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A 
 
 PILGRIMAGE 
 
 THE HOLY LAND; 
 
 COMPRISING 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS, SKETCHES, AND REFLECTIONS, 
 
 MADE 
 
 DURING A TOUR IN THE EAST. 
 
 BY 
 
 ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE, 
 
 MEMBER OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 “ THE HISTORY OF THE GIRONDISTS,” ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 GEO. S. APPLETON, 148 CHESNUT-STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXLVIII. 
 
A 
 
 PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 4th November, 1832. 
 
 I passed the evening and night in the Desert of St. John, to 
 take leave of our excellent Monks, whose remembrance will 
 always accompany us. The recollection of virtues, humble, but 
 perfect, remains in the soul like the perfumed odors of a temple. 
 We left, with these good fathers, an alms, barely sufficient to 
 indemnify them for the expenses we had occasioned them : the 
 risks they had to run for us they reckoned as nothing : they 
 entreated me to recommend them to the protection of the terrible 
 Abougosh, whom I was to see again at Jeremy. 
 
 We set off before daybreak to avoid the importunities of the 
 Bedouins of Bethlehem, of the Desert, and of St. John, who ceased 
 not to follow, and even began to menace me. 
 
 At eight in the morning we had crossed the high mountains 
 crowned by the tombs of the Maccabees, and were seated under 
 the fig trees of Jeremy, smoking our pipes, and taking coffee with 
 Abougosh, his uncle, and his brothers. Abougosh lavished new 
 marks of respect and kindness on me. He offered me a horse, 
 which I refused, as I determined not to make him a present of 
 any sort, lest it should be construed an acknowledgment of the 
 tribute he commonly imposed on pilgrims—a tribute from which 
 Ibrahim had released them. I placed the monks of St. John, of 
 Bethlehem, and of Jerusalem, under his protection. I have since 
 found that he really went and delivered them from the annoyances 
 of the Bedouins of the Desert. No doubt, he little thought, when 
 I asked his protection for the poor Frank Monks, exiled in these 
 mountains, that, eight months later, he would have to send and 
 implore mine, for the deliverance of his own brother, led prisoner 
 
 YOL. II. 1* 
 
6 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 to Damascus; and that I should be so happy as to be useful to 
 him in my turn. 
 
 Having taken our coffee, and refreshed our horses, we again 
 set forward, escorted by the whole population of Jeremy, and 
 encamped further on than Ramla, in a magnificent wood of olive 
 trees, which surrounds the town. Overpowered with lassitude, 
 and destitute of any thing to eat, we sent to ask hospitality of the 
 monks of the Convent of the Holy Land, which they refused, from 
 fear of the plague being amongst us. We were, therefore, 
 obliged to fast; but we laid down, and fell asleep, lulled by the 
 soft sea-breeze, as it played on the peak of* the Mount of Olives. 
 It was there that the Virgin, St. Joseph, and the Child, passed the 
 night, on their way into Egypt—and these thoughts gave softness 
 to our beds. 
 
 We left Ramla at six in the morning; breakfasted at Jaffa 
 with M. Damiani; and passed the day in reposing ourselves and 
 making preparations for returning into Syria along the coast. 
 
 Nothing can be more delightful than these journeys, en 
 caravane, when the country is fine; when the horses, having 
 rested long enough, step lightly, at morning dawn, over a smooth 
 and sandy soil; when the prospects succeed each other without 
 monotony ; and, above all, when the sea, blowing in our faces 
 those cool undulations of air produced by its supple and regular 
 waves, breaks at the feet of our horses, and scatters, at intervals, 
 its light spray around. This pleasure we experienced in coasting 
 along the charming gulf which separates Kaipha from St. Jean 
 d’Acre. The desert, formed by the Plain of Zebulon, is hidden 
 to the right by the high tufts of reeds, and by the ridge of palm 
 trees which separates it from the strand : one walks on a bed of 
 fine white sand, continually watered by the waves which break 
 on, and cover it with a sheet of whiteness: the gulf, closed in on 
 the east by the high peak of Cape Carmel, surmounted by its 
 monastery, and on the west, by the white shattered walls of St. 
 Jean d’Acre, resembles a vast lake, whereon the smallest and 
 lightest barks might rock with impunity—but such is not the 
 case : the coast of Syria, dangerous every where, is doubly so in 
 the Gulf of Kaipha. The vessels which take refuge in it from 
 the storm, and cast out their anchors on an unsolid bottom, are 
 frequently thrown, upon the coast—as many sad, though pictur¬ 
 esque remains, too well attested. The whole strand is, indeed, 
 bordered by wrecked vessels, half buried in the sand: some still 
 show their shattered prows, whereon sea-birds build their nests ; 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 7 
 
 while others have only their masts above the sand ; and those 
 naked trees, destitute of leaves or branches, seem like funereal 
 crosses planted above the ashes of the departed. Some have their 
 yards and scraps of rigging encrusted by saline vapors from the 
 sea, and hanging about the masts. The Arabs never touch these 
 wrecks of vessels ; time only, with the winter tempests, has the 
 charge of completing their destruction, aided by the sands which 
 bury them day by day.—We saw, here, the Arab mode of fishing, 
 which is the same in almost all the other seas of Syria. A man, 
 holding a small net, folded up, above his head, ready to be thrown, 
 advances a few steps into the sea, choosing the place and hour 
 when the sun is behind him, and illuminates the wave without 
 dazzling him. He awaits the waves that come forward before 
 him, and breaking as they reach him, on the rock or sand. He 
 darts a penetrating and experienced look into each wave, and if 
 he sees that it brings fish with it, he throws in his net, at the 
 moment before it breaks, and would carry back what it contains 
 in its reflux ; the net falls, the wave retires, and the fish remain. 
 The weather should be rather rough for this sort of fishing, as, 
 when the sea is calm, the fisherman sees nothing;—the waves 
 only become transparent when they rise high from the surface, 
 towards the sun. 
 
 The infected odor of a field of battle now announced the 
 neighborhood of Acre, and we were only at a quarter of an hour’s 
 distance from its walls. It is a heap of ruins. The domes of the 
 mosques are open to the day, the walls exhibit enormous breach¬ 
 es, the towers are crumbling in the port; it has just sustained the 
 siege of a year, and been carried by assault, by the forty thou¬ 
 sand heroes of Ibrahim. 
 
 The policy of the East is ill understood in Europe. It is sup¬ 
 posed to spring from design ; but has no foundation save caprice : 
 without any plan, it displays only passion; and reverting, not to 
 the future, it provides but for to-day and to-morrow. The ag¬ 
 gression of Mehemet Ali is imagined to be the premeditation of a 
 long and progressive ambition; whilst in fact it was nothing more 
 than the result of those favorable circumstances which led him 
 on, from one step to another, almost involuntarily, until he shook 
 the throne of his master, and conquered half the empire. Another 
 chance may lead him farther still. 
 
 It was thus that the quarrel arose. Abdalla, Pacha of Acre, 
 an inconsiderate young man, who had been raised to the govern¬ 
 ment of Acre by a sport of chance and favor, had revolted against 
 
8 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 the Grand Signior: being vanquished, he had implored the assist¬ 
 ance of the Pacha of Egypt, who bought his pardon from the Di¬ 
 van. Abdalla, soon forgetting the gratitude he owed to Mehemet, 
 refused to keep certain conditions which he had sworn to him 
 during the time of his misfortune. Ibrahim marches to force 
 him, and experiences a most unexpected resistance at Acre. His 
 anger is inflamed: he requires new troops of his father, which 
 arrive, and are again repulsed. Mehemet Ali, wearied, recalls 
 him, and releases his son from all his oaths ; the wounded pride 
 of Ibrahim resists this; he resolves to die under the walls of Acre, 
 or force it to submission to his father. By the sacrifice of troops, 
 the gates at length are forced; and Abdalla, a prisoner, awaits 
 his death ; Ibrahim sends for him under his tent, addresses to him 
 some bitter sarcasms, and expedites him to Alexandria. Instead 
 of the bowstring or the sabre, Mehemet Ali sends him his horse, 
 makes him enter in triumph, and placing him by his side on the 
 Divan, commends him for his bravery and fidelity to the Sultan, 
 and rewards him with a palace, slaves, and immense revenues. 
 
 Abdalla deserved this treatment by his bravery. Shut up in 
 Acre, with three thousand Osmanlis, he had resisted during a 
 year all the Egyptian forces by sea and land. The fortune of 
 Ibrahim, like that of Napoleon, staggered before this barrier. If 
 the Grand Signior, solicited in vain by Abdalla, had sent him a 
 few thousand troops in time, or had even launched on the seas of 
 Syria two or three of those fine frigates which float in uselessness 
 on their anchors before the caiques of the Bosphorus, all would 
 have been over with Ibrahim, and he would have gone back to 
 Egypt convinced of the impotence of his rage; but the Porte was 
 faithful to its system of fatality, and suffered the ruin of its Pacha 
 to be accomplished. The boundary mark of Syria was upset, and 
 the Divan awoke too late. Notwithstanding, Mehemet Ali wrote 
 to his general to return, but Ibrahim, a man of courage and ad¬ 
 venture, had resolved to try his fate, and the weakness of the 
 Sultan, to the end. 
 
 He advanced. Two important and ill-disputed victories, 
 those of Homs in Syria, and of Konia in Asia Minor, rendered 
 him absolute master of Arabia, Syria, and all the states of Pontus, 
 Bithynia, and Cappadocia, which now form Caramania. The 
 Porte might still have cut off his retreat, and by disembarking 
 troops behind him, might have re-taken the towns and provinces, 
 where he could not leave sufficient garrisons ; a body of six thou¬ 
 sand men, thrown in this way into the defiles of Taurus and Syria, 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 9 
 
 would have made Ibrahim and his army their prey, and imprison¬ 
 ed him in the midst of his victories. The Turkish fleet was infi¬ 
 nitely more numerous than Ibrahim’s, or rather the Porte had an 
 immense and magnificent fleet, while Ibrahim had only two or 
 three frigates ; but at the beginning of the campaign, Kalil-Pacha, 
 a young man of elegant manners, favorite of the Sultan, and 
 named by him Capitan-Pacha, fled from the sea before the insig¬ 
 nificant force of Ibrahim. I myself saw him quit the bay of 
 Rhodes,' and shut himself up in that of Marmorizza, on the coast 
 of Caramania, at the bottom of the gulf of Macri. Once with his 
 vessels in this port, whose entrance is excessively narrow, Ibra¬ 
 him with two ships could have prevented his getting out again— 
 in fact, he did so, and during the whole winter, when the military 
 operations were the most important and decisive on the shores of 
 Syria, the vessels of Ibrahim alone appeared on these seas, and 
 carried him reinforcements and ammunition without obstacle ; and 
 yet Kalil-Pacha was neither a coward nor a traitor ; but thus it 
 is with the affairs of a people who remain inactive while all 
 around them is moving ; the fate of nations is in the genius of 
 their leaders. The Turkish genius now quakes before that of 
 its weakest Pacha. The rest of the campaign is well known, 
 and reminds one of that of Alexandria. Ibrahim is incontestably 
 a hero, and Mehemet Ali a great man, but all their fate rests on 
 their own heads : these two men the less, there is no more Egypt; 
 no more Arabic empire ; no more Maccabees for Islamism; and 
 the East returns to the West by that invincible law which carries 
 empire where there is knowledge. 
 
 Same date. 
 
 The sands which border the gulf of St. Jean d’Acre became 
 more and more fetid; we began to see the bones of men, horses, 
 and camels, scattered on the strand, and whitening in the sun, 
 washed by the froth of the waves; at every step these collected 
 heaps were multiplied before us, and presently all the shore be¬ 
 tween the sea and the ridge of rocks was covered by them, and 
 the noise of our horses’ feet disturbed the hordes of wild dogs, 
 hideous jackals, and birds of prey, which had for two months 
 been employed in devouring the remains of the horrible feast that 
 the cannon of Ibrahim and Abdalla had prepared them; some 
 dragged away in their flight the half-buried members of men, and 
 the limbs of horses to which flesh still clung ; some eagles, perched 
 on the bony heads of camels, rose at our approach with cries of 
 anger, and returned hovering alike over our guns, and their hor- 
 
10 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 rible prey ; the herbage, reeds, and shrubs farther off, were also 
 strewed with these frightful remains of men and animals. All 
 was not the fruits of war. The typhus, which had ravaged Acre 
 for several months, completed what arms had spared, and hardly 
 left twelve or fifteen hundred living in a town of twelve or fif- 
 teen thousand souls. Every day there were thrown outside the 
 walls or in the sea, new heaps of dead, which the sea rejected at 
 the bottom of the gulf, or the jackals disinterred in the plains. 
 We approached the eastern gate of the unhappy town ; the air 
 was no longer supportable ; we did not enter, but turning to the 
 right along the ruined walls, where a few slaves were working, 
 we crossed the field of battle in its whole extent, from the walls 
 of the city to the country residence of the ancient Pachas of Acre, 
 built in the midst of the plain atone or two hours from the shore. 
 On approaching this palace of magnificent appearance, and flanked 
 by kiosks of elegant Indian architecture, we observed long fur¬ 
 rows a little more raised by the plough than on our lands. These 
 furrows covered a distance probably half a league long, by nearly 
 the same breadth—the top of each furrow rising one or two feet 
 above the level of the soil. It was the site of Ibrahim’s camp, 
 and the tomb of fifteen thousand men that had been buried in these 
 sepulchral trenches. We marched slowly and with difficulty 
 over the ground, which barely covered the remains of so many 
 victims of the ambition and caprice of what is called a hero. We 
 pressed on our horses, who stumbled constantly against the dead, 
 and broke the bones that the jackals had left; we encamped in 
 about an hour from this fatal spot, in a charming site on the plain, 
 well watered by a running stream, shaded by palm trees, orange 
 trees, and sweet limes, and beyond the reach of the wind from 
 St. Jean d’Acre, whose emanations had pursued us. These gar¬ 
 dens, stretched like an oasis on the naked plain of Acre, had been 
 planted by the last Pacha but one, who was the successor of the 
 famous Djezzar-Pacha; some poor Arabs, sheltered in the huts 
 of mud and earth, furnished us with oranges, eggs, and fowls ; 
 we slept there. 
 
 The next morning, M. de Laroyere could scarcely rise from 
 his mat, to mount his horse ; all his limbs, benumbed by pain, 
 refused the slightest movement. Pie felt the first symptoms of 
 typhus, which his medical knowledge enabled him to distinguish 
 better than we could ; hut the place neither affording shelter nor 
 resources of any kind for a sick man, we hastened to quit it be¬ 
 fore the malady became too severe, and slept fifteen leagues from 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 11 
 
 it, on the plain of Tyre, upon the banks of a stream that was 
 shaded by enormous rushes, and not far from an isolated ruin, 
 apparently belonging to the time of the Crusades. The heat and 
 movement had reanimated M. de Laroyere ; we placed him under 
 the tent, and left him, to kill some wild geese and ducks that rose 
 like a cloud out of the rushes—that day the whole of our caravan 
 was fed by them. 
 
 The next day, we met, on the sea-coast, in a delightful spot, 
 shaded by maritime cedars and magnificent plane trees, a Turkish 
 Aga, who was returning from Mecca, with a numerous suite of 
 men and horses. We fixed ourselves under a tree, near the 
 fountain, not far from another tree, where the Aga was break¬ 
 fasting. His slaves were walking his horses. I was struck with 
 the perfection of form and lightness of a young thorough-bred 
 Arab stallion. I desired my dragoman to enter into conversa¬ 
 tion with the Aga. We sent him a present of some of our provi¬ 
 sions, and a pair of pistols ; he presented us, in return, with a 
 Persian yatagan. I ordered my horses to pass before him, that 
 the conversation might turn naturally on the subject ; we suc¬ 
 ceeded thus far, but the difficulty lay in asking him to sell me 
 his. My dragoman related to him that one of our party was so 
 unwell, that he could not find a horse whose paces were easy 
 enough to carry him ; the Aga said he had one on whose back 
 one might take one’s coffee at a gallop, without spilling a single 
 drop out of the cup. It was precisely the lovely animal I so 
 much admired, and so much wished, for my wife. After much 
 circumlocution, and many words, we concluded the affair, and I 
 led off the horse, which I named El Kantara, as a memento of the 
 place, and of the fountain where I had bought him ; I mounted 
 him immediately to finish the day’s journey ; I never mounted 
 such an easy animal ; one neither felt the elastic movement of his 
 shoulders, nor the reaction of his hoof on the rock, nor the slight¬ 
 est weight of his head on the reins; his forehead was so beauti¬ 
 fully formed that one might fancy oneself mounted on a bird, 
 whose wings supported an almost insensible movement. He also 
 galloped better than any other Arab horse with which I tried him. 
 His coat was of a bright pearl gray. I gave him to my wife, who 
 would never mount on any other during our stay in the East. I 
 shall always regret this accomplished horse. He was a native of 
 Khorassan, and only five years old. 
 
 In the evening, we reached the wells of Solomon : the next 
 day, early, we entered Said, the ancient Sidon, escorted by the 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 1 ° 
 
 J. M 
 
 Franks of the country, and the sons of M. Giraudin, our excel¬ 
 lent vice-consul at Said. We also found M. Cattafago there, 
 whom we had seen at Nazareth, with his family. He had just 
 had a house built in the town, and was busied with preparations 
 for the marriage of one of his daughters. As the ancient Sidon 
 retains no vestige of its former grandeur, we gave ourselves up 
 entirely to the kindness and care of M. Giraudin, and to the 
 pleasure of conversing on Europe and the East, with this interest¬ 
 ing old man. Become a patriarch 4n the land of Patriarchs, he 
 presented, in himself and his family, the image of every patri¬ 
 archal virtue; and reminded us of their habits and manners in 
 his own. 
 
 The symptoms of typhus become more characterized in the 
 increasing illness of M. de Laroyere. Being no longer able to 
 rise, or mount his horse, we freighted a bark at Said, to convey 
 him by sea to Bayreut. We set out again with the rest of the 
 caravan : I despatched a courier to Lady Stanhope, to thank her 
 for her obliging efforts in my favor with the chief, Abougosh, and 
 to request her to seize every opportunity that might offer, for in¬ 
 forming the Arabs of the Desert of Bka, of Balbec, and Palmira, 
 of my safe arrival. 
 
 5th November, 1832. 
 
 Slept in an ancient deserted ruin on the coast, and wrote some 
 verses during the night in the pages of my Bible.—I rejoice at 
 approaching Bayreut, after a journey so happily accomplished; 
 I met an Arab horseman on the road, bearing a letter from my 
 wife. Julia is blooming with health. I am expected to pass 
 some days at the Monastery of Antoura in Lebanon, with the 
 Catholic Patriarch, who has arrived to invite us there. 
 
 At four in the afternoon a frightful storm, the mass of clouds 
 appearing to fall at once on the mountains to our right. The 
 noise of the flux and reflux of these heavy clouds against the 
 peaks of Mount Lebanon (which tear them,) is not unlike the 
 roaring of the sea, which itself resembles a plain of snow stirred 
 up by a furious wind. The rain does not fall in larger or smaller 
 drops, as in the West; but in heavy and continued streams, 
 which strike and weigh on man and horse like the hand of the 
 tempest; day has completely disappeared; our horses walk in a 
 torrent mixed with rolling stones, and are likely every moment 
 to be swept into the sea. When the sky clears and light returns, 
 we find ourselves at the ridge of pine trees of Facardin, at half 
 a league from the town. Home has something dear to animals as 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 13 
 
 well as men ; those of my horses who knew the spot, as having 
 often carried us there, neigh, dress up their ears, and bound with 
 joy ou the sand. 1 leave the caravan to defile slowly under the 
 pines. Lebanon starts off at a gallop, and 1 reach, my heart 
 trembling with anxiety and joy, ihe arms of my wife. Julia is at 
 play in a neighboring house with the daughters of the Prince of 
 the xWountain, become Governor of Bayreut during my absence. 
 She has seen me galloping, from off the terrace ; 1 hear her flying 
 to meet me, and crying, “Where is he ? is it really him V 1 —She 
 comes ! She throws herself into my arms, she covers me with 
 caresses; then runs about the room, her fine eyes sparkling with 
 tears of joy, raising her arms, and repeating “ How happy I am ! 
 how happy I am V’ —then comes again to sit upon my knee, and 
 embraces me again and again. There were in the room two 
 young jesuit fathers of Lebanon, on a visit to my wife ; I could 
 not for some time address them even a word of politeness ; dumb 
 themselves before that innocent and passionate expression of ten¬ 
 derness of soul in a child for her father, and before the celestial 
 brilliancy which her happiness added to the beauty of that radi¬ 
 ant head, they stood struck with silence and admiration. Our 
 friends and our suite arrive, and fill the mulberry plantations 
 with our horses and tents. 
 
 Several days of repose and happiness are passed in receiving 
 the visits of our friends at Bayreut. The sons of the Emir Bes- 
 chir, come down from the mountains, by order of Ibrahim, to in¬ 
 vest the country, which threatens to rise in favor of the Turks, 
 are encamped in the Valley of Nar-el-Kelba, at about an hour 
 from my abode. 
 
 7th November, 1832. 
 
 The Sardinian Consul, M. Bianco, who has been intimate for 
 many years with these princes, invites us to a dinner which he 
 gives them. They arrive, dressed in splendid caftans woven en¬ 
 tirely in gold thread ; their turbans also composed of the richest 
 cashmere. The eldest, who commands the army of his fathers, 
 has a poniard, of which the handle is entirely encrusted with dia¬ 
 monds of inestimable value. Their suite is numerous and singu¬ 
 larly composed. Amongst a vast number of Mussulmans and 
 black slaves, there is a* poet exactly similar, by his attributes, to 
 the bards of the middle ages. His functions consist in singing the 
 virtues and exploits of his master—in composing tales to amuse 
 him when called upon to stand behind him during his repasts, and 
 extemporize verses or political toasts in his honor, or in honor of 
 
 VOL. II. 2 
 
14 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 the guests that the Prince wishes to distinguish. There is also a 
 chaplain or Maronite Catholic confessor, who never quits him even 
 at table, and to whom only entrance into the harem is allowed. 
 He is a monk of a jovial and warlike countenance, exactly resem¬ 
 bling what we should understand by almoner of a regiment. The 
 chaplain, owing to his sacred profession, sits at table; the poet 
 stands. These princes, particularly the eldest, do not appear at 
 all embarrassed by our customs, nor by the presence of European 
 women ; they converse with us all by turns, with the same ease 
 and grace of manner, the same apropos , the same freedom of in¬ 
 tellect, as if they had been brought up in the most polished Court 
 of Europe. 
 
 Oriental civilization is always on a level with ours, because it 
 is older, and originally more pure and more perfect. To an un¬ 
 prejudiced eye there is no comparison between the nobleness, de¬ 
 corum, and dignified grace of Arab, Turkish, Indian, and Persian 
 manners, and our own. We are felt to be a youthful people, just 
 emerging from a hard, coarse and imperfect civilization ; they are 
 felt to be the well-born inheritors of antique wisdom and virtue; 
 their nobleness, which is but the filiation of primitive virtues, is 
 written on their foreheads, is stamped on all their habits—besides, 
 there is no vulgar amongst them. Moral civilization, which is all 
 I note, is on a level every where. The shepherd and the emir 
 are of the same family, speak the same tongue, have the same 
 usages, participate in the same wisdom, the same grandeur of tra¬ 
 ditions—which form the atmosphere of a people. 
 
 At dessert, the wines of Cyprus and Lebanon circulated 
 freely ; the Arab Christians, and the family of the Emir Beschir, 
 which is Christian, or believes itself so, drank without hesitating 
 when occasion required. Toasts were drank to the success of 
 Ibrahim, to the deliverance of Lebanon, to the friendship of the 
 Franks and Arabs ; and at length the Prince proposed one to the 
 ladies present at this fete; his bard then extemporized, by order 
 of the Prince, and sang, with a powerful voice, in recitative, some 
 Arab verses, of which the following is pretty nearly the sense :— 
 
 “ Let us drink of the juice of Eden, which intoxicates and 
 rejoices the heart of the slave and of the Prince. It is wine from 
 those plants that Noah himself planted, when the dove, instead of 
 an olive branch, brought him from Heaven the stem of the vine. 
 By the virtue of this vine the poet, for a moment becomes Prince, 
 and the Prince becomes poet. 
 
 “Let us drink it in honor of those young and beauteous 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 15 
 
 Franks who come from the country where all women are Queens. 
 The eyes of the Syrian women are soft—but they are veiled. In 
 the eyes of the women of the West there is more intoxication than 
 in the transparent cup I drink. _ 
 
 “ To drink of wine, and look at the faces of women is, to a 
 Mussulman, two sins ; to an Arab it is two causes of delight, and 
 two manners of blessing God.” 
 
 The chaplain himself seemed enchanted with these verses, and 
 sang the chorus to the bard, laughing and emptying his glass. 
 The Prince proposed to us the sight of sporting with the falcons, 
 the habitual diversion of the Princes and Scheiks of Syria. It was 
 from hence that the Crusaders brought this custom into Europe. 
 
 9th November, 1832. 
 
 The climate, with the exception of an occasional gust or gale 
 on the sea, and some storms of rain in the middle of the day, is 
 as fine as the month of May in France. As soon as the rain be¬ 
 gins, a new spring commences : the walls of the terraces which 
 support the cultivated slopes of Lebanon, and the fertile hills of 
 the environs of Bayreut, are so covered with vegetation in a few 
 days, that the ground is entirely hidden under the moss, the grass, 
 the lianes, and the flowers ; green barley carpets the fields, which 
 were only dust when we arrived. The mulberry trees, with 
 their second leaves, form round the houses forests impenetrable 
 to the sun. One sees, here and there, the tops of houses scatter¬ 
 ed on the plain, which rises from this ocean of verdure; and the 
 Greek and Syrian women, in their rich and brilliant costume, 
 are like Queens who take the air on the pavilions of their gardens. 
 Little foot-paths, formed in the sand, lead from house to house, 
 and from hill to hill, across this continuation of gardens, which 
 reach from the sea to the foot of Lebanon. In following them, 
 one finds, all at once, at the entrance of these small houses, the 
 most delicious scenes of patriarchal life ; the women and young 
 girls, crouched under the mulberry and fig trees, at their doors, 
 work rich carpets, in wool of the most brilliant and contrasted 
 colors; others, fastening the ends of their unwound silks to dis¬ 
 tant trees, wind them up, walking slowly and singing, from tree 
 to tree; the men, on the contrary, walk backwards, from tree to 
 tree, and are occupied in making pieces of silk and throwing the 
 shuttle, which others throw back to them. The children are ly¬ 
 ing in cradles of rushes, or on mats in the shade ; some are sus¬ 
 pended to the orange branches ; the large Syrian sheep, with im- 
 
16 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 mense tails, that train after them on the ground, too heavy to stir, 
 are lying in holes, dug on purpose for them in the cool earth, be¬ 
 fore the door; one or two handsome goats, with long ears, hang¬ 
 ing down like our spaniels, and sometimes a cow, complete the 
 rural picture. The master’s horse is always there, also, covered 
 with his splendid trappings, and ready to be mounted. He forms 
 a part of the family, and seems to take an interest in all that is 
 done, and all that is said around him—his physiognomy grows 
 animated like a human countenance: when a stranger appears 
 and speaks to him, he dresses up his ears, raises his lips, extends 
 his nostrils, bends his head to the wind, and snuffs at the unknown 
 who flatters him ; his soft but deep and pensive eyes sparkle like 
 fire under the long and handsome tuft of mane on his forehead. 
 The Arab, Greek, and Syrian laboring families, who inhabit these 
 houses at the foot of Lebanon, have nothing wild or barbarous 
 about them. Better informed than the peasants of our provinces, 
 they can all read, and understand two languages, the Arabic and 
 Greek ; they are mild, quiet, industrious, and sober; occupied 
 all the week with farming or their silk, they repose on Sunday, 
 and, with their families, attend the long and showy service of the 
 Greek or Syriac Church ; then return home to a somewhat richer 
 repast than on the week days. The women and young girls, 
 dressed in their richest costume, and their hair plaited and thick¬ 
 ly strewn with orange blossoms, purple wall-flowers, and carna¬ 
 tions, remain seated on their mats at the doors, with their neigh¬ 
 bors and friends. 
 
 It is impossible to paint with the pen the admirable and 
 picturesque groups of richness of costume and beauty that 
 these women form in the country. Every day I see faces of 
 young girls or of women such as Raphael never pictured even 
 in his artist-dreams ,* it is much more than Grecian or Italian 
 beauty—it is purity of lines, delicacy of contour; in a word, 
 all that Rome and Greece have left us of most perfect; and this 
 is rendered still more intoxicating by a primitive innocence and 
 simplicity of expression, by a serene and voluptuous languor, by 
 the celestial light that their blue eyes, fringed with dark lashes, 
 throw over the features, and by an ingenuousness of smile, a 
 harmony of proportion, an animated whiteness of the skin, an 
 indescribable transparency of complexion, a metallic lustre ot 
 the hair, a grace of movement, a strangeness of attitude and 
 musical vibration of the voice, which make of a young Syrian 
 a Houri of Paradise to the eyes. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 17 
 
 These varied and admirable beauties are also extremely 
 common : I never go walking for an hour in the country with¬ 
 out meeting with several belles going to the fountains, or re¬ 
 turning with their Etruscan vases on their shoulder, and their 
 naked legs encircled by bracelets of silver. The men and 
 young boys go on the Sundays, and seat themselves, their only 
 amusement, on the mats spread at the foot of some great syca¬ 
 more, not far from a fountain ; they remain there immovable 
 the whole ,day, relating marvelous histories, and drinking from 
 time to time a cup of coffee, or of fresh water; others go upon 
 the tops of the hills, and you see them there peacefully grouped 
 under their vines, or their olive trees, and seeming to enjoy with 
 delight the view of the sea, the lucidity of the sky, the music 
 of the birds, and all those delicious instincts of pure and un¬ 
 sophisticated man, which our populations have exchanged for 
 the noisy intoxication of taverns, and the fumes of a debauch. 
 Never were finer scenes of the creation peopled and animated 
 by purer or finer impressions. Nature is truly, here, a perpet¬ 
 ual hymn to the goodness of the Creator ; and no false note, no 
 spectacle of misery or vice, disturbs the ravishing harmony of 
 this hymn. Men, women, birds, animals, trees, mountains, sea, 
 sky, climate, all is fine, all is pure, all is splendid and religious. 
 
 November 10th, 1832. 
 
 This morning I started early with Julia to ramble on the 
 hill that the Greeks call San-Dimitri, about a league from Bay- 
 reut, in nearing Lebanon, and following obliquely the curve of 
 the line of the sea. Two of my Arabs accompanied us, the one 
 to serve as guide, the other to walk at the head of Julia’s 
 horse and restrain him, or receive her in his arms, if he be¬ 
 came too animated. When the paths became too steep, we 
 quitted our horses awhile, and strayed on foot over the natural 
 or artificial terraces which form the whole hill of San-Dimitri 
 into steps of verdure. In my childhood, I have often figured 
 to myself this terrestrial paradise, this Eden, that all nations 
 hold in their remembrance as a lovely dream, or as a tradition 
 of a more perfect time and place. I have followed Milton in 
 his delicious descriptions of this enchanting abode of our first 
 parents; but here, as in all things, the work of Nature infinitely 
 surpasses that of imagination. God has not bestowed on man 
 the power of even dreaming such beauties as his hand has made, 
 I had dreamt of Eden ; I can now say, I have seen it. 
 
18 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 When we had walked for half an hour under the arches of 
 nopals which border all the paths of the plain, we began to as¬ 
 cend by little narrow steep roads, which lead successively to the 
 platforms; from whence the prospect of the country, the sea, and 
 of Lebanon, become successively more extended. 
 
 These platforms, of a moderate breadth, are all surrounded 
 by forest trees, unknown in our climates, and of whose nomencla¬ 
 ture I am unfortunately ignorant; but their trunks, the form of 
 their branches, the novel and strange shapes of their conical 
 heads, dishevelled, pyramidal, or spreading out like wings, give 
 to this border of vegetation a grace and novelty of aspect purely 
 Asiatic; their leaves also are of every form and every color, 
 from the sombre verdure of the cypress, to the pale green of -the 
 olive or the bright yellow of the citron and orange; from the 
 broad leaves of the Chinese mulberry, each of which is sufficient 
 to hide the sun from the face of a child, to the light cuttings of 
 the tea tree, the pomegranate, and innumerable other shrubs, 
 whose leaves are like parsley leaves, and form slight draperies of 
 vegetable net-work between the spectator and the horizon. Along 
 the edges of these borders of wood, lay parterres of verdure and 
 flowers growing in shade. The interior of each platform is sown 
 with barley, and in one or the other of the angles two or three 
 heads of palm trees, or the dark and well-rounded dome of a co¬ 
 lossal carob tree, shows the spot where an Arab laborer has built 
 his cabin, surrounded by some vine plants, by a hollow protected 
 by green pallisades of Indian fig trees, covered with their prickly 
 fruit, and a little garden of orange trees, wall flowers, and carna¬ 
 tions, to ornament the hair of his daughters. When the pathway 
 happened to lead us to the door of these dwellings, immersed, 
 like human nests, in these masses of verdure, we neither saw 
 surprise, anger, nor ill-humor on the countenances of the good and 
 happy inhabitants. They saluted us, while smiling at Julia’s 
 beauty, with the pious salutation of the orientals, Saba-el-Kair , 
 May the day be blessed to you. Some of them entreated us to 
 stop under their palm trees; and brought us, according to their 
 riches, either a mat or a carpet, offering us fruits and milk, or 
 flowers from their gardens: sometimes we accepted their kind¬ 
 ness, and promised them to return, and to bring them something 
 curious from Europe. But their hospitality and politeness was 
 by no means interested. They say they love the Franks, who 
 know how to cure all sickness, and the virtues of all plants, and 
 adore the same God as they do. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 19 
 
 From each of these platforms we mounted to another, exhib¬ 
 iting the same scenes, the same arrangement of the trees, the 
 same mosaic of vegetation on the ground which they encompass : 
 only from platform to platform the magnificent horizon enlarges ; 
 those below are spread out like a chess-board of all colors, where 
 the hedges of shrubs, brought together by optical illusion, form 
 woods and dark spots beneath one’s feet. We followed these 
 platforms from hill to hill, redescending from time to time into 
 the valleys which separate them, valleys a thousand times more 
 shaded, more delicious than the hills : all hidden by the curtains 
 of trees of the terraces above them, all buried in these waves of 
 odoriferous vegetation ; but all however having at their entrances 
 a narrow outlet of view toward the plain and the sea. As the 
 plain has disappeared, (from the great elevation of these valleys,) 
 they seem to terminate immediately on the strand; their trees 
 form a dark outline on the blue of the waves, and we amused our¬ 
 selves sometimes, while sitting under a palm tree, in watching the 
 sails of the vessels, in reality at four or five leagues from us, glide 
 slowly from tree to tree, as if they were navigating a lake, di¬ 
 rectly bordered by these valleys. 
 
 At length chance led our steps to the most perfect and en¬ 
 chanting of these landscapes. 
 
 It is one of the highest valleys, opens from east to west, and 
 sunk in the folds of the last chain of hills, which advance on the 
 great valley through which the Nahr-Bayreut flows. Nothing 
 can express the prodigious vegetation which carpets its bed and 
 its sides; and though these sides are formed of the rock itself, 
 they are so clothed with mosses of every sort, so saturated with 
 humidity, which distills drop by drop, so covered with tufts of 
 heath, or fern, of odoriferous herbs, of lianes, of ivy, and shrubs 
 enrooted in their imperceptible cracks, that it is impossible to 
 suppose it is the rock itself which produces such luxuriant vege¬ 
 tation. ' It is a leafy carpet of one or two feet thick ; a vegetable 
 velvet strewed in all colors, with bouquets of flowers unknown to 
 us, of a thousand forms and a thousand odors, which sometimes 
 sleep as motionless as the bouquets painted on the hangings of 
 our saloons; and sometimes, when the light breeze sweeps over 
 them, raise themselves with the herbs and branches from whence 
 they issue, like the hair of an animal stroked backwards, becom¬ 
 ing shaded with many tints, and resembling a river of flowers 
 and verdure that flows in perfumed waves. 
 
 At those moments gusts of intoxicating odors load the air, and 
 multitudes of insects with variegated wings fly out, and innumera- 
 
20 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 ble birds sing on the neighboring trees. The air is filled with 
 their music, with the hum of swarms of bees and insects, and with 
 that soft murmur of the earth in spring which might be almost 
 thought a sound from the millions of plants and redundant ve¬ 
 getation growing out of its surface. 
 
 Drops of night-dew fell from each leaf, shone on each blade of 
 grass, and refreshed the bed of this little valley, as the sunbeams 
 rose and stole along the tops of the high rocks and trees that en¬ 
 compass it. We breakfasted there, on a stone near a cavern, 
 where two gazelles had taken refuge at our approach. We were 
 careful of disturbing the retreat of these charming animals, who 
 are to these deserts what the lamb is to our meadows, or the doves 
 and tame pigeons to the roofs and courts of our houses. 
 
 All the valley was hung with the same moving curtain of foliage, 
 and carpeted with mosses and redundant vegetation. We could 
 not restrain an exclamation at every step. I never remember to have 
 seen so much life in nature heaped together and overflowing in so 
 small a space. We followed the whole length of this valley, seating 
 ourselves from time to time where the shadows were most cool, and 
 striking the verdure now and then to force out gusts of delicious 
 odors, and myriads of insects, which rose like golden dust out of its 
 bosom. How great is the Creator ! how profound and how infinite 
 the source from whence such life, such splendor, and such goodness 
 flow ! If there is so much to see, to admire, to astonish, to astound, 
 in this one single corner of universal nature, what will it be when 
 the curtain of all worlds shall be raised for us, and that we shall 
 see the wondrous work complete and without end ? 
 
