the conver- 
 sion of their brethren. 
 
 Knowing this well, the Societies who have planted the missions 
 here supply something for the support of the newly-converted Jew 
 at first : this, however, cannot long be continued, and is at best 
 shifting the evil to another hand ; honest labour is the mainspring 
 of that independence which makes a man, and which the Jew, long 
 bowed down under the heavy consequences of the curse, almost 
 requires to enable him to listen to the truth asserting itself in his 
 heart, instead of continuing to lean only on the effete traditions of 
 the fathers of his race. Mere alms-giving in this case has another 
 evil also : it enables enemies and opponents to say, however un- 
 justly, as the Latin Patriarch said to us one day : “ We cannot make 
 converts as you do, we have not the funds ; your mission is endowed 
 with the power of money : with the Jew and with the Turk words 
 can do little.” It was useless to contradict the assertion, though 
 entirely untrue, but the utmost care is needed to give no colour to 
 such an accusation. 
 
 And, therefore, those who look on the Jews as their elder brethren* 
 as the chosen of the Lord, whom in the time of gathering He will 
 not forget, have united in more than one place to teach them how to 
 work, and to supply them with the means of labour, so as to enable 
 them, as Jews, to earn their daily bread by the honest industry of 
 their own hands. I have already mentioned, far more cursorily than 
 it deserved. Miss Cooper’s work -school for Jewesses* ; I have now to 
 tell of another plan. 
 
 Eight years ago, that is in June 1852, a piece of ground to the 
 north-west of Jerusalem was hired by some Christian residents in 
 the city ; olives, mulberries, and vines were planted as far as the 
 small funds then in hand allowed, and Jews were for many weeks 
 each summer employed in the care of it. For four years this con- 
 tinued, the Jewish labourers varying from twenty to two hundred 
 in number, not indeed according to the applications made, which 
 were very numerons, but according to the amount of work which 
 the varying funds enabled the managers to give. By 1857, the sale 
 of the stones taken off the ground, and contributions remitted from 
 England and India, cleared off the purchase of the land ; a deed of 
 trust was executed, and trustees both in Jerusalem and England 
 were nominated ; and though constant applications for work were 
 
 * There is also a society called the “ Sarah Society,” formed of ladies for 
 visiting the Jews at their own miserable homes, taking them food, clothing, 
 and medicine : they work, as Miss Cooper did, unobtrusively and quietly, 
 saying little, but effecting much. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 447 
 
 necessarily refused, and such numbers were turned away for whom 
 it was impossible to find wages, that the good effected could not be 
 very extensive, yet the experiment had at least drawn out the most 
 satisfactory proofs, against the common cry, that Jews are wil lin g 
 to work even at an occupation to which they are wholly unused, 
 and that they are capable of and willing to learn agricultural 
 labour. Some few were also taught building, as the plantation had 
 to be walled round, a cistern built, and a small house erected for the 
 superintendent. From the year 1857, up to the present moment, 
 Jewish labourers have been employed on this land, which may be 
 called the nursery of Jewish field-labourers ; but owing to the small- 
 ness of the funds at command, the number has been trifling, some- 
 times only two or three, sometimes seven or eight at a time. The 
 grand thing would be to get any sum, even a small one, secured to 
 them annually : as, at present, never being able to foresee when ten 
 pounds or one shilling may be remitted for them, or how long the 
 proprietors may have to go on without receiving anything, it is im- 
 possible to incur the requisite expenses at the proper times ; a par- 
 ticularly unfortunate disadvantage in a country where everything 
 must be paid for, or contracted for at a year’s advance, and in an 
 agricultural undertaking, where everything depends upon seizing 
 the right week for the putting in of seeds and plants. 
 
 In the meantime, a converted Jew of Spanish family, Mr. 
 Meshullam, had settled in the vale of Urtass, near Solomon’s Pools, 
 then a desolate valley about fifty or sixty yards wide, between rocky, 
 cold-looking hills of limestone, but which was once unquestionably 
 the place where Solomon in his days of glory had made vineyards 
 and orchards. Thousands of years they had lain in stone-covered 
 neglect and desolation, till the hand of culture was once more laid 
 upon them. The grateful land returned almost at once into fertility 
 and productiveness; a “ garden ” instead of a “wilderness,” an 
 “ Eden ” instead of a “ desert place ” 
 
 After a few years it became known that the Greeks had cast long- 
 ing eyes on the little glen now smiling in fresh richness, and were 
 bargaining to buy the whole valley from the Arab Sheikhs to whom 
 it belonged. Had they succeeded, not only would all the nine years 
 of labour then spent by Mr. Meshullam upon the valley have been 
 thrown away just as its value was rapidly increasing and the enter- 
 prise was beginning to pay well, and bis large family have been thus 
 cast adrift upon the world, but the plan ever dear to his heart and 
 to many others for enabling his brethren to support themselves by 
 agriculture, would have had to be recommenced in some other and 
 perhaps less favourable place. Such a golden opportunity could 
 
448 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 not be lost, at least, if any amount of exertion could save it : nor 
 was it. After endless labour in reasoning with and persuading the 
 people of the neighbouring hills against the intrigues of the Greeks 
 who have a convent close by, the Sheikhs were brought to promise 
 to sell the chief portion of the valley for 150/. It was all done as 
 quietly and silently as possible on account of the vigilance of the 
 Greek rivals, but, on the 12th of May, 1856, a message was brought 
 to Mr. Finn, the British Consul, to say that the consent of the 
 Sheikhs was gained, and that they would come into Jerusalem on 
 the following day to conclude the purchase. 
 
 This message was very joyfully received, for it is a rare and diffi- 
 cult thing to get an Arab to sell a square inch of ground : but where 
 was now the money to effect it ? It was necessary to lay it down in 
 good coin before the eyes, and into the very hands of the Arabs ; 
 but not one piaster had Mrs. Finn been able as yet to secure for the 
 execution of her darling project. She had long been ardently 
 desirous of establishing a Hebrew farm settlement, and she felt that 
 here was the one golden opportunity. What was to be done ? at the 
 slightest appearance of hesitation or indecision, the Shiekhs would 
 have been off in a moment, and the land would have been in the 
 possession of the Greeks in less than twenty-four hours, and the 
 opportunity lost, perhaps for many years, of acquiring a suitable bit 
 of ground for the long-cherished plan. Yet to accomplish it now 
 seemed well-nigh impossible. 
 
 That evening a number of travellers were met together at the 
 British Consulate, when one of them accidentally mentioned having 
 passed through Urtass in riding to Jerusalem, and asked some 
 questions about the place. The history of Mr. Meshullum’s efforts 
 came out. The wished-for purchase was mentioned as well as the 
 difficulty from the want of funds, but little was said of Mrs. Finn’s 
 anxiety and almost despair for the requisite money. However, 
 before leaving the house, one of the travellers — may the blessing of a 
 good deed rest upon him ! — offered 50/. as a loan during a six- weeks’ 
 excursion to Damascus towards effecting the purchase. This was 
 something : but the horizon was yet clouded and dark. Early in 
 the morning the Sheikhs arrived in Jerusalem to execute the sale, 
 and the drawing out of the papers commenced. This is not, however, 
 the really important part of the sale, for even if the deeds are signed, 
 the Arab will often bring back the money in his hands, and the sale 
 is null: the sale really consists in his verbal declaration before 
 
 witnesses that “ I, the son of , the son of , sell this land to 
 
 , the son of , the son of ,” and so on ; this engagement 
 
 is never broken, especially if there be witnesses of repute to 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 449 
 
 guarantee the transaction. Whil e the papers were being written out, 
 a matter of some hours’ toil, Mrs. Finn sent for the Kev. Mr. Nicho- 
 layson, the first of all the missionaries in Jerusalem, and the most 
 venerated by all classes and all religions, a cautious and sagacious 
 man : he came, and willingly put his hand to the work. They then 
 sent for Mr. Bergheim, the banker, himself a converted Jew, and 
 explained their object ; he ran home, and soon returned with 50 1. in 
 a bag, which he advanced, joyfully and gladly as a loan, to buy a bit 
 of the land of his fathers, for his despised brethren. Mr. Graham 
 (the Lay Secretary of the Mission) gathered the other 50 1. in small 
 sums, chiefly as loans also, and the purchase-money then stood com- 
 plete. Two or three of the English residents, who loved and 
 laboured for the Jews, assembled at the Consulate, and the actual 
 sale began. 
 
 This Arab sale, which is called “ the sale by the broken group,” 
 is a curious affair : should the price be only a distinct number of 
 piasters, the money might be returned at any change of mind in 
 the original owner, or at least disputed afterwards. The custom 
 is therefore to buy for a definite and also for an unknown sum ; a 
 quantity of bazaar trinkets, small coins, and trifles are collected 
 in a handkerchief, which is rolled up, thrown into the air, and the 
 scattered contents scrambled for by all present. 
 
 An exciting scene it was : the group of picturesque Arab Sheikhs, 
 headed by a wild Bedoueen, a notorious robber but a powerful chief, 
 whose presence was a guarantee for the truth and fidelity of all the 
 others : and the little band of Europeans, seme of whom had long 
 planned, worked for, and earnestly desired this happy moment : 
 some who loved the Jews, and some who had themselves been Jews ; 
 all assembled in the little room at the Consulate, with the precious 
 money counted out in little heaps on the table between them. Mrs. 
 Finn brought out some of her own European ornaments, on which 
 the Arabs look with profound respect as things of untold value, and 
 tied them up with the rest of the things in the handkerchief : “ the 
 broken group ” was thrown on the floor, and one and all scrambled 
 pell-mell for the contents ; the heap having been so skilfully thrown 
 that Mrs. Finn could pounce at once upon her own things. A happy 
 day it was : and it is pleasant to add that within the time specified 
 by each kind lender, the money was re-collected in large and small 
 gifts, and the loans repaid. 
 
 The crops of the valley thus satisfactorily purchased, paid well 
 during the first five months, notwithstanding the expenses attendant 
 in commencing on the new part of the ground : this was cleared 
 and walled, old terraces were repaired and fresh ones made, besides 
 
 2 G 
 
450 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 all the sowing and planting that the funds would allow: the re- 
 claiming was commenced in June, and by October the land was rich 
 with crops ; preparations were then commenced for a poultry yard and 
 dairy, when a miserable accident, in February 1857, brought it all to 
 a temporary stand-still. The water from the Pools of Solomon, 
 which happened to be unusually full, was let out from an opening 
 secretly made in the lowest Pool by an enemy, and rushing in 
 torrents through the valley, carried away crops and trees, and, 
 cutting deep channels right down in the soil, washed away great 
 quantities of the earth itself : leaving the discouraged proprietors to 
 the mortification of seeing their own turnips and potatoes, picked 
 up by the Bedoueen at the mouth of the valley by the Dead Sea, 
 exposed for sale in the Jerusalem market ! Some hundred pounds’ 
 worth of damage was thus effected, for which no redress has ever 
 been obtained, and from which the little gardens were but slowly 
 recovered ; gradually, however, they were restored to order : tanks 
 were repaired and a small aqueduct built: a two-roomed house 
 was erected out of stone quarried on the spot, and an old ruined 
 tower filled with bee-hives : the gardens have ever since been thriv- 
 ing well, and producing a very profitable return for the money spent 
 upon them during the last four years. 
 
 The prices of labour and of building materials have risen so much 
 since the work was begun, that the cost of bringing the valley into 
 thorough order has greatly increased in proportion: Kussians, 
 Greeks, Latins, and others are employing, at high prices, all the 
 available hands of the Jerusalem district, while hitherto numbers 
 of applications from Jews for work have been obliged to be refused, 
 because they could not be paid for their labour. The object for 
 which the valley was purchased will never be attained until cottages 
 can be provided for the Jewish labourers to live in : they cannot of 
 course walk out from Jerusalem, a distance of about seven miles, to 
 their daily work ; but, if residing on the spot, the long-cherished 
 hope might be realised not only of giving them daily employment, 
 but of settling Christian Hebrews as independent farmers and, land- 
 owners in Palestine. The Jews would ever be, and are, most gladly 
 and joyfully welcomed as labourers both in Urtass and in the Plan- 
 tation we mentioned before : but the little colony in the cottages 
 would be confined to Christian Hebrews, for whom, in time, and by 
 God’s blessing, a schoolroom and a church might be erected. 
 
 One bright morning, early in April, we rode over the pleasant 
 plain of Eephaim, down the hill to Eachel’s Sepulchre, and then 
 crossing the wild rocky hills behind Bethlehem, turned suddenly to 
 the south-west, and found ourselves in the midst of verdure anri 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 451 
 
 luxuriant cultivation, that brightly contrasted with the country we 
 had just passed over : this was the valley of Urtass. We crossed a 
 pretty cascade, which was conducting the water from Solomon's 
 Pools into the gardens and fields, and in a few minutes were seated 
 in the shade of Mr. Meshullam’s house, eating excellent bread and 
 butter for the first time since leaving England ; and looking out on 
 the very fine vegetables and fruit trees loaded with white blossoms. 
 As the afternoon drew on, the rich scent of the hawthorn came up 
 the breeze, the finches sung little trills to each other in the trees, 
 the sweet notes of the cuckoo echoed from hill to hill softly but 
 clearly, and we fancied ourselves carried back to the time when the 
 Land was flowing with milk and honey, instead of her now widowed, 
 barren, desolated state. Then we wandered down among the shrubs 
 and trees, treading over carpets of the lovely Syrian campanula, 
 pink flax, blue and scarlet pimpernel, to inspect the marvels that 
 energy and a little agricultural knowledge has obtained from the 
 soil of the Holy Land, in the valley which has lain fallow since the 
 gardens of Solomon, the King of Israel, withered and died. They 
 are marvels indeed : the beans, planted in February, had eight, 
 nine, and ten stems to each root, each stem from two to two and a 
 half feet high and loaded with pods : from the peas we picked a 
 great basketful in five minutes, which proved at dinner to be of 
 the very best kind: above them stood a mulberry-tree, planted 
 but seven years ago, whose branches extended thirty-five feet from 
 tip to tip, and whose stem measured, at two feet from the ground, 
 one yard and a quarter in circumference : the branches were then 
 covered with fruit, which it was expected would be ripe in ten days. 
 A little further, there was a peach-tree which had been planted just 
 fourteen months before, a tiny seedling : it was now seven feet 
 high and covered with blossoms. The mustard plants which had 
 been in the ground barely three mouths and a half, were in bushes 
 about six feet high, with woody stems, two and a half inches in 
 diameter, with nineteen branches proceeding from the first foot of 
 the stem, every branch a mass of seeds. The pigs were feeding on 
 turnips nine and eleven inches round, and we gathered flowers of 
 the cabbages, looking like bunches of cowslips tied on a stick, each 
 head from ten to fourteen inches in height. A still greater proof of 
 the wonderful fertility of the valley is that the vines, planted in this 
 same year on the newly cleared hillside, were bearing little bunches 
 of grapes already ! the terraces on which they were growing having 
 been to all appearance only rock up to Christmas, less than four 
 months ago. 
 
 The Jews have a legend that the cauliflowers in the valley of the 
 
 2 g ‘2 
 
452 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Kedron, formerly grew so tall, that the gardeners had to get up 
 ladders to reach their heads ! and I began to think we had got into 
 some such region of agricultural enchantment; the statements I 
 have made might seem like extravagancies of the like kind, but 1 
 have been careful to state nothing that I did not see with my own 
 eyes, and measure with my own hands; and those who have 
 witnessed the effects of heat and water, combined upon a virgin 
 soil, will bear witness to the possibility of the assertions made. 
 Mr. Meshullam is doing his best to import foreign seeds and plants, 
 and to set the example of scientific agricultural work as far as he 
 can. 
 
 Many interesting Scriptural memories are connected with this 
 place : it is believed to be the “ rock Etam ” where Samson dwelt : 
 perhaps a place containing many ravenous birds, as the word Etam 
 is supposed to come from the Hebrew for an eagle. It is also un- 
 questionably the place where Solomon made him “ a garden and 
 orchards, and planted in them of all kinds of fruits,” and “ pools of 
 water to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees ;” and 
 to this “ very pleasant” place Josephus tells us Solomon “drove in 
 the morning, sitting high in his chariot ;” for the kings of all other 
 countries hearing of his wisdom and virtue had sent him “ chariots 
 and horses, and as many mules for his carriages as they could find 
 proper to please the king’s eyes, by their strength and beauty. 
 And he made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon, lined with 
 gold, and with a canopy of purple silk supported by pillars of 
 silver : and in this chariot he used to go out every morming, clothed 
 in a white garment, and drive to his garden ; for he had laid cause- 
 ways of black stone along all the roads that led to Jerusalem, upon 
 which he could drive his chariot with ease and swiftness : while he 
 was surrounded with a band of young men in the most delightful 
 flower of their age, eminent for their largeness, and far taller than 
 other men : they had very long hair hanging down, and were clothed 
 in garments of Tyrian purple, and they had dust of gold sprinkled 
 every day on their hair, so that their heads sparkled with the reflec- 
 tion of the sunbeams upon the gold.”* And riding along that 
 pleasant path one could well fancy the goodly sight of the glorious 
 king and his train, besides indulging very earnestly in the wish 
 that the smooth causeway of black stone was still in existence. 
 
 Some ancient remains are, however, still existing, though long 
 since concealed and overlaid by the soil brought down by the 
 mountain torrents in winter, for. the valley is very subject to such 
 inundations ; two days of rain in the beginning of February in this 
 * Josephus, Ant. viii. 7. Eccles. ii. 4, 5. 
 
AND S YR IAN SHRINES. 
 
 453 
 
 year had brought down such quantities of water, and filled up the 
 lower end of the valley with so strong a current, that a powerful 
 man could not swim across it. Of course these torrents tear much 
 away, but they also bring much down, and in some places the accu- 
 mulations of soil are very remarkable. There is a low projecting 
 cliff about half-way down the valley on the north side : this pro- 
 montory has from time immemorial borne the name of the “ Pro- 
 montory of the Baths just at this part the valley is occupied 
 by a very large building arched all over and finely built, upon 
 which the soil now lies to about the depth of twenty inches ; this 
 long-buried ruin has been always called by the Bedoueen and 
 fellaheen of the districts the Baths of Solomon ; ancient coins, bits 
 of glass and mosaic have been frequently found there, and the other 
 day a large piece of finely carved cornice and a capital were dug up 
 of remarkably pure and fine Corinthian* A small aqueduct, still 
 visible, led to this ruin from the copious spring close by : and, in 
 short, it is incontestable that some “ baths,” and those of some con- 
 sequence, existed here. It has therefore been suggested with much 
 reason that this was the “ Emmaus ” of Luke xxiv. 13 ; Emmaus 
 being the Greek form of the Hebrew word Hamath, and the Arabic 
 Hammam, which are indiscriminately applied to naturally or arti- 
 ficially heated baths. The remains of no other baths of any kind 
 have been found near Jerusalem, and the distance of “ threescore 
 furlongs ” agrees perfectly with the sacred narrative ; it is more 
 likely than that the two Apostles walked back from ’Amwas after it 
 was " toward evening ” and the day was “ far spent,” that is, half- 
 way from Jaffa, distance of twenty miles, and yet arrived in Jeru- 
 salem while " the eleven ” were still “ gathered together having 
 walked in the one day forty miles. One may well fancy the walk by 
 day of the Apostles over these pleasant breezy hills, passing by the 
 place where their Lord was born, talking together of all that had 
 happened, and then the return in the cool evening with a far greater 
 “ burning ” in their hearts than before, for joy that their “ faith was 
 not in vain,” and that Christ was risen indeed. The view that met 
 their eyes was in some way different, for, as we have said before, 
 there is reason to believe that all these hills were once covered with 
 woods ; in Urtass in particular wherever the hillsides are cleared 
 for planting, the old roots of the oak-trees are found thickly 
 neighbouring each other, and are of such size, that one, not un- 
 
 * Since this was written a marble-lined bathing-place has been un- 
 covered^ with a cemented one adjoining it, another large and deep tank, 
 two or three brass bathing implements, many small gilt and coloured mosaics, 
 some Cufic and Hebrew coins, and some marble fragments of columns. 
 
454 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 usually large, that we saw lying on the ground, was sufficient for 
 four camels’ loads ! 
 
 We had already paid three visits to Solomon's Pools, hut having 
 now explored the wonders of the gardens of Solomon we proposed 
 to examine his Pools with more attention than we had as yet been 
 able to do : Signor Pierotti, who has made accurate plans of them, 
 kindly accompanying us to explain the subterranean buildings. 
 Having dismounted at the old khan, we walked for between two and 
 three hundred yards, in a line exactly due west from the N.W. angle 
 of the wall, when we came to a very small hole, the only entrance to 
 the sealed fountain. Down this hole we dropped ourselves, with 
 some difficulty, to about the depth of twelve feet, and, being safely 
 landed on a hillock of mud at the bottom, found that we were 
 standing in a large vaulted chamber of solid massive masonry, in 
 length about twice its own width, and opening at one side into 
 another vaulted chamber smaller than the first, along the centre of 
 which a tiled conduit led the water from a source ini the rock at 
 the further end; the tiles of this conduit are peculiar— neither 
 Eoman nor Arab — they are therefore believed to be Jewish, as well 
 as the very ancient solid arches of the chambers. There arc three, 
 if not four, sources for the water which, united, flows along a 
 vaulted passage, between four and five feet high, opening out of 
 the east side of the first chamber. Signor Pierotti kindly walked 
 through the water (which was then about a foot deep) for some 
 distance with a candle that we might see how finely built the 
 passage is : he has walked along the whole length to the wall of the 
 khan when there was not much water in it, and found that after 
 some few yards its course turns slightly, but on the whole it main- 
 tains a due easterly direction till it reaches the khan, whence it turns 
 suddenly south to the first Pool, and the passage becomes very 
 low : at intervals along its length there are small chambers on 
 either side. Altogether it is a fine work, and it would be difficult 
 to doubt that one sees here the original work of the mighty 
 Solomon. 
 
 After following the line of the subterranean conduit above ground, 
 we next descended the steps into the chamber at the north-west 
 corner of the First Pool, which receives the surplus water from the 
 commencement of the great aqueduct : the steps led into a little 
 passage, running east and west, a low arch from which led into a 
 large chamber, at the end of which we saw another large vaulted 
 chamber : both were finely built and filled with water three or four 
 inches deep. The aqueduct runs along at the north side of the 
 Pools, the surplus only passing into the upper or First PooL 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 455 
 
 Below the Third Pool, a strong wall has been built across the valley 
 as a guard in case of the escape or overflow of the water from the 
 Pools : here we found the remains of a grand stone staircase, and 
 close beside it we went down a passage on an incline to a high 
 vaulted chamber, through which the water from the Third Pool 
 runs ; and at the north end of this is the great filtering chamber, 
 through which the water passed before it could enter the aqueduct. 
 The scientific knowledge displayed in the formation of this aqueduct 
 is said to be very great ; especially in the mode of propelling the 
 water up the steep ascents, by means of repeated air chambers 
 admitting the force of the air before each rise. 
 
 Passing by Urtass on our way home from the dreary hills about 
 Solomon's Pools, one is again struck with its fruitful appearance : 
 the luxuriant richness of one or two small gardens * in other spots, 
 render assurance doubly sure that the “ pound ” is only “ laid by in 
 a napkin” and hidden in the earth. In general, nothing throughout 
 Palestine strikes the eye of the pilgrim half as much as the inde- 
 scribable stoniness and desolation of the country he is passing 
 through ; and nothing, by a natural analogy of contrast, rises so con- 
 stantly to his mind as the expression of the “ milk and honey” of the 
 Promised Land : the striking contrast has to be reconciled by the 
 memory of the long and awful history of the “ Chosen People,” whose 
 ingratitude and wickedness caused the present melancholy con- 
 dition of their loved Judsea : for fifteen centuries they possessed this 
 glorious Land ; they passed from it without leaving a single memorial 
 upon the soil they had so long occupied, and in no other country 
 have they achieved a conquest or established an empire. Yet ever 
 imperishable, in the history of man, will the name of the Hebrew 
 nation remain : a nation without a territory, a people without union ; 
 instead of dumb and lifeless monuments like those of Egypt, Greece, 
 and Kome, they are themselves the living ruins of their nation, 
 scattered to the north, south, east, or west : united only by an 
 invisible chain, a law, a principle. They own no country, for their 
 mission was not of this world, but of that above : to know God and 
 to teach Him to others. Their being commenced with the Patriarch 
 who was called from a far country to proclaim, among the idolatrous 
 peoples of the earth, the existence of the Creator : it finished at the 
 coming of the Messiah ; and no sooner had the seeds of this faith 
 
 * Such as that belonging to a Greek Priest, near Mar Elyas, called 
 “ Benjamin’s Garden,” the cultivation and fruitfulness of which in a very few 
 years is wonderful. Dr. Hooker says he would engage to supply the whole 
 population of Syria with food from the produce of ten well-cultivated miles of 
 the valley of the Jordan! 
 
456 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 been carried over the pagan world, than the corporate existence of 
 the Hebrews terminated ; they are are now but a religious society 
 scattered even into the uttermost corners of the globe, waiting the 
 fulfilment of those glorious Promises which shall restore strength to 
 Zion ; waiting till the Lord shall comfort His people, and redeem 
 Jerusalem: till her city shall be no more termed Forsaken or 
 Desolate, but, breaking forth into joy and loud songs of praise, she 
 shall be called “ Hephzibah ” — for “ the Lord shall delight in her.” 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 457 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE CAVE OF ELIJAH, AND THE PULPIT OF CHRVSOSTOM. 
 
 The last days of our long stay at Jerusalem were come only too soon ; 
 we revisited our favourite spots, said good-byes to all the kind and 
 valued friends we had made in the Holy City, and on Monday 
 morning the 16th of April, at a very early hour, sallied forth for the 
 last time from the Damascus Gate, with eyes ever turning back full 
 of deep affection to the mountain hallowed by every sacred associ- 
 ation in the heart ; it had been a happy home and a resting-place 
 to us in the midst of our wanderings, and we were very sad indeed 
 at leaving it. We had chosen the upper road of the two leading to 
 Jaffa, as the most interesting as well as the prettiest, and we soon 
 found ourselves passing over pleasant valleys and breezy hills 
 flourishing with corn and olives, and now in the spring-tide gay and 
 gaudy with flowers. How lovely they were ! and how pleasant the 
 bright morning air and the extensive views over Judea! we passed 
 to the right of Neby Samwel, beyond which was the hill on which 
 once stood the royal city of Gibeon, whereof “all the men were 
 mighty.” A rich little plain lies below it, now green with corn, over 
 which Joshua drove back the five kings of the Amorites with the 
 king of Jerusalem at their head, chasing them along “ the way that 
 goeth up to Bethhoron ; ” up in the village is a fountain or “ pool,” 
 probably that beside which Joab and Abner sat while their soldiers 
 fought and slew each other, twelve on each side , " followed by a very 
 sore battle that day.” One other recollection clings to Gibeon, 
 better and holier than all these stragglings and fightings, in the 
 prayer of Solomon for “ a wise and understanding heart,” granted 
 to him here, where he had come to sacrifice “ a thousand burnt 
 offerings ” : “ for that was the great high place ” after the destruc- 
 tion of Nob, and before the Tabernacle was removed to Jerusalem. 
 
 The two Bethhorons, to one of which was the going up and to 
 
458 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 the other the “going down” of the army of Joshua (x. 10, 11), still 
 retain their ancient name in the Arabic, Beit Oor el fok — the upper, 
 and Beit Oor el taht — the lower. There is a splended yiew from 
 the upper one, which we enjoyed from under a thick grove of 
 olives, while examining the massive remains of portions of the 
 ancient city wall, formed of very large stones, which are still in 
 situ. The villagers brought us a large bowl of delicious olives, 
 which we quickly demolished, and a number of eggs roasted in hot 
 ashes. The country after leaving Bethhoron is singularly devoid 
 of villages ; but it was smiling enough in the fresh spring greens, 
 and the view over the plain of Jaffa, or rather of Sharon : on which 
 Ludd, the Lod of the Old Testament and the Lydda of the New 
 Testament, is situated. It was late in the afternoon ere we reached 
 it, but we dismounted to see the Church of St. George, a rather 
 picturesque ruin of the time of the Crusaders : the eastern apse, part 
 of the choir, a group of many clustered columns with marble 
 acanthus-leaved capitals and one lofty pointed arch remain to make 
 a pretty picture. The town is very prettily situated among its 
 rich gardens and cornfields, palms mingling with the olive-trees; 
 the people were all busy making matting from the palm-leaves, 
 which they weave very dexterously and well : it is the great place 
 in Syria for this manufacture. Bamleli, which we reached after 
 dark, is a large and pretty town, still more richly placed among 
 cornfields and fruit-gardens: the roads are hedged with prickly 
 pear, and sycamores, figs, caroubs, and the ever-dear palm come in 
 to diversify the olive groves. We encamped on the plain, which 
 seemed very wild and bare in the night, as the wind came soughing 
 across its dry and grey thorn bushes. In the morning we went to 
 see the vaults on the north side of the town, which are remarkable 
 for their size and good masonry : they are long tunnels well arched 
 over, sunk below the level of the ground, with staircases descending 
 into them: they are considered to be of the tenth or eleventh 
 century. A little further on stands the beautiful minaret, or 
 tower, built in 710 a.h., i.e. 1310 a.d., by the order of the Sultan, 
 as an inscription over ihe door testifies. This place is believed to 
 have been a spacious khan, which goes by the name of the Church 
 of the Forty Martyrs; much of the cloisters or open corridors still 
 remain round the quadrangle, and below the surface of the ground 
 are the large cisterns or granaries, like subterranean galleries, built 
 of good close brickwork covered with cement. There was also a 
 mosque, but it is now gone : a stone lying on the ground reports 
 that “Sultan Bibars . . . Prince of the Faithful, came out from 
 Cairo . . . and came to Jaffa, and conquered it, by the will of God, 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 4 59 
 
 in three hours, — then he ordered that this cupola should be built 
 above the blessed candlestick and this door in the mosque,” in the 
 year 1267. 
 
 Eamleh has always been a place of some consequence, since it 
 was founded by the Khalif Suleiman in the eighth century : it was 
 the head-quarters of our own Coeur de Lion for a long time, and it 
 was in this place that St. George was first declared the patron 
 saint of England — a very sorry kind of saint, I fear, he was. 
 Thence all the way to Jaffa the country is altogether pleasant 
 meadow-lands and wheat-fields, with groves of trees, till the 
 excellent road brings one to the delicious orange gardens which 
 extend for some miles from the town. The oranges were then in 
 their finest ripeness, and every branch was covered with flowers, 
 which spread their enchanting fragrance over the whole country, 
 and delighted us even in the pitable plight we were in, for an 
 Oriental shower had soaked us, jusqiCaux os, and our dripping 
 drapery and drenched appearance would have been very ludicrous if 
 it had not been so very uncomfortable. Eooms had been prepared 
 for us in the Latin convent at the request of our kind friend the 
 French Consul at Jerusalem, and the good monks brought us a 
 plentiful repast; but almost before we had emptied the water 
 out of our boots, the storm had increased so much that the 
 Eussian steamer in the roadstead sent up to say she must go away 
 or go to pieces ; and we had to make a hasty descent into a small 
 boat, and a perilous little voyage over the Jaffa rocks, before we 
 were tossed and pitched and then thrown into the steamer, amid 
 the tremendous surf and waves caused by the storm. That 
 evening is not a pleasant one to remember. 
 
 Early next morning we landed at Hhaiffa, one of the prettiest 
 places on the coast of Syria, and were soon comfortably installed in 
 the English Consulate by the kindness of its owner Mr. Eogers. 
 Hhaiffa is situated on the north side of the promontory of Mount 
 Carmel, commanding the coast up to the headland of Tyre, and the 
 plain watered by the Kishon on which Akka is situated ; then coine 
 range after range of the Galilean hills, and Hermon rising his 
 grand head loftily and majestically behind all; it was now com- 
 pletely covered with snow on summit and sides. A good road 
 leads up to the large convent which is finely placed on the very brow 
 of the mountain ; it was built from the alms collected by one monk 
 who begged for fourteen years through Europe, and in the end 
 obtained half a million of francs for the purpose. It is a most 
 comfortable abiding-place for strangers, and we were charmed with 
 the good monk who showed us over the convent; the church is 
 
460 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 built over the cave inhabited by Elijah, which the monks say has 
 ever since been occupied by some holy men of one creed or 
 another; the church is ornamented with imaginary columns and 
 marbles done in coarse gaudy painting. 
 
 At the foot of the mountain near the sea-shore is a very large 
 cave, partly natural and partly artificial, where it is said Elijah 
 taught his disciples; and a little further on there is a more curious 
 spot: a cave with a smooth bank of rock immediately below it, 
 down which the Druzes roll themselves, on one day in the year, in 
 accordance with some strange superstition; on that one day they 
 flock here from the surrounding mountains in great numbers. 
 
 We rose early the next morning in order to ride to the site of one 
 of the most interesting episodes in Bible history — Elijah’s sacrifice; 
 it is a long ride, but one is richly repaid by the delicious fertility 
 all round one, and the pretty views on all sides. There is nothing 
 grand here: but for quiet, tranquil beauty, “the excellency of 
 Carmel” is very charming, and among the many changes in the 
 sacred sites, it is pleasant to find this mountain still worthy of its 
 name : a full orchard, a fruitful field, is the meaning of the word. 
 Having crossed the town we were soon upon the mountain, 
 winding up its steep sides, among thick, low woods of prickly oak, 
 laurustinus, and other shrubs, with quantities of honeysuckle, and 
 the ground variegated with all the hues of the rainbow from the 
 innumerable varieties of wild flowers which grew everywhere. We 
 still looked back over the plain and the blue sea, until reaching the 
 brow of the mountain we lost it on this side, to find it agiin on the 
 other to the south, beyond the ranges of Judaean hills; now came 
 about twelve miles of undulating ground, like park-land at home, 
 bright, glassy, flowery lawns, studded with oaks of various kinds, 
 plane, terebinth, and caroub, with thick brushwood of lovely storax, 
 and sometimes a wild olive-grove. Then, as we neared the south- 
 eastern end of this long ridge, the plain of Esdraelon opened out 
 before us, with Tabor, and Gilboa, and little Hermon, and the 
 Basham mountains beyond Jordan : while, behind the hills to the 
 north, beautiful Hermon appeared, looking so close to Tabor as to 
 realise one of the Psalmist’s expressions, “Tabor and Hermon 
 shall rejoice in Thy Name.” About an hour and a half after 
 passing through the Druze village of Esfiyeh, we reached the 
 easternmost termination of the ridge, and seated ourselves under a 
 spreading oak to enjoy the wide-spread view. Somewhat to our 
 right, on a little grassy plateau, below our position, but high above 
 the plain, we saw the traditionary site of the memorable sacrifice, 
 which still bears the name of “ el Mahraka ” (the burnt offering) ; it 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 461 
 
 is wide enough to contain a large multitude of people, even if it was 
 then, as now, half covered with trees and shrubs. Among these 
 concealed from us on the top, lies an ancient stone-built fountain, 
 which probably supplied the twelve barrels of water which were 
 poured over the altar and into the trench by Elijah’s order. Mean- 
 dering through the plain immediately below this was “ that ancient 
 river, the river Kishon,” true to its name (kishon, twisted or 
 winding), beside whose waters Elijah slew the 450 priests of Baal. 
 Then, returning probably to the same spot where he had built the 
 altar unto the Lord, the prophet “cast himself down upon the 
 earth” in the earnestness of his supplication for the blessing of rain 
 (now that the vengeance of God had been satisfied, and the pollution 
 of Baal-worship removed) ; and up to this highest point, where we 
 now sat, seven times over he bade his servant “go up, and look 
 towards the sea : ” until at last the little cloud arose on the horizon, 
 foretelling the commencement of the autumn rains. It was easy to 
 fancy one saw the chariot of Ahab hastening over the great plain of 
 Esdraelon before us, stretching out eastwards from the foot of 
 Carmel, aud the prophet, with his loins girded like any one of the 
 Arabs now around us, running before him all the way, even till he 
 reached the entrance of his own royal palace at Jezreel, — there — on 
 that green hill of Gilboa at the other side of the plain. And across 
 that plain too, one also thought one could see the woman of that 
 small village of Shunem, at the foot of Little Hermon yonder, 
 riding on the ass, and, in the anguish of her heart, urging on her 
 servant in driving it, that she might fall at the feet of the Prophet, 
 and entreat him to save and restore to life the son which his 
 prayers had obtained of God for her, refusing to leave him till he 
 arose and followed her to the little home he had often hallowed by 
 his presence. So the Scripture narrative acquired new life and 
 reality as we read it here on the very spot, and all the natural 
 features, only half expressed to the reader at home, unfolded them- 
 selves one by one to view, and seemed to deepen on the sacred page, 
 like the landscapes drawn in sympathetic inks, developing their 
 meaning in the living colours of Nature. 
 
 We returned to Hhaiffa by another lower road, passing large 
 herds of cattle gathered under the shady trees, and descending to 
 the banks of the Kishon, the windings of which we crossed several 
 times before we reached the town. We carried away some pretty 
 tortoises, but, torpid though they seemed, they would always escape 
 from wherever they were put, in some wonderful way of their own ; 
 and we caught one of the huge locusts without wings, the marks on 
 whose body are believed by the Fellaheen to be inscriptions written 
 
4G2 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 in the most ancient language used in the world. This day’s ride is 
 worth any fatigue from its historical and natural interest ; the cha- 
 racter of the woodland and the scenery is much the same as that of 
 the charming sides of Jebel Rihan in the Barak range. 
 
 Another day we rode along the narrow plain between the sea- 
 coast and the mountain, turning round the point of the headland, 
 and southwards to the “ Pilgrim’s Castle ” of the Crusaders, now 
 called Athlit : a ride of nearly four hours from Hhaiffa, along an 
 excellent smooth, soft road. We came first to the outside end of a 
 road of approach which was cut through the living rock, forming a 
 pass, once closed by a gate, the places for the hinges and bolts of 
 which are still perfect in the rock, as well as the foundations of a 
 strong tower on each side that guarded the gate. The rock-road 
 itself is about eight feet wide, with ruts worn by the chariot-wheels 
 passing over it : the rock at the sides is cut in regular banks or 
 ledges one above another, probably trottairs for the pedestrians 
 going and coming. It is supposed to be from this remarkable rock- 
 cut road that the fortress was called “ Petra Incisa.” Passing 
 through this the place became more open, but we traced the road up 
 to the outer gate of the city or castle, through which we went to 
 look at the remains of an old church with gothic arches, string- 
 courses, and some well-carved mouldings. The citadel, which stands 
 on a promontory of rock jutting out into the sea, must have been of 
 very great strength from its situation and its enormously thick walls, 
 formed of large well-hewn stones : the portions of wall still standing 
 are fifteen feet thick and some thirty feet high ; beyond these there 
 was a very strong outer sea-wall connecting tower with tower, and 
 protecting the semicircular piece of land between. Here, close to 
 the sea, are two large, grand halls, with pointed-arch groined roofs, 
 and a huge, solidly-built cistern, while some fine, massive, granite 
 columns lie on the ground beyond them. There is a vast extent of 
 ruin, most of which is believed to date several hundred years prior 
 to the Crusaders ; but the earliest notice on record of the place is of 
 the twelfth century ; it is a very fine place, very picturesque, and not 
 a little interesting. The people whose houses crowd, like the cells of 
 a wasp’s nest, the inside of the old ruins, have not a very good 
 character, but they were hospitable and obliging to us, bringing us 
 relays of hot coffee for luncheon. We had a delightful ride back to 
 Hhaiffa, lighted all the way by innumerable fire-flies, glancing and 
 dancing round us as we went : they were small of their kind, but 
 very bright and lovely. 
 
 A most suffocating sirocco blew the next day, so malignant that 
 we found exertion impossible, until a little before sunset, when we 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 463 
 
 managed to mount our horses, and follow the kindly guidance of our 
 host to the mouth of the Kishon. Here he tied our steeds to the 
 ghastly timbers of a wreck, one of four ships which had been driven 
 up on the coast; two of these, both called “ the Sisters Maria/’ had 
 been built and launched together, had sailed on different tracks 
 round the world, and then, by a strange romantic accident, had met 
 here for the first time since their launch, only to be wrecked, and to 
 lie there driven one into the other, hopelessly entangled in each 
 other’s arms ! This bay is very dangerous in south-westerly gales, 
 and many a hapless ship is driven ashore : but all looked peaceful 
 and smiling enough this evening, as we hunted for shells on the 
 sands and gathered handfuls of honeysuckle and oleander from the 
 banks of the river ; the mountains, however, were veiled in a dreamy, 
 sad-looking sirocco fog, and even the bright blue sky was dimmed 
 behind the thickened air. We forded the river with great success, 
 but accidents are very frequent here from the rapid changes that 
 take place in the banks at its mouth, and still more from the torrent 
 of water which comes sweeping down with a sudden flood, carrying 
 everything before it, after a day, or even half a day’s rain ; such was 
 the end of many of the soldiers of Sisera. (Judg. v. 4, 19, 21.) 
 Travellers fording the Kishon under the guidance of a dragoman 
 instead of a native very commonly get into trouble. 
 