 It is impossible to see and think, without being inundated with 
 that interior evidence of the Deity which is borne in on the mind, 
 while all created nature is strewed with fragments of the spark¬ 
 ling mirror in which God has reflected himself. 
 
 As the western opening of the valley is approached, its cliffs 
 gradually sink, admitting a more extended view of the sky, the 
 ground at the same time gently declining under our steps. The 
 eye descends from those eternal snows upon patches black with 
 the pine, cypress, and cedar ; and then, upon deep and gloomy 
 ravines of which darkness seems to have taken possession as a 
 nest for its everlasting repose ; below these again, upon the golden 
 peaks of rocks, at whose feet range the lofty Maronites and the 
 villages of the Druses ; resting finally on a fringe of olive forests 
 which fade away on the borders of the plain. The plain itself, 
 extending between the hills on which we stood and the roots of 
 the gigantic Lebanon, may be a league in breadth. It is so sin- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 21 
 
 uous that the eye can embrace at once only about two leagues of 
 its length, mounds covered with sombre forests of pine intercept¬ 
 ing the prospect. The Nahr-Bayreut, or stream of Bayreut, which 
 escapes at some miles distance, through one of the deepest and 
 most rocky gorges of all Lebanon, divides the plain in two. It 
 flows gracefully between its well-filled banks, sometimes restrict¬ 
 ed within their barriers and edged by beds of reeds, which re¬ 
 semble fields of sugar-cane, sometimes overflowing, and throwing 
 out little glittering lakes amid the verdant greensward, or under 
 the groves of mastick trees. Its borders are luxuriant with vege¬ 
 tation ; and we distinguished asses, horses, goats, black buffaloes, 
 and white cows dispersed in herds along the river, while Arab 
 shepherds forded the stream mounted on their camels. Farther 
 off, on the first ledge of the mountain, were seen Maronite monks, 
 clothed in their black robes, after the fashion of a sailor’s cloak, 
 silently guiding the plough under the olive trees of their fields. 
 The convent bells were heard occasionally calling them to devo¬ 
 tion, whereupon they would stop the oxen, rest the stilt against 
 the beam of the plough, and throwing themselves on their knees, 
 give their team a few minutes breathing time, while their own as¬ 
 pirations were addressed to Heaven. 
 
 As we advanced farther, and began to descend towards the 
 river, we suddenly discovered the sea, which the mountainous 
 wall of the vallev had hitherto excluded from our view, and the 
 large mouth of the Nahr-Bayreut, which here joins it. The river 
 is spanned at no great distance from its mouth by a Roman bridge 
 nearly in ruins, its arches lofty and without parapets. A long 
 caravan from Damascus to Aleppo was crossing at the moment, 
 and appeared one by one, some on dromedaries, some on horses, 
 emerging from the shade of the rose bushes which overhang the 
 mouldering arches, slowly climbing the summit, reflected there 
 for a moment from the blue waves with their singular but splendid 
 costumes and motley bearers, then re-descending from this pinna¬ 
 cle of ruins, and the whole long file of asses and camels again 
 disappearing amongst the tufts of rose trees, rose laurels, and 
 plantains, with which the further banks of the river is shaded. 
 A little beyond they were once more discernible, moving along 
 the sands where the swelling waves rolled their crest of foaming 
 surf under the very feet of the animals on which they were 
 mounted. The immense peaked rocks of a distant promontory at 
 length concealed them, and advancing into the sea bounded that 
 side of our horizon. The sea, at the mouth of the river, exhibits 
 
 2 * 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
22 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 two totally distinct coats of coloring ; blue and green, and spark¬ 
 ling with moving brilliants, where its waters are unmixed ; yel¬ 
 low and dull where the descending river struggles with its waves, 
 and tinges them with the golden sands which it incessantly bears 
 down into this roadstead. Seventeen vessels at anchor in the gulf 
 swayed heavily upon the huge breakers with which it is always 
 furrowed, their masts rising and sinking like so many long reeds 
 agitated by the breeze. The masts of some were bare as wintry 
 trees, while others extending their sails to dry in the sun, resem¬ 
 bled the great white birds of these seas which hover in the air 
 without their wings being seen to vibrate. 
 
 The gulf, brighter than the sky which canopied it, reflected 
 part of the snows of Lebanon and the battlemented monasteries 
 stationed on the prominent peaks. Some fishing-boats were pass¬ 
 ing in full sail to take shelter in the river. The valley at our 
 feet, the declivities towards the plain, the current sweeping through 
 its pyramidical arches, the sea with its creeks amongst the rocks, 
 the immense block of Lebanon, with its innumerable varieties of 
 structure, those pyramids of snow which seemed to pierce like 
 silver cones the heights of heaven, where the eye searched for 
 them as for stars; the insensible sounds of insects around us, the 
 melody of a thousand birds among the trees, the lowing of the 
 buffaloes, the almost human plaints of the camels of the caravan, 
 the dull and periodical roar of the breakers dashing upon the 
 sand at the entrance of the river, the interminable horizon of the 
 Mediterranean, the green and serpentine bed of the NahrBayreut 
 on the right, the gigantic and indented wall of Lebanon in front, 
 the serene and beaming dome of heaven, skirted with the sum¬ 
 mits of the mountains and the conical heads of colossal trees, the 
 coolness and perfume of the air in which every thing appeared to 
 swim like an image in the transparent waters of a Swiss lake,— 
 all these objects, noises, and shadows,—this light and these im¬ 
 pressions,—constituted the most sublime and beautiful landscape 
 my delighted senses ever drank in. What must it then have been 
 to Julia? she was all sensibility,—radiant, trembling with ecstasy ; 
 and for my part, I delighted to impress such spectacles upon her 
 childish imagination. The Deity is depicted in them more forcibly 
 than in the lines of a catechism; he is there represented in traits 
 worthy of him ; the sovereign, the surpassing bounty of excelling 
 nature reveal him such as he is to the infant mind, which trans¬ 
 lates the perception of physical and material beauty into a senti¬ 
 ment of moral beauty. As the statues of Greece are displayed to 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 23 
 
 the artist, to inspire him with the instinct of loveliness, the young 
 mind should be initiated in the finer and grander scenes of nature, 
 that the image it may form to itself of the Author of Nature may 
 be worthy of her and of Him ! 
 
 We remounted our horses at the foot of the hill, in the plain 
 at the river side ; crossed the bridge, and climbed a few wooden 
 hillocks of Mount Lebanon, as far as the first monastery, which rose 
 like a castle fort on a pedestal of granite. The monks knew me 
 by the report of their Arabs, and received me in the convent—the 
 cells, refectory, and chapels of which I examined. The monks 
 returning from their labors, were occupied in unyoking their oxen 
 and buffaloes in the vast court, which exhibited all the features of 
 a large farm yard, encumbered with ploughs, cattle, dunghills, 
 poultry, and all the instruments of rustic life. These labors were 
 carried on without noise or clamor, yet without any affectation of 
 silence, and as if by men actuated rather by a natural sense of 
 decorum than by obedience to a severe and inflexible rule. The 
 countenances of these individuals were mild and serene, breathing 
 peace and content, the aspect of a community of laborers. When 
 the bell summoned them to their repast, they entered the refec¬ 
 tory, not in a body, but one by one, or two by two, according as 
 they had earlier or later accomplished the work of the moment. 
 The meal consisted, as it did every day, of two or three cakes made 
 of kneaded flour, dried rather than baked on hot stones, of water, 
 and fine olives preserved in oil; sometimes a little cheese, or 
 sour milk, was added ; and this is the whole nourishment of these 
 recluses, who take it standing or seated on the ground. All the 
 furniture of our countries is unknown to them. After partaking 
 of their dinner, tasting their cake and drinking a glass of excel¬ 
 lent wine of Lebanon, which the superior ordered for us, we vis¬ 
 ited some of the cells, which are all alike. A small chamber, 
 five or six feet square, contains for its only furniture a rush mat 
 and a carpet ; while some images of the saints nailed against the 
 wall, an Arabic Bible, and some Syriac manuscripts, form its dec¬ 
 orations. A long interior gallery, covered with thatch, serves as 
 an avenue to all the chambers. The prospect enjoyed from the 
 windows of this, and indeed of nearly all the monasteries, is ad¬ 
 mirable ; the first heights of Lebanon below us, the river Bayreut 
 and its plain, the aerial domes of the pine forests intersecting the 
 red horizon of the sandy desert; then the sea, set as it were in a 
 frame of capes, gulfs, creeks, and rocks, with the white sails at 
 all times floating on its bosom—such is the landscape constantly 
 
24 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 before the eyes of these monks. They laded our asses with pres¬ 
 ents of dried fruits and leathern bottles of wine, and we quitted 
 them to return by another route to Bayreut. I shall have more to 
 say of them hereafter. 
 
 We descended by steep steps cut into detached blocks of the 
 yellow and soft freestone which covers all the lower plains of Leb¬ 
 anon, the path winding among these blocks. In the interstices of 
 the rocks, a few herbs and even shrubs find root, with beautiful 
 flowers similar to the tulips of our gardens, but infinitely larger. 
 We started several gazelles and some jackals, which take shelter 
 in the hollows formed by the rocks. Great numbers of part¬ 
 ridges, quails, and woodcocks, flew away at the sound of our 
 horses’ feet. Arrived in the plain we again found barley, the 
 vine, and the palm tree, under cultivation, and surrounded by a 
 rich vegetation ; we traversed nearly half of it, which brought us 
 to the foot of an eminence covered by a forest of Italian pines, 
 with broad glades, in which we perceived at a distance herds of 
 camels and goats. 
 
 This height concealed from us the course of the Nahr-Bayreut, 
 the southern branch of which we intended to cross. We plunged 
 into the lofty vaulted groves of beautiful pines, and after journey¬ 
 ing about a quarter of an hour under their shade, suddenly heard 
 great outcries and the sound of a multitude of human feet ; men, 
 women, and children, were running to meet us with the beating 
 of drums, and the music of flutes and fifes. In an instant we 
 were encircled by five or six hundred wild-looking Arabs, whose 
 chiefs, attired in costumes once magnificent, but now dirty and 
 in rags, advanced towards us at the head of their musicians; 
 they saluted and appeared to pay us some very respectful compli¬ 
 ments, the words of which, however, were quite unintelligible ; 
 but aided by their own gestures and clamor, and those of their 
 whole tribe, we discovered that their meaning was an urgent, 
 perhaps I should say, compulsory request, that we should follow 
 them into the heart of the iorest, where their camp was pitched. 
 It was a tribe of Kurds, who from the provinces adjoining Per¬ 
 sia, emigrate for the winter with their families and flocks, some¬ 
 times to the plains of Mesopotamia near Damascus, sometimes to 
 those of Syria. There they take possession of an unoccupied 
 wood, valley, or hill, and establish themselves for five or six 
 months. Far behind the Arabs in civilization, their invasion and 
 neighborhood is dreaded ; in fact, they may be called the armed 
 Bohemians of the East. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 25 
 
 Surrounded by this crowd of men, women, and children, we 
 marched for some minutes to the sound of their savage music, 
 and to the cries of a multitude, who regarded us with curiosity, 
 half jocular, half ferocious. We soon reached the centre of the 
 camp, and at the entrance of the tent of one of their Scheiks we 
 dismounted. Our horses, which they greatly admired, were 
 committed to the charge of a few young Kurds ; and we were 
 ourselves seated at the foot of a tree, on some Caramanian car¬ 
 pets, the Scheik’s slaves presenting us with pipes and coffee, 
 while the women brought camels’ milk for Julia. 
 
 The appearance of this camp of wandering savages, in the 
 midst of a sombre forest, merits description. 
 
 The trees of that part of the forest were thinly scattered, and 
 interspersed with large glades. At the foot of each tree a family 
 tent was pitched, consisting, for the most part, of a piece of black 
 goat’s-hair cloth, fastened on one side to the trunk of the tree by 
 a cord, and supported on the other by two stakes planted in the 
 ground ; the whole space occupied by the family was seldom 
 surrounded by the cloth, but a fragment hung down on the side 
 next the sun or wind, to form a shelter, either from cold, or from 
 the solar rays. The only visible furniture was a row of jars, 
 made of a blackish earth, laid on their sides, which are used by 
 the women for drawing water ; some bottles of goat-skin ; sabres 
 and long muskets, suspended in bundles to the branches of the 
 trees ; mats, carpets, and a few male and female garments, lying 
 about upon the ground. Some of the Arabs possessed two or 
 three square chests, to contain their effects, ornamented with 
 designs in gilt-headed nails. 
 
 The whole tribe produced but two or three horses. Most 
 families had their tent surrounded by a few beautiful goats, with 
 long black silky hair and hanging ears, some sheep and buffaloes, 
 and a single camel, ruminating as it lay with its tall intelligent 
 head erect, and stretched towards the entrance of the tent. Al¬ 
 most all had, in addition, one or two magnificent white grey¬ 
 hounds of a large growth, which, according to the Mahometan 
 custom, were fat and well kept, and seemed to acknowledge their 
 masters; from this circumstance I infer that these tribes employ 
 them in the chase. The Scheiks appeared to enjoy absolute 
 authority, and the slightest signal on their part seemed to re¬ 
 establish order and silence, which the tumult of our arrival had 
 disturbed. Some children, having been incited by curiosity to 
 certain trifling indiscretions towards us, they made the men drive 
 
26 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 them to a distant quarter of the camp. The men, generally 
 speaking, were large, strong, handsome and well-made, and their 
 dress denoted negligence rather than poverty. Several wore 
 vests of silk, mingled with threads of gold and silver, and blue 
 silk pelisses, lined with rich furs ; their arms were equally re¬ 
 markable for their rich carvings, and the silver with which they 
 were inlaid and ornamented. 
 
 The women were neither shut up nor veiled ; they were even 
 but half-clothed, especially girls from twelve to fifteen, whose 
 only vesture consisted of a sort of chemise, of cotton or silk, 
 thrown over the body, and fastened by a girdle, leaving the neck 
 and breast uncovered ; and a short full kind of trowsers ; their 
 feet and legs always bare, and adorned with bracelets of silver 
 above the ankle. Their hair, which was generally quite black, 
 was plaited in long tresses, hanging down to the heels, and deck¬ 
 ed with pieces of coin, threaded ; the neck and loins were, more¬ 
 over, encased in a network of piastres, jingling at every step they 
 took, like the scales of a serpent. These women were neither 
 tall, fair, modest, nor graceful, like the Syrian Arabs, nor ex¬ 
 hibited the fearful and ferocious aspect of the Bedouin females. 
 They were, for the most part, small, thin, and sunburnt; but 
 gay, brisk, playful, dancing and singing to the music, which had 
 not for a moment suspended its lively and animating airs. They 
 showed no embarrassment under our survey, nor any modest 
 uneasiness at their half-nakedness before the men of the tribe ; 
 and the men themselves seemed to exercise no authority over 
 them, contenting themselves with laughing at their indiscreet 
 curiosity respecting us, and pushing them gently and jokingly 
 aside. A few of the young maidens were very pretty, and pi - 
 quantes; they all tint their black eyes with henna round the 
 edge of the lids, which greatly increases the vivacity of their 
 expression. Their legs and hands, also, were stained of a ma¬ 
 hogany color ; and the dazzling whiteness of their ivory teeth 
 set off by lips tattooed with blue, and by their tanned complexions, 
 imparted a wild, though not ferocious character to their physiog¬ 
 nomy. They somewhat resembled the young women of Pro¬ 
 vence or Naples, but having a more arched forehead, a freer gait, 
 a franker smile, and more natural manners. Their countenances 
 remain deeply impressed upon the memory, for we are not apt 
 to meet with such faces a second time. 
 
 We were surrounded by about one or two hundred of the tribe, 
 and having made our observations upon their camp, their per- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 27 
 
 sonal appearance, and their employments, we made signs of de¬ 
 siring to remount our horses, which were immediately brought 
 to us—and as they were frightened by the strange aspect and 
 cries of the surrounding throng, and by the sound of the drums, 
 the Scheik made two of his women carry Julia to the outskirts of 
 the forest, the whole tribe accompanying us thus far. There we 
 remounted, and they offered us a goat and a camel as parting 
 presents, which however, we declined. On our parts, we gave 
 them a handful of Turkish piastres (which the young girls divided 
 amongst themselves to add to their collars), and two gold coins to 
 the Scheik’s wives. At a short distance from the forest we again 
 fell in with the river, forded it, and under its fringe of rose-laurels 
 we met another party of girls of the Kurd tribe, about a hundred 
 in number, returning from Bayreut, where they had been pur¬ 
 chasing some earthen jars, and some pieces of stuff for a marriage 
 in their tribe, and were stopping here to dance in the shade, each 
 holding in her hand some article of the domestic economy, or of 
 finery for their companion. They followed us very clamorously 
 a long time, laying hold of Julia’s dress and of our horses’ manes, 
 to obtain coin from us, and as soon as we had thrown them some 
 they ran away, and dashed into the river with all speed to regain 
 their camp. 
 
 After crossing the Nahr-Bayreut and the other half of the cul¬ 
 tivated plain, shaded by young palms and pines, we arrived at 
 the hills of red sand extending eastward of Bayreut, between the 
 sea and the valley ; forming a portion of the Egyptian Desert, 
 cast at the foot of Lebanon and encompassed by magnificent 
 oases. The sand is as red as ochre, and as fine as an impalpable 
 powder. The Arabs affirm that this desert of red sand is neither 
 carried thither by the winds, nor accumulated by the waves, but 
 vomited by a subterranean torrent which communicates with the 
 Deserts of Gaza and El-Arish, pretending that springs of sand 
 exist as well as springs of water, and pointing out in confirmation 
 of their opinion the color and form of the sea sand, which in fact 
 bears not the smallest affinity to that of the desert. The colors 
 of the two are as distinct as those of a course of marble and of 
 granite. Be the fact however as it may, the sand, whether dis¬ 
 charged from subterranean sources or scattered there by the 
 violent winds of winter, spreads itself in sheets five or six leagues 
 in breadth, and raises mountains or scoops out valleys—changing 
 their respective forms with every storm. After a short progress 
 among these fluctuating labyrinths, it becomes impossible to 
 
28 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 ascertain unaided where we are or in what direction we are ad¬ 
 vancing. Hills of sand screen the horizon on all sides, and.no 
 path can subsist on the surface of these waves, which preserve 
 no more traces of the passage of horses or camels than do the 
 watery billows of that of a ship or a boat; all are effaced by the 
 lightest breeze. Some of the downs were so steep that our horses 
 could scarcely ascend them, and we were obliged to advance 
 cautiously for fear of being swallowed up by the quicksands 
 which frequently occur. When the simoom of the desert arises, 
 these hills wave like the breakers of the sea, and silently folding 
 themselves over the adjacent hollow swallow up the camels of the 
 caiavan. Such dismal and movable solitudes, where no trace 
 of vegetation can be discerned, with the exception of a few large 
 bulbous roots which roll occasionally under the feet of the horses, 
 give the melancholy impression of a noiseless tempest attended 
 by images of death. They annually extend their invasion some 
 paces over the cultivated lands in their neighborhood. Towards 
 their verge, therefore, are always to be seen palm or fig trees 
 shooting up their withered heads from the surface like the masts 
 of vessels absorbed in the watery wastes. The only distinguish¬ 
 able sound we heard during our painful transit over these path¬ 
 less wilds was the dashing of the breakers at half a league dis¬ 
 tance against the rocks. The setting sun tinged the crests of 
 those mountains of red dust with a color which I can compare 
 to nothing but the ardent flame of a furnace; or its rays gliding 
 down into the valleys, inundated them with fire like the avenues 
 of a blazing edifice. Now and then, on reaching the summit of 
 a hill, we caught sight of the white tips of Lebanon, or of the sea 
 with its band of surf bordering the sinuous coast of the gulf of 
 Sidon; then suddenly we plunged again into ravines of fiery 
 sand, and could no longer descry any object but the sky 
 above us. 
 
 I watched Julia, who often turned to look after me, her beau¬ 
 tiful face suffused with emotion, and bearing traces of fatigue ; 
 and in her expressive eyes, which seemed to scrutinize my feel- 
 lings, I read mingled impressions of terror, enthusiasm and de¬ 
 light. The increasing roar of the sea indicated our approach to 
 the Mediterranean coast, which abruptly presented itself imme¬ 
 diately below us as we traversed a precipitous elevation of at 
 least two hundred feet. The solid soil resounding to our steps, 
 though still covered with a light bed of white sand, proved that 
 trackless waves of sand no longer formed our only footing, but 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 29 
 
 we were now succeeded by the rocks which girdle the whole line 
 of the Syrian coast. We had reached a point of it where the per, 
 petual conflict of the rocks and waters has produced a remarkable 
 effect; the repeated attacks of the surge, or the shock of an 
 earthquake, have detached from the continuous block of the cliffs 
 immense mountains of stone, which, rolling into the sea, and there 
 fixing themselves in an upright position have been worn, smooth¬ 
 ed, and polished by the action of the waters for centuries, and have 
 assumed the most extraordinary forms. One of these rocks stood 
 before us at about a hundred feet distance, rearing its crest above 
 the level of the coast; the waves incessantly beating against it 
 had, in process of time, cleft it in the middle, and formed a 
 gigantic arch, resembling the mouth of a triumphal monument: 
 the interior walls were polished and shining as Carrara marble ; 
 the retiring billows left them nearly dry, and resplendent with 
 the boiling spray ; then soon returning in tremendous breakers, 
 they rushed with the crash of thunder into the arch, filling it to 
 the vaulted roof, and chafed by the concussion, rebounded in a 
 torrent of fresh foam to the verry summit of the rock, from 
 whence they fell back in white tresses, or in dazzling showers of 
 watery globules, as fine as dust. 
 
 Our horses shuddered with horror at every return of the 
 waves, while we could not wrest our eyes from the conflicting 
 elements, which for half an hour of our route inundated the shore 
 with these magnificent sports of nature. Others of these detached 
 rocks take the form of embattled towers ; they are entirely cover¬ 
 ed with the nests of the sea-swallow, and united to the shore by 
 natural bridges, underneath which, the subterranean breakers are 
 heard roaring and bellowing. In certain spots, rocks pierced 
 through by the action of the waves, serve as pipes to throw up 
 the saline spray in fountains; which rise in broad columns to the 
 height of several feet from the earth, and when the surge has re¬ 
 tired, return murmuring to their abyss. At the moment we 
 passed the spot the sea was running high, rolling to the land in 
 blue mountains with transparent crests, and breaking against the 
 rocks with a crash that reverberated along a vast extent of shore, 
 while the stupendous marine arch of rock which we were con¬ 
 templating seemed to stagger beneath the shock. The inter¬ 
 minable prospect of an immense sea, unbroken by a single sail, at 
 that hour when the first shadows of the declining sun began to 
 darken its surface ; those gigantic fractures of the coast; and the 
 tumultuous noise of the waves shaking enormous rocks, with as 
 
30 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 much ease as the feet of birds remove grains of sand; the loud 
 subterranean echoes multiplying the dull roar of the tempest;— 
 all this, immediately succeeding the silent and terrible solitudes 
 we had passed, struck upon our senses with impressions so 
 various, solemn, and powerful, as to deprive us of the use of 
 speech, while tears of emotion glistened in Julia’s eyes. 
 
 In silence we pursued our way over the narrowest part of the 
 desert of red sand, which we still had to cross, and making for 
 the hills of Bayreut, at sunset reached the great pine forest of the 
 Emir Fakar-el-Din. There Julia, recovering her voice, turned 
 to me, and said in a tone of ecstasy, “ Have I not had the most 
 beautiful journey that the world can afford ? Oh ! how great is 
 God, and how good to me,” added she, “ in selecting me, young 
 as I am, for the contemplation of such wonderful works !” 
 
 It was night when we dismounted at the door of the house; 
 we had other excursions in view for the days that intervened be¬ 
 fore our journey to Damascus. 
 
 THE COLONIZATION OF LEBANON. 
 
 THE MARONITES. 
 
 The cradle of the Maronites, of whom I am about to speak, is 
 veiled in obscurity. History, incomplete and fabulous respecting 
 all things that belong to the first centuries of our era, leaves doubts 
 upon the various origins which have been assigned to their insti¬ 
 tutions. They have but few books, and these unsubjected to cen¬ 
 sorship or criticism; yet as the knowledge and traditions of a 
 people concerning themselves should be always preferred to the 
 vain speculation of the traveler, I here submit the result of their 
 own histories. 
 
 A holy recluse, named Maron, lived ahout the year 400, and 
 is mentioned by Theodorick and St. Chrysostom. He inhabited 
 the desert, and his disciples having dispersed themselves through¬ 
 out the different regions of Syria, built several monasteries, the 
 principal of which was in the neighborhood of Apamea, on the 
 fertile banks of the Orontes. All the Syriac Christians who were 
 not affected with the heresy of the Monothelites, took refuge around 
 these monasteries, and from that circumstance received the name 
 of Maronites. Yolney, who lived several months among them, 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 31 
 
 collected the best accounts of their origin ; and his statements 
 nearly coincide with the following, which I gathered from their 
 local traditions: 
 
 Whatever their earlier history, the Maronites are, in the pre¬ 
 sent day, governed by the purest theocracy that has withstood the 
 assaults of time ; incessantly menaced by Mussulman tyranny, it 
 has been obliged to continue moderate and protective, and to allow 
 the germination of those principles of civil liberty, now ready to 
 develope themselves among them. 
 
 The Maronite nation, which, according to Volney, consisted, 
 in 1784, of a hundred and twenty thousand souls, now reckons 
 more than two hundred thousand, and is multiplying every day. 
 Its territory is a hundred and fifty square leagues in extent, but 
 has only arbitrary limits, spreading by degrees over the sides of 
 Mount Lebanon, and in the valleys and plains around it, as its 
 swarming population disperses to found new villages. The town 
 of Zharkle, at the mouth of the Valley of Bekaa, opposite Balbec, 
 which, twenty years ago, scarcely contained a population of 
 twelve hundred souls, has now as many thousands, and is daily 
 increasing. 
 
 The Maronites are subject to the Emir Beschir, and form, 
 with the Druses and Metouahs, a sort of despotic confederation 
 under the government of that Emir. Although the members of 
 these three nations differ in origin, in religion, and in manners, 
 and are scarcely ever confounded in the same villages, the inter¬ 
 est of defending their common liberty, and the vigorous and politic 
 sway of the Emir Beschir, retains them under a single sceptre. 
 Their numerous habitations cover the space comprehended be¬ 
 tween Latakia and St. John d’Acre, on one side and Damascus 
 and Bayreut on the other. I shall have something to say sepa¬ 
 rately of the Druses and the Metoualis. 
 
 The Maronites occupy the most central valleys, and most ele¬ 
 vated ridges of the principal group of Lebanon, from the environs 
 of Bayreut to Syrian Tripoli. The slopes of these mountains 
 towards the sea are fertile, and watered by numerous streams of 
 never-failing cascades. They produce silk, oil, barley, and 
 wheat; the heights are almost inaccessible, and the flanks of the 
 mountains are in all parts pierced by the naked rock : but the 
 indefatigable activity of this people, to whose religion those peaks 
 and precipices offer the only secure asylum, has reduced even the 
 rock to fertility; has erected, stage above stage, even to the high¬ 
 est crags, to the eternal snows, terrace walls, formed of blocks of 
 
32 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 soft rock; has carried up to these terraces the little vegetative 
 soil borne down by the waters into the ravines; has pulverized 
 the stone itself, to render it productive, by admixture with that 
 spare collection of earth, and has made of Lebanon a complete 
 garden, covered with mulberry, fig, olive, and plum trees. The 
 traveler cannot overcome his astonishment, when, after climbing 
 whole days over piles of mountains which are but one solid rock, 
 he suddenly encounters, in the deep bosom of an elevated gorge, 
 or on the platform of a natural pyramid, a beautiful village, built 
 of white stone, inhabited by a numerous and rich population, with 
 a Moorish castle in the centre, a monastery in the distant per¬ 
 spective, a torrent dashing its foam against the foot of the village, 
 and all around him a prospect of vegetation and verdure, where 
 pines, chestnut, and mulberry trees overshadow vineyards, or 
 fields of maize and corn. These villages are sometimes sus¬ 
 pended almost perpendicularly one above another, within a stone’s 
 throw ; the human voice itself may be heard from one to the 
 other, yet the steep acclivity of the mountain requires such wind¬ 
 ings and sinuosities, that the path of communication is probably 
 the journey of an hour or two. 
 
 In every village is found a Scheik, administering the justice 
 of the country as a sort of feudal lord ; but that justice and its 
 administration, although summarily exercised, and in the simplest 
 quality of police, by the Scheiks, is neither absolute nor without 
 appeal ; the superior administration belongs to the Emir and his 
 Divan. Justice resides partly in the Emir and partly in the 
 Bishops, between whom there is a contested jurisdiction. To the 
 Patriarch of the Maronites is reserved solely the decision of all 
 cases in which the civil and religious law come in contact—as in 
 marriages, dispensations, separations. The Prince is obliged to 
 observe the most cautious policy towards the Patriarch and Bish¬ 
 ops, for the spiritual authority of the clergy over their flocks is 
 immense and incontestable. The clergy consists of the Patriarch, 
 who is elected by the Bishops, and confirmed by the Pope ; of the 
 Pope’s Legate, sent from Rome, and residing in the Monastery 
 either of Antoura or Kanoubin ; of the Bishops, the Superiors of 
 Monastaries, and the Curates. Notwithstanding that the Romish 
 Church has severely maintained the law of clerical celibacy in 
 Europe, and that many of her writers have affected to recognize 
 doctrinal law in that rule of her discipline, she has been obliged 
 to yield the point in the East, and the Maronite priests, though 
 fervent and devout Catholics, are married men. The privilege of 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 33 
 
 marriage, however, is not extended either to the monks living in 
 community, nor to the bishops,—the secular clergy and curates 
 alone enjoy it; and all inconveniences that might result from this 
 rule are obviated by the seclusion in which Arab women live, the 
 simple patriarchal manners of the people, and by custom. Far 
 from the purity of sacerdotal morals, the popular respect for the 
 ministers of their faith, or the precept of confession, having in 
 any degree suffered from this indulgence, it may be truly said, 
 that in no country of Europe are the clergy so pure, so exclu¬ 
 sively devoted to their pious ministry, so venerable, or so influen¬ 
 tial over the minds of the people as they are here. Those who 
 would contemplate in actual existence all that the imagination 
 pictures of the season of infant and pure Christianity ; who would 
 see the simplicity and fervor of the primitive faith, purity of mo¬ 
 rals, disinterestedness in the ministers of charity, sacerdotal influ¬ 
 ence without abuse, authority without domination, poverty without 
 mendicity, dignity without pride, prayer, vigils, sobriety, chastity, 
 manual labor—those who would contemplate all this must visit 
 the Maronites. The most rigid philosopher would find no reform 
 requisite in the public or private life of these priests, who are alike 
 the example, the counselors, and the servants of the people. 
 
 There may exist about two hundred Maronite monasteries, of 
 various orders, on the surface of Lebanon, inhabited by from 
 twenty to twenty-five thousand monks ; but these monks are nei¬ 
 ther rich, mendicant, oppressive, nor bloodsuckers of the people. 
 They are societies of simple and laborious men, who, wishing to 
 consecrate their lives to prayer and spiritual liberty, renounce the 
 cares incident to bringing up a family, and devote themselves to 
 God and the culture of the soil in one of these retreats. Their 
 life, as I have just shown, is that of a laborious peasant. They 
 tend cattle or silk-worms, cleave rocks, build with their own hands 
 the terrace walls of their fields, dig, plough, and reap. The 
 monasteries possess but little land ; and each admits only as many 
 monks as such a portion of land will maintain. I have dwelt long 
 among this people, have frequented many of their monasteries, 
 and have never heard a single scandal imputed to the monks, or a 
 single murmur against them. Each monastery is, in fact, a sort 
 of small farm, the servants of which are voluntary, and receive, 
 for their only meed, a roof to shelter them, the food of anchorites, 
 and the prayers of the Church. So completely is useful labor the 
 law of man’s nature, and the condition of virtue and happiness 
 here below, that I have not seen one of those recluses who did not 
 
34 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 bear in his features the impress of peace of mind, content, and 
 health. The bishops have absolute authority over the monasteries 
 within their jurisdiction, which jurisdiction is limited—every large 
 village having its own bishop. 
 
 The Maronite people, whether descended from Arabs or Syri¬ 
 ans, partake the virtues of their clergy, and form a separate race 
 from all others of the East; it might be conjectured to be a Euro¬ 
 pean colony, cast by accident amongst the tribes of the desert. 
 Their personal appearance, however, is Arab. The men are tall 
 and handsome, with a frank, though somewhat proud expression, 
 a mild and intelligent smile ; blue eyes, aquiline nose, a light 
 beard, a noble presence, a deep and guttural voice, and manners 
 polite without meanness. Their costume is splendid, and their 
 arms are glittering. Passing through a village, and seeing a 
 Scheik seated at the door of his battlemented dwelling, his fine 
 horses fastened in the court, and the chiefs of the village, clothed 
 in their rich pelisses, with girdles of scarlet silk, filled with yata- 
 gans and silver-hilted kandgiars, their heads enveloped in immense 
 turbans composed of various colored stuffs, with a large lappet of 
 purple silk falling over the shoulder—you might fancy yourself 
 among a nation of kings. Bound to Europeans by the strongest 
 of all ties, community of religion, they love us as brothers, and 
 believe themselves protected by our consuls and ambassadors 
 against the Turks. Our travelers, missionaries, and young inter¬ 
 preters, who go to study the Arabic language, are received in 
 every village as a family receives its kindred, and become the 
 cherished guests of the whole country. They are addressed with 
 respect, lodged in the monastery or the Scheik’s house, furnished 
 abundantly with all that the country produces, taken on hawking 
 parties, confidentially introduced to the society even of the women, 
 and indissoluble ties of friendship are formed between them, the 
 memory of which the heads of families transmit to their children. 
 I do not doubt that if the people were better known, and the mag¬ 
 nificent country they inhabit more frequently visited, many Euro¬ 
 peans would establish themselves amongst the Maronites; beauty 
 of scenery, admirable perfection of climate, the moderate price of 
 necessaries, analogy of religion, hospitable manners, individual 
 security and tranquillity, all concur to make a habitation among 
 them desirable ; and for my own part, if it were permitted to man 
 to detach himself from his native soil, if it were not almost a duty 
 incumbent upon him to live wherever Providence- has indicated 
 his cradle and his tomb, there to love and serve his compatriots,— 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 35 
 
 if involuntary exile, in short, should ever be my lot, I should no¬ 
 where find it more endurable than in one of these peaceful villages 
 of the Maronites, at the foot or on the descent of Lebanon, in the 
 bosom of a simple, religious, and benevolent population, under the 
 palm and orange trees of one of the gardens of those monasteries, 
 within view of the sea and of eternal snows. 
 
 The most admirable police (the result rather of religion and 
 morals, than of legislation,) reigns throughout the whole extent 
 of territory inhabited by the Maronites. The traveler may there 
 pursue his journey alone and unguided, by day or by night, with¬ 
 out fear of theft or violence ; crime is almost unknown ; the 
 stranger is sacred to the Mahometan Arab, but still more sacred 
 to the Arab Christian, whose door is open to him at all hours ; 
 the kid is killed to do him honor, the rush-mat surrendered to af¬ 
 ford him a bed. In every village there is a church or chapel, in 
 which the rites of the Catholic worship are daily celebrated in 
 the Syriac tongue. At that part of the service where the gospel 
 of the day is introduced, the priest turns towards the congrega¬ 
 tion and reads it to them in Arabic. Religion, more lasting than 
 the human race, preseryes its lan guage sacred, when the people 
 have lost theirs. 
 
 The Maronites are brave, and, like all the mountaineers, war¬ 
 riors by nature. They muster, at the bidding of the Emir Bes- 
 chir, to the number of thirty or forty thousand men, either to de¬ 
 fend the passes of their mountains, or to rush upon the plain, and 
 make Damascus or the towns of Syria tremble. The Turks dare 
 not penetrate into Lebanon while these people are at peace 
 amongst themselves ; the Pachas of Acre and Damascus have 
 never ventured to set foot there, except when intestine divisions 
 called them in to the succor of either party. I may deceive my¬ 
 self, but I imagine that great destinies may be reserved to the Ma- 
 ronite people,—a virgin nation, primitive in its morals, religion, 
 and courage ; possessed of the traditional virtues of the Patri¬ 
 archs, of property, a portion of liberty, and much patriotism ; and 
 who, by similarity of religion, and the relations of faith and com¬ 
 merce, are every day more and more impregnated with western 
 civilization. While surrounding communities fall into impotence 
 and the decay of age, it alone appears perpetually to renew its 
 youth, and acquire fresh accessions of strength. In proportion as 
 Syria becomes depopulated, this people will descend from their 
 mountain fastnesses, found commercial towns on the sea-shore, 
 cultivate the fertile plains now left to jackals and gazelles, and 
 
36 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 establish a new dominion in countries in which the old are fast 
 expiring. Should a man of talent shortly spring up among them, 
 whether from the ranks of the all-powerful clergy, or from the 
 family of some Emir or Scheik whom they revere—a man capable 
 of estimating the future, and disposed to ally himself with Euro¬ 
 pean powers, he would have no difficulty in re-enacting the won¬ 
 ders of Mehemet Ali, Pacha of Egypt, and would leave behind 
 him the veritable gem of an Arabian empire. Europe is inter¬ 
 ested in the realization of this wish ; she would have a colony 
 ready to her hands on those teeming shores; and Syria, re-peo¬ 
 pled with a Christian and industrious nation, would enrich the 
 Mediterranean with a commerce which now languishes; open the 
 roud to India ; drive back the wandering and barbarous tribes of 
 the desert; and restore life to the East. There are more hopes 
 for the future here than in Egypt. Egypt has but one man, Leba¬ 
 non has a people. 
 
 THE DRUSES. 
 
 The Druses, who, with the Metoualis and the Maronites, 
 form the principal population of Lebanon, have long passed for 
 a European colony left in the East by the Crusaders; but nothing 
 can be more absurd. The characteristics which abide the longest 
 by a people, are religion and language. Now the Druses are, 
 most of them, idolaters, and speak Arabic. They cannot, there¬ 
 fore, be descended from a Frank or a Christian nation. They 
 are most probably, like the Maronites, an Arab tribe of the 
 desert, who having refused to adopt the religion of the prophet, 
 and being persecuted by the new believers, took refuge in the 
 inaccessible solitudes of the mighty Lebanon, there to defend their 
 Gods and their liberty. They have prospered ; have often as¬ 
 sumed the predominance over the various populations of Syria ; 
 and the history of their principal chief, the Emir Fakar-el-Din. 
 rendered by us, Fakardin, has made them famous even in Europe. 
 This prince appears in his history about the commencement of 
 the seventeenth century. Nominated governor of the Druses, he 
 gained the confidence of the Porte ; repulsed the ferocious tribes 
 of Balbec ; delivered Tyre and St. John d’Acre from the incur¬ 
 sions of the Bedouin Arabs; chased the Turkish Aga from 
 Bayreut, and established his own capitol in that city. It was in 
 vain that the Pachas of Aleppo or Damascus menaced or de¬ 
 nounced him to the Divan; he corrupted his judges, and tri- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 87 
 
 umphed by fraud or strength over all his enemies. The Porte, 
 however, after repeated warnings of the progress of the Druses, 
 at length adopted the resolution of overpowering them by force 
 of arms, and prepared a formidable expedition. The Emir 
 Fakar-el-Din determined to temporize ; he had formed alliances, 
 aud concluded treaties of commerce, with the princes of Italy, and 
 he went himself to solicit the assistance which those princes had 
 promised him. Leaving the government to his son Ali, he em¬ 
 barked at Bayreut, and took refuge at the Court of Medici, in 
 Florence. 
 
 The arrival of a Mahometan prince in Europe awakened at¬ 
 tention ; a report was spread that Fakar-el-Din was a descendant 
 of the princely house of Lorraine, and that the Druses derived 
 their origin from the companions of a Count of Druse, who re¬ 
 mained in Lebanon after the conclusion of the Crusades. In vain 
 were the Druses mentioned before the period of the Crusades, by 
 the historian Benjamin of Tudela. The clever adventurer lent 
 his own aid to propagate the new opinion, in order to interest the 
 sovereigns of Europe in his fate. 
 
 After nine years’ residence at Florence, the Emir Fakar-el- 
 Din returned to Syria. His son Ali had meanwhile repulsed the 
 Turks, and preserved inviolate the provinces conquered by his 
 father, to whom he surrendered the command; but the emir, 
 corrupted by the arts and luxuries of Florence, forgot that the 
 condition of his rule was the power of inspiring his enemies with 
 respect and terror. He built magnificent chateaus at Bayreut, 
 and adorned them in imitation of the Italian palaces, with statues 
 and paintings, which shocked the prejudices of the Orientals. 
 His subjects began to be dissatisfied ; the Sultan Amurath IV. 
 becoming incensed, sent the Pacha of Damascus with another 
 powerful army against Fakar-el-Din ; and while the Pacha de¬ 
 scended from Lebanon, a Turkish fleet blockaded the port of 
 Bayreut. Ali, eldest son of the emir, and governor of Saphad, 
 was killed in an engagement wiih the Damascenes; upon which 
 Fakar-el-Din sent his second son on board the admiral’s vessel, to 
 implore peace ; but the admiral detained the child a prisoner and 
 refused all negociation. The emir fled in consternation, and shut 
 himself up with a small number of devoted friends in the inac¬ 
 cessible Rock of Nilka, which the Turks vainly besieged for a 
 whole year, and then retired. Fakar-el-Din, thus set at liberty, 
 took the road towards his mountain ; but, betrayed by some of the 
 companions of his fortunes, he was delivered up to the Lurks and 
 
 VOL. II. 3 
 
38 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 conducted to Constantinople. Prostrated at the feet of Amurath, 
 that prince at first treated him with generosity and benevolence. 
 He gave him a palace and slaves; but shortly afterwards con¬ 
 ceived some suspicions of his vanquished foe, and the brave and 
 unfortunate Fakar-el-Din was strangled. 
 
 The Turks, whose policy contents itself with clearing their 
 road of an enemy who gives them umbrage—but who, beyond 
 that, respect popular customs and traditional legitimacies—suf¬ 
 fered the posterity of Fakar-el-Din to reign undisturbed; and it 
 is not above a century since, by the death of the last descendant 
 of the celebrated emir, the sceptre of Lebanon passed to another 
 family, that of Chab, originally from Mecca, and whose present 
 chief, the aged Emir Beschir, now governs those countries. 
 
 The religion of the Druses is a mystery which no traveler 
 has yet been able to penetrate. I have been acquainted with 
 several Europeans who have lived many years among them, and 
 who have confessed to me their ignorance in this particular. 
 Lady Stanhope herself, who might form an exception, from her 
 habitual residence in the midst of this Arab tribe, and from the 
 devotion with which she inspires men whose language she speaks 
 and whose manners she adopts, told me that even to her the reli¬ 
 gion of the Druses was a mystery. Most travelers who have 
 written upon them, consider their worship as only a schism of 
 Mahometanism; but I am convinced that they are mistaken. 
 One certain fact is, that the religion of the Druses permits them 
 to assume the creed of any people with whom they communicate; 
 and from hence is derived the opinion of their being schismatic 
 Mahometans, though this opinion is not to the purpose. The only 
 ascertained point is, that they adore the calf. Their institutions 
 coincide with those of the nations of antiquity. They are divided 
 into two castes,— Akkals, or the sages, and djahels, or the igno¬ 
 rant ; and their form of worship differs according as they belong 
 to the one or the other of these castes. They hold in veneration 
 the names of Moses, Mahomet, and Jesus. They assemble once 
 a week, each caste on the spot consecrated to the degree of initia¬ 
 tion it has attained; and during the celebration of their rites, 
 guards keep sentry, lest any profane person should approach the 
 initiated, a temerity punished with instant death. Women are 
 admitted to these mysteries. The priests or Akkals marry, and 
 have a sacerdotal hierarchy. The chief of the Akkals, or sove¬ 
 reign pontiff of the Druses, resides at the village of El-Mutna. 
 
 After the death of a Druse, there is a meeting round his tomb, 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 89 
 
 where testimony is received upon his life; if it is favorable, the 
 Akkal exclaims, “ May the Almighty be merciful to thee !” If 
 condemnatory, the priests and his assistant keep silence. The 
 people at large believe in the transmigration of souls; and that 
 if the life of a Druse has been pure, he will revive in a man 
 favored by fortune, brave, and beloved by his countrymen ; if he 
 has been base or cowardly, he will return under the form of a 
 camel or a dog. 
 
 The schools for children are numerous, under the direction of 
 the Akkals, and they are taught to read the Koran. Sometimes, 
 when there are but few Druses in a village, and a school is 
 wanting, they suffer their children to be instructed with those of 
 Christians, and content themselves with erasing the traces of 
 Christianity from their minds when, at more mature years, they 
 are initiated into their own mysterious rites. Women, as well as 
 men, are admitted to the sacerdotal office; divorce is frequent, 
 and impunity for adultery purchased. Hospitality is sacred, and 
 neither bribe nor menace, whatever its nature, could induce a 
 Druse to betray, even to his prince, the guest who had confided 
 himself to the sanctuary of his threshold. At the time of the battle 
 of Navarino, the European inhabitants of the Syrian towns, dread¬ 
 ing the vengeance of the Turks, retired for several months among 
 the Druses, and there lived in perfect security. Their maxim, like 
 that of the Gospel, is, that all men are brothers, but they observe 
 it better than we do: our dogmas are Evangelical, our laws 
 Pagan. 
 
 In my opinion, the race of the Druses may lay claim to the 
 highest antiquity, although its source is lost in the obscurity of 
 remote ages. The cast of their physiognomy is nearly allied to 
 the Jewish, and their adoration of the calf would lead me to be¬ 
 lieve them either of Samaritan origin, or descended from those 
 people of Arabia Petrsea, who incited the Jews to that species of 
 idolatry. 
 
 Accustomed at the present day to a sort of fraternity with the 
 Christian Maronites, and detesting the Mahometan yoke,—nume¬ 
 rous, rich, susceptible of discipline, attached to agriculture and 
 commerce, they will easily incorporate with the Maronite people, 
 and will advance with the same pace in civilization, provided their 
 religious rites are respected. 
 
 THE METOUALIS. 
 
 The Metoualis, who form about a third part of the population 
 of Lower Lebanon, are Mahometans, of the sect of Ali, which is 
 
40 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 dominant in Persia, whereas the Turks belong to the sect of Omar, 
 a schism which was effected in Islamism in the thirty-sixth year 
 of the Hegira. The partisans of Ali anathematize Omar as a 
 usurper of the Kaliphates : Hussein and Ali are their saints. The 
 Metoualis, like the Persians, neither eat nor drink with the follow¬ 
 ers of any other sect than their own, and will break the glass or 
 dish which a stranger has used. They consider themselves de¬ 
 filed even if their vesture touches ours ; yet, as they are generally 
 weak and despised in Syria, they accommodate themselves to cir¬ 
 cumstances, and I have had many in my service who did not very 
 rigorously observe these intolerant precepts. Their origin is as¬ 
 certained ; they were masters of Balbec about the sixteenth cen¬ 
 tury ; their tribe, as it enlarged, extended itself at first over the 
 sides of Lebanon, about the Desert of Bekaa, which they after¬ 
 wards crossed, and mingled with the Druses, in that part of the 
 mountain that hangs over Tyre and Saide. The Emir Yousef, 
 jealous of their vicinity, armed the Druses against them, and dis¬ 
 lodged them from Saphad and the mountains of Galilee; Daher, 
 Pacha of Acre, admitted them, and formed an alliance with them 
 in 1760, when they were sufficiently numerous to furnish him 
 with ten thousand horsemen. 
 
 At this time they took possession of the ruins of Tyre, now a 
 village on the sea-coast under the name of Sour ; fought valiantly 
 against the Druses, and completely defeated the Emir Yousef’s 
 army, twenty thousand strong, though their own number was only 
 five hundred; but rage and vengeance had converted them into 
 so many heroes, and the intestine disputes which divided the Druses 
 (between the parties of the Emir Mansour and the Emir Yousef) 
 contributed to the success of the Metoualis. They afterwards 
 abandoned Daher, Pacha of Acre, and their desertion caused his 
 ruin and death, which his successor, Djezzar Pacha, cruelly re¬ 
 venged upon them. From the year 1777, Djezzar Pacha, master 
 of Saide and Acre, pursued unremittingly the destruction of this 
 people, and his persecutions compelled them to effect a reconcilia¬ 
 tion with the Druses; they joined the party of the Emir Yousef, 
 and though reduced to only seven or eight hundred warriors, they 
 achieved more in one campaign for the common cause than the 
 twenty thousand Druses and Maronites assembled at Dair-el- 
 Kamar. Single handed, they carried the strong fortress of Mar- 
 Djebaa, and put to the sword eight hundred Arnauts who defended 
 it. Driven from Balbec the following year, after a desperate re¬ 
 sistance, they took refuge to the number of five or six hundred 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 41 
 
 families, amongst the Druses and Maronites; afterwards re¬ 
 descended to the valley, and a portion of them now occupy the 
 magnificent ruins of Heliopolis, though the greater part are settled 
 on the slopes and in the valleys of Lebanon, on the Sour side. 
 The principality of Balbec has of late been the subject of an im¬ 
 placable strife between two brothers of the Harfousch family, 
 Djadjha, and Sultan, who have alternately expelled each other 
 from that heap of ruins, and have lost in the struggle more than 
 eighty members of their own house. Since 1810, the Emir 
 Djadjha has definitively reigned in Balbec. 
 
 THE ANSARIANS. 
 
 Volney has given the most judicious accounts of the Ansari- 
 ans, who occupy the western part of the chain of Lebanon, and 
 the plains of Latakia. Idolaters, like the Druses, like them also 
 they envelop their religious rites in the occult mysteries of initia¬ 
 tion. I shall only concern myself with that portion of their his¬ 
 tory which is posterior to the year 1807. 
 
 At that time a tribe of Ansarians, feigning a quarrel with 
 their chief, quitted their territory in the mountains, and came to 
 ask an asylum and protection of the Emir of Maszyad, who, 
 eagerly seizing so favorable an opportunity of weakening his ene¬ 
 mies by dividing them, received the Ansarians, as well as their 
 Scheik, Mahmoud, within the walls of Maszyad, and carried his 
 hospitality to the extent of dislodging part of the inhabitants to 
 make room for the fugitives. For several months all went on 
 quietly : but one day when most of the Ismaelites of Maszyad 
 had left the town to work in the fields, at an appointed signal, the 
 Ansarians fell upon the Emir and his son, stabbed them, took pos¬ 
 session of the castle, massacred all the Ismaelites who remained 
 in the town, and set it on fire. The next day a great number of 
 Ansarians joined the agents of this detestable conspiracy, which 
 a whole nation had kept secret for four or five months. About 
 three hundred Ismaelites perished, and the rest fled to Hama, 
 Homs, and Tripoli. 
 
 The manners and devotional exercises of the Ansarians led 
 Burkhardt to believe that they were an expatriated tribe from 
 Hindostan. It is certain that they were established in Syria long 
 previous to the Ottoman conquest. Some of them are still idola¬ 
 ters ; and the worship of the dog, which seems to have been held 
 in honor by the ancient Syrians, and to have given its name to 
 
42 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 the Dog River, Nahr-el-Kelb, near the ancient Berytus, is said to 
 be retained among several families of the Ansarians. This peo¬ 
 ple is on the decline, and might be easily driven out, or reduced 
 to subjection, by the Druses and Maronites. 
 
 18th November. 
 
 I returned from an excursion to the Monastery of Antoura, 
 one of the finest and most celebrated of Lebanon. On quitting 
 Bayreut, the road runs for some miles along the sea-shore, under 
 an arcade of trees of all forms and foliages :—mostly fruit trees, 
 as fig, pomegranate, orange, aloes, and the sycamore fig, the lat¬ 
 ter a gigantic tree, of which the luxuriant fruit, resembling small 
 figs, instead of hanging from the extremity of boughs, is attached 
 to the trunk and branches, like moss. After crossing the river 
 over the Roman bridge, the appearance of which I have before 
 described, the road follows, as far as Cape Batroun, a sandy flat, 
 formed by an arm of Lebanon projecting into the sea, and con¬ 
 sisting of one rock, through which, in remote ages, a road has 
 been scooped, commanding a magnificent view. The sides of the 
 rock are in many places covered with Greek, Latin, and Syriac 
 inscriptions, and with symbolical figures sculptured upon its face, 
 whose meaning cannot now be deciphered ; probably they relate 
 to the worship of Adonis formerly practised in these regions ; for, 
 according to tradition, temples and funereal solemnities were 
 dedicated to him near the spot where he perished, which is be¬ 
 lieved to be on the banks of the stream we have just crossed. 4 
 
 On descending from this lofty and picturesque platform, the 
 scenery suddenly changes its character. The gaze of the trav¬ 
 eler is immediately riveted on a deep contracted gorge of the 
 rock, through which his road is about to lead; here the Nahr-el- 
 Kelb, or Dog River, flows noiselessly between two perpendicular 
 walls of rock, two or three hundred feet in height; in some parts 
 occupying the whole ravine, in others leaving between its waters 
 and the rock a narrow margin covered with trees, sugar canes, 
 and rushes, which form a thick green arch on the banks and 
 sometimes over the whole bed of the river. A ruined Khan juts 
 out on a point of the rock upon the very brink of the water, oppo¬ 
 site a bridge, of which the arch is so tall and slender that it can¬ 
 not be crossed without trembling. Arab patience has cut in the 
 face of the rocks, forming this defile, some narrow stone steps, 
 which although they hang almost perpendicularly over the flood, 
 must yet, in all their alternations of ascent and descent, be trav¬ 
 ersed on horseback. We trusted to the instinct of our sure- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLV LAND. 
 
 43 
 
 footed steeds; but the steepness of the steps, the smooth polish of 
 the stones, and the depth of the precipice, made it at times impos¬ 
 sible not to close our eyes. On this very path, a few years 
 since, the Pope’s last Legate to the Maronites was precipitated by 
 a stumble of his horse into the gulf below, and perished. It 
 issues upon an elevated platform smiling with tillage, vineyards, 
 and little Maronite villages. On an opposite hill appears a pretty 
 new house, of Italian architecture, with porticoes, terraces, and 
 balustrades, constructed by Signor Lozanna, Bishop of Abydos, 
 the present Legate of the Holy See in Syria, for his winter re¬ 
 treat. He passes the summer in the Monastery of Kanobin, the 
 residence of the Patriarch, and the ecclesiastical capital of the 
 Maronites, situated much higher up the mountain, almost inacces¬ 
 sible, and in the winter buried in snow. 
 
 Signor Lozanna, a man of elegant manners, of Italian habits, 
 with a cultivated mind, profound erudition, and an acute and 
 solid understanding, has been happily chosen by the Court of 
 Rome for representing her policy and managing her influence 
 with the superior Maronite clergy ; and he would be equally 
 well adapted to these duties either at Vienna or Paris. He ex¬ 
 hibits, indeed, a model of those Roman prelates, inheritors of the 
 great, noble, and peculiar diplomacy of that government, with 
 which power is nothing, policy and personal dignity every thing. 
 
 Signor Lozanna is a Piedmontese ; he will certainly not be 
 long stationary in these solitudes ; Rome will employ him more 
 usefully in a more stormy theatre. He is one of those men who 
 justify fortune, and have her favors written beforehand on an 
 active and intelligent countenance. He judiciously affects, 
 among these people, an Oriental luxury and a solemnity of cos¬ 
 tume and manners, in the absence of which the Asiatics recognize 
 neither sanctity nor authority. He has adopted the Arabian 
 costume. His immense and carefully combed beard falls in 
 golden waves over his purple robe, and his mare, of the purest 
 Arabian blood, lively and docile to his hand, may vie with the 
 most beautiful mares of the Scheiks of the Desert. We soon 
 perceived him coming to meet us, followed by a numerous escort, 
 and fearlessly wheeling about on the rocky precipices over which 
 we advanced with the most timid caution. After the first words 
 of compliment he conducted us to his charming villa, where a 
 collation awaited us, and soon afterwards accompanied us to the 
 Monastery of Antoura, where he provisionally resided. Two 
 young Lazarite priests, who had left France since the Revolution 
 
44 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 of July, r.re now ihe sole occupants of this fine and vast convent, 
 formerly built by the Jesuits, who have frequently tried to estab¬ 
 lish their mission and influence among the Arabs, but have never 
 yet succeeded, and have little prospect of success in our days, 
 for a very simple reason—there are no polities in the religion of 
 the East; perfectly distinct from the civil power, it confers 
 neither influence nor state employment. 'I he state is Mahome¬ 
 tan ; Catholicism is free, but has no human means of domination ; 
 now as it is by human means, chiefly, that the Jesuitical system 
 has endeavored to act, and does act, upon religion, this country 
 dees not suit it. Religion is here divided into orthodox and 
 schismatic ccmmunicns, with each of whom faith is a portion of 
 the blood and spiritual inheritance of families. 
 
 Aversion, indeed irreconcilable hatred, exist in a stronger de¬ 
 gree between the various Christian communions than between the 
 Turks and Christians. Conversions are, in these countries, im¬ 
 possible, since a change of communion would brand with per¬ 
 petual opprobrium, and would often be punished with death by a 
 tribe, a village, or a family. As for the Mahometans, conversion 
 amongst them is unheard of. Their religion is a practical Deism, 
 the morality of which is the same in principle as that of Chris¬ 
 tianity, but is not founded on the doctrine of the Incarnation of 
 the Deity. The doctrine of Mahometanism is simply a belief in 
 Divine inspiration, manifested by a man w iser and more favored 
 with the celestial emanation lhan his fellow'-crealures. Some 
 miraculous operations have since been mixed upwiih the mission 
 of Mahomet, hut these legendary miracles of Islamism do not 
 form the foundation of the religion, arid are even rejected by en¬ 
 lightened Turks. All religions have their legends, their absurd 
 traditions, their popular aspects; the philosophical view of Ma¬ 
 hometanism is pure from these grosser mixtures ; it consists only 
 in resignation 10 the will of God, and charity towards men. I 
 have conversed with a great number of truly religious Turks and 
 Arabians who admitted nothing but what is reasonable and human 
 in their creed. Their reason had no efforts to make to accept 
 dogmas from w r hich it revolted. Theirs was practical and con¬ 
 templative Deism. Such men are not easily converted ; it is 
 natural to descend from marvelous to simple doctrines, but not to 
 remount from the simple to the marvelous. 
 
 Another inconvenience attended the interference of the Jesuits 
 amongst the Maronites. The very nature of their institution 
 tends to create parties, and pious factions, both among the clergy 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 45 
 
 and laity ; the very ardor of their zeal inspires either enthusiasm 
 or hatred ; nothing can remain lukewarm within their sphere. 
 The superior Maronite clergy could not regard with an eye of 
 favor the establishment, in the midst of them, of a religious fra¬ 
 ternity which threatened to wrest from their spiritual domination 
 a part of the Catholic population. 
 
 The Jesuits then no longer exist in Syria; but within these 
 few years, two young abbes, a French, and a German, have set¬ 
 tled there, on the invitation of a Maronite bishop, as professors in 
 a school which he was founding. I knew these two excellent 
 young men, both full of faith, and burning with disinterested zeal. 
 They neglected no .^eans or opportunity of propagating among 
 the Druses, their neighbors, some ideas of Christianity; but the 
 effect of their procedings was confined to baptizing in secret, and 
 unknown even to the parents, young children of families into 
 which they had introduced themselves under pretence of giving 
 medical advice. They struck me as little disposed to submit to 
 the somewhat ignorant forms of the Maronite bishops, in matters 
 of education ; and I believe they will return to Europe without 
 having succeeded in naturalizing a taste for more extended know¬ 
 ledge. The French father was worthy of a professorship at Rome 
 or Paris. 
 
 The Convent of Antoura, after the extinction of the order of 
 Jesuits, passed to the Lazarites ; the two young fathers who in¬ 
 habited it often came to visit us at Bayreut, and afforded us a soci¬ 
 ety as agreeable as unexpected ; amiable, modest, simple, solely 
 occupied with severe and elevating studies, versed in all the 
 affairs of Europe, and participating the impulse which urges 
 forward the spirit of the times; their general and intelligent con¬ 
 versation delighted us the more as being rarely to be met with in 
 those desolate regions. 
 
 When we passed an evening with them, and discussed the 
 political events of our country, the intellectual societies decaying 
 or springing up in France, the writers who dispute possession of 
 the press, or the orators who alternately obtain that of the tribune ; 
 or when we spoke of the doctrines of futurity, or those of the St. 
 Simonians, we might have imagined ourselves within two leagues 
 of the Rue du Bac chatting with men who had left Paris in the 
 morning to return to it in the evening. The two Lazarites were 
 at the same time models of sanctity, and of simple and pious 
 fervor. One of them was a great invalid ; the bleak air of Leb¬ 
 anon irritated his lungs and was shortening his days. A word 
 
 3 * 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
46 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 written to his superiors would have obtained his recall to France, 
 but he would not take it on his conscience. He came to consult 
 M. Laroyere, who accompanied me, and asked him if, in char¬ 
 acter of physician, he could formally and conscientiously give it 
 as his opinion that the air of Syria was fatal to his constitution. 
 M. Laroyere, with a conscience as scrupulous as the young 
 priest’s, hesitated to pass so decided an opinion, and the worthy 
 clergyman repressed his complaints and staid. 
 
 These ecclesiastics, lost as it were in the space of that vast 
 monastery, where a single Arab servant attended upon them, re¬ 
 ceived us with that cordiality which the name of countryman in¬ 
 spires in those who meet in far distant regions. We passed two 
 days with them, and were each accommodated with a large cell 
 containing a bed and chairs—furniture quite unusual in these 
 mountains. 
 
 The convent is situated on the skirts of a pine wood, in the 
 hollow of a valley which, at the mid-height of Lebanon, enjoys, 
 through an opening defile, a boundless vista over the coasts and 
 sea of Syria. The remainder of the landscape is filled up with 
 spiral summits of gray rock, crowned with villages and large Ma- 
 ronite monasteries. Some pines, orange and fig trees grow here 
 and there in the more sheltered nooks of the rocks and near the 
 torrents or springs. It is altogether a scene worthy of Naples or 
 of the Gulf of Genoa. 
 
 The windows of our cells looked on those of a convent of Ma- 
 ronite women, and the arrival of a company of foreigners in their 
 neighborhood, appeared to excite a lively sensation among the 
 nuns, who belong to the principal families of Lebanon. 
 
 No social utility is here attached to female convents. Volney, 
 in his Syrian Travels, mentions the convent near Antoura, and 
 the horrible atrocities practised, according to rumor, by a woman 
 named Hindia upon her novices. The name and history of the 
 said Hindia are still very rife in the mountains. Imprisoned 
 many years by order of the Maronite patriarch, her repentance 
 and good conduct at length procured her liberty; and she died 
 not long since, a reputed saint, among some Christians of her sect. 
 She was a fanatic, either real or pretended, and succeeded in ex¬ 
 citing fanaticism in a few simple and credulous imaginations. 
 This Arab land is the soil of prodigies ; any thing will take root 
 in it, and any credulous or fanatical person may become a pro¬ 
 phet in turn ; a truth of which Lady Stanhope will furnish an addi¬ 
 tional manifestation. This disposition to the marvelous proceeds 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 47 
 
 from two causes ; a religious feeling strongly developed, and a 
 want of due equilibrium between the imagination and the reason. 
 Phantoms appear only in the night, and the land of ignorance is 
 always likewise that of miracles. 
 
 The terrace of the convent of Antoura, in which we walked 
 part of each day, is shaded by the magnificent orange trees, cited 
 by Volney as the finest and most ancient in Syria. They have 
 not yet perished; but throw their deep and balmy shadow over 
 the garden and roof of the convent, like walnut trees of fifty years 
 growth in our climate ; and still bear on their trunks the names of 
 Volney and of some English travelers, who like ourselves had 
 rested at their feet. 
 
 The group of mountains which comprises Antoura is known 
 under the name of Kesrovan, or the Chain of Castravan, extend¬ 
 ing from the Nahr-el-Kebir to the Nahr-el-Kelb. This constitutes 
 the country properly called Maronite; which belongs to that peo¬ 
 ple, and to which their privileges are limited, though they are 
 daily spreading themselves over the country of the Druses, and 
 
 I carrying with them their laws and their morals. 
 
 The principal production of these mountains is silk. The 
 rniri , or territorial impost, is fixed in proportion to the mulberry 
 trees possessed by each proprietor. The Turks demand from the 
 Emir Beschir one or two miris as an annual tribute, and the Emir 
 no doubt secures several more on his own account; nevertheless, 
 and in spite of the Maronite complaints of the excess of taxation, 
 these imposts are not to be compared in degree with what we pay 
 in France or England ; it is not the rate of taxation, but its ine¬ 
 quality and arbitrary exaction that oppresses a nation. If the 
 taxes in Turkey were legal and fixed, they would scarcely be felt; 
 but while there is no determinate legal tax there, neither is there 
 any, or only a languishing and uncertain agricultural property— 
 that interest, on the flourishing condition of which the riches of a 
 nation depend. The village scheiks assess the impost, and appro¬ 
 priate a portion to themselves. 
 
 On the whole, these people are happy. Exempted from the 
 oppressions of the Turks, their nominal masters, who fear them, 
 and dare not invade their provinces, their religion is free and hon- 
 
 ! ored ; their churches and convents cover the summits of the hills; 
 their bells, which they love as the sound of liberty and indepen¬ 
 dence, chime night and day the hours of prayer in their valleys ; 
 they are governed by their own chiefs, chosen according to their 
 own customs, or succeeding by inheritance among their principal 
 
 
48 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 families ; a rigorous but just police maintains order and security 
 in the villages ; property is recognized, guaranteed, and transmis¬ 
 sible from father to son; commerce is active ; their morals are 
 perfectly simple and pure; and I have seen no population in the 
 world on whose features the impress of health, generosity of spir¬ 
 it, andcivilization, was more legible than on those of the inhabit¬ 
 ants of Lebanon. The information of the people, though limited 
 to reading, writing, arithmetic, and the Catechism, is so far uni¬ 
 versal, and gives the Maronites a legitimate ascendency over the 
 other Syrian nations. I can compare them only to the peasants 
 of Saxony and Scotland. 
 
 We returned to Bayreut by the shore, the mountains adjoin¬ 
 ing which are overspread with the monasteries, constructed in the 
 style of Florentine villas of the middle ages. A village is plant¬ 
 ed on every eminence, crowned with a forest of pines, and tra¬ 
 versed by a torrent, falling in a brilliant cascade to the bottom of 
 a ravine. Little fishing ports abound through the length of the in¬ 
 dented coast, full of small boats, attached to the moles or rocks ; 
 rich palches of vineyard, barley, and mulberry trees, slope down 
 from the villages to the sea, and the bell-towers of monasteries 
 and churches are seen above the dark verdure of the fig and cy¬ 
 press. There are two leagues of the white sandy strand separat¬ 
 ing the foot of the mountain from waves limpid and blue as those 
 of a river, which might well deceive the eye of a traveler ; if he 
 could forget the distance of eight hundred leagues intervening 
 between him and Europe, he might fancy himself on the borders 
 of the Lake of Geneva, between Lausanne and Vevay, or on the 
 enchanting banks of the Saone, between Magon and Lyons ; only 
 the frame of the picture is more majestic at Antoura, and raising 
 his eyes he will behold the snowy tips of Sannin piercing the sky, 
 like tongues of fire. 
 
 editor’s note. 
 
 The Author’s journal was here interrupted. At the begin¬ 
 ning of December he lost his only daughter; she was carried off 
 in two days, at the moment when her health, declining in France, 
 appeared to be completely re-established by the air of Asia. She 
 died in the arms of her father and mother, at a country-house in 
 the environs of Bayreut, wherein M. de Lamartine had establish¬ 
 ed his family for the winter. The vessel, which he had sent back 
 to Europe, was not expected to return to the coast of Syria, and 
 take up the travelers, till the month of May, 1833 . They re- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 49 
 
 mained, therefore, overpowered by the stroke of Providence, and 
 without any other diversion of their grief than the sympathizing 
 tears of their traveling companions and friends. In May, the 
 ship Alceste returned to Bayreut, according to agreement; but 
 the travelers, to spare the unhappy mother an additional pang, 
 declined to embark again in the same vessel which had conveyed 
 them in happiness and confidence with the charming child whom 
 they had lost. M. de Lamartine had had his daughter’s body 
 embalmed, that it might be carried back to St. Point, where, in 
 her last moments, she had testified a desire of being interred. 
 This sacred deposit he committed to the Alceste, which was to 
 sail in company, and hiring a second ship, the brig Sophia, Cap¬ 
 tain Couloune, went on board it with his wife and friends. 
 
 The Journal of his Notes is not resumed for four months after 
 his misfortune. 
 
 Previously to quitting Syria, he visited Damascus, Balbec, 
 and several other remote and memorable places, and these ex¬ 
 cursions form the subject of the remainder of this volume. 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF THE POEMS OF ANTAR. 
 
 FIRST FRAGMENT. 
 
 Antar in paying one day a visit to his uncle Mallek, was 
 agreeably surprised by the favorable reception he experienced. 
 For a welcome so new to him, he was indebted to the earnest re¬ 
 monstrances of King Zoheir, who that same morning had strongly 
 urged Mallek to accede at length to his nephew’s desire, and 
 grant him in marriage his cousin Ablla, whom he passionately 
 loved. The wedding preparations were discussed, and Ablla, 
 wishing to know her cousin’s intentions—“ I propose,” said he, 
 “ doing every thing that shall be proper for you.” 
 
 “ Well,” replied she, “ 1 ask nothing but what has been con¬ 
 ceded to others—what Kaled-Eben-Mohareb did on his marriage 
 with his cousin Djida.” 
 
 “ Simpleton,” exclaimed her father, in an angry tone, “who has 
 told you that history ?—“ No, nephew,” added he, “ we will not 
 follow that example.” 
 
 But Antar, happy in seeing his uncle for the first time so 
 kindly disposed towards him, and desirous of satisfying his cousin, 
 
50 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 entreated her to amuse him with the details of the marriage in 
 question. 
 
 “ The following,’’ said she, “ is the account given me by the 
 ladies, who came to compliment me on your return :—Kaled, on 
 the day of his marriage, killed twenty lions with his own hands, 
 besides causing a thousand camels to be slain, which belonged to 
 Malaeb-El-Assene, an emir renowned as one of the most valiant 
 of warriors; he invited and entertained for three days, three nu¬ 
 merous tribes ; every dish which he placed before his guests con¬ 
 tained some part of the flesh of the lions. The daughter of king 
 Eben-El-Nazal led by a halter the naka (camel) which 
 rode.” 
 
 “ And what is there so admirable in all this ?” rejoined Antar. 
 “By the King of Lanyam and the Hattim, no one shall lead your 
 naka but Djida herself, her husband’s head suspended round her 
 neck in a bag.” 
 
 Mallek reproved his daughter, with feigned displeasure, for 
 opening such a subject; while in reality, it was by his secret in¬ 
 stigation that his women had detailed all the particulars to Ablla, 
 for the purpose of embarrassing Antar. Satisfied with having by 
 his artifice drawn the above adjuration from his nephew, and de¬ 
 sirous of putting an end to the discourse, he made her pour him 
 out some wine, flattering himself that the attractions of his daughter 
 would engage him still deeper in an enterprise that threatened his 
 destruction. 
 
 At night, when Antar was about to retire, Mallek entreated 
 him to forget Ablla’s demands, intending indirectly to remind him 
 of them. Returning home, Antar desired his brother Chaiboub 
 to prepare him his horse, El-Abgea, and hastily mounting him, 
 he directed his steps to the mountain of Ben-Touailek. On the 
 road he related to Chaiboub the evening’s occurrence. 
 
 “ A curse upon your wicked uncle,” exclaimed his brother. 
 “ From whom, think you, did Ablla learn all this history, but from 
 her father, who is desirous to get rid of you, by plunging you into 
 such dangers.” 
 
 Antar, without paying the smallest attention to the words of 
 Chaiboub, begged him to quicken his pace that they might arrive 
 a day earlier, so eager was he to fulfil his engagement; he then 
 recited the following verses. 
 
 “ I travel over bad roads, and through the obscurity of night. 
 Full of the most ardent zeal, I traverse the desert, with my sabre for 
 my only companion, never taking account of the number of my 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 51 
 
 enemies. Follow me, ye lions! and ye shall see the earth 
 strewed with carcasses, serving as a feast to the birds of the air. 
 
 “ The name of Kaled (prosperous) shall be no longer appro¬ 
 priate, since I am in search of him. Djida no longer shall have 
 reason to be proud. 
 
 “ Their country is no longer in safety : the tigers will soon be 
 its only inhabitants. 
 
 “ Ablla, accept my congratulations, on all that shall adorn 
 your approaching triumph. 
 
 “ O thou ! whose eyes, like murderous arrows, have pierced 
 my heart with incurable wounds, thy presence is a paradise, thy 
 absence a devouring fire. 
 
 “ O Allan-El-Fandi! Blessed be thou by the Almighty God. 
 
 “ I have drunk wine more delicious than nectar; for it was 
 poured by the hand of beauty. 
 
 “ As long as light visits my eyes I will celebrate her charms; 
 and if I die for her my name cannot perish.” 
 
 As he ended, the day began to break. He pursued his way 
 towards the tribe of Ben-Zobaid. Kaled, their hero, was held in 
 higher consideration by the tribe than the king himself. So for¬ 
 midable, indeed, was his prowess, that his very name sufficed to 
 make the neighboring tribes tremble. His history and that of his 
 cousin Djida, is as follows :— 
 
 Two Emirs—Mohareb, Kaled’s father, and Zaher, Djida’s fa¬ 
 ther, governed the Bedouins called Ben-Aumaya, renowned for 
 their bravery. They were brothers : Mohareb, the elder, was 
 chief commander ; and Zaher served under his orders. One day, 
 in consequence of a warm dispute, Mohareb raised his hand 
 against his brother, who returned home, his heart bursting with 
 resentment. His wife discovering the cause of the excited state 
 in which she saw him, said“ You, the most valiant warrior of 
 our tribe;—you, whose strength and courage are so far renown¬ 
 ed,—must not endure such an affront.” 
 
 “I am bound,” answered he, “to respect an elder brother.” 
 
 “ Well, then,” added his wife, “ go, establish your dwelling 
 elsewhere; stay not here in humiliation ; adopt the precepts of 
 the poet who thus sings :— 
 
 “ ‘ Wherever you encounter obstacles and disappointments, 
 remove to a distance, though you leave the house to lament its 
 founder. 
 
 “ ‘ The body may every where find food, but the soul, once 
 lost, cannot be recovered. 
 
52 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 We should never cast our affairs on others, we can always 
 transact them best ourselves. 
 
 “ ‘ Lions are proud because they are free. 
 
 “ 1 Sooner or later man must submit to his destiny ; what 
 signifies the place of his death ? 
 