 The Austrian steamer came in at five the next morning, so, 
 bidding good-bye to pretty, pleasant Hhaiffa, we went on board, and 
 made a most agreeable voyage along the white cliffs and green banks 
 of the coast up to Beyrout, which we reached in eight hours, and 
 once more its lovely mountains delighted my eyes ; but sad tidings 
 greeted us of threatened disturbances in the Lebanon, and the very 
 next passengers that came up from Hhaiffa watched the flames and 
 smoke rising from our beloved Beit Miry. 
 
 The Archbishop Spaccapietra took us, on the following day, to see 
 the Institution of the Sceurs de St. Vincent de Paul, which stands 
 immediately behind the east gate of the town ; it is now a very large 
 establishment, built round two squares, and containing eight schools 
 for different classes of girls, all free except the upper class of boarders, 
 who are the daughters of native Consuls, merchants, &c. ; these pay 
 a small sum, and have their dormitory divided by curtains, into 
 separate apartments : they numbered about fifty. There were sixty 
 other boarders, forty day-scholars, and more than one hundred 
 orphans and foundlings * : besides an upper school for training girls 
 
 * Another 100 have been added since the massacres in the mountains, and 
 they are in hopes of soon having funds sufficient for the support of many more 
 orphans. 
 
461 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 as schoolmistresses : one of these assistant-teachers taught in every 
 classroom under the direction of a Sister. Every class was in- 
 structed in reading and writing, both in Arabic and French : plain 
 work and various kinds of embroidery, arithmetic, music and sing- 
 ing ; their writing struck us as marvellous : many little girls from 
 eight to twelve years old, who had only been in the school two or 
 three years, produced copybooks of admirable writing in both lan- 
 guages; every page was embellished with borders composed of 
 flourishes, arabesques, flowers and leaves, of their own design as well 
 as execution, and all spotlessly clean : many of the designs were 
 excellent. Their needlework was also very good, even to the Arch- 
 bishop’s satisfaction : we were extremely amused to hear him giving 
 an elaborate lecture to his chaplain upon the qualities and charac- 
 teristics of stitching, and explaining to him the proper finish of a 
 well-made button-hole ! The schools are open to children of any 
 creed : Christians, Mooslims, &c., all are taken in who wish to enter 
 it, but of course no difference is made in the lessons they learn. 
 
 Attached to the schools is a Hospital, served by two of the Sisters : 
 it is in the midst of a garden, the roses climbing pleasantly about 
 the windows of the sick wards, each of which contains thirty beds ; 
 the women’s ward was quite full at the time of our visit ; the natives 
 come from great distances to seek the assistance of the Sisters in the 
 Dispensary, which is crowded for some hours every morning, and 
 we heard of several rich people who thought so highly of their skill, 
 that they came disguised as poor persons in order to obtain it ; they 
 have been very successful in their treatment of ophthalmia, the curse 
 of hot countries : the patients frequently amount to three hundred 
 and four hundred a day. 
 
 It was thirteen years since the Mother and a few of the Sisters 
 arrived from France : they had but some half-a-dozen francs between 
 them, and had much difficulty in getting enough to build a house : 
 then came long nursing in the Cholera, followed by some other 
 equally fearful epidemics, which put off the commencement of their 
 schools : one young Sister died of the fever caught in attending 
 prisoners in the Serai, and we heard some touching stories of the 
 earnest, affectionate anxiety the men showed about her, and of their 
 sorrow for her death ; her funeral was attended not only by all the 
 Consuls in Beyrout, but the Pasha sent three of his officers to repre- 
 sent him at the ceremony. The next Pasha also showed the 
 greatest confidence in them, and once, when a criminal condemned 
 to death was given up to them to nurse in a severe illness, and died 
 in their hospital, the Superior sent to the Pasha to request he would 
 have the body identified, as is usual in such cases, but he only 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 465 
 
 answered that it was quite unnecessary, as he could trust to the word 
 of a Sister better than to aught else. This was considered an extra- 
 ordinary mark of confidence, but truth and earnestness in work are 
 always appreciated by the Mooslims. All the buildings they now 
 have, and they are really fine ones, have been erected from small 
 subscriptions and alms, not without many difficulties and trials ; 
 there were nineteen Sisters at the time of our visit, but they were 
 hoping soon to welcome more of them from France. 
 
 A few days after this, when tidings of horror were beginning to 
 creep in from the mountains, and vague fears and anxieties were 
 painting themselves on every face, we took advantage of the French 
 steamer to carry us up to Latakia. We left Beyrout in the evening, 
 and early the next morning went ashore to make our third visit to 
 Tripoli, as the steamer was to remain there all day. 
 
 It is a pity that artists do not go to Tripoli, for no place is better 
 worthy of their study for “ street bits the costumes of Saida and 
 Hebron are as bright and fresh as those of Tripoli, but the streets 
 themselves are built in a handsomer style both in the Marina and 
 the inner town, the cafes on the river-side are more romantic, and 
 the mosques more ornamental. Orange groves are very plentiful, 
 and not only is the fruit piled up in every shop, biit the windows 
 are everywhere bowered in branches of the trees, with dozens of 
 the golden fruit still hanging from them. The mountains rise so 
 abruptly and grandly from immediately behind the town : the large 
 gardens and fine old castles mingle so prettily with the rocks and 
 sea, that altogether it is a charming spot. We passed a pleasant 
 day, buying carpets and sketching, enjoying the delicious climate 
 among the gardens on the sea-shore. 
 
 On arriving at Latakia, we immediately inquired for horses and 
 mules, intending to pursue our way to Suediyeh, across the moun- 
 tains, a four days’ journey : they did not, however, seem easy to be 
 had ; at this season numbers of horses are sent down to the districts 
 of Judaea on account of the pilgrims, and as all the tolerably good 
 ones that remain are put out to grass, it is very difficult to obtain 
 any. Unluckily it entered into our heads to go by sea, and we in- 
 quired about the boats, just now being made ready for the first days 
 of the sponge fishing or gathering : and at last we decided upon 
 hiring one for 150 piasters, a severe sirocco having filled our souls 
 with suffocation when we thought of the four days’ ride ; besides 
 which we were assured that six hours of the clear, cool moonlight 
 would carry us to Suediyeh. A sail was rigged up, tent-fashion, 
 over a hole, four feet by five, and everything that could be done to 
 make us comfortable was arranged by our kind Consul . So we left 
 
 2 H 
 
466 
 
 E G YETI A N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 Latakia, with a favourable breeze and the moon shining gloriously 
 over our heads, packing ourselves with our maid, like spoons in a 
 row, into the small hole, with the awning about three feet above our 
 heads. In about an hour the delightful breeze died away, the men 
 turned sleepy and wouldn’t pull : and, oh, horror of horrors ! two 
 whole days and nights we rocked and rolled in our flat-bottomed 
 tub upon that hot and glaring sea ! after twenty-four hours of it, we 
 drew to land, and took to bathing in a shady nook, hoping that the 
 salt water might prove a little distasteful to the myriads of wretches 
 that had been making carnival on the strangers. 
 
 The worst of it was that, shut into our hole, broiled, baked, and 
 qualmish, we could not look out enough to enjoy the scenery : we 
 could only see that the coast was really pretty all along the foot of 
 Mount Casius: the numerous little bays and creeks, the various 
 ranges of hills dipping their rocky feet in the blue water, added to 
 the very bright greens of the prickly oak, terebinth, and myrtle, with 
 the gay flowers, all combine to make it very enjoyable — when one 
 can see it. We crossed the bar of the Orontes near sunset on the 
 second day, too late to get horses for our luggage, and only a strong 
 breeze will carry a boat against the current of the river ; so we had 
 to sleep another night in our hole, dining on the shore by the light 
 of the moon which shone down on the rocky defiles that form the 
 amphitheatre of hills enclosing the rich little plain of Suediyeh — the 
 ancient Seleucia. The eagle who showed Seleucus where to place 
 his city, was an eagle of taste as well as wisdom : but in these days the 
 meek little silkworm reigns sole sovereign of the plain. Accustomed 
 to the mountains clothed and terraced with mulberries throughout 
 the Lebanon, the vivid greens of the gardens were not new to our 
 eyes, but nowhere had we seen such mulberries as these: not 
 sparingly planted as in the Lebanon, but closely crowded, with 
 branches so loaded with leaves one wondered if there was space for 
 one more : or how the small number of families in the place could 
 gather half as many in the course of a silk season. The leaves, how- 
 ever, are used as fodder for the cows, especially when, as has been 
 the case for several years, the worms partially fail, for a few hours of 
 severe sirocco sometimes kill every silkworm in a district. These 
 mulberry gardens are divided by well-made roads with a water- 
 course on each side, and a high hedge of luxuriant pomegranates, 
 tangled over with wild vines, while myrtle, apricots, peaches, plums, 
 olives, and figs are seen everywhere. There is nothing prettier in 
 Nature than a pomegranate hedge in summer : the trees grow so 
 gracefully, and the peculiar dark yet bright glossy green of the leaf 
 contrasts so well with the myriads of gorgeous scarlet blossoms. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 467 
 
 We pitched our tents on a little olive-shaded hill, whence we 
 could enjoy the lovely view of the gardens and their Swiss-looking 
 cottages, the winding river, the sea, and the noble mountains. 
 Right opposite to us was Mount Casius, 5318 feet high, rising 
 abruptly from the water, with deep, narrow ravines and chasms, 
 but all covered over with a green velvet mantle of underwood, and 
 bright little sloping uplands : the apex, a cone of white limestone, 
 alone deserving the Arab appellation of Okra — the Bald Mountain. 
 The wood on this mountain is said to be beautiful : the myrtle 
 covers its feet until replaced by lofty oaks, which are succeeded by 
 pine forests : then, after 3500 feet above the sea, come glades of 
 birch, pear, apple, and quince trees : while huge scarlet peonies, 
 yellow asphodel, violets, and pansies flourish up to the very edge of 
 the snow on the summit. The bay, which curves round at its foot, 
 is varied by remarkably bright orange cliffs, cropping out here and 
 there, while the successive lines of green corn, mulberries and fruit 
 gardens, fill up the flat plain to the foot of the Pierian range on the 
 northern side. These cliffs are the heel of the Amanus Mountains, 
 which form the south-eastern side of the Gulf of Iskenderoon, and 
 there join the great Taurus range : under the projecting promon- 
 tory of these mountains — the Pig’s Head, as it is called in Arabic— 
 was the fine port, harbour, and fortress of Seleucia Pieria : built by 
 Seleucus Nicator, the first king of Syria, b.c. 300, on the site of a 
 more ancient fortress. 
 
 Half-an-hour after leaving the gardens of Suediyeh, the road leads 
 under fine bluffs of rocks, almost honeycombed with grottoes and 
 excavated tombs, which extend up to the very back of the old town, 
 and are now much inhabited by the peasants. After passing the 
 remains of a large gateway, the city wall is distinctly to be traced 
 the whole way to the shore, the ancient masonry rising in many 
 places several feet above the ground : within these walls, about a 
 quarter of a mile from the sea, is the basin or dock for the galleys, 
 which occupies an area of 47 acres, and is now half filled up with 
 mud. From this a passage between two thick walls, about 350 
 yards long, led out into the sea : the great gate which separated the 
 passage from the basin, dosed between two strong towers, the bases 
 of which were cut from the living rock, and still seem loftily guard- 
 ing the way. The harbour, which is now much sanded up, had for- 
 merly two strong jetties, curving towards each other, built of fine 
 blocks of stone united by iron clamps : the greater part of one jetty 
 remains and some of the other. The view hence is striking, as one 
 looks back across the ancient walls and the rock- cut passage : 
 through which one can fancy the Roman galleys gallantly passing 
 
 2 h 2 
 
468 
 
 E G YETI A N SEPUL CURES 
 
 in, with all their oars outspread ; the mighty handiworks of ancient 
 days contrasting with the split and tumbled-down rocks and walls, 
 and the simple chalets of the silkworms and their tenders ; behind 
 them all stood the noble mountain covered with the rich green of 
 the myrtles and oleanders and mulberries, and every here and there 
 the darker spots of the squared or arched entrances to the ancient 
 tombs. 
 
 But a greater work than basin or jetty yet remains to be seen : 
 this is a cutting in the solid rock, nearly three quarters of a mile 
 long, in some places 120 feet deep, and averaging twenty-four feet 
 wide, mostly open to the air, but in many parts tunnelled through 
 the rock; a little channel for a small stream of water runs nearly 
 all the way along the side, keeping at a level height, while in one 
 place a staircase is cut out and descends to within fourteen feet of 
 the bottom, which was probably the usual level of the water. This 
 magnificent work is believed to have been made to carry off the 
 water (which might otherwise have injured both the city and the 
 basin) from the ravine behind the town, where it collected from the 
 hillsides and poured off into this tunnel; as even now, spite of 
 fallen rocks and other obstacles, the water in winter still fills up 
 the mighty excavation to the depth of fourteen or sixteen feet ; and 
 possibly another cutting, now much filled up and grown over, on 
 the other side of a solid wall, which may have been a huge dam, 
 was used to convey the stream occasionally into the basin or dock. 
 For whatever purpose it was constructed, it was a very splendid 
 work, and a triumph of labour, which must have cost many years, 
 and very many hands to accomplish. We could discover no inscrip- 
 tions or carvings, save one small tablet, about a foot square, at the 
 eastern entrance, on which is very distinctly cut the oval of an 
 eyelid, but without the eye itself. 
 
 The tombs in the rocks are well worth visiting : nearly all have 
 but one entrance : to a few, however, there are two or three arches in 
 front, divided by small columns : the principal Tomb — that “ of the 
 King,” as the Arabs say — is very large ; three arches give entrance 
 to the outer chamber, the eight corners of which are ornamented 
 with fan shells, and lead into a much larger chamber surrounded by 
 arched niches, under which are tombs; some others are cut in the 
 floor of the chamber ; none of the lids remain, but the grooves upon 
 which they were fastened are still visible. We counted about forty 
 tombs in the one room or hall, two of which are very peculiar, 
 standing in the centre of the chamber, they have been cut from the 
 rock in isolated sarcophagi under a canopy supported at each corner 
 by a column, looking much like an old-fashioned four-post bedstead : 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 469 
 
 the columns have rough capitals. Another room leads off from the 
 right hand of the outer chamber, containing twelve or fourteen 
 niches with handsome fan-shell ornaments, the same as those used 
 in all the niches of the Temples of Baalbek, but roughly executed 
 here : the entrance to this chamber is by a semicircular arch with 
 six or seven mouldings. All the Tombs have been opened at some 
 early date, but many Greek inscriptions have been found in later 
 times : numbers of the sarcophagi are ornamented with garlands or 
 wreaths, and contained small terra-cotta jars for the ashes of the 
 dead. 
 
 A statue of large size, but headless, was dug up from a garden 
 near the city wall, a year or two ago : it is of some river-god, per- 
 haps Poseidon himself, habited in well-sculptured drapery, with a 
 vase in one arm from which water is flowing : probably it was the 
 personification of the Orontes. 
 
 The fire-flies danced round us as we rode back across the scented 
 plain, and the great yellow moon illuminated even the colours of 
 the pomegranates and oleanders, as we passed along the gardens up 
 to our tents. More than commonly rich are the perfumes of this 
 plain, for the late Mr. Barker *, who planted fully half of it, brought 
 together into his own garden hundreds of trees and plants from far 
 distant lands ; Chinese, Persian, North and South American, and 
 Indian flowers and fruits grow luxuriantly on the Syrian plain, 
 and add their exotic beauties to the many lovely productions 
 indigenous to the country. The garden is surrounded by trellises 
 of Muscat vines, which bear abundantly, and the wine made from 
 which was most delicious. The liquorice plant covers the whole of 
 this country with its pretty lilac flowers, among which francolins, 
 partridges, snipe, and quantities of other game hide themselves. 
 
 The bay of Suediyeh supplies a very delicious little fish, called 
 by the natives “ Sultan Ibrahim it is a kind of red mullet, but 
 very small, rich and delicate in flavour and of the prettiest bright 
 colours. 
 
 But there is nothing so pretty about the plain of Suediyeh as the 
 women, whose large, lustrous, black eyes gleam from dark faces far 
 more delicately and sweetly formed than those of any other Syrian 
 women we had seen. The women of Nazareth and Bethlehem cer- 
 tainly are handsome, but they are cast in a rather clumsy, coarse 
 mould, which is not particularly engaging ; and though they have 
 
 * The late Mr. Barker settled at Suediyeh about thirty years ago, devoting 
 himself to the improvement of the land and of the peasantry. He was much 
 beloved and respected by them all, and is one of the very few Christians of 
 whom the Mooslims say, “ he is Merhoum ,” i.e. blessed, and at rest with God. 
 
470 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 been celebrated by so many travellers, I never could see as much to 
 admire in them, as in the sweet, smiling little mouth and white 
 teeth, the straight noses and slight figures of their charming sisters 
 of Northern Syria. They wear an ugly costume of a coarse stuff, 
 drab coloured, without any relieving tints ; however, their faces are, 
 fortunately, unveiled. The men of Suediyeh are chiefly Ansayreeh, 
 the curious sect about whose tenets and secret rites so little is 
 known : they have most pleasant, courteous manners, and are re- 
 markably handsome and well-made men, with open, intelligent 
 countenances; they dress gaily in bright crimson and orange abbahs 
 and white shirts, and nearly all have red leather boots reaching to 
 the knees. They call themselves simply Fellaheen, disliking to be 
 given the name of Ansayreeh, and are most friendly with the Chris- 
 tians, but very quarrelsome with the Mooslims : they never speak 
 of their own creed, and are too abstemious and sober ever to let out 
 the slightest allusion to their secrets ; it is said that, if any person 
 should ever by accident approach them when they are holding a 
 sacred feast, his life would be in great danger, if he was not fortu- 
 nate enough to steal away unobserved. People say they worship 
 the Sun and Moon, but this is probably untrue : they appear to keep 
 some feasts relating to our Lord and His blessed Mother, as they 
 believe Him to have been one of the Incarnations of the Deity ; the 
 virtues they seem to prize the most, are those of hospitality and 
 generosity among themselves ; at their meetings for worship, which 
 are held near the Tomb of one of their Saints, a feast is always 
 made for the poorer brethren. Like the Metouaalees and Druzes 
 they say that the archangel Gabriel made a mistake in bringing the 
 revelation of the true religion to Muhammad, as it was in reality 
 intended for his son-in-law 'Ali. 
 
 A very pretty ride is the road to Antioch from this Seleucian 
 plain, passing chiefly along the banks of the Orontes : we took the 
 road by the south bank, crossing and recrossing ever so many 
 streams, and were finally ferried over the wide and rapid current of 
 the muddy river in a rude boat, secured by stout vine tendrils, by 
 way of ropes, to each shore ! The road lay through fruit gardens 
 and miles of luxuriant shrubs and flowers with lofty trees : poplars, 
 lime, and maple, which, with the pretty mountain views, rejoiced 
 one’s heart and eyes. Along these shady lanes, 1800 years ago, 
 came the two Apostles Paul and Barnabas, weary, perhaps, in body, 
 but “ strong in the Lord,” when, having been “ separated for the 
 work” at Antioch, they “ departed unto Seleucia, and from thence 
 they sailed to Cyprus.” After nearly five hours’ riding, we turned 
 up over a hill, where we saw curious cavern tombs, and the remains 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 471 
 
 of an underground aqueduct ; and, after riding over a flat plain, 
 arrived suddenly at the edge of a steep descent into a deep, 
 close dell, between the plain and the foot of the mountain. The 
 banks of the dell were thickly covered with shrubs and shady trees 
 in tangled masses, through which a hundred streams were dashing 
 in cascades of snowy foam, with loud and half deafening music : 
 this beautiful spot was the famous grove of Daphne, where wild 
 revels were annually held by the thousands of pilgrims who came 
 to enjoy its deliciousness. Of the noble Temples, dedicated to 
 Apollo, which long ago adorned the groves, whence the mysterious 
 voice of the Oracle issued, not a trace now remains, except in the 
 stones of- a dozen corn-mills turned by the once sacred streams ; 
 these are still surrounded by the thickets of bay and aromatic 
 shrubs sacred to the gay god. The sacred cypress has dis- 
 appeared, and is replaced by mulberries and figs; the words of 
 ancient wisdom are hushed, prophecy is no more, the Arcadia is 
 withered, and naught remains to whisper legends of the god of 
 Love, and Light, and Poesy,” but the perfumes of the groves he 
 loved, and the echoes of the shepherd’s pipe, which sound sweetly 
 through the valley. But ere these changes had been quite effected, 
 the unholy atmosphere of this “ sensual paradise ” had been purified 
 or at least neutralised by the bones of St. Babylas, a martyred 
 Bishop of Antioch : while, much to the disgust of the priests of 
 Apollo, a Christian church was erected in the very heart of the 
 sacred grove of Daphne. Julian the Apostate, however, made them 
 happy by the removal of the episcopal remains, but on the very 
 same night the Temple was set on fire, it was said by the lightnings 
 of Heaven, and the statue of Apollo entirely consumed. Julian’s 
 reign was no sooner over than Daphne was resanctified by the 
 restoration of the holy bones to their original resting-place, and the 
 memory of the miracle became as dear to the hearts of the Christians 
 as the oracles of Apollo had been to Pagan worshippers. 
 
 We rested for some time under the shade of a splendid lime-tree 
 before we pursued our way along the pleasant lanes, passing through 
 Ansayreeh villages, of neatly built houses, roofed with tiles, and 
 with little gardens enclosed in osier woven fences ; less than two 
 hours took us to Antioch — proud old Antioch — spreading out in 
 the broad, flat, fertile plain at the feet of the fantastic crags of 
 Mount Silpius ; the Orontes shining brightly in its numerous wind- 
 ings past the city, while on the other side of the valley many a 
 fine peak or cone, in the rugged outline of the Amanus Mountains, 
 lost themselves in little wreaths of light mist resting here and there 
 on their summits. Our tents were pitched outside the town, and 
 
472 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 near the river, where gigantic sakiyah wheels are employed to raise 
 water into the gardens, groaning loudly and distressfully at every 
 turn. Not far off were two huge structures built by Ibrahim Pasha 
 as a palace for himself and barracks for his troops ; only the shells 
 have ever been completed, and from these the roofing was taken by 
 the English Consul, with the permission of the Government, for the 
 barracks built for the Land Transport Corps at the time of the 
 Crimean War : it is said that the walls are going to be pulled down 
 now. These ill-fated buildings were raised from materials, taken by 
 the Pasha, from the ancient walls and fortifications of the city. 
 
 Antioch retains its ancient name in the Arab appellation of 
 Antakie: its site like that of Seleucia, was chosen by Seleucus 
 Nicator, from the alighting of an eagle after sacrifice on Mount 
 Silpius, and named by its founder after his father Antiochus : it is 
 royally well placed. During the 300 years which followed its foun- 
 dation up to the Christian era, the kings of Syria delighted to add 
 fresh beauties to their metropolis : temples, palaces, colonnades, and 
 bridges adorned the streets : Pompey added new temples, baths, 
 theatres, aqueducts, and a basilica. These, and the grand colonnade 
 leading from the city gate along the Beroea or Aleppo road, must 
 have been standing in undiminished glory when Barnabas the 
 Apostle brought Paul from Tarsus to assist him in “ opening the 
 door of faith ” to the Gentiles of Antioch : the first converts that 
 called themselves by the name of Christians. The good seed sown 
 by them grew and increased, and brought forth fruit abundantly, 
 watered from time to time by the blood of martyrs, and sending out 
 into the world fathers and confessors of the faith, and scholars of 
 great renown, from whom she earned the name of " the Eye of the 
 Christian Church,” until about 600 years after Christ, when the 
 Persians under Chosroes destroyed the whole city. Once more' re- 
 built by the Saracens, she saw the first onset of the Crusaders in 
 Syria ; they had already undergone great sufferings in crossing Asia 
 Minor, and many a ghastly corpse had strewed the mountain passes 
 of Cilicia ; but the very terrible sufferings that afflicted them during 
 the seven months’ siege of Antioch were only equalled by the 
 supreme valour which distinguished the army of Godfrey de 
 Bouillon. The horrors of famine and pestilence had been brought 
 on by their own improvidence and the shameless sensuality which 
 pervaded the camp : jealousy of each other hampered every measure 
 and protracted the duration of the siege: and only treachery at 
 length enabled a small body of men to scale a distant postern, when 
 nearly every man, woman, and child in the city was massacred by 
 the Christian troops in June, 1098. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 473 
 
 Much of the Roman fortifications are still standing, and can be 
 descried from a great distance : as they are carried straight up the 
 steep sides of the mountain, they are very fatiguing to examine : the 
 finest portion, however, is within an easy walk along a good path. 
 This part is the “ Iron Gate ” * which defended the eastern end of 
 the city from the attack of an army stealing in through the narrow 
 mountain pass on the southern side : the only road from whence 
 they could be hidden from the citizens. The ravine, which is exces- 
 sively narrow and lofty, turns with a sudden elbow round the end 
 of Mount Silpius, and is filled up with a solid and immense wall of 
 masonry (built with intervening lines of Roman red tiles), fitted to 
 the rough natural sides of the gorge as if the walls had grown into 
 the rocks : it stands across the ravine rising to about half the height 
 of the mountain ; from thence another wall ran up the dizzy height 
 to the summit, where it met the many-towered wall that had come 
 up from the western end of the town, and had passed frowning along 
 the mountain top, looking down from this height and enclosing all 
 one side of the city. Just at the summit are the remains of a church 
 dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul : and here the city wall was 
 built in a row of arches, open on one side, easily distinguished from 
 the city. The wall descended from the Iron Gate into the plain, 
 passing below the ancient Church of St. John, lately purchased by 
 the French with a piece of ground for a cemetery. This church is 
 in fact a very ancient excavation from the living rock : two pillars 
 have been left standing in front as a portico. In one corner, close 
 beside the altar, is a small well, and the grotto seems to have been 
 excavated some way further : the colours on the sides can still be 
 traced : and the simple rude solemnity of the time-honoured spot 
 seemed a fitting place for the streams of living eloquence poured 
 forth to the scholars and disputers of the proud old city, 
 
 “ awed by truth divine 
 
 Breathed through the golden lips of Chrysostom ! ” 
 
 Some way above this, and only to be reached by a steep scramble 
 up the cliff, there are some curious colossal figures sculptured on 
 the face of the rock ; one is a female head and figure down to the 
 waist, the features are worn away, but the hair is still distinct, 
 parted in the centre and rolled back : beside her stands a full-length 
 male figure ; the view over the beautiful plain from them is fine. 
 The ancient Aleppo Gate, Bab Bulus— Gate of Paul — is still standing 
 
 * The « Iron Gates ” of this Pass are usually confounded in descriptions of 
 the sieges of Antioch with the bridge on the plain at the north side of the 
 town : this bridge was closed at one end by iron gates, — hence the mistake. 
 
474 
 
 E G YPTIAN SEPUL CERES 
 
 a handsome archway shaded by a fine lime-tree : thence the wall 
 may be traced through the plain half-way to the bank of the river, 
 and at a short distance beyond it are some very remarkable and 
 mysterious remains. First, there is a series of thirteen masses of 
 solid masonry shaped like buttresses ; the height of each is fourteen 
 feet and the width fifteen feet : but as there is no trace of any wall 
 which they had once supported, they must have been erected for 
 some other object : nothing is now to be seen but the heavy masses 
 of stone and cement. 
 
 At the distance of a hundred yards or more from these, are some 
 massive, broad walls, built in two oblongs one within the other, 
 with an opening on three sides : these walls are fourteen feet high 
 and twelve feet thick, and are built of an extremely hard cement : 
 at the northern end inside both is a detached mass of masonry of the 
 same width and height as the wall, and at the same distance from 
 the inner one as they are from each other. It is difficult to ima- 
 gine for what purpose these walls could have been originally con- 
 structed ; the only conjecture that seems in the least probable is that 
 it was a theatre for sea-fights, the part between the walls being 
 always kept full of water with gates to let it pass at pleasure into 
 the inner court : the spectators may have been placed on the top of 
 these thick walls, to which they mounted by exterior steps : the 
 proximity of the spot to the river seems to favour this idea. It has 
 also been suggested that the buttresses supported an aqueduct 
 bringing water to this theatre, but they do not appear to lie in con- 
 nection with this building, nor to have any special adaptation to an 
 aqueduct. The walls of the city, in the plain, are still distinct: 
 very fine walls they have been and marvellously massive : history 
 tells that they were wide enongh for two chariots to drive abreast 
 on them. 
 
 We were very much pleased with Antioch : there is great variety 
 in the scenery : the mountain peaks are more sudden and varied 
 than is usual in Syria, the plain is particularly rich, and the river 
 is a very noble stream ; in its days of glory Antioch must indeed 
 have been magnificent ; it was called the third city in the world. 
 It is a remarkably healthy place : the strong breeze down the wide, 
 open valleys blows away all miasma, so that fevers and epidemics 
 are little known. The people are somewhat fanatical, but thrifty 
 and industrious. 
 
 We left Antioch after a few days’ most pleasant sojourn in the 
 hospitable house of our Consul, and wended our way along the rich, 
 fiat plain, fording many small streams and passing several ancient 
 ruined bridges and aqueducts, around each and all of which were 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 475 
 
 complete forests of oleander. After about five hours’ slow riding 
 we turned up one of the defiles of the Amanus Mountains, and 
 reached a large ruined khan, where we expected to find our tents all 
 ready : but our interesting Arab cook, a man we had engaged at 
 Latakia, had piled up all the luggage in a heap, and was sitting 
 quietly smoking beside it when we arrived, coolly remarking that 
 he “ couldn’t think where to pitch them.” It was then quite dark, 
 and the pitching was slow work : we fell fast asleep on the grass 
 while waiting, and were much astonished when at 11 p.h. we were 
 wakened with the announcement that dinner was ready. 
 
 Our ride, on the following day, was a lovely one : we wound up 
 the steep pass of Bey lan, enjoying beautiful views of the plain of 
 Aleppo and the great lake — Bahr-el-Abiad — stretching far away, 
 while our path led among the most charming glades and glens 
 clothed with thick forests of various kinds of oak and pine, filled up 
 with judas-trees, laurustinus, and myrtle, while the pass became 
 continually higher, grander, and more richly wooded. I am sure 
 there is not anywhere in Syria so fine a pass : the scenery and 
 foliage of the valley itself is worthy of the Mysian Mount Olympus : 
 but the views from it are not equal to the magnificent surroundings 
 of Broussa. Almost the whole way the old Bornan road was invisible, 
 but the broken remains were worse than the roughest natural 
 ground: fortunately there is usually a narrow track beside it. 
 Beylan is known in all history as the “ Iron Gate of Syria it is 
 the only entrance into the country from the Gulf of Issus — now 
 called of Iskenderoon — and it is not easy to enumerate its various 
 appearances in history. The armies of both the First and Second 
 Crusade passed through the long defile, weary and wayworn, with 
 but few remaining of the gallant thousands that had started from 
 Europe : Alexander the Great, flushed with the utter defeat of the 
 Persian army under Darius Codomanus, the last king of that great 
 empire, triumphantly advanced through the “ Iron Gates ” for the 
 conquest of Phoenicia, which ended in the capture and destruction 
 of Tyre : and along here the “ Son of Consolation,” the Apostle 
 Barnabas, went from Antioch to seek Saul, the zealous convert, at 
 his home in Tarsus, and brought him back to teach much people 
 at Antioch. 
 
 The caravans to Aleppo and Antioch all pass along this road, and 
 we found it gay with passengers. In about three hours Ve came 
 in sight of the town of Beylan, most picturesquely perched on 
 ledges of the mountain, up both sides; the gorge is throughout exces- 
 sively narrow, with only room for a powerful torrent at the bottom, 
 but the depths are bridged in several places with fine aqueducts 
 
476 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 mounted on double arches, and its sides are richly ornamented with 
 wood, from out of which a thousand foamy cataracts come tumbling 
 down with marvellous beauty : it is a place for any kind of romance, 
 there is such variety and grandeur in the scene at every step. 
 Various Sultans have at different times enriched the town with 
 mosques and other buildings, but there is nothing handsome about 
 it now : it is but an enchanting combination of wild, savage, and 
 fantastic rocks, luxuriant foliage, graceful cascades, and shelf after 
 shelf of yellow-brown houses, each with its little dome and open 
 verandah, clinging round the deep ravines of the great chasm- 
 The men are a very fine-looking, well-dressed set, and bear a good 
 character : the women, soft-eyed and handsome ; but they wear the 
 most frightful dress — an eezar or cotton sheet enveloping the figure 
 from the head to the feet in one great bundle, of a deep brickdust 
 red ! 
 
 We found a delightful garden just beyond the town where we 
 encamped under the shade of fine pomegranate trees, then in full 
 blossom : hence we could make excursions, on foot, among the rocks 
 and gardens of the ravine, until it was time to go down to meet the 
 steamer at Iskenderoon (or Alexandretta). Just beyond the town, 
 the road has been cut through the promontory on the east side of 
 the gorge to the depth of about forty feet — this was the “Iron 
 Gate here a handful of men could have kept a large army at bay 
 for almost any length of time, so tremendously steep are the sides 
 of the ravine. Passing round this projecting cliff, the sea burst 
 upon our view : the vast Bay of Issus — with the beautiful snow- 
 covered heights of the Taurus Mountains on the other side and 
 Iskenderoon on the little plain by the shore ; our steamer was 
 descried waiting there, even her colours visible in the clear air. 
 We descended to the plain in two hours, winding through delightful 
 woods all the time and enjoying the noble panorama. But after the 
 fresh, sweet, healthy mountain air the stifling heat of the unwhole- 
 some marshy plain, reeking with fever, was most disagreeable : it 
 is said that a very little drainage would render this plain perfectly 
 healthy and productive ; the soil is very rich, but so deadly is the 
 miasma that there are scarcely any inhabitants to cultivate it ; the 
 town is a miserable collection of huts, mostly made of osiers and 
 wattles, with the strange little sleeping-places mounted up on high 
 poles, such as we had seen at Banias, to ensure the occupants from 
 snakes, scorpions, &c. We did not linger longer in the town than 
 to see the caravan for Baghdad starting on its long march, and 
 another for Aleppo ; both carry on the passengers and merchandise 
 brought by the steamers. The road from this to Baghdad is the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 477 
 
 easiest of all the land routes to that city, avoiding the great heat 
 and fatigue of the Palmyra Desert, and passing through green 
 meadow-land the whole way ; the caravan marches to Mosul* and 
 the passengers then descend the Tigris to Baghdad. 
 
 I had a raging headache, for the low fever then lurking in me was 
 brought out instantly by exposure to the slightest miasma : and it 
 was therefore with but half-opened eyes that I saw the shores of 
 Syria receding from us as we pushed off in the little boat from 
 Iskenderoon. One year and one week had elapsed since we 
 had first touched the shores of Syria in this very spot, when the 
 snowy mountains and the glowing oleanders had given us as sweet 
 a welcome as they now bade us a kind good-bye : then, much as we 
 anticipated and expected, we little knew the pleasure and happiness 
 in store for us ; now — the serene days of our dear little mountain 
 home— the magnificent country rides— the glorious Desert and the 
 wild Bedoueen— the long, long stay in the desolated but ever Holy 
 and beloved City— bright and sunny hours with kind and valued 
 friends — all rushed into my mind, and made my heart sink with 
 the same feeling as that of parting from a long and tenderly loved 
 companion, as my foot quitted that sandy shore. 
 
 Farewell, most Holy Land : Farewell, dear and beautiful Syria ; 
 already the blood of her massacred natives was crying out from 
 the earth, and the flame and the smoke of her burning houses was 
 rising into the unclouded sky ; and yet we dare to hope and believe 
 that the day will come when industry and enterprise will be spread 
 throughout the country, and happy homesteads clothe the mountains 
 and fill the pleasant valleys ; when truth and justice and honesty 
 will be found in every village, and honour in every heart ; and, 
 better than all, when Salvation by the Cross of Christ, Whose Blood 
 was shed for us in that sacred country, will be proclaimed from 
 north to south, from end to end, making “ the Desert to blossom 
 like the rose.” 
 
478 
 
 E G YETI A N SEPUL CURES 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 KNIGHTS OP THE PAST AND HEROES OF THE PRESENT. 
 
 We had written by the steamer of the previous fortnight to engage 
 horses to be ready for ns on landing at Mersina, and the English 
 Consul obligingly sent a boat and kawass to bring us on shore early 
 in the morning, as we were anxious to occupy the time of the 
 steamer’s stay at Mersina in visiting the fine ruins of Pompeiopolis 
 or Soli — now called Mezetlu ; it is about five miles from the town, 
 the ride passing near the sea-shore, along a plain densely covered 
 with thickets of myrtle, and a few oleanders : two streams are crossed, 
 both pleasantly shaded by trees. 
 
 Soli was peopled by a colony from Rhodes, and is mentioned by 
 Strabo as a city of renown : it was destroyed by Tigranes, king of 
 Armenia, and rebuilt by Pompey, who gave it his own name. The 
 port was enclosed by two fine jetties with circular ends, constructed 
 of large stones, secured by iron clamps, and filled in with rubble; 
 much of these still remain, but at the time of our visit a Turkish 
 boat was loading with the stones at the end of each jetty, to use in 
 some other building: and perhaps by this time both have dis- 
 appeared. Opposite the harbour, at a short distance from the 
 shore, there once stood a noble portico, at the commencement of an 
 avenue of 200 columns which led up to a temple further inland: 
 forty of these columns are still standing on one side and four 
 on the other, and the ground is strewed with their fallen drums. 
 At the southern end some stones yet remain above the columns, 
 enough to show that it was once vaulted over, so as to form a 
 covered way : but it is remarkable that some two or three of the 
 columns are shorter than the rest ; most of them are about thirty 
 feet high and plain, but some are fluted vertically, others spirally:- 
 all have acanthus capitals, amongst the leaves of which heads of 
 Venus and Hercules also appear : the work of all is poor and not in 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 479 
 
 good taste. They are now enclosed in deep groves of myrtle and 
 laurustinus, &c. 
 
 Near this are the remains of a once fine theatre, now almost 
 bnried in the soil; it was built of white marble, and had a cornice 
 running all round the top of wreaths, sculptured with tragic 
 masks: some of the vomitories still remain; the figure of a Yenus, 
 life-size, sculptured in white marble, but broken, was found here. 
 The city walls are also traceable, with the ruins of small forts all 
 round them; and the tombs are said to be peculiar and very 
 interesting, resembling the large and very curious mausoleums 
 discovered at Tarsus.* This little expedition was very pleasant; 
 full time is allowed for it by every French steamer, and horses of 
 some kind are always procurable. 
 
 We found the town of Mersina perfectly full of Tartars, whom 
 the Turks called Circassians (Tcherkesses) : these poor creatures 
 belonged to a tribe called Nogay, and of course became Eussian 
 subjects from the time of her conquest of the Caucasus : but, being 
 Mooslims, and very much attached to their religion, they could not 
 endure being under the yoke of Eussia, and they, therefore, about 
 two years ago, applied to the Sultan for his protection and assistance 
 in emigrating from the hated empire. The Sultan acquiesced in 
 their demands, and sent ships to Kertch and Poti to bring them off: 
 at first, the Turkish Government allowed them three piasters a day 
 per head, and promised each man a bullock and agricultural imple- 
 ments: but neither were ever forthcoming, and when the number 
 of emigrants amounted to some thousands, the money could no 
 longer be given ; they came down in batches of from 800 to 1000 at 
 a time, men, women, and children; fine, active fellows, and as we 
 were told, excellent workmen, but there was nothing for them to 
 do ; and horrible as their sufferings were during the three weeks’ or 
 month’s voyage, usually without food or covering, huddled on the 
 decks f, yet they were scarcely more miserable than on arriving at 
 their destination. 
 
 The Sultan gave them a small island in the Sea of Marmora and 
 the great plain of Adana and Selefkeh, south of the Taurus : and 
 on this they were turned out as soon as they reached Mersina ; at 
 the time of our visit they already numbered 20,000 — 13,000 having 
 died between their homes and their destination ! On arriving they 
 fought, a whole day with an Arab tribe, that had attacked five of 
 
 * See a detailed account and plan of the Ruins in Admiral Sir Francis 
 Beaufort’s * Karamania.’ 
 
 + In one instance more than 1000 were shipped on board a steamer of 500 
 tons. 
 
480 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 their number, who had been sent up some little distance to pur- 
 chase cattle : the Tcherkesses gained .the day ; they had scarcely a 
 piaster between them, and who could blame them if they took to 
 highway robbery, simply to prevent starvation ? The authorities 
 did what they could, but among such enormous numbers, with 
 12,000 more expected in a few weeks, what could be done ? pesti- 
 lence was already beginning among them, and during the summer 
 months would inevitably thin their numbers; in one year, the rich 
 and beautiful plain would amply repay cultivation and draining, 
 but how were they to find seed to sow, or tools to work with, even 
 if they could struggle through that one year ? 
 
 They were a very fine set of tall, well-made men, though but few 
 were in the least handsome, the Mongolian type being too strongly 
 marked in their features; the high cheek-bones, still more pro- 
 minent from starvation, the sloping eyes, and large, long teeth, 
 give a mingled impression of fierceness and cunning which is not 
 pleasing; we saw some rather pretty women among them, but their 
 costume is ungraceful in the extreme : a badly-made cotton gown 
 a VEuropeenne and a handkerchief tightly tied over the head and 
 round the neck. The men wore long gowns of very thick brown 
 woollen stuffs, like the old Jews at Jerusalem, tied in at the w r aist 
 with leathern thongs, and six or eight cartouches sewed outside 
 these coats, looking like a couple of rude Pan’s pipes on each 
 breast. Their head- gear is a huge, round muff of the coarsest sheep- 
 skin, with the long wool unshorn, dyed a dark brown, and looking 
 very droll over the unkempt black locks which hang down beneath 
 them. 
 
 We have spoken before of the exceeding beauty of the southern 
 coast of Asia Minor: it suffices now to say that, after all the 
 splendid country we had seen since we came along this coast in 
 the previous spring, it seemed quite as beautiful as before : since if 
 the fortnight later had melted some of the snow from the lovely 
 mountains, it had also brought out more and more of the foliage 
 and flowers. Alas! the foliage will not long add its delightful 
 charms to this coast, for it is fast disappearing, owing to the 
 horrible habit of the natives of setting fire to any tree they want to 
 use instead of cutting it down : of course the fire is communicated, 
 and a thousand trees are burned where one was needed; every year 
 the decrease of wood becomes more apparent, and often and often 
 those terrible fires are watched from Rhodes burning for two or 
 three days at a time, to utter waste and ruin. 
 
 We reached Rhodes early on the morning of the 18th of May, 
 and were glad to have a few days of rest in that pleasant climate 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 481 
 
 and the hospitable house of our Consul. The island was now 
 looking pretty; the plane trees, for which Ehodes is celebrated, 
 were fresh, but shady; the Judas trees in the hedges were in full 
 blossom; the gardens bright and gay, while the air was laden with 
 flowery perfumes, borne on the gentle sea-breezes, which keep the 
 summer temperature of the island at a very agreeable coolness. 
 The environs of the town are pretty; the varied outline of the 
 little bays, as well as the beautiful coast of the mainland, Anatolia, 
 opposite, add much to the beauty of the scene. The suburbs 
 were full of the unfortunate Tcherkesses, some of whom had been 
 dropped here instead of going on to Mersina : hungry and homeless, 
 here as there, sitting chiefly in the cemeteries, waiting for employ- 
 ment, or to be sent on further. 
 
 We went on the following day with the Consul and his wife to 
 call on the Colonel commanding the Turkish troops at Ehodes, 
 Suleiman Bey: he speaks English well, having passed five years 
 at Woolwich for his education. Under his care we were shown 
 over the barracks, once the convent of the Knights, usually called 
 the “ Hospital/’ in memorial of the first building of any kind that 
 the Christians were allowed to possess in the Holy Land, viz., 
 a hospital for the reception of such pious pilgrims as fell sick at 
 Jerusalem, for whose nursing and protection the Order of the 
 Knights of St. John was instituted in 1048. It is built in the same 
 shape and form as the Hospital in the Holy City, which the Knights 
 so unwillingly quitted, but this building is larger : it is a square of 
 four arches on each side, and of two stories, covering a wide 
 corridor, into which the rooms open. One side was wholly taken up 
 by a very fine hall — the ancient Eefectory — with a ceiling of 
 cypress* wood (a durable wood of a pretty red brown colour, with 
 a pleasant perfume and the property of resisting the intrusion of 
 any and all insects) : the arches of the hall, ornamented with cable 
 mouldings and leaves, are supported on very short columns, the 
 capitals and bosses bearing the shields of the Knights. All this 
 building the English -taught Colonel makes the soldiers keep beau- 
 tifully clean and nice : they have also a small court containing 
 twenty-four streams of water issuing from Saracenic mosaics in 
 marble, for their ablutions. We went into the great kitchen^ 
 which was perfectly clean and tidy, and tasted the dinner of boiled 
 rice, suet, and beans preparing for the soldiers ; five times a week 
 they have meat. 
 
 With all this seeming comfort there was yet discontent and 
 
 * This wood is frequently misnamed “ Cyprus wood there is no wood 
 peculiar to that Island. 
 
 2 i 
 
482 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 misery among them, for these soldiers had been sponge-divers, or 
 sailors, or artisans of various lucrative handicrafts, from which they 
 earned enough to support their wives and families, besides serving 
 as a sort of militia-men occasionally : now that their Government 
 has seized them and made them soldiers perforce, they have but 
 one piaster a day for their pay, and of course their wives and 
 families are starving. These poor wives had come up in a body, 
 only a few mornings before, to the English Consul, weeping and 
 wringing their hands to entreat his interference, and could scarcely 
 be persuaded that he could not settle it all, and make them 
 comfortable by “ one English word” to the Pasha. 
 
 Then we went up the famous street of the Knights’ “ Auberges ” 
 or Priories : it was here that, ten years after they took possession of 
 the Island, they were divided into the eight “languages” of the 
 Order : only five of the eight Priories still remain distinguishable. 
 The first is that of England, bearing a shield with the arms of Peter 
 d’Aubusson, the Grand Master, who won for the fortress the title 
 of the “ Buckler of Christianity ” during the First Siege of Bhodes, 
 — the date is 1483 : then the Priory of Italy, bearing the arms of 
 Fabrice de Carretto, the last Grand Master before the Second Siege, 
 and the date 1519. Then comes the Priory of France, the best pre- 
 served of all, as it has received some little care and attention in 
 modern days ; the door has some elegant mouldings of the usual 
 twisted cable — the Saracenic type — with small columns, and bands 
 of the same mouldings between the floors ; and the motto over the 
 door “ De France le grit (grand) prior F. Emery de Amboise 1492 the 
 Cross of the Order and the three pales of Amboise : and two scut- 
 cheons leaning on lions rampant with three nails on each, the canting 
 arms of Pierre Clouet the architect. There are two tablets bearing 
 the arms of the Order and of Amboise with the legend “ De Amboise 
 em gnt prior later tablets with the arms of Villiers de L’lsle Adam, 
 and a scutcheon of the Eoyal arms of France dated 1495, with the 
 legend “ Voluntas Dei” underneath, Saint Louis at the sides, and 
 “ Dieu (ayde) le pelerin ” above it ; then the scutcheon of Amboise 
 again, and the Cardinal’s hat presented to Pierre d’Aubusson ; and 
 after this his shield and that of the Order placed at the left-hand end 
 on his death by his successor Emery (or Almeric) Amboise. 
 
 A little beyond is the Chapelle de France, bearing five shields set 
 in a cross with the arms of France in the centre and the legend 
 " Capelle Francie ,” the arms of the Order and of the Grand Master 
 Fabrice de Carretto : this building, finished in 1519, replaced another 
 which had been destroyed in the First Siege as the inscription de- 
 notes by initials “ B(everendus) D(ominus) F(rater) P(ierre) P(ape- 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 483 
 
 fust) B(ases) B(estauravit) 1483. There is also a little preaching 
 pulpit, stuck on the outer wall, such as one still sees in Italy, with 
 a small staircase from the street. 
 
 Opposite to this is the Priory of Spain and Portugal, with the 
 scutcheons of the two nations united, of the Order, of d’Amboise, 
 and of two Commanders. And a little further on comes that of 
 Toulouse or Auvergne : with the inscription “ P.S. Dus F. Francis - 
 cus Flota Prior Tholose construxit anno 1518,” engraved under the 
 arms of France, the Order, de Carretto, and the Commander Flota. 
 
 All these, therefore, were built after the First Siege in 1480 : but 
 there is said to be still a house at the top of the Knights’ Street 
 which was built before the Siege, as it bears the arms of the Grand 
 Master Koger (or Gerard) de Pins with the date 1356-1365; and 
 another on the quay dated 1407 : we did not, however, find these 
 houses (which are described by M. le Comte de Vogue), and I think 
 they must have been destroyed in the explosion. I have been thus 
 particular in giving the names to the scutcheons, as the knowledge 
 of them adds greatly to the interest of seeing them, and most travel- 
 lers, having but an hour or two to give to Ehodes, cannot linger 
 long enough to decipher them easily for themselves. 
 
 Beyond the Knights’ Street, the Turkish Colonel took us into the 
 remains of the Grand Master’s Palace, once a splendid building, 
 but alas! completely demolished in the explosion of 1856, as it 
 adjoined the Church ; the walls of a few chambers, and the grand 
 staircase are all that can be distinctly traced now, though the 
 openings into twelve granaries under the courtyard still remain, 
 and are used by the Turks. Opposite to the gate of the Palace are 
 some richly ornamented windows belonging to the Church, and the 
 tower is partly standing ; the dial of its clock was found some time 
 ago with the hands still pointing to the hour of the explosion which 
 had so suddenly buried it in ruin ! 
 
 A good idea of the old fortress is derived from a walk round the 
 ramparts, to which the Turkish Colonel obligingly accompanied us ; 
 they afforded also some charming views of the Island and the lovely 
 shore of the mainland : and it is pretty looking down into the town 
 with its picturesque bits, remaining from the time of the Knights, 
 its little domes and minarets, gardens and palm-trees : the hand- 
 somest part is in the Jews’ quarter, although on this side the Siege 
 was the hottest and fiercest. In one corner, on the eastern side of 
 the fortress and precisely over the bazaar gate, originally called St. 
 Catherine’s gate, is a square tower, containing a tiny chapel, the in- 
 terior of which has received three coatings of frescoes at various 
 times, now nearly all alike destroyed. One figure remains, which is 
 
 2 i 2 
 
484 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 often called St. George, but which must have been commemorative 
 of the well-known story, sculptured on a marble tablet let into the 
 wall of the great bastion of Auvergne, on the eastern side of the 
 ramparts : viz. that of the young Knight Deodato de Gozon who, 
 disregarding the interdiction of the Grand Master Elyon de Villanova, 
 went out to fight and soon overcame some great monster, usually 
 called a crocodile by the old historians, who had devoured many 
 women and children in the island ; and who was for his disobedience 
 stripped of his habit, by his stern and angry Superior, in spite of 
 the acclamations of gratitude of the islanders at the courage and 
 gallantry of their deliverer ; having thus punished his rebellious son, 
 it is pleasant to add that Villanova afterwards restored him to the 
 Order and amply rewarded him. Doubtless the details of this story 
 are fabrications and exaggerations, but some fact of the kind is, 
 almost as undoubtedly, true, since up to the time of the explosion 
 the inscription on the tomb of Deodato de Gozon (he was afterwards 
 Grand Master) remained legible, " Ci git le vainqueur du Dragon 
 This little tower is the more interesting as it is thought to be of an- 
 terior date to the time of the Knights, and to have been one of the 
 angular towers of the Byzantine fortification : an opinion confirmed 
 by the appearance of the frescoes where the second and third coat- 
 ings have peeled off, which seem to be of a much earlier period than 
 the twelfth century. 
 
 The little gate by which the Turks, headed by Solyman the Mag- 
 nificent, entered the city after the capitulation, has been long since 
 walled up, but on the ramparts above, there are still scores of wit>- 
 nesses of the sanguinary but gallantly-withstood Siege, in the shape 
 of balls and stone shot lying about, some of the latter thrown by 
 “ basilisks,” too huge to be carried far, but whose weight in falling 
 must have been crushing. Many of the old guns remain also, some 
 of them prettily ornamented ; one, from which a ball passed so inso- 
 lently close to Solyman the Magnificent as even to scorch his beard, 
 was afterwards punished by the Turks by being filled up and 
 covered externally with ugly heads of negroes stuck on in bronze ! 
 
 We came back through the extensive cemeteries which almost 
 surround the town, and puzzled a long time over the stone altars, 
 as they seemed, which appeared every here and there, until it was 
 explained to us that the Turks bring the corpses of the dead to the 
 cemetery and lay them on these stone slabs to be washed before in- 
 terment : a very horrid arrangement it appeared to me, to perform 
 this office in public, for these stone tables frequently stand in the 
 high road, close by the city gates. 
 
 But by far the most interesting part of our stay in Bhodes was 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 485 
 
 spent in examining some antiques, beside which the remains of 
 mediaeval chivalry were dwarfed into trifles of yesterday : these were 
 from an entire Necropolis of the time of the Phoenician- Greeks, 
 which has been within the last two years discovered: they are 
 among the very few undisturbed Phoenician tombs that have ever 
 been found anywhere. They were discovered by M. A. Biliotti, son 
 of the English Vice-Consul at Scio, who on seeing some traces of 
 tombs cut in the rock began to dig there for same time in vain, till 
 in the winter of 1858-59 a part of the hill slipped and exposed some 
 vases to view, which M. Salzmann, a French antiquarian, pro- 
 nounced to be Phoeniko-Greek. Excavations were immediately re- 
 commenced, and M. Salzmann has been since commissioned by the 
 British Museum to uncover and collect the antiquities. This 
 Necropolis is situated about a mile from the village of Kalavarda, 
 and is believed to be that of the ancient Camiros, the principal city 
 of the three Dorian settlements in Ehodes, which were united, in 
 days of unknown antiquity, with Cos, Cnidus, and Halicarnassus 
 into the Dorian Hexapolis.* 
 
 The bodies appear to have been buried usually without a sarco- 
 phagus, as only a very few sarcophagi have been found ; they were 
 probably surrounded with vases, &c., but the whole series of tombs 
 have been so much disturbed by earthquakes (which are very frequent 
 in Ehodes) and their contents, as it were, intermingled, the lighter 
 articles generally pushed up nearest the surface, that it is impossible 
 to judge in any way of the original arrangement of the sepulchres. 
 Everything is found thickly encrusted with earth, which, if any 
 damp has reached it, has eaten away the enamel : all this strongly 
 adhering-earth has to be melted off with diluted aquafortis, and the 
 cleaning of each, even of the smallest vases, is the work of many 
 days with constant watching ; then the polish of the enamel is after- 
 wards renewed by the friction of the naked hand. The vases are of 
 all sizes, from about three feet in diameter down to a few inches, 
 and of every conceivable form, each one more graceful than the last ; 
 they are all covered, within and without, with figures, chiefly of 
 allegorical animals and intricate patterns, generally on each the 
 figure of Astarte in the form of a female face with the body of a bird. 
 With but few exceptions they are in black and red, the latter in 
 various shades : on one of the vases there were some portions of the 
 figures — a bird, an ornament, and a part of a shield — in a brilliant 
 pure white enamel ; but this is very rare. There were quantities of 
 figures surmounting long bottles, or tubes, of alabaster or stone : 
 and a vast number of small figures in porcelain, pierced, as if used 
 * Herodotus, book i. 144. 
 
486 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 for amulets, charms, necklaces, &c., &c., some of them quite Egyptian, 
 representing Pshent and other Egyptian gods ; scarabei also, and a 
 figure of the size and form of a scarabeus, but bearing on its back 
 a well-cut human face with a quantity of hair carved round it. 
 There were numbers of small buttons, with cartouches on them in 
 what we were told were Phoenician characters : and some oval- 
 pointed stones along with a great many pieces of lead of the same 
 shape, marked over with Phoenician symbols ; these are very heavy, 
 and were probably used for their slings. 
 
 Among the metal ornaments there was one band of gold, gleaming 
 bright after a little cleaning, with a rich pattern beaten in it : a gold 
 bracelet with a lozenge pattern cut out from it : an olive crown 
 where the leaves had been made in bronze and afterwards gilt, and 
 the fruit added in porcelain : and one most delicately-made wreath 
 of myrtle with the berries hanging down, all in gold — which made 
 one fancy the fair head the pretty thing had probably once adorned. 
 There is another golden ornament, so commonly found in the tombs 
 that M. Salzmann conceives it must have been a Hieratic ornament 
 which each corpse was obliged necessarily to wear, perhaps as a 
 kind of passport of the soul, or credential of salvation and sanctity : 
 it is an oblong plate, about two inches long, always bearing a figure 
 of Astarte on it, and with little bells hanging from the lower end : 
 sometimes two birds perched on the upper corners form the hooks 
 by which the ornament was fastened on. There were a great many 
 lamps, some of them very pretty in shape, and natural shells now 
 commonly found in the Island : these, with many little boxes and 
 odd things, are supposed to have been playthings placed in the 
 tombs of children. Nothing remains of the dresses worn by the 
 corpses, save numbers of tiny rings and beads in blue porcelain, 
 with which they are supposed to have been embroidered ; and only 
 very few bones remain, but some have been found, curiously enough, 
 pierced through by the roots of a tree ! and one skull, that of a 
 woman, of the Circassian type, not Semitic : but from this no infer- 
 ence can be drawn, as it might have been the skull of a slave. 
 
 Some writers have thought that the word Khodes was derived 
 from the Phoenician for a serpent, but it seems more natural that 
 the riante and fertile island should have so been named by the 
 Greeks from the abundance of roses which blossom there ; a speci- 
 men of which was stamped on one side of the ancient coins of the 
 country in her days of proud independence. 
 
 We left Khodes at mid-day on the 23rd of May in the Austrian 
 steamer Elleno , about the very dirtiest old tub that I should think 
 the paternal government could possibly keep for the unhappy 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 487 
 
 passengers whom they convey. Our companions were numerous, 
 hut the human ones were pleasant; the weather, however, was 
 stormy, and conversation was not much in fashion that day ; I sat on 
 deck watching the islands, as we rolled past them, looking all the 
 prettier for the heavy broken clouds and sudden lights of the chang- 
 ing sky. We had now entered the “ W T hite Sea,” as the Turks and 
 Greeks call the iEgean, and were among the Sporades : a number of 
 apparently barren rocks, within whose little valleys and tiny plains 
 generations of men have been bom whose names will be written in 
 some of the brightest pages of the history of Heroism that the world 
 has ever known. The Sporades, with the exception of about half- 
 a-dozen islands that lie close to the Thessalian coast, belong to 
 Turkey, and are nominally under the government of the Pasha of 
 Rhodes ; but the inhabitants are a thoroughly independent people, 
 and more frequently hoist the Greek flag than the Turkish on their 
 ships. 
 
 We had thought of making a little tour among the splendid 
 scenery of Crete, but the summer was too far advanced, even 
 if the unsettled state of the Cretan peasantry would have per- 
 mitted us to do so in safety. I can, however, imagine nothing 
 pleasanter than spending a year or two among the Archipelago 
 islands, gliding over the exquisitely blue sea, examining the 
 thousand differences that exist between one island and another, 
 instead of the somewhat monotonous likeness they bear to each 
 other at a distance : extracting little treasures of antiques from 
 their classic soils, and listening to the thrilling tales of their heroic 
 wars. Great numbers of pretty things are constantly found in the 
 islands, and they would probably repay a more careful search : 
 ancient Greek tombs abound in Scarpanto, Nisyros, Kalymnos, and 
 Stampalia, and in these, gold and silver ornaments are constantly 
 found ; Greek vases, cups, and statuettes, are often picked up, 
 especially in the two latter. These researches would be the plea- 
 santest in Stampalia, in which, for some unknown reason (which is, 
 however, a fact), no serpent or venomous reptile will live : if such 
 are imported, as they sometimes are in firewood from the mainland, 
 they die almost immediately. 
 
 Most of these islands subsist now upon the products of the sponge- 
 fishery ; the young men are the divers for gathering them, while the 
 elderly men form the robust and hardy seamen. A good diver can 
 make from eight to ten dives in a day ; the constitution is, however, 
 soon impaired by the laborious life if carried on too long ; but in 
 olden times, and perhaps still, no youth was considered by the 
 island maidens eligible for a husband, until he could remain a 
 
488 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 certain time, fixed by law, under the water. Accustomed as we are 
 to the pretty sand-coloured articles we buy, we should be a little 
 surprised at being offered the sponge in its native state; when 
 freshly torn off from the rocks it is covered with a thin but tough 
 black case, inside of which is the sponge growing in a lake of 
 white liquid like milk. The sponge-gathering is a very lucrative 
 business, extending over a vast area of sea ; the annual value of the 
 sponges taken in Kalymnos alone amounts to about 25,0002. sterling. 
 This island has 260 boats, and employs about 1650 men and boys ; 
 the average depth of the finest sponges is 30 fathoms, those of an 
 inferior quality are gathered at lesser depths : the finest are sent to 
 Great Britain : they cost in Smyrna about three-quarters of the price 
 that they are in England, but on the coast of Syria we got 
 very good sponges, well-sized and fine, for one or two shillings 
 each. 
 
 Some fine mediaeval castles ornament these islands, especially in 
 Stampalia, Cos, Leros, and Patmos : many standing columns- still 
 remain, capitals, and bits of sculpture that have survived from the 
 ruins of ancient Greek Temples. At Leros, an ancient granary was 
 lately discovered, which on being opened was found to be full of 
 Indian corn, which must have been there since the beginning of the 
 16th century at least, when the Knights gave up Khodes and all the 
 small dependencies round them. On Cos (then called Lango, from 
 which perhaps it derives its present name of Stanco), they erected 
 a large castle, embedding in its walls some fine slabs of classic 
 sculpture ; and around this island they many a time gallantly 
 repulsed the attacks of the Turks, the eccentricities of the coast, 
 which runs out into peninsulas as if it was playing at hide-and-seek 
 with the islands, enabling them to perform some amusing tricks of 
 war. On one occasion the commandant of the fortress, contriving 
 to cut off the two foremost of the galleys, hastily landed the Turks 
 they had contained, and sailed back among the enemy’s fleet in 
 their own vessels, filled, however, with Christian sailors, when to 
 their astonishment their seeming brothers opened a broadside 
 upon them, and speedi’y carried the nine vessels and their crews 
 triumphantly into port ! 
 
 At Lemnos the remains of the famous Labyrinthus, the columns 
 still erect, are as yet unexplored : while on Patmos there still exists 
 part of a very fine acropolis on the top of the mountain, the lower 
 parts of the walls being cyclopean. Patmos is famous for its 
 beautiful women, and learned professors ; the monks pretend to be 
 poor, but they are enormously rich : it seems to be a very inter- 
 esting island to visit. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 489 
 
 But the islands which possess the most living interest at present 
 are Cassos (or Caxo) and ’Psara : the sound of their names alone 
 suffices to thrill many a heart with admiration and sympathy. 
 Cassos we had passed in coming from Egypt, but we were then too 
 sea-sick even to look at the picturesque and world-famous rock. 
 When, in 1821, the news came that the Greeks had borne their 
 yoke long enough, and had risen to arms under Alexander Ypsilanti, 
 the bold hearts of Cassos fitted out several small vessels — all they 
 had — well armed and manned, and proceeded to the coasts of Syria 
 and Egypt, where they captured a great number of vessels, much 
 larger than their own, with valuable cargoes on board. They next 
 made a descent upon the island of Rhodes, and managed to drive 
 the Turks out of the villages into the fortress. With a portion of 
 the proceeds of the booty they had thus obtained, they brought 
 120 guns of heavy calibre, with some of which they fortified 
 their own little island; with the remainder they armed eight 
 vessels, and with this squadron they hastened to the succour 
 of their brethren in Candia, affording them most timely relief. 
 
 Elated by all this success, the little squadron in the following 
 year appeared off Alexandria, and after a very sharp engagement, 
 four of their vessels captured a large Egyptian man-of-war, in the 
 very sight of the port : while the other four vessels ran into the 
 port of Damietta, and made prizes of twenty ships lying there laden 
 with corn, ready to start with their provisions for the Turkish fleet. 
 They then sailed back to Crete and blockaded the Mahommedan 
 towns in that island. Naturally enraged at all the damage which 
 this little body of hardy and courageous men had inflicted on his 
 Turks, Muhammad ’Ali, Pasha of Egypt, made several energetic 
 attempts to get possession of the tiny island ; but he failed in them 
 all, and was finally obliged to recall his ships. However, in the 
 summer of 1824, he sent a Turkish fleet of forty-five vessels, and 
 surrounded the island with them ; after repeated efforts to effect a 
 landing, in all of which they were still disappointed, the Turkish 
 Admiral was on the point of raising the blockade, when a Rhodiote 
 pilot on board his ship offered to land a body of men. Forty gun- 
 boats were accordingly placed under his orders, with which he 
 appeared off a place called San Giovanni di Maritza, and then, to 
 deceive the Cassiotes, he stood out into the offing in the direction of 
 Crete. When it became dark, however, he returned, and hid his 
 gunboats among the deep caverns and creeks running in from the 
 sea and under a steep mountain. The next night he landed with 
 all his men, they jumping on shore from the yards of the gun-boats 
 
490 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 on to the extraordinary rocks which had so well hidden them. The 
 poor Cassiotes fought long and gallantly for some days, and would 
 probably have driven back their enemies, had not reinforcements 
 arrived from the Turkish fleet: then the island was taken, but 
 not before the greater number of those who could bear arms had 
 fallen. Old men, women and children were massacred in cold blood 
 by the Turks; and about 2000 women and children were taken 
 away and sold as slaves ; so that the population, which had been in 
 1820 about 13,000 souls, was reduced to 3000. The island is now 
 beginning to recover from its losses. 
 
 Tsara we passed in the middle of the night about a month later, 
 and I greatly regretted not having seen the birthplace of so many 
 bold hearts and sturdy frames ; this island has an area of scarcely ten 
 geographical miles, and the people depend wholly on commerce for 
 their subsistence, as the island itself can produce but food enough 
 for three months’ consumption : yet they have some really good 
 schools, and the ’Psariote men, though almost always at sea, keep 
 their families comfortably supported by their gains. During the 
 war the ’ Psariote marine obtained complete mastery over the im- 
 mensely superior number of Turkish vessels, chasing the enemy even 
 into the Dardanelles, under the brave leader Canaris and some 
 others; the Sultan at last, in July 1824, sent down the Captain 
 Pasha himself with 200 ships and an enormous number of troops 
 on board ; they surrounded the island, the inhabitants of which 
 had been increased by about 5000 refugees and soldiers from various 
 parts of Greece. Attacked on all sides, the unhappy islanders were 
 butchered, the town was burnt and utterly destroyed, and hardly 
 2000 managed to escape from the island ; the few who remained 
 alive assembled over the powder magazine, to which, just as the 
 Turks were scaling the walls, they set fire and perished all together 
 in one grave under the tremendous explosion ! A month after the 
 ’Psariotes retook their island from the Turks, and the peasants 
 mostly returned to it, but the richer men settled at Syra. Before 
 this destruction of the island the ’Psariotes were the best ship- 
 wrights and seamen in the Levant, and their ships were models 
 of naval architecture; now the island possesses only 60 trading 
 boats and no vessels of its own; but there are 40 large vessels, 
 built at Syra, of about 8000 tons in all, which make voyages 
 all over the world under the Hellenic flag, and are manned and 
 navigated by ’Psariote seamen. 
 
 The next day beamed more brightly upon us, and pretty and 
 green were the coasts of Khios (or Scio) and the mainland as we 
 
[AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 491 
 
 turned into the lovely Gulf of Smyrna : the sunset lighting up the 
 bright little meadows and the richly wmoded hills and lofty rocks, 
 as we glided along through shoals of jolly porpoises tumbling about 
 in the water : then it faded off from the white houses and red roofs 
 of the city, and left us in darkness as we came to anchor to our 
 great disgust too late for 'pratique that night, Down in the dirty 
 steamy cabin we had to sleep another night, where our condition was 
 not improved by the perfumes of the water around us ; the darkness 
 therefore was scarcely dispelled before we exchanged the marine 
 fleas for their terrestrial cousins, and took up our old quarters in 
 “ les deux Augustes. 5 ’ 
 
 The bazaars, no longer very Oriental or new in our eyes, were 
 all we had to amuse us while waiting five days for a steamer to 
 Athens ; we might have made some pretty excursions, for the 
 neighbourhood of Smyrna is interesting in every way, but the low 
 fever from which I was suffering clung to me, and the weather was 
 too hot for any exertions. We could not, however, omit seeing the 
 view from the Castle again : and, having .admired it so much at 
 sunset last year, we took it this time at sunrise, and thought 
 the prospect still more beautiful than before ; the cypresses too are 
 certainly finer than any we have seen elsewhere, even at Constanti- 
 nople. The eighteen miles then completed of the Aidin Bailway 
 appeared to pass through lovely country, and the summer residences 
 of the Smyrniote gentry looked most inviting ; the neighbourhood 
 of Smyrna is indeed very charming, and it is no wonder it is so 
 universally admired. 
 
 We were by this time tolerably well acquainted with the long 
 Gulf, but it would be difficult to weary of its beauty, which we again 
 enjoyed, as, for the fifth time, we steamed along its waters on the 
 afternoon of the 29th of May : coming, however, suddenly to a full 
 stop near the mouth. A screw had fallen out from the piston of 
 our engine, and we lay for twelve hours in the same spot, thereby 
 arriving at Syra at twelve o’clock of the following night, and 
 missing the curious view of the island which we had much wished 
 to see. 
 
 There are two towns in the island of Syra : the old one mounted 
 upon the top of a steep cone out of the way of the pirates that then 
 infested the Archipelago, and the new one down on the beach, 
 where quays and lighthouses and stately buildings of white marble 
 find easy communication with the vast number of ships and 
 steamers that are always entering or leaving the harbour. The 
 double town is picturesque, and the mountain curves prettily round 
 the bay. 
 
492 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CURES 
 
 Soon after sunrise we were on deck, gliding past the islands of 
 Gioura, Thermia, Zea, St. George, and Makris : the fine cliffs of 
 which, though wanting in vegetation, are beautiful in outline, and 
 were then finely coloured in the morning sun. Shortly after 10 a.m. 
 the square rock of the Acropolis — recognised in a moment by its 
 well-known portraits — became very distinct, and in another half- 
 hour we landed at the Piraeus. The wide quays, the bright 
 European-built houses, the pretty pleasure-gardens so completely 
 Western, and the active, working look of the people, seemed very 
 gay and modern to our eyes, so long used to the inactivity of the 
 East : but far more surprising and very delightful did it seem, to 
 be whirled along the excellent road in an easy open carriage, such 
 as we had not seen since we left Egypt. Our enjoyment of it was, 
 however, soon quenched under the thick and heavy clouds of dust, 
 that nearly overwhelmed us in the hour’s drive, and which had 
 whitened the fields of low vines into dull masses, and weighed 
 down the olives, acacias, and plane-trees bordering the roads, which 
 are as straight and formal as the famous " Long Walls ” connecting 
 the Pirseus with the Eair City. 
 
 The view of Athens from the sea, and the approach from the 
 Pirseus, is, I think, the least pretty of all: for myself, I was so 
 immensely struck with the arid dreariness of the whole view, that 
 half of my imagination of the romantic beauty of “ divine Greece ” 
 vanished : my eyes and memory were so full of the rich luxuriance 
 of colour and the endless shades of verdure and fertility in Syria 
 and Asia Minor, that Greece appeared to me far more stern than 
 sad, more dreary than lonely. And this, I fancy, is the first feeling 
 of most strangers ; you must wait till the morning and the evening, 
 the sunrise and the sunset, have thrown their “ bright investiture 
 and sweet warmth” across your eyes: till the purple and the 
 crimson sheen of evening have mantled on the mountains : till you 
 have watched the shadows stealing in dim haziness, scarcely veiling 
 the dazzling marbles of the exquisite buildings, and till the tur- 
 quoise blue of the calm, clear ocean has deepened into sapphire, 
 before the mind can really take in the perfection of beauty in 
 Athens — 
 
 “ Fairest of all ! oh Queen of Cities ! 
 
 Lying beneath a lovely sky.” 
 
 And, to be struck with Greece, one should come to it first from the 
 West : after the chill north and the west, it would seem half 
 Oriental : while to the eyes of the Eastern traveller Greece has lost 
 the golden halo and the glorious luxuriance of the East, without 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 493 
 
 gaining (what one then thinks of as the greatest charm of all) the 
 cool shadiness of the West. No place is as pretty at midday as at 
 any other time, and Athens loses more than most cities do : the snn 
 too was so scorchingly hot, through the suffocating dust, that we 
 were glad to he housed at once in the Hotel d’Angleterre, where we 
 found kind friends to welcome us ; it seemed luxuriously delightful 
 after the rudely simple, or uncivilized dirtiness of most of the inns 
 of the East. 
 
494 
 
 £ G YPTIAN SEPUL CURES 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 1 THE PARTHENON AND PARNASSUS. 
 
 “ Have ye left the mountain places, 
 
 Oreads wild, for other trysts ? 
 
 Shall we see no sudden faces 
 Strike a glory through the mist ? 
 
 Not a sound the silence thrills 
 Of the everlasting hills 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead.” 
 
 E. B. Browning. 
 
 Nearly the whole of our first three days in Athens were devoted to 
 the Acropolis, viewing it by the earliest morning, by the sunset, 
 and by the light of the full moon : each portion of the day throws 
 its own perfection on the view, and the Acropolis has not been really 
 seen unless by all three lights. Fortunately the buildings united 
 there need no description from my feeble pen, as drawings, paintings, 
 and photographs of them abound ; the latter, however, give no idea 
 of anything but the architectural detail and the general proportion, 
 and Athens is sadly travestied in a sepia-brown representation of its 
 marbles. The remarkable beauty of the sparkling material has, 
 perhaps, a still larger share in the perfection of these structures 
 than we are apt to think of : but one has to only contemplate the 
 difference between the impenetrable black darkness; the heavy 
 shadows, and the great masses of St. Ouen or of one of our own 
 Northern Cathedrals, with the fanciful building up of snow, changed 
 by fairy hands into stone, of the pinnacles and towers of Milan 
 Cathedral, which gives such an indescribable feeling of embodied 
 spirituality to the upper part of the building, and blends in so much 
 harmony with the snowy mountains in the distance, — in order to 
 fancy the wonderful charm of Pentelican marble in pure Doric, 
 under a Grecian sky. 
 
 I had this feeling of almost tangible spirituality in my mind 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 495 
 
 whenever I looked closely at the Parthenon ; well may she be called 
 “ Athena Parthenos ” (the Virgin), for truly she is the invincible, 
 matchless Jungfrau of Athenian monuments, standing on the proud 
 summit of her noble pedestal, elevated, uplifted above all others ; 
 and it is no wonder that the Athenians, who knew not that “ God 
 dwelleth not in temples made with hands,” should believe that the 
 circumambient atmosphere around her Temple was fairer and 
 purer than anywhere else, and that a “ crown of light ” hung 
 eternally over the head of the virgin citadel. Strange fitness, indeed, 
 that after various vicissitudes of paganism, the " Virgin’s chamber ” 
 became a church dedicated to the Virgin Mother, and the Life of 
 Love revealed to us in her Divine Son was there proclaimed in its 
 full perfection and completeness, such as Plato had shadowed out 
 in his grand ideas and words as the only happy and satisfying life : 
 that Life which he could only know as a still hidden problem, not 
 an actual, finished fact. Pity that a few hundred years later the 
 mantle of darkness should have again dimmed its lustre, and the 
 fair building have been perverted into a mosque : after which it fell 
 into complete ruin : ruined, indeed, yet glorious and beautiful still, 
 like some noble matron who has borne her part through all the 
 prime of life, now fading into the silvery tresses, and bending stoop, 
 and the lingering step of age, yet in whom, although the loveliness 
 of youth has vanished, the soul shines forth in pure and holy 
 spiritual beauty, while she “ walks with inward glory crowned.” * 
 
 “ And how . . . describe 
 
 Thy Perfectness, when such thy Ruins are ! ” 
 
 One of the spots in the Acropolis where thoughts of the past 
 crowd most rapidly on the mind, is when standing below the steps 
 of the Propyl sea — the giant portal, the barrier-gate, the triumphal 
 arch which led into the Fortress and up to the Sacred Altar of 
 Athena — completed more than three hundred years before Christ, 
 yet still erect in proud stern majesty : the mind rapidly peoples the 
 pavement with the solemn pageants that passed up the very steps 
 on which one stands, while the mark of the chariot wheels, and the 
 groove scooped by the heavy doors moving over the marble floor, 
 still distinctly visible, seem to bridge over the two thousand years 
 since Greece became a Eoman province. Delicately glowing with 
 the minute detail of bright colours still traceable on the friezes and 
 mouldings, which made the lustre of the snowy marble shine still 
 more brightly, the Propylsea with its five lofty gates, formed the 
 magnificent object of that view ; in the foreground on the left, stood 
 
 * Shelley. 
 
496 
 
 EG YPTIAN SEPUL CHRES 
 
 the equestrian statues of the sons of Xenophon, and on the right the 
 small but lovely Temple of Nike Apteros : while, seen through the 
 open gates and directly opposite to the centre of them, was the 
 splendid statue of Athena Polias, in bronze, whose helmet and spear 
 were discernible from the sea beyond Sunium : then mounting the 
 steps, the Parthenon and the Erechtheum — objects dear to all 
 Athenian hearts — were obliquely seen within the Sacred Enclosure. 
 Now, the Propylsea forms a great hospital of its own sick and 
 wounded ; the scattered fragments, a thousand statues, urns, vases, 
 mouldings, friezes, ranged upon shelves, or embedded in square 
 frames filled up with clay, are here carefully preserved ; it is de- 
 lightful to see them so well cared for : but the scores of arms, legs* 
 noseless heads, broken fingers, bits of rounded shoulders, sorted 
 under their respective denominations, always reminded me of 
 “ Tate and Brady’s versification of the Psalms of David with the 
 poetry extracted.” 
 
 The small Ionic temple of Nike Apteros was for two hundred 
 years completely lost : at last some fragments were accidentally dis- 
 covered in situ, and the whole was built up again from its own 
 ruins, and now stands in wonderful perfection in its own place ; 
 many of its friezes are intact, but copies of those taken away by 
 Lord Elgin ought to be sent out to replace the hiatus of others. 
 The Nike Apteros, or Wingless Victory, expressed the proud deter- 
 mination of the Athenians that Victory should never be absent from 
 their arms ; they therefore represented her without wings lest she 
 should use them in flying over to their enemies. It was from here 
 that old iEgeus threw himself down to end the life that became in- 
 tolerably bitter to him, when deprived of his beloved son Theseus, 
 who thus received, in the death of his father, his punishment of 
 sorrow for the desertion of the beautiful Ariadne in the island of 
 Naxos. 
 
 Passing through the Propylsea you are in the presence of the 
 ghosts of the three Athenes of the Acropolis : the bronze statue of 
 Athene Promachus, which stood on a pedestal, in the great enclo- 
 sure, alone in her glory: the chryselephantine statue of Athene 
 Parthenos, also by Phidias, which was placed within the sanctuary : 
 and the original olive-wood statue of Athene Polias, said to have 
 come down from heaven, which was mysteriously concealed from 
 vulgar view within the inner chamber of the Erechtheum. 
 
 The interior of the Parthenon was completely destroyed by the 
 shells of the Venetians in 1687, and the central columns, six on one 
 side and eight on the other, of the noble peristyle were thrown 
 down : but the rest of the columns, with the beautiful porticos at 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 497 
 
 the eastern and western ends, remain to delight the eyes of the world. 
 It is sad to pass from under the rich sculptures and many columns of 
 the exterior into the empty space and ruin within ; some beautiful 
 fragments are treasured there, but all broken and defaced like the 
 walls that shelter them : and the only way to fancy the Parthenon 
 less a ruin than she is, is to stand without, where naught but the 
 rich tomb raised upon the marble bier can be seen, from whence 
 even the fair form of the dead maiden has been rudely torn 
 away. 
 
 The eastern half of the Erechtheum was dedicated to Athene 
 Polias : all the columns of the Ionic portico but one are still stand- 
 ing, and they look very fine in the morning sunlight. The western 
 end had no direct entrance, but a splendid and still beautiful portico 
 on the northern side led into the Temple, and through it to the 
 famous Caryatide-supported portico, the Cecropium, as well as to 
 the Pandroseum Proper. All is sadly ruined within, but outside it 
 appears little changed, as much that had fallen has been replaced : 
 the fragments strewn around are of exquisite workmanship. Erech- 
 theus was supposed to have been born of Atthis or Attica, and 
 adopted by the goddess Athene ; Poseidon and Minerva, having con- 
 tended for the possession of the city, the prize was adjudged to 
 Minerva as the provider of the best gift, the olive-tree, while Posei- 
 don had only given the horse (of which the salt spring was a 
 symbol) : they were therefore reconciled and united within the walls 
 of the Erechtheum, which was thus made a type of the future glory 
 of the Athenian arms by sea as well as by land. To this union, 
 doubtless, Themistocles and Pericles frequently referred in their ex- 
 hortation to the people to make Athens a maritime power : the altar 
 of Poseidon was placed within the sanctuary of Athene Polias, the 
 guardian of the city, and their respective emblems of the salt well 
 and the olive-tree were enshrined within the Pandroseum. The 
 miraculous olive-tree has withered away since that Morning Sun 
 brightened over Bethlehem which caused the death of Pan ; but the 
 marks of the trident of Poseidon are still shown in the living rock ! 
 The southern (Caryatide) portico has no entrance from the outside, 
 and was chiefly an external ornament commemorating the sepulchre 
 of Cecrops : it has been completely restored, the new pieces con- 
 trasting rather glaringly with the old, the workmanship of which 
 they do not rival. 
 
 One lingers long on the western steps of the Parthenon to gaze at 
 the view spread out before one’s eyes : but this is still better enjoyed 
 from the monument of Philopappos erected on the summit of a 
 conical hill some little distance to the south-west of the Acropolis. 
 