 “ ‘ Follow, then, the counsels of experience.’ ” 
 
 These words inspired Zaher with the resolution of removing 
 with all that belonged to him ; and, at the moment of his depar¬ 
 ture, he recited the following lines:— 
 
 “ I am flying far from thee, to a distance of a thousand years, 
 each a thousand leagues in length. Though you would bestow 
 on me a thousand Egypts, each watered by a thousand Niles, I 
 should prefer going far from you and from your territories, re¬ 
 peating, to justify our separation, a maxim that will never be 
 equalled,— £ Man should fly from regions where barbarism 
 reigns.’ ” 
 
 Zaher set out on his journey, and traveled till he reached 
 the tribe of Ben-Assac, where he was received with wonderful 
 kindness, and elected their chief. Zaher, full of gratitude, esta¬ 
 blished himself with them ; and a daughter was soon after born 
 to him, named Djida, whom he passed for a boy, and brought up 
 under the name of Giaudar; making her ride with him on horse¬ 
 back, accustoming her to combat, and exercising in this manner 
 her natural talents and courage. She was instructed by a learn¬ 
 ed man of the tribe in the arts of reading and writing, in which 
 she soon made a rapid proficiency ; and uniting extreme beauty 
 to these high qualities, she was perfection ; and it was every * 
 where said, “ Happy is the woman who shall marry the Emir 
 Giaudar.” 
 
 Her father was t.ken dangerously ill, and, believing himself 
 at the point of death, sent for his wife, and thus addressed her: — 
 “I conjure you, after my death, to contract no second marriage 
 that might separate you from your daughter; but let her conti¬ 
 nue to pass for a man. If, when I am gone, you do not enjoy 
 here the same consideration, return to my brother, who, I am 
 certain, will receive you kindly. Carefully preserve your rich¬ 
 es, for money will every where ensure you respect. Be generous 
 and affable, and you will find yourself rewarded. In short, act 
 always as you now do.” 
 
 After some days’ illness, Zaher recovered ; while Giaudar 
 continued to prosper in war, and manifested on all occasions such 
 extraordinary valor that it became a proverb :—“ Beware of ap¬ 
 proaching the tribe of Giaudar.” 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 53 
 
 Kaled, meanwhile, attended his father Mohareb, in his daily 
 martial exercises, which were actual warfare, several of the 
 combatants being always wounded ; and thus was Kaled’s ambi¬ 
 tion stimulated to become a formidable warrior; his cousin’s re- 
 putation for bravery supplying an additional spur to his emula¬ 
 tion. He ardently longed to see this much talked of cousin, but, 
 aware of the dissensions existing between their parents, durst not 
 attempt it. At the age of fifteen, when he had the misfortune to 
 lose his father, Kaled had become the bravest warrior of his tribe. 
 He was chosen to replace Mohareb, and as he already displayed 
 the same virtues, he was not long in gaining the general esteem 
 and respect. He one day proposed to his mother a visit to his 
 uncle, and forth they proceeded, followed by rich presents of 
 horses, harness, arms, &c. 
 
 Zaher welcomed them most graciously, and treated his nephew 
 in particular, w'hose reputation had already reached him, with 
 the utmost attention and affection. Kaled tenderly embraced 
 his cousin Giaudar, for whom he conceived a warm attachment 
 during the short time he passed with his uncle. Every day was 
 devoted to military exercises which delighted Giaudar, who saw 
 in Kaled an accomplished warrior, full of courage and generosity, 
 affable, eloquent, and endowed, with masculine beauty. They 
 passed entire days, and even a great part of their nights together. 
 At length, so ardently was Giaudar attached to Kaled, that one 
 day, entering her mother’s chamber, she said, “If my cousin re¬ 
 turns to his tribe without me, I shall die of grief, fori love him 
 passionately.” 
 
 “ I am far from disapproving your passion,” replied her 
 mother ; “ you have reason to love him, for he is formed to in¬ 
 spire attachment. He is your cousin ; you are of the same 
 blood, almost of the same age, and he can never find a more suit¬ 
 able match than in you. But let me first speak to his mother, 
 and acquaint her with your sex ; when she comes to me accord¬ 
 ing to her daily custom, I will inform her of the fact; we will 
 then arrange your marriage, and all set out together.” 
 
 The next morning she set herself to the employment of comb¬ 
 ing her daughter’s beautiful tresses, at the usual hour of her visit 
 from Kaled’s mother; and when the latter inquired who that 
 charming girl was, she related Djida’s history, and explained that 
 it was her father’s will to disguise her in male attire. 
 
 “ I reveal this secret to you,” said she, “ because I wish to 
 give her in marriage to your son.” 
 
54 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 “ I consent with all my heart, 5 ’ replied Kaled’s mother. 
 
 “ What an honor will it be to my son to possess so pre-eminent 
 a beauty! 55 
 
 She then went in search of Kaled, and repeated the story to 
 him, affirming that no living woman was comparable in beauty 
 with his cousin. 
 
 “ Go then,” said she, “ to your uncle and demand her in mar¬ 
 riage ; and if he is willing to grant her, you will be the happiest 
 of mortals.” 
 
 “ I had resolved,” replied her son, “ to part no more from 
 my co g in, so strongly was I attached to her while I thought her 
 a boy ; but as she is a girl, I will have no more concern with her ; 
 
 I prefer the society of warriors; I prefer combats, or the chase 
 of the elephant and lion, to the possession of beauty ; let me hear 
 no more, therefore, of this marriage, for I am resolved to depart 
 this very instant.” 
 
 He accordingly ordered the preparations for his departure, and 
 went to take leave of his uncle, who inquired what hurried him 
 away, and begged him to stay a few days longer. 
 
 “Impossible, 55 replied Kaled, “my tribe is destitute of its 
 chief, I must return to it.” Saying these words he set out ac¬ 
 companied by his mother, who had bade adieu to her sister-in-law, 
 and reported to her her conversation with her son. 
 
 When informed of her cousin’s refusal, Djida was plunged 
 into the deepest grief, and could neither eat nor sleep, so violent 
 was her passion. Her father, seeing her in such a condition, be¬ 
 lieved her ill, and ceased to carry her with him on his excursions; 
 one day, when he was gone to a distance to surprise a hostile 
 tribe, she said to her mother : “ I will not die for one who has 
 treated me with so little consideration. Lknow how, by the aid 
 of Providence, to retaliate upon him all my sufferings, even that 
 of love.” Then rising with the fury of a chafed lioness, she 
 mounted her horse, telling her mother she was going to the chase, 
 and set out under the disguise of a Bedouin, from Kegiaz, for the 
 tribe of her cousin. She was lodged with one of the chiefs, who 
 taking her for a warrior, received her most hospitably. The 
 next day she attended the martial exercises commanded by her 
 cousin, and commenced with him a contest which lasted till mid¬ 
 night. The combat of two such heroes elicited the admiration of 
 all the spectators ; and Kaled, astonished to the last degree of 
 meeting with a chief who could make head against him, ordered 
 every possible attention to be paid to his antagonist. The fol- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 55 
 
 lowing day the struggle was resumed, and lasted throughout the 
 third and fourth days; all which time Kaled made every possible 
 efforts to discover who the stranger was, but without success. 
 The combat continued till the fourth night, and neither of them 
 had been able to inflict a wound on the other ; at its conclusion 
 Kaled, addressing his adversary, said :—“ In the name of that 
 God who has endued you with such marvelous valor, let me 
 know your country and tribe ! Upon which Djida raising her mask, 
 replied, “ I am the cousin who, smitten with your accomplishments, 
 offered my self to you in marriage, but was refused because you pre¬ 
 ferred the combat and the chase to the possession of a wife. I am 
 come to make you feel the courage and bravery of her whom you 
 have rejected !” 
 
 With these words she resumed her mask, and went home ; 
 leaving Kaled melancholy, irresolute, deprived of strength and 
 courage, and so lost in admiration that he became insensible. On 
 his recovery, his taste for war and the chase of wild beasts had 
 given place to love. He went home, and imparted to his mother his 
 sudden change of sentiment, relating his contest with his cousin. 
 
 “You deserve all that has happened,” said she ; “ you would 
 not believe me, and your cousin has acted properly in punishing 
 your haughtiness towards her.” Kaled represented that he was 
 not in a state to bear her reproaches, but rather stood in need of 
 compassion, and entreated her to demand his cousin for him ; upon 
 which she immediately set out for Djida’s tribe, in great anxiety 
 for her son, whom she left in a deplorable condition. 
 
 Djida, after discovering herself to her cousin, returned home ; 
 to her mother, who had been uneasy at her absence, she related 
 her adventure, and astonished her by the recital of so much prow¬ 
 ess. Three days after her return, arrived Kaled’s mother, and 
 desired to be immediately introduced to Djida; whom she told 
 that she came as ambassadress from her son, to propose their 
 union; and informed her at the same time of the sad state in 
 which she had left Kaled. 
 
 “Such a marriage is henceforth impossible,” said Djida. 
 “ I will never marry him who has refused me, though I was wil¬ 
 ling to give him a lesson, and punish him for making me suffer so 
 severely.” 
 
 Her aunt represented, that if he had occasioned her some pain, 
 he was at present far more miserable than herself:—“ Though I 
 should die,” replied Djida, “I will never be his wife.” 
 
 Her father being still absent, Kaled’s mother could not apply 
 
56 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 to him, and finding she had no chance of obtaining any thing from 
 Djida, she went back to her son, whom shg found sick with love, 
 and much altered ; and reported to him the result of her mission, 
 which augmented his misery and despair. “ There remains,” 
 said she, “ but one course for you. Go in person, attended by the 
 chiefs of our tribe, and the tribes in alliance with us, to demand 
 her of her father ; if he answers that he has no daughter, tell him 
 your history; he cannot longer deny the fact, and will be obliged 
 to yield her to you.” 
 
 Kaled instantly convoked the chiefs and old men of the tribe, 
 and recounted to them all that had happened ; which recital filled 
 them with astonishment. “ It is a wonderful history,” said Mehdi 
 Kazab, one of the elders, “ and deserves to be written in letters of 
 gold. We are ignorant that your uncle had a daughter, we have 
 heard only of his son named Giaudar. Who then is this heroine ? 
 We will accompany you when you go to demand her hand, of 
 which no one can be more worthy than yourself.” 
 
 Kaled, being assured of his uncle’s return, departed, attended 
 by twenty principal chiefs of his tribe, and a hundred horsemen, 
 and followed by magnificent presents. Zaher received them hos¬ 
 pitably, though being ignorant of his nephew’s encounter with 
 his daughter, the speedy return of the former was quite incom¬ 
 prehensible to him. The fourth day after his arrival, Kaled kissed 
 his uncle’s hand, and asked his cousin in marriage, supplicating 
 her father to return and reside with him: and when Zaher main¬ 
 tained that his boy Giaudar was the only child God had blessed 
 him with, Kaled related the whole of his adventures. Zaher, dis¬ 
 turbed by the recital, was for some moments silent. “ I had for¬ 
 gotten,” said he at length, “that my secret might one day be 
 disclosed ; but since it is so, you may above all other men pretend 
 to your cousin’s hand, and I grant it you.” 
 
 The price of Djida was afterwards determined, in presence 
 of witnesses, at a thousand red camels laden with the finest pro¬ 
 ductions of Yeman. When Zaher entered his daughter’s cham¬ 
 ber, and informed her of the engagement into which he had just 
 entered with Kaled :—“ I assent to it,” replied she, “ on condition 
 that on my wedding-day, my cousin shall kill a thousand of 
 the choicest camels of Melaeb-el-Assene, of the tribe of Ben 
 Hamer.” 
 
 Her father smiled at her demand, but answered for his ne¬ 
 phew’s acceptance of the condition. The entreaties of the latter 
 having prevailed on his uncle to return with him, they set out the 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 57 
 
 following morning, and Zaher experienced every possible atten¬ 
 tion and respect from his former tribe, who conferred on him the 
 first rank amongst them. 
 
 The day after his arrival, Kaled, at the head of a thousand 
 chosen warriors, surprised the tribe of Ben-Hamer, and, after a 
 sanguinary engagement dangerously wounded Melaeb, whom he 
 despoiled of more than the thousand camels required by Djida, 
 and came home in triumph. 
 
 Some days afterwards, as he was supplicating his uncle to 
 hasten their marriage, his cousin told him that he should never 
 see her under his tent unless he brought her the wife or daughter 
 of one of the most valiant Emirs of Kail, to hold the bridle of her 
 camel on her wedding-day ; “ For, 5 ’ added she, “ I would be the 
 envy of all other maidens.” 
 
 To satisfy this new demand, Kaled, at the head of a numerous 
 army, attacked the tribe of Nihama Eben-el-Nazal, and after 
 several battles, succeeded in seizing Aniame, daughter of Nihama, 
 and carrying her off with him. Djida having no further requisi¬ 
 tions to make, he went to a lion hunt. 
 
 On the eve of his wedding-day, on his way to the chase, he 
 encountered a warrior, who advancing towards him, commanded 
 him in a loud voice to surrender himself, and instantly dismount 
 on pain of death. Kaled’s only reply was an eager career against 
 his unknown enemy ; the combat was fierce, and lasted more than 
 an hour, when, wearied by the resistance of an enemy whom he 
 could not overcome, “ Son of an accursed race !” exclaimed 
 Kaled, “ who are you ? what is your tribe ? and wherefore come 
 you here to hinder my prosecution of a chase so important to me ? 
 A malediction upon you ! let me at least know whether I am con¬ 
 tending with an emir or a slave.” 
 
 His antagonist, raising the visor of his helmet, answered with 
 a smile, “ How can a warrior address a maiden in such terms ?” 
 
 Kaled, recognizing his cousin, was struck dumb with shame 
 and confusion, and had not a word to reply. 
 
 “I thought,” continued Djida, “ your chase might be difficult, 
 and am come to your assistance.” 
 
 “ By the All-Powerful!” exclaimed Kaled, “ I know no war¬ 
 rior whose valor equals thine, O queen of beauty!” 
 
 They then separated, engaging to meet in the evening at the 
 same spot; and there accordingly they rejoined each other, Kaled 
 having killed a lion, and Djida a lion and a lioness. After com¬ 
 paring their spoils, they again parted company, more than ever 
 enchanted with each other. 
 
58 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 The marriage was celebrated for three days with every species 
 of rejoicing. More than a thousand camels and twenty lions 
 were slain ; the lions by Kaled’s own hand, those two only ex¬ 
 cepted which his cousin’s hunting had provided. Aniame led by 
 the bridle the naka which bore Djida, and the two lovers were at 
 the summit of felicity. 
 
 Zaher died soon after their union, leaving the supreme com¬ 
 mand to his children, Kaled and Djida; which two heroes, in al¬ 
 liance, soon became the terror of the desert. 
 
 Let us now return to Antar and his brother. When they ap¬ 
 proached the encampment, Antar sent his brother to reconnoitre 
 the disposition of the ground and the situation of Kaled’s tent, 
 that he might take measures for attacking him; and Chaiboub, in 
 announcing next day the result of his survey, told him his good 
 fortune exceeded the malice of his uncle, since Kaled was absent. 
 
 “ There are but a hundred horsemen of the tribe,” said he, 
 “ with Djida. Her husband is gone away with Mehdi-Karab, 
 and she is charged to watch over the public safety; every night 
 she is on horseback, followed by a score of her horsemen; and as 
 I hear from her slaves, sometimes rides to a distance.” 
 
 Antar, in raptures at this news, told his brother he hoped to 
 make Djida prisoner that very evening; that Chaiboub’s task 
 should be to arrest at a narrow pass the flight of her companions, 
 lest any of them should arouse the tribe, who might in that case 
 pursue them. 
 
 “ If you let but one escape,” said he, “ I will cut off your right 
 hand.” 
 
 “ I will do all you command,” said Chaiboub, “ being here on 
 purpose to aid you.” 
 
 Having lurked in concealment all day, they reapproached the 
 tribe after sunset, when they soon perceived several horsemen 
 advancing towards them, with Djida at their head, singing these 
 verses:— 
 
 “ The dust of the horses is very great: war is my element. 
 
 “ The lion hunt is a glory and triumph to other warriors, but 
 I am indifferent to it. 
 
 “ The stars bear witness that the bravery of my fathers is ef¬ 
 faced by mine. 
 
 “ Who dares oppose my path, when I scour by night the 
 mountains or the plain ? 
 
 “ I have acquired more glory than any one, by the overthrow 
 of the most redoubted warriors.” 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 59 
 
 When she had ended her song, Antar, who had been listening 
 to it, told his brother to take the left side, and throwing himsslf 
 on the right, uttered his war-cry in so terrible a voice as to spread 
 dismay among the twenty martial attendants of Djida, whom he 
 assaulted without loss of time ; he slew her horse at one stroke of 
 his sabre, and stunned herself by a violent blow on the head; 
 then leaving her, he turned upon her companions, killed twelve of 
 them presently, and put the rest to flight. Chaiboub, who awaited 
 them at the pass, brought down six with his arrows, and Antar, 
 running to his assistance, easily mastered the other two. He then 
 told his brother to run quickly and bind Djida, before the return 
 of her consciousness, and to carry her off on one of the horses 
 whose riders they had just killed. 
 
 But Djida, after lying senseless for an hour, had recovered, 
 and catching one of the abandoned horses, threw herself upon it. 
 Directed to Antar by the sound of his voice, she drew her sabre, 
 saying to him— 
 
 “ Flatter not thyself, son of an accursed race, with seeing 
 Djida fall into thy power ; I am here to make thee bite the dust, 
 and thou wouldst never have seen me on the ground, but for thy 
 good fortune in killing my horse.” 
 
 With these words she thrust at Antar with the fury of a lion¬ 
 ess robbed of her young; he bravely sustained the onset, and a 
 desperate struggle ensued, which lasted three hours without any 
 decided advantage on either side, till both were overcome by fa¬ 
 tigue. Chaiboub watched at a distance to intercept any succor 
 that might arrive to Djida, who, though weakened by her fall, and 
 wounded in several places, still offered an obstinate resistance in 
 the vain hope of rescue. At length Antar, rushing upon her, 
 seized her by the throat, and again depriving her of sense, profit¬ 
 ed by the opportunity to disarm her and bind her hands. Chai¬ 
 boub then pressed his brother to hasten his departure with his 
 prize, before the events of the night should come to the knowledge 
 of Djida’s tribe and its allies, and they should be pursued. But 
 Antar refused, resolving not to return to Ben-Abess without booty. 
 
 “We cannot,” said he, “ so lightly abandon the noble herds 
 of this tribe ; we should have to return a second time on the occa¬ 
 sion of Ablla’s marriage. Let us wait till they are brought out 
 to pasturage at day-break, when we will seize them, and after¬ 
 wards retrace our steps to Ben-Abess.” 
 
 In the morning, when the herds came out to their pastures, 
 Antar made himself master of a thousand nakas,—a thousand 
 
60 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 camels with their herdsmen, and committed them to the charge of 
 Chaiboub to drive home, staying behind himself to disperse their 
 guards, amongst whom his sabre made terrible havoc. All who 
 could escape ran to the tribe, and reported that a single Negro 
 warrior had taken possession of all their herds, killed a great 
 many of their party, and still remained on the field of battle, 
 waiting to be attacked ; and “ we have reason to believe/’ added 
 they, “ that he has killed or taken Djida.” 
 
 “ Can the world produce a champion,” said Giabe, one of their 
 most renowned chiefs, “ who could make head against Djida, 
 much less conquer her !” 
 
 The others, knowing her to have left the camp over night, and 
 finding that she did not return, concluded that she was following 
 the chase. They agreed, however, immediately to set out to re¬ 
 cover their cattle, and marched in companies of twenty or thirty, 
 till they encountered Antar, who on horseback, and leaning on his 
 lance, awaited the combat. “ Madman !” they all cried to him 
 at once, “ who art thou who comest hither to seek certain death V’ 
 Antar, without deigning any reply, impetuously assaulted them ; 
 and though their number amounted to eighty, he easily routed 
 them, after wounding many. 
 
 He then thought of rejoining his brother, lest the camel-drivers 
 should get the better of him ; but he had no sooner set forward 
 than he observed a cloud of dust rising in the midst of the desert; 
 conceiving it to be the enemy, “To-day,” said he, “ 1 must show 
 myself a man.” Fie then continued his route till he met Chai¬ 
 boub returning. Antar inquired what he had done with Djida and 
 the herds. 
 
 “ When the herdsmen,” answered his brother, “ beheld yon¬ 
 der column of dust, they revolted, and refused to proceed, declar¬ 
 ing it to be Kaled returning with his army. I killed three, but 
 knowing you to be alone against a host, I am come to your assist¬ 
 ance.” 
 
 “Coward,” rejoined Antar, “you were frightened, and have 
 deserted Djida and the cattle, but I swear by the Almighty, I will 
 this day perform prodigies which shall be celebrated for centuries 
 to come.” 
 
 So saying, he hastily traced the steps of Djida, whom the 
 herdsmen had unbound after the departure of Chaiboub. She 
 was on horseback, but faint and unarmed. Antar, after killing 
 four of the herdsmen, being unable to arrest the flight of the re¬ 
 mainder, pursued Djida, who was flying towards the advancing 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 61 
 
 army, which she supposed to belong to her tribe. But when she 
 found herself in the midst of the troop, she heard them hailing 
 her foe with these words : “ Antar, most valiant of heroes, we 
 come to your aid though you need not our succor.” 
 
 It was the army of Ben-Abess, commanded by King Zoheir in 
 person; who missing Antar, and dreading that his uncle, accord¬ 
 ing to custom, had despatched him on some perilous enterprise, 
 summoned Chidad, his father, to make inquiries after him; and 
 unable to gain any intelligence from him, he next questioned Mal- 
 lek, who affected to be no better informed ; but Chidad, knowing 
 the frankness of Ablla’s nature, interrogated her, and soon learnt 
 the whole truth ; which being communicated to the king, the 
 princes, his sons, enraged against Mallek, determined on instantly 
 proceeding in search of Antar, asseverating that if they found him 
 safe and sound, his marriage should be solemnized the instant of 
 his return ; and if he should have perished, the death of the 
 treacherous Mallek should avenge the loss their tribe would sus¬ 
 tain in the loss of so inestimable a hero. Informed of the project 
 of his sons, Chass and Mallek, the king resolved on putting him¬ 
 self at the head of his bravest troops; and he forthwith quitted 
 the tribe followed by four thousand horsemen. Mallek, who was 
 of the number, inquired as they went, what was the king’s design ? 
 
 “ I am going,” replied Zoheir, “ to extricate Antar from the 
 rash enterprise in which you have involved him.” 
 
 “ I assure you,” returned Mallek, “ I have no knowledge of 
 any such. Ablla alone is to blame ; and she shall answer it with 
 her head.” 
 
 Chass here interposed. “ On my honor, Mallek,” said he “ it 
 were far better that you were disposed of; were I not restrained 
 by respect for my father, and by friendship for Antar, I would 
 make your own head fly from your shoulders.” Then striking 
 him sharply with the flat of his sabre, he commanded him to be 
 gone. 
 
 Mallek returned to the tribe, and assembling his kinsmen and 
 friends, imparted to them the affront he had sustained, and his 
 resolution to detach himself from the sway of Zoheir ; he accord¬ 
 ingly withdrew to a distance with seven hundred of his own 
 followers, accompanied by El-Rabek, one of the most celebrated 
 chiefs, and Herone-Eben-El-Wuard, at the head of a hundred 
 picked horsemen. 
 
 They marched all day, and at night pitched their tents to hold 
 a council and determine whither they should go, and what tribe 
 
 VOL. n. 4 
 
62 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 they should join. “ We are more than seven hundred in number,” 
 said El-Rabek, “ let us wait here for news from Antar; if he 
 escapes the danger he is gone to seek, and returns to Een-Abess, 
 Zoheir will unquestionably come and seek us; if he perishes, we 
 will remove further.” This counsel prevailed, and they remained 
 where they were. Zoheir continued his march in search of An¬ 
 tar, and rested not till he met him in pursuit of Djida. The life 
 of the unfortunate heroine was saved, and she was again bound, 
 and confided to the care of Chaiboub. 
 
 Antar, on perceiving the king, threw himself, from his horse, 
 and kissed the royal sandal, saying : “ My lord does his slave too 
 much honor; why take so much trouble for me ?” 
 
 “ What,” said Zoheir, “ would you have me leave such a 
 hero alone in an enemy’s country? You should have informed 
 me of your uncle’s demands, that I might either have satisfied 
 him from my own herds, or have accompanied you in your 
 perilous expedition.” 
 
 Antar, having returned thanks, saluted the king’s two sons, 
 Chass and Mallek, and his own father Chidad, who related to him 
 the proceedings of Ablla’s father. “ My uncle,” said Antar, “ is 
 aware of my love for his daughter, and abuses the power it gives 
 him; but thanks to God, and to the terror inspired by our King 
 Zoheir, I have attained my object; and if I had been accompanied 
 by fifty horsemen should have been master of all the herds of the 
 three tribes, which were quite undefended; but you are come, 
 and we will seize them. It shall never be said that the King 
 made a useless campaign. He must repose here a day or two, 
 while we go and plunder these tribes.” 
 
 Zoheir approved the project, and had the tents pitched on the 
 spot, especially recommending the warriors who were to join the 
 expedition, to respect the women. They were absent three days, 
 and almost without a contest carried off so prodigious a spoil that 
 the king was perfectly amazed. 
 
 The following day the order for departure being given, the 
 army took the road homewards, to the satisfaction of all, if we 
 except Djida, who, encircled by a number of horsemen, was 
 mounted on a camel, led by a negro. At three days’ march from 
 the residence of their tribe, they encamped in a vast plain, and 
 Antar observing that it was well adapted for battle, the king 
 
 pointed out to him that it was equally suitable for the chase:_ 
 
 “ But,” replied Antar, “ I love war alone, and a long abstinence 
 from battle is grievous to me.” 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 63 
 
 Some hours afterwards a thick dust was perceived, apparently 
 directing its course towards the camp ; then the steel points of 
 lances were descried gleaming in the sunbeams, and confused 
 lamentations soon after reached the ear. Zoheir, supposing this 
 to be Kaled’s army, returning with their prisoners from their 
 attack on the tribe of Ben-Amar, cautioned Antar to prepare for 
 battle. 
 
 “ Be not uneasy,” replied he ; “ these warriors will soon be 
 in your power.” Eager to try his strength with the enemy, he 
 instantly ordered all hostile preparations, leaving ten horsemen 
 and several negroes, to guard the booty. 
 
 Before we proceed further it is necessary to bring the 
 reader acquainted with the advancing army. Kaled, who had 
 departed with five thousand warriors, and the two chiefs Kaiss- 
 Eben-Mouchek and Mehdi Karab, to attack Ben-Amar, found 
 the country deserted; for the inhabitants, having had warning, 
 had retreated with all the treasure to the mountains. He 
 had, therefore, made no booty, and as they were returning 
 without the acquisition of a single camel, his companions urged 
 him to surprise the tribe of Ben-Abess, the richest of the 
 district. Kaled, taking the road towards this tribe, had met 
 the camp of Ablla’s father, attacked it, and after a battle of a 
 whole day’s duration, had taken prisoners the remaining war¬ 
 riors who composed it, as well as the women and cattle. Ablla 
 rejoiced that, by falling into the power of Kaled, she escaped 
 the still greater misfortune of a marriage her father wished 
 to force her into with one of her kinsmen, named Amara—pre¬ 
 ferring captivity to being the wife of any other than Antar. 
 
 She called incessantly upon him; “ Dear Antar, where 
 
 are you? Why cannot you see the situation I am in?” 
 Kaled inquired of the prisoners who this woman was who so 
 repeatedly pronounced the same name, and was answered by a 
 sworn foe of Antar, that her name was Ablla, and that she had 
 required her cousin to bring Djida as a captive to hold the bridle 
 of her naka on the day of her marriage. “ We withdrew from our 
 tribe,” added he, “ not choosing to accompany the King Zoheir, 
 who has set out on this enterprise with all his followers, except 
 three hundred left to guard Ben-Abess under the command of 
 Warka, one of his sons.” 
 
 Kaled, enraged at this intelligence, despatched Mehdi-Ka- 
 rab, at the head of a thousand troops, to carry off the women 
 and cattle of Ben-Abess, with orders to massacre every man 
 
64 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND 
 
 u 
 
 a 
 
 they should find. He meanwhile proceeded on his way to re¬ 
 join his own tribe, treating his prisoners very harshly, and in 
 considerable anxiety for Djida, which found vent and solace 
 in verse. 
 
 “ I have led to battle horses harnessed with iron, and bearing 
 warriors more terrible than lions. 
 
 “ I have traversed the lands of Ben-Kenneb, Ben-Amar, 
 and Ben-Kelal. At my approach the inhabitants fled to the 
 mountains. 
 
 “Ben-Abess is in imminent danger; day and night its people 
 shall weep. 
 
 All those who have escaped the carnage are my captives. 
 How many maidens whose bright eyes are dimmed with 
 tears, call Ben-Abess to their succor ! But Ben-Abess is in 
 chains. 
 
 “ Zoheir is gone to seek death in a land where the wo¬ 
 men are more valiant than the men. Woe to him if the 
 truth has been told me ! He has left the substance for the 
 shadow ! 
 
 “ The day of combat will decide which of us two is de¬ 
 ceived. 
 
 “ My blade rejoices in my victorious hand. The steel of my 
 enemy sheds tears of blood. 
 
 “ The most invincible warriors see me and tremble. 
 
 “ My name must trouble their sleep, if terror will suffer them 
 to taste repose. 
 
 “ Did I not fear the imputation of arrogance, I would say that 
 my single arm suffices to shake the universe.” 
 
 As this triumphant boast escaped his lips, Kaled stood in 
 the presence of the army of Ben-Abess. k' The cries and la¬ 
 mentations of the prisoners having reached the ears of Antar 
 and his warriors, they seemed to recognize familiar voices, 
 and gave notice to Zoheir, who immediately sent a horseman, 
 named Abssi, to reconnoitre the enemy. Kaled, descrying him 
 from afar, exclaimed, “ Here comes a messenger from Ben- 
 Abess to make me proposals ; but I will listen to none. My 
 purpose is a war of extermination; or if we make prisoners, all 
 shall be slaves. But whence all that cattle which I see ? with¬ 
 out doubt they have plundered our tribe while Djida was hunting 
 lions.” 
 
 Saying this, he sent Zebaide, one of his warriors, to meet the 
 envoy of Zoheir, with orders to inquire his mission, and to ascer- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 65 
 
 tain the fate of Djida. Scarcely had they met when Zebaide 
 cried, “ O thou who comest here in search of death, declare thy 
 mission quickly before thy head rolls in the dust.” 
 
 “ I despise thy vain menaces,” replied Abssi, “ and will 
 soon prove them in the field of battle. My mission is three¬ 
 fold : to bring you news, to give you warning, and to obtain 
 information. The news I bring is, that we have seized upon 
 your women and your cattle. I warn you that we are about 
 to give you battle under the command of the valiant Antar; 
 and I desire to be informed what booty you have taken, be¬ 
 cause we know that you have attacked the three tribes Ben- 
 Kennab, Ben-Amar, and Ben-Kelal. I have spoken ; do you 
 reply ?” 
 
 “ It cost us no trouble,” said Zebaide, “ to secure this booty ; 
 the terror of Kaled’s name sufficed.” He then related the cap¬ 
 ture of Ablla’s father, adding that a thousand warriors had been 
 sent to surprise Ben-Abess: “ 1 now,” continued he, “in my turn 
 demand news of Djida.” 
 
 “ She is a prisoner,” answered Abssi, “ and suffering greatly 
 from her wounds.” 
 
 “ Who then has been able to conquer her, whose bravery 
 equals her husband’s?” said the envoy of Kaled. 
 
 “A hero whom nothing can resist,” replied Abssi,” “Antar, 
 the son of Chidad.” 
 
 The two ambassadors having fulfilled their mission, returned to 
 give an account of it to their respective chiefs. Immediately on 
 his arrival, Abssi exclaimed : “ Fly to arms, O Ben-Abess, to 
 avenge the affront which Ben-Zobaid has offered you.” Then 
 turning to Zoheir, he thus addressed him in verse:— 
 
 “ Ben-Abess, surprised by the enemy, is become a depopulated 
 habitation. The besom of destruction has passed over her’ and 
 the echoes alone are left to lament her. 
 
 “ You have been stripped of your substance ; your people 
 have been murdered ; your children and your wives are in the 
 power of the enemy. Listen to their anguished cries, they call 
 upon you for succor. Ben-Zobaid is triumphant j fly to avenge 
 yourself. 
 
 “ O Antar, could you have seen the despair of Ablla ! How 
 greatly it surpassed that of her companions. 
 
 “ Her garments are steeped in tears; and the earth itself is 
 inundated with them. 
 
 “ Ablla the fairest of the fair. 
 
66 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 “ Fly then to arms ! the time has come to conquer or to die. 
 May death follow every blow of your terrible arm. ” 
 
 “ Zoheir could not suppress his tears at this recital. His 
 affliction was participated by all the chiefs who surrounded him. 
 Antar alone experienced a degree of satisfaction on learning the 
 melancholy fate of his uncle, the cause of all his misfortunes ; 
 but in the sorrows of love, he soon forgot the pleasures of ven¬ 
 geance. 
 
 Kaled’s envoy presented himself before his lord with this chant 
 on his lips :— 
 
 “ O Ben-Zobaid, you have been surprised by the warriors of 
 Ben-Abess, borne on chargers fleet as the wind. 
 
 “Your most gracious possessions have been snatched from 
 your grasp. 
 
 “ Will you be generous to those who have even carried off 
 your wives? 
 
 “ 0 Ivaled, couldst thou but see Djida, her eyes bathed in 
 tears. 
 
 “ O thou most dreadful of warriors, fly, sabre in hand, to at¬ 
 tack thy enemies. 
 
 “ The death of the brave is preferable to a life of dishonor. 
 
 “ Let not the wicked brand us with the reproach of cowardice.” 
 
 At this recital, the enraged Kaled gave orders to march to the 
 combat; and Zoheir perceiving the movement, advanced to the 
 encounter at the head of his forces. The plain and the mountains 
 shook at the concussion of the two armies. Zoheir addressing 
 Antar, said, “ The enemy is numerous, this day will be dreadful.” 
 
 “ My Lord,” replied Antar, “ man can die but once. This is 
 the day I have so ardently desired. Though Ccesar and the King 
 of Persia were with Kaled, I would deliver our wives and chil¬ 
 dren or perish.” And he then added in verse : 
 
 u Man, whatever his circumstances, should never endure con¬ 
 tempt. 
 
 “ He who is generous to his guests, owes them the assistance 
 of his arm. 
 
 “ When valor fails to confer victory, we must learn to sup¬ 
 port our destiny. 
 
 “ Our friends must be protected, and our lances stained with 
 the blood of our enemies. 
 
 “ He who is a stranger to these virtues, is unworthy ef esteem. 
 
 “ Would that I might, single-handed, cope with the enemy. 
 
 “ I will reconquer to-day all that we have been plundered of. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 67 
 
 “ The highest mountains shall tremble at the battle I am about 
 to wane. 
 
 o 
 
 “ Let Ablla rejoice, the end of her captivity approaches.” 
 
 Chass, as he heard these words, exclaimed, “ May thy voice 
 be always heard, O thou who excellest all sages in eloquence, and 
 all warriors in valor.” 
 
 Before the engagement Kaled gave orders for taking as many 
 prisoners as possible. 
 
 Antar drew to the side where the captives were posted, to at¬ 
 tempt the deliverance of Ablla, but found them guarded by a 
 considerable number of horsemen. Kaled in the same manner 
 approached the station of Djida, flattering himself that Ben-Abess 
 could not hold out for an hour against him. 
 
 O 
 
 He commenced the attack by a charge against the warriors 
 immediately surrounding Zoheir, and succeeded in wounding 
 Chass, whose father defended himself like a lion. The combat 
 lasted till the darkness of night separated the two armies, and 
 each withdrew to its camp. 
 
 Antar, on his return, after performing prodigies of valor, 
 was informed by the king that Kaled had wounded his son. “ By 
 the Almighty,” answered he, “ to-morrow shall commence with 
 my conquest of Kaled ; I ought to have achieved it to-day, but I 
 have wasted my time in vain endeavors to release Ablla. Kaled, 
 once slain, or my prisoner, his army will quickly disperse, and 
 we shall then have no difficulty in delivering our unfortunate 
 friends. Ben-Zobaid shall see that we surpass him in valor.” 
 
 “ O bravest of the brave,” replied Zoheir, “ I have no doubt of 
 success, but I cannot help trembling at the thought that Mehdi- 
 Karab, at the head of a powerful band, is gone to surprise our 
 tribe, guarded as it is only by my son Warka, and a small 
 number of our troops. I fear lest they should obtain possession 
 of our wives and children. What will become of us, should vic¬ 
 tory fail us to-morrow V’ 
 
 Antar assuring him that their efforts of the next day should 
 end all his alarms, the warriors took a slight repast, and retired 
 to their respective tents to snatch a short interval of repose. But 
 Antar disdained to sleep, and changing his horse, made the cir¬ 
 cuit of the camp in company with Chaiboub, to whom as they 
 rode, he communicated his fruitless attempts for Ablla’s de¬ 
 liverance. 
 
 “ I have been more fortunate,” said Chaiboub, “ and will tell 
 you by what means I succeeded, after many efforts, in obtaining 
 
68 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 sight of her. When the armies were fairly engaged in the plain, 
 
 I made a long detour across the desert, and reached the position 
 of the prisoners. There I perceived El-Rabek, his brother 
 Herone-Eben-el-Wuard, your uncle Mallek, his son, and the 
 other warriors of our tribe, bound upon camels; near them were 
 the women, and amongst them Ablla, whose beautiful eyes shed 
 torrents of tears. She stretched her arms towards our camp, , 
 crying: ‘O, Ben-Abess, is there not one of thy children who can 
 come to deliver us ? Not one who can inform Antar of my un¬ 
 happy situation V The captives were encircled by a hundred 
 warriors, as a ring encircles the finger. In defiance of them I 
 attempted the rescue of Ablla, but was discovered and pursued, 
 discharging my arrows as I fled ; in this manner have I passed 
 the whole day, incessantly returning to the charge, but always 
 beaten off by numbers ; I killed more than fifteen of the warriors ; 
 but Ablla’s sufferings are still unmitigated.” 
 
 The recital drew tears from Antar, who was bursting with 
 rage. The brothers, after fetching a long compass, reached their 
 destination. 
 
 At daybreak, the two armies, ready for battle, awaited only 
 the orders of their chiefs to engage, when a report was spread in 
 Ben-Abess that Antar had disappeared. Intelligence so fatal dis¬ 
 heartened Zoheir’s warriors, who already considered themselves 
 a prey to the enemy. The king was on the point of sending to 
 demand a suspension of arms, that he might gain time for Antar’s 
 return, when a cloud of dust was seen at a distance, thickening 
 as it drew nearer. Presently the wailings of suffering and despair 
 were heard ; and the appearance of this third army, soon riveted 
 the attention of the other two. Horsemen were soon descried, 
 sheathed in iron, yet pliant as young and tender branches, and 
 rushing joyously to the combat. At their head marched a war¬ 
 rior, tall as a cedar, firm as a rock; the earth trembled beneath 
 his steps. Before him appeared men bound to camels, and sur¬ 
 rounded by mounted horsemen leading other horses which had 
 no riders. The cry of the horsemen was Ben-Zobaid, and their 
 voices filled the desert. It was Mehdi-Karab, whom Kaled had 
 despatched to the pillage of Ben-Abess, returning after success¬ 
 fully acquitting himself of his mission. 
 
 He had reached the tribe at sunrise, and having; made him- 
 self master of all the horses, the best camels, and several daugh¬ 
 ters of the first families, was driving them before him : but Warka 
 hastily collecting the few men at his disposal, marched in pursuit. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 69 
 
 Mehdi-Karab, finding himself overtaken, sent the booty forwards 
 under convoy of two hundred horsemen, and returned to the at¬ 
 tack. Warka, although very inferior in numbers, obstinately 
 sustained the engagement till the close of day, when the remain¬ 
 ing troops of Ben-Abess dispersed, having lost half their numbers, 
 and the chief himself being among the prisoners. Mehdi-Karab, 
 after this affair, resumed his march, and using the utmost expe¬ 
 dition, arrived-on the field in time to take part in the impending 
 battle. He instantly engaged, and Zoheir, at this sight exclaim¬ 
 ed, “ All my worst fears are realized ! But no matter, the sabre 
 must now decide our fate ; any thing is preferable to seeing our 
 wives reduced by slavery to the condition of bodies without souls.” 
 
 Received with transports of joy, Mehdi-Karab reported the 
 result of his expedition, and made inquiries after Kaled, when to 
 his astonishment he learnt, that having mounted his horse the pre¬ 
 ceding night to inspect the watch, he was not yet returned. Dis¬ 
 guising his uneasiness, he rushed impetuously on Ben-Abess, 
 followed by his whole army, vociferating their war-cry. Zoheir’s 
 warriors desperately sustained the shock, preferring death to a 
 life of separation from their friends. Torrents of blood inundated 
 the field of battle : and at mid-day the victory was still undecid¬ 
 ed, though Ben-Abess began to be sensibly weakened, the enemy 
 making frightful carnage in their ranks. Zoheir, who was in 
 the left wing with his sons and principal chiefs, seeing the centre 
 and right wing give way, without being able to rally them, was 
 at the acme of distress, when he distinguished in the rear of the 
 enemy a body of a thousand chosen warriors shouting Ben-Abess. 
 It was commanded by Antar, who, cased in iron, and resembling 
 a tower of steel, dashed precipitately forward, preceded by Chai- 
 boub, who exclaimed, in a loud voice, “ Woe to you, children of 
 Ben-Zobaid ! Fly for your lives ! it is your only hope of escape ; 
 for death is about to shower down upon you. If you doubt my 
 w'ords, look up and behold on the point of my lance the head of 
 your leader, Kaled-Eben-Mohareb.” 
 
 SECOND FRAGMENT. 
 
 Antar, having during his captivity in Persia, rendered im¬ 
 portant services to the Persian monarch, that prince restored him 
 to liberty, and sent him home laden with valuable presents, in 
 money, horses, slaves, cattle and arms of all sorts. On his road 
 he encountered a warrior of renowned valor, who had made Ab- 
 11a a prisoner, killed him, and carried back his cousin with him. 
 
 VOL. ii. 4 * 
 
70 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Arrived within a short distance of his tribe, he sent to advertise 
 his kinsman, who had long believed him dead; and overjoyed at 
 the announcement of his return, set out to meet him, accompanied 
 by King Zoheir himself. The enraptured Antar no sooner 
 perceived them, than he sprang from his horse and ran to kiss the 
 stirrup of the king, who cordially embraced him; an example 
 followed by all the other chiefs, happy in his restoration to them. 
 Amara, alone, his rejected rival, appeared dissatisfied. 
 
 To do honor to his sovereign, Antar rode by his side, confiding 
 the guardianship of his affianced bride to ten negroes, who, at 
 night, fell asleep upon their camels. Ablla having done the 
 same in her houdah, was alarmed, on waking, to find herself far 
 from the rest of the troop. Her cries roused the negroes, who 
 then discovered that their camels had wandered from the road. 
 While they were dispersed at a distance, endeavoring to recover 
 the track, Ablla, who had alighted, was seized by a horseman, 
 who placed her on a pillion behind him. 
 
 Amara, enraged at the honors lavished upon his rival, had 
 "withdrawn from the court, and meeting Ablla alone, resolved to 
 carry her off. When she upbraided him with such baseness, so 
 unworthy an emir, “ I would rather,” said he, “ possess you by 
 violence, than die with vexation on seeing you espoused to Antar.” 
 So saying, he galloped off with her, and took refuge in a power¬ 
 ful tribe, hostile to Ben-Abess. Meanwhile the negroes, having 
 recovered the road, returned to take up the houdah, not once sus¬ 
 pecting that Ablla had quitted it. Antar, after accompanying the 
 king home, returned to meet his bride, but to his astonishment 
 and dismay found the houdah empty. All attempts to gain intel¬ 
 ligence of her from the negroes proving ineffectual, he spent 
 many days galloping fruitlessly in every direction in search of 
 his beloved, lamenting her loss in the following lines : 
 
 “ Sleep has forsaken my eyelids, tears have furrowed my 
 cheek. 
 
 “ My constancy is my torture, and leaves me no repose. 
 
 “ So momentary was our meeting, it has but aggravated my 
 sufferings. 
 
 “ This estrangement, these perpetual separations lacerate 
 my heart. Ben-Abess, how mournfully I regret your tents. 
 
 “ What torrents of useless tears have I shed, at a distance 
 from my dearly beloved. 
 
 “ My prayer would be accomplished were my moments of 
 happiness by thy side but such as the miser would allow for the 
 contemplation of his treasure.” 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 71 
 
 After long and vain researches, Antar returned, resolving to 
 send his brother Chaiboub in disguise on the same errand: the 
 latter, after a rather long absence, brought intelligence that he 
 had found Ablla in the household of Mafarey-Eben-Hammarn, 
 who had taken her by force from Amara, intending to make her 
 his wife ; but, resolved to avoid such espousals, she feigned mad¬ 
 ness, and Mafarey, in revenge, obliged her to serve as a domestic 
 slave in his family ; where she was exposed to the ill-treatment 
 of his mother, who employed her in the severest labors. I heard 
 her pronounce your name, added Chaiboub, in these verses : 
 
 “ Come, my kindred, to my deliverance; or at least inform 
 Antar of my sad situation. 
 
 “ Grief has consumed my strength ; misfortune in every shape 
 oppresses me since my absence from the lion. 
 
 “ The slightest breath of wind sufficed to impair my health; 
 judge then of my sufferings under the hardships to which I am 
 reduced. 
 
 “ My patience is exhausted ; my enemies ought to be satis¬ 
 fied ; what humiliations do I suffer, since I have lost the hero of 
 my heart! 
 
 “ Ah ! if it be possible, restore me to Antar; the lion alone 
 can protect the gazelle. 
 
 “ My miseries would soften rocks.” 
 
 Antar would listen no longer, but rode away, and after many 
 and sanguinary combats, achieved the deliverance of Ablla. 
 
 REFLECTIONS OF ANTAR. 
 
 “ Let your sword be dreaded by your enemies; stay not 
 where you are despised. 
 
 “ Establish yourself amidst the witnesses of your triumphs, or 
 perish gloriously with arms in your hand. 
 
 “ Be despotic with despots ; unrelenting with the cruel. 
 
 “ If your friend desert you, seek not to recall him; but close 
 your ears against the calumnies of his rivals. 
 
 “ There is no refuge from death. 
 
 “ It is better to die in battle, than to live in slavery. 
 
 “ Though I be reckoned amongst slaves, my actions pierce the 
 clouds, their glory reaches to the skies. 
 
 “ I owe my renown to my sword, not to nobleness of birth. 
 
 “ My lofty deeds shall extort respect for my birth from the 
 warriors of Ben-Abess, who might be tempted to despise it. 
 
 “ Behold the captured warriors and coursers who attest the 
 victories of my arm. 
 
72 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 “I have spurred my horse into the centre of the enemy, amid 
 the dust of the combat, in the heat of the action. 
 
 <£ I have brought him back smeared with blood, bemoaning my 
 unequaled activity. 
 
 “ The battle ended, he was of one hue all over. 
 
 “ I have killed their most terrible warriors ; Rabiha-Hafrebar, 
 Giaber-Eben-Mehalka, and the son of Rabiha-Zabrke lay dead ira 
 the field of battle. 
 
 “ Zahiba (Antar’s mother) chides me for exposing myself by 
 night; she fears lest numbers should overpower me. 
 
 “ She would affright me with the image of death, as if we 
 were not destined one day to yield to it. 
 
 “ £ Death,’ I replied, £ is a fountain of which sooner or later all 
 must drink.’ 
 
 “ Cease then to torment yourself; for if I sought not death I 
 should deserve it. 
 
 “ I will vanquish all kings, who are already at my feet, trem¬ 
 bling at the blows of this dreadful arm. 
 
 “ The very tigers and lions crouch to me. 
 
 “ Coursers bend their heads as if mourning their masters. 
 
 “ I am the son of a woman of black complexion, with the limbs 
 of an ostrich, and hair curling as grains of pepper. 
 
 “ O ye who return from the tribe, what is passing there ? 
 
 “Carry my greetings to her whose love has preserved me 
 from death. 
 
 “ My enemies long for my humiliation; cruel fate ! they tri¬ 
 umph in my abasement. 
 
 “ Tell them that their slave deplores their distance from him. 
 
 “ If your laws permit you to kill me, satisfy your desire ; no 
 one will call you to account for my blood.” 
 
 Antar, having precipitated himself into the midst of the ene¬ 
 my, was lost to the eyes of his friends, who fearing for his life, were 
 preparing to fly to his succor, when he re-appeared bearing the 
 head of the adverse chief, and reciting these verses :— 
 
 “ If I slake not my thirsty sword in the blood of the enemy, if 
 that flow not from its point, let my eyes be strangers to repose, 
 though I renounce the happiness of seeing Ablla in my dreams. 
 
 “ I am more insatiable than death itself; for 1 burn to destroy 
 those for whom he would consent to wait. 
 
 “ Death, beholding my exploits, ought to respect my per¬ 
 son. The arms of the Bedouins will be short against me, the 
 most terrible of warriors ; me, the lion in his fury ; me, by whose 
 sword and lance souls are set at liberty. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 73 
 
 “ When I can find death, I will make him a turban of my sword, 
 the blood on which enhances its brightness. 
 
 “ I am the lion, who protects all that belong to him. 
 
 “ My actions shall be immortal. 
 
 “ My black complexion is blanched when passion for battle 
 inflames my heart; my love is then extravagant, persuasion no 
 longer restrains me. 
 
 “ Be my neighbor ever triumphant; my enemy humbled, fear¬ 
 ful and without asylum. 
 
 “ By the Almighty, who created the seven heavens, and who 
 knows futurity, I will cease from combat only with the de¬ 
 struction of my enemy; I, the lion of the earth, always ready for 
 war. 
 
 “ My refuge is in the dust of the battle field. 
 
 “ I have put to flight hostile hosts, by laying prostrate the corpse 
 of their chief. 
 
 “ Behold his blood flowing from my sabre. 
 
 “ O, Ben-Abess ! prepare your triumphs, and glory in a Negro 
 who has a throne in the skies. 
 
 “ Inquire my name of the sabres and lances, they will tell 
 you that I am called Antar (courageous).” 
 
 Ablla’s father, determined against giving his daughter to An¬ 
 tar, had quitted the tribe in his absence. The hero, on his return, 
 not finding his cousin, composed these lines: 
 
 “ How can I deny my love for Ablla, when my tears bear wit¬ 
 ness to my grief for her absence ? Separated from her, the fire 
 which consumes me becomes every day more intense ; I cannot 
 conceal sufferings which are incessantly renewed. 
 
 “ My patience diminishes, while my longing to behold her 
 augments. 
 
 “ To God alone I complain of my uncle’s tyranny, for no one 
 comes to my assistance. 
 
 “ My friends ! love is destroying me—me, so strong, so 
 dreaded. 
 
 “ O, daughter of Mallek ! I prohibit sleep to my wearied 
 frame; could it, indeed, taste sleep upon a bed of burning char¬ 
 coal. 
 
 “ So incessant are my lamentations, that the very birds know 
 my grief, and lament in sympathy. 
 
 “ I kiss the earth which thy feet have touched; it may be its 
 coolness will allay the fire in my heart. 
 
 “ O, beautiful Ablla ! my mind and heart are wandering, while 
 thy herds repose in safety under my protection. 
 
74 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 “ Take pity on my distress; I will be faithful to you to eter¬ 
 nity- 
 
 u In vain my rivals rejoice; my body shall know no rest.” 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF ARABIC POETRY. 
 
 A certain Caliph, who, while following the chase, had been 
 separated from his attendants, and lost his way, arrived alone at a 
 spring, at which three Bedouin maidens were drawing water. 
 Fie asked them for a draught, and each of the three hastened to 
 present one. Charmed with their courteousness, the Caliph wish¬ 
 ed to recompense them, but having no money, he broke his arrows, 
 (which were of gold,) and distributed the fragments amongst them ; 
 for which each of them returned her thanks in verse. 
 
 The first said:—“ If thy arrows are of gold, it is to mark thy 
 generosity even toward the enemy. Thou affordest, thus, to the 
 wounded the means of cure, and to the dead the means of defray¬ 
 ing their obsequies.” 
 
 The second said :—“ In the combat thy too open hand extends 
 its largesses even to its enemies. Thine arrows are of a precious 
 metal, to prove that war hinders thee not from benevolence.” 
 
 The third said :—“ In the day of combat, he lets fly amongst 
 his enemies arrows of massive gold ; that the wounded may be 
 shielded from desolation, and that the dead may bury themselves 
 in winding sheets.” 
 
 An Arabian having brought a blush to a maiden’s cheek by the 
 earnestness of his gaze, said to her: “ My looks have planted 
 roses on your cheeks ; why forbid my plucking them ? The law 
 permits him who sows to reap the harvest.” 
 
 Tanbe-Eben-Homager composed a great many verses on his 
 beloved Lailla-el-Akeatial; among others, the following : “ If, 
 after my decease, Lailla-el-Akeatial should visit my resting-place 
 to address me, my voice would pierce the earth and rocks that 
 cover me, in answer to her ; or the echo of my tomb itself should 
 be heard.” 
 
 Such was the violence of Tanbe’s passion, that it occasioned 
 his death. Not long afterwards, Lailla, accompanied by her hus¬ 
 band—for she was married—passed at no great distance from the 
 tomb of Tanbe, and her husband told her to go and speak to that 
 madman, to see whether he would answer her as he had promised 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 75 
 
 in his verses. She would have excused herself, but he angrily- 
 repeated the command; and constrained to obey, she turned her 
 camel’s head towards the tomb, and, on reaching it, asked 
 “ Tanbe, are you here V 3 
 
 At these words a large bird took flight from a neighboring 
 bush, and frightened the camel, which recoiled with a bound, and 
 threw Lailla to the ground. She was killed by the fall, and in¬ 
 terred near Tanbe. 
 
 Ehnassondi said to me:—“ I have seen you shed tears of 
 blood, so great was your constancy; why are those tears now 
 turned white V 3 
 
 I answered :—“ It is neither forgetfulness nor infidelity on 
 my part; but I have wept so long that my tears have become 
 white with age.” 
 
 On the 28 th of March, I left Bayreut for Balbec and Damas¬ 
 cus. The caravan consisted of twenty-six horses, and eight or 
 ten Arabs on foot, as servants and escort. 
 
 On quitting Bayreut, the road ascends by paths cut in a red 
 sandy soil. The edges of these paths, which are adorned with 
 the various flowers of Asia, present all the colors and exhale all 
 the perfumes of Spring. Besides these flowers, I observed the 
 nopal, a thorny shrub, with clustering yellow flowers, like the 
 broom of our mountains; the caronbier, the most beautiful tree 
 of these regions, with leaves of a dark brownish green, inter¬ 
 twining branches, and a brown glossy bark. The vine, too, was 
 hanging in festoons from tree to tree. After journeying about 
 half an hour, we reached the summit of the peninsula which 
 forms the Cape of Bayreut. It terminates by a rounded point 
 extending in the sea, and its base is formed by a beautiful wide 
 plain, intersected by the Nahr-Bayreut. 
 
 This plain, which is well watered and cultivated, and thickly 
 planted with fine palms, green mulberry trees, and pines with 
 their broad and tufted tops, terminates at the foot of the first hills 
 of the Libanus. 
 
 At the culminating point of the plain of Bayreut, appears the 
 magnificent scene of Fakar-el-Din, or Facar-Din. This is the 
 grand promenade and ride of Bayreut, and the daily resort of 
 Turkish, Arab, and European horsemen. I used to pass some 
 hours there every day, sometimes galloping over the sandy deserts 
 which command the vast blue horizon of the Syrian sea, and 
 
76 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 sometimes pacing and meditating beneath the alleys of young 
 pine trees which cover a part of the promontory. 
 
 This is the most beautiful spot I ever saw in the world ; gigan¬ 
 tic pines, whose vigorous trunks slightly incline beneath the sea 
 breeze, and whose wide-spreading tops, rounded like domes, are 
 grouped two or three together, or scattered singly at the distance 
 of twenty paces one from another over the gold-colored sand, 
 bepatched here and there by a light green down of turf and ane¬ 
 mones. These pines were planted by Fakar-el-Din, whose mar¬ 
 vellous adventures have spread his fame in Europe. The place 
 still retains his name. I saw with regret a more modern hero 
 daily hewing down the trees which another great man had planted. 
 Ibrahim Pacha has ordered many to be felled for the use of his 
 navy. But there still remain enough to mark out the promontory 
 to the eye of the navigator, and to render it the admiration of 
 every lover of the romantic scenery of nature. 
 
 1 think the finest view of the Libanus is that which is obtained 
 from Fakar-el-Din. The spectator is there at the foot of the 
 mountains, but yet sufficiently distant to be beyond their shade, 
 and to embrace with his eye their whole height, to discern the 
 gloom of their defiles and the foam of their torrents, and to com¬ 
 mand a perfectly distinct view of the first cones which flank the 
 mountains, and on each of which rises a monastery of Maronites, 
 surrounded by a grove of pines, cedars, or black cypresses. 
 
 The Sannin, the most elevated and pyramidal ridge of the 
 Libanus, commands all the inferior ridges, and with its almost 
 perpetual snow majestically bounds the gold, violet, and pink 
 horizon of the mountains, which floats in the firmament like a 
 vapor—a transparent smoke, through which one seems to discern 
 the other side of the heavens. This is a phenomenon which I 
 never saw any where except among the mountains of Asia, and 
 I used to gaze on it every evening with delight. On the southern 
 side, the Libanus gradually lowers to the advanced cap of Saide, 
 formerly Sidon. Its ridges are no longer covered with snow, 
 except here and there two or three more remote and more elevated 
 than the others and the rest of the Libanian chain. Like a 
 ruined city wall, now rising, now falling, they follow the line of 
 the plain and the sea, and are lost in the vapor of the west, 
 towards the mountains of Galilee, on the shore of the sea of 
 Genesareth, otherwise the lake of Tiberias. 
 
 On the north is perceived a corner of the sea, which advances 
 into the plain like a dead lake, and is half concealed by the 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 77 
 
 massive verdure of San Dimitri, the most beautiful hill in Syria. 
 In this lake, whose junction with the sea is not discernible, some 
 vessels are always lying at anchor; and on its banks grow len- 
 tisks, laurels, and nopals. 
 
 From the harbor, a bridge, constructed by the Romans and 
 restored by Fakar-el-Din, rises in lofty ogive arches across the 
 river of Bayreut. The latter crosses the plain, through which it 
 diffuses life and verdure, and then is lost at a little distance down 
 the harbor. 
 
 This was the last excursion I made with Julia. She was 
 mounted, for the first time, on a horse of the desert, which I 
 brought from the Dead Sea, and which she rode, led by an Arab 
 servant. We were alone; the day, though in November, was 
 bright and warm, and the ground was covered with verdure. I 
 never before saw Julia so perfectly enjoying her existence, and 
 deriving such rapturous sensations from the objects she beheld 
 around her. She every moment turned towards me with some 
 exclamation of delight; and when we had rode round the hill of 
 San Dimitri, crossed the plain, and reached the pine trees, where 
 we halted, she said, “Surely this is the longest and most delight¬ 
 ful excursion I ever had in my life !” Alas ! it was the last! 
 
 A fortnight afterwards, I was riding alone, and weeping be¬ 
 neath those same trees, and the image of the celestial being whom 
 I had possessed and lost, existed only in my breast. I no longer 
 live ; to me nature has lost those charms which I felt, as it were, 
 doubly through the mind of my child. I see her yet—she still 
 delights my eyes; but she no longer animates my heart: and if 
 it be for a moment animated, it soon sinks again, cold and broken, 
 into the gulf of sorrow and desolation which Heaven has prepared 
 for it by so many irreparable losses. 
 
 In the direction of the east, the eye rests first on some light 
 hills of sand as red as fire, from whence arise a sort of pinky-, 
 white vapor; then, following the line of the horizon across the 
 desert, is discerned the dark blue boundary of the ocean, which 
 terminates the whole picture, and in the distance blends with the 
 sky, creating a mist which leaves their limits undecided. Over 
 the hills, the plain, and the sides of the mountains, are scattered 
 numbers of pretty little detached houses, each of which has its 
 orchard of mulberry, pine, and fig trees; and here and there, in 
 groups more compact and striking to the eye, villages and monas¬ 
 teries rise on their rocky pedestals, and reflect on the ocean the 
 yellow rays of the eastern sun. Two or three hundred of these 
 
78 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 monasteries are scattered over the rocks, promontories, and defiles 
 of the Lihanus. It is the most religious country in the world, 
 and the only one perhaps in which the existence of the monastic 
 system has not led to those abuses which in other places have 
 brought about its destruction. 
 
 The monks of this part of the world are poor and industrious, 
 and subsist by the labor of their hands. They are, strictly 
 speaking, merely pious agriculturists; aad the only boons they 
 ask of the government, and the population are, the bit of ground 
 which they cultivate, and the privilege of being left undisturbed 
 to their solitude and meditation. Their present existence in the 
 midst of these Mahometan regions fully explains the creation of 
 the early asylums of suffering and persecuted Christianity, and 
 the vast multiplication of these asylums of religious liberty in the 
 ages of barbarism and intolerance. 
 
 Here the necessity of their existence was first felt, and here 
 that necessity still exists to the Maronites; consequently, these 
 monks have continued what monks should be every where, but 
 what they cannot be any where save by exception. If the present 
 state of society and religion be suited to any kind of monastic 
 orders, it is certainly least congenial to those which had their 
 birth in another epoch, and were created for other circumstances 
 and other necessities. Every as;e has its social and religious 
 creations. The wants of past times differ from the wants of the 
 present. 
 
 There are only two things which can be better effected by 
 modern monastic orders than by governments and individual 
 exertions: namely, the intellectual instruction of mankind and 
 the relief of their corporeal miseries. Schools and hospitals are 
 the only places which remain open to monks in the present state 
 of things; but before they are fitted to occupy those places, they 
 must themselves share the light which they would attempt to 
 diffuse: it is requisite that they should be better informed and 
 more truly moral than the people whom they wish to instruct and 
 improve. But to return to the Libanus. 
 
 We commenced our ascent by paths and steps cut in the rock ; 
 the former are yellowish, and the latter slightly tinged with pink ; 
 and they produce those beautiful hues in which the mountain is 
 clothed when viewed from a distance. We saw nothing remarka¬ 
 ble until we had ascended about two-thirds of the mountain, when 
 we found ourselves on the summit of a promontory which advan¬ 
 ces over a deep valley. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAJND. 
 
 79 
 
 One of the most beautiful prospects which the works of God 
 present to the eyes of man, is the valley of Hammana. It now 
 lay beneath our feet. This valley commences by a dark and 
 deep defile, dug almost like a grotto under the snow of the high¬ 
 est points of the Libanus. At first, it is distinguishable only by 
 the torrent which descends from the mountains, and which traces 
 in the obscurity a line of moving light. It insensibly widens as 
 it descends, and its torrent swells from cascade to cascade ; then, 
 suddenly taking a turn to the east, like a stream which by falling 
 into a river becomes itself a river, it joins a larger valley, and is 
 thus itself converted into a valley. It extends, in an average 
 width of half a league, between two chains of mountains; and it 
 runs in the direction of the sea by a regular and gentle slope. It 
 rises into hills wherever the masses of rock obstruct its level 
 course. 
 
 On these hills are built villages, separated by ravines ; and on 
 each of the vast plateaux, which are surrounded by dark fir 
 trees, rises a fine monastery. Through the ravines are dispersed 
 the waters of a thousand cascades, which roll downward in glit¬ 
 tering foam. 
 
 The flanks of the Libanus, which enclose the valley, are them¬ 
 selves covered with groups of fir trees, convents, and villages, 
 whose blue smoke rises to the summits of the precipices. At the 
 time when this valley opened on my view, the sun was setting on 
 the sea, and its rays, leaving the defiles and ravines in partial ob¬ 
 scurity, merely lighted the roofs of the convents and village hous¬ 
 es, and the tops of the firs and other lofty trees. The waters 
 which were then much swollen, fell from all the shelves of the 
 mountains, and gushed in foam from the clefts of the rocks, em¬ 
 bracing, by two large arms of silver or snow, the beautiful plat¬ 
 form which supports the villages, convents, and groves of fir trees. 
 The noise of the descending waters, like the pealing organ of a 
 cathedral, resounded on all sides, and was so loud as to be almost 
 stunning. 
 
 I have rarely felt so profoundly the peculiar beauty of moun¬ 
 tain scenery : it is a grave and melancholy sort of beauty, totally 
 different from that of the plains or the sea. It is a beauty which 
 makes the heart retire within itself, instead of opening it; and 
 which partakes of the melancholy reserve attendant on religious 
 feeling in. misfortune, rather than the expansion, love, and joy 
 which accompany religious feeling in happiness ! 
 
 At every step along our path, which formed a sort of cornice 
 
80 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLST LAND. 
 
 to the rock, the cascades descended on our heads, or flowed into 
 the interstices which the water had worked for itself in the living 
 rock. These interstices were like gutters to the lofty roofs of the 
 mountains, and incessantly carried the waters down the declivi¬ 
 ties. The weather was hazy. The wind howled among the fir 
 trees, and every moment wafted along clouds of snow, which were 
 pierced and colored by the fugitive rays of the March sun. I 
 well recollect the novel and picturesque effect presented by our 
 eara.van, as it crossed one of the ravines of these cascades. The 
 rocky flanks of the Libanus suddenly took a turn inward, like a 
 deep bay on the sea coast;—a torrent confined by some blocks of 
 granite, filled with its foaming bubbles this cleft in the mountain : 
 the spray of the cascade which fell from the height of several toi- 
 ses above, was driven by the winds over the two promontories of 
 gray rock which formed the sort of bay, and which, suddenly in¬ 
 clining, descended to the bed of the torrent which we had to pass. 
 A narrow path, like a cornice, running along these two projec¬ 
 tions of rock, was the only way by which we could descend to the 
 torrent in order to cross it. Along this cornice we could only 
 pass one by one in a file. I was almost the last of the caravan. 
 The long line of horses, baggage, and travelers descended succes¬ 
 sively to the depth of this gulf, turning and disappearing com¬ 
 pletely in the mist of the waters, and re-appearing by degrees on 
 the other side and on the other cornice of the passage. They 
 were at first veiled in vapor, of a pale yellow color, like the 
 smoke of sulphur ; next white and transparent like the silvery 
 foam of the waters ; and, at last, brilliantly colored by the rays 
 of the sun, which shone out more brightly as the file re-ascended 
 the^pposite flank of the mountain. It was like a scene from the 
 Inferno; but realized more terrifically than even Dante’s imagina¬ 
 tion could have conceived. But where is the poet like nature ? 
 What invention is like that of God ? 
 
 Hammana, a Druse village, where we proposed to rest for 
 the night, was already visible at the upper opening of the valley 
 which bears its name. It stands on a mass of pointed and broken 
 rock, tipped by eternal snow ; and the house of the scheik stands 
 on an elevated projection of rock in the centre of the village. 
 Two deep torrents, bedded in the rocks, and here and there ob¬ 
 structed by blocks which break their foam, completely encircle 
 the village. We crossed them by walking over some trunks of 
 fir trees, over which some earth is scattered ; and from thence we 
 climbed to the houses. These, like all the houses of the Libanus 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 81 
 
 and Syria, when seen from a distance, present an appearance of 
 regularity and picturesque architecture, which at first glance de¬ 
 ceives the eye by a resemblance to groups of Italian villas, with 
 their terraced roofs and their balconies adorned with balustrades. 
 
 However, the castle of the Scheik of Hammana surpasses in 
 elegance and grandeur every similar building I have seen, except 
 the palace of the Emir Beschir, at Dier-el-Kamar. It can be 
 compared only to one of our finest Gothic castles of the middle 
 ages,—such at least as their ruins denote them to have been, or 
 as pictures represent them. Windows in ogive arches, adorned 
 with balconies: a wide and lofty entrance-gate, surmounted by an 
 ogive arch which rises like a portico above the threshold ; two 
 stone benches carved in arabesque patterns, and placed on each 
 side of the gateway ; a flight of seven or eight semicircular stone 
 steps, descending to a broad terrace shaded by two or three large 
 sycamores, and refreshed by water perpetually running in a mar¬ 
 ble fountain : such was the scene. Seven or eight armed Dru¬ 
 ses, arrayed in their gay-colored costume, and standing in mar¬ 
 tial attitude, seemed to await the orders of their chief; one or two 
 negroes, clothed in blue jackets ; a few young slaves or pages 
 sitting at play on the flight of steps ; and under the arch of the 
 great doorway, the scheik himself, wrapped in his scarlet pelisse, 
 with a pipe in his hand, and seated in an attitude indicative of power 
 and repose ; two young and beautiful females, the one looking 
 from a window at the top of the building, and the other in a bal¬ 
 cony above the door: such were the figures of the picture. 
 
 At Hammana we slept in a chamber which had been prepared 
 for us some days previously. We rose before the sun, and as¬ 
 cended the last height of the Libanus. Our ascent occupied an 
 hour and a half, and at length we found ourselves in the regions 
 of snow. We proceeded along an elevated plain, lightly undu¬ 
 lated by hillocks, like the summit of the Alps, and gained the 
 defile leading to the other side of the Libanus. After journeying 
 for two hours, two or three feet deep in snow, we discerned the 
 lofty and frozen points of the Anti-Libanus ; next, its naked and 
 barren sides ; and at last, the beautiful broad plain of Bka, form¬ 
 ing a continuation of the valley of Balbec on the right. This 
 plain commences at the desert of Horus and Hama, and does not 
 terminate till it reaches the mountains of Galilee, near Saphad. 
 It is one of the finest and most fertile plains in the world, but it 
 is scarcely cultivated : it is still infested by wandering Arabs ; 
 and the inhabitants of Balbec, Zakle, and the other villages of the 
 
82 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Libanus, can with difficulty venture to sow a few seeds in it. It 
 is watered by numerous torrents and inexhaustible springs ; and 
 at the time when we saw it, it presented the aspect of a marsh, or 
 an ill-drained lake, rather than a plain. 
 
 At four o’clock we descended to the town of Zakle ; and the 
 Greek bishop, a native of Aleppo, received us and provided us 
 with lodgings. We again set out on the 30th, to cross the plain 
 of Bka, and to sleep at Balbec. 
 
 RUINS OF BALBEC. 
 
 We left Zakle, which is a pretty Christian village at the foot 
 of the Libanus, on the border of the plain facing the Anti-Liba- 
 nus ; and we pursued our course along the roots of the moun¬ 
 tains, reascending in the direction of the north. We passed a 
 ruined edifice, on the remains of which the Turks have erected 
 a dervish’s house, and a mosque, presenting a grand and pic¬ 
 turesque effect. According to Arabian traditions, this is the tomb 
 of Noah, whose ark touched the summit of the Sanium, and who 
 dwelt in the lovely valley of Balbec, where he died and was 
 buried. Some ancient arches, and other structures of Greek or 
 Roman origin, seem to confirm the traditions. It would appear at 
 least that in all ages this spot has been consecrated by the memory 
 of some great event:—stones support the evidence of history. 
 We journeyed onward, not without reflecting on those remote 
 days when the children of the patriarch dwelt in these primitive 
 regions, and laid the foundations of buildings which are now 
 problematical to us. 
 
 We were seven hours in crossing obliquely the plain leading 
 to Balbec. When we arrived at the river which intersects the 
 plain, our Arab escorts wished to oblige us to direct our course to 
 the right, and to sleep that night in a Turkish village three 
 leagues from Balbec. My dragoman could not enforce obedi¬ 
 ence to my orders, and I was obliged to gallop back to the other 
 side of the river to force the two chiefs of the caravan to follow 
 us. I advanced upon them whip in hand ; but a threat sufficed 
 to make them accompany us, though not without murmuring. 
 
 As we approached the Anti-Libanus, the plain became more 
 dry and rocky. Anemones and snow-drops were as numerous as 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 83 
 
 the bubbles beneath our feet. We began to perceive an immense 
 black mass, which detached itself from the white sides of the Anti- 
 Libanus : this was Balbec. At length we reached the first ruin : 
 this was a small octagonal temple, supported on columns of red 
 Egyptian marble. Several of the most lofty of these columns 
 have evidently been truncated, as some have a volute at the cap¬ 
 ital, and others have no trace of any volute. In my opinion, they 
 have been transported hither and cut at a very recent period, for 
 the purpose of supporting the cap of a Turkish mosque or the 
 roof of a santon, probably in the time of Fakar-el-Din. The ma¬ 
 terials are fine, and the workmanship of the cornices and the roof 
 bear some traces of skill in art; but these materials are evidently 
 fragments of ruins, restored by a comparatively feeble hand and 
 a taste already corrupt. 
 
 This temple is situated at a quarter of an hour’s journey from 
 Balbec. Impatient to gain sight of the grand and mysterious 
 monuments bequeathed to us by the most remote antiquity, we 
 urged on our horses, who were beginning to manifest symptoms 
 of fatigue, and were stumbling here and there over blocks of 
 marble, shafts of columns, and capitals. The boundary walls 
 of all the fields surrounding Balbec are built of these ruins: 
 antiquaries may here find an enigma in every stone. Some 
 traces of cultivation began to re-appear, and large walnut trees, 
 the first I had seen in Syria, rose between Balbec and us, and 
 their branches still concealed from us the ruins of the temples. 
 At length we discovered them. They were not, properly speak¬ 
 ing, either temples or ruins. 
 
 We beheld before us a hill of architecture, which suddenly 
 rose above the plain at some distance from the hills of the Anti- 
 Libanus. We passed along one of the sides of this hill of ruins, 
 upon which rises a forest of graceful columns. These were now 
 gilded by the setting sun, and presented the dead yellow tints of 
 the marble of the Parthenon, or the tuff of the Coliseum at Rome. 
 Among these columns there are some still retaining uninjured 
 their richly carved capitals and cornices: they are ranged in 
 long and elegant files along the walls which enclose the sanctua¬ 
 ries. Some are reclining against the walls, and are supported 
 by them, like trees whose roots are decayed whilst their trunks 
 still remain sound and vigorous. Others, more numerous, are 
 scattered here and there, forming immense masses of marble or 
 stone on the slopes of the hill, in the deep hollows round it, and 
 even in the bed of the river which flows at its feet. 
 
84 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 On the level summit of the mountain of stone, not far from 
 the inferior temple, there rise six pillars of gigantic dimensions, 
 still adorned with their colossal cornices. We continued our 
 course by the foot of the mountains, until the columns and ar¬ 
 chitecture ended, and we saw only gigantic walls built of enor¬ 
 mous stones, and almost all bearing traces of sculpture:—these 
 are the wrecks of another age, and were employed at a subse¬ 
 quent but now remote period for the erection of the temples at 
 present lying in ruins. 
 
 We proceeded very little farther that day. The road di¬ 
 verged from these ruins and led us to others. We passed over 
 some vaults, which resounded beneath our horses 5 hoofs, and at 
 length we arrived at a little house. This was the palace of the 
 Bishop of Balbec, who, clothed in his violet-colored pelisse, and 
 attended by some Arab peasants, advanced to meet us, and con¬ 
 ducted us to his humble door. The poorest peasant’s cottage in 
 Burgundy or Auvergne possesses greater luxury and elegance 
 than the palace of the Bishop of Balbec. It was an ill-built hut, 
 without either window or door, and through the decayed roof the 
 rain worked its way and dropped on the mud floor. This was 
 the Bishop’s dwelling ! But at the farther end of the yard which 
 adjoined the house, a neat wall newly built of blocks of stone, and 
 a door and a window in ogives of Moorish architecture, each 
 ogive being constructed of finely sculptured stones, attracted my 
 attention. This was the church of Balbec, the cathedral of that 
 town in which other gods have had splendid temples—the chapel 
 in which the few Arab Christians who live here amidst the 
 wrecks of so many different faiths, worship, under a purer form, 
 the universal Creator. 
 