 2 K 
 
498 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Many a sunset found us there during our short stay in Athens, and 
 my pulse quickens as I recall the indescribable loveliness of that 
 view, dyed in hues that no paint-box can imitate. The great plain 
 of Attica lies at one’s feet, covered with the gardens that surround 
 the city, and the olive woods which are now, in the slanting rays of 
 the sun, of a deep, dark myrtle-green : the calm sea, like a turquoise 
 mirror, stretches out beyond, the white Hues of the Pirseus brightly 
 marked on the shore and the pretty bay of Phalerum curving round 
 with the ancient port of Munychia at one side; the two lovely 
 islands of iEgina and Salamis, dyed in deep lustrous purple, seem to 
 lie floating on the bosom of the sea : the mountains of the Pelo- 
 ponnesus, in clear forget-me-not blue, range behind its distant shore, 
 where stand Epidaurus, Methana, and Troezen : while, to the left, 
 the sun sinks in floods of orange behind beautiful Geranea and 
 the other mountains on the isthmus of Corinth, all bathed in a dark, 
 mysterious violet, the summit of Kithaeron coming in behind the 
 sloping foot of Mount Parnes, which formed the boundary wall of 
 Attica. Gaze upon this till every lovely line is imprinted for ever 
 on your mind : then turn in haste, and catch the last rosy glow on 
 the Acropolis with the Parthenon exalted in lofty majesty above all : 
 their ruin and decay veiled over by the kindly distance, and the 
 ancient splendour almost restored in the loveliness of the golden hue 
 spread over the noble marble fronts ; mark the crimson tint on the 
 barren rock beneath, and the “ wine-empurpled ” violet of wild, stern 
 Lycabettus and beautiful Hymettus behind them; do not shun a 
 hasty glance at modern Athens which then, and then only, comes 
 out in a thousand nameless tints of delicate colours, softening the 
 staring, upstart modernism it wears by day : and acknowledge that 
 the whole scene is transcendent! y lovely ! Then wait, only a few 
 moments, till the full moon, such a moon as the clear atmosphere of 
 Greece alone can show, has slowly risen*above the summit of Hymettus , 
 silvering the purple of the mountain and gleaming on the side of the 
 Parthenon ere yet the golden glow of the sunset has completely faded 
 from the snowy marble, and look upon it unmoved — if you can ! 
 
 Then you must go u p to the Acropolis itself : watch the grand 
 and solemn masses of the Propyl sea with the shadows of the front 
 columns falling across the western wing, and the dazzling bright- 
 ness of the little Wingless Victory shining out from the deep shadow 
 at its base. Go on to the Parthenon and look at the exquisite line 
 of the imperceptibly curved steps illumined with the silvery hue, 
 and at the shadows of the columns and of the marble roof-beams 
 falling athwart the ground and the cella wall : mark the background 
 slopes of Hymettus and the rich, clear darkness of colour they 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 499 
 
 assume under such a moonlight,— peculiarly and sadly sweet ; and, 
 lastly, go and stand beneath the Caryatides that still guard the 
 memories of the daughters of Cecrops, and look at the calm, serene 
 smile which Diana lays with her cold finger upon each marble 
 maiden face and each stately figure. You need not despise the 
 twinkling lights of the little town in the distance below ; and pray 
 earnestly the day may come when native hands and heads will be 
 found to make Greece a great country as well as a free one ! Alas ! 
 the day seems yet a very long way off. 
 
 Modem Athens has been wise in refraining from any interference 
 with the ancient : had she in any way endeavoured to imitate the 
 old model, or forced a contrast of even the finest examples of other 
 styles with the unique perfection she glories in, the failure would 
 have been glaring and painful ; as it is, the huge, white, unorna- 
 mented pile of the Bavarian Palace — like a vast white mass with 
 rows of black dots upon it — interferes with nothing ; it is simply a 
 very large receptacle for a very large household, and one can turn 
 to it from the Temples and the Monuments without any kind of jar 
 in the mind. The Venetian tower, built when the Acropolis was 
 refortified by the Eepublic of Venice, carries its own mark of vener- 
 able respectability, and produces no discord in the mind. The very 
 interesting and beautiful old Byzantine Cathedral of Athens would 
 be more beautiful anywhere else; and one is half ashamed in 
 descending from the Parthenon, and entering the new Cathedral, 
 to feel oneself admiring the light arcades, the groups of daintily- 
 carved columns, the upspringing domes, and the delicate poetry-in- 
 stone of this fine specimen of the Byzantine grand-daughter of the 
 ancient Doric. 
 
 The houses of the citizens are solid, substantial and neat, with a 
 certain degree of handsomeness about them derived from the good 
 stone employed in their building; they are plainly ornamented, but 
 are rather staring; there is a great fashion for gardens in the 
 squares, and avenues of trees in the streets, but they are always so 
 laden with dust, that it seems a waste and a cruelty to plant them. 
 For the dust at Athens is something indescribable — stifling — and 
 intolerable; on a calm day it lies thickly upon one’s tables and 
 chairs, and penetrates even into one's bed — when there is a breeze 
 it filters through the closed windows and fills one’s hands, ones 
 mouth, and one’s hair, till one feels half suffocated. The fragile 
 pepper trees best resist its disfiguring appearance, but the unfortu- 
 nate oleanders, of stiffer growth, are really transmogrified into white 
 and grey heaps which look most melancholy. 
 
 The Temple of Theseus, which stands on a slight rise at the foot 
 
 2 k 2 
 
EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 500 
 
 
 of the Acropolis, is singularly graceful and beautiful; thanks to 
 St. George (who was made to serve during the time of its occupation ! 
 as a Christian Church for Hercules and Theseus, in the commemo- j 
 rative friezes that surround it), it has been preserved nearly in 
 perfection; it is low and small, but in beautiful proportion and 
 finely finished. Its contents are still more beautiful than its i 
 exterior, for it is now the Museum containing all the noblest and ; 
 loveliest of the works of Art yet remaining in Athens : some statues 1 
 of Apollo, an exquisite Achilles, a Mars, a Pan, and some female 
 figures of almost unrivalled beauty. Among them also is the j 
 famous bas-relief of the Persian warrior found under the modern J I 
 soil of Marathon ; while on the platform outside are a number of ] 
 venerable stone seats, brought down from the Areopagus, which 
 were once the chairs of the judges of the Senate — the solemn 1 
 Council who sat on “ Mars’ Hill.” 
 
 One of these simple stone seats was one day occupied by an j 
 Elder of the Senate, who took his accustomed place when a dispute 1 
 had to be heard upon the Areopagus, and began to listen with | 
 weariness of mind to the “new thing” the stranger had to tell, 
 when lo ! the Spirit of God stirred within his breast : he had “ felt j 
 after Him and found Him ” — Him, the Christ, the Incarnate Son of 1 
 God, the pure, the lowly, the all-merciful, the loving ; he saw Him 
 in contrast with the abstract principles to which a thousand altars 1 
 stood erected all around : the shadows he had been groping after in ] 
 deep darkness vanished before the firm reality and simple loveliness 1 
 of Light and Truth : and casting away at once those gods who ; 
 could not save any one of the multitudes who worshipped them 
 from suffering or from sin, because their religion was selfish and j 
 self-reliant — he lifted up his heart in the Eighteousness of Christ, 4 
 and accepted with humble gladness the good tidings of great joy 
 which proclaimed peace of heart and salvation to all the world. 
 This Elder’s name was Dionysius, and the messenger who set forth 
 the “ strange thing ” was Paul the Apostle. The traces of a small j 
 church dedicated to the memory of Dionysius, who afterwards 1 
 became Bishop of Athens, are still visible on the summit of the , 
 Areopagus. 
 
 No picture, however gloriously painted, can adequately portray 
 the scene of St. Paul’s discourse: to enter into its spirit and to 
 realise its hold upon the minds of his hearers, one must behold that 
 " worship of men’s hands,” " the gold, the silver, and the stone, 
 graven by art and man’s device,” and embody that atmosphere of 
 idolatry and ignorance which pervaded “ all the nations of men on 
 the face of the earth” assembled in this crowd; one must see the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 501 
 
 innumerable altars raised to the comprehended and uncompre- 
 hended attributes of the Divine Nature, or for the propitiation of 
 gods whom they knew not, and to whom they could not even apply 
 a name : one must feel that religious yearning which was a part of 
 the very being of these high-hearted and excitable citizens, which 
 vented itself in such a prodigality of material worship that Athens 
 was called a city of gods, — without remembering all this, the 
 peculiar mark and character of that singularly beautiful address 
 are lost. Unseen, but felt, in the bosoms of the superstitious 
 Athenians, was the immediate vicinity of the dark and awful 
 fissure, part of which runs under the very seats of the Judges, the 
 sanctuary of the Eumenides or Furies ; probably the inner recess 
 of the chasm and the black pool of water were then completely 
 concealed in the Temple which once stood at the entrance: now 
 one can look down into the very heart of the black darkness of the 
 gloomy and once awful cavern, of which the rocks are thought to 
 have been split further open by more recent earthquakes. They 
 felt that it was deliverance from the dreaded punishments they 
 believed to be inflicted, both here and hereafter, by these terrible 
 serpent-covered maidens, that St. Paul proclaimed there on that 
 rocky hill by the doctrine of Repentance from their sins, along with 
 the welcome assurance of the Resurrection from the dead. The 
 steps up to the summit from the valley below, the stones on which 
 the accuser and the defendant stood, and a rude bench all cut in 
 the living rock, still remain perfect : it is to the Christian the most 
 impressive spot in Greece. 
 
 On the south-western side of the Acropolis stands the picturesque 
 Theatre or Odeum of Herodes ; it is but little destroyed, and late in 
 the afternoon, when the sun lights up the ruddy stone and brick of 
 the arches, and shows out the graceful curve of the seats, this 
 building is a beautiful object. The Greek plays, so full, in every 
 line, of natural imagery and allusion to the surrounding scene, 
 would be read with thousandfold pleasure, seated on one of those 
 old seats, under the blue sky, and breathing the sweet “ pellucid 
 air ” which happily can never change. 
 
 From this, passing over the remains of the Dionysiac Theatre, 
 one of the largest and grandest ever made, the eye naturally travels 
 round to the splendid Temple of Jupiter Olympius, which became, 
 from the length of time that passed between its commencement and 
 its completion — seven centuries— a byword and a proverb among 
 the Athenians, who after all left the Romans to finish it. It is 
 hardly possible now to imagine how very magnificent and glorious 
 it must have been, as, of the 120 columns which once adorned the 
 
502 
 
 EGYPTIAN’ SEPULCHRES 
 
 exterior, only fifteen now remain. A double row of columns sur- 
 rounded the cella, doubled again at each end, each column 58 feet 
 in height and fluted, surmounted by a capital of the most elegant 
 and bold though delicate Corinthian acanthus. No other Temple 
 could have rivalled this one unless it be that of the Sun at Baalbek, 
 which in the general design and the richness of the detail will well 
 bear comparison with its Athenian brother, but the situations of 
 the two are different. The Temple of Baalbek stands, with its 
 brother Temple, upon a hill overlooking a vast plain and opposite 
 to the loftiest portion of the wooded and snow-capped Lebanon 
 mountains : there could not be found a finer site in itself for the 
 noble group, standing thus alone, for no other object attracts the 
 eye : the Temple of Jupiter Olympius is placed on the level plain, 
 commanding no distance, and backed by low and barren hills, but 
 near to the foot of that rock which rears up aloft for the admiration 
 of all generations one of the most exquisitely lovely of all the 
 buildings in the world, and the glory of Greece. 
 
 The view of the Acropolis from the neighbourhood of this 
 Temple is one of the finest that can be had : from this the abrupt 
 rising of the rocky hill from the plain, and the steepness of its 
 sfdes, are better seen than from elsewhere ; while, shining in its 
 whiteness, the Parthenon appears on the summit of her noble 
 pedestal. The situation of Tadmor is, in my opinion, finer and 
 grander than that of any of these temples — Jupiter Olympius, 
 Baalbek, and even than the Parthenon; but Palmyra lacks the 
 memory enshrined in every heart, of those centuries of Poetry and 
 Heroism, which form the real “ crown of light ” fixed for ever in the 
 sky above the Acropolis. 
 
 Bending round the eastern end of this world-famed rock a small 
 street anciently ran : a street of monuments raised to commemorate 
 the victory of such-and-such a chorus in the Dramatic contests. 
 One specimen only of the monuments is still standing, but this one 
 is nearly perfect : it is a very small circular structure, surrounded 
 by six Corinthian columns, and standing on a plain square base ; a 
 rich frieze and a highly ornamented roof support a beautiful 
 pedestal on which the Tripod — the prize of the successful candidate 
 — was placed : the name of the Chorus, in this case of Lysicrates, 
 was engraved on the architrave. If all the monuments were as 
 pretty as this one, the street must have been beautiful indeed. 
 
 A larger building, but not nearly so pretty, called the Temple of 
 the Winds, stands further to the north : on its eight sides are sculp- 
 tured the winds of each season with their respective characteristics 
 from the lighted charcoal and thick garments of Winter to the 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 5C3 
 
 flowers and fruits of Summer and the rains of Autumn ; the beauti- 
 ful capital of the doorway, uniting the Egyptian water-leaf with the 
 Grecian acanthus, has disappeared. The most picturesque among 
 the other ruins is the Portico of the New Agora, erected by Julius 
 Caesar : it stands alone, looking very majestic, but very lonely and 
 sorrowful in the midst of the shops and booths that surround it. 
 
 We drove very early one hot morning to the cool “ groves of 
 Academe the u olives ” are outside the walled garden, in which 
 there are some fine oriental planes (the descendants of course of 
 those which formed “ Plato’s retirement ”), with acacias, flowering 
 shrubs, and vines ; but “ the Attic bird ” refused to “ trill her thick- 
 warbled notes ” * for the stranger, and we were only consoled by the 
 pretty view of the Acropolis from between the trees, which is, how- 
 ever, a good deal prettier in the evening. The Kephissus, in summer 
 a very poor and feeble stream, just as it was in ancient times, runs 
 in green ditches along the Academy groves, but she had just then 
 found the road more to her taste, and we drove through pools of 
 water, and tumbled in and out of deep holes [in the most alarming- 
 manner, until we were quite tired with the unusual exercise. The 
 roads were lined with mud walls, built in thick slabs, topped with 
 brushwood. 
 
 Having thus had enough of the Kephissus, we walked out in the 
 afternoon one day to the Ilissus, which we crossed, stepping on 
 pebbles over the shallow stream, and ascended into the Stadium, 
 the traces of which are yet very perfect : a fine bridge once spanned 
 the river, in winter a copious stream, and must have made a grand 
 approach to the spacious semicircle, when the hill side was lined 
 with the ranges of white marble seats. There is something touch- 
 ing now in the utter loneliness and silence of the grass-grown hollow^ 
 when one thinks of the gay and excited multitude that thronged its 
 banks to witness the races, holding in their hands the wreaths and 
 bouquets of flowers to be showered down upon the fortunate victor; 
 Time has clothe^ the little plain with “ the peacefulness of grass 
 and not a flower was to be seen on the banks of the river that went 
 lazily murmuring by, save the lavender spray of the fragrant agnus- 
 castus, a humble substitute for the delicate heliotrope .that once 
 grew wild there, a plant consecrated to Plato, as the only flower 
 mentioned by him. Under some tall bushes of this shrub, for not 
 a tree remains on the bare banks of the Ilissus, we sat down to read 
 Socrates’ invitation to Phsedrus to rest awhile with him under the 
 shadow of the plane-trees there : the ruined heaps of the bridge- 
 piers were opposite to us, and a little further down was the site of 
 
 * Milton. 
 
EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 501 
 
 the Temple of Artemis (since a church); but alas ! we had stumbled 
 upon the steaming carcase of a dead horse, and other abominations, 
 and we were obliged to beat a hasty retreat. So we went on to the 
 Fountain of Callirrhoe (the Nine Springs), where the Athenian women 
 have washed their clothes ever since the days of Pisistratus, and 
 were still washing (probably not the same clothes) when we passed 
 by, and listened to the babble of tongues joining in loud duets with 
 the gushing noise of the pipe-led stream. 
 
 Such was the suffocating heat of Athens at this time that the 
 sound or sight of water was absolutely a relief : we found we could 
 attempt nothing in the way of sight-seeing between the hours of 
 ten and five, which did not leave much daylight at our disposal : 
 the most luxurious enjoyment was to go and sit for two or three 
 liouis before sunset in the gardens of the Palace, which are thrown 
 open with great liberality to the public, and which contain, besides 
 some interesting Poman remains, a great variety of fine trees and 
 flowering shrubs ; they are laid out with much taste and ingenuity. 
 
 The Queen has also a large farm with a maisonnette de plaisir at 
 a few miles’ distance from the city, reached by an excellent road 
 lying between gardens hedged with oleanders ; there is a lovely 
 view from the top of the small tower, and very pleasant are the 
 avenues of white and yellow roses, the innumerable clover beds 
 which perfume the air, and the fine trees of this carefully kept 
 garden. The cowhouse, containing about sixty cows, was worth 
 seeing for its good order and arrangements, besides some gentle and 
 very tame giraffes lately arrived from Egypt. This is a very plea- 
 sant drive from Athens : we went back slowly, enjoying the sight of 
 the full moon, with Venus, a little w r orld of glowing silver, triumph- 
 ing in radiant beauty over Jupiter ; while every mountain height 
 — Hymettus, Pentclicus,Lycabettus — was crowned with immense 
 bonfires to celebrate King Otho’s birthday. It was most strange and 
 weird to see the Acropolis lighted up with the brilliant, fiery glare 
 which revealed every temple and column in a strange, uncanny 
 fashion. The town had been very gay and noisy all day, the German 
 soldiers filling the streets ; and when we re-entered it, the pave- 
 ments outside the cafes were crowded with gentlemen and ladies, 
 many of the former and nearly all the latter in the national costume, 
 certainly the most picturesque man’s dress possible. Everybody 
 knows, from pictures, the bright waistcoat, hanging jacket, tight 
 cloth buskins, and full white kilt or petticoat (most ingeniously 
 made) of the Greek, which become their sharp faces and lithe figures 
 so well. The only peculiarity of the ladies’ costume is a richly em- 
 broidered jacket and a falling scarlet cap, with a long gold tassel : 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 505 < 
 
 it is a graceful and pretty dress ; the cap is arranged with'immense 
 care and art. 
 
 As we were curious to see the very varied costumes of the Greek 
 peasants, we were pleased to hear of a great annual fete to be held 
 on Mount Pentelicus on the 4th of June, the Feast of the Holy 
 Trinity, and gladly agreed to accompany some friends thither. We 
 started at 8 a.m. in a covered carriage, leaving the town by the 
 north-east. The road crossed an apparently very long subterranean 
 aqueduct, with openings to the air, covered with iron lids, at 
 every few yards : and then lay over an open, heathy country, for 
 about an hour, after which we passed through a grove of really 
 noble old olives and some vineyards, before we came to the pretty 
 stream of the Kephissus. We then began to ascend the hill through 
 thick brushwood of agnuscastus, lentisk, and prickly oak, with 
 arbutus, judas-tree, and abundance of yellow broom ; and arrived 
 on a grassy plateau, shaded by a thick wood of lofty silver-poplars, 
 covered with crowds of carriages, carts, unharnessed horses, and 
 parties of people, all busy upon wine, lemonade, coffee, and more 
 substantial viands. We went first, as in duty bound, to the little 
 chapel, which is ornamented with Byzantine frescoes, representing 
 all kinds of martyrdoms of a horrible and lugubrious nature : and 
 then sat down to watch the dancers, and to examine the endless 
 variety of costume, which is really worth seeing. The fair faces of 
 the Greek peasant-women look very delicate and refined after the 
 coarse Syrian and the ugly Egyptian women ; but we saw very little 
 real beauty among them ; good eyes and eyebrows are their best 
 feature, and their figures are as beautiful as their movements are 
 graceful. The dancing was all very slow and monotonous, seem- 
 ingly without any particular rule : the couples went hand in hand, 
 or followed each other, sometimes with a handkerchief twisted about 
 between them, and the women’s eyes were invariably bent on the 
 ground. I began to sketch two or three of the prettiest women, but 
 a great crowd gathered around me, and made merry with so many 
 jokes and witticisms, that the husbands always snatched away my 
 victims before I had made any progress in their portraits. At last 
 we were invited into a little room in the monastery, where a hand- 
 some young woman, the sister of one of the priests, was induced to 
 sit to me: but nothing could make the blue-satin-robed priests 
 understand that I wanted light and elbow-room, and that I did not 
 like their leaning over my shoulders ; and the girl was so shy and 
 modest that the picture-taking was an unpleasant proceeding on 
 both sides and succeeded very ill : it was, however, considered very 
 splendid by the monks and peasants, and the poor thing was 
 
506 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 allowed to escape before her blushes had quite burnt through her 
 cheeks. 
 
 Her dress was truly magnificent, though how she carried the 
 weight of it, that hot day, I could^not understand ; and it was so stiff 
 with its great thickness that it hid all beauty of figure. Her gown 
 was of very thick white cloth, reaching almost to the ground, and 
 nearly tight round her, embroidered, to the depth of two feet from 
 the bottom, in coarse worsted and silk, chiefly dark green and 
 orange, so as entirely to hide the material : it was open on the 
 bosom, showing a white gauze shirt, and was bound round with a 
 girdle of very thick crimson woollen stuff, finished with tassels : 
 every girl embroiders such a dress for herself before her marriage. 
 Over this gown and the white apron trimmed with lace, comes a 
 long shapeless coat, reaching to below the knees, of double crimson 
 cloth, the under cloth an inch or two larger than the upper, embroi- 
 dered all over with gold and a little coloured silk until it is as stiff 
 as a board : it is excessively rich and ungraceful : the sleeves are 
 long and the dress very open on the bosom, which was entirely 
 covered with seven or eight gold chains, strung with gold coins, 
 very tastefully arranged with Greek crosses stuck with jewels : and 
 a necklace of a dozen strings of pearls was round her throat. The 
 red cap was bound upon her head by a coloured gauze handkerchief, 
 and edged with two rows of gold coins ; her nice brown hair was 
 plaited in two long braids with thick red silk cords, and enormous 
 tassels reaching down to the ground, topped with gold and silver — 
 a huge bunch to each braid, of which the weight was quite fearful. 
 Over all this was a beautiful white gauze veil, richly and elegantly 
 embroidered with gold, not hanging over the face, but swathed 
 round the neck under the chin, and hanging down behind. Such a 
 dress, without including the coins, which seemed to be chiefly foreign 
 moneys, or the pearls, costs from 60/. to 80/. The dress of the 
 unmarried girls is simpler, but also much embroidered. 
 
 From the little chapel above the monastery there is a lovely view 
 of Attica and the islands with the Peloponnesian mountains; 
 Corinth is very distinctly seen ; and close by we found delicious 
 cool shade beside a clear fountain, where we ate bread and oranges 
 in preference to the sour lemonade, and bitter acrid wine (like a 
 tisane of resin and vinegar), with which our neighbours were 
 refreshing themselves. All seemed bright and happy, and we saw 
 not the slightest sign of drunkenness, nor even heard any loud, 
 vulgar shoutings : the road was covered with returning parties as 
 we drove back to Athens, riding on donkeys, or packed into rough 
 carts. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 507 
 
 We had intended to make a rather extensive tonr in Greece, and 
 on arriving in Athens we had at once commenced our prepara- 
 tions : hut, to our great disappointment, we were met on all sides 
 with the most complete discouragement : the people seemed to 
 think us more than half crazy for the very idea of travelling in 
 Greece in the month of June. At first we assured them we had 
 come from a hotter country, and were well inured to the sun, but 
 when we found the very dragomans who offered their services refused 
 to engage for excursions in the country, we began to think there 
 “ must be something in it,” and we very soon learned by our own 
 experience that the Grecian sun was not to be defied ; moreover, 
 that the air of Greece has such an effect upon the nerves, that the 
 heat is more irritating and injurious there than in Syria, from the 
 body being in a less healthy condition. On first arriving in 
 Greece, the stranger feels exhilarated and buoyant : he realises 
 that he is “ lightly tripping through an atmosphere of surpassing 
 brightness * he feels so strong and well and happy that he is 
 delighted with himself and with everything around him : but in 
 this very charm lies a sweet poison; the nerves, which have 
 rejoiced in their sudden tension, are in a day or two (or more, 
 according to the power of the sun and the constitution of the 
 individual) strung to a pitch beyond endurance, and the result is 
 either fever, or some form of neuralgia. The extraordinary pre- 
 valence of the latter complaint, among all classes and both sexes, 
 must unquestionably be produced by the climate, and it seemed 
 fully to deserve the name we heard given to it — “the curse of 
 Attica.” The stranger, after a few days, finds his new strength 
 has unaccountably disappeared; a feeling of intense fatigue and 
 heavy limbs overpowers his energies, and the hot, suffocating 
 nights bring him neither rest nor sleep. If the mosquitos will let 
 you venture out of your curtains, you roam from room to room, or 
 from bed to sofa and sofa to bed : but you always arrive at the 
 conviction that there was more air in the place you have just left 
 than in the one you have just got to. Your temples seem bound 
 up with cords and your head feels bursting : and then, if you 
 stay another month in Athens you are pretty sure to have some 
 attack of tic, which will fill you full of sympathy for those Athenians 
 who cannot leave Athens during the heat of summer. 
 
 We knew, however, that refreshing air would be found upon the 
 mountains, and so in spite of all fears we engaged a very highly 
 recommended dragoman, Spiro Adamopulos, to arrange a six days’ 
 excursion for us, parting at the same time with our good Syrian 
 
 * Euripides. 
 
508 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Habeeb Soma, who had accompanied us thus far. "We were anxious 
 to travel in the same manner as we had done in Syria, but alas ! 
 we yielded reluctantly to the dissuasive eloquence of our new 
 attendant, and included only beds and provisions in our engage- 
 ment with him. I strongly advise no one else to listen to such 
 dissuasions; a tent adds but one mule to the troop, and besides 
 enabling you to stop where and when you please, it affords you 
 peace, quiet, and a sound refreshing sleep : the dragomans are only 
 unwilling to take it because of course it adds as much to their 
 trouble as to your comfort. 
 
 General Sir Kichard Church — one of the heroes of the Greek 
 War of Independence, whose kindness to us was untiring and 
 whose advice proved most useful — provided us with letters of 
 introduction to various gentlemen’s houses, for in Greece, private 
 hospitality still supplies the place of public accommodation: a 
 government order, called a Bouyourouldi, was procured for us, 
 which was to insure us lodging and attention wherever we de- 
 manded them. Our baggage mules and horses had been sent on 
 the night before, as, in order to lessen our fatigues, we had engaged 
 a carriage to take us as far as the road was then completed: a 
 seven hours’ drive. We arranged to set off at 6 a.m., but, not 
 being ready till half an hour later, we were rather surprised at 
 receiving a message from the coachman to say that he would not 
 go at all if we delayed another moment, as he considered that a 
 few minutes later it would be too hot to set out ! the hotel people 
 wished us good-bye in a melancholy manner, as if they thought 
 we were going to perdition, and altogether we became very much 
 impressed with the possible imprudence of our proceedings. It 
 was, however, too late to draw back, and our peace of mind was 
 soon restored by the luxurious enjoyment of the easy, comfortable, 
 covered britschka, rolling along the excellent road with four horses, 
 at a speed that tempered the heat by the pleasant breeze. After 
 leaving the plain the road runs through the pass of Daphne, a 
 narrow and pretty valley (not half as charming as its romantic 
 Syrian namesake), from whence there is a most beautiful view of 
 Mount Geranea and the Bay of Eleusis, looking like a lake — so 
 completely does it appear enclosed by the famed island of Salamis : 
 one could scarcely even fancy its tranquil loveliness disturbed by 
 the noise and strife of such a victory as that of Salamis : without a 
 single boat, or human being, or any sign of life, the landscape 
 seemed like a most exquisite picture ; and yet one’s heart thrilled 
 in only thinking of the two-thousand-year-old memory ! Skirting 
 the edge of the bay, we drove round to the village of Eleusis, where 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 509 
 
 we alighted for a few moments to examine some excavations com- 
 menced about six weeks previously by a M. Le Norman : the 
 French Government had purchased some houses which were 
 believed to cover the site of the Temple where the Eleusinian 
 Mysteries were practised, and the workmen were then engaged in 
 laying bare its foundations, and were daily discovering capitals, 
 drums and bases of columns, and broken bits of very beautiful 
 sculpture, heaps of which were already collected in a little house 
 hard by. We saw capitals of each of the three orders of archi- 
 tecture, one very large Corinthian capital, with richly and finely cut 
 acanthus leaves, was being then uncovered ; and the pedestal of a 
 statue, with two torches crossed on the front. There was also an 
 enormous medallion containing the bust of an Emperor. We 
 walked on a little way to the site of the Temple of Ceres, from 
 which one can see the extreme narrowness of the straits where the 
 battle was fought, and the rocky seat on the brow of iEgaleos 
 whence Xerxes sprang up in an agony of grief and rage at his 
 effeminate generals. 
 
 After leaving the Bay, we struck to the right, and followed a very 
 pretty and wild road, marvellously winding, for 
 
 ' “ the upland paths 
 Of Kithaeron’s glades are steep,” 
 
 through rocks and low woods, till we came to a little Khan, called 
 Casae, where we reluctantly left our carriage. The house had only 
 one room above and two below: we mounted to the upper one, 
 which was unfurnished, and lay down on the bare floor wrapped in 
 our cloaks for an hour, but it was very hot, and we were glad to 
 leave it at 3.30 p.m. to ride up the pretty wooded gorge, and look 
 back at the fine and picturesque Gipsy Castle, as it is now called, 
 the site of the ancient CEnoe (Col. Leake). A cool breeze greeted 
 us on the brow o the defile, refreshing us enough to enjoy a 
 glorious view, when for the first time our eyes beheld Mount 
 Parnassus. On the right, the lofty snow-covered peak of Mount 
 Delphos in Euboea, with range behind range of mountain and hill : 
 then the fertile Boeotian Plain of Thebes and Plataea : and to the 
 left, the hill of the Sphinx stretching out its length, like fore-paws 
 folded, below the rugged heights of Helicon and the snowy peaks 
 of Parnassus. The light was shining upon the white houses of 
 Thebes — and one could not help fancying how splendid a point in 
 the fine landscape it must have been, when the music-built walls 
 of the ancient Acropolis yet crowned the hill on which its humble 
 descendant now stands. 
 
510 
 
 EG YET/AN SEPUL CURES 
 
 We now descended the other side of “Kithreron’s wooded glades,” 
 riding among some scores of men employed in constructing the 
 road ; in the fields we observed here, and everywhere else in this 
 expedition, little sheds or tents stuck up on a few sticks to shade 
 even the poorest peasant during his field-labours ; it seemed strange, 
 coming from much hotter countries, such as Egypt and Syria, to 
 find so many more precautions taken against the sun ; yet on the 
 other hand the peasants wear only a thin straw hat! so poor a 
 protection from an Eastern sun would be almost fatal to a 
 Syrian. 
 
 We reached Thebes about sunset : the approach to the town is 
 remarkably pretty, and the principal street is substantially built ; 
 we alighted at the house of a Greek gentleman, M. Theagene, 
 whose hospitality, already bespoken for us, was most kindly given ; 
 but we enjoyed only a very short sleep, for warned by the heat and 
 fatigues of our first day, we left Thebes before 5 a.m., descending 
 the pretty hill on which the town is built, into the plain, which we 
 were three hours in crossing; the whole plain was covered with 
 water from the Asopus, and we splashed and waded through the 
 rushes, the water frequently reaching to the horses’ middles. 
 Crossing a little ridge, we entered the Plain of Leuctra, the scene 
 of Epaminondas’s victory over the Spartans; and passing by the 
 ruins which mark the site of the ancient city, we stopped about 
 9 a.m. at a small khan. Here our beds were put up in an empty 
 room, and we lay down to cool and rest, for the heat was already 
 too great to admit of further exposure to the sun : repose in such 
 houses, however, is not very easy to obtain; for the large apertures 
 left in the floor of the upper rooms, to facilitate communication 
 with the cabaret below, give free access to the noise and chatter 
 which the peasants love to prolong over their sour wine. We left 
 the house at 4 p.m., passing over the richly cultivated and charming 
 plain — one of the prettiest rides possible— winding along the foot 
 of Helicon, whose jagged, craggy peaks towered up above us ; we 
 passed the sites and ruins of several ancient cities, among them 
 Coronea, where ruins of a theatre, Agora, and Temple of Hera may 
 still be seen: and then we wound close under a noble perpen- 
 dicular cliff, called Petra, which the Greeks fortified and held for 
 a long time successfully against the Turks, in the War of Inde- 
 pendence. Down from Helicon’s sacred sides, danced a hundred 
 little rills of clear, cool water; no wonder the nymphs that lived 
 among them were inspired with poetic thoughts and sweet songs ; 
 and the way was bright and fragrant with flowers and shrubs, 
 under which the ground was actually swarming with tortoises, 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 511 
 
 some of them very large and beautifully stained : the path was also 
 marked with innumerable serpent trails. 
 
 The previous afternoon, as we descended the side of Kithmron, 
 one of our men killed a huge snake: it was certainly little under 
 five feet long, and thicker than my arm : the skin was of a pale 
 blue-green, very bright and pretty, with yellow underneath: our 
 servants said it was of a very venomous kind. A few minutes 
 after, we passed another of the same size, and here at the foot of 
 Helicon we saw two more : they were much larger than any we had 
 seen in the east. It is curious that Helicon and Kithmron, the 
 time-honoured haunts of the gentle Muses, the sacred pleasure- 
 grounds of the sport-loving Artemis, every rock, glen, grotto and 
 spring of which were peopled with their own sweet nymphs, should 
 now be infested with serpents and snakes, more, it is said, than 
 any other spot in Greece. Were the serpents that entwined the 
 tresses of the wild Bacchanal maidens, who tore poor Pentheus to 
 pieces merely because he was too prosaic and sober, the only beings 
 that survived the evaporation of all the spirits on these sacred 
 mountains? or is it a nineteenth-century parody of Nature on the 
 noble old allegories and poetry of ancient Greece, that has trans- 
 lated the Nymphs and Oreads of old into snakes and serpents, 
 spotted frogs and tiny newts ? 
 
 Moreover, as we looked onwards upon the snowy heights of 
 Parnassus, the rosy glow of sunset suddenly illuminated his “horned 
 head” and we were free, despite all modern “ common sense,” to 
 believe with the delightful old creeds of yore, if we pleased, that 
 the crimsoning of the snow announced the arrival in person of the 
 youthful god upon the summit of his favourite vine-clad mountain. 
 But when the sun had sunk, and the golden haze had gone — when 
 dead silence had fallen on the woods, and even the murmuring rills 
 seemed hushed into half-tones, and the leaves were whispering 
 their hopes and fears to each other under cover of the darkness, 
 and only the stars shone down in quiet radiance,— I looked and 
 looked among the woods, and fondly hoped I eight catch a glimpse 
 of an ivy crown, or a white arm, or the wild eyes of an Oread, or a 
 Bacchanal’s thyrsus ; but alas for the golden dreams of the Past ! 
 some cruelly modern breath must have passed over my soul and 
 veiled my eyes, for the fierce and fatal maidens hid themselves and 
 would not appear : and all I could obtain to cheer me on my path 
 were a few glow-worms, shining meek y on the grass. 
 
 In spite of the pleasantness of the ride, we were excessively tired 
 before we reached Levadea, the lights of which had long twinkled 
 most invitingly from the wooded heights on which the town is 
 
512 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 built, as we groped our way through the luxuriant meadows. We 
 stopped at a filthy khan where our cook had already prepared our 
 dinner, declaring that it was impossible to find better quarters at 
 Lcvadea, while to us it seemed equally impossible to remain for the 
 night among the fleas and fowls which pervaded every room; we 
 had, however, disconsolately alighted, when a venerable white- 
 bearded "priest came to announce that a gentleman had prepared 
 his guest-room for us, and was expecting us : so we went on most 
 thankfully to a clean-looking house, where, nevertheless, our hopes 
 of an undisturbed sleep were wofully disappointed. 
 
 Levadea is a most picturesque, charming town, and though 
 small, seems lively enough, with gay little shops, which were 
 already open at 5 a.m., as we rode up to the ancient Sanctuary of 
 Trophonius, a natural cave in a narrow mountain gorge, which it 
 is considered very unlucky to enter; outside the cavern there are 
 several niches and tablets cut in the face of the rock, and from it 
 a small stream issues into a weedy basin : while further on, from 
 under the noble rocks of the gorge, a copious mountain torrent — the 
 Hercyma — wells out, tossing, tumbling, and foaming down the 
 rocks into the valley beneath. On the heights above is a well- 
 placed modern castle, in ruins. We had quitted the town by five 
 o’clock, and after fording a river we mounted a low hill, whence 
 snowy Parnassus looked splendidly beautiful. Two hours brought 
 us to Chseronea, where we stopped to see the broken marble lion 
 which has for twenty-one centuries marked the spot where the 
 Thebans fell — broken, but not bent — in the battle which made 
 Philip of Macedon master of Greece, and in which Alexander the 
 Great first gave promise of his future fame. It was a fine thought 
 to render the memory of the nobility and courage of these unfor- 
 tunate patriots undying by an almost imperishable emblem, but we 
 failed to discern the wonderful depths of mixed expression said to 
 exist in the features of the lion’s face; with which in fact we were 
 very much disappointed. 
 
 We were more interested with the very curious little old Church 
 of the Panagia in the village, which contains two Doric and two 
 Ionic columns, some ancient frescoes, a stone chair from which it is 
 said Plutarch was wont to teach, and a number of strange inscriptions 
 outside the building which tell of the worship of Osiris of Egypt, 
 according to the Greek and Eoman knowledge of him. The Mayor 
 of the village, advised of our coming, came out to meet us, and offer 
 his assistance : but we could invent no cause for his services, and 
 could therefore only thank him. We rode on to the remains of the 
 Theatre, partly cut in the rock, on the side of the hill : the semi- 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 513 
 
 circles of seats are so distinctly visible that it is worth seeing, 
 although their marble coverings have disappeared ; towering per- 
 pendicularly above the theatre are the remains of the ancient Acro- 
 polis of Chseronea; and below are the ruins of an aqueduct and 
 of a beautiful five-mouthed fountain well deserving of imitation 
 elsewhere. 
 
 It was now eight o’clock and broiling hot ; a scorching sun was 
 shining on the Plain of Davlia, the old Daulis, which it cost us two 
 hours to cross, and which seemed all the hotter for the very beautiful 
 view of the stern, grey rocks and sparkling snows on Parnassus before 
 us and the glacier which we fancied we could distinguish between 
 the summits. At length we began to mount the steep hill, the foot 
 of Parnassus, and to approach the thick pomegranate groves, laden 
 with flowers, in which the little houses of Davlia are hidden. All 
 the nightingales in the world are descended from the birds of these 
 groves, for here it was that poor Philomela became the first specimen 
 of those small singers. We got into a cool, airy room in one of the 
 Davlian housed and lay down to rest, till two o’clock. Nothing 
 could be more charming than the rest of our ride that day : and 
 this consoled us for not being able to ascend Parnassus from Davlia, 
 descending upon Arachova, as we had wished to do, but the intense 
 heat and the want of sleep had deprived us of so much strength 
 that we were really afraid to attempt so fatiguing an undertaking, 
 especially as we had no tents, in which to take a night’s rest en 
 route. Prom Davlia tbe path mounts up and up, cooled with re- 
 freshing mountain breezes, the views changing at every step : now 
 among narrow, winding passes : then over bold mountain brows : 
 barren rocks and lofty cliffs contrasting with green little meadows 
 and luxuriant brushwood ; and after passing an isolated rock called 
 the Brigand’s Tower, where twenty-five of these gentry were taken 
 last year, after many unsuccessful attempts, by surrounding their 
 stronghold, we turned suddenly to the west, and pursued a long 
 narrow and steep gorge, which was very grand and beautiful: 
 Mount Parnassus, on the right, rising up sheer to the summit, with 
 quantities of snow on the side, the frowning rock looking very cold 
 and Alpine, and, on the left, the steep sides of Mount Elemon 
 clothed with a thick wood of lofty pines and other trees : while, 
 deep down in the bottom, rushed a stream. This is the Pass of 
 Schiste, and just at its commencement is the narrow place where 
 (Edipus met and murdered his father Laius; I fear from what we 
 heard he only set the example for a great many murders that have 
 been committed there since that unhappy day. 
 
 As we went on, the views became still more rich and varied. 
 
 2 L 
 
514 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Wherever human foot could stand vines were planted, the finest 
 plants and the most neatly tended we had seen in Greece : each 
 vineyard had its own stone vine-press, but the grapes are pressed a 
 second time in the peasants’ houses. The road wound along steep 
 and narrow ledges rather giddily, and the rocks seemed wonderfully 
 split and broken at the edges by earthquakes, which are said to be 
 of not uncommon occurrence here: the air was deliciously laden 
 with the perfume of the yellow and white broom and the abundant 
 honeysuckle clambering everywhere. As we mounted the last ridge 
 such a magnificent panorama opened upon us, looking down over the 
 whole gorge with the Gulf of Corinth and the Peloponnesus beyond, 
 that we regretted greatly not having arrived five minutes sooner to 
 catch the full daylight upon the scene : as it was, the light lingered 
 upon the mountain tops gloriously, and crimsoned the snow on the 
 five lovely peaks of Pentebro and the other mountains of the Morea, 
 in perfect beauty. Arachova was immediately before us, se cram- 
 pon nan t on the very steep side of Parnassus in an apparently 
 wonderful way, and we were very glad to get through the crabbed 
 lanes of the place before it was quite dark. The people were all 
 out, enjoying the evening after their day’s work, and excessively gay 
 and picturesque it was : the men with bright-coloured clothes 
 about them, smoking and chattering : the women, every one with a 
 strong scarlet and yellow woollen apron fastened down upon the 
 hips, and plenty of silver ornaments on their heads, with their 
 spinning distaffs in their hands ; and what a noise the pretty, buxom 
 creatures did make with their voluble tongues and high-pitched 
 voices ! Our dragoman took us to a nice room in a large house 
 belonging to a friend of his own, where about fifteen women and 
 children, some of them very pretty, surrounded us for the next two 
 hours to examine and shake hands with the interesting strangers ; 
 our riding-habits and hats exciting immense astonishment. 
 
 The best wine in Greece, we were told, was made here, and we 
 were therefore anxious to taste it, but we found it excessively un- 
 palatable, so saturated with resin and vinegar that none of us 
 could take a second sip. The Arachovians are famous for another 
 manufacture which is really good and pretty, a thick strongly- woven 
 tweed, used for carpets and cushions and sofa covers : it is warm, 
 of colours tastefully arranged in patterns, and closely resembles the 
 Spanish peasant’s manta or woollen scarf, which is, however, of 
 much brighter colours. 
 
 The women fed us in the morning with their finest wheaten bread, 
 made only as an offering to the priest, and marked with sacred 
 symbols: and we left them at eight o’clock following a beautiful 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 515 
 
 path along the mountain-side, looking down into the great valley 
 below, and bowered thickly over with wild roses, honeysuckle, prickly 
 oak, and zakkhoum, till after two hours’ ride we turned a corner and 
 came upon Delphi, one of the most sacred spots in all Greece, the 
 oracle of which was revered till a comparatively late period, by the 
 Grecians and their colonies. The mountain here recedes from the 
 valley in a sloping semicircle, round which, like the seats of a 
 theatre, were the terraces on which the city of Delphi was anciently 
 placed; portions of the Pelasgic masonry which supported these 
 terraces are still very evident under the modern houses. Doubtless 
 the appearance of this finely-placed city, adorned with rich buildings 
 and commanding such beautiful views, must have been very splendid. 
 In the deepest portion of the semicircle, the rock is split into a 
 chasm or fissure, down which the stream of the Pleistus used to 
 tumble : it is dry now, and the cliffs are of no great height, but it 
 must have made a fine background to the Temple, built of Parian 
 marble, which once covered over the small basin in which the 
 Priestess bathed when about to deliver her oracle. The steps by 
 which she descended into the Castalain fountain still remain, but the 
 basin itself is now overgrown with weeds and contains only a half- 
 dry puddle; behind it, in the face of the rock, are a variety of 
 niches, large and small, one of which has been converted into the 
 very tiniest chapel possible, dedicated to St. John ; and there is also 
 a channel, cut in the rock, which conducted the stream beyond the 
 Temple ; this too seemed dry. The spring seemed to fill a few yards 
 lower down, where several women were washing clothes, with the 
 aid of men and boys ; and altogether, with the extreme filth and 
 neglect of the whole place, it is now singularly unromantic and un- 
 attractive. We went down to the monastery built on the site of a 
 large temple, and found some fine fragments of sculpture scattered 
 about, with some Doric columns and other remains ; and the view 
 from under the noble old olives, some of them perhaps a thousand 
 years old, was most beautiful. 
 
 While we were looking about a sergeant and a private in uniform 
 came up with a salute, and announced that they had been sent 
 from Seal a, in obedience to a letter from the ‘"Home Office” of 
 Athens, to attend our orders and to accompany us down to Scala. 
 They had come up the night before, and had prepared a house for 
 us to sleep or breakfast in ; but of this our dragoman thought proper 
 not to inform us till after they were gone ; he chose only to say that, 
 happening to be there they politely offered us their services if we 
 wanted anything, and he suggested that we should give them a 
 joourboire and send them away. They refused the money, but 
 
 2 l 2 
 
516 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 shortly after went away, leaving us to breakfast, very uncomfortably 
 in the sunshine, by the spring : we had asked for some house, but 
 the dragoman assured us there was none in the village fit for us to 
 go into, and that we had better breakfast in the open air. It was so 
 hot in this shadeless place that we were glad to ride on as soon as 
 possible, though we had contemplated remaining at Delphi some 
 hours, to enjoy the view, which is, both to the north and to the south, 
 magnificent : so, only taking a hasty glance at the Stadium, which 
 is worth examining, and at a rock-hewn tomb by the roadside, we 
 continued our route, our dragoman having sent on the baggage 
 mules ten minutes in advance of us. The road was tolerably rough, 
 but wide, and well protected from the precipice on the outer side ; in 
 a quarter of an hour, however, we heard a great shouting, “ Spiro ! 
 Spiro ! ” to which our dragoman for some time gave no heed : at last 
 we asked him why he did not attend ; he then announced that the 
 muleteers had taken a wrong road, or rather that they had turned 
 off from the only road, that one of the mules had been on the point 
 of falling over the edge of the precipice, when to save it, the cords 
 securing oar luggage had been obliged to be cut, that his own 
 canteen, &c., which was fastened to the same mule was quite safe, 
 having been placed on the inner side, but that all our things which had 
 been tied on the outside had gone to the bottom of the valley ! He 
 recommended that we should go on to Chrisso, an hour and a half 
 further, and await the arrival of the muleteers, who were trying to 
 recover the scattered goods. The heat was now intense and we could 
 do nothing better, so seeing a nice, clean house in the village, we 
 asked permission to enter, and receiving a hearty welcome, were 
 soon installed in a large, airy room with mattresses laid for us to 
 rest on. 
 
 After waiting a weary hour we insisted upon Spiro sending down 
 after the soldiers who had come to meet us at Delphi, and on his 
 going himself to look after the luggage ; he returned, in another 
 hour, with a bundle tied up in one of our garments containing a 
 few books, clothes, &c., all things of no use to the finders, some 
 circular notes, of which happily they did not know the value, but 
 of course not a single halfpenny of some 50 1. in coin, or of a bag of 
 gems, turquoises, and Syrian antiques, which will probably be 
 offered for sale to travellers in Greece for the next five years. That 
 the box had tumbled down the precipice was probably true, for it 
 was completely crushed, the clothes were torn and the books 
 spoiled, — but whether its descent was accidental or pre-arranged, 
 we shall never be quite certain : why our guards should have been 
 carefully sent away, or why the mules should have been taken off 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 517 
 
 a very well-known road, or why letters, placed with the money in a 
 leather bag so stout and thick that no tumble could possibly have 
 torn it open or burst the lock, should have been taken out and 
 restored to us uncrumxM , while all the rest of the valuable 
 contents of the bag were nowhere— are questions which will 
 probably never receive a more definite answer than " it is just what 
 you may expect in Greece the poor consolation which was after- 
 wards bestowed on us from many quarters. 
 
 We sent for the Mayor of Chrisso, who held a regular court of 
 justice in our resting-place, taking down our depositions (to which 
 my sister was required to swear on a splendid copy of the Gospels, 
 cased in embossed silver); they asked about a hundred and fifty 
 irrelevant questions which would have amused an English court 
 very much, touching her birth and parentage, confession of faith 
 and education/whether she had been at school or not, &c., in short, 
 writing a brief biographical memoir of her which must no doubt 
 be an interesting item in the archives of Chrisso. It was sunset 
 before we escaped, and we had a rough descent to make in the dark 
 to Scalar it was slippery and very disagreeable, but we were a 
 large party, half a dozen soldiers accompanying us in order to hold 
 the door shut after the horse had gone ; we were not in the most 
 comfortable frame of mind : the air was very hot and close, but 
 sweet, and the fire-flies danced around us. We reached the steamer 
 at eleven in the evening, a very small Greek boat from Patras : there 
 were ten ladies on board and only three berths appropriated to 
 them, and these were in the general saloon : so we lay down on the 
 deck and enjoyed the fresh sea air and the early dawn on the grand 
 and lovely mountains that surround the Gulf of Corinth, reaching 
 Lutraki at four in the morning. 
 
 Here we stayed till eleven, letting the other passengers go on, 
 and waiting for a return carriage to convey us across the Isthmus 
 (for which they ask any price they fancy at the moment) ; and 
 we spent our Sunday morning in the shade on the deck of the 
 steamer looking at beautiful Corinth. It is a noble situation : the 
 white town of New Corinth on the water’s edge with gardens all 
 round, the lofty Acropolis of ancient Corinth, towering grandly 
 behind it, standing out from the surrounding mountains, and 
 looking over the calm and lovely blue gulf at its feet. We wished 
 to drive to the Seven Columns, but there was no carriage to be had 
 except for the drive straight across the Isthmus to Kalamaki. 
 There are pretty views all along this well-made road : Mount 
 Geranea, the real key of the Morea, on the left, and the Onean 
 Mountains on the right ; corn-fields and vineyards border the road. 
 
518 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 but the Isthmus is chiefly clothed with the fresh bright green of 
 the Isthmian pine, from whose branches were woven the simple 
 crowns of the chivalry of ancient Greece — crowns that were soon 
 withered and valueless in themselves, but which remained wreaths 
 of unfading virtue in the memories of the people. 
 
 We made the best toilette at Kalamaki that we could with the 
 remains of our garments and the ruins of our dressing apparatus in 
 the hospitable house of a currant merchant : after which a very 
 slow, dirty steamer took us on to the Piraeus in six hours : nothing 
 can exceed the beauty of the sail across the Saronic Gulf and round 
 the island of Salamis ; every island is of a different colour and 
 form, seeming to recede and advance in the clear atmosphere as w T e 
 passed by. We reached Athens at eleven o’clock very much in need 
 of rest and sleep. 
 
 It was some days before we recovered strength enough to make 
 any more expeditions : the far-famed iEgina, however, was not to 
 be resisted, and we made an effort to accompany a friend to that 
 pleasant, pretty island. Our dragoman had engaged an open 
 fisliing-boat to carry us across the gulf, and we drove down early 
 to the Pirmus, getting on board by 7 a.m. ; they had promised to 
 run us over to the island in forty-five minutes, but it was ten 
 o’clock before we reached the shore, and the sun was excessively 
 hot, as of course the little boat afforded no shelter whatever. We 
 had then a roasting walk before we found an umbrageous fig-tree 
 under which to rest and breakfast ; fortunately from this fortress 
 of comfort we espied three donkeys whom we captured and 
 mounted, sitting somehow on the wooden pack-saddle: an hour, 
 through char mi eg varieties of wood and rock, shrub and flower, 
 myrtle, arbutus, laurel, and pine, carried us up to the beautiful 
 ruin of the Temple dedicated to Minerva by the Athenians, who 
 built it on the north-eastern corner of the island, in the idea of the 
 goddess ever regarding, and being seen from Athens. It is mag- 
 nificently placed, facing Attica, Salamis, and Sunium, with Kithseron, 
 Pentelicus, and Hymettus : the eye sweeping round the mouth of 
 the Saronic Gulf and the beautiful islands of St. George and Hydra, 
 and across its own lovely curving bays to the Hieron mountains 
 behind Epidaurus and Methana. In the opposite corner of the 
 island rises a cone-shaped mountain, on which a Temple to Jupiter 
 once stood ; it was built by iEacus, the king of iEgina, and long 
 afterwards dedicated to Elias the Prophet, in order to take up the 
 thread, as it were, and thus translate into Christianity, the legend 
 of the king’s prayers for rain having been answered by Jove in a 
 plentiful and immediate shower. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 519 
 
 The Temple of Minerva was built, probably, six hundred years 
 before Christ ; it is of a soft stone, which has become a venerable 
 grey colour : the sculptures have all been carried off to Munich, 
 but twenty-two beautiful Doric fluted columns remain in situ , the 
 fluting carried up to the abacus, and ending in a row of beads 
 surrounding the column. It is said that the vermilion-coloured 
 stucco which covered the pavement, and the azure ground 
 against which the sculptures of the tympanum rested, could till 
 lately be distinguished, but the whole of the architrave has now 
 fallen, and we could not discover a trace of colour anywhere. But 
 it is still a very grand and very beautiful ruin, with a simple, noble 
 grace peculiarly its own. 
 
 The sailors insisted on our going on board again by one o’clock, 
 declaring that the wind would be unfavourable by three : but it 
 was even then dead against us, and we did not reach the Piraeus 
 till past six o’clock, after five hours of a roasting which fully 
 realised one’s ideas of purgatory, the whole party being really ill 
 from the fearful heat on the head and the glare of the water. "We 
 found the next day that the King’s cutter had been kindly placed 
 at our disposal for iEgina, but unfortunately we had gone before 
 the offer had reached us. 
 
 Our last expedition was a long ride up to the summit of 
 Pentelicus, an expedition that no traveller should omit : it is not a 
 fatiguing ride with good horses. We passed on the side of the 
 mountain a very pretty little turn, embowered in trees, and then 
 followed a wild and steep path up through flowery woods, and past 
 the quarry whence the marble used for the Parthenon was taken ; 
 past the great grotto, which contains some very white stalactites, 
 and then winding round some narrow dizzy bits among the low 
 woods emerged at the foot of the bare cone. Here we dismounted 
 and walked up to the summit; the view is extensive and very 
 beautiful, including the islands, lovely Euboea with all its bays and 
 mountains, all the Cyclades, and on a clear day Mitylene, and 
 Khios, with the Negropontine strait up to Yolo, the whole of Attica 
 and part of Boeotia : while directly under the foot of the mountain 
 lies the ever famous Plain of Marathon. Nothing struck me more 
 in this magnificent panorama than the extreme petiteness of the 
 country which composed it : one began to comprehend the reality 
 of all the different peoples of the Greeks belonging to cities, not 
 states : and the impossibility of real union among such a number 
 of very small independencies, each contained within its own walls, 
 and jealous of its own exclusive honour, which eventually caused 
 the fall of Greece ; but one marvelled all the more at the seemingly 
 
520 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 inexhaustible number of these very citizens, when one remembered 
 the armies engaged at Platsea and Miletus on the same day, and a 
 hundred other similar instances. Truly the Athenians deserved the 
 name of the “Immortals,” when one thought of the almost im- 
 measurable Persian Empire, and looked on the little Attica at one’s 
 feet! 
 
 So ended our Grecian excursions, for the rest of our stay was 
 unpleasantly occupied by illness, and all the other expeditions we 
 had planned we were compelled to give up ; the hot, dry climate 
 had by this time so seriously affected both ourselves and our 
 servants, that we were glad to leave the beautiful country, in spite 
 of the deep interest and delight we had in all the memorials of 
 ancient Greece, and the great pleasure which the kindness we met 
 with at Athens afforded us. We left the city reluctantly enough, 
 in a suffocating sirocco to go on board the Neva (one of the 
 finest steamers of the Messageries Imperiales) ; and the last object 
 we saw in Greece was the Doric Temple of Sunium, dedicated to 
 Minerva as the Providence of all Athenians. It stands on the very 
 brow of a dizzy cliff, and thence the Gtecian exile, or mariner, 
 snatched the last blessing of the goddess of virtue and wisdom, 
 whose sweet and strong lesson he bore away in his heart to other 
 lands, where, whatever happened to his person, his heart was still 
 Greek; thence again, on returning, he received his first bright 
 welcome back to the country of his birth, his love for which aroused 
 all that was noblest and highest in his soul. Twelve fluted 
 columns* still stand, riveting the eye by their lonely, desolate 
 beauty : to us they appeared in singular loveliness, for the white 
 marble was glowing in the sunset as we glided beneath the cliff, 
 and in another moment, the young moon appeared just above the 
 columns, like Dian’s kiss resting there: and long after all else 
 around us had sunk into dark masses, they shone out in silvery 
 splendour against the sky, casting down a long line of bright 
 reflection on the trembling waters at their feet. I thought, as the 
 fair scene faded away, how many a Greek sailing past them had 
 said in his heart, 
 
 “ . . . Better 
 
 Be ashes here than aught that lives elsewhere ! ” 
 
 * Whence the modern name of Cape Colonna. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 521 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 PARADISE ON MOUNT OLYMPUS. 
 
 Day broke as the Sea of Marmora contracted to the entrance of the 
 Bosphorus, and the red lines of the coming fire appeared above the 
 horizon among the deep blue crowds of Night, as we glided in 
 through crowds of Turkish ships and foreign steamers. We had 
 been on deck for an hour before, but the view was scarcely striking, 
 nor even very pretty until the sun came lightly flecking the Palace 
 on Seraglio Point, and lighting up the dark masses of the cypress 
 trees among the buildings. 
 
 Being too ill to walk, I was carried up in a sedan-chair to the 
 hotel, where I remained for a week in bed, all unheeding the far- 
 famed beauties of Stamboul, until one evening when I was able to 
 enjoy a really lovely view from our window in Missiri’s pleasant 
 hotel. Some heavy showers the night before had cooled and 
 cleared the air, and the colouring, misty and tame by day, came out 
 well under the sunset hues : looking over the piled-up confused 
 mass of roofs below us, the eye rested on the mouth of the Golden 
 Horn filled with ships and steamers, between which scores of 
 caiques were lightly skimming the water. Then came the white 
 buildings, palaces, and government houses, of Seraglio Point, 
 mounting one above the other, with the lofty cypresses between 
 them. The height, indeed, is not great, but the domes and minarets 
 of the great mosques, Santa Sophia, Suleymanyeh, and others, rise 
 behind them as crowning points above the general mass. On the other 
 side of the water is Skutari, green and white like Stamboul, with 
 the quaint-looking Maiden Tower,* as redolent of legends as any 
 Rhenish Castle, standing in the sea before the point : while stretch- 
 ing away in the distance came the pretty outlines of the Prince’s 
 
 Absurdly called by Europeans “Leander’s Tower.’ 
 
522 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 Islands, in front of the bine wall of the Asia Minor mountains, from 
 which for an hour or two, the beautiful snowy heights of Olympus, 
 shone out with majestic grace against the clear blue sky. This was 
 just for the time a really fine view. The climate is also delightfully 
 refreshing, even in the city, after Greece ; and on the Bosphorus 
 the air is still more enchanting. 
 
 We were anxious to get out, but here was a difficulty for I was 
 not strong enough to walk : or to ride, and we had, besides, left 
 our saddles in Greece : donkeys are not used at Constantinople 
 for carrying human burdens, and the caiques were too far off. 
 So we sent for a telega , and the article was soon at the door : 
 imagine an oval pill-box warranted to contain four people when 
 packed like figs in a drum, painted a brilliant rose colour, 
 covered with carving and gilding like a juvenile Lord-Mayor’s 
 coach, and with windows all round, mounted on huge wooden and 
 leather springs of the most primitive construction. The horse was 
 driven by a man who walked beside the vehicle (which is called an 
 araba when oxen are harnessed to it) : but sometimes he sat on a 
 little seat considerably below the level of his horse’s back: the 
 furious jolting is quite indescribable, and until we had left the 
 streets of Pera, very far from agreeable, save as a means of taking 
 involuntary exercise. 
 
 The brown hills behind Pera are entirely ugly, as are also the 
 mean wooden houses of the suburbs of the town, too ordinary 
 looking to be in the least picturesque : but before we reached the 
 country, we passed the Sultan’s Palace, a fine object from the water, 
 close to which it stands. It is of dazzling whiteness, covered over 
 with wreaths and ornaments of the same white stucco as the 
 walls, so as to resemble a bride-cake ; it is surrounded by huge 
 walls with gates of much gilt bronze, and a small garden. The 
 Sultan’s Theatre ‘ is close at hand, which, as well as his kiosk, a 
 pleasure building in a little wooded dell close by, is in the same 
 style of ornament and as dazzlingly yhite. 
 
 After an hour’s drive, we descended a steep road into a delicious 
 little narrow valley with a winding stream and a forest of park-like 
 and lofty trees, perhaps two miles in length: this is the Sweet 
 Waters of Europe, where the Turkish women congregate to smoke, 
 laugh, eat, chatter, and flirt. An ornamental weir has been made 
 beside a pretty kiosk, and the place is really charming. It was too 
 late in the season for seeing the fair visitors : in the summer they 
 frequent the Sweet Waters of Asia, but we found the more natural 
 beauties pleasant enough to reward us even for the abominable 
 jolting of the trajet there and back. It is much pleasanter to 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 523 
 
 go there on horseback and to return by caique along the Golden 
 Horn. 
 
 Another morning we started early, in a caique, to see the far- 
 famed beauties of the Bosphorus. Perhaps they are better seen 
 from the decks of the steamers, but the caique is pleasanter, and 
 you have more time to contemplate the views. I do not know what 
 will be thought of my confession, but I fear I must record my 
 humble opinion that Constantinople and the Bosphorus do not 
 deserve the immense amount of praise and admiration with which 
 they have been bepainted and besung over and over again. If the 
 City were a less confused mass than it is of very poor houses with 
 some few splendid palaces and a great many lovely mosques, and 
 had hills rising above and behind it, it would be much more 
 imposing. It is the same with the Bosphorus, the windings of 
 which are very graceful: but the hills which border it, though 
 picturesque and well wooded, are too low for its width and very 
 monotonous : call the view very pretty, and then you have said all 
 that you can (I think) justly or reasonably say about it. The 
 greater part of the Straits at least, on both sides, are lined with 
 houses, with gardens or woods behind them : about the middle and 
 at a pretty bend the two Castles of Anadol (Asia) and Eoumelia 
 (Europe) are picturesque enough : and there are half-a-dozen little 
 wooded meadows and valleys, either between or behind the towns, 
 which are extremely pleasant and make most refreshing sejours 
 for the Perotes in the summer. As you leave Constantinople to 
 ascend the Bosphorus, with the morning sun shinmg on Pera, it 
 looks well : the Eussian Embassy Palace, the Barracks, the great 
 Arsenal, the beautiful Mosque of the Yalideh (Sultan’s Mother), and 
 the Sultan’s Palace look really imposing, and here and there the 
 Palaces of the Sultan’s sons-in-law, of his sisters, or of his Ministers 
 are also handsome enough : but in general the effect of the wooden 
 houses everywhere, always more or less tumble down, is poor ; the 
 Embassies at Therapia are the only wooden houses which look 
 well, and here the Bosphorus is really pretty. Standing among 
 the gard<ms and flowers of Therapia, one looks across the water 
 at the largest Kiosk of the Sultan (built and presented to him 
 by Muhammad ’Ali), and at the well-shaped hill called the 
 Giant’s Mountain further on, while on the European side the bay 
 sweeps gracefully round, richly wooded above, and fringed below 
 with the gaily-painted houses of Buyukdere. This, with the fine 
 opening of the Black Sea, and the delicious air blowing in on your 
 face, is indeed a pretty view, and one to be remembered; while 
 looking back at Therapia from the Cyanean Eocks, or Symplegades, 
 
524 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 is a still finer view and the most beautiful of all on the Bosphorus : 
 this indeed is the only spot from which, in my opinion, the Bosphorus 
 can be called really very beautiful. 
 
 Buyukdere is charming ; but the country behind it is much more 
 so : we disembarked ourselves from our gliding caique, at the hotel, 
 and got into a tdega to drive to the Forest of Belgrad. And such a 
 drive as we had after the gentle motion of the caique! along a 
 narrow road, roughly paved and full of holes, over which we jogged 
 and jolted to that degree that we came back with our shoulders 
 sore from bruises, and the vertebrae of our necks aching with the 
 unusual effort of keeping heads on, while they seemed continually on 
 the point of coming off! Nothing could be more fatiguing by way 
 of a three hours’ drive, but we were well repaid for our sufferings. 
 First came English-looking hedges of luxuriant hawthorn, elder, 
 blackberry and nuts, tangled over with nightshade and wild un- 
 English vines, behind which were fields of graceful dhourra ; 
 further on, after wonderfully steep bits and turns, we passed under 
 the double tier of arches of the Aqueduct built by the father of the 
 present Sultan, and mounting the hill caught a beautiful view of 
 Buyukdere and the “ gates ” of the Black Sea ; and then we went 
 deep down into the Forest under fine plane-trees, English oaks, 
 chestnuts, poplars, beech, and a few pines in dark delicious 
 shades and winding paths, through a brushwood of ilex, arbutus, 
 and elder. Not a branch is allowed to be cut in the Forest, except 
 by the Verderers of the Sultan, for it is all Royal property, though 
 open to every Constantinopolitan to take his kef under its " care- 
 dispelling ” shades, and to sleep in the pretty kiosks built beside 
 the Bends (or Reservoirs) which the forest contains. The water, 
 in fine wide streams, is carried by the aqueducts into Constanti- 
 nople : there are seven of them, with a huge reservoir to each ; and 
 altogether it is a noble work. 
 
 Belgrad was the favourite abode of Lady Mary W. Montagu, and 
 her house is still shown in the little village. 
 
 A party having been formed at the hotel to share in the use of a 
 Firman for seeing the sights of Stamboul, we joined it, and started 
 early in the morning in a tdega to save fatigue, commencing our 
 round with the Seraglio — a large palace of rather low rooms, built 
 by Sultan Mahmoud II., altered and added to since then, and last 
 used by the present Sultan’s father; it is built, I believe, over 
 the remains of the Baths of the Greek Emperors. The palace is 
 furnished in a very heavy style of painting and gilding, in bad 
 taste and now quite dingy : all except some marble baths, and a 
 little octagonal room lined with Damascene mosaic of tortoise-shell 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 525 
 
 and mother-of-pearl, with an enormous fireplace covered with plates 
 of brass. Then we came to the well-kept and pretty garden, where 
 we gathered great bouquets of flowers; and then to a beautiful 
 kiosk beyond it, all gilding and inlay and delicate tracery of fine 
 marbles ; inside is the Divan (like a four-post bed), on which the 
 Sultan comes to repose himself for an hour after performing his 
 devotions in the Mosque of Achmet on the day of the Kourban 
 Bairam : this little room is full of pretty things. From the window 
 of this kiosk, all the Sultan’s answers to foreign Ambassadors 
 were given up to a few years ago : no foreigner being then ever 
 admitted to his Sublime Majesty’s presence. This kiosk is a perfect 
 gem of architecture. Then we passed the hall where the Sacred 
 Banners and some sacred arms are kept ; but no infidel, even of 
 Boyal or Imperial rank, has ever been allowed to enter the hallowed 
 precincts. The most sacred of the Banners is carefully concealed 
 from vulgar gaze, except on the occasion of a religious war, when it 
 is exhibited by the Sultan himself in order to stir up the hearts of 
 the faithful. The Banner is said to be made of a robe worn by the 
 Prophet. 
 
 After this we saw a large collection of the ancient costumes of the 
 Court displayed upon very well made waxen figures of life-size ; 
 they are very dirty, but curious, and rather interesting in showing 
 the various costumes worn by the officers of state, dignitaries, and 
 heads of trades in past days : some of the faces are excellent. 
 
 Then we drove on to a side door of the great Mosque of Santa 
 Sophia, entering by a winding staircase and coming out at the west 
 end into the clerestory gallery now appropriated to the Mooslim 
 women. This coup d’ceil of the interior is the most interesting, as 
 you can thence examine the details of the workmanship, but from 
 below, the building is indeed surpassingly beautiful. The ground 
 plan is divided into three parts, a square with a semicircle at each 
 end, the whole surrounded by a wide aisle. The centre dome is 
 surrounded by two domes and seven half domes, to which the eye is 
 carried up far above the real height by the tiers of columns and 
 galleries : forty columns on the ground and sixty smaller ones above 
 them, and so on till it reaches the dome, which is low (and therefore 
 appears all the wider in span), pierced with forty-eight windows ; 
 while, looking beyond the central part itself, the eye is lost in the 
 perspectives of the slender columns and galleries in endless but 
 tasteful sub-divisions of the surrounding aisles, covered in by their 
 own domes and half domes. The insides of these domes are all of 
 gilt mosaic ; the columns are everywhere of porphyry or serpentine ; 
 and the capitals are of white marble wrought, as are also the 
 
526 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 spandrils of the arches they uphold, in such exquisite incised tracery 
 as to look like petrified lace, the classic forms flattened down into 
 harmony with the mosaics which line the whole church, and the 
 severe Corinthian original is almost forgotten in the luxuriant rich- 
 ness which has broken out into what one might call a hot-house 
 Grecian order — a Eomanesque Classic — or a free Oriental transla- 
 tion of the Western text. Each capital bears the monogram of the 
 Emperor Justinian who built the church, and these the Mooslims 
 have spared, but the faces of all the Seraphim that support the 
 corners under the dome, the figure of Christ the Saviour in the act 
 of blessing, which once filled up the western dome, and every cross 
 in the whole building have been carefully effaced. Of the great 
 columns, eight were brought from the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, 
 and eight from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek : those of porphyry 
 are banded round with iron. On one side is the Sultan’s gallery 
 enclosed in a network of gilt tracery, to conceal his Majesty from 
 common eyes, should he ever visit the mosque ; and opposite to it 
 another small gallery is kept for the descendants of the Prophet to 
 pray in : above this the carpet on which Muhammad knelt at Mecca 
 is suspended against the marble-encrusted wall : while near it is the 
 rude picture of a hand — the hand of the Prophet : and without this 
 no mosque is legally acredited. 
 
 The marble floor, unconcealed by pews or any such like obstruc- 
 tions, had some picturesque groups of kneeling or seated Mooslims 
 on it, collected round an old Moollah, who was energetically and 
 solemnly preaching to them on “ the sixty religions in the world 
 their bright dresses and turbans, and the venerable figure of the old 
 Moollah, with his fine face and long white beard made a good 
 picture and an interesting one ; but suddenly a wild but harmonious 
 chant broke from the lips of a set of Mooslims at prayer in the side 
 aisle, and flung back one’s thoughts to the time when here 
 
 “ The Faith was led in triumph home, 
 
 Like some high bride, with banner and bright sign 
 And melody and flowers ” 
 
 and one’s heart yearned for the time when the Ottoman prophecy 
 shall be fulfilled, and Santa Sophia shall be Christian once more ! 
 One almost fancied one already heard the glad praises of the Te 
 Deum resounding through the aisles, and saw borne aloft the Eed 
 Cross Banner of our Eternal Hope and of our Faith, before which, 
 even in this land, so much of the best blood of Christendom has 
 been joyfully spilt ! 
 
 The outside of the mosque is excessively ugly ; but its form may 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 527 
 
 once have been forgotten under mosaics and colours : such a lovely 
 interior ought to have been cased in the porcelain tiles from the 
 old potteries at Kutayia in Asia Minor : one could forget or forgive 
 any form in looking at their beautiful colours and patterns. There 
 is a very fine Fountain in the Court. 
 
 But I am not going to act guide-book through all the other 
 scenes and sights of Contantinople ; not even into the Mosque of 
 Sultan Achmet, where the huge disproportioned columns look as if 
 they had the dropsy : nor yet to the Mausoleum of the last Sultan, 
 though I might well linger there over the exquisite illuminations of 
 many Korans that stand on inlaid desks placed round the group of 
 tombs in the circular hall — superbly delicate and highly finished, 
 and of a variety of patterns both in flowers and arabesques superior 
 to many of what we consider our finest specimens of mediaeval 
 work : — nor even shall I linger in the Bazaars of Stamboul ; for al- 
 though they are unquestionably very, fine from their great extent 
 and evident prosperity, they are so infinitely less Oriental and pic- 
 turesque than those of Cairo and Damascus, that our Easterned 
 'eyes were quite disappointed. These Bazaars are built of no parti- 
 cular architecture ; they have regular skylights, and are painted and 
 whitewashed : in the other cities they are mostly rough construc- 
 tions of wood and matting, all in tumble-down confusion, producing 
 dark shades, and sudden strong lights, and making a new and 
 striking picture at every yard : or if regularly built, they are always 
 handsome and imposing stone structures of Saracenic architecture, 
 suggesting both power and grace. Then in Constantinople, numbers 
 of them are regular shops with counters in them, and you hear 
 French, Italian and English on every side ; besides that fully half 
 the men in the bazaars are in European dress. There'are some fine 
 and purely Oriental things in them, nevertheless : old arms, Persian 
 objects of all kinds of beauty, especially silk stuffs and enamels, 
 and saddle-cloths covered with splendid gold embroidery ; the slipper 
 bazaar with its shelves of bright colours and silver threads, like 
 shows of cut flowers ; and the drugs, in a solemn, dark, really Orien- 
 tal-looking place, full of such mystery as befits the kill-if-not-cure 
 destination of its wares. After all, I think seeing Preziosi’s beauti- 
 ful drawings is quite as good as lookmg at the Bazaars themselves : 
 they have all the life itself transfixed by his magic brush, without 
 the noise, confusion, dirt and dogs of the originals. 
 
 The gayest sight we saw was the Sweet Waters of Asia, to which 
 Lady Bulwer kindly took us, on the great feast-day of the year— the 
 Friday after Kourban Bairam. This is the summer Hyde Park of 
 Constantinople, the Sweet Waters of Europe being only in fashion 
 
528 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 during the winter season ; there is no beauty in the spot save that 
 of a few fine trees beneath whose shade the women sit the whole day. 
 The place was excessively crowded, and one could not have a better 
 opportunity of studying Turkish women : the gay flaunting flowers 
 of the Bosphorine hareems were sitting in a closely-packed mass 
 upon the green sward, under the shade of the oak and the elm, the 
 colours jumbled into each other, like the pattern of a brilliant 
 Parisian carpet, thrown up upon a groundwork of their white veils, 
 almost dazzling in its confused brightness, while the harsh, bird- 
 like, ceaseless chatter of the ladies’ tongues was almost relieved by 
 the occasional cry of a spoilt child or the squeak of a swaddled 
 baby. Each group of two or three women had their own mattress, 
 goolleh (clay jar) of water, and an embroidered handkerchief con- 
 taining their eatables for the day, chiefly raw cucumbers, of which 
 they eat from morning till night, and most of them were smoking 
 nargilehs. The richer ladies were driving round and round the 
 small meadow seated in gilded and painted telegas, something like 
 our Boyal state coach, only two or three of which had curtains 
 drawn to conceal the inmates. Some of the Sultan’s family were 
 there, each lady with a couple of slaves on the back seat of the 
 carriage, dressed as gaily, if not as richly, as herself; many of the 
 slaves are petted almost as much as their mistresses, and their 
 slavedom is sometimes the extreme of luxury. Since the last few 
 years, the yashmak has ceased to be a “ snare,” and has become only 
 a “ delusion once it concealed the features of its wearer : now it 
 only sets off and enhances their beauty — 
 
 “ Like the indistinct, golden, and vaporous fleece 
 Which surrounded and hid the celestials in Greece, 
 
 From the glances of men 
 
 the single fold of gossamer gauze across the mouth and chin acting 
 far less jealously on the fair faces of the Constantinople ladies than 
 the veils of the ladies of our own country. There were a few beauties 
 among them, and some of those more remarkable for intelligence 
 than the others, reminded me of sweet gentle faces at home : but 
 these were exceptions, for, in general, they look sadly inane. And 
 yet we were assured on the best authority that they do not now, 
 by any means, lead the entirely vacant lives we are accustomed to 
 believe; there is scarcely a hareem belonging to a tolerably rich 
 person, where the ladies do not read French and play on the piano- 
 forte, besides occupying themselves with many kinds of embroidery, 
 and some even sing and draw. 
 
 We walked for some time among the noisy crowd under the trees, 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 529 
 
 listening to gipsies under the hedge at one side of the meadow, who 
 were singing badly enough, and playing on various instruments, of 
 which a kind of guitar was the prettiest. Their swarthy, coarse, 
 Spanish-looking faces contrasted strongly with the dead-white, waxy 
 complexions of the Turkish ladies : but the greatest contrast of all 
 happened to be the young Count de Paris, sitting quietly smoking 
 and looking on at the motley crowd, with his fresh fair young face, 
 his shining French hat, and his unimpeachable boots and gloves. 
 
 There are several pretty meadows and pleasant little valleys along 
 the banks of the Bosphorus, especially on the Asian side : the 
 “ Sultan’s Yalley ” is a charming shady grove of fine elm-trees and 
 oaks, under the lee of the Giant’s Mountain : the meadow north of 
 Kandilli is another : to this the legend is attached that it is the 
 meadow where Jupiter found Europa playing with her maidens, 
 whence she made a most unpleasantly long voyage, all the way to 
 Crete, mounted on the plunging bull. There are many others 
 which we had not time to visit. 
 
 We had but a short time to remain in Constantinople, but 
 fortunately the grandest fete in the year — the Sultan’s Beception 
 during the Kourban Bair am took place while we were still there, 
 and my sister was kindly sent a ticket to see the ceremony. 
 Leaving the hotel immediately after sunrise she crossed over from 
 Pera to Seraglio Point in a caique, and waited for an hour or two, 
 while the party she accompanied were collecting, watching the early 
 light shinmg on the city, and the dancing caiques bearing richly 
 dressed Pashas to meet the Sultan. When all were assembled they 
 were admitted into the inner court of the Seraglio Palace, passing 
 by the great plane-tree on which the Janissaries were hung, and 
 which flourishes greenly still, however great its own disgust at its 
 temporary degradation. Within the court they found the Sultan’s 
 seven riding horses : beautiful animals splendidly caparisoned, each 
 with an aigrette of white and coloured plumes on his head, and a 
 splendid saddle cloth with harness to match^- three embroidered in 
 gold and coral on dark-blue cloth — one in pearls and rubies — another 
 in pearls and emeralds— another in gold and silver, with jewelled 
 and enamelled ornaments hung over their faces and chests : all his 
 favourite riding horses are brought, as he chooses at the moment 
 which one he will mount. After a short time my sister and her 
 companions seated themselves on some raised seats under the shade 
 of an old tree close to the great doorway of the Seraglio, whence 
 the Sultan, announced by cannons, issued on horseback, pre- 
 ceded by his guard of honour, and all his Court on foot. His 
 spirited horse seemed to bear only a dead burden, for with his head 
 
 2 M 
 
530 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 stooping, liis face ghastly, lividly pale and expressing only the deepest 
 dejection, the Sultan passed on, with a rigid, fixed stare on the 
 ground before him, without appearing to see or even to be aware of 
 the brilliant scene around him. He was now on his road to the 
 Mosque of Suleymanyeh, to perform the most solemn of all the 
 Mooslim ceremonies, viz., the sacrifice of a lamb to Allah, which he 
 is supposed to slaughter with his own hands ; and the annual re- 
 newal of his Coronation vow. The Sultan returned from the mosque 
 in three quarters of an hour, looking like a man walking into his 
 grave, and retired into the Seraglio to rest in the beautiful kiosk I 
 have mentioned before. Meantime carpets, embroidered in gold, and 
 a gilt fauteuil were placed before the gateway: the chair was 
 covered with a light gold tissue lest any profane dust should precede 
 the Sultan on the sacred seat ; and the scarlet-and-gold guards, and 
 200 or 300 splendidly attired Pashas, arranged themselves around it 
 in a semicircle, every now and then relieving themselves for a 
 moment from the heavy state helmet, which bears a huge fan of 
 large feathers bending over the crown of the head. Others had 
 smaller feathers made into bouquets or flowers in white and 
 green. 
 
 When the Sultan had seated himself he was presented with a 
 large scarf of red silk squared and fringed with gold, one end of 
 which he held in his hand : while the ministers and officers came up 
 with salaams that were almost prostrations, and touched the other 
 end of the scarf with forehead and lips — the nearest approach per- 
 missible to the Sultan’s hand. After a certain number had kissed 
 the sacred scarf on the right side of the Sultan, this end was folded 
 up, and the other unfolded for a much more numerous set of kisses 
 and salaams, on the left side. Once or twice an Ulema came up, 
 and then instead of kissing the scarf, he prostrated himself before 
 the Sultan and kissed the hem of his robe : this is the ecclesiastical 
 privilege : the Sultan sitting utterly impassive, and apparently quite 
 unconscious of the obeisances made to him : in fact the scarf was so 
 placed over the arm of the chair that they were made almost behind 
 him ; once he called to an officer in the circle and spoke to him for 
 a few minutes, and, at the end, when a body of Sheikhs and Ulemas 
 approached, he rose up and received their prostrations standing. 
 These priests were most gaily dressed in bright-coloured gold-em- 
 broidered robes. After them came the Sheikh of Mecca in a green 
 cloak : he has a fine face and long white beard ; approaching within 
 a few yards of the Sultan, he raised his hands and pronounced a 
 prayer or blessing on his majesty, while every officer and Pasha 
 present, drooping their faces between their hands at the end for a 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 531 
 
 moment, seemed to be joining in the prayer for their Sovereign’s 
 welfare. They care not a rush for Abdoul Medjid individually, but 
 for his office they care most lovingly and reverentially, and would 
 readily give their lives for whomever fills it. This ended the cere- 
 mony, and the Sultan forthwith disappeared. The whole affair is 
 the coldest thing imaginable; Eastern etiquette forbidding any 
 animation on the faces of the soldiers and courtiers, and the re- 
 ception, so brilliant to the eye, would have been conducted in 
 unbroken silence, save for the performance at regular intervals of 
 the short tune, the “God save the king” of the Turks, which 
 concluded with a formal, measured, unhearty cheer given by a few 
 selected men. This silence and stillness in such a brilliant scene 
 was most oppressive: civilisation, however, like everything else, 
 has its own dullnesses, and one cannot return to those much more 
 amusing ancient days when the Byzantine Emperors, in this very 
 city, received distinguished foreigners seated on a throne sur- 
 rounded by lions of gold and silver, which, at every salaam of the 
 guests, opened their mouths and roared ! while birds sat on 
 branches of gold and silver trees singing long songs: but these 
 sounds must have been meant as very broad hints, for the history 
 says that as soon as the persons introduced had presented their 
 offerings to the Emperor, the lions left off roaring, and the birds 
 ceased to sing ! 
 