 We deposited our cloaks beneath the hospitable roof of the 
 bishop, and we left our horses to graze in a large field between 
 the priest’s house and the ruins. We collected some brambles 
 and kindled a fire to dry our clothes, which had been wet by the 
 rain: and we supped in the yard of the bishop’s house, on a table 
 formed of some fragments cf stone belonging to the temples. 
 Whilst we were at supper, we heard the litany of the evening 
 prayer resounding in a plaintive chant, and the deep sonorous 
 voice of the bishop murmuring the pious orisons to his flock : the 
 latter consisted of a few Arab shepherds and women. When the 
 little group quitted the church and gathered round our table to 
 look at us, we saw none but friendly faces, and heard nothing but 
 kind words—the touching and simple salutations of a primitive 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 85 
 
 people who have not yet made a vain formula of the greeting of 
 man to man, but who concentrate in a few words applicable to 
 the meetings of morning, noon, and evening, all that hospitality 
 can suggest as most welcome and beneficial to their guests—all 
 that one traveler can wish to another for the day, the night, the 
 journey, and the return. We were Christians—this was enough 
 to them : common religion is the strongest link of sympathy among 
 nations. A common idea between man and man is more than a 
 common country ; and the Christians of the East, surrounded by 
 Mahometanism, which threatens and persecutes them, always look 
 upon the Christians of the West as their present protectors and 
 future deliverers. Europe is not sufficiently aware that she pos¬ 
 sesses in these Christian populations a lever sufficiently powerful 
 to move the East, whenever she may direct attention to it, and to 
 confer on that quarter of the world, which is verging on a neces¬ 
 sary and inevitable transformation, the liberty and civilization it 
 is so well fitted for and so worthy to enjoy. 
 
 The moment has, I think, arrived for transporting into the 
 heart of Asia a European colony, which would carry back mod¬ 
 ern civilization to those regions from whence ancient civilization 
 came, and form a vast empire from the wrecks of the Turkish 
 empire, now tottering beneath its own weight, and which has no 
 heir but the desert and the dust of the ruins where it will lie 
 buried. Nothing would be easier than to raise up a new monu¬ 
 ment on these desolate territories, and to re-open those inexhausti¬ 
 ble sources of population which Mahometanism has checked by its 
 execrable system. When I say execrable, I do not mean to 
 charge Mahometanism with a brutal ferocity, which is not its na¬ 
 ture ; I merely accuse it of a culpable negligence, an irreme¬ 
 diable fatalism, which, without destroying, suffers every thing to 
 perish. The Turks are a moral and well-disposed people; their 
 religion is neither so superstitious nor so exclusive as we imagine 
 it; but their resignation—the abuse of their faith in Providence— 
 neutralizes the faculties of man by consigning all to God. 
 
 God does not act for man, when man is intrusted to act for 
 himself: he is the spectator and the judge of human conduct. But 
 Mahometanism arrogates to itself the prerogative of the Deity : it is 
 an inactive spectator of the acts of God ; it paralyzes the energies 
 of man, and man voluntarily perishes in his inertness. With this 
 exception, the religion of Mahomet may lay claim to respect. It 
 is a philosophic religion, which imposes on its votaries only two 
 grand duties—prayer and charity. These duties are indeed the 
 
 VOL. II. 5 
 
86 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 first principles of all religion, and Mahometanism deduces from 
 them the tolerance which other faiths have so cruelly banished 
 from their dogmas. In this respect, the Mahometans are more 
 advanced in religious perfection than the disciples of some other 
 faiths, who insult and despise them. Islamism might be intro¬ 
 duced, without effort or difficulty, into a system of religious and 
 civil liberty, and thus form one of the elements of a great social 
 agglomeration in Asia. It is in its nature moral, patient, resigned, 
 charitable, and tolerant; qualities which well suit it for a neces¬ 
 sary fusion in the countries it occupies, and where it would be 
 advisable to improve, and not exterminate. It is accustomed 
 to subsist in peace and harmony with the various forms of Chris¬ 
 tian worship; to which it allows free exercise even in the bosom 
 of its holiest cities, such as Damascus and Jerusalem. It is 
 careless of supremacy; prayer, justice, and peace are all it re¬ 
 quires. In any system of human civilization, whether humane, 
 politic, or ambitious, the religion of Mahomet may easily be al¬ 
 lowed to occupy its place in the mosque—its place in the sun or 
 in the shade. 
 
 Alexander subjugated Asia with thirty thousand Greek and 
 Macedonian troops. Ibrahim has overthrown the Turkish empire 
 with thirty or forty thousand Egyptians, who knew only how to 
 march and to load their muskets. A European adventurer might 
 easily subdue Ibrahim, and make himself master of Asia, from 
 Smyrna to Bassora, and from Cairo to Bagdad ;—advancing step 
 by step; taking the Maronites of the Libanus as the pivots of his 
 operations; organizing the country in his rear in proportion as he 
 might advance, and making the Christians of the East his agents 
 of government and recruiting. The Arabs of the Desert would 
 join him whenever he should offer to pay them. They worship 
 money;—their deities are the sabre and gold. By humoring 
 their mercenary disposition, they might be kept under control until 
 their ultimate submission would become inevitable. After that, 
 their tents might be driven farther back into the Desert, which is 
 their only country; and they might be gradually drawn into civ¬ 
 ilization, of which they have as yet had no examples round them. 
 
 We rose with the sun, the first rays of which lighted the tem¬ 
 ples of Balbec, and gave to those mysterious ruins that appear¬ 
 ance of eternal freshness which Nature can, when she pleases, 
 confer even on what Time has destroyed. After a hasty break¬ 
 fast, we set off to touch with our hands what we had as yet only 
 touched with our eyes. We advanced to the artificial hill to exa- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 87 
 
 mine the different masses of architecture of which it is composed. 
 We soon reached it on the northern side, under the shade of the 
 gigantic walls which in that direction envelope the ruins. A 
 beautiful stream, overflowing its bed of granite, ran beneath our 
 feet, and formed here and there little lakes of limpid water, gurg¬ 
 ling and foaming round the huge stones which had fallen from the 
 Walls, and the sculptures buried in the bed of the stream. 
 
 We crossed the torrent of Balbec by the aid of the bridges 
 which time has thrown over it, and by a steep and narrow breach 
 we mounted to the terrace which runs round the walls. At every 
 step we took, at every stone our hands touched and our eyes 
 measured, we involuntarily uttered exclamations of admiration 
 and surprise. Every block of stone composing this boundary 
 wall is at least eight or ten feet in length, five or six in width, and 
 the same in height. These blocks, of enormous weight to be 
 lifted by men’s hands, lie uncemented one upon another, and al¬ 
 most all bear traces of Indian or Egyptian sculpture. At the 
 first glance, it is obvious that these stones have originally served 
 for some other use than to form a terrace or boundary wall, and 
 that they must have been the precious materials of primitive monu¬ 
 ments, which have been made use of to surround the monuments 
 of the Greek and Roman ages. Among the ancients it was, I 
 believe, an habitual, and even a religious custom, when a sacred 
 edifice was destroyed by war or by time, or when the advance¬ 
 ment of art suggested its improvement or removal, to employ the 
 materials in the accessory constructions of the restored monu¬ 
 ments. This was done to prevent any profane use of the stones 
 which had been touched by the shadow of the gods, and also, per¬ 
 haps, from a feeling of respect for past generations; and that the 
 labor of different ages, instead of being buried under ground, 
 might bear evidence of the piety of man, and the successive pro¬ 
 gress of art. 
 
 Thus it is at the Parthenon, where the walls of the Acropolis, 
 rebuilt by Pericles, contain the materials of the temple of Minerva. 
 Many modern travelers have been led into error through their 
 ignorance of this pious custom of the ancients, and have mistaken 
 for barbarous structures of the Turks or the Crusaders, edifices 
 which owed their origin to the most remote antiquity. 
 
 Several of the stones of the wall were twenty and thirty feet 
 in length, and seven or eight in height. 
 
 On reaching the summit of the breach, we knew not where to 
 fix our eyes. On every side, we beheld marble doors of prodi- 
 
88 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 gious dimensions, windows and niches bordered with exquisite 
 sculpture, richly ornamented arches—fragments of cornices, en¬ 
 tablatures, and capitals. The master works of art, the wrecks 
 of ages, lay scattered as thickly as the grains of dust beneath our 
 feet. All was mystery, confusion, inexplicable wonder. No 
 sooner had we cast an admiring glance on one side, than some 
 new prodigy attracted us on the others, Rvery attempt we made 
 to interpret the religious meaning of the monuments was imme¬ 
 diately defeated by some newly discerned object. We fruitlessly 
 groped about in this labyrinth of conjecture :—one cannot recon¬ 
 struct in one’s fancy the sacred edifices of an age or a people of 
 whose religion or manners nothing certain is known. Time car¬ 
 ries his secrets away with him, and leaves his enigmas as sports 
 for human knowledge. We speedily renounced all our attempts 
 to build any system out of these ruins ; we were content to gaze 
 and to admire, without comprehending any thing beyond the colos¬ 
 sal power of human genius, and the strength of religious feeling, 
 which had moved such masses of stone, and wrought so many mas¬ 
 terpieces. 
 
 We were still separated from the second scene of the ruins by 
 some internal structures which intercepted our view of the tem¬ 
 ples. The spot which we had now reached was to all appearance 
 the abode of the priests, or the site of some private chapels. We 
 passed these monumental buildings, which were much richer than 
 the surrounding wall, and the second scene of the ruins unfolded 
 itself to our eyes. This was much broader, much longer, much 
 fuller of rich ornament, than the first scene which we had just 
 quitted. It was a vast platform of an oblong form, whose level 
 was frequently interrupted by fragments of more elevated pave¬ 
 ments, which seemed to have belonged to temples entirely destroy¬ 
 ed, or to temples without roofs, where the Sun, which is worship¬ 
 ped at Balbec, might see his own altar. Round this platform is 
 ranged a series of chapels, decorated with niches, admirably sculp¬ 
 tured friezes, cornices, and vaulted arches, all displaying the most 
 finished workmanship, but evidently belonging to a degenerate 
 period of art, and distinguished by that exuberance of ornament 
 which marked the decline of the Greeks and Romans. But this 
 impression can only be felt by those whose eyes have been previ¬ 
 ously exercised by the contemplation of the pure monuments of 
 Athens and Rome : every other eye would be fascinated by the 
 splendor of the forms and the finish of the ornaments. The only 
 fault is too much richness: the stone groans beneath the weight 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 89 
 
 of its own luxuriance, and the walls are overspread with a lace- 
 work of marble. 
 
 About eight or ten of the chapels appear to be in a perfect 
 state, for they bear no traces of dilapidation. They are open to 
 the oblong platform, round the edge of which they stand, and 
 where the mysteries of the worship of Baal were probably per¬ 
 formed in the open air. I will not attempt to describe the thou¬ 
 sand objects of surprise and admiration which each of these chapels 
 present to the eye of the observer. I am neither a sculptor nor 
 an architect. I scarcely know the terms applied to the different 
 portions of a building : but that universal language which the 
 beautiful in art addresses to the eye, even of the ignorant—which 
 the mysterious and the antique address to the understanding and 
 the soul of the philosopher, I do understand ; and I never under¬ 
 stood it so forcibly as in this chaos of marbles and mysteries. 
 
 But all this was nothing compared with what we beheld shortly 
 afterwards. By multiplying in imagination the remains of the 
 temples of Jupiter Stator at Rome, of the Coliseum, and of the 
 Parthenon, some notion may be formed of this architectural scene : 
 its wonders consisted in the prodigious accumulation of so many 
 richly executed monuments in a single spot, so that the eye could 
 embrace them at a single glance, in the midst of a desert, and 
 above the ruins of an almost unknown city. 
 
 We slowly turned from this spectacle and journeyed towards 
 the south, where the heads of the six gigantic columns I have 
 already mentioned rose like a pharos above the horizon of the 
 ruins. To reach these columns, we had once more to pass exter¬ 
 nal boundary walls, high terraces, pedestals, and foundations of 
 altars. At length we arrived at the feet of the columns. Silence 
 is the only language of man when what he feels outstrips the ordi¬ 
 nary measure of his impressions. We stood in mute contempla¬ 
 tion of these six columns, and scanning with our eyes their diame¬ 
 ter, their elevation, and the admirable sculpture of their archi¬ 
 traves and cornices. Their diameter is six feet, and their height 
 upwards of seventy feet. They are formed out of only two or 
 three blocks, which are so perfectly joined together that the junc¬ 
 tion lines are scarcely discernible. They are composed of a sort 
 of light yellow stone, presenting a sort of medium between the 
 polish of marble and the deadness of tuff. When we saw them, 
 the sun lighted them only on one side ; and we sat down for a 
 few moments in their shade. Large birds like eagles, scared by 
 the sound of our footsteps, fluttered above the capitals of the 
 
90 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 columns, where they have built their nests ; and returning, perch¬ 
 ed upon the acanthus of the cornices, striking them with their 
 beaks, and flapping their wings like living ornaments amidst these 
 inanimate wonders. These columns, which some travelers have 
 supposed to be the remains of an avenue, one hundred and four 
 feet long, and fifty-six wide, formerly leading to a temple, have, I 
 think, evidently been the external ornaments of the same temple. 
 
 On an attentive examination of the smaller temple, which still 
 stands in a complete state at a little distance, it appears to have 
 been built after the same design. I think it is probable that on 
 the destruction of the first building by an earthquake, the second 
 was erected after the same model; that a portion of the materials 
 preserved from the first temple were employed for building the 
 second ; that the proportions only were diminished, as being too 
 gigantic for a declining age ; that the columns broken in falling 
 were removed, and that those which escaped injury were retained 
 as sacred memorials of the old monument. If these conjectures 
 be ill-founded, why are there no other remnants of large columns 
 round the six which remain standing ? Every thing, on the con¬ 
 trary, indicates that the area surrounding them was empty and 
 unoccupied by ruins at a remote period ; and that, subsequently, 
 a rich pavement formed around them served for the ceremonies of 
 religious worship. 
 
 Before us, to the south, was another temple, standing on the 
 edge of the platform, at the distance of about forty paces from us. 
 This is the most perfect and most magnificent monument in Bal- 
 bec, and, 1*may venture to add, in the whole world. If we could 
 repair one or two columns of the peristyle, which have rolled 
 down on the side of the platform, with their heads still resting 
 against the walls of the temple ; restore to their places some 
 of the enormous vaulted arches which have fallen from the roof 
 into the vestibule ; raise up one or two sculptured blocks of the 
 inner door; and if the altar, recomposed out of the fragments 
 scattered over the ground, could resume its form and place,—we 
 might recall the gods and the priests, and the people would behold 
 their temple as complete and as brilliant as when it received its 
 finishing touch from the hand of the architect. The proportions 
 of this temple are smaller than those which are indicated by the 
 six colossal columns. It is surrounded by a portico, supported by 
 Corinthian columns, each of which is about five feet in diameter, 
 and about forty-five feet in height. The columns are each com¬ 
 posed of three blocks of stone ; they are nine feet apart from one 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 91 
 
 another, and an equal distance from the interior wall of the tem¬ 
 ple. Above the capitals of these colums are a rich architrave 
 and an admirably sculptured cornice. The roof of this peristyle 
 is formed of large concave blocks of stone, cut with the chisel in 
 vaulted arches, each of which is adorned' with the figure of a god, 
 a goddess, or a hero : among them we recognized a Ganymede 
 carried off by the eagle of Jupiter. Some of these blocks have 
 fallen to the ground, and are lying at the feet of the columns. 
 We measured them, and they were sixteen feet wide and nearly 
 five feet thick. These may be called the tiles of the temple. 
 The inner door of the temple, formed of equally large blocks of 
 stone, is twenty-two feet wide. We could not measure its height, 
 because other blocks of stone had fallen near it and half covered 
 it. The appearance of the sculptured stones which form the face 
 of this, and its disproportion to the other parts of the edifice, led 
 me to suspect that it is the door of the ruined grand temple, and 
 that it has been affixed to this. The sculptures which adorn it 
 are, in my opinion, older than the age of Antoninus, and in a 
 style infinitely less pure. An eagle, holding a caduceus in his 
 claws, spreads his wings over the opening; from his beak escape 
 festoons of ribbons and chains, which are supported at their ex¬ 
 tremities by two figures of Fame. The interior of the monument 
 is decorated with pillars and niches of the richest and most florid 
 sculpture, some of the broken fragments of which we carried 
 away. Several of the niches were quite perfect, and looked as 
 though they had just received the finishing touch from the hand 
 of the sculptor. 
 
 At a little distance from the entrance to the temple, we found 
 some immense openings and subterraneous staircases, which led 
 us down to lower buildings, the destinations of which we were 
 unable to guess. Here, too, all was on a vast and magnificent 
 scale. They were probably the abodes of the pontiffs, the col¬ 
 leges of the priests, the halls of initiation—perhaps also royal dwell¬ 
 ings. They were lighted from the roofs, or from the sides of the 
 platform under which they were built. Fearing lest we might 
 lose ourselves in these labyrinths, we entered only a small por¬ 
 tion of them—they seemed to extend over the whole of the hill. 
 The temple I have just described stands at the southwestern ex¬ 
 tremity of the hill of Balbec, and forms the angle of the platform. 
 
 On leaving the peristyle, we found ourselves on the very edge 
 of the precipice. VVe could measure the Cyclopean stones which 
 form the pedestal of this group of monuments. This pedestal is 
 
92 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND, 
 
 thirty feet above the level of the plain of Balbee. It is huilt of 
 stones of such prodigious dimensions, that if the descriptions of 
 them were not given by travelers worthy of credit, they would be 
 rejected as false and improbable. The Arabs, wno are daily eye¬ 
 witnesses to the existence of these wonders, attribute them, not to 
 the power of man, but to that of genii and other supernatural be¬ 
 ings. When it is considered that some of these blocks of hewn 
 granite are twenty feet long, fifteen or sixteen wide, and of in¬ 
 conceivable thickness ; when it is borne in mind that these huge 
 masses are raised one above another to the height of twenty or 
 thirty feet from the ground—that they have been brought from 
 distant quraries, and raised to so vast a height to form the pave¬ 
 ment of the temples-—the mind is overwhelmed by such an exam¬ 
 ple of human power. The science of modern times cannot help 
 us to explain it, and we cannot be surprised that it is referred to 
 the supernatural. 
 
 These wonders are evidently not of the date of the temples— 
 they were mysieries to the ancients, as they are to us. They 
 belong to an unknown age, and are perhaps antediluvian. It is 
 possible, that they may have supported many temples, consecrated 
 to successive and various forms of religious worship. On the 
 site of the ruins of Balbee, tbe eye at once recognizes five or six 
 generations of monuments, belonging to different ages. Some 
 travelers and Arab writers attribute these primitive structures to 
 Solomon, who lived three thousand years before our time. He, it 
 is said, built Tadmor and Balbee in the Desert. The history of 
 Solomon fills the imagination of the Orientals; but the supposi¬ 
 tion, as far as concerns the gigantic structures of Heliopolis, is by 
 no means probable. How could a king of Israel, who possessed 
 not even a seaport ten leagues from these mountains; who was 
 obliged to borrow the ships of Hiram king of Tyre, to bring him 
 the cedars of Lebanon—how could he have extended his dominion 
 beyond Damascus and as far as Balbee ? Is it likely, that a 
 prince, who, when he wished to raise in his capital, the Temple 
 of temples, the house of the only God, employed merely fragile 
 materials, which left no durable trace behind them, could have 
 built, at the distance of a hundred leagues from his own territo¬ 
 ries, in the midst of unknown deserts, monuments composed of 
 imperishable materials? Would he not rather have employed 
 his power and his wealth in Jerusalem ? And what is there in 
 Jerusalem which affords any trace of monuments like those at 
 Balbee ? Nothing. These temples therefore cannot be attributed 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 93 
 
 to Solomon. I am inclined to believe that these gigantic masses 
 of stone were put together either by the early races of men who 
 in all primitive histories are denominated giants, or by some race 
 of men who lived before the deluge. 
 
 It is alleged, that not far from Balbec, in a valley of the Anti- 
 Libanus, human bones of immense magnitude have been discovered. 
 This fact is so confidently believed among the neighboring Arabs, 
 that Mr. Farren, the English consul in Syria, a man of extensive 
 information, proposes immediately to visit these mysterious sepul¬ 
 chres. Oriental traditions, and the monument erected on what is 
 called the tomb of Noah, mark this spot as the dwelling-place of 
 the patriarch. The first generation of his descendants probably 
 long retained the gigantic stature and the strength assigned to man 
 before the total or partial submersion of the globe. These mon¬ 
 uments may be their work. Even supposing that the human race 
 had never exceeded its present proportions, it is possible that the 
 proportions of human intelligence may have undergone a change. 
 Who can say but that primitive intelligence might have invented 
 mechanical powers capable of moving, like grains of dust, masses 
 which an army of a hundred thousand men could now scarcely 
 shake ! Be this as it may, it is certain that some of the stones at 
 Balbec, which are sixty-two feet long, twenty broad, and fifteen 
 thick, are the most prodigious masses which have ever been 
 moved by human power. The largest stones in the Pyramids of 
 Egypt do not exceed eighteen feet; and these are only exception¬ 
 al blocks, placed for the sake of peculiar solidity in some parts 
 of the edifice. 
 
 On turning the northern angle of the platform, we found the 
 supporting walls in a beautiful state of preservation ; but the bulk 
 of the stones of which they are built is less astonishing: these 
 stones are on the average from twenty to thirty feet long, and 
 from eight to ten feet wide. The walls, which are more ancient 
 than the upper temples, are covered with a gray tint, and are here 
 and there pierced with holes at their junction angles. In these 
 openings swallows have built their nests, and tufts of creeping 
 shrubs and flowers are hanging from them. The grave and som¬ 
 bre color of the stones of the base contrasts with the bright yellow 
 color of the walls of the temples and the rows of columns on the 
 summit. At sunset, when the rays play among the pillars and 
 ripple in waves of fire between the volutes and the acanthuses of 
 the capitals, the temples glitter as if they were sculptured out of 
 pure gold and were standing on pedestals of bronze. We de- 
 vol. II. 5* 
 
94 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 scended by a breach formed in the southern angle of the platfDrm. 
 There some of the columns of the smaller temple have rolled with 
 their architrave into the torrent which runs parallel with the Cy¬ 
 clopean walls. The enormous fragments of columns grouped at 
 hazard in the bed of the torrent, and on the rapid slope of the 
 fosse, will doubtless remain eternally where the hand of time has 
 scattered them. Some walnut and other trees have taken root 
 among the blocks of stone, which they cover by their branches 
 and entwine with their roots. The largest trees resemble mere 
 shrubs beside these shafts of columns, twenty feet in circumfer¬ 
 ence, and fragments of acanthus, of which one alone fills up half 
 the bed of the torrent, 
 
 Not far from thence, on the northern side of the platform, a 
 cavity opened before us ; we descended it. The external light 
 which entered from the two extremities enabled us to see our way 
 sufficiently well. We proceeded along its whole length, which 
 measures five hundred feet: it extends beneath the whole ruins 
 of the temples. It is thirty feet high, and the floor and vaulted 
 roof are formed of blocks of stone, the magnitude of which sur¬ 
 prised us, even after those we had just beheld. They are blocks 
 of tuff, cut with the chisel, and are of unequal sizes; but the 
 largest is ten or twenty feet long. The roof is vaulted, and the 
 stones are joined without cement. We could form no conjecture 
 as to the purpose to which this place had been destined. At the 
 western extremity this vault has a branch still more elevated and 
 extensive: it runs under the platform of the smaller temples 
 which we first visited. Here we again found ourselves in the 
 light of day, and beheld the torrent flowing amidst innumerable 
 fragments of architecture, and fine walnut trees growing in the 
 dust of the marbles. 
 
 The other ancient edifices of Balbec lay scattered before us 
 in the plain ; but nothing had power to interest us after what we 
 had seen. We casta passing and superficial glance at four tem¬ 
 ples which would be thought wonders in Rome, but which here 
 resemble the works of dwarfs. Two of these temples are of an 
 octagonal form, and are very elegantly ornamented ; and the 
 other two are square, with peristyles of Egyptian granite and 
 porphyry : they are, I think, of Roman origin. One of them 
 served as a church in the early ages of Christianity, and symbols 
 of Christian worship are still discernible : it is now unroofed and 
 in ruins. The Arabs despoil it whenever they want a stone to 
 prop up their dwellings, or a trough to water their camels. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 95 
 
 A messenger from the Emir of the Arabs of Balbec came in 
 search of us, and met us here. The prince had sent him to con¬ 
 gratulate us on our arrival, and to request our company at a 
 djerid, a sort of tournament which he intended to give in honor 
 of our presence next day in the plain below the temples. We 
 returned thanks and accepted the invitation; and I sent my dra¬ 
 goman, attended by some of my Janissaries, to make a visit from 
 me to the Emir. 
 
 We returned to the bishop’s residence, with the intention of 
 resting for the remainder of the day; but no sooner had we par¬ 
 taken of a little cake and the dish of mutton and rice prepared 
 for us by our moukres, than we again set out to wander without 
 a guide round the hill of the ruins, or in the temples which we 
 had seen in the morning. We each of us fixed our attention on 
 some object or point of view which appeared to us peculiarly in¬ 
 teresting, and called our companions to come and look at it too : 
 but we could not turn to any new object without losing sight of 
 another which appeared even more attractive, and at length we 
 all confined ourselves to the admiration of our own particular 
 discoveries. The shades of evening, which slowly descended the 
 mountains of Balbec, and obscured one by one the columns and 
 the ruins, imparted an additional air of mystery to the picturesque 
 and magical effect of these wonderful works of man and time. 
 We felt the full insignificance of human nature, and while con¬ 
 templating the mass and eternity of these monuments, we com¬ 
 pared ourselves to the swallows which build their nests for a 
 season in the interstices of these stones, without knowing by 
 whom or for what purpose they have been collected together. 
 The power which moved these masses and accumulated these 
 blocks is unknown to us ; the dust of the marble which we trod 
 under our feet knows more than we do, but can tell us nothing ; 
 and in a few centuries to come, the generations who may in their 
 turn visit the wrecks of our monuments now existing, will ask, 
 without being able to answer, why we labored to build and carve. 
 The works of man are more durable than his thoughts ;—move¬ 
 ment is the law of the human mind ;—the definitive is the dream 
 of man’s vanity and ignorance. God is an object which inces¬ 
 santly recedes from us as we endeavor to approach him. We 
 are continually advancing, but we never arrive. The Deity, 
 whose divine figure man seeks to embody in his imagination and 
 to enshrine in his temples, continually enlarges and exceeds the 
 narrow boundaries of our minds and our edifices, leaves the tern- 
 
96 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 pies and the altars to crumble into dust, and summons man to 
 seek him where he is most plainly manifested, viz.—in intelli¬ 
 gence, in virtue, in nature, and in eternity. 
 
 Same date, Evening. 
 
 I have sometimes thought how happy we should be if we had 
 wings to hover over past ages, to look down without vertigo on 
 those wonderful monuments, and sound the depths of human 
 thought and destiny ; to scan with our eyes the course of the 
 human mind, advancing by degrees through the twilight of suc¬ 
 cessive systems of philosophy, religion, and legislation ;—to sail 
 like the navigator over seas without visible shores, to guess 
 at what point of the circle of ages we ourselves live ; and to 
 what manifestation of truth and divinity God destines the genera¬ 
 tion of which we form a part. 
 
 Balbec, March 29th, Midnight. 
 
 Yesterday evening I went alone and visited the hill of the 
 temples, to reflect, to weep, and to pray. Heaven knows how 
 much I weep and shall weep as long as a recollection and a tear 
 remain to me. After praying for myself, and for those who are 
 part of myself, I prayed for all mankind. The vast expanse of 
 ruins on which I looked down inspired me with feelings so strong, 
 that I almost involuntarily gave vent to them in verse, which is 
 the language in which I naturally express myself whenever I am 
 under the influence of any powerful impression. 
 
 1 noted down my ideas this morning on the same spot and on 
 the same stone on which they were conceived last night. 
 
 VERSES WRITTEN AT BALBEC. 
 
 Mysterkras Deserts! Deserts whose large hills 
 Are bones of cities with a perished name ; 
 
 Vast block by ruin in its torrent swept, 
 
 Huge bed of life whose waves have ceased to flow. 
 
 Ye temples, which for your foundations rent 
 The marble strength of mountains like a tree j 
 
 VERS ECRIT A BALBEC. 
 
 Mysterieux Deserts! dont les larges collines 
 Sont les os des cites dont le nom a peri ; 
 
 Vastes blocs qu’a roules le torrent des ruines ; 
 Immense lit d’un peuple on la vague a tari • 
 Temples qui, pour porter vos fondemens de marbre, 
 Avez ddracine les grands monts comme un arbre ; 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 97 
 
 Gulfs where whole rivers roll;—ye columns high, 
 Where my eye vainly seeks to find a way, 
 
 And where the moon is lost as among clouds ; 
 
 Whose capitals I mingle as I gaze ;— 
 
 On the globe’s shell, enormous characters— 
 
 To trace you with his hand, to sound your depths, 
 
 A man has wandered from the distant West. 
 
 The path which o’er the deep his ship has found. 
 
 An hundred times its rolling sky has spread ; 
 
 Mid gulfs of the abyss his life he flung ; 
 
 His feet are worn upon the mountain’s height: 
 
 The sun has burnt the canvas of his tent ; 
 
 His friends, his brothers, wasted ’neath the toil ; 
 
 His dog uncertain, if he e’er returns, 
 
 Will recognize no more his hand nor voice. 
 
 He has let fall, and lost upon the way 
 
 His soul’s day star—the child which ’neath yon vault 
 
 Shed round him light and immortality. 
 
 He’ll leave nor memory nor posterity.— 
 
 Now seated lonely on some ruin vast 
 He only hears the mocking wind pass by. 
 
 A weight bows down his brow, and chains his breath— 
 He has nor thought—nor heart! 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 Gouffres ou rouleraient des fleuves tout entiers ; 
 Colonnes ou mon ceil cherche en vain des sentiers ; 
 
 De piliers et d’arceaux profondes avenues, 
 
 Ou lu lune s’egare ainsi qu’au sein des nues ; 
 Chapiteaux que mon ceil mele en les regardant: 
 
 Sur l’ecorce du globe immenses caracteres, 
 
 Pour vous toucher du doigt, pour sonder vos mysteres, 
 Un homme est venu d’Occident! 
 
 La route, sur les flots, que sa nef a suivie, 
 
 A deplie cent fois ses roulans horizons ; 
 
 Aux gouffres de l’abime il a jete sa vie ; 
 
 Ses pieds se sont uses sur les pointes des monts ; 
 
 Les soleils ont brule la toile de sa tente ; 
 
 Ses freres, ses amis ont seche dans l’attente ; 
 
 Et s’il revient jamais, son chien meme incertain 
 Ne reconnaitra plus ni sa voix ni sa main ; 
 
 II a laissd tomber et perdu dans la route 
 L’etoiie de son ceil, l’enfant qui sous sa route 
 Repandait la lumidre et l’immortalite : 
 
 II mourra sans mdmoire et sans posterite ! 
 
 Et maintenant assis sur la vaste ruine, 
 
 II n'entend que le veut qui rend un son moqueur; 
 
 Un poids courbe son front, dcrase sa poitrine : 
 
 Plus de pensde et plus de cceur! 
 »#*##**« 
 
98 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 The same date. 
 
 I had crossed the summits of the Sannin, covered with eternal 
 snow, and had re-descended from the Libanus, crowned with its 
 diadem of cedars, into the bare and sterile desert of Heliopolis,— 
 thus bringing to a close a long and fatiguing day’s journey. At 
 the still distant horizon before us, on the last ridges of the black 
 mountains of the Anti-Libanus, an immense group of yellow ruins, 
 gilded by the setting sun, stood out from the shade of the moun¬ 
 tains, and was reflected by the rays of the evening. Our guides, 
 pointing to the ruins, exclaimed, Balbec ! Bailee ! It was, in 
 truth, the wonder of the desert, the fabulous Balbec, which arose 
 glittering from its unknown sepulchre, to tell us of ages past, of 
 which history retains no memorial. We advanced slowly on our 
 wearied horses—our eyes fixed on the gigantic walls—the daz¬ 
 zling and colossal columns, which appeared to enlarge as we ap¬ 
 proached them. Profound silence reigned throughout the whole 
 caravan ; every one being apparently apprehensive lest he might 
 destroy, by giving utterance to his feelings, some of the impres¬ 
 sions which the scene produced. Even the Arabs were silent, 
 and appeared to be absorbed in deep and serious reflection, on 
 contemplating a spectacle which leveled all reflections. At length 
 we reached the first fragments of pillars, the first blocks of mar¬ 
 ble, which had been cast by earthquakes to the distance of more 
 than a mile from the monuments themselves, like dry leaves scat¬ 
 tered by the hurricane far away from the tree to which they be¬ 
 long. Deep and large quarries, dug into the black sides of the 
 Anti-Libanus, and appearing like natural defiles, already yawned 
 beneath our horses’ feet. These vast basins of stone, the sides of 
 which retain the deep traces of the instruments employed in hew¬ 
 ing the mountains, still contain gigantic blocks, some partially de¬ 
 tached, others completely separated, and cut into squares, as if 
 only awaiting the carriages or the sinews of a race of giants for 
 their removal. One of these Balbec blocks measured sixty-two 
 feet in length, twenty-four in breadth, and sixteen in thickness. 
 One of our Arabs, dismounting, slipped down into the quarry, and 
 climbing up this block by aid of furrows made by the tools, and 
 holding by the moss which had taken root in different parts, he 
 succeeded in gaining its top, where he ran about uttering wild 
 exclamations. The hugeness of the block of stone seemed to an¬ 
 nihilate the man. He shrunk to nothing in comparison to the 
 work of his fellow-man. It would require the united strength of 
 sixty thousand men of our time to raise this single stone. But the 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 99 
 
 quarries of Balbec contain others of still greater dimensions, 
 standing twenty-five or thirty feet above the ground. These were 
 destined to support colonnades of corresponding weight and mag¬ 
 nitude. 
 
 We pursued our journey, having the desert on our left, and 
 the undulations of the Anti-Libanus on our right. We crossed 
 some small plains cultivated by Arabian shepherds, and the bed 
 of a considerable torrent, which meanders among the ruins, and 
 on whose banks were some fine nut trees. Now and then the 
 Acropolis, or the artificial hill on which are heaped the immense 
 monuments of the Heliopolis, displayed itself to our view through 
 the branches, and above the tall tops of the trees. At length we 
 discovered it entire, and all the caravans, as if by an electric 
 instinct, halted. It is beyond the power of pen or pencil to de¬ 
 scribe the impression which this spectacle produces on the mind 
 as well as on the sight. Under our very feet, in the bed of the 
 torrent, around the trunks of the trees, were scattered blocks of 
 red and gray granite, veined porphyry, white marble, and yellow 
 stone as bright as Parian marble; truncated columns, richly 
 wrought capitals, architraves, volutes, cornices, entablatures, and 
 pedestals; while portions of figures and whole statues, seemingly 
 animated with life, lay around in confused masses, like the lava 
 of some volcano which had vomited forth the reliques of a mighty 
 empire. Scarcely a path was left for us through these fragments 
 of art, and at every step the hoofs of our horses grazed the rich 
 acanthus of some cornice, or the polished bosom of some female 
 statue. The waters of the river of Balbec made their way through 
 these masses, and laved with their murmuring foam the marble 
 fragments which impeded our advance. 
 
 Beyond these masses, which may be truly called marble 
 downs, rises the hill of Balbec, an elevation a thousand feet long, 
 and seven hundred broad, entirely the work of human hands, and 
 built of freestone, some blocks of which measured from fifty to 
 sixty feet long, and from fifteen to sixteen high, but the average 
 from fifteen to thirty. This mound of sculptured granite pre¬ 
 sented its eastern side to us, with its deep base and its superfices 
 of immeasurable dimensions. Three blocks of granite alone pre¬ 
 sent a surface of nearly four thousand feet. In the expansive 
 hollows of the subterrananeous vaults, the river ingulfs itself, and 
 the wind rushing in with the water, produces a noise like the dis¬ 
 tant peals of cathedral-bells. Above this immense eminence we 
 descried the tops of the great temples relieved from an horizon 
 
100 
 
 A PILGrRIMAG-E TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 alternately azure, red and gold color. Some of these deserted 
 monuments appear intact, and as if fresh from the hands of the 
 artist, whilst others were merely fragments, isolated columns, large 
 portions of inclining walls and dismantled pediments. The eye 
 is absolutely bewildered in surveying the brilliant avenues of the 
 colonnades of the different temples; and the horizon rising above 
 them prevented us from discerning the point where this world of 
 architecture terminated. The six gigantic columns of the grand 
 temple, still majestically supporting their rich and colossal entab¬ 
 lature, tower over all the rest, and their terminations are lost in 
 the azure sky, as if the erection were an aerial altar raised by 
 giants for their sacrifices. 
 
 We stopped but a few minutes to examine the objects which 
 we had reached after our perilous and long journey, and, certain 
 of enjoying on the morrow a spectacle which could not be im¬ 
 aged even in dreams, we resumed our course. The day was 
 drawing in, and it was necessary to seek some place of shelter, 
 either under a tent or beneath some of the arches of the ruins, 
 where we might pass the night and repose our wearied limbs after 
 a journey of fourteen hours. Leaving on our left the mountains 
 of ruins and the immense plain blanched with marble fragments, 
 and having crossed several meadows in which goats and camels 
 were grazing, we directed our steps towards some smoke which 
 we perceived curling above a group of ruins, intermixed with 
 Arab huts. The ground was unequal and hilly, and resound¬ 
 ed under our horses’ hoofs as if the vaults we passed over 
 would open beneath our feet. We arrived at length at the door 
 of a little hut, half hidden by fragments of mouldering marble, 
 and the door and straight windows of which, though without either 
 glass or shutters, were formed of marble and porphyry badly 
 joined by cement. A small stone ogive projected one or two feet 
 above the platform which served as a roof to this building, and a 
 small steeple, similar to what is seen in pictures of hermits’ grot¬ 
 toes, was tottering with every breath of wind. This was the epis¬ 
 copal palace of the Arab bishop of Balbec, who tended in this 
 desert a small flock of twelve or thirteen Christian families of 
 the Greek faith, surrounded by the deserts and the savage tribe 
 of the independent Arabs of Bka. Hitherto we had not seen a 
 single living thing/in this solitude, except the jackals hopping 
 about among the columns of the great temple, and some small 
 swallows with rings of glossy red plumage round their necks, 
 who fringed like ornaments of Oriental architecture, the cornices 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 101 
 
 of the platform. The bishop, roused by the noise of our caravan, 
 appeared forthwith, and bowing upon the threshold proffered his 
 hospitality. He was a fine old man, with hair and beard of silver, 
 a grave and benevolent cast of features, and a sweet and well 
 modulated voice. He was the perfect image of a priest in poetry 
 or romance ; and his aspect, which denoted peace, resignation 
 and charity, was well suited to this solemn scene of ruins and 
 meditation. He led us into a small inner court, adorned with 
 sculpture and fragments of antique mosaics and vases ; and ac¬ 
 cording to the Eastern custom, he consigned to us the use of his 
 house, which consisted of two small rooms. Whilst some of our 
 Arabs fixed the iron stakes round the house and fastened to them 
 our horses’ legs, and others were kindling fires in the yard to 
 prepare our pilau and cook our barley cakes, we went out to take 
 a second view of the monuments. The great temples rose before 
 us like statues from their pedestals; the last pale rays of the set¬ 
 ting sun, slowly retired from column to column, like the glim¬ 
 merings of the lamp which the priest bears into the recesses of 
 the sanctuary. The shadows of the porticoes, pillars, colonnades 
 and altars, were flitting over the vast forest of stone, and insensi¬ 
 bly superseding the brilliant white of the marble and tuff on the 
 Acropolis. Further on in the plain appeared an ocean of ruins 
 terminated only with the horizon. It might be likened to waves 
 of stone breaking upon some rocky shore, and covering an im¬ 
 mense plain with their white foam. Above this sea of ruins no 
 object rose, and the shades of night which were descending from 
 the gray summits of a chain of mountains, successively spread 
 over the whole scene. We lingered a short time in silent con¬ 
 templation of this sublime spectacle, and then returned to the 
 court of the bishop’s house, which was now illuminated by the fire 
 of the Arabs. 
 
 Seated upon some fragments of cornices and capitals which 
 served us for benches, we quickly despatched the simple repast 
 of travelers in the desert, and for some time before retiring to 
 rest, we conversed together about the grand spectacle we had just 
 seen. The fires had died out, but the full moon had risen and 
 illuminated the clear canopy of heaven, penetrating through the 
 crevices of a large white stone wall, and the open work of an 
 arabesque window, which was on that side of the court next the 
 desert. Our conversation gradually ceased, and we became ab¬ 
 sorbed in meditation. What reflections occurred to our minds at 
 that time, in that place, so far removed from the living world !— 
 
102 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 in that world of the dead, in the presence of so many evidences of 
 past and unknown ages; evidences which overturn the petty 
 theories of human history and philosophy! What then was stir¬ 
 ring in our minds, or in our hearts in reference to our system, 
 our ideas, and perhaps, alas! to our individual recollections and 
 sentiments! God alone knows ! Our tongues could not have told, 
 nor dared they venture to profane the solemnity of that hour, or 
 even of our thoughts. We were silent. Suddenly a soft and 
 plaintive strain, a slow modulated murmur stole through the 
 arabesque ogives of the ruined wall of the bishop’s house. This 
 vague and confused sound swelled higher and higher, until we 
 distinguished it to be a chant from the united voices of choristers; 
 a monotonous, melancholy strain, which rose, fell, and died away, 
 and was alternately revived and re-echoed. It was the evening 
 prayer, which the Arab bishop was chanting, with his little flock 
 in the skeleton of that which had once been his church, viz., a 
 heap of ruins piled up by a tribe of idolaters. We were totally 
 unprepared for this music of the soul, whose every note was, in 
 fact, a sentiment, or a sigh from the human breast. How little 
 did we expect it in this solitude, in the bosom of a desert, issuing 
 as it were from mute stones, strewed about by the combined influ¬ 
 ence of earthquakes, barbarous ignorance and time. A hallowed 
 emotion inspired us, and we joined with religious fervor in the 
 sacred hymn, until the last sighs of the pious voices had died 
 away, and silence again reigned over the venerable ruins. 
 
 Same date. 
 
 The temples almost made us forget the djerid, which the 
 Prince of Balbec had prepared for our entertainment. We pass¬ 
 ed the whole of the morning in inspecting the ruins. At four 
 o’clock, some Arabs came to inform us that the horsemen were 
 in the plain, beyond the temples, but that impatient at our delay, 
 they were about to retire. They added that the Prince supposed 
 the spectacle was not agreeable to us, since we had not attended, 
 and begged that after we had satisfied our curiosity at the ruins, 
 we would repair to his seraglio, where he was arranging another 
 entertainment for us. This courtesy from the chief of a fierce 
 tribe of the most redoubtable Arabs of this desert astonished us. 
 In general the Arabs and Turks do not allow strangers to visit 
 alone any ruins of ancient monuments. They imagine that these 
 ruins enclose vast treasures guarded by genii or demons, and that 
 the Europeans know the magic words* which lead to their disco- 
 
103 
 
 % 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 very, therefore they cause the Franks to be watched with extreme 
 vigilance. Here, on the contrary, we were absolutely left to 
 ourselves ; having not even an Arab guide with us, and the 
 children of the tribe kept at a distance out of respect to us. I 
 know not howto account for this respectful deference, on the part 
 of the Emir of Balbec. Perhaps he took us to be emissaries of 
 Ibrahim Pacha. We were not sufficiently numerous to inspire 
 with fear a whole tribe of from five to six hundred men, inured 
 to conflict and existing by robbery ; and yet they seemed to be 
 afraid to approach us, to interrogate us, or to oppose the least ob¬ 
 stacle to our movements. We might have remained a month 
 amidst these temples. We might have made excavations, and 
 carried off the most precious fragments without the least opposi¬ 
 tion from any one. I deeply regret that here, as well as at the 
 Dead Sea, 1 was not aware beforehand of the character of the 
 various tribes. I should then have brought with me workmen and 
 camels, and carried home objects which would have enriched 
 our museums. 
 
 We left the temples and proceeded to the Emir’s palace. A 
 line of deserted but less important ruins separates the great hill of 
 the temples, or the Acropolis of Balbec from New Balbec, which 
 is inhabited by the Arabs. The latter place is merely a cluster 
 of huts, which have been a hundred times destroyed in the in¬ 
 cessant wars of the people, who, on those occasions have fled for 
 shelter to the cavities among the ruins. Branches of trees and 
 thatch form the roofs of these dwellings, whose doors and win¬ 
 dows are frequently adorned with admirable fragments of ancient 
 architecture. 
 
 The space occupied by the ruins of the modern city is im¬ 
 mense. They extend beyond the reach of the eye, and spread 
 over two hills, which undulate above the great plain. They pro¬ 
 duce a melancholy effect. These modern ruins reminded me of 
 those of Athens, which I had seen a year previously. The dead 
 dry white of these crumbling walls and scattered stones, has none 
 of the majestic character and rich coloring of genuine ancient 
 ruins. They present the appearance of a vast beach covered 
 with the foam of the sea. The Emir’s palace is a spacious open 
 court, surrounded by huts of various forms, looking very much 
 like a farm-yard in one of our poorest provinces. The door was 
 guarded by several armed Arabs. A crowd of people were press¬ 
 ing to gain admission ; but the guards cleared a passage for us, 
 and ushered us in. The court-yard was thronged by all the 
 
104 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 chiefs of the tribe, and a great number of the people. The Emir 
 and his family, together with the principal Scheiks, wearing the 
 ragged remains of splendid kaftans and pelisses, were seated on a 
 platform raised above the crowd, and having their backs to the 
 principal building. Behind them were ranged servants, armed 
 men, and slaves. The Emir and his suit rose at our approach ; 
 they helped us to ascend a few high steps, consisting of irregular 
 blocks of stone, which served as a staircase to the platform. 
 After the usual compliments, the Emir requested us to sit on 
 the Divan, by his side; pipes were brought to us, and the enter¬ 
 tainment commenced. 
 
 A band of music, consisting of drums, tambourines, shrill fifes, 
 and iron triangles, gave the signal, and four or five actors, gro¬ 
 tesquely attired, some in male and others in female costume, 
 advanced to the centre of the court-yard, and executed the wildest 
 and most indecent dances that even the eyes of those savages 
 could endure. These dances were kept up for about an hour, and 
 were intermingled from time to time with words and gestures, 
 and changes of costume, which seemed to indicate a dramatic in¬ 
 tention ; but there was only one thing intelligible, viz., the horri¬ 
 ble and disgusting depravity of the manners of these people, 
 indicated by the movements of the dancers. I averted my eyes. 
 The Emir himself seemed to blush at the scandalous diversions 
 of his subjects, and made signs of contempt and disapproval. 
 But the shouts and transports of the people rewarded the actors in 
 those parts of the dances which represented the most revolting 
 obscenities. 
 
 The performers danced, until overcome by heat and fatigue, 
 they could no longer keep up with the increasing rapidity of the 
 music. They then rolled on the ground, and were carried away. 
 No females were present at the spectacle; but the wives of the 
 Emir, whose harem looked into the court-yard, could see it from 
 their apartments, and we saw them through the wooden railings, 
 pressing to the windowjs to look at the dancers. The slaves of the 
 Emir handed to us sherbets and various kinds of sweetmeats, and 
 exquisite beverages composed of the juice of pomegranates and 
 orange flowers, iced. These drinks were served in crystal cups. 
 Other slaves presented to us muslin napkins, embroidered with 
 gold, to wipe our mouths. Coffee was likewise handed round sev¬ 
 eral times, and the pipes were continually renewed. I conversed 
 for about half-an hour with the Emir. He appeared to me to be 
 a shrewd and sensible man, greatly superior to what I should 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 105 
 
 
 have imagined him to be, had I judged of him from the barbarous 
 amusements of his people. He was about fifty years of age. His 
 countenance was handsome, and his manners were distinguished 
 for dignity, and a sort of solemn politeness, qualities which the 
 lowest of the Arabs possess, as the gift of their climate, or as a 
 legacy bequeathed by ancient civilization. His dress and arms 
 were extremely magnificent. His horses, too, which were stand¬ 
 ing in the court-yard and in the road, were superb ; and he offer¬ 
 ed me some of the finest. He questioned me with the most deli¬ 
 cate discretion respecting Europe, Ibrahim Pacha, and the object 
 of my journey in these deserts. I replied with an affected re¬ 
 serve, which must have led him to believe that I had a totally 
 different object from that of visiting and examining ancient ruins. 
 He offered me all his tribe to accompany me to Damascus, across 
 the unknown chain of the Anti-Libanus, which I wished to pass. 
 I accepted only a few horsemen as my guides and escort, and I 
 retired, attended by all the Scheiks, who followed us on horseback 
 to the door of the Greek Bishop’s dwelling. I gave orders for our 
 departure on the following day ; and we spent the evening in con¬ 
 versation with our venerable host, to whom we were soon to bid 
 farewell. A few hundred piastres, which I left as alms for his 
 flock, paid for the hospitality we had received from him. He 
 promised to despatch a camel laden with some fragments of sculp¬ 
 ture, which 1 wished to carry with me to Europe. Pie faithfully 
 executed this commision, and on my return to Syria, I found these 
 valuable objects which had arrived before me at Bayreut. 
 
 March 31st, 1833. 
 
 We left Balbec, at four o’clock in the morning. The cara¬ 
 van consisted of our usual number of Moukres, Arabs, and ser¬ 
 vants, together with eight horsemen of Balbec, who rode at two 
 or three hundred paces in advance of the caravan. Day was be¬ 
 ginning to dawn as we crossed the first hill leading to the chain of 
 the Anti-Libanus. Over the whole of this hill, there were im¬ 
 mensely deep quarries; whence had been dug the prodigious 
 monuments we had just examined. The sun was beginning to 
 gild their tops, and they shone in the plain beneath our feet, like 
 masses of gold. We could not turn our eyes in any other direc¬ 
 tion, and we stopped twenty times to look at them, before they 
 were entirely out of sight. At length they disappeared completely 
 under the hill, and we beheld across the desert only the black or 
 snowy summits of the mouutainsof Tripoli and Latakia blending 
 together in the firmament. 
 
106 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 The mountains which we now traversed were entirely barren, 
 and almost deserted. The soil generally in this part is poor 
 and sterile; and in places where it is cultivated, it is of a red 
 color. There are many pretty valleys, with gentle and undula¬ 
 ting slopes, in which the plough might work its way without im¬ 
 pediment. We saw neither travelers, villagers, nor inhabitants, 
 until the middle of the day. We pitched our tents and halted at 
 the entrance of a deep ravine, through which runs a torrent, at 
 that time dry. We found a spring at the foot of a rock; the 
 water was abundant and delicious. We filled our jars which hung 
 at the saddles of our horses. We rested for two hours, and then 
 resumed our journey. 
 
 For the space of two more hours we passed along a steep path 
 on the flank of a mountain of barren rock. The valley, which 
 became deeper and deeper on our right, was intersected by the 
 bed of a broad river, then dry. A mountain of gray rock, com¬ 
 pletely bare, rose on the other side, like a perpendicular wall. 
 We had begun to descend to the other mouth of this defile, when 
 two of our horses, laden with baggage, slipped and fell down the 
 precipice. The cushions and divan carpets with which they 
 were laden, broke their fall, and they were saved. We encamp¬ 
 ed at the outlet of the defile, near an excellent spring. We pass¬ 
 ed the night in this unknown labyrinth of the mountains of the 
 Anti-Libanus. The snows were only fifty paces above our heads. 
 Our Arabs kindled a fire with their brambles and branches of 
 trees, in a little grotto, about ten paces from the spot where we 
 had pitched our tent. The blaze of the fire shone through the 
 canvas, and lighted the interior of the tent, in which we shelter¬ 
 ed ourselves from the cold. The chill air made our horses neigh, 
 though they had on their libels, a sort of covering of felt. 
 Throughout the whole of the night we heard the complaints of the 
 horsemen of Balbec and the Egyptian soldiers, w 7 ho lay shiver¬ 
 ing under their cloaks. We ourselves, though well wrapped up 
 and covered, could scarcely endure the bitter cold. At seven 
 next morning we mounted our horses. The sun was shining 
 splendidly, and the heat obliged us to lay aside successively our 
 caftans and cloaks. At eight o’clock we entered an elevated 
 plain, adjoining an Arab village, containing large houses, with 
 yards filled with cattle and poultry, like the farm-houses of Eu¬ 
 rope. We did not stop there. These people are on hostile terms 
 with the inhabitants of Balbec and the Arabs of Syria. They 
 are a race almost independent, and have more connection with 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE IIOLY LAND- 
 
 107 
 
 the people of Damascus and Mesopotamia. They seemed thriv¬ 
 ing and laborious. All the plains surrounding the village are 
 well cultivated. We saw men, women, and children in the fields. 
 The ground is tilled by oxen. We met several scheiks richly 
 dressed and mounted, going to and returning from Damascus. 
 These were men of rude and ferocious aspect. They looked at 
 us in a very unfriendly way, and passed us without salutation. 
 The children called after us insulting names. In a second vil¬ 
 lage, about two hours’ journey from that just mentioned, we with 
 difficulty purchased some poultry and a little rice, for the dinner 
 of our caravan. At six in the evening, we encamped in a field, 
 above a mountain defile descending to a river. There was a little 
 torrent in the defile, at which we watered our horses. The air 
 still continued cold. Before us, at the mouth of the ravine, there 
 rose points of rock, grouped like pyramids, and mingling with the 
 clouds. These points were destitute of vegetation, and the gray 
 or black color of the rock formed a broad contrast to the brilliant 
 clearness of the firmament, with which they were blended. 
 
 April 1st, 1833. 
 
 We mounted our horses at six in the morning. We had a 
 delightful jour ney, traveling all day among steep mountains ; 
 separated only by narrow ravines, through which rolled torrents 
 of melted snow. Not a tree or a bit of moss was growing on the 
 sides of these mountains. Their strange forms and groupings 
 gave them the appearance of monuments raised by the hands of 
 men. One of them rose to an immense height, and was nearly 
 perpendicular on all its sides, like a pyramid : it might be a 
 league in circumference. It is impossible to conceive the possi¬ 
 bility of its ever having been ascended. No trace of paths or 
 steps are visible, and yet all its sides are hollowed by caverns 
 which have been the work of human hands. There are likewise 
 a number of cells of various sizes, whose doors are adorned with 
 sculpture, and carved work ; some of these grottoes, whose mouths 
 opened above our heads, had terraces cut in the rock before their 
 doors. We also saw the remains of chapels or temples, and col¬ 
 umns standing erect on the rock. The Arabs affirm that the 
 Christians of Damascus dug these caverns ; and I think it is prob¬ 
 able that this was one of the Thebaides, in which the early 
 Christians sought refuge in the ages of cenobitism and persecu¬ 
 tion. St. Paul founded a large church at Damascus, and that 
 church, though it flourished long, finally underwent the phases 
 and persecutions of all the other churches of the East. 
 
108 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 We passed this mountain, leaving it on our left, and it was 
 soon a considerable distance behind us. We descended rapidly, 
 and by almost impassable precipices into a broad and open val¬ 
 ley. A beautiful river flowed through it; on the banks of this 
 river we again saw vegetation—willows, poplars, and huge trees, 
 with black foliage, and branches curiously bent, were growing in 
 the interstices of the rock, which bordered the river. We jour¬ 
 neyed along these delightful banks for the space of an hour, still 
 descending, but insensibly. The murmuring river accompanied 
 us, and its foaming waves washed our horses’ feet. The high 
 mountains, which formed the defile whence the river descended, 
 gradually receded, and their wooded sides were gilded by the 
 rays of the setting sun. 
 
 We now caught the first glimpse of Mesopotamia. We grad¬ 
 ually discerned more and more distinctly the large valleys, 
 opening into the great plain of the Desert of Damascus at Bag¬ 
 dad. The valley in which we now were, wound gently and 
 widened on the right and left of the river ; we began to perceive 
 traces of cultivation, and we heard the distant lowing of cattle. 
 Orchards of apricot trees as large as nut trees, bordered the road¬ 
 side. Soon, to our great surprise, we saw hedges like those in 
 Europe, separating the orchards and gardens: the latter were 
 interspersed with kitchen plants, trees and flowers. Barriers, or 
 doors of wood opened here and there upon these beautiful 
 orchards. The road was broad, even, and in as good condition as 
 in the environs of a great town in France. None of our party 
 were aware of the existence of this oasis in the bosom of the in¬ 
 accessible mountains of the Anti-Libanus. We were evidently 
 approaching a town or a village, but we were ignorant of its name. 
 However, we soon met an Arab horseman, who informed us that 
 we were in the neighborhood of a large village, called Zebdami. 
 We already saw smoke rising from the tops of the high trees 
 scattered through the valley. We entered the streets of the 
 village. They are broad and straight, with stone pavements on 
 each side. The houses are large, and surrounded by yards full 
 of cattle, and well cultivated gardens. The women and children 
 came to the doors to see us pass by, and greeted us with smiling 
 and cheerful faces. We inquired whether there was any cara¬ 
 vansary in which we could find shelter for the night; but we 
 were told that there was none, because Zebdami not being in any 
 road, no caravans passed that way. After going through several 
 of the streets of the village, we arrived at an open square, on the 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 109 
 
 bank of the river. There, a house more spacious than the rest, 
 fronted by a terrace and surrounded by trees, denoted the resi¬ 
 dence of the Scheik. I presented myself with my dragoman, 
 and requested the use of a house for the night. The slaves went 
 to inform the Scheik, who speedily made his appearance. He was 
 a venerable man, with a white beard, and an open and pleasing 
 countenance. He offered me the use of the whole of his house, 
 and he pressed this offer with a degree of earnestness and cour¬ 
 teous hospitality, which I never met with elsewhere. His nume¬ 
 rous slaves and the principal inhabitants of the village led my 
 horses to a large stable, where they unloaded them, and brought 
 them corn and straw. 
 
 The Scheik directed his wives to vacate their apartments ; and 
 we were first ushered into his divan, where coffee and sherbets 
 were served to us, and then the whole house was consigned to our 
 use. The Scheik asked me if 1 would allow his slaves to pre¬ 
 pare our supper. I begged that my cook might spare them that 
 trouble ; and only asked him to procure me a calf and some 
 sheep to renew our store of provisions, which had been exhausted 
 in our journey from Balbec. In a few minutes the calf and 
 the sheep were brought and killed by the butcher of the 
 village; and while our servants were preparing supper, the 
 Scheik introduced to me the principal inhabitants of the place, 
 who were his relatives and friends. He even asked my permis¬ 
 sion to present his wives to Madame de Lamartine. “ They 
 were,” he said, u very anxious to be introduced to an European 
 lady, and to see her clothes and jewels.” Accordingly, the 
 Scheik’s wives, veiled, passed before the divan on which we were 
 seated in conversation, and entered my wife’s apartment. There 
 were three of them, and one seemed old enough to be the mother 
 of the two others. The younger ones were remarkably beauti¬ 
 ful, and showed the greatest respect, deference, and affection to 
 the elder one. My wife gave them some little presents, and they 
 in return, gave some to her. During this interview, the vener¬ 
 able Scheik of Zebdami conducted us to a terrace which he had 
 constructed close to his house, at the edge of the river. Some 
 piles, fixed into the bed of the river, supported a platform covered 
 with carpet. A divan extended all around it; and an immense 
 tree, similar to those which I had seen on the road-side, covered 
 with its shade, the terrace and the river. There the Scheik, after 
 the custom of the Turks, passes whole hours, enjoying the re¬ 
 freshing coolness of the water, the shade of the tree, and the 
 
 VOL. it. 0 
 
110 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO TIIE HOLY LAND 
 
 singing of a thousand birds which people it. A wooden bridge 
 leads from the house to this terrace. The prospect it command¬ 
 ed was as fine as any I had seen in my travels. It extends as 
 far as the last mountains of the Anti-Libanus, commanded by the 
 pyramids of black rock, or the snowy peaks ; whilst the river, 
 with its waves of foam, descends amidst forests of various trees, 
 and is lost in the sloping plains of Mesopotamia, which enter, like 
 gulfs of verdure, into the sinuosities of the mountains. 
 
 Supper was now ready, and I begged of the Scheik to partake 
 of it. He consented, and appeared greatly amused at the Euro¬ 
 pean mode of eating. He had never seen any of the utensils 
 used at our tables. He drank no wine, and we did not try to 
 persuade him to do so: the conscience of the Mussulman is as 
 much to be respected as ours; to induce a Turk to sin against 
 the law which his religion imposes upon him, has always ap¬ 
 peared to me no less reprehensible than to tempt a Christian. 
 We conversed a long time about Europe and our customs, of 
 which the Scheik appeared to be a great admirer. He explained 
 to us his mode of governing his village. His family had for ages 
 ruled this privileged district of the Anti-Libanus; and the ad¬ 
 vanced state of agriculture, together with the regulations respect¬ 
 ing police and cleanliness, which we had admired in crossing the 
 territory of Zebdami, are due to this excellent race of Scheiks. 
 Thus it is with every thing in the East. All is exception and 
 anomaly. Good, like evil, is perpetuated without end. We 
 could judge, by the aspect of this enchanting village, what these 
 provinces would be if restored to their natural fertility. 
 
 The Scheik greatly admired my arms, especially a brace of 
 pistols, and he ill disguised the pleasure which the possession of 
 them would afford him ; but I could not offer them. They were 
 the pistols which I had carried for defence through the whole of 
 my journey, and I wished particularly to take them back with 
 me to Europe. I presented him with a gold watch for his wife. 
 He received this present with all the polite reluctance which we 
 Europeans evince on similar occasions. He declared himself 
 completely satisfied, though I could discern that he still cherished 
 a predilection for the brace of pistols. A quantity of cushions 
 and carpets were brought in for our beds. We spread them out 
 in the divan where the Scheik himself likewise slept, and we 
 were lulled to rest by the murmuring of the river under our 
 windows. 
 
 Next morning we set out at dawn of day. We passed through 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Ill 
 
 the second half of the village of Zebdami, still more beautiful than 
 the part which we had seen the day before. The Scheik sent some 
 horsemen of his tribe to escort us as far as Damascus. We here 
 dismissed the horsemen of the Emir of Balbec, who would not 
 have been in safety on the territory of Damascus. We journeyed 
 for the space of an hour along roads bordered with quick-set 
 hedges, as large as those in France, and kept in perfect order. A 
 canopy of apricot trees and pear trees hung over our heads. On 
 the right and left were orchards without end, and behind them 
 cultivated fields, in which were men and cattle. All the orchards 
 are watered by streams descending from the mountains on the 
 left, which are covered with snow on their summits. The plain 
 was immense, and was bounded to our eyes only by forests in 
 luxuriant foliage. We proceeded thus for the space of three 
 hours, as if amidst the most delicious landscapes of England or 
 Lombardy, with no traces of the desert or of barbarism. We 
 then entered a rude and sterile tract of country. Vegetation 
 and culture almost completely disappeared. Hills of rock, 
 scantily covered with a yellowish kind of moss, extended before 
 us, bounded by gray mountains, more elevated, but equally bar¬ 
 ren. We pitched our tents, and halted at the foot of these moun¬ 
 tains, far from every human habitation. There we passed the 
 night, on the margin of a deeply imbedded torrent, which rolled 
 like thunder through a ravine amongst the rocks, scattering its 
 foam like flakes of snow. 
 
 We were again on horseback, at six o’clock. This was our 
 last journey. We put on our Turkish dresses that we might not 
 be known for Franks in the environs of Damascus. My wife 
 wore the costume of the Arab women. She was covered from 
 head to foot with a long white veil. Our Arabs arranged their 
 dress with great care, and pointing towards the mountains which 
 we had yet to cross, exclaimed, “ Scham ! Scham !” This is the 
 Arabic name for Damascus. 
 
 The fanatical population of Damascus and the surrounding 
 country, renders necessary the most rigid precaution on the part 
 of the Franks who venture to visit that country. The Damas¬ 
 cenes are the only people of the East who cherish a religious 
 hatred and horror of the European name and costume. They 
 are the only Mahometan people who have refused to admit the 
 consuls, or even the consular agents of the Christian powers. 
 Damascus is a holy city, fanatical and free: nothing must sully 
 its sanctity. 
 
112 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 In spite of the menaces of the Porte ; in spite of the more for¬ 
 midable interventions of Ibrahim Pacha and a garrison of twelve 
 thousand. Egyptian or other foreign troops, the people of Da¬ 
 mascus have obstinately refused to admit within their walls the 
 English consul general in Syria. Two terrible insurrections 
 have arisen in the city on the mere report of the approach of 
 that consul. If he had not speedily turned back, he would have 
 been torn to pieces. Things are always in this state. The ar¬ 
 rival of a European in Frank costume would be the signal of 
 a new disturbance, and we are not without apprehension that 
 the report of our journey may have reached Damascus, and 
 may expose us to serious danger. We have taken every pos¬ 
 sible precaution, having all assumed the most rigid Turkish 
 costume. One European only, who has adopted the Arab man¬ 
 ners and dress, and who passes for an Armenian merchant, 
 has exposed himself for several years to the danger of inhabit¬ 
 ing Damascus. His object is to render himself useful to the 
 commerce of the coast of Syria, and to travelers who may be 
 tempted to visit these inhospitable regions. This man is M. 
 Baudin, the consular agent of France and all Europe. He was 
 formerly the agent of Lady Stanhope, whom he accompanied 
 in her first visits to Balbec and Palmyra, and was subsequently 
 employed by the French Government to purchase horses in the 
 desert. M. Baudin speaks the Arabic language like a native, 
 and has established friendly and commercial relations with all 
 the wandering tribes in the deserts round Damascus. He is 
 married to an Arab woman of European origin. He has been 
 ten years in Damascus, and in spite of the numerous connections 
 he has formed, his life has been several times endangered by 
 the fanatical fury of the inhabitants of the city. Twice he has 
 been obliged to fly to escape death. He has built a house at 
 Zarkley, a little Christian town on the side of the Libanus, and 
 there he takes refuge in times of popular commotion. M. Baudin, 
 whose life is incessantly endangered at Damascus, and who, in 
 that great capital is the only channel of communication, the only 
 link of the policy and trade of Europe, receives from the French 
 government, as the reward of his vast services, the moderate 
 salary of fifteen hundred francs; whilst other consuls, surround¬ 
 ed by security, and enjoying all the luxuries of life in the ports 
 of the Levant, receive liberal and honorable remunerations. I 
 cannot comprehend by what indifference and injustice the govern¬ 
 ments of Europe and the French government in particular, thus 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 113 
 
 neglect an intelligent, honorable, courageous and active young 
 man, who renders the greatest services to his country. 
 
 I had known M. Baudin in Syria during the preceding year, 
 and I had arranged with him my projected journey to Damascus. 
 He had been informed of my departure and my approaching 
 arrival, and this morning I sent forward an Arab to acquaint him 
 with the hour when I should be in the neighborhood of the city, 
 and to beg of him to send me a guide to direct my course and to 
 advise me how to act. 
 
 At nine in the morning we passed along the side of a mountain 
 covered with country houses and gardens, belonging to the in¬ 
 habitants of Damascus. A fine bridge is thrown across a torrent 
 at the foot of the mountain. We saw numerous strings of camels 
 laden with stones for new buildings, and every thing indicated 
 that we were approaching a great capital. After another hour’s 
 journey, we perceived, on the summit of an eminence, a little 
 insulated mosque, the dwelling of a solitary Mahometan. A 
 fountain flows near the mosque, and copper cups, chained to the 
 basin, enable the traveler to slake his thirst. We halted for a 
 short time in this spot, beneath the shade of a sycamore. The 
 road was now thronged with travelers, peasants, and Arab sol¬ 
 diers. We again mounted our horses, and after proceeding along 
 an ascent of a few hundred paces, we entered a deep defile, 
 bounded on the left by a mountain of schistus, rising perpendi¬ 
 cularly above our heads; and on the right by a ridge of rock 
 thirty or forty feet high. The descent was rapid, and fragments 
 of loose stone rolled under our horses feet. I was riding at the 
 head of the caravan, at a few paces behind the Arabs of Zebdami. 
 They suddenly stopped short, and uttering exclamations of joy, 
 pointed to an opening in the rock on our right; I approached, and 
 looking through the cleft, I beheld the grandest and most singular 
 prospect that ever presented itself to the eye of man. It was 
 Damascus and its boundless desert, lying at the depth of a few 
 hundred feet below us. The city, surrounded by its ramparts of 
 black and yellow marble, flanked by its innumerable square 
 towers, crowned by sculptured cranies, commanded by its forest 
 of minarets of every form, and intersected by the seven branches 
 of its river and its numberless streams, extended as far as the eye 
 could reach. It was a labyrinth of gardens and flowers, thrusting 
 its suburbs here and there in the vast plain, encircled by its forest 
 of ten leagues in circumference, and every where shaded by 
 groves of sycamores, and trees of every form and hue. From 
 
114 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 time to time the city seemed lost beneath the umbrageous canopies 
 of these trees, and then again re-appeared, spreading into broad 
 lakes of houses, suburbs, and villages, interspersed with labyrinths 
 of orchards, palaces, and streamlets. Our eyes were bewildered, 
 and only turned from one enchantment to fix upon another. We 
 stopped simultaneously. All thronged round the little aperture 
 in the rock which was pierced like a window, and we contem¬ 
 plated, sometimes with exclamations, and sometimes in silence, 
 the magic spectacle which had suddenly opened beneath our eyes 
 at the close of a journey through so many barren solitudes, and at 
 the commencement of another desert, which has no bounds but 
 Bagdad and Bassora, and which it requires forty days to traverse. 
 At length we pursued our course. The parapet of rock which 
 concealed from us the plain and the city, lowered insensibly, and 
 soon afforded us an uninterrupted view of the whole horizon. We 
 were now not more than five hundred paces from the walls of the 
 suburbs. These walls, which are surrounded by charming 
 kiosks and country-houses in various styles of oriental architec¬ 
 ture, glitter round Damascus, like a circlet of gold. The square 
 towers which flank them, and which surmount their line, are 
 encrusted with arabesques pierced in ogives, with columns as 
 slender as reeds and ‘edged with cranies surmounted by turbans. 
 The walls are covered wtih stone, or slabs of yellow and black 
 marble arranged in elegant symmetry. The tops of the cypresses 
 and other large trees in the gardens in the interior of the city rise 
 above the walls and towers, and crown them with sombre verdure. 
 The innumerable cupolas of the mosques and palaces of a city 
 containing four hundred thousand inhabitants, now reflected the 
 rays of the setting sun, and the blue and brilliant waters of the seven 
 rivers alternately sparkled and disappeared amidst the streets and 
 gardens. The horizon was boundless as the ocean. On the right 
 the broad sides of the Anti-Libanus receded one behind the other, 
 like immense waves of shadow; sometimes advancing like pro¬ 
 montories into the plain, and sometimes opening like deep gulfs 
 in which the plain imbedded itself with its forests and villages: 
 several of the latter contain as many as thirty thousand inhabitants. 
 Some branches of the river and two large lakes were here visible, 
 shining in the obscurity of the general tint of verdure in which 
 Damascus seems to be veiled. On our left, the plain was more 
 open, and it was only at the distance of twelve or fifteen leagues 
 that we again saw the summits of mountains, blanched with snow, 
 shining in the blue sky like clouds on the ocean. The city is 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 115 
 
 entirely surrounded by orchards, or rather by forests of fruit 
 trees, with which the vines are entwined, as at Naples, and hang- 
 in festoons among fig, apricot, pear, and cherry trees. Under 
 these trees, the e.arth, which is rich, fertile, and always well 
 watered, is carpeted with barley, corn, maize, and all the legu¬ 
 minous plants which this soil produces. Little white houses peep 
 out here and there, from amidst the verdure of the forests : they 
 are either the gardeners 5 houses, or little summer houses belong¬ 
 ing to the family who own the ground. These cultivated 
 enclosures are peopled with horses, sheep, camels, and doves, 
 and every thing that can impart animation to the scenery of 
 nature ; they are on the average two or three acres in extent, and 
 are separated one from another by mud walls baked in the sun, 
 and by fine quickset hedges. Numerous shady paths, refreshed 
 by fountains, intersected these gardens, leading from one suburb 
 to another, or to the different gates of the city. The gardens 
 form a boundary of twenty or thirty leagues in circumference 
 round Damascus. 
 
 We had advanced for some time in silence through the first 
 labyrinths of trees, somewhat uneasy at not seeing the guide we 
 expected. We halted ; and he at length made his appearance. 
 He was a poor Armenian ; ill-dressed, and having on his head a 
 black turban, such as all the Christians of Damascus are obliged 
 to wear. He approached our caravan, said a few words, and 
 made a sign ; and, instead of entering the city by the suburb and 
 the gate before us, we proceeded along the walls, which we pass¬ 
 ed almost entirely round, and entered, by a solitary gate, near the 
 quarter of the Armenians. The house in which M. Baudin had 
 prepared lodgings for us was in that quarter. Nothing was said to 
 us at the first gate of the city. Having entered it, we rode for a 
 considerable way past some high walls, with grated windows. 
 On the other side of the street was a deep canal of running water, 
 which turned the wheels of several mills. At the end of this 
 street we were stopped, and an altercation arose between my 
 Arabs and some soldiers who guarded a second and inner gate; 
 for all the quarters of the city have distinct gates. It was my 
 wish to remain unknown, and that our caravan should pass for a 
 caravan of Syrian merchants ; but as the dispute continued, and 
 seemed to become angry, I spurred my horse, and rode up to the 
 head of the caravan. Close to the gate was the guard-house of 
 the Egyptian troops, who, having observed two fowling-pieces, 
 which my Arab servant had not taken the precaution to conceal. 
 
116 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLST LANL'. 
 
 refused to let us enter. An order issued by Scherif-Bey pro¬ 
 hibited the introduction of arms into the city ; and every night 
 fears were entertained of an insurrection and the massacre of the 
 Egyptian troops. Fortunately, I had in my bo-soma recent letter 
 from Ibrahim Pacha. 1 presented it to the officer commanding 
 the post. He read it; pressed it to his forehead and lips, and 
 permitted us to enter, making a thousand excuses and compli¬ 
 ments. We wandered for a considerable time through a laby¬ 
 rinth of dirty narrow lanes, lined on either side with little low 
 houses, whose mud walls seemed ready to fall upon us. Through 
 the trellis work, which screened the windows, we saw beautiful 
 Armenian girls, who, attracted hv the noise of our long file of 
 horses, came to look at us, and addressed to us words of kind 
 greeting. At length we halted at a low narrow door in a street 
 through which we scarcely had room to pass. We alighted from 
 our horses, passed through a dark, gloomy corridor, and found 
 ourselves, as if by enchantment, in a court paved with marble, 
 shaded by sycamores, refreshed by two Moorish fountains, and 
 surrounded by marble porticoes and richly furnished rooms. 
 This was the residence of M. Baudin. The house, like those of 
 all the Christians in Damascus, had the appearance of being a 
 mere hut on the outside, but it was a delicious palace within. 
 The tyranny of the fanatical populace obliges the Christians to 
 conceal their wealth and their comforts under the mask of poverty 
 and misery. Our baggage was unloaded at the door; the court 
 was filled with our packages, our tents, and saddles ; and our 
 horses were conducted to the kahn of the bazaar. 
 