 The time had unhappily come for us to return to Europe, and we 
 had calculated upon leaving the Bosphorus this week, but we had 
 been very desirous of seeing Broussa, and the temptation of linger- 
 ing a little longer under a real blue sky and a warm sun was too 
 strong for us : so on July 7 we started in the steamer for Jemblik. 
 It is a pretty run, across the end of the Sea of Marmora and into 
 the Bay of Moudhania, of about five hours, but we had to include 
 an hour’s delay in landing about fifty heavy bags of specie for pay- 
 ing the troops encamped near Moudhania : we heard that their pay 
 had then been about two years in arrear, and, though nothing ever 
 is true that one hears in the Levant, there is every probability that 
 this was a fact. There were plenty of horses to be hired at Moud- 
 hania, the nearest port to Broussa, but we had no saddles with us, 
 and were obliged to go on to Jemblik to find a telega , a vehicle of a 
 very much more primitive construction than even those to which 
 we had become accustomed in Constantinople; it was shaped 
 exactly like the half of an egg-shell cut lengthways, each end sloping 
 backwards : we packed closely in, four of us, with cloaks and shawls, 
 acting as wedges to each other against the fearful jolts which ensued. 
 The road is excellent for about one- third of the distance, the rest of 
 
 2 m 2 
 
532 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 it is in a state of nature, and the drive was dreadfully fatiguing. 
 The views, at first repaid one well, looking back over the lovely little 
 bay and the hills on the other side of the Sea of Marmora : and they 
 became glorious as we at last reached the crest of the coast hills 
 before descending into the Plain of Broussa : the immense plain in 
 all its richness, dyed in deep browns and shady greens, enclosed in 
 mountains of every variety of form in brown and rich violet, deep 
 blue and lilac, while towering over the opposite side stood Olympus, 
 in unclouded majesty, its naked peaks shining against the deepen- 
 ing sky in a mantle of rose-coloured snow : while behind us, between 
 the defiles and woods, came one blue corner of the little bay. It 
 was very beautiful indeed, but alas ! the sun went down as we stood 
 here instead of our reaching Broussa in time for a seven o’clock 
 dinner as we had been promised, and moreover there was to be no 
 moon till nearly morning. We had been told the roads were usually 
 safe, but we entirely appreciated the apparently endless and utterly 
 dark woods of that plain, and the enormous length of the town as 
 we jolted through one half of it : for it was half an hour after mid- 
 night before we reached the clean little German hotel at one end of 
 Broussa. The effects of the eight hours’ jolting, to say nothing of 
 the starvation, lasted through the next day, and we were not in the 
 most easily-to-be-pleased humour when we made our first inspection 
 of the town that evening. 
 
 There was, however, little danger of discontent : for the eyes 
 must be dull indeed and the heart cold that could fail to be delighted 
 with the enchanting loveliness of Broussa. My mind was full of 
 Damascus and Beyrout, Antioch and Smyrna, and the golden halo 
 of Greece was shining fresh and strong in my memory : but they 
 vanished from my thoughts as the rare beauties of Broussa unfolded 
 themselves one by one to my view : truly, I thought, we have kept 
 the best till the last. One vast, gloriously fertile plain, covered 
 with little streams of water, and meadows, and orchards and woods 
 — not brushwood, but fine lofty groves of trees : while the town lay 
 curling round the feet of the noble mountain, running up the small 
 ravines and hiding itself in the rich deep woods, with hundreds of 
 fine domes of bright colours and quaint buildings, rising from its 
 bosom : while more than one range of mountains of most varied 
 shape and colour, some of which were snow-capped, bordered the 
 plain. It sounds no finer than many another place in description, 
 but it is the wonderful combination of beauty which makes Broussa 
 so romantically delightful ; still more, that however much charmed 
 one may be with the tout-ensemble, each feature in it is still lovelier 
 when seen in detail. As for the town it is the most picturesque 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 533 
 
 town I have ever seen in any country : the streets wind in the most 
 curious way up and down very steep slopes, so well watered that 
 the sound of rushing water never ceases in any part of the town, 
 and they are all kept perfectly clean, while they are so narrow that 
 the houses, being all built with projecting upper stories, nearly meet 
 overhead, giving those heavy black shadows down each side, under 
 the projection, which add so much to the picturesqueness of the 
 effect. All the houses are of wooden framework, with high-peaked 
 gables, so that one might fancy oneself in a quaint Flemish or Swiss 
 town, were it not that each house is painted bright sky-blue, pink, 
 or red, and that every street is filled with rich and gay Oriental 
 costumes, while the overhanging mountain is clothed with an 
 Eastern vegetation and luxuriance : besides that wherever the eye 
 looks it is met by many-domed baths or by one of the 360 mosques 
 which adorn or have adorned the town. Great numbers of filatures 
 the fabriques for reeling the silk for which Broussa is so famous, are 
 scattered about the town : these are principally French, and are gay, 
 handsome-looking buildings : they lie chiefly towards the outskirts 
 of the town. Within the town are the Bazaars, which are remark- 
 ably amusing and picturesque : they are very extensive, and are 
 richly stocked with European as well as Oriental goods, Manchester 
 prints and German hardware, besides Broussa silks and cottons, and 
 embroideries of the finest kinds : the Constantinople bazaars are 
 supplied with these articles from Broussa, and many merchants have 
 shops in both places. Broussa is famous for its 'cotton towels and 
 bathing dresses, made of a peculiar fluffy texture, for its rich silks, 
 cloths made of camel’s and goat’s hair, and for its elegant silk gauzes : 
 these latter are chiefly woven by the Greeks and Armenians : each 
 has a loom, or several looms in his own house : nothing can be finer, 
 or more delicate than the fabric or brighter than the colours woven 
 into them. The embroidery of gold upon cloth for saddles is 
 most splendid of its kind, and that upon camel’s-hair cloth for the 
 sejjadehs, or praying-carpets, was the best we had seen anywhere. 
 At every three or four yards there is a cooking, or sweetmeat shop, 
 containing messes of all the colours of the rainbow, and every two 
 minutes you meet a man with hot bread and cakes on his head, or 
 with pails of cherry and lemon ice on his arm. The Bazaars are 
 full of dogs, fiercer than any we had met even in Constantinople : 
 one day riding through the town on a donkey with my dog in 
 my arms, the brutes spied the little stranger, and I was obliged to 
 give him to one of the dragomans to carry, they leaped up so fiercely 
 to tear him from me : every turning added to the troop, and, despite 
 two strong kourbashes with which they were plentifully belaboured, 
 
534 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 it was difficult to get quit of them, and the din of their yells and 
 howls was so horrible that we were too glad to escape from the 
 Inferno. 
 
 Our hotel stood at the west end of the town, with a fine view of 
 the plain and the opposite mountains, but nestled too closely under 
 Olympus to show much of his noble old head : we had the early morn- 
 ing sun, and cool rooms all day, a rather important point in July } 
 as Broussa is of course hotter than Constantinople : a delightful 
 draught of wind comes down the broad plain nearly every day, but 
 it has not the fresh feeling of the breeze off the Bosphorus, and 
 Broussa is, occasionally, too hot. In the winter there is much snow 
 on the sides of the mountain, and the air is sometimes keen, but we 
 were told that with a good woollen dress one is never really cold, 
 and that scarcely any one uses a mangal (or pan of charcoal). The 
 Perotes say that Broussa is liable to fever, but we were assured that 
 the report is untrue : the English Consul who has resided in Broussa 
 for twenty years informed us that no member of his family had ever 
 been attacked by it, and that he did not believe any one but the very 
 poor or very imprudent ever suffered from it. The Turks clothe 
 warmly, in silk and cloth frequently lined or trimmed with fur, in 
 order to avoid a chill on perspiration, and they live on proper food : 
 the poor work in sun and shade only half clothed, and feed entirely 
 on raw and unripe vegetables ; they eat raw cucumbers, vegetable 
 marrows, and green tomatos all day long, and of course fever is the 
 consequence ; but it is impossible to persuade the common people 
 to wait till fruit or vegetables are ripe, they delight so much in the 
 sharp acid of the green fruit. The town is well supplied with both, 
 as well as with excellent meat and milk : from the latter, quantities 
 of kaimak and yaourt * (clotted, and curdled milk) are made daily, 
 and are most refreshing and wholesome food. There is also good 
 fish of various kinds from the mountain streams, and game in 
 abundance. 
 
 But the glory of Broussa is in its mosques : whether the numbers 
 given are correct or not, I know not : but as the city is more than 
 three miles long, containing about 75,000 inhabitants, and as a 
 mosque or the ruins of one is seen literally at every twenty yards 
 throughout the town, it is not unlikely that the reputed 360 may be 
 counted. They are continually destroyed by the earthquakes, and 
 as neither the rents in the walls are repaired, nor is it considered 
 right to remove the ruins of a mosque, but a new one is immediately 
 built up to replace the fallen one, they increase in number very 
 rapidly, and a marked feature in the characteristics of the place is 
 * In Arabic — leben. 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 535 
 
 this contrast of gay, brightly-painted houses, brilliant and gandy 
 bazaars, and handsome, finely-ornamented mosques and baths, with 
 the masses of ruin and tatteredness intervening at every step. It 
 was something quite new, an innovation on hitherto invariable 
 custom, that the most ancient of all the mosques had just been 
 restored : this was the Ulu Jami : the dome had fallen in, though 
 the minaret, which is very pretty, had not been touched : every arch 
 and ponderous square column was just cased in fresh whitewash, 
 and ornamented with coarsely-painted wreaths and arabesques : the 
 style of the building was too heavy to be beautiful, but the space, 
 height, and proportions were really good. 
 
 Beyond the town there is one mosque beautiful above all the 
 others : it is called the Mosque of Tchelabi Sultan ; * it stands alone 
 with its fountain, on a projection of the mountain, shaded by a grove 
 of splendid plane-trees and cypresses ; it is built of well-hewn blocks 
 of rose-coloured limestone, the doorways and windows placed in 
 square-headed recesses, with niches and bands filled up with elegant 
 patterns ; the spandrils of each arch, the sides of the great door and 
 the recesses everywhere enriched with the most exquisite Saracenic 
 tracery ; it has a large and gracefully-shaped dome, and a projecting 
 roof over the terrace most beautifully painted in Damascene style : 
 while inside, the walls, niches, and Sultan’s gallery were all adorned 
 with the richest porcelain tiles and mosaics. This mosque is very 
 ancient and very beautiful ; there is one thing, however, still more 
 beautiful— as perfect a gem as one could find anywhere : it is a 
 tomb or mausoleum called “ Yeshil Jami,” which has been used as 
 a mosque, but is now so much shattered by earthquakes that it is 
 unsafe to enter, and is kept locked : perhaps in another year the 
 whole of the graceful fabric may be a heap of ruin. The mosque is 
 very small, an octagon of ten or twelve feet on each side, sur- 
 mounted by a dome ; the whole of the walls cased in enamelled por- 
 celain of the most perfect turquoise blue, with bands of darker 
 enamel, and medallions in pale green arranged in patterns in the 
 upper part : each side is broken by a window closed with lattices of 
 open iron- work, and ornamented with coloured patterns, as are also 
 the niches beside the entrance door : all so beatifully blended and 
 harmonized that at a few yards’ distance one could fancy the 
 mosque was literally carved out of one huge turquoise ! Alas ! the 
 grass all round was covered with the fragments, a rent yawned in 
 each wall, and we longed to carry away the whole thing and build 
 it up again, before another earthquake should have wholly destroyed 
 it, however cruel it would have been to place such a piece of delicate 
 
 * Tchelabi means handsome, noble, grand : the same as shellabee in Arabic. 
 
536 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 colouring under the grey skies, and damp ill-humoured-looking 
 clouds of England. We brought away a few specimens of the por- 
 celain, as well as another piece of still more ancient enamel from the 
 tomb of Emir Sultan : the colours of this are remarkably brilliant, 
 and the pattern is an imitation of natural flowers. All these porce- 
 lain enamels were made at Kutayia, a town to the south-east of 
 Broussa : the manufacture still flourishes, but, I believe, the porce- 
 lains are not by any means as fine as the ancient ones : nothing of 
 the kind can be more beautiful than the really old ones, both in the 
 delicate texture of the material, and in the rich full colours. 
 
 There are a great many other mosques . worth visiting, but 
 none equal to these ; the very modern ones are ordinary-looking 
 buildings, so gaudily and staringly painted over in red, blue, 
 and green, that they look only like cafes or baths ; but it is not 
 very encouraging to build anything in a place so cursed with earth- 
 quakes as Broussa is : we were told that six weeks seldom pass 
 without one, and that in the summer they frequently occur every 
 week or fortnight ; except for this one drawback, Broussa would be 
 a paradise indeed. 
 
 The city was anciently fortified, and the remains of the Castle 
 crowning a great rock in the centre, as well as much of the walls, 
 are still to be seen ; besides some strange old Byzantine gateways, 
 built in an odd jumble of Koman and Saracenic styles, the arches 
 formed and ornamented with red bricks placed edgeways and 
 shaped like wedges. In 1856 a most fearful earthquake occurred 
 at Broussa, and threw down a large portion of this Castle wall, with 
 the rock on which it had been built, the whole mass detached itself 
 from the mountain-side and fell, chiefly upon a fabrique in the 
 town below, crushing fifty of the poor girls at work there. The 
 ruins remain in heaps still as they fell, and the natives declare that 
 the ghosts of the unfortunate girls are heard to shriek there on the 
 anniversary of their deaths. This earthquake shattered half the 
 buildings in the town, and at the same time a fire broke out at the 
 other end of it, the ravages of which were most terrible, and are 
 still to be seen in the blackened and charred heaps of ruin. 
 
 A little beyond the town, at the west end, and after passing a 
 beautiful mosque, there are a number of very handsome royal 
 tombs in a garden, or rather in several gardens filled with roses 
 and mignonnette, under lofty plane-trees: each tomb, or set of 
 tombs, stood in its own domed mosque or mausoleum, the grave 
 itself usually covered with a stone trough full of grass and roses. 
 These buildings are all of brick, ornamented in the Byzantine style 
 with borders and lines of red brick bedded in white cement : inside 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 537 
 
 they are enriched with the same beautiful enamelled porcelains as 
 the handsomer mosques. They are all remarkably picturesque, 
 and would make fine subjects for drawing, with their overhanging 
 trees, and the storks, balancing themselves on the domes round 
 which they build ther nests in undisturbed freedom. Among these 
 tombs is that of Sultan Orchan, the son of Othman, who conquered 
 Broussa in 1326. 
 
 As to the Baths, they are innumerable ; the best are at the west 
 end of the city, some way beyond it ; there are two sets of hand- 
 some buildings, containing very extensive and well-arranged baths 
 and swimming pools, which are handsomely ornamented inside 
 with coloured marbles and mosaics : these are called the Kalputcha 
 Hammam ; the spring is chalybeate, of 180° of Fahrenheit. 
 
 Broussa is one of the best places in which to study Oriental 
 manners and customs, being far more Asiatic than Constantinople ; 
 and although intensely Mooslim * so that the lower classes are very 
 fanatical, yet strangers are occasionally admitted into the higher 
 society, such as it is. Among the Turkish women education is 
 making progress along with the French style of dress, for which 
 their own costume is becoming completely discarded : they spend 
 enormous sums on their dress, as they have no other expenses, and 
 nothing else to think about. Expensive furniture is not very 
 common among them, but is sometimes given with a dowry ; when 
 really handsome, such as gold-embroidered velvet, it is used on the 
 occasion of a marriage or some grand ceremonial in the family, and 
 is handed down from mother to daughter. They have much 
 freedom of life, going out in the streets as much as they will, but of 
 course veiled, and receiving visitors at home : even the very poorest 
 have separate rooms, and if the wife’s visitors leave their yellow 
 babouches (slippers) outside the door of the room, no husband dare 
 enter it, though he may send to desire her visitors to go away. 
 They have no regular meal-times, and never eat together; the 
 husband eats when he is hungry, waited on by his wife : she by 
 herself in her own apartment ; at this time of year (summer) they 
 live entirely on melons, perhaps as many as ten in a day, as well as 
 raw cucumbers, without even bread ; and three or four huge bowls 
 of yaourt or sour milk : they rarely eat meat, but if they do, it is 
 generally the heads of sheep, roasted. 
 
 Of course we heard much of the silk crop, as this was the 
 season of the “ harvest,” and the French merchants were searching 
 the country for the best. The silk was this year very scarce, in 
 
 * The Christian population of Broussa does not amount to a quarter of the 
 whole. 
 
538 
 
 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES 
 
 consequence of the terrible distemper that has lately prevailed among 
 the worms both here and in Europe, by which the old species have 
 become almost extinct ; new seed had been imported from Bengal 
 and China, but it seemed to have failed generally. The silk of the 
 Lebanon and of Broussa is considered of equal value, and far superior 
 to that of Persia or China, which sells for from 60 to 80 francs the 
 kilogramme, while that of the Lebanon fetches 100 francs. We 
 saw some of the very best quality known, which comes from a small 
 village between Broussa and Jemblik: most exquisite stuff it was, 
 so perfectly fine, white, and elastic : it is the. two latter qualities 
 which render it most valuable ; the superiority arises, it is believed, 
 from the purity of the water through which the cocoon is reeled : 
 the Broussa water, being all slightly mineral, impairs the pure 
 whiteness of the silk. We learned that the Turkish women were 
 found to be more diligent workers in the filatures than the 
 Greeks and Armenians : it was amusing to see them holding their 
 eezars , or white veils, in their teeth while both hands were employed 
 in the basins before them ; but when we did see them we thought 
 the Christian girls were generally the prettiest ; the usual hours of 
 work are from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m., with three intervals allowed for 
 meals in the day, of three-quarters of an hour each. The merchants 
 whom we met with all agreed in bearing testimony to the honour 
 and honesty of the Turks here ; the word or promise of a Turk, 
 they said, was always to be depended upon : that of a Greek, 
 never, if it suited him to break it ; and they spoke much of. the 
 perfect safety of travelling now all over this half of Asia Minor 
 without incurring any risk of robbers, even in the unfrequented 
 parts where their business led them. 
 
 The Pasha of Broussa is a very active and intelligent governor, 
 applying himself for several hours of every day to his Pashalik 
 business ; always reading his despatches himself, and insisting on 
 everything passing through his own hands. We went to meet him 
 at dinner at the English Consul’s house, for whom the Pasha has the 
 utmost respect, consulting him on all affairs of importance, and 
 almost always following his advice. He expressed his horror at the 
 Syrian affairs, and told us how he would have acted in stopping the 
 fanatics and miscreants of Damascus, recounting also how he had 
 succeeded in quelling an insurrection in European Turkey, so 
 quickly and completely, that he was at once rewarded with the 
 Pashalik of Broussa, one of the highest in the Sultan’s dominions. 
 The Pasha wore a plain Turkish frock-coat when we met him in 
 the morning, but at dinner he was attired in a splendid robe of 
 cranberry-coloured silk, while the Sheikh of Islam wore a pale 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 539 
 
 salmon-coloured silk dress and white turban: this latter was 
 described to ns as a man of great talent — “the brains of all 
 Bronssa ” — and of the highest character : as truthful and straight- 
 forward as an Englishman. 
 
 We were advised to take the opportunity of seeing the Dancing 
 Dervishes on the last Friday of our stay, as this exhibition is said 
 to be better conducted at Broussa than elsewhere : so we started 
 early one afternoon, crossing the Bournabashi, or “ Sweet Waters,” 
 where the ladies of the town were disporting themselves on the 
 grass, eating cucumbers and ice, and arrived at the Dervishes’ 
 College, a large pink building surrounded with gardens, in which 
 were several tombs of departed Dervish Sheikhs and Saints. In 
 the centre of the garden there is a square building : one large hall 
 with a circle of columns dividing off the corners and supporting a 
 gallery ; the floor under the gallery was raised above the circular 
 centre, and on this raised part the spectators were placed. The 
 Dervishes came in one by one, leaving their shoes in a cupboard at 
 the door, each wearing a high round, unbrimmed cap of camel’s- 
 hair cloth, and a cloak of camlet, black, brown, green, &c., com- 
 pletely enveloping the body. Each made a deep obeisance to the 
 name of Allah, which was written in large letters over the Sheikh’s 
 place, and took up his position leaning against a column : last of 
 all came the Sheikh, a handsome but very small man, dressed in a 
 black cloak, with a white turban, and high black leather boots, 
 which he never took off. The Sheikh offered several prayers, 
 holding up his two palms before him, and fixing his eyes on them 
 as if he was reading from them ; and, after some recitations, they 
 all commenced a sweet, harmonious chant, accompanied by some 
 wind instruments, making prostrations every now and then when 
 the name of Allah occurred, with most solemn gestures. Presently 
 they all arose and followed the Sheikh in a slow walk round and 
 round the circle ; each one as he approached the unoccupied carpet 
 of the Sheikh bowed down to the ground and swept round in the 
 most peculiar fashion, so as not to turn his back to the spot. 
 Having returned to their columns, each one suddenly undid some 
 string, and down fell a long petticoat over his feet : then laying 
 aside his cloak, which he reverently kissed, they all stood prepared 
 for the dance : their costume now was pretty, the short jacket 
 buttoned to the throat, long loose sleeves, and the wide skirt, 
 wadded round the hem, and made with such a number of gores as 
 to form a perfectly smooth wine-glass shape : most of them were 
 white, some were green, and some fawn-coloured. Three times 
 they slowly paced round the circle, bowing to the Sheikh as they 
 
540 
 
 £ G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 passed, their arms folded on the breast with a hand on each 
 shoulder: then, as each completed his third circle and bow, he 
 began to turn slowly round and round — the eyes apparently quite 
 closed, the arms extended, one towards heaven, the other towards 
 earth, without the slightest possible change of expression upon the 
 rapt, absorbed countenance : the long full dress expanded to its 
 fullest width, which neither lessened nor fell in the perfectly steady, 
 sailing movement which never seemed for a single instant to 
 hesitate or falter, and which had something in it most singularly 
 graceful and pleasing; the feet were twisted rapidly over each 
 other in a very peculiar manner, but the turning was very slow 
 and almost solemn. One old man amongst them seemed master of 
 the ceremonies, as it were, setting each off, and standing a few 
 seconds first by one, then another, sometimes stamping with his 
 foot as if to give the time or regulate the movements. After three 
 rounds of the hall they rested, the singing continuing through the 
 whole, and when they recommenced the Sheikh, still keeping on 
 his black cloak, rose and joined them ; but he wore no long skirt as 
 the others did, and the twisting of his thick, heavy leather boots 
 one over the other, looked very odd and awkward ; then the singing 
 ceased, the cloaks were resumed, a few more prayers recited, and 
 they all disappeared. We had expected to find the scene absurd or 
 disgusting, but it was neither the one nor the other : the whole 
 thing was so solemn, and they appeared to be so completely 
 absorbed in what they were doing, that a certain air of devotion 
 and reverence reached even the mind of the spectators, and made 
 one fancy, that however extraordinary the distortion of ideas which 
 led to such an exercise as an expression of religious worship, there 
 was still something higher and better than fanatic folly or hypocrisy 
 in the mind of the actor. 
 
 From this graceful exhibition we went to a very different scene — 
 the Mosque of the “Howling Dervishes;” this mosque was but a 
 plain square lofty room, with a small gallery at one end, in which 
 we sat; in the place of honour a venerable old Shiekh with a white 
 beard was seated with two tiny children, a boy and a girl, at one 
 side of him : opposite to him sat about twenty men on lambskins, all 
 repeating the “ Fatha ” as fast as possible : presently they stood up, 
 and the lambskin mats were arranged in the middle of the mosque 
 for some men to sit on, who played on flutes. Then the performers, 
 standing close together in a row, joined their hands and commenced 
 repeating the “ La ilaha ilia llah ” as fast as possible, throwing out 
 the words with a violent jerk of the body, thrown forward with the 
 head and heels jerked first to one side and then the other, the jerks 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 541 
 
 and the words gradually coming louder and louder, faster and 
 faster, till they had lost all likeness to human beings and seemed to 
 become only mad animals or machines. The old Sheikh and the 
 little children kept time gently, the fair pretty faces of the latter 
 contrasting sadly with the frenzied faces near them. Twice they 
 all came to a rest, while the zikkrs wiped the perspiration from their 
 streaming heads and necks; the first pause was occupied by two 
 attendants dressing themselves in green scarfs which were put on 
 with some ceremony before the mihrab : the second by a long re- 
 citation of something by the old Sheikh sitting with his hand 
 pressed upon the heart of a Turkish officer who knelt before him ; 
 we supposed that the Sheikh was healing him of some disease, or 
 charming away some misfortune. 
 
 After this the zikkrs recommenced their furious jerks and grunts 
 to the accompaniment of huge coarse tambourines, one of which 
 was given to each zikkr, and a pair of cymbals to the little children : 
 with all these instruments the excitement became quite maddening 
 and the din deafening; in the midst of it, an iron instrument — a 
 large spike about a foot long, with a bunch of short chains hung to 
 the head of the spike — was given to each of two selected performers, 
 who immediately commenced leaping with opera-dancer bounds 
 about the mosque, evidently according to rule and figure, 
 throwing up the spikes in the air with a circling motion, and 
 catching them as they fell : the third or fourth time they fell the 
 points were received in the cheek of one man, and in the neck of 
 the other, and twirled rapidly round as if entering deeply into the 
 flesh. This was repeated several times, until one of the performers 
 became “ melboos ” or possessed : his arms dropped at his sides, his 
 head fell forward, and he seemed suddenly stiffened into the rigidity 
 of a dead body; a bystander caught him as he fell down, dragged 
 him to the side of the room, and propped him up against the wall, 
 where he stood like a statue, as if pinned to it: and I saw the 
 blood slowly trickle down from the wound made by the iron spike 
 in his neck. These spikes are said to have a small ring round the 
 point, which hinders them from entering into the flesh : the other 
 performer seemed unhurt, but this one was really wounded. The 
 shouts, yells, and grunts then suddenly ceased, and the performance 
 was over : as we came away we saw the poor “ possessed " wretch was 
 coming to life again, looking livid and ghastly. Altogether it was 
 the most disgusting and unedifying sight I have ever witnessed, 
 especially by way of a religious exercise, and I should be sorry to see 
 such another : it had that strange effect upon one that, although feel- 
 ing it too horrible to look at, one could not look away from the scene. 
 
E G YETI A N SEPUL CURES 
 
 542 
 
 We had intended to remain but three or four days at Broussa, 
 but the place was so enchanting and the air so delightful that we 
 stayed on and on till more than a fortnight had elapsed, and we 
 were yet most unwilling to go : we half thought of taking a house 
 and staying till the'winter, but the horrible news from the Lebanon 
 had so much alarmed the European world on the Bosphorus, that, 
 though we had no particular fears ourselves of the ill-feeling shown 
 in Syria spreading over Turkey, we were so strongly advised not to 
 linger alone and unprotected in the country, that we determined 
 to go on into Europe. Before quitting Broussa, however, we were 
 quite resolved to ascend Mount Olympus, but the summer heats 
 and mists are so bad for extensive views that we had delayed from 
 day to day in hopes of better weather; and, in the end, of course 
 we selected the worst day of our whole stay. 
 
 The ascent of the Mysian Olympus is nowhere so steep and 
 difficult as the greater part of Hermon : but it is a very long ex- 
 pedition, and we made it, alas! a work of seventeen hours, the last 
 five of which, owing to our having started late in the morning, 
 were in total darkness. The woods of the mountain came down 
 quite to the streets of the city, and the path led along the edges 
 of grand and romantic ravines, among which we had glimpses of 
 beautiful views, between the mist-wreaths which rested clinging to 
 the steep sides of the valleys : in these ravines, several of them at 
 less than half an hour’s distance from the bazaars of the town, the 
 scenery is as wild, rich and lovely as the finest bits of Switzerland 
 or the Tyrol, and more varied. 
 
 We were soon in the depths of the glorious forest that clothes the 
 sides of the mountain, riding through delicious fern-brakes under 
 the lofty trees, chiefly pines, oaks, chestnuts, beech, and plane trees, 
 while among the bluebells and harebells and a hundred other gay 
 wild flowers, multitudes of ripe Alpine strawberries begged of us, 
 by their bright colour, to stop and eat them as we passed by. 
 Higher up we came to an open common, with several pools in 
 which herds of buffaloes were splashing and cooling themselves, 
 and in which were many wide and somewhat treacherous morasses ; 
 and from this we saw large groves of dead fir-trees killed by the 
 white moss, baumhaar, which clings to and eats the life out of 
 every branch, leaving only the grey ghost of what was till lately a 
 living tree: most sadly weird and melancholy they looked. It was 
 mid-day before we reached a lone shepherd’s hut at the foot of a 
 snow-covered summit where we breakfasted and rested after our 
 five hours’ ride ; and then commenced the last ascent on foot. The 
 snow here lay in great masses, and the bare crags and chasms of 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 543 
 
 rock (in one of which was a small glacier) were very wild and 
 savage : the slope was covered with small loose stones, but between 
 them, the ground was thickly spread over with large yellow pansies, 
 blue gentian, pink hyacinths, and a little pink heath: and the air 
 was quite perfumed with the pansies. The last part of the ascent 
 was very steep, but nothing difficult, and we hoped to be rewarded 
 by the magnificent view which extends from Smyrna to Constan- 
 tinople, and is justly famed for including one of the most lovely 
 panoramas in the world : and we had indeed a most extensive view 
 
 from the summit — but it was entirely of clouds! mass after 
 
 mass rolled by, varying from an inky grey up to brightly shining 
 silver and snow; and during the half-hour we braved the cold on 
 the summit, wrapped up in cloaks, we only got one pretty glimpse 
 to the south, and two or three broken hasty views of the sea of 
 Marmora with the mountains beyond Constantinople and Ismid: 
 we only saw enough to be quite sure of the immense beauty and 
 grandeur there must be in the view when Clear, and I envy the 
 traveller who ascends there on a clear day at the end of the autumn. 
 
 We did not leave the shepherd’s hut till six o’clock, and the pitch 
 darkness under the thick, lofty forest in the descent was very 
 trying, and the horror umbrarum seized me pretty strongly, as, 
 though a tolerably good path by daylight, there were plenty of 
 jutting crags and deep holes in the marrow paths, where a false 
 step would have been destruction; the branches were continually 
 threatening to sweep one out of one’s saddle, so we had good reason 
 to say “ El hamdu illah ! ” (praise be to God), when, to the great 
 astonishment of the dogs, we reached the hotel exactly at midnight. 
 
 Almost more, even, we enjoyed the ride to Moudhania, when we 
 at last succeeded in tearing ourselves away from ever-lovely Broussa: 
 we descended into the plain at 4 p.m., and rode over the park-like 
 ground and grassy meadows, studded with clumps of fine trees, 
 and now and then a thicket of hawthorn or elder, covered over with 
 honeysuckle : every moment looking back to the glorious mountain, 
 with the long, picturesque town clinging round its feet, the deep 
 green woods veiling all the sides, the romantic ravines and gorges, 
 the barren wild crags, and above all the beautiful head, covered 
 with its mantle of snow, now blushing rosy red in the sunset glow. 
 How lovely it was ! more richly, luxuriantly beautiful than almost 
 any other view I remember. It faded in the deepening twilight 
 (for we were now coming nearly into the latitudes of twilight), and 
 we turned into the green wooded valleys of the low mountains 
 which border the Sea of Marmora, with very sad hearts at bidding 
 good-bye to such a paradise as Mount Olympus. It was soon dark. 
 
544 
 
 E G YPTIA N SEPUL CHRES 
 
 and we lost the pretty views of the sea which had pleased us so 
 much in coming from Jemblik, but the glow-worms and fire-flies 
 tried to console us, and gave us pleasanter meditations than the 
 howling of a pack of wolves in some valley close to us: there were 
 plenty of jackals besides, but the deep voices of the wolves are far 
 more sonorous. 
 
 A room had been provided for us in the large village of Moudhania, 
 but it was so dirty and so swarming with vermin, that we could 
 not rest in it for a single moment: and we gladly sallied out to 
 refresh ourselves in the streets at half-past three in the morning. 
 After some time we found a caique to rest in until the steamer 
 which was to take us to Constantinople came up, upon the dirty 
 deck of which we could not even get standing room, it was so much 
 crowded. 
 
 As this was to be our last day in Constantinople, we mounted 
 the Fire-tower of Galata, to take a farewell view of Stamboul and 
 its environs: a beautiful view it is: the positions of the various 
 parts of the city are so well seen with the opposite shores and the 
 mountains beyond, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus winding 
 along deep below one’s feet like a living picture, thickly covered 
 with vessels, some of them shrouded in smoke, others, including 
 the hundreds of caiques, gay with costume of flags of bright 
 colours; the shining white palaces and mosques of Stamboul 
 standing among the Cypresses were so brightly coloured in the 
 sunset that for a few moments they looked like opals set in an 
 enamel of dark green. 
 
 The Bosphorus grows upon one; as perhaps is the case with all 
 very beautiful scenes of which so much has been heard before- 
 hand, that at the first moment one feels disappointed: certainly 
 the Oxford of the East never appeared to me so lovely as when, 
 after a very busy and fatiguing morning in Pera, we went gliding 
 along its sunlit waters in the cool refreshment of evening, resting 
 in a graceful caique (which by-the-bye it is the fashion to abuse 
 and to designate as “ miserably uncomfortable and cramping,” &e. 
 &c. I wonder how lovingly any one would think of a caique after 
 the same number of hours in an old cab or a malle-poste ! ) under 
 the shadows of Therapia. And then that evening, sitting in the 
 balcony of the English Embassy, enjoying the deliciously cool 
 breeze among the trees and flowers, listening to the ripple of the 
 water against the quay below us, the young moonlight playing on 
 the calm sea, and the stillness only broken by the gentle plashing 
 of the oars as a caique now and then silently glided by, and by the 
 faint echo of the band which was playing at Buyukdere coming 
 
AND SYRIAN SHRINES . 
 
 545 
 
 stealing across the bay— a musical stillness, all perfumed and sweet ! 
 That was an evening to be remembered : and I was beginning to 
 think that civilised life in a luxurious drawing-room, with pleasant 
 conversations and kind friends, decidedly had its advantages, when 
 my enjoyment was suddenly cut short by the appearance of the 
 Austrian Lloyds’ steamer Mercur stopping for us opposite the 
 Embassy and demanding our company, baggage and all, to be 
 conveyed back to Europe once more. 
 
 It was a lovely afternoon, and the big vessel sheered off, slowly 
 passing each pleasant house and garden in Buyukdere : then under 
 the pretty Giant’s Mountain, and between the two frowning 
 batteries : past one wooded and vine-clad hill after another, till we 
 looked back through a most lovely vista on the winding Bosphorus. 
 Just at its loveliest and tenderest beauty, the stern rocks rush in 
 and close together, and we shot out into the wide Black Sea, while 
 the beauties that a thousand ages of poets have sung vanished, 
 probably for ever, from our eyes. The “inhospitable” Axine, 
 however, seeing our sorrowful regrets, behaved with the most 
 hospitable kindness by the way of consolation to the home-returning 
 wanderers on its bosom: not a breath ruffled the waters, not a 
 cloud flecked the glowing sky, and only rosy hues were thrown 
 over the retreating landscape of blue mountains. The southern 
 coast faded out of sight as darkness gradually covered the sky, and 
 spread a stern, thick veil between me and all the sunshiny dreams 
 of my “ Wonderland,” — Asia and Africa, the East and the South ; 
 one by one all the memories of the two years I had spent in them 
 rose up like picture-visions across my mind, — the silver splendour 
 of the mornings— the fierce sunshine and cool shades of the days — 
 the golden glories of the sunsets — the indescribable deliciousness of 
 the nights — the boundless loveliness of the Desert — the magni- 
 ficence of the snow-capped mountains and the stern rocky hills — 
 the rushing streams — the cloudless skies — the olive, the fig, and 
 the vine — the unhackneyed people and the bright colours— the 
 free, wild, airy life — the kind hearts and true friends we had 
 met and made, — all combined in one sad memory with the days 
 that are gone to come back no more, and had faded one by one 
 from the Present as the misty distance was now dying away beneath 
 the last soft, rosy ray of the dying Sun. 
 
 “ The rugged steersman at the wheel 
 Comes back again to vision. The hoarse sea 
 Speaketh from its great heart of discontent, 
 
 And in the misty distance dies away 
 The wonderland ! ’Tis past and gone.” 
 
 2 N- 
 
546 EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES AND SYRIAN SHRINES. 
 
 And so I took my last sad look of Asia and the Eastern 
 world. 
 
 “ I used to think,” said Frederika Bremer, one day during her 
 late travels in Syria, “ in my childish days I used to think what 
 supreme happiness it would be to be Queen of a thousand countries : 
 not only to reign over them but to possess them for my very own ; 
 I little thought then, or for many a long year afterwards, how 
 nearly my brightest dreams would one day be realised. I have 
 travelled over country after country in all the wide world, and I 
 have made them mine : the sights and scenes, the people, the 
 mountains and the trees, the earth, air, and sky, each live in my 
 mind and memory, with a vividness and, so to speak, a tangibleness 
 that gives them to me as my own possession, and makes them 
 belong to me with an untangibleness that no one can interfere with, 
 and that nothing can take away from me. My memory makes me 
 Queen of all I have passed through !” 
 
 Such is the feeling, I believe, more or less of all travellers : such 
 is the store of treasure accumulated day by day as one wanders on 
 through land after land : such is the honey gathered from the far- 
 off flowers : and such is the fruit which, Keader, I would fain share 
 with you : to reproduce something of it by pen and pencil has been 
 my pleasure and my task — I hope not wholly in vain. 
 
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 New Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Crown 8vo. gs. 
 
 Atkinson.— AN ART TOUR TO NORTPIERN CAPITALS 
 OF EUROPE, including Descriptions of the Towns, the Museums, 
 and other Art Treasures of Copenhagen, Christiania, Stockholm, 
 
 5000.2.78. a 
 
2 MACMILLAN’S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 Abo, Helsingfors, Wiborg, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kief. 
 By J. Beavington Atkinson. 8vo. i2j\ 
 
 te Although the main purpose of the book is strictly kept in view , at id we 
 never forget for long that zoe are travelling with a student and connoisseur , 
 Mr. Atkinson gives variety to his narrative by glimpses of scenery and 
 In ief allusions to history and manners which are always welcome when 
 they occur , and are never wordy or overdone. We have seldom met zvith 
 a book in which what is principal and what is accessory have been kept in 
 better proportion to each other '.' — Saturday Review. 
 
 Awdry.— THE STORY OF A FELLOW SOLDIER. By 
 Frances Awdry. With Six Illustrations. Second Edition. 
 Extra fcap. 8 vo. 3 s. 6d. 
 
 “ This is a life of ihat brave , single-minded , and untiring Christian 
 Soldier , Bishop Patteson, written for the young. It is simply and 
 pleasantly written , and presents a lively picture of the labours , hardships , 
 troubles, and pleasures oj earnest Missionary work among the Polynesian 
 Islands ." — Standard. 
 
 Baker (Sir Samuel W.)— Works by Sir Samuel Baker, 
 Pacha, M.A., F.R.G.S.:— 
 
 Colonel Gordon, in a letter to Sir Samuel Baker, says ; “ You 
 may rest assured that whatever may be said to the disparagement of your 
 proceedings, there will remain the fact that you have done more for these 
 countries than any living man can or will do hereafter, and history will 
 never put my puny efforts in any way near your cnvn." 
 
 ISMAILIA : A Narrative of the Expedition to Central Africa for . 
 the Suppression of the Slave Trade, organised by Ismail, Khedive 
 of Egypt. With Portraits, Maps, and fifty full-page Illustrations 
 by Zwecker and Durand. 2 vols. 8 vo. 36^. 
 
 “A book which will be read with very great interest." — TIMES. “ Well 
 written and full of remarkable adventures ." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 “ These tzvo splendid volumes add another thrilling chapter to the history 
 of African adventure ." — Daily News. “ Reads more like a romance 
 .... incomparably more entertaining than books of African travel usually 
 are ." — Morning Post. 
 
 THE ALBERT N’YANZA Great Basin of the Nile, and Explora- 
 tion of the Nile Sources. Fifth Edition. Maps and Illustrations. 
 Crown 8 vo. 6s. 
 
 “ Charmingly zvritten says the Spectator, “full, as might be 
 expected, of incident, and free from that wearisome reiteration of useless 
 facts which is the drawback to almost all books of African travel .” 
 
 THE NILE TRIBUTARIES OF ABYSSINIA, and the Sword 
 Hunters of the Hamran Aral s With Maps and Illustrations. 
 Sixth Edition. Crown 8 vo. 6s. 
 
 The Times says : “It adds much to our information respecting Egyptian 
 A byssinia and the different races that spread over it. It contains, more- 
 
HISTORY, \ BIOGRAPHY , TRAVELS , ETC . 
 
 3 
 
 <w^r, some notable instances of English daring and enterprising skill ; 
 it abounds in animated tales of exploits dear to the heart of the British 
 sportsman ; and it will attract even the least studious reader , as the author 
 tells a story well, and can describe nature with uncommon power. ” 
 
 Bancroft. — THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 
 OF AMERICA, FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE CON- 
 TINENT. By George Bancroft. New and thoroughly Re- 
 vised Edition. Six Vols. Crown 8vo. 54J. 
 
 Barker (Lady). — Works by Lady Barker : — 
 
 STATION LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND. Third Edition. Globe 
 8 vo. $s. 6 d. 
 
 “ We have never read a more truthful or a pleasanter little book .” — • 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 A YEAR’S HOUSEKEEPING IN SOUTH AFRICA. With 
 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. gs. 
 
 “ We have to thank Lady Barker for a very ctrmusing book, over which 
 we have spent many a delightful hour, and of which we will not take 
 leave without alluding to the ineffably droll illustrations which add so very- 
 much to the enjoyment of her clear and sparkling descriptions .” — Morning 
 Post. 
 
 Blackburne.— BIOGRAPHY OF THE RIGHT HON. 
 FRANCIS BLACKBURNE, Late Lord Chancellor of Ireland. 
 Chiefly in connexion with his Public and Political Career. By his 
 Son, Edward Blacicburne, Q.C. With Portrait Engraved by 
 Jeens. 8vo. 12 s. 
 
 Blanford (W. T.)— GEOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY OF 
 ABYSSINIA. By W. T. Blanford. 8vo. 2 \s. 
 
 Brimley. — ESSAYS BY THE LATE GEORGE BRIMLEY, 
 M. A. Edited by the Rev. W. G. Clark, M.A. With Portrait. 
 Cheaper Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2 s. 6 d. 
 
 Bronte. — CHARLOTTE BRONTE. A Monograph. By T. 
 Wemyss Reid. With Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown 
 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Mr. Reid's little volume , which is based largely on letters, hitherto 
 unpublished, from Charlotte Bronte to her schoolfellow and life-long 
 friend, Miss Ellen Nussey, is meant to be a companion, and not a rival, 
 to Mrs. Gaskell's well-known “ Life.” To speak of the advantage of 
 making biography autobiographical by the liberal use of correspondence has 
 
4 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 she was by nature (as Mr. Reid puts it) “a ha-bpy and high-spirited girl 
 and that even to the very last she had the faculty of overcoming her 
 sorrows by means of that steadfast courage which was her most precious 
 possession , and to which she was indebted for her successive victories over 
 trials and disappointments of no ordinary character ." 
 
 The book is illustrated by a Portrait of the Rev. Patrick Bronte , several 
 Views of Haworth and its neighbourhood , and a facsimile of one of the 
 most characteristic of Charlotte's letters. 
 
 Brooke.— THE RAJA OF SARAWAK: an Account of Sir 
 James Brooke, K. C. B., LL.D.. Given chiefly through Letters 
 or Journals. By Gertrude L. Jacob. With Portrait and 
 Maps. Two Vols. 8vo. 25^. 
 
 “ They who read Miss Jacob's book — and all should read it: all who 
 are under the delusion that in our time there is no scope for heroism , and 
 no place for romantic adventure , ond no place for enterprise and ambition 
 — will see how incident is crowded upon incident , and struggle upon 
 struggle, till in the very abundance of materials that come to her hand 
 the authoress can scarcely stop to give sufficient distinctness to her 
 wonderful narrative ." — Academy. 
 
 Brooke.— RECOLLECTIONS OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 
 By Richard S. Brooke, D.D., late Rector of Wyton, Hunts. 
 Crown 8vo. 4 s. 6 d. 
 
 Bryce. — Works by James Bryce, D.C.L., Regius Professor of 
 Civil Law, Oxford : — 
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. Sixth Edition, Revised and 
 Enlarged. Ctown 8vo. *js. 6 d. 
 
 “It exactly supplies a want : it affords a key to much which men 
 read of in their books as isolated facts , but of which they have hitherto 
 had no connected exposition set before them ." — Saturday Review. 
 
 TRANSCAUCASIA AND ARARAT: being Notes of a Vacation 
 Tour in the Autumn of 1876. With an Illustration and Map. 
 Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 9 s. 
 
 “Mr. Bryce has written a lively and at the same time an instructive 
 description of the tour he made last year in and about the Caucasus. When 
 so well-informed a jurist travels into regions seldom visited, and even 
 walks up a mountain so rarely scaled as Ararat , he is justified in think- 
 ing that the impressions he brings home are worthy of being communicated 
 to the world at large, especially when a terrible war is casting a lurid glow 
 over the countries he has lately surveyed ." — Athenaeum. 
 
 Burgoyne. — POLITICAL AND MILITARY EPISODES 
 DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE REIGN OF 
 GEORGE III. Derived from the Life and Correspondence of 
 
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC. 5 
 
 the Right Hon. J. Burgoyne, Lieut. -General in his Majesty’s 
 Army, and M.P. for Preston. By E. B. de Fonblanque. With 
 Portrait, Heliotype Plate, and Maps. 8vo. 1 6s. 
 
 Burke. — EDMUND BURKE, a Historical Study. By John 
 Morley, B.A., Oxon. Crown 8vo. qs. 6 d. 
 
 “ The style is terse and incisive , and brilliant with epigram and 
 point. Its sustained power of reasoning, its ivide sweep of observation 
 and reflection , its elevated ethical and social tone, stamp it as a work of 
 high excellence ^ — Saturday Review. 
 
 Burrows.— WORTHIES OF ALL SOULS : Four Centuries of 
 English History. Illustrated from the College Archives. By 
 Montagu Burrows, Chichele Professor of Modern History at 
 Oxford, Fellow of All Souls. 8vo. 14 j. 
 
 11 A most amusing as well as a most instructive book. — Guardian. 
 
 Campbell. — LOG-LETTERS FROM THE “ CHALLENGER.” 
 By Lord George Campbell. With Map. Fifth and cheaper 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 “ A delightful book , which we heartily commend to the general reader .” 
 — Saturday Review. 
 
 “ We do not hesitate to say that anything so fresh , so picturesque, so 
 generally delightful, as these log-letters has not appeared among books of 
 travel for a long timeS — Examiner. 
 
 ‘ 4 A more lively and amusing record of travel we have not had the 
 fortune to read for some time. The whole book is pervaded by a spirit op 
 life, animation, and funT — Standard. 
 
 Campbell. — my CIRCULAR NOTES : Extracts from Journals ; 
 Letters sent Home ; Geological and other Notes, written while 
 Travelling Westwards round the World, from July 6th, 1874, to 
 July 6th, 1875. lly J. F. Campbell, Author of “Frost and 
 Fire.” 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 25 s. 
 
 “ We have read numbers of books of travel, but tve can call to mind 
 few that have given us more genuine pleasure than this. A more agree- 
 able style of narrative than his it is hardly possible to conceive. We seem 
 to be accompanying him in his trip round the world, so life-like is his 
 description of the countries he visited .” — Land and Water. 
 
 Campbell. — TURKS AND GREEKS. Notes of a recent Ex- 
 cursion. By the Hon. Dudley Campbell, M.A. With Coloured 
 Map. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6 d. 
 
 Carstares. — WILLIAM CARSTARES : a Character and Career 
 of the Revolutionary Epoch (1649 — 1715)* tty Robert Story, 
 Minister of Rosneath. 8vo. 12s. 
 
6 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 Chatterton : A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY. By Daniel 
 Wilson, LL.D., Professor of History and English Literature in 
 University College, Toronto. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6 d. 
 
 The Examiner thinks this “the most complete and the purest bio- 
 graphy of the poet which has yet appeared. ” 
 
 Chatterton: A STORY OF THE YEAR 1770. By Professor 
 Masson, LL.D. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 Cooper. — ATHENE CANTABRIGIENSES. By Charles 
 Henry Cooper, F.S.A., and Thompson Cooper, F.S.A. 
 Vol. I. 8vo., 1500 — 85, i8j-. ; Vol. II., 1586 — 1609, i8j. 
 
 Correggio.— ANTONIO ALLEGRI DA CORREGGIO. From 
 the German of Dr. Julius Meyer, Director of the Royal Gallery, 
 Berlin. Edited, with an Introduction, by Mrs. Heaton. Con- 
 taining Twenty Woodbury-type Illustrations. Royal 8vo. Cloth 
 elegant. 3IJ. 6d. 
 
 “ The best and most readable biography of the master at present to be 
 found in the English latiguage." — Academy. “By its pictures alone 
 the book forms a worthy tribute to the painter s genius . ” — Pall Mall 
 Gazette. 
 
 Cox (G. V.)— RECOLLECTIONS OF OXFORD. By G. 
 V. Cox, M.A., New College, late Esquire Bedel and Coroner 
 in the University of Oxford. Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 “ A?t amusing farrago of anecdote , and will pleasantly recall in many 
 a coinitry parsonage the memory of youthful days ." — Times. 
 
 “ Daily News.”— THE DAILY NEWS’ CORRESPOND- 
 ENCE of the War between Germany and France, 1870 — 1. Edited 
 with Notes and Comments. New Edition. Complete in One 
 Volume. With Maps and Plans. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 THE DAILY NEWS’ CORRESPONDENCE of the War between 
 Russia and Turkey, to the fall of Kars. Including the letters of 
 Mr. Archibald Forbes, Mr. J. E. McGalian, and other Special 
 Correspondents in Europe and Asia. Second Edition, enlarged. 
 Crown 8vo. ioj. 6 d. 
 
 Davidson.— THE LIFE OF A SCOTTISH PROBATIONER ; 
 being a Memoir of Thomas Davidson, with his Poems and 
 Letters. By James Brown, Minister of St. James’s Street 
 Church, Paisley. Second Edition, revised and enlarged, with 
 Portrait. Crown 8vo. 7 s. 6 d. 
 
 Deas. — THE RIVER CLYDE. An Historical Description of the 
 Rise and Progress of the Harbour of Glasgow, and of the Im- 
 provement of the River from Glasgow to Port Glasgow. By J. 
 Deas, M. Inst. C.E. 8vo. ioj. 6 d. 
 
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC. 
 
 7 
 
 Denison.— A HISTORY OF CAVALRY FROM THE EAR- 
 LIEST TIMES. With Lessons for the Future. By Lieut. -Col. 
 George Denison, Commanding the Governor-General’s Body 
 Guard, Canada, Author of “ Modern Cavalry.” With Maps and 
 Plans. 8vo. i8r. 
 
 Dilke.— GREATER BRITAIN. A Record of Travel in English- 
 speaking Countries during 1866-7. (America, Australia, India.) 
 By Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, M.P. Sixth Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 “ Many of the subjects discussed in these pages,” says the Daily News, 
 “ are of the widest interest, and such as no man who cares for the future 
 of his race and of the world can afford to treat with indifference. ” 
 
 Doyle.— HISTORY OF AMERICA. By J. A. DoYle. With 
 Maps. i8mo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 “Mr. Doyle's style is clear and simple, his facts are accurately stated, 
 and his book is meritoriously free prom prejudice on questions whei'e 
 partisanship runs high amongst us.” — Saturday Review. 
 
 Drummond of Hawthornden : the STORY OF HIS 
 LIFE AND WRITINGS. By Professor Masson. With Por- 
 trait and Vignette engraved by C. H. Jeens. Crown 8vo. ior. 6 d. 
 “ Around his hero, Professor Masson groups national and individual 
 episodes and sketches of character, which are of the greatest interest, and 
 which add to the value of a biographical work which we warmly recom- 
 mend to the lovers of thoroughly healthy books A — Notes and Queries. 
 
 Duff. — NOTES OF AN INDIAN JOURNEY. By M. E. Grant- 
 Duff, M.P., late Under Secretary of State for India. With Map. 
 8vo. 1 or. 6d. 
 
 “ These notes arc full of pleasant remarks and illustrations , borrowed 
 from every kind of source .” — Saturday Review. 
 
 Elliott. — LIFE OF HENRY VENN ELLIOTT, of Brighton. 
 ByJosiAH Bateman, M.A., Author of “Life of Daniel Wilson, 
 Bishop of Calcutta,” &c. With Portrait, engraved by Jeens. 
 Extra fcap. 8vo. Third and Cheaper Edition, with Appendix. 6s. 
 “ A very charming piece of religious biography; no one can read it 
 without both pleasure and profit A —British Quarterly Review. 
 
 Elze. — ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE. By Dr. Karl Elze. 
 Translated with the Author’s sanction by L. Dora Schmitz. 
 8vo. I2r. 
 
 “ A more desirable contribution to criticism has not recently been made.” 
 —Athenaeum. 
 
 Eton College, History of. By H. C. Maxwell Lyte, 
 M.A. With numerous Illustrations by Professor Delamotte, 
 Coloured Plates, and a Steel Portrait of the Founder, engraved 
 
3 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 by C. H. Jeens. New and cheaper Issue, with Corrections. 
 Medium 8vo. Cloth elegant. 21s. 
 
 “ Hitherto no account of the College, with all its associations , has 
 appeared which can compare either in completeness or m interest with 
 this. ... It is indeed a book worthy of the ancient renown of Kin* 
 Henry's College :" — Daily News. 
 
 “ We are at length presented with a work on England's greatest public 
 school, worthy of the subject of which it treats. . . . Areally valuable and 
 authentic history of Eton College ." — Guardian. 
 
 European History, Narrated in a Series of Historical 
 Selections from the best Authorities. Edited and arranged by 
 E. M. Sewell and C. M. Yonge. First Series, crown 8vo. 6s. ; 
 Second Series, 1088-1228, crown 8vo. 6s. Third Edition. 
 
 “ We know of scarcely anything," says the Guardian, of this volume , 
 “ which is so likely to raise to a higher level the average standard of 
 English education." 
 
 Faraday. — MICHAEL FARADAY. By J. H. Gladstone, 
 Ph.D., F. R. S. Second Edition, with Portrait engraved by Jeens 
 from a photograph by J. Watkins. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6 d. 
 PORTRAIT. Artist’s Proof. 5^. 
 
 CONTENTS : — /. The Story of his Life. II. Study of his Character. 
 III. Fruits of his Experience. IV. His Method of Writing. V. The 
 Value of his Discoveries. — Supplementary Portraits. Appendices : — List 
 of Honorary Fellowships , etc. 
 
 Fisher. — THE CALIFORNIANS. By Walter M. Fisher. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 “ His volume is of great interest andvalue ." — Westminster Review. 
 
 Forbes.— LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES DAVID 
 FORBES, F. R.S., late Principal of the United College in the 
 University of St. Andrews. By J. C. Shairp, LL.D., Principal 
 of the United College in the University of St. Andrews; P. G. 
 Tait, M.A., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University 
 of Edinburgh; and A. Adams-Reilly, F.R.G. S. 8vo. with 
 Portraits, Map, and Illustrations, i6j. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Not only a biography that all should read, but a scientific treatise , 
 without which the shelves of no physicist's library can be deemed com - 
 plete. " — Standard. 
 
 Freeman. — Works bv Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L.,LL.D. : — 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. Third Edition. 8vo. \os. 6 d. 
 Contents : — /. “ The Mythical and Romantic Elements in Early 
 English History;" II “ The Continuity of English History ;" III. 
 
 “ The Relations between the Crowns of England and Scotland IV. 
 “St. Thomas of Canterbury and his Biographers;" V. “ The Reign of 
 Edward the Third:" VI. “ The Holy Roman Empire;" VII. “ The 
 
9 
 
 HISTORY , BIOGRAPHY , , TRAVELS, ETC. 
 
 Franks and the Gauls ;” VIII. “ The Early Sieges of Paris;” IX. 
 “ Frederick the First, King of Italy X. “ The Emperor Frederick the 
 Second :” XI. “ Charles the Bold XII. “ Presidential Government .” 
 
 A SECOND SERIES OF HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 8vo. 
 ior. 6 d. 
 
 The principal Essays are: — “ Ancient Greece and Mediaeval Italy:” 
 “ Mr. Gladstones Homer and the Homeric Ages : ” “ The Historians 
 oj Athens :” “ The Athenian Democracy :” “ Alexander the Great:” 
 
 ‘ • Greece during the Macedonian Period:” ‘ 1 Mommsens History of Rome :” 
 “ Lucius Cornelius Sulla :” “ The Flavian Ccesars .” 
 
 COMPARATIVE POLITICS. — Lectures at the Royal Institution. 
 To which is added the “ Unity of History,” the Rede Lecture at 
 Cambridge, 1872. 8vo. 14-r. 
 
 THE HISTORY AND CONQUESTS OF THE SARACENS. 
 Six Lectures. Third Edition, with New Preface. Crown 8vo. 
 3 S ‘ 6c *- 
 
 “Mr. Freeman opportunely reprints his erudite and valuable lec- 
 tures .” — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 HISTORICAL AND ARCHITECTURAL SKETCHES : 
 chiefly Italian. "With Illustrations by the Author. Crown 8vo. 
 1 or. 6 d. 
 
 “ Mr. Freeman may here be said to give us a series of ‘ notes on the 
 spot ’ in illustration oj the intimate relations of History and Architecture , 
 and this is done in so masterly a manner — there is so much, freshness, so 
 much knoivledge so admirably condensed, that we are almost tempted to 
 say that we prefer these sketches to his more elaborate studies .” — Noncon- 
 formist. 
 
 HISTORY OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, from the Foun- 
 dation of the Achaian League to the Disruption of the United 
 States. Vol. I. General Introduction. History of the Greek 
 Federations. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY. With Five Coloured Maps. Fourth 
 Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo., half-bound. 6 s. 
 
 “ The book indeed is full of instruction and interest to students of all 
 ages, and he must be a well-informed man indeed who will not rise 
 from its perusal with clearer and more accurate ideas of a too much 
 neglected portion of English history .” — Spectator. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF WELLS, 
 as illustrating the History of the Cathedral Churches of the Old 
 Foundation. Crown 8vo. 3r. 6 d. 
 
 “ The history assumes in Mr. Freeman! s hands a significance, and, we 
 may add, a practical value as suggestive of what a cathedral ought to be, 
 which make it well worthy of mention .” — Spectator. 
 
IO MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 Free man — continued. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION 
 FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. Crown 8vo. 5*. Third 
 Edition, revised. 
 
 GENERAL SKETCH OF EUROPEAN HISTORY. Being 
 Vol. I. of a Historical Course for Schools edited by E. A. 
 Freeman. Fifth Edition, enlarged. With Maps, Chronological 
 Table, Index, &c. i8mo. 3-r. 6 d. 
 
 “•It supplies the great want of a good foundation for historical teach - 
 ing. The scheme is an excellent one , and this instalment has been 
 accepted in a way that promises much for the volumes that are yet 
 to appearT — Educational Times. 
 
 THE OTTOMAN POWER IN EUROPE : its Nature, its Growth, 
 and its Decline. With Three Coloured Maps. Crown 8vo. 
 7 s. 6 d. 
 
 Galileo. — THE PRIVATE LIFE OF GALILEO. Compiled 
 principally from his Correspondence and that of his eldest 
 daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, Nun in the Franciscan Convent of 
 S. Matthew in Arcetri. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. 7 s. 6 d. 
 
 Gladstone — Works by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 
 M.P. : — 
 
 JUVENTUS MUNDI. The Gods and Men of the Heroic Age. 
 Crown 8vo. cloth. With Map. io.r. 6 d. Second Edition. 
 
 “Seldom," says the ATHEN/EUM, “ out of the great poems themselves , 
 have these Divinities looked so majestic and respectable. To read these 
 brilliant details is like standing on the Olympian threshold and gazing at 
 the ineffable brightness within .” 
 
 HOMERIC SYNCHRONISM. An inquiry into the Time and 
 Place of Homer. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 “ It is impossible not to admire the inimense range of thought and 
 inquiry which the author has displayed .” — British Quarterly 
 Review. 
 
 Goethe and Mendelssohn (1821—1831). Translated from the 
 German of Dr. Karl Mendelssohn, Son of the Composer, by 
 M. E. Von Glehn. From the Private Diaries and Home 
 Letters of Mendelssohn, with Poems and Letters of Goethe never 
 before printed. Also with two New and Original Portraits, Fac- 
 similes, and Appendix of Twenty Letters hitherto unpublished. 
 Crown 8vo. 5-r. Second Edition, enlarged. 
 
 “ . . . Every page is full of interest , not merely to the musi- 
 
 cian, but to the general reader. The book is a very charming one , on 
 a topic of deep and lasting interest .” — Standard. 
 
HISTORY , BIOGRAPHY, , TRAVELS , ETC. 
 
 ii 
 
 Goldsmid. — TELEGRAPH AND TRAVEL. A Narrative of 
 the Formation and Development of Telegraphic Communication 
 between England and India, under the orders of Her Majesty’s 
 Government, with incidental Notices of the Countries traversed by 
 the Lines. By Colonel Sir Frederic Goldsmid, C.B., K.C.S.I., 
 late Director of the Government Indo-European Telegraph. With 
 numerous Illustrations and Maps. 8vo, 2 is. 
 
 “ The merit of the work is a total absence of exaggeration, which does 
 not , however, preclude a vividness and vigour of style not always character- 
 istic of similar narratives .” — Standard. 
 
 Gordon.— last LETTERS FROM EGYPT, to which are added 
 Letters from the Cape. By Lady Duff Gordon. With a 
 Memoir by her Daughter, Mrs. Ross, and Portrait engraved by 
 Jeens. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 9^. 
 
 “ The intending tourist who wishes to acquaint himself with the country 
 he is about to visit, stands embarrassed amidst the riches presented for his 
 choice, and in the end probably rests contented with the sober usefulness of 
 Murray. He will not, however, if he is well advised, grudge a place in 
 his portmanteau to this book.” — Times. 
 
 Gray.— CHINA. A History of the Laws, Manners, and Customs 
 of the People. By the Venerable John Henry Gray. LL.D., 
 Archdeacon of Hong Kong, formerly FI.B.M. Consular Chaplain 
 at Canton. Edited by W. Gow Gregor. With 150 Full-page Illustra- 
 tions, being Facsimiles of Drawings by a Chinese Artist. 2 Vols. 
 Demy 8vo. f2s. 
 
 Green. — Works by John Richard Green:— 
 
 FIISTORY OF TPIE ENGLISH PEOPLE. Vol. I.— Early 
 England — Foreign Kings — The Charter — The Parliament. With 
 8 Coloured Maps. 8vo. 16s. Vol. II. — To the end of Elizabeth’s 
 Reign. 8vo. 1 6s. \To be completed in 5 Vols. 
 
 “Mr. Green has done a work which probably no one but himself could 
 have done. lie has read and assimilated the results of all the labours of 
 students during the last half century in the field of English history , and 
 has given them a fresh meaning by his own independent study. He has 
 fused together by the force of sympathetic imagination all that he has so 
 collected, and has given us a vivid and forcible sketch of the march of 
 English history. His book, both in its aims and its accomplishments , 
 rises far beyond any of a similar kind, and it will give the colouring to the 
 popular view to English history for some time to come.” — Examiner. 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. With 
 Coloured Maps, Genealogical Tables, and Chronological Annals. 
 Crown 8vo. 8s. 6 d. Fifty-second Thousand. 
 
 “ To say that Mr. Green's book is better than those which have pre- 
 ceded it, would be to convey a very inadequate impression of its merits. It 
 
12 MACMILLAN’S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 stands alone as the one general history of the country , for the sake of 
 which all others , if young and old are wise , will be speedily and surely set 
 aside.” 
 
 STRAY STUDIES FROM ENGLAND AND ITALY. Crown 
 8vo. 8 j. 6 d. Containing : Lambeth and the Archbishops — The 
 Florence of Dante — Venice and Rome — Early History of Oxford 
 — The District Visitor — Capri — Hotels in the Clouds — Sketches 
 in Sunshine, &c. 
 
 “ One and all of the papers are eminently readable .” — Athenaeum. 
 
 Hamerton. — Works by P. G. Hamerton: — 
 
 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. With a Portrait of Leonardo da 
 Vinci, etched by Leopold, Flameng. Second Edition. Crown 
 ioj. 6 d. 8vo. 
 
 “ We have read the whole book with great pleasure, and we can re - 
 commend it strongly to all who can appreciate grave reflections on a very 
 important subject , excellently illustrated from the resources of a mind 
 stored with much reading and much keen observation of real life .” — 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 THOUGHTS ABOUT ART. New Edition, revised, with an 
 Introduction. Crown 8vo. 8 l 6d. 
 
 “ A manual of sound and thorough criticism on art.” — Standard. 
 “ The book is full of thought , and worthy of attentive consideration .” — 
 Daily News. 
 
 Hill.— WHAT WE SAW IN AUSTRALIA. By Rosamond 
 and Florence Hill. Crown 8vo. ioj. 6 d. 
 
 “ May be recommended as an interesting and truthful picture of the 
 condition of those lands which are so distant and yet so much like home.” 
 — Saturday Review. 
 
 Hole. — A GENEALOGICAL STEMMA OF THE KINGS 
 OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE. By the Rev. C. Hole, 
 M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. On Sheet, is. 
 
 A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. Compiled and 
 Arranged by the Rev. Charles Hole, M. A. Second Edition. 
 i8mo. 4 s. 6 d. 
 
 Hozier (H. M.) — Works by Captain Henry M. Hozier, 
 late Assistant Military Secretary to Lord Napier of Magdala : — 
 
 THE SEVEN WEEKS’ WAR ; Its Antecedents and Incidents. 
 New and Cheaper Edition. With New Preface, Maps, and Plans. 
 Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 “ All that Mr. Hozier saw of the great events of the war — and he saw 
 a large share of them — he describes in clear and vivid language .” — 
 Saturday Review. 
 
HISTORY , BIOGRAPHY , TRAVELS, ETC. 13 
 
 Hozier (H. M.) — continued. 
 
 THE BRITISH EXPEDITION TO ABYSSINIA. Compiled 
 from Authentic Documents. 8vo. gs . 
 
 “ This ” says the Spectator, “ will be the account of the Abys- 
 sinian Expedition for professional reference, if not for professional 
 reading. Its literary merits are really very great A 
 
 THE INVASIONS OF ENGLAND : a History of the Past, with 
 Lessons for the Future. Two Vols. 8vo. 28^. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette says : — “As to all invasions executed, or 
 deliberately projected but not carried out, from the landing of Julius 
 Ccesar to the raising of the Boulogne camp, Captain Hozier furnishes 
 copious and most interesting particulars. Nor is his manner inferior to 
 hi r matter. He writes with admirable lucidity. His narrative , too, in 
 addition to its clearness and animation , is flavoured with much delicate 
 humour , often of a very significant kind A 
 
 Hiibner. — a ramble round the world in 1871. By 
 
 M. Le Baron Hubner, formerly Ambassador and Minister. 
 Translated by Lady Herbert. 2 vols. 8vo. 2$s. 
 
 ‘ ‘ It is difficult to do ample justice to this pleasant narrative of travel 
 . ... it does not contain a single dull paragraphA — Morning Post. 
 
 Hughes. — Works by Thomas Hughes, Q.C., Author of “Tom 
 Brown’s School Days.” 
 
 MEMOIR OF A BROTHER. With Portrait of George Hughes, 
 after Watts. Engraved by Jeens. Crown 8vo. 5.?. Sixth 
 Edition. 
 
 “ The boy who can read this book without deriving from it some addi- 
 tional impulse towards honourable , manly , and independent conduct , has 
 no good stuff in him A — Daily News. 
 
 ALFRED THE GREAT. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Hunt. — HISTORY OF ITALY. By the Rev. W. Hunt, M.A. 
 Being the Fourth Volume of the Historical Course for Schools. 
 Edited by Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L. i8mo. 3 s . 
 
 “ Mr. Hunt gives us a most compact but very readable little book, con- 
 taining in small compass a very complete outline of a complicated and 
 perplexing subject. It is a book which may be safely recommended to 
 others besides schoolboysA — John Bull. 
 
 Irving. — THE ANNALS OF OUR TIME. A Diurnal of Events, 
 Social and Political, Home and Foreign, from the Accession of 
 Queen Victoria to the Peace of Versailles. By Joseph Irving. 
 Fourth Edition. 8vo. half-bound. i6.r. 
 
 ANNALS OF OUR TIME. Supplement. From Feb. 28, 1871, 
 to March 19, 1874. 8vo. 4 s. 6 d. 
 
 “ We have before us a trusty and ready guide to the events of the 
 past thirty years, available equally for the statesman, the politician , the 
 public writer, and the general reader. ” — Times. 
 
14 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 Killen. — ECCLP 2 SI ASTICAL HISTORY OF IRELAND, from 
 the Earliest Date to the Present Time. By W. D. Killen, D. D., 
 President of Assembly’s College, Belfast, and Professor of Eccle- 
 siastical History. Two Vols. 8vc. 25J. 
 
 “ Those who have the leisure will do well to read these two volumes. 
 They are full of interest, and are the result of great research . . . . We 
 have no hesitation in recommending the work to all who wish to improve 
 their acquaintance with Irish history .” — SPECTATOR. 
 
 Kingsley (Charles).— Works by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, 
 M.A., Rector of Eversley and Canon of Westminster. (For 
 other Works by the same Author, see Theological and Belles 
 Lettres Catalogues. ) 
 
 ON THE ANCIEN REGIME as it existed on the Continent before 
 the French Revolution. Three Lectures delivered at the 
 Royal Institution. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 AT LAST : A CHRISTMAS in the WEST INDIES. With nearly 
 Fifty Illustrations. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 Mr. Kingsley’s dream of forty years was at last fulfilled, when he 
 started on a Christmas expedition to the West Indies, for the purpose op 
 becoming personally acquainted with the scenes which he has so vividly 
 described in 44 Westward Ho!" These two volumes are the journal of his 
 voyage. Records of natural history, sketches of tropical landscape, chapters 
 on education, views of society, all find their place. 44 We can only say 
 that Mr. Kingsley’s account of a 4 Christmas in the West Indies ' is in 
 every way worthy to be classed among his happiest productions ." — 
 Standard. 
 
 THE ROMAN AND THE TEUTON. A Series of Lectures 
 delivered before the University of Cambridge. New and Cheaper 
 Edition, with Preface by Professor Max Muller. Crown 8vo. 6r. 
 
 PLAYS AND PURITANS, and other Historical Essays. With 
 Portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 
 5 s - 
 
 In addition to the Essay mentioned in the title , this volume contains 
 other two — one on “ Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time," and one on 
 Froude s 44 History of England." 
 
 Kingsley (Henry). — TALES OF OLD TRAVEL. Re- 
 narrated by Henry Kingsley, F.R.G.S. With Eight Illus- 
 trations by Hu ard. Fifth Edition. Crown 8 vo. 6 s. 
 
 44 We knoiu no better book for those who want knowledge or seek to 
 refresh it. As for the 4 sensational most novels are tame compared with 
 these narratives — Athenaeum. 
 
 LaOCOOn. — Translated from the Text of Lessing, with Preface and 
 Notes by the Right Hon. Sir Robert J. Phillimore, D.C.L. 
 With Photographs. Svo. I2 j. 
 
HISTORY , BIOGRAPHY, \ TRAVELS, ETC. T5 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci and his Works. — Consisting of a 
 Life of Leonardo Da Vinci, by Mrs. Charles W. Heaton, 
 Author of “Albrecht Diirer of Niirnberg,” &c., an Essay on his 
 Scientific and Literary Works by Charles Christopher 
 Black, M.A., and an account of his more important Paintings 
 and Drawings. Illustrated with Permanent Photographs. Royal 
 8vo. cloth, extra gilt. 3U. 6 d. 
 
 “ A beautiful volume , both without and within. Messrs. Macmillan 
 are conspicuous among publishers for the choice binding and printing of 
 their books , and this is got up in their best style. . . . No English 
 
 publication that we know of has so thoroughly and attractively collected 
 together all that is known of Leonardo .” — Times. 
 
 Liechtenstein, — HOLLAND HOUSE. By Princess Marie 
 Liechtenstein. With Five Steel Engravings by C. H. Jeens, 
 after Paintings by Watts and other celebrated Artists, and 
 numerous Illustrations drawn by Professor P. H. Delamotte, and 
 engraved on Wood by J. D. Cooper, W. Palmer, andjEWiTT & 
 Co. Third and Cheaper Edition. Medium 8vo. cloth elegant. 
 i6r. 
 
 Also, an Edition containing, in addition to the above, about 40 
 Illustrations by the Woodbury-type process, and India Proofs of 
 the Steel Engravings. Two vols. medium 4to. half morocco 
 elegant. 4/. 4 s. 
 
 “ When every strictly just exception shall have been taken , she may be 
 conscientiously congratulated by the most scrupulous critic on the produc- 
 tion of a useful , agreeable , beautifully -illustrated, and attractive book .” — 
 Times. “ // would take up more room than we can spare to enumerate 
 all the interesting suggestions and notes which are to be found in these 
 
 volumes The woodcuts are admirable , and some of the autographs 
 
 are very interesting .” — -Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 Lloyd.— THE AGE OF PERICLES. A History of the Arts and 
 Politics of Greece from the Persian to the Peloponnesian War. 
 By W. Waiiciss Lloyd. Two Vols. 8vo. 21 s 
 
 “ No such account of Greek art of the best period has yet been brought 
 
 together in an English work Mr. Lloyd has produced a book of 
 
 unusual excellence and interest .” — PALL Mall GAZETTE. 
 
 Macarthur. — HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, By Margaret 
 Macarthur. Being the Third Volume of the Historical Course 
 for Schools, Edited by Edward A. Freeman, D. C.L. Second 
 Edition. i8mo. 2 s. 
 
 ‘ ‘ It is an excellent summary, unimpeachable as io facts, and putting 
 them in the clearest and most impartial light attainable .” — Guardian. 
 “ No previous History of Scotland of the same bulk is anything like so 
 trustworthy, or deserves to be so extensively used as a text-book — Globe. 
 
1 6 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 Macmillan (Rev. Hugh) • — For other Works by same Author, 
 see Theological and Scientific Catalogues. 
 
 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS ; or, Rambles and Incidents in 
 search of Alpine Plants. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. 
 Globe 8vo. cloth. 6 s. 
 
 “ Botanical knowledge is blended with a love of nature , a pious en- 
 thusiasm, and a rich felicity of diction not to be met with in any works 
 of kindred character , if we except those of Hugh Miller. ” — Telegraph. 
 “ Mr . Macmillan s glowing pictures of Scandinavian scenery .” — 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 Macready. — MACREADY’S REMINISCENCES AND SE- 
 LECTIONS FROM HIS DIARIES AND LETTERS. Edited 
 by Sir F. Pollock, Bart., one of his Executors. With Four 
 Portraits engraved by Jeens. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 
 8vo. 7 s. 6 d. 
 
 “ As a careful and for the most fart just estimate of the stage during 
 a very brilliant period , the attraction of these volumes can scarcely be 
 surpassed. .... Readers who have no special interest in theatrical 
 matters , but enjoy miscellaneous gossip , will be allured from page to page , 
 attracted by familiar names and by observations upon popular actors and 
 authors. ” — Spectator. 
 
 Mahaffy. — Works by the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy, M. A.,' Fellow of 
 Trinity College, Dublin : — 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE IN GREECE FROM HOMER TO MENAN- 
 DER. Third Edition, revised and enlarged, with a new chapter 
 on Greek Art. Crown 8vo. 9 s. 
 
 “ It should be in the hands of all who desire thoroughly to understand 
 and to enjoy Greek literature, and to get an intelligent idea of the old Greek 
 life , political , social, and religious .” — Guardian. 
 
 RAMBLES AND STUDIES IN GREECE. With Illustrations. 
 Crown 8vo. New and enlarged Edition in the Press. 
 
 “A singularly instructive and agreeable volume .” — Athenaeum. 
 
 Margary. — THE JOURNEY OF AUGUSTUS RAYMOND 
 MARGARY FROM SHANGHAE TO BHAMO AND BACK 
 TO MANWYNE. From his Journals and Letters, with a brief 
 Biographical Preface, a concluding chapter by Sir Rutherford 
 Alcock, K.C.B., and a Steel Portrait engraved by Jeens, and 
 Map. 8 vo. IOJ. 6 d. 
 
 “ There is a manliness, a cheerful spirit, an inherent vigour which 
 was never overcome by sickness or debility , a tact which conquered the 
 prejudices of a strange and suspicious population, a quiet self-reliance, 
 always combined with deep religious feeling, unalloyed by either priggish - 
 ness, cant, or superstition, that ought to commend this volume to readers 
 sitting quietly at home who feel any pride in the high estvnation accorded 
 to men of their race at Yarkand or at Khiva , in the heart of Africa, or 
 on the shores of Lake Seri-kul. ’’—Saturday Review. 
 
HISTORY , BIOGRAPHY , TRAVELS , ETC. 
 
 1 7 
 
 Martin. — THE HISTORY OF LLOYD’S, AND OF MARINE 
 INSURANCE IN GREAT BRITAIN. With an Appendix 
 containing Statistics relating to Marine Insurance. By Frederick 
 Martin, Author of “ The Statesman’s Year Book.” 8vo. 14J. 
 
 “ We have in the editor of the ‘ Statesman’s Year Book ’ an in- 
 dusti ions and conscientious guide , and we can certify that in his ‘ History 
 of Lloyds' 1 he has produced a work of more than passing interests — 
 Times. 
 
 Martineau. — BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, 1852—1875. 
 By Harriet Martineau. With Additional Sketches, and Auto- 
 biographical Sketch. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 “ Miss Martineau' s large literary powers and her fine intellectual 
 training make these little sketches more instructive , and constitute them 
 more genuinely works of art , than many niore ambitious and diffuse 
 biographies. F ortnightly Review. 
 
 Masson (David). — For other Works by same Author, see Philo- 
 sophical and Belles Lettres Catalogues. 
 
 CHATTERTON : A Story of the Year 1770. By DavidMasson, 
 LL.D., Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. 5 s. 
 
 “ One of this popular writers best essays on the English poets S — 
 Standard. 
 
 THE THREE DEVILS : Luther’s, Goethe’s, and Milton’s ; and 
 other Essays. Crown 8vo. 5 s. 
 
 WORDSWORTH, SHELLEY, AND NEATS; and other 
 Essays. Crown 8vo. 5-r. 
 
 Maurice.— THE FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS ; AND OTHER 
 LECTURES. By the Rev. F. D. Maurice. Edited with Pre- 
 face, by Thomas Hughes, Q.C. Crown 8vo. ioj. 6d. 
 
 “ The high , pure, sympathetic , and truly charitable nature of Mr. 
 Maurice is delightfully visible throughout these lectures , which are ex- 
 cellently adapted to, spread a love of literature amongst the people .” — 
 Daily News. 
 
 Mayor (J. E. B.)— WORKS edited by John E. B. Mayor, 
 M.A., Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge : — 
 
 CAMBRIDGE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Part II. 
 Autobiography of Matthew Robinson. Fcap. 8vo. 5^. 6d. 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP BEDELL. By his Son. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Melbourne.— MEMOIRS OF THE RT. HON WILLIAM, 
 SECOND VISCOUNT MELBOURNE. By W. M. Torrens, 
 M.P. With Portrait after Sir. T. Lawrence. 2 Vols. 8vo. 32s. 
 
i8 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 “As might be expected, he has produced a book which will command 
 and reward attention. It contains a great deal of valuable matter and 
 a great deal of animated, elegant writing . ” — Quarterly Review. 
 
 Mendelssohn.— LETTERS AND RECOLLECTIONS. By 
 Ferdinand Hiller. Translated by M. E. Von Glehn. With 
 Portrait from a Drawing by Karl Muller, never before pub- 
 lished. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 7 s. 6 d. 
 
 “ This is a very interesting addition to our knowledge of the great 
 German composer. It reveals him to us under a new light, as the warm- 
 hearted comrade, the musician whose soul was in his work, and the home- 
 loving, domestic man ." — Standard. 
 
 Merewether.— by SEA AND BY LAND. Being a Trip 
 through Egypt, India, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, and 
 America — all Round the World. By Henry Alworth Mere- 
 wether, one of Her Majesty’s Counsel. Crown 8vo. 8j. 6 d . 
 
 Michael Angelo Buonarotti ; Sculptor, Painter, Architect. 
 The Story of his Life and Labours. By C. C. Black, M.A. 
 Illustrated by 20 Permanent Photographs. Royal 8vo. cloth 
 elegant, 3U. 6 d. 
 
 “ The story of Michael Angelo s life remains interesting whatever be the 
 manner of telling it, and supported as it is by this beautiful series of photo- 
 graphs, the volume must take rank among the most splendid of Christmas 
 books, fitted to serve and to outlive the season .” — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 Michelet. — A SUMMARY OF MODERN HISTORY. Trans- 
 lated from the French of M. Michelet, and continued to the 
 present time by M. C. M. Simpson. Globe 8vo. 4J. 6 ct. 
 
 ‘ ‘ We are glad to see one of the ablest and most useful summaries of 
 European history put into the hands of English readers. The transla- 
 tion is excellent .” — Standard. 
 
 Milton.— LIFE OF JOHN MILTON. Narrated in connection 
 with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his Time. 
 By David Masson, M.A., LL. D., Professor of Rhetoric and 
 English Literature in the University of Edinburgh. With Portraits. 
 Vol. I. i8j. Vol. II., 1638—1643. 8 vo. 1 6s. Vol. III. 
 
 1643 — 1649. 8vo. i8j. Vols. IV. and V. 1649 — 1660. 32 s. 
 
 This work is not only a Biography, but also a continuous Political, Eccle- 
 siastical, and Literary History of England through Milton's whole time. 
 
 Mitford (A. B.)— tales OF OLD JAPAN. By A. B. 
 Mitford, Second Secretary to the British Legation in Japan. 
 With upwards of 30 Illustrations, drawn and cut on Wood by 
 Japanese Artists. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 “ These very original volumes will always be interesting as memorials 
 of a most exceptional society, while regarded simply as tales, they are 
 sparkling, sensational, and dramatic , and the origmality of their idea 
 
HISTORY , BIOGRAPHY, TRAVELS, ETC. 19 
 
 and the quaintness of their language give them a most captivating 
 piquancy. The illustrations are extremely interesting, and for the 
 curious in such matters have a special and particular value.” — Pall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 Monteiro.— ANGOLA AND THE RIVER CONGO. By 
 Joachim Monteiro. With numerous Illustrations from Sketches 
 taken on the spot, and a Map. Two Vols. crown 8vo. 21s. 
 
 “ Gives the first detailed account of a part of tropical Africa which is 
 
 little knownto Englishmen The remarks on the geography aud 
 
 zoology of the country and the manners and customs of the various races 
 inhabiting it, are extremely curious and interesting, .” — Saturday Re- 
 view. ‘ ‘ Full of valuable information and much picturesque description.” 
 Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 Morison. — THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAINT BERNARD, 
 Abbot of Clairvaux. By James 4 Cotter Morison, M.A. New 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette calls this “ A delightful and instructive 
 volume, and one of the best products of the modern historic spirit .” 
 
 Napoleon.— THE HISTORY OF NAPOLEON I. By P. 
 Lanfrey. A Translation with the sanction of the Author. Vols. 
 I. II. and III. 8vo. price 12 s. each. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette says it is “ one of the most striking 
 pieces of historical composition of which France has to boast,” and the 
 .Saturday Review calls it “ an excellent translation of a work on every 
 ground desei ving to be translated. It is unquestionably and immeasurably 
 the best that has been produced. It is in fact the oiily work to which we 
 can turn for an accurate and trustworthy narrative of that extraordinary 
 career. . . . The book is the best and indeed the only trustworthy history 
 of Napoleon which has been written.” 
 
 Nichol.— TABLES OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE AND 
 HISTORY, a. d. 200—1876. By J. Nichol, LL.D., 
 Professor of English Language and Literature, Glasgow. 4to. 
 6s. 6 d. 
 
 TABLES OF ANCIENT LITERATURE AND HISTORY, 
 B.C. 1500— A. D. 200. By the same Author. 4to. 4s. 6d. 
 
 Oliphant (Mrs.).— THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE : Dante 
 Giotto, Savonarola, and their City. By Mrs. Oliphant. With 
 numerous Illustrations from drawings by Professor Delamotte, 
 and portrait of Savonarola, engraved by Jeens. Second Edition. 
 Medium 8vo. Cloth extra. 2IJ-. 
 
 “ Mrs. Oliphant has made a beautiful addition to the mass of literature 
 already piled round the records of the Tuscan capital. Times. 
 
20 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 “ We are grateful to Mrs. Oliphant for her eloquent and beautiful 
 sketches of Dante, Fra Angelico , and Savonarola. They are picturesque, 
 full of life, and rich in detail, and they are charmingly illustrated by the 
 art of the engraver ." — Spectator. 
 
 Oliphant.— THE DUKE AND THE SCHOLAR; and othe 
 Essays. By T. L. Kington Oltphant. 8vo. 7 s. 6 d. 
 
 “ This volume contains one of the most beautiful biographical essays we 
 have seen since Macaulay' s days." — Standard. 
 
 Otte.— SCANDINAVIAN HISTORY. By E. C. Otte. With 
 Maps. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 “ We have peculiar pleasure in recommending this intelligent resume 
 of Northern history as a book essential to every Englishman who intereits 
 himself in Scandinavia — Spectator. 
 
 Owens College Essays and Addresses — By Pro- 
 fessors and Lecturers of Owens College, Manchester. 
 Published in Commemoration of the Opening of the New College 
 Buildings, October 7th, 1873. 8vo. 14J. 
 
 Palgrave (Sir F.)— HISTORY OF NORMANDY AND 
 OF ENGLAND. By Sir Francis Palgrave, Deputy Keeper 
 of Her Majesty's Public Records. Completing the History to the 
 Death of William Rufus. Vols. II. — IV. 2 is. each. 
 
 Palgrave (W. G.)— A NARRATIVE OF A YEAR’S 
 JOURNEY THROUGH CENTRAL AND EASTERN 
 ARABIA, 1862-3. By William Gifford Palgrave, late of 
 the Eighth Regiment Bombay N. I. Sixth Edition. With Maps, 
 Plans, and Portrait of Author, engraved on steel by J eens. Crown 
 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 “ lie has not only written one of the best books on the Arabs and one 
 i f the best books on A rabia , but he has done so in a manner that must 
 command the respect no less than the admiration of his fellow-country- 
 men. ’’—Fortnightly .Review. 
 
 ESSAYS ON EASTERN QUESTIONS. By W. Gifford 
 Palgrave. 8vo. ioj. 6 d. 
 
 “ These essays are full of anecdote and interest. The book is decidedly 
 a valuable addition to the stock of literature on which men must 
 base their opinion of the difficult social and political problems sug- 
 gested by the designs of Russia , the capacity of Mahometans for 
 sovereignty , and. the good govermnent and retention of India ." — 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 DUTCH GUIANA. With Maps and Plans. 8vo. 9 s. 
 
 “ His pages are nearly exhaustive as far as facts and statistics go, 
 while they are lightened by graphic social sketches as well as sparkling 
 descriptions of scenery ." — Saturday Review. 
 
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY , TRAVELS, ETC. 
 
 Patteson. — life and letters of john Coleridge 
 
 PATTESON, D.D., Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands. 
 By Charlotte M. Yonge, Author of “ The Heir of Redo^tfe.” 
 With Portraits after Richmond and from Photograph, engraved by 
 Jeens. With Map. Fifth Edition. Two Vols. Crown 8 vo. 12s. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Miss Yonge' s work is in one respect a model biography. It is made 
 up almost entirely of Patteson' s own letters. Aware that he had left his 
 home once and for all, his correspondence took the form of a diary, and 
 as we read on we come to know tlte man , and to love him almost as if we 
 had seen him." — Athenaeum. “ Such a life, with its grand lessons of 
 unselfishness, is a blessing and an honour to the age in which it is lived ; 
 the biography cannot be studied without pleasure and profit, and indeed 
 we should think little of the man who did not rise from the study of it 
 better and wiser. Neither the Church nor the nation which produces 
 such sons need ever despair of its future." — Saturday Review. 
 
 Pauli. — PICTURES OF OLD ENGLAND. By Dr. Reinhold 
 Pauli. Translated, with the approval of the Author, byE. C. 
 Otte. Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Payne. — A HISTORY OF EUROPEAN COLONIES. By 
 E. J. Payne, M.A. With Maps. i8mo. 4s. 6 d. 
 
 The Times says : — “ We have seldom met with a historian capable of 
 forming a more comprehensive, far-seeing, and unprejudiced estimate of 
 events and peoples, and we can commend this little work as one certain to 
 prove of the highest interest to all thoughtful readers." 
 
 Persia. — EASTERN PERSIA. An Account of the Journeys of 
 the Persian Boundary Commission, 1870-1-2. — Vol. I. The Geo- 
 graphy, with Narratives by Majors St. John, Lovett, and Euan 
 Smith, and an Introduction by Major-General Sir Frederic 
 Goldsmid, C.B., K.C.S.I., British Commissioner and Arbitrator. 
 With Maps and Illustrations.— Vol. II. The Zoology and Geology. 
 By W. T. Blant-'ORD, A.R.S.M., F.R.S. With Coloured Illus- 
 trations. Two Vols. 8vo. 42J. 
 
 “ The volumes largely increase our store of information about 
 
 countries with which Englishmen ought to be familiar 
 
 They throw into the shade all that hitherto has appeared in our tongiie 
 respecting the local features of Persia, its scenery, its resources, even its 
 social condition. They contain also abundant evidence of English 
 endurance, daring, and spirit ." — Times. 
 
 Prichard.— THE ADMINISTRATION OF INDIA. From 
 1859 to 1868. The First Ten Years of Administration under the 
 Crown. By I. T. Prichard, Barrister-at-Law. Two Vols. 
 Demy 8vo. With Map. 21s. 
 
22 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 Raphael. — RAPHAEL OF URBINO AND HIS FATHER 
 GIOVANNI SANTI. By J. D. Passavant, formerly Director 
 of the Museum at Frankfort. With Twenty Permanent Photo- 
 graphs. Royal 8vo. Handsomely bound. 3U. 6 d. 
 
 The Saturday Review says of them , “ We have seen not a few 
 elegant specimens of Mr. Woodbury' s new process , but we have seen 
 none that equal these." 
 
 Reynolds.— SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS AS A PORTRAIT 
 PAINTER. AN ESSAY. By J. Churton Collins, B.A. 
 Balliol College, Oxford. Illustrated by a Series of Portraits of 
 distinguished Beauties of the Court of George III. ; reproduced 
 in Autotype from Proof Impressions of the celebrated Engravings, 
 by Valentine Green, Thomas Watson, F. R. Smith, E. 
 Fisher, and others. Folio half-morocco, fs 5 s. 
 
 Robinson (H. Crabb). — THE DIARY, REMINISCENCES, 
 AND CORRESPONDENCE, OF HENRY CRABB ROBIN- 
 SON, Barrister-at-Law. Selected and Edited by Thomas 
 Sadler, Ph.D. With Portrait. Third and Cheaper Edition. 
 Two Vols. Crown 8vo. 12 s. 
 
 The Daily News says: “ The two books which are most likely to 
 survive change of literary taste , and to charm while instructing generation 
 after generation , are the ‘ Diary ' of Pepys and Boswell's ‘ Life of 
 Johnson.' The day will come when to these many will add the ‘ Diary of 
 Henry Crabb Robinson. ’ Excellences like those which render the personal 
 revelations of Pepys and the observations of Boswell such pleasant reading 
 abound in this work." 
 
 Rogers (James E. Thorold). — HISTORICAL GLEAN- 
 INGS : A Series of Sketches. Montague, Walpole, Adam Smith, 
 Cobbett. By Prof. Rogers. Crown 8vo. 4 s. 6 d. Second Series. 
 Wiklif, Laud, Wilkes, and Horne Tooke. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 Routledge. — CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF POPULAR 
 PROGRESS IN ENGLAND, chiefly in Relation to the Freedom 
 of the Press and Trial by Jury, 1660 — 1820. With application to 
 later years. By J. Routledge. 8vo. 1 6 s. 
 
 “ The volume abounds in facts and information , almost always useful 
 and often curious T — Times. 
 
 Rumford. — COUNT RUMFORD’S COMPLETE WORKS, 
 with Memoir, and Notices of his Daughter. By George Ellis. 
 Five Vols. 8vo. 4/. 14s. 6 d. 
 
 Seeley (Professor). — LECTURES AND ESSAYS. By 
 J. R. Seeley, M.A. Professor of Modern History in the 
 University of Cambridge. 8vo. ioj. 6 d. 
 
 Contents: — Roman Imperialism: 1. The Great Roman Revolu- 
 tion; 2. The Proximate Cause of the Fall of the Roman Empire ; 
 
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, 7 RAVELS, ETC. 23 
 
 The Later Empire. — Milton? s Political Opinions — Milton’s Poetry 
 
 — Elementary Principles in Art — Liberal \ Education in Universities 
 — English in Schools — The Church as a Teacher of Morality — 7 he 
 Teaching of Politics : an Inaugural Lecture delivered at Cambridge. 
 
 Shelburne.— LIFE OF WILLIAM, EARL OF SHELBURNE, 
 AFTERWARDS FIRST MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE. 
 With Extracts from his Papers and Correspondence. By Lord 
 Edmond Fitzmaurice. In Three Vols. 8vo. Yol. I. 1737 — 
 1766, 12s. ; Vol. II. 1766 — 1776, 12s. ; Vol. III. 1776 — 1805. 
 1 6 s. 
 
 “ Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice has succeeded in placing before us a 
 wealth of new matter, which, while casting valuable and, much-needed 
 light on several obscure passages in the political history of a hundred 
 years ago, has enabled us for the first time to form a clear and consistent 
 idea of his ancestor A — Spectator. 
 
 Sime. — FIISTORY OF GERMANY. By James Sime, M.A. 
 i8mo. 3J. Being Vol. V. of the Historical Course for Schools, 
 Edited by Edward A. Freeman, D.CL. 
 
 “ This is a remarkably clear and impressive History of Germany. Its 
 %reat events are wisely kept as central figures, and the smaller events air 
 carefully kept not only subordinate and subservient, but most skilfully 
 woven into the texture of the historical tapestry presented to the eye .” — 
 Standard. 
 
 Squier. — PERU : INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL AND EX- 
 PLORATION IN THE LAND OF THE INCAS. By E, G. 
 Squier, M.A., F.S.A., late U.S. Commissioner to Peru. 8vo. 
 With 300 Illustrations. 21 s. 
 
 The Times says : — “ No more solid and trustworthy contribution has 
 been made to an accurate knowledge of what are among the most wonderful 
 ruins in the world. .... The work is really what its title implies. 
 While of the greatest importance as a contribution to Peruvian archaeology, 
 it is also a thoroughly entertaining and instructive narrative of travel. 
 .... Not the least important feature must be considered the m*merous 
 well executed illustrations .” 
 
 Strangford. — EGYPTIAN SHRINES AND SYRIAN SEPUL- 
 CHRES, including a Visit to Palmyra. By Emily A. Beaufort 
 (Viscountess Strangford), Author of “ The Eastern Shores of 
 the Adriatic.” New Edition. Crown 8vo. Js- &d. 
 
 Thomas. — the LIFE OF JOHN THOMAS, Surgeon of the 
 “Earl of Oxford” East Indiaman, and First Baptist Missionary to 
 Bengal. By C. B. Lewis, Baptist Missionary. 8vo. ioj-. 6 d. 
 
24 MACMILLAN S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 Thompson.— HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Edith Thomp- 
 son. Being Vol. II. of the Historical Course for Schools, Edited 
 by Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L. New Edition. i8mo. 2 s. 6 d. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Freedom from prejudice , simplicity of style , and accuracy of state- 
 ment, are the characteristics of this volume. Ic is a trustworthy text-book , 
 and likely to be generally serviceable in schools .” — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 “ In its great accuracy and correctness of detail it stands far ahead of the 
 general run of school manuals. Its arrangement, too , is clear , and its 
 style simple and straightforward .” — Saturday Review. 
 
 Todhunter.— the CONFLICT OF STUDIES ; AND 
 OTHER ESSAYS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH 
 EDUCATION. By Isaac Todhunter, M.A., F.R.S., late 
 Fellow and Principal Mathematical Lecturer of St. John’s College, 
 Cambridge. 8vo. ioj. 6 d. 
 
 Contents : — 1 . The Conflict of Studies. II. Competitive Exa- 
 minations. III. Private Study of Mathematics. IV. Academical 
 Reform. V. Elementary Geometry. VI The Mathematical Tripos. 
 
 Trench (Archbishop).— For other Works by the same Author, 
 see Theological and Belles Lettres Catalogues, and 
 page 30 of this Catalogue. 
 
 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS IN GERMANY, and other Lectures 
 on the Thirty Years’ War. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. 
 Fcap. 8vo. 4 s. 
 
 PLUTARCH, HIS LIFE, HIS LIVES, AND HIS MORALS. 
 Five Lectures. Second Edition, enlarged. Fcap. 8vo. $s. 6 d. 
 
 LECTURES ON MEDIAEVAL CHURCH HISTORY. Being 
 the substance of Lectures delivered in Queen’s College, London. 
 8vo. 1 2 s. 
 
 Trench (Maria). — THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA. By Maria 
 Trench. With Portrait engraved by Jeens. Crown 8vo. cloth 
 extra. 8j. 6 d . 
 
 “ A book of rare interest .” — John Bull. 
 
 Trench (Mrs. R.)— REMAINS OF THE LATE MRS. 
 RICHARD TRENCH. Being Selections from her Journals, 
 Letters, and other Papers. Edited by Archbishop Trench. 
 New and Cheaper Issue, with Portrait. 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 Trollope. — A HISTORY OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF 
 FLORENCE FROM TPIE EARLIEST INDEPENDENCE 
 OF THE COMMUNE TO THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC 
 IN 1831. By T. Adolphus Trollope. 4 Vols. 8vo. Half 
 morocoo. 21 s. 
 
HISTORY , BIOGRAPHY , TRAVELS, ETC. 
 
 25 
 
 Wallace.— THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO: the Land of the 
 Orang Utan and the Bird of Paradise. By Alfred Russel 
 Wallace. A Narrative of Travel with Studies of Man and 
 Nature. With Maps and numerous Illustrations. Fifth Edition. 
 Crown 8 vo. 7 s. 6 d. 
 
 * ‘ The result is a vivid picture of tropical life, which may be read with 
 unflagging interest, and a sufficient account of his scientific conclusions to 
 stimulate our appetite without wearying us by detail. In short, we may 
 safely say that we have never read a more agreeable book of its kind .” — 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 Waller,— six WEEKS IN THE SADDLE : A PAINTER’S 
 JOURNAL IN ICELAND. By S. E. Waller. With Illus- 
 trations by the Author. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 “ A n exceedingly pleasant and naturally written little book. . . . 
 
 Air. Walter has a clever pencil, and the text is well illustrated with his 
 own sketches .” — Times. “ A very lively and readable book.” — Athe- 
 naeum. “ A bright little book , admirably illustrated.” — Spectator. 
 
 Ward.— A HISTORY OF ENGLISH DRAMATIC LITERA- 
 TURE TO THE DEATH OF QUEEN ANNE. By A. W. 
 Ward, M.A., Professor of History and English Literature in 
 Owens College, Manchester. Two Vols. 8vo. 32 s. 
 
 “ As full of interest as of information. To students of aramatic 
 litei'ature invaluable, and may be equally recommended to readers for 
 mere pastime.” — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 Ward (J.)— EXPERIENCES OF A DIPLOMATIST. Being 
 recollections of Germany founded on Diaries kept during the years 
 1840 — 1870. By John Ward, C.B., late H.M. Minister- 
 Resident to the Hanse Towns. 8vo. ioj. 6 d . 
 
 Wedgwood. — JOHN WESLEY AND THE EVANGELICAL 
 REACTION of the Eighteenth Century. By Julia Wedgwood. 
 Crown 8vo. 8 j. 6 d . 
 
 “ In style and intellectual power, in breadth of view and clearness of 
 insight, Miss Wedgwood’ s book far surpasses all rivals .” — ATHENAEUM. 
 
 Whewell.— WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., late Master of 
 Trinity College, Cambridge. An Account of his Writings, with 
 Selections from his Literary and Scientific Correspondence. By 
 I. Todhunter, M.A., F.R.S. Two Vols. 8vo. 25 s. 
 
26 MACMILLAN S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
 
 White.— THE NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES 
 OF SELBORNE. By Gilbert White. Edited, with Memoir 
 and Notes, by Frank Buck land, A Chapter on Antiquities by 
 Lord Selborne, Map, &c., and numerous Illustrations bv 
 P. H. Delamotte. Royal 8vo. Cloth, extra gilt. Cheaper 
 Issue. 21s. 
 
 Also a Large Paper Edition, containing, in addition to the above, 
 upwards of Thirty Woodburytype Illustrations from Drawings by 
 Prof. Delamotte. TwoVols. 4to. Half morocco, elegant. 4/. \ s . 
 
 “Mr. Delamottds charming illustrations are a worthy decoration of so 
 dainty a book. They bring Selborne before us , and really help us to 
 understand why White's love for his native place never grew cold ." — 
 Times. 
 
 Wilson. — A MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON, M. D., 
 F. R.S.E., Regius Professor of Technology in the University of 
 Edinburgh. By his Sister. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 “ An exquisite and touching portrait of a rare and beautiful spirit ." — 
 Guardian. 
 
 Wilson (Daniel, LL.D.) — Works by Daniel Wilson, 
 LL.D., Professor of History and English Literature in University 
 College, Toronto : — 
 
 PREHISTORIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND. New Edition, 
 with numerous Illustrations. Two Vols. demy 8vo. 36J. 
 
 “ One of the most interesting, learned , and elegant works we have 
 seen for a long time ." — Westminster Review. 
 
 PREHISTORIC MAN : Researches into the Origin of Civilization 
 in the Old and New World. New Edition, revised and enlarged 
 throughout, with numerous Illustrations and two Coloured Plates. 
 Two Vols. 8vo. 36^. 
 
 ‘ ‘ A valuable woi'k pleasantly written and well worthy of attention 
 both by students and general readers ." — Academy. 
 
 CHATTERTON : A Biographical Study. By Daniel Wilson, 
 LL.D., Professor of History and English Literature in University 
 College, Toronto. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 6 d. 
 
 Wyatt (Sir M. Di^by).— FINE ART : a Sketch of its 
 History, Theory, Practice, and application to Industry. A Course 
 of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge. By 
 Sir M-. Digey Wyatt, M.A. Slade Professor of Fine Art. 
 Cheaper Issue. 8vo. $.$•. 
 
 “An excellent handbook for the student of art ." — Graphic. “ The 
 book abounds in valuable matter, and will therefore be read with 
 pleasure and profit by lovers of art ." — Daily News. 
 
HISTORY , BIOGRAPHY , , TRAVELS , ETC . 27 
 
 Yonge (Charlotte M.)— Works by Charlotte M. Yonge, 
 Author of “The Heir of Redclyfife,” &c. &c. : — 
 
 A PARALLEL HISTORY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND : 
 consisting of Outlines and Dates. Oblong 4to. 3.L 6 d. 
 
 CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. From Rollo to Edward 
 II. Extra fcap. 8vo. Third Edition. 5^. 
 
 A Second Series, THE WARS IN FRANCE. Extra fcap. 
 8vo. Third Edition. 5^. 
 
 A Third Series, THE WARS OF THE ROSES. Extra 
 fcap. 8vo. 5^. 
 
 “ Instead of dry details ,” says the NONCONFORMIST, “we have living 
 pictures , faithful , vivid, and striking. ” 
 
 Young (Julian Charles, M.A.) — a MEMOIR OF 
 
 CHARLES MAYNE YOUNG, Tragedian, with Extracts 
 from his Son’s Journal. By Julian Charles Young, M.A. 
 Rector of Ilmington. With Portraits and Sketches. New and 
 Cheaper Edition, Crown 8vo. 7 s. 6 d. 
 tl In this budget of anecdotes, fables, and gossip , old and new, relative to 
 Scott, Moore, Chalmers , Coleridge, Wordsworth, Croker, Mathews, the 
 third and fourth Georges , Bowles , Beckford, Lockhart , Wellington, Peel, 
 Louis Napoleon , D' Or say, Dickens , Thackeray, Louis Blanc, Gibson, 
 Constable, and Stanfield, etc. etc. , the reader must be hard indeed to please 
 who cannot find entertainment. ” — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
28 
 
 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 
 
 POLITICS, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL 
 ECONOMY, LAW, AND KINDRED 
 SUBJECTS. 
 
 Anglo Saxon Law. — ESSAYS IN. Contents : Law Courts 
 — Land and Family Laws and Legal Procedure generally. With 
 Select cases. Medium 8vo. i8j. 
 
 Bernard.— FOUR LECTURES ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED 
 WITH DIPLOMACY. By Montague Bernard, M.A., 
 Chichele Professor of International Law and Diplomacy, Oxford. 
 8vo. 9 s. 
 
 * ‘ Singularly interesting lectures, so able, clear , and attractive." — SPEC- 
 TATOR. 
 
 Bright (John, M.P.)— SPEECHES ON QUESTIONS OF 
 PUBLIC POLICY. By the Right Hon. John Bright, M.P. 
 Edited by Professor Thorold Rogers. .Author’s Popular Edition. 
 Globe 8vo. 3J. 6 d. 
 
 “Mr. Bright's speeches will always deserve to be studied , as an 
 apprenticeship to popular and parliamentary oratory ; they will form 
 materials for the history of our time , and many brilliant passages , 
 perhaps some entire speeches , will really become a part of the living litera- 
 ture of England .” — Daily News. 
 
 LIBRARY EDITION. Two Vols. 8vo. With Portrait. 25 s. 
 
 Cairnes. — Works by J. E. Cairnes, M.A., Emeritus Professor of 
 Political Economy in University College, London. 
 
 ESSAYS IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, THEORETICAL 
 and APPLIED. By J. E. Cairnes, M.A., Prolessor of Political 
 Economy in University College, London. 8vo. ioj. 6 d. 
 
 “ The production of one of the ablest of living economists .” — ATHE- 
 NAEUM; 
 
 POLITICAL ESSAYS. 8vo. 10 s. 6d. 
 
 The Saturday Review says : — “ We recently expressed our high 
 admiration of the former volume ; and the present one is no less remark- 
 able for the qualities of clear statement , sound logic , and candid treat- 
 ment of opponents which were conspicuous in its predecessor. . . . We 
 ■may safely say that none of Mr . Mill's many disciples is a worthier repre- 
 sentative of the best qualities of their master than Professor Cairnes." 
 
 SOME LEADING PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 NEWLY EXPOUNDED. 8vo. 14s. 
 
 Contents : — Part I. Value. Part II. Labour and Capital. Part 
 III. International Trade. 
 
29 
 
 WORKS IN POLITICS , ETC . 
 
 C a i r n e S . — continued. 
 
 “ A work which is perhaps the most valuable contribution to the science 
 made since the publication , a quarter of a century since , of Mr. Mill's 
 ‘ Principles of Political Economy .’ ” — Daily News. 
 
 THE CHARACTER AND LOGICAL METHOD OF POLI- 
 TICAL ECONOMY. New Edition, enlarged. 8vo. 7 s. 6d. 
 
 “ These lectures are admirably fitted to correct the slipshod generaliza- 
 tions which pass current as the science of Political Economy .” — Times. 
 
 Clarke. —EARLY ROMAN LAW. THE REGAL PERIOD. 
 By E. C. Clarke, M. A., of Lincoln’s Inn, Barrister- at-Law, 
 Lecturer in Law and Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cam- 
 bridge. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 “ Mr. Clarke has brought together a great mass of valuable matter in 
 an accessible form ." — Saturday Review. 
 
 Cobden (Richard).— SPEECHES ON QUESTIONS OF 
 PUBLIC POLICY. By Richard Cobden. Edited by the 
 Right Hon. John Bright, M. P., and J. E. Thorold Rogers. 
 Popular Edition. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Fawcett. — Works by Henry Fawcett, M.A., M.P., Fellow of 
 Trinity Hall, and Professor of Political Economy in the University 
 of Cambridge : — 
 
 THE ECONOMIC POSITION OF THE BRITISH 
 LABOURER. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3s. 
 
 MANUAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Fifth Edition, with 
 New Chapters on the Depreciation of Silver, etc. Crown 8vo. 
 I2S. 
 
 The DAILY News says: “ It forms pne of the best introductions to the 
 principles of the science , and to its practical applications in the problems 
 of modern , and especially of English, government and society." 
 
 PAUPERISM : ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES. Crown 8vo. 
 
 5 J - 6 ^- 
 
 The Athenaeum calls the work 11 a repertory of interesting and well 
 digested information." 
 
 SPEECHES ON SOME CURRENT POLITICAL QUES- 
 TIONS. 8vo. 10 s. 6 d. 
 
 “ They will help to educate, not perhaps, parties, but the educators of 
 parties. ' ' — D Ai ly N ews. 
 
 ESSAYS ON POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SUBJECTS. By 
 Professor Fawcett, M.P., and Millicent Garrett 
 Fawcett. 8vo. ioj. 6d. 
 
 “ They will all repay the perusal of the thinking reader " — Daily 
 News. 
 
MACMILLAN’S CATALOGUE OF 
 
 30 
 
 Fawcett (Mrs.) — Works by Millicent Garrett Fawcett. 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY FOR BEGINNERS. WITH QUES- 
 TIONS. New Edition. i8mo. 2 s. 6d. 
 
 The Daily News calls it “clear, compact, and comprehensive and 
 the Spectator says, “Mrs. Fawcett's treatise is perfectly suited to its 
 purpose ." 
 
 TALES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. Crown 8vo. 3s. 
 
 “ The idea is a good one, and it is quite wonderful what a mass of 
 economic teaching the author manages to compress into a small space . . . The 
 true doctrines of International Trade, Currency, and the ratio between 
 Production and Population , are set before us and illustrated in a masterly 
 manner."— Athen/eum . 
 
 Freeman (E. A.), M.A., D.C.L.— COMPARATIVE 
 POLITICS. Lectures at the Royal Institution, to which is 
 added “ The Unity of History,” being the Rede Lecture delivered 
 at Cambridge in 1872. 8vo. 14 s. 
 
 “ We find in Mr. Freeman's new volume the same sound, careful , 
 comprehensive qualities which have long ago raised him to so high a place 
 amongst historical writers. For historical discipline, then, as well as 
 historical information , Mr. Freeman's book is full of value ." — Pall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 Goschen.— REPORTS AND SPEECHES ON LOCAL TAXA- 
 TION. By George J. Goschen, M.P. Royal 8vo. 5*. 
 
 “ The volume contains a vast mass of information of the highest value." 
 — Athenaeum. 
 
 Guide to the Unprotected, in Every Day Matters Re- 
 lating to Property and Income. By a Banker’s Daughter. 
 Fourth Edition, Revised. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 “ Many an unprotected female will bless the head which planned and 
 the hand which compiled this admirable little manual. . . . This book 
 was very much wanted, and it could not have been better done ." — 
 Morning Star. 
 
 Harwood. — DISESTABLISHMENT : a Defence of the Principle 
 of a National Church. By George Harwood, M. A. 8vo. 12s. 
 
 Hill.— HOMES OF THE LONDON POOR. By Octavia 
 Hill. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3 s. 6d. 
 
 “She is clear , practical , and definite ." — Globe. 
 
 Historicus.— LETTERS ON SOME QUESTIONS OF 
 INTERNATIONAL LAW. Reprinted from the Times , with 
 considerable Additions. 8vo. 7 s. 6</. Also, ADDITIONAL 
 LETTERS. 8vo. 2 s. 6d. 
 
3i 
 
 WORKS IN POLITICS , ETC. 
 
 Holland.— THE TREATY RELATIONS OF RUSSIA AND 
 TURKEY FROM 1774 TO 1853* A Lecture delivered at Oxford 
 April 1877. By T. E. Holland, D.C.L., Professor of Inter- 
 national Law and Diplomacy, Oxford. Crown 8vo. 2 s. 
 
 Jevons. — Works by W. Stanley Jevons, M.A., Professor of 
 Political Economy in University College, London. (For other 
 Works by the same Author, see Educational and Philo- 
 sophical Catalogues.) 
 
 THE COAL QUESTION : An Inquiry Concerning the Progress 
 of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal Mines. 
 Second Edition, revised. 8vo. ioj. 6 d. 
 
 THE THEORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 8vo. gs. 
 
 ‘ ‘‘Professor Jevons has done invaluable service by courageously claiming 
 poliLical economy to be strictly a branch of Applied Mathematics .” 
 —Westminster Review. 
 
 Laveleye. — primitive property. By Emile de 
 Laveleye. Translated by G. R. L. Marriott, LL. B., with an 
 Introduction by T. E. Cliffe Leslie, LL.B. 8vo. 12 s . 
 
 Leading Cases done into English. By an Apprentice 
 of Lincoln’s Inn. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 2 s. 6 d. 
 
 * ‘ Here is a rare treat for the lovers of quaint conceits , who in reading 
 this charming little book will fnd enjoyment in the varied metre and 
 graphic language in which the several tales are told, no less than in the 
 accurate and pithy rendering of some of our most familiar ‘ Leading 
 Cases. ’ — Saturday Review. 
 
 Macdonell.— THE LAND QUESTION, WITH SPECIAL 
 REFERENCE TO ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. By 
 John Macdonell, Barrister-at-Law. 8vo. ioj. 6 d . 
 
 Martin.— THE STATESMAN’S YEAR-BOOK: A Statistical 
 and Historical Annual of the States of the Civilized World, 
 for the year 1878. By Frederick Martin. Fifteenth Annual 
 Publication. Revised after Official Returns. Crown 8vo. ioj. 6 d. 
 
 The Statesman’s Year-Book is the only work in the English language 
 which furnishes a clear and concise account of the actual condition of all 
 the States of Europe , the civilized countries of America , Asia , and 
 Africa, and the British Colonies and Dependencies in all parts of the 
 world. The new issue of the work has been revised and corrected ’ on the 
 basis of official reports received direct from the heads of the leading Govern- 
 ments of the world, in reply to letter $ sent to them by the Editor. Through 
 
MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 
 
 32 
 
 the valuable assistance thus given , it has been possible to collect an amount 
 of information, political, statistical, and commercial , of the latest date, and 
 of unimpeachable trustworthiness , such as no publication of the same 
 kind has ever been able to furnish. “ As indispensable as Bradshaw A — 
 Times. 
 
 Paterson. — THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT AND THE 
 LAWS OF ENGLAND RELATING TO THE SECURITY 
 OF THE PERSON. Commentaries on. By James Paterson, 
 M.A., Barrister at Law, sometime Commissioner for English and 
 Irish Fisheries, etc. Two Vols. Crown 8vo. 32 s. 
 
 4 4 Two or three hours ' dipping into these volumes, not to say reading them 
 through , will give legislators and stump orators a knowledge of the liberty 
 of a citizen of their country, in its principles, its fulness, and its modi- 
 fication, such as they probably in nine cases out of ten never had before! 
 — Scotsman. 
 
 Phillimore. — PRIVATE LAW AMONG TPIE ROMANS, 
 from the Pandects. By John George Phillimore, Q.C. 8vo. 
 i6j. 
 
 Rogers.— COBDEN AND POLITICAL OPINION. ByJ. E. 
 
 Thorold Rogers. 8vo. ioj. 6 d. 
 
 “ Will be found most useful by politicians of every school, as it forms a 
 sort of handbook to Cobden's teaching A — Athenaeum. 
 
 Smith.— THREE ENGLISH STATESMEN : PYM, CROM- 
 WELL, PITT. A Course of Lectures on the Political History of 
 England. By Professor Gold win Smith. Extra fcap. 8vo. 
 New and Cheaper Edition. 5^. 
 
 Stephen (C. E.)— THE SERVICE OF THE POOR; 
 
 Being an Inquiry into the Reasons for and against the Establish- 
 ment of Religious Sisterhoods for Charitable Purposes. By 
 Caroline Emilia Stephen. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 6 d. 
 
 “ The ablest advocate of a better line of work in this direction that wt 
 have ever seen! — Examiner. 
 
 Stephen. — Works by Sir James F. Stephen, K.C.S.I., Q.C. 
 A DIGEST OF THE LAW OF EVIDENCE. Third Edition 
 with New Preface. Crown 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 A DIGEST OF THE CRIMINAL LAW. (Crimes and 
 Punishments. ) 8vo. 1 6 s. 
 
 “ We feel sure that any person of ordinary intelligence who had never 
 looked into a law-book in his life might , by a few days' careful study of 
 this volume, obtain a more accurate understanding of the criminal laju, 
 
WORKS ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 33 
 
 a more perfect conception of its different bearings a more thorough 
 and intelligent insight into its snares and pitfalls , than an ordinary 
 practitioner can boast of after years of study of the ordinary text- 
 books and practical experience of the Courts unassisted by any competent 
 guide A — Saturday Review. 
 
 Thornton. — Works by W. T. Thornton, C.B., Secretary for 
 Public Works in the India Office : — 
 
 ON LABOUR: Its Wrongful Claims and Rightful Dues; Its 
 Actual Present and Possible Future. Second Edition, revised, 
 8 vo. 14 s. 
 
 A PLEA FOR PEASANT PROPRIETORS : With the Outlines 
 of a Plan for their Establishment in Ireland. New Edition, 
 revised. Crown 8vo. 7 s. 6 d. 
 
 INDIAN PUBLIC WORKS AND COGNATE INDIAN 
 TOPICS. With Map of Indian Railways. Crown 8vo. 8.r. 6 d. 
 
 Walker. — THE WAGES QUESTION. A Treatise on Wages 
 and the Wages Class. By F. A. Walker, M.A., Ph.D. Pro- 
 fessor of Political Economy and History, Yale College. 8vo. 14J. 
 
 WORKSCONNECTED WITH THE SCIENCE 
 OR THE HISTORY OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 Abbott.— A SHAKESPERIAN GRAMMAR : An Attempt to 
 illustrate some of the Differences between Elizabethan and Modem 
 English. By the Rev. E. A. Abbott, D.D., Head Master of the 
 City of London School. New and Enlarged Edition. Extra 
 fcap. 8vo. 6 s. 
 
 “ Valuable not only as an aid to the critical study of Shakespeare, 
 but as tending to familiarize the reader with Elizabethan English in 
 general. ” — Athenaeum. 
 
 Besant.— STUDIES IN EARLY FRENCH POETRY. By 
 Walter Besant, M. A. Crown 8vo. 8 s. 6 d. 
 
 Breymann. — A FRENCH GRAMMAR BASED ON PHILO- 
 LOGICAL PRINCIPLES. By Hermann Breymann, Ph.D., 
 Professor of Philology in the University of Munich late Lecturer 
 on French Language and Literature at Owens College, Man- 
 chester. Extra fcap. 8vo. 4 s. 6 d. 
 
 “ We dismiss the work with every feeling of satisfaction. It cannot 
 fail to be taken into use by all schools ■ which endeavour to make the study 
 of French a means towards the higher culture ! — Educational Times. 
 
 c 
 
MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 
 
 34 
 
 Ellis.— PRACTICAL HINTS ON THE QUANTITATIVE 
 PRONUNCIATION OF LATIN, FOR THE USE OF 
 CLASSICAL TEACHERS AND LINGUISTS. By A. J. 
 Ellis, B.A., F.R.S., &c. Extra fcap. 8vo. 4_r. 6d. 
 
 Fleay.— A SHAKESPEARE MANUAL. By the Rev. F. G, 
 Fleay, M. A., Head Master of Skipton Grammar School. Extra 
 fcap. 8vo. 4 s. 6d, 
 
 Goodwin.— SYNTAX OF THE GREEK MOODS AND 
 TENSES. By W. W. Goodwin, Professor of Greek Literature 
 in Harvard University. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 Hadley.— ESSAYS PHILOLOGICAL AND CRITICAL. 
 Selected from the Papers of James Hadley, LL.D., Professor of 
 Greek in Yale College, &c. 8vo. i6j. 
 
 Hales.— longer English poems, with Notes, Philo* 
 
 logical and Explanatory, and an Introduction on the Teaching of 
 English. Chiefly for use in Schools. Edited by J. W. Hales, 
 M.A., Professor of English Literature at King’s College, London, 
 &c. &c. Fifth Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 4 s. 6d. 
 
 Helfenstein (James).— a COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR 
 OF THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES : Being at the same 
 time a Historical Grammar of the English Language, and com- 
 prising Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Early English, Modern English, 
 Icelandic (Old Norse), Danish, Swedish, Old High German, 
 Middle High German, Modern German, Old Saxon, Old Frisian, 
 and Dutch. By James Helfenstein, Ph.D. 8vo. i8.r. 
 
 Masson (Gustave). — A COMPENDIOUS DICTIONARY 
 OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE (French-English and English- 
 French). Followed by a List of the Principal Diverging Deriva- 
 tions, and preceded by Chronological and Historical Tables. By 
 Gustave Masson, Assistant-Master and Librarian, Harrow 
 School. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. Half-bound. 6s. 
 
 “A book which any student , whatever may be the degree of his ad- 
 vancement in the language , would do well to have on the table close at 
 
 hand while he is reading,” — Saturday Review. 
 
 Mayor.— A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL CLUE TO LATIN LITE- 
 RATURE. Edited after Dr. E. Hubner. With large Additions 
 by John E. B. Mayor, M.A., Professor of Latin in the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6 d. 
 
 <( An extremely useful volume that should be in the hands of all 
 
 scholars .— Athenaeum. 
 
WORKS ON LANGUAGE. 
 
 35 
 
 Morris. — Works by the Rev. Richard Morris, LL.D., Member 
 of the Council of the Philol. Soc., Lecturer on English Language 
 and Literature in King’s College School, Editor of “ Specimens 
 of Early English,” etc., etc. 
 
 HISTORICAL OUTLINES OF ENGLISH ACCIDENCE, 
 comprising Chapters on the History and Development of 
 the Language, and on Word-formation, Sixth Edition. Fcap. 
 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN HISTORICAL ENGLISH 
 GRAMMAR, containing Accidence and Word-formation. Third 
 Edition. i8mo. is. 6d. 
 
 Oliphant.— THE SOURCES OF STANDARD ENGLISH. 
 By T. L. Kington Oliphant, of Balliol College, Oxford. 
 Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Mr. Oliphant" 1 s book is , to our mind , one of the ablest and most 
 scholarly contributions to our standard English we have seen for many 
 vearsA — School Board Chronicle, “ The book comes nearer to a 
 history of the English language than anything we have seen since such a 
 history could be written , without cGnpusion and contradictions A — 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 Peile (John, M.A.)— AN INTRODUCTION TO GREEK 
 AND LATIN ETYMOLOGY. By John Peile, M.A., 
 Fellow and Tutor of Christ’s College, Cambridge. Third 
 and revised Edition. Crown 8vo. io.y. 6d. 
 
 “ The book may be accepted as a very voduable contribution to the 
 science of language A — Saturday Review. 
 
 Philology.— THE JOURNAL OF SACRED AND CLAS- 
 SICAL PHILOLOGY. Four Vols. 8vo. ns. 6d. each. 
 
 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY. New Series. Edited by W. 
 G. Clark, M.A., John E. B. Mayor, M.A., and W. Aldis 
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 Roby (H. J.)— A GRAMMAR OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE, 
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