 M. Baudin assigned to each of us a little apartment, furnish¬ 
 ed in the oriental style; and whilst reposing on his divans, at his 
 hospitable table, we forgot the fatigues of our long pilgrimage. 
 To meet a man whom one knows and loves, in a strange and 
 foreign land, is like being restored to one’s country. We ex¬ 
 perienced this in the house of M. Baudin, and the pleasant hours 
 I spent in conversing with him in the evenings, by the light of 
 his lamp, are engraven in my memory and my heart, and arc 
 among the most agreeable recollections of my travels. 
 
 M. Baudin is one of those rare men whom nature has fitted 
 for every thing. He possesses a shrewd and clear mind, a firm 
 and upright heart, and indefatigable activity. He is alike at 
 home, in Europe, in Asia, in Paris or in Damascus, on land or 
 on sea. He can accommodate himself to any place, and he finds 
 happiness every where, because his mind is resigned, like that of 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 117 
 
 the Arab, to the great law which forms the basis both of Chris¬ 
 tianity and Islamism, viz., submission to the will of God ; and 
 also, because he is animated by that ingenious activity of mind, 
 which is the second soul of the European. His language, his 
 person, and his manners, all bear the impression which his for¬ 
 tune has stamped upon them. To hear him conversing about 
 France and the passing events of Europe, he might be taken for 
 a man just arrived from Paris: to see him in the evening reclin¬ 
 ing on his divan, between a merchant from Bassora, and a Turk¬ 
 ish pilgrim from Bagdad, smoking his pipe or his narguile, indo¬ 
 lently passing his fingers over the amber beads of an oriental 
 chaplet, a turban drawn over his forehead, and slippers on his feet, 
 uttering a word in about every quarter of an hour, on the price of 
 coffee or furs, he would be taken for a slave merchant, or a pil¬ 
 grim returning from Mecca. No man’s education and views can 
 be enlarged unless he has traveled much • unless he has chang¬ 
 ed twenty times his modes of thinking and the habits of his life. 
 The conventional and uniform customs adopted by the man who 
 leads a regular and monotonous life in his own country, are 
 moulds which give a diminished impress to every thing. Taste, 
 philosophy, religion, character, all are more enlarged, more just 
 and accurate in the man who has seen nature and society under 
 various points of view. Traveling supplies an optic for the ma¬ 
 terial and intellectual universe. To travel in search of wisdom, 
 was a sort of proverb among the ancients : but it is not under¬ 
 stood among us. They traveled not merely in search of unknown 
 dogmas and lessons of philosophy, but to see and to judge every 
 thing. For my part I am constantly struck with the narrow and 
 petty view we take of the institutions and customs of foreign na¬ 
 tions ; and if my mind has been enlarged—if my views have been 
 extended—if I have learned to tolerate things by understanding 
 them, I owe all these advantages to my frequent changes of scene 
 and points of view. To study past ages in history, men by tra¬ 
 veling, and God in nature—that is the grand school. We study 
 every thing in our miserable books, and compare every thing with 
 our petty local habits. And who have made our habits and our 
 books? Men who knew as little as ourselves. Let us open the 
 Book of books ! Let us live, see, and travel! The world is a 
 book of which we turn a page at every step. How little must he 
 know who has turned but one page ! 
 
 VOL. II. 6* 
 
118 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 DAMASCUS. 
 
 April 2d, 1833. 
 
 Dressed in the Arabic costume, 1 this morning traversed the 
 principal quarters of Damascus, accompanied only by M. Baudin, 
 for we were fearful that the appearance of a numerous party of 
 strangers would attract attention to us. We passed a considera¬ 
 ble time in exploring the dark, dirty, and tortuous streets of the 
 Armenian quarter. It has all the appearance of one of the most 
 miserable villages of our provinces. The walls of the houses 
 are built of mud, and are pierced on the side next the street, with 
 small grated windows, having shutters painted red. The low 
 doors look like the entrances to stables, and they are almost in- 
 variably obstructed by a heap of dirt and a pool of water. We 
 entered some of these houses, which belong to the principal 
 Armenian merchants, and I was astonished at their internal 
 richness and elegance. Having made our way into the door, 
 and passed through an obscure corridor, we found ourselves in a 
 court-yard, ornamented with superb marble fountains, and shaded 
 by one or two sycamores or Persian willows. This court is 
 paved with large slabs' of polished stone or marble. Vines grow 
 up the walls, which are likewise faced with white and black 
 marble. Five or six doors, with marble steps, and ornamented 
 with arabesque sculpture, lead to saloons which are occupied 
 by the different members of the family, male and female. These 
 rooms are large, with vaulted roofs, and have a great many small 
 high windows to admit the free entrance of the external air. 
 Almost all are divided into two compartments ; the first, which 
 is lower than the other, is occupied by the servants and slaves. 
 The second compartment is elevated by a few steps, and separa¬ 
 ted from the lower one by a balustrade of marble or cedar wood, 
 exquisitely carved. In general, one or two fountains, or jets- 
 d’eau, are playing in the centre, or in the angles of the room. 
 Round these fountains are vases of flowers; and tame swallows 
 and doves perch on the edges of the basins and drink the water. 
 The walls of these rooms are faced with marble up to a certain 
 height, beyond which they are covered with stucco, painted in 
 arabesque patterns of a thousand colors, and frequently finished 
 by elaborate gilt mouldings. The furniture consists of magnifi¬ 
 cent Persian or Bagdad carpets, completely covering the marble 
 or cedar-wood floor, and a great quantity of cushions and mat- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 119 
 
 tresses of silk are lying in the middle of the apartment, and serve 
 as seats or sofas for the members of the family. A divan, cov¬ 
 ered with rich stuff, extends all round the room. Women and 
 children are generally sitting or lying upon it, engaged in differ¬ 
 ent occupations. Cradles for young infants are on the floor 
 among the carpets and cushions. The master of the house has, 
 usually, one of these apartments for himself: there he receives 
 the visits of strangers. We generally found him seated on his 
 divan, his writing case lying on the ground by his side, a sheet 
 of paper lying on his knee, or in his left hand, writing and calcu¬ 
 lating ; for commerce is the occupation and the genius of the 
 inhabitants of Damascus. Wherever we went to return the visits 
 which had been paid to us on the preceding day, we were inva¬ 
 riably received with courtesy and cordiality by the master of the 
 house. He ordered for us pipes, coffee, and sherbets, and con¬ 
 ducted us to the saloon occupied by the women. The high 
 opinion I had formed of the beauty of the Syrian females, and 
 my vivid recollections of the charms of the women of Rome and 
 Athens, all vanished at sight of the Armenian women, and the 
 young girls of Damascus. We every where saw features so 
 exquisitely pure and delicate, that the pencil of the most expert 
 European artist could scarcely render justice to them :—eyes in 
 which the serene light of the soul is diffused in a sombre azure 
 tint, and with a softness of expression which I never saw in any 
 eyes before,—complexions so transparent, that they vie with the 
 most exquisite tints of the rose-leaf,—the teeth, the smile, the 
 grace of form and motion, the clear and silvery voice, all is in 
 harmony in these beautiful creatures. They converse with 
 elegance and modest reserve ; but without embarrassment, and, 
 as if accustomed to the admiration which they inspire. They 
 seem to preserve their beauty to an advanced age. This may 
 be attributable to the climate, and the peaceful lives they lead in 
 the bosom of their families, where mind and body are not worn 
 out by the artificial passions of society. In almost all the fami¬ 
 lies which I visited, I found the mother as beautiful as her daugh¬ 
 ters ; though the latter were not more than fifteen or sixteen 
 years of age. They marry at twelve or thirteen. The dress of 
 these women is the most elegant that we had yet seen in the East. 
 Their heads were adorned with a profusion of hair, which, min¬ 
 gled with flowers, was twisted several times over the forehead, 
 and then fell in long plaits on each side of the neck and shoulders. 
 Ornaments consisting of pieces of gold and pearls were sometimes 
 
120 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLi' LAND'. 
 
 mingled with the hair, and a little calot of wrought gold is worn 
 on the crown of the head. The bosom is very slightly covered 
 with a small bodice, with wide open sleeves, made of silk em¬ 
 broidered with gold and silver, wide white trowsers descend in 
 fulness to the ankle, and on their feet they wear yellow morocco 
 slippers without stockings. A long robe of silk of some brilliant 
 color, descending from the shoulders, is open in front, and con¬ 
 fined round the waist by a girdle or sash with long ends. I could 
 not avert my eyes from these beautiful and graceful women. 
 Our visits and conversations were every where prolonged, and I 
 fo.und them as amiable as they are beautiful. The customs of 
 Europe, the dress, and the habits of the women of the west, were 
 in general the subjects of conversation. They did not seem to 
 envy the lives of our women, and on observing the grace, the 
 simplicity, the amiability, the serenity of mind and heart which 
 they preserve in the seclusion of their domestic life, it would be 
 difficult to say what they could envy in our women who mingle 
 with the world, and who, in the turmoil of society, waste in a 
 few years their beauty, their minds, and their health. The 
 Armenian women occasionally visit each other, and they are 
 not entirely excluded from the society of the men ; but that asso¬ 
 ciation is confined to* a few young male relatives or friends, 
 among whom, with due consideration to inclination and family 
 interests, a husband is selected for them at a very early age. 
 When this choice is made, the bridegroom is permitted to frequent 
 the house like a son, and to take part in all the amusements of 
 the family. 
 
 I was introduced to the chief of the Armenians at Damascus 
 —-a very clever and well-informed man. Ibrahim has appointed 
 him to represent his countrymen in the Municipal Council, by 
 which the city is at present governed. This man, though he has 
 never been out of Damascus, has the most enlightened and accu¬ 
 rate views on the politics of Europe, on the general advancement 
 of human intelligence, on the transformation of modern govern¬ 
 ments, and the probable state of future civilization. I never met 
 in Europe a man whose opinions on these subjects were more 
 j'ust and sensible. I was the more surprised at this, as the only 
 languages, besides his own, with which he was acqainted, were 
 Latin and Greek; consequently, he had never read the journals 
 and other publications of the West, in which the questions above 
 mentioned are placed within the reach of even those who often 
 discuss them without understanding them. Neither had he ever 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLV LAND. 
 
 121 
 
 enjoyed the opportunity of conversing with well-informed men 
 from our part of the world—for Damascus is shut out from all 
 connection with Europe. The Armenian I speak of has gained 
 all his information from geographical charts, and the accounts of 
 some great historical and political events which have reached 
 him, and which his natural shrewdness of mind has enabled him 
 to comprehend and to reflect upon. I was quite delighted with 
 this man, and I passed a good part of the morning in conversing 
 with him. He has promised to come and see me this evening, 
 and every day during my stay at Damascus. He foresees, as I 
 do, all that Providence has prepared for the East and the West, 
 by the inevitable intermingling of these two parts of the world ; 
 mutually giving to each other space, activity, and information. 
 This Armenian has a daughter, fourteen years of age, one of the 
 loveliest girls I ever beheld. Her mother, who is still young, is, 
 likewise, very pretty. He presented to me his son, a lad of 
 twelve years old, on whose education he bestows great attention. 
 
 “ You should send him to Europe,” said I, “ and give him that 
 education you regret the want of yourself. T will take charge of 
 him.” 
 
 “ Alas !” replied the Armenian, “ I have often thought of doing 
 so; but if great changes should not yet take place in the state of 
 the East, what service should I render to my son if I were to raise 
 him, by his knowledge, above the age and the country in which 
 he is destined to live ? What would he do in Damascus on re¬ 
 turning hither with the information, the manners, and the taste 
 for liberty he has acquired in Europe? If one must be a slave, 
 it is better never to have known any thing but slavery.” 
 
 Having made this round of visits, we quitted the Armenian 
 quarter of the city, which is separated from another quarter by a 
 gate closed every evening. We entered a street broader and clean¬ 
 er than those through which we had hitherto passed. It contained 
 the palaces of the principal Agas of Damascus. These are the 
 nobles of the country. The faqades of their palaces, which look¬ 
 ed to the street, are like the long walls of prisons or hospitals. 
 They are built of mud and have few or no windows. Here and 
 there a large door opens into a court-yard, and under the shade of 
 the door, a number of grooms, servants, and black slaves were ly¬ 
 ing. I visited two of these Agas, friends of M. Baudin. The in¬ 
 terior of their palaces was superb. First, there was a spacious 
 court-yard ornamented with superb jets-d’eau, and shaded by 
 trees. These saloons were still more richly furnished than those 
 
122 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 of the Armenians. The decorations of some of them cost as much 
 as one hundred thousand piastres. Nothing more magnificent 
 could be seen in Europe. They are all fitted up in the Arabian 
 style. Some of the palaces contain eight or ten of these splendid 
 saloons, The Agas of Damascus are, in general, descendants or 
 sons of Pachas, and they lavish on the decorations of their pala¬ 
 ces the treasures acquired by their fathers. It is the nepotism of 
 Rome under another form. These Agas are numerous. They 
 hold the principal employment of the city under the Pachas, de¬ 
 puted by the Grand Signior. They have vast territorial pos¬ 
 sessions in the villages round Damascus. Their luxury consists 
 in palaces, gardens, horses, and women. At a signal from the 
 Pacha their heads are struck off, and then their palaces, their 
 gardens, their women, and their horses, pass into the hands of 
 some new favorite of fortune. Such a system naturally invites to 
 enjoyment and resignation ;—voluptuousness and fatalism are the 
 two necessary results of Eastern despotism. 
 
 The two Agas whom 1 have visited, received me with the 
 most perfect politeness. The brutal fanaticism of the common 
 people of Damascus does not extend to the higher classes. They 
 know that I am a European traveler, and they believe me to be a 
 secret ambassador, sent to collect information for the sovereigns 
 of Europe relative to the disputes between the Turks and Ibra¬ 
 him. I expressed to one of the Agas, my wish to see his finest 
 horses, and to purchase some if he would consent to sell them. 
 He immediately desired his son, accompanied by a groom, to con¬ 
 duct me to his vast stable, where he has thirty or forty of the finest 
 horses from the Desert of Palmyra. I never beheld such superb 
 animals. They were very high and of a dark gray or whitish- 
 gray color. Their manes were like black silk, eyes of a dark 
 chestnut color, broad and flat shoulders, and necks and chests as 
 graceful as those of the swan. When these horses saw me enter 
 the stable, and heard me speak a foreign language, they turned 
 their heads and trembled and neighed. They expressed their as¬ 
 tonishment and fear by oblique and timid glances, and by a curling 
 of their nostrils, which gave to their beautiful heads an extraordi¬ 
 nary expression of intelligence. I already had occasion to re¬ 
 mark, that the intellect of animals in Syria is much more prompt 
 and developed than in Europe. A group of the Faithful, surpris¬ 
 ed in a mosque by a Christian, could not by their attitudes and 
 countenances have more forcibly expressed indignation and alarm, 
 than did these horses on seeing a stranger’s face, and hearing an 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 123 
 
 unknown tongue. I examined them. They were led into the 
 court-yard, but 1 could not decide on which I should fix my choice, 
 for they were all remarkable for beauty. At length I decided on 
 a young white three-year old stallion, which seemed to me the 
 very pearl of all the horses of the desert. The price was a good 
 deal debated between M. Baudin and the Aga, but at length fixed 
 at six thousand piastres, which I paid over to the Aga. The 
 horse had been brought from Palmyra, where it had been but a 
 short time ; and the Arab who had sold it to the Aga had received 
 for it five thousand piastres and a magnificent mantle of silk in¬ 
 terwoven with gold. The animal, like all Arabian horses, bore 
 his genealogy on his neck, suspended in a bag, together with se¬ 
 veral amulets, to preserve him from the influence of the evil eye. 
 
 We looked through the bazaars of Damascus: the grand ba¬ 
 zaar is about half a league in length. They all consist of long 
 streets, covered with timber-work, at a considerable height, and 
 lined with shops, stalls, magazines, and coffee-houses ; the shops 
 are narrow, but rather deep ; the dealer is squatted upon his heels 
 in front, his pipe in his mouth, and his narguil beside him. The 
 magazines are replete with merchandise of all kinds, and above 
 all, with stuffs from India, which are brought to Damascus by the 
 caravans of Bagdad. Barbers are lively, inviting the passers-by 
 to have their hair cut, or be shaved ; and their stalls are always 
 full of people. 
 
 A crowd, as numerous as that thronging the galleries of 
 the Palais Royal, is all day to be seen traversing the grand 
 bazaar. But the coup d?ceil presented by this crowd is infi¬ 
 nitely more picturesque. There are Agas, clothed in long gar¬ 
 ments of crimson silk, stuffed with martin-skin—their sabres 
 or poniards, enriched with diamonds, suspended from their gir¬ 
 dles. These have each five or six followers—servants or slaves— 
 who march silently behind them, bearing their pipes and nar- 
 guils. They are accustomed to seat themselves, during part of 
 the day, upon divans placed outside the coffee-houses constructed 
 on the borders of the brooks that run through the town, which 
 divans are shaded by fine plantains. Here they smoke, and chat 
 with their friends, and this forms the soul means of communication, 
 excepting the mosque, enjoyed by the inhabitants of Damascus. 
 Plere are concocted, almost in silence, the frequent revolutions 
 which convulse that capital. The mute fermentation is sup¬ 
 pressed for some time, and then bursts forth at the moment when 
 least expected. The people fly to arms under the conduct of any 
 
124 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 leader whatsoever, and the government passes, for a brief time, 
 into the hands of the victor. The conquered are either put to 
 death, or escape into the deserts of Baibec or Palmyra, where they 
 are sheltered by independent tribes. 
 
 To return to the bazaar. Officers and soldiers belonging to 
 the Pacha of Egypt, dressed nearly in the European fashion, drag 
 their sabres along the pavement. We encountered several who 
 accosted us in the Italian tongue. They are obliged to be on 
 their guard at Damascus, for the people view them with horror. 
 Every night there is a risk of a commotion breaking out. 
 Scherif-Bey, one of the most able men in the service of 
 Mehemet-Ali, commands them, and governs the town very 
 minutely. He has formed an encampment of ten thousand 
 men outside the walls, on the banks of the river, and established 
 a garrison in the castle ; he himself inhabits the seraglio. In¬ 
 telligence of the least check sustained by Ibrahim in Syria, would 
 be the signal for a general rising, and for a deadly struggle at 
 Damascus. The thirty thousand Armenian Christians who dwell 
 in the city are in a state of considerable alarm, and would most 
 probably be massacred, should the Turks get the upper hand. 
 The Mussulmans are greatly irritated at the equality which 
 Ibrahim has established between them and the Christians, many 
 of whom abuse this moment of tolerance by insulting their 
 enemies, and by a violation of their usages, which is well cal¬ 
 culated to exasperate their fanaticism. M. Baudin holds himself 
 ready, at the first warning, to seek refuge at Zarkley. 
 
 The Arabs of the Great Desert, as well as those of Palmyra, 
 muster strong in the city and abound in the bazaar. Their dress 
 consists simply of a large cloak of white wool, in which they en¬ 
 velope themselves, forming a drapery not unlike that seen on the 
 statues of the ancients. Their complexion is tanned, their beard 
 black, their eyes ferocious. They form groups before the shops 
 of the tobacco merchants. Their horses, always saddled and 
 bridled, are made fast in the streets and in the squares. They 
 despise both Turks and Egyptians; but in case of a revolt, would 
 march against the troops of Ibrahim. That chief has not been 
 enabled to exclude them more than two days from Damascus, 
 though he marched himself with his artillery against them 
 during his progress to that city. They are at present, as I 
 have said, his enemies. I shall speak more at large by and 
 by of these unknown tribes belonging to the grand desert of 
 Euphrates. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 125 
 
 Every species of commerce and industry has its appointed 
 quarter in the bazaars. Yonder are the armorers, whose 
 shops are, however, far from presenting any of those splendid 
 and renowned arms which one reads of with respect to the 
 ancient commerce of the Levant. The fabrication of the 
 celebrated sabres, if ever it existed in Damascus, is com¬ 
 pletely lost and forgotten ; none are produced now but of the 
 commonest temper ; and one meets with nothing at the shops 
 of the armorers but old weapons, almost good for nothing. 
 I vainly sought for a sabre or poniard of the valued ancient 
 temper. Such sabres, however, are occasionally brought from 
 Khorassan, a province of Persia—and even there they are no 
 longer fabricated. A certain number exists, which pass from 
 owner to owner, like precious relics, and which are of ines¬ 
 timable value. The blade of that which was presented to me 
 had cost the Pacha five thousand piastres. The Turks and 
 Arabs, who estimate these blades more highly than diamonds, 
 would give all they had in the world for such a weapon. Their 
 looks sparkled with enthusiasm and delight when they saw mine, 
 and the expression upon their features amounted almost to adora¬ 
 tion of so perfect an instrument of death. 
 
 The jewelers have neither art nor taste in the arrangement 
 of their pearls and other precious stones, of .which, nevertheless, 
 they possess an immense quantity. All the riches of orientals are 
 of a species calculated for individuals of erratic and unsettled 
 habits. There are great numbers of goldsmiths among them, 
 who, however, make but little display of their treasures, all being 
 enclosed in small cabinets, which they open whenever a jewel is 
 required. 
 
 The saddlers are perhaps the most numerous and most inge¬ 
 nious artisans to be found in the bazaars. Nothing in Europe 
 can equal the taste, the gracefulness, or the richness of those 
 splendid trappings which they make for the horses of Arab chiefs 
 or of the agas of the land. The saddle is fabricated of velvet 
 or silk bordered with gold and with pearls. The collar of red 
 morocco, which in broad fringes falls over the horse’s chest, is 
 adorned with buttons of gold and silver and tufts of pearls. 
 The bridle, infinitely more elegant than ours, is also invariably 
 of morocco of different colors decorated with points of silk or of 
 gold. All these articles are at the same time much lower in 
 price than those fabricated in Europe. I purchased two of these 
 magnificent bridles for a hundred and twenty piastres, about fifty 
 francs. 
 
128 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Bui the dealers in eatables are those whose stores exhibit 
 most order, elegance, and cleanness, and are in fact altogether 
 most attractive to the eye. Their shops are set out in front with 
 a multitude of baskets filled with vegetables of different kinds, 
 dried fruits, and vegetable seeds, whose names I know not, but 
 whose glossy surface presents a beautiful variety of form and 
 color, shining like pebbles newly thrown up by the sea. Sundry 
 kinds of bread, of every size and every quality, are likewise dis¬ 
 played outside the shops, with muffins and similar preparations, 
 calculated for different hours of the day and different kinds of 
 repast; they are vended hot, like our pastry, and have a delicious 
 flavor. I have, in truth, never seen so many varieties of pastry 
 as at Damascus, and it costs scarcely any thing. 
 
 There are restaurateurs also, who provide dinners for the 
 merchants or promenaders of the bazaar. They furnish, how¬ 
 ever, neither table nor cloth ; but present on skewers little pieces 
 of meat about the size of a walnut, and baked in an oven. The 
 customer bears the savory morsels away upon certain of the 
 muffins before-mentioned, and eats them with finger and thumb. 
 The numerous fountains of the bazaar furnish the sole liquid to 
 wash down this Arab feast. A man might board himself plenti¬ 
 fully at Damascus for two piastres, or about ten sous per day. 
 The natives generally spend but half this sum upon their food. 
 One might hire a beautiful house for from two to three hundred 
 piastres a year. In fine, with an income of three or four hun¬ 
 dred francs, a man might live at his ease—and it is the same all 
 throughout Syria. 
 
 Proceeding through the bazaar, we reach the quarter occu¬ 
 pied by the manufacturers of chests and trunks, which is a very 
 considerable branch of industry ; for all the movable furniture 
 of an Arab family consists in two or three trunks, wherein they 
 stow their clothes and their trinkets. The greater part of these 
 chests are made of cedar wood, painted Ted, and they exhibit 
 devices worked in gold nails. Several of these devices are, in¬ 
 deed, admirably sculptured in relief, and covered elegantly and 
 ingeniously with arabesques. I bought three of these trunks, 
 and despatched them by the caravan of Tarabourlous. The odor 
 of cedar wood, in fact, is expanded throughout every bazaar ; 
 and the atmosphere of these places, in which are mingled the 
 thousand different perfumes exhaled from the shops of spice-sell¬ 
 ers, druggists, venders of perfumed gems and amber, trunk- 
 makers, cabinet-makers, or coffee-sellers, together with that of 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 127 
 
 pipes unceasingly pouring forth their clouds of smoke, reminded 
 me altogether of the impression which I experienced the first 
 time I visited Florence, where the manufactories of cypress wood 
 filled the streets with an odor extremely similar. 
 
 Scherif-Bey, governor of Syria for Mehemet Ali, left Damas¬ 
 cus this day. Intelligence having arrived during the night of 
 the victory of Ivonia gained by Ibrahim over the Grand Vizier, 
 Scherif-Bey has profited by the terror wherewith the news has 
 impressed the Damascenes, to go to Aleppo. He has confided 
 the government of the city to an Egyptian general, assisted by a 
 municipal council, the members of which are selected from the 
 principal merchants of different nations. A camp of six thou¬ 
 sand Egyptians and three thousand Arabs, is stationed at the 
 gates of the town: the coup d’ceil presented by this assemblage 
 is extremely picturesque : tents of all shapes and all colors are 
 raised under the shade of immense fruit trees on the banks of 
 the river. The horses, for the most part admirable, are fastened 
 in long files stretched from one extremity of the encampment to 
 another. Undisciplined Arabs are seen there, in all the grotesque 
 diversity of their tribes, arms, and costumes; one party almost 
 rising in appearance to the dignity of kings or patriarchs, another 
 more resembling brigands of the desert. The bivouac fires throw 
 up their azure-tinted smoke meanwhile, which is trailed by the 
 wind over the river or over the gardens of Damascus. 
 
 I was present at the departure of Scherif-Bey. All the prin¬ 
 cipal agas of Damascus, and officers of the several corps estab¬ 
 lished in and around the town, were assembled at the seraglio. 
 The vast courts encircled by the dilapidated walls of the castle 
 and palace, were filled with slaves leading or holding the most 
 beautiful horses of the city, richly caparisoned. Scherif-Bey 
 breakfasted in the interior apartments. I did not enter there, but 
 remained with some Egyptian and Italian officers in the paved 
 court. Thence we looked upon the crowd outside; saw the agas 
 arrive in companies, and the black slaves pass, bearing upon their 
 heads immense tin vessels, containing the several pilaus of the 
 repast. The stud of Scherif-Bey was likewise set out here, and 
 certainly comprised the very finest animals I had hitherto seen at 
 Damascus. They are Tureomanian steeds, of a breed infinite¬ 
 ly larger and stronger than the Arabian. They resemble, in fact, 
 great Norman horses, with limbs more supple and muscular, a 
 lighter head—and the eye large, ardent, fiery, yet gentle, of the 
 Eastern steed. They are all of a kind of bay color, with long 
 
128 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 flowing manes—true Homeric horses. At noon, Scherif-Bey took 
 his departure, accompanied by an immense cavalcade two leagues 
 distance from the town. 
 
 In the centre of the great bazaar of Damascus, I found the 
 most beautiful Khan of the East, that of Hassad-Pacha. It ex¬ 
 hibits an immense cupola, whose boldly-constructed arch reminds 
 one of that of St. Peter’s, at Rome. It is equally supported by 
 granite pillars. Behind these pillars are magazines of stores, 
 and flights of steps conducting to the upper stories, where the 
 chambers of the merchants are situated—each of whom, of any 
 consideration, hires one of these rooms, depositing there the most 
 valuable of his merchandise, and his books. Guards are on the 
 watch both day and night, to ensure the security of the Khan; 
 large stables are provided for the horses belonging to travelers or 
 to caravans; beautiful fountains spout forth refreshing streams 
 around the Khan ; and in truth, it may almost be denominated 
 the Commercial Exchange of Damascus. The gate of the Khan 
 of Hassad-Pacha, which opens upon the bazaar, is one of the 
 richest specimens of Moresque architecture, as well in conception 
 as in all its details, and one of the most striking in point of effect, 
 to be seen in the world. The Arabian style of architecture may 
 there be recognized in its full perfection. Nevertheless, this edi¬ 
 fice has been built within the last forty years. A people who 
 possess architects capable of designing, and workmen capable of 
 executing such a monument as the Khan of Hassad-Pacha, can¬ 
 not be characterized as dead to the arts. These Khans are gen¬ 
 erally built by wealthy Pachas, who bequeath them to their 
 families, or to the cities which they are desirous to enrich. They 
 yield great revenues. 
 
 A little farther off, I saw, within a gate opening upon the 
 bazaar, the great court-yard of the principal mosque of the town. 
 It vvas formerly the church of St. John of Damascus. The 
 building seemed to be of the period of the, church of the Holy 
 Sepulchre at Jerusalem—heavy, vast, and of that Byzantine style 
 of architecture, which imitates, while it degrades the Grecian, 
 and appears to be constructed of ruins. The large doors of the 
 mosque were closed by heavy curtains; nor have I ever been 
 able to view the interior. It is at the peril of death that a Chris¬ 
 tian profanes the mosque, as they term it, by entering therein. 
 We were only permitted to stop a moment or two in the court¬ 
 yard, on pretence of quenching our thirst at the fountain. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 129 
 
 Same date. 
 
 The caravan from Bagdad arrived this day. It comprised 
 three thousand camels, and encamped at the gates of the city. 
 I bought several bales of Mocha coffee, such as I cannot procure 
 elsewhere, together with some Indian shawls. 
 
 The caravan from Mecca has been suspended on account of 
 the war. The Pacha of Damascus is charged with its escort. 
 The Wahabites have several times dispersed it; but Mehemet 
 Ali has driven them back towards Medina. The last caravan, 
 attacked by the cholera at Mecca, worn down with fatigue and 
 destitute of water, almost wholly perished. No less than forty 
 thousand pilgrims were left behind in the desert! The dust of 
 the desert surrounding Mecca is in fact the dust of men. It is 
 hoped that this year the caravan will be more successful under 
 the auspices of Mehemet Ali; but ere many years have elapsed, 
 the progress of the Wahabites will interdict for ever this pious 
 pilgrimage. 
 
 The Wahabites may be termed the first reformers of Mahom¬ 
 etanism. A sage dwelling in the environs of Mecca, and named 
 Aboul-Wahiab, has undertaken to restore Islamism to its original 
 purity of faith; to extirpate, first by the arguments, then by the force 
 of the Arabs converted to his schism, those popular superstitions 
 —the fruit of credulity and imposture—which in time modify all 
 religions ; and to construct, out of the religion of the East, a 
 practical and rational Theism. There will be little ingenuity 
 necessary to accomplish this; for Mahomet is not believed to be 
 a God, but a being full of the Spirit of God, who promulgated 
 nothing more than the unity of God and charity towards man. 
 Aboul-Wahiab himself is not taken for a prophet, but for a man 
 illumined by the light of reason. Reason has, in this instance, 
 made fanatics of the Arabs equally with fraud and superstition. 
 They have armed themselves in her name ; in her name have 
 they conquered Mecca and Medina ; stripped the prophet’s wor¬ 
 ship of the veneration hitherto paid it; and mustered a hundred 
 thousand armed missionaries, who threaten to change the entire 
 aspect of the East. Mehemet Ali has indeed opposed a momen¬ 
 tary barrier to their encroachments; but Wahabism still subsists 
 and propagates itself in the three Arabias; and on the first op¬ 
 portunity these purifiers of Islamism will extend themselves as 
 far as Jerusalem, Damascus, and even Egypt. Thus, human 
 creeds are overturned even by the very same means that were 
 used to propagate them. Nothing is impenetrable to the progres- 
 
130 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE PIOLY LAND. 
 
 sive light of reason, that gradual but incessant revelation of 
 humanity. Mahomet issued from the same deserts with the Wa- 
 habites, to overturn idols and establish the pure worship, unde¬ 
 filed by sacrifices, of one immaterial God. Aboul-Wabiab comes 
 in his turn, and, striking at popular credulity, aims at recalling 
 Mahometanism to pure reason. Every succeeding age lifts a 
 corner of the veil which hides the great presence of the God of 
 Gods, and discovers him behind, under all those symbols which 
 characterize him—alone, eternal, evident throughout nature, and 
 imprinting his oracles upon the conscience. 
 
 Damascus, April 3d. 
 
 We passed the day in traversing the city and its bazaars. 
 Remembrances of St. Paul are always present to the Christian of 
 Damascus. The ruins of the house are still visible, from whence 
 he escaped during night, let down in a basket. Damascus was 
 one of the first spots wherein he sowed the seeds of that faith 
 which has since changed the world—and these seeds fructified 
 there rapidly. The East is the country of numerous creeds, of 
 prodigies, and of superstitions. The grand idea which there fills 
 and expands the imagination of all people, is that of religion. 
 Throughout, the manners and laws of all the tribes are founded 
 on the religious principle. The West has never displayed this— 
 and why ? Because they are a less noble race—children of bar¬ 
 barians, still savoring of their origin. These lofty matters are 
 out of place in the West, where the lowest of human feelings and 
 ideas constantly take precedence of the highest. It is the region 
 of gold or of iron—of agitation and noise. The East is the re¬ 
 gion of profound meditation—of intuition—of adoration ! But 
 the West marches forward with a giant’s step; and when religion 
 and reason, which the darkness of the middle ages had separated, 
 shall be united there in spirit and in truth, in light and in love, the 
 religious principle shall germinate on its shores, and bring forth 
 prodigies of virtue, of civilization and genius. So be it! 
 
 Damascus, April 4th. 
 
 There are thirty thousand Christians at Damascus, and forty 
 thousand at Bagdad. Those of Damascus are either Armenians 
 or Greeks. Some Catholic priests are opposed to those of the pre¬ 
 vailing persuasions, and officiate for the members of their own 
 communion. The inhabitants tolerate a few Catholic monks, who 
 adopt the fashion of their costume, and are considered as orien¬ 
 tals. During my stay there I several times saw two Lazarist 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 131 
 
 French priests, who inhabit a little convent buried in the poorest 
 quarter of the Armenians. One of these, called Father Poussous, 
 came to pass his evenings with us. He was a worthy man, pious, 
 well-informed, and amiable. He took me to his convent, where 
 he gave instruction to the children of poor Arab Christians. The 
 pure love of good for itself alone retains in these deserts men who 
 must constantly feel themselves insecure. Father Poussous, ne¬ 
 vertheless, was serene, resigned, and even gay. From time to 
 time he received, by the caravans from Syria, news and assist¬ 
 ance from his superiors in France, together with some Catholic 
 journals. He lent me several of the latter; and nothing ap¬ 
 peared more strange to me, than to read of the intrigues, political 
 or ecclesiastical, of the quarter of St. Sulpice, on the borders of 
 the desert of Bagdad, behind Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, in the 
 vicinity of Balbec, in the centre of an immense throng of human 
 beings occupied with ideas and interests altogether different, and 
 where the names of our great men of the present day have never 
 even reached. All is vanity of vanities, except the service of the 
 most High God ! and never was I more completely impressed 
 with this truth than whilst traveling. How insignificant must be 
 that agitation, the progress of which a sea can stop—that fame, 
 the spreading of which a mountain can intercept—that renown, 
 the object of which a strange tongue cannot even correctly name. 
 Our true immortality is very different from this false and fleeting 
 immortality we are so anxious to acquire here below. 
 
 We dined to-day with an old Christian of Damascus, whose 
 age exceeded ninety years, but who still possessed the full use of 
 all his faculties, physical and moral. This excellent and venera¬ 
 ble person bore in his countenance abundant marks of benevolence, 
 serenity, and virtue,—those feelings which smooth the approach 
 to its termination of a pure and pious life. He loaded us with 
 attentions of every description, running about for us here and 
 there with all the alacrity of a young man. Father Poussous and 
 his companion, two merchants of Bagdad, and a great Persian 
 signor, who was on his road to Mecca, completed the tranquil 
 party of the evening, seated on the divans of M. Baudin, and in 
 the middle of vapors of tobacco, which perfumed while they ob¬ 
 scured the atmosphere. By the assistance of M. Baudin, and M. 
 Mazoyer, my dragoman, we managed to converse with con¬ 
 siderable facility. The most perfect cordiality and singleness of 
 heart reigned throughout the entire meeting, among men from all 
 extremities of the globe. The customs of India and Persia; the 
 
132 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 recent events at Bagdad ; the revolt of the Pacha against the 
 Porte ; these were the chief subjects of our conversation. The 
 merchant of Bagdad had been obliged to fly across the desert in 
 forty days, upon his dromedaries, with his treasures and two 
 young Franks. He was impatiently awaiting news of his brother, 
 of whose safety he was apprehensive; and a letter from this 
 brother was brought him during our interview. He had been 
 fortunate enough to escape his perils, and would arrive with the 
 rear-guard of the caravan, which was shortly expected. Our 
 companion shed tears of joy on reading this. We wept with him 
 —both from the sympathy, and from thinking of the difficulties we 
 might have to encounter ourselves. These tears, shed at the 
 same time by eyes which might never again gaze on each other 
 round the hearth of a common friend—in the midst of a city 
 wherein we were but passing strangers—these tears, I say, sof¬ 
 tened our hearts still further, and we felt the emotion of actual 
 friendship towards men whose names even were destined soon to 
 perish from our remembrance. 
 
 April 4, 1833. 
 
 There was a terrible storm during the night. The lofty cham¬ 
 bers in which we slept having numerous unglazed windows, trem¬ 
 bled like a vessel in a squall. The rain has, in some few instan¬ 
 ces, dissolved the roofof mud which form the terraces above these 
 chambers, and inundated the floors. Fortunately our mattresses 
 were placed upon platforms raised from the ground by large Da¬ 
 mascus ches* s. The bed-clothes sheltered us, but in the morning 
 we found our garments floating about the chambers. These heavy 
 storms are frequent at Damascus, and sometimes overturn houses 
 whose foundations are not laid in marble. The climate is cold 
 and humid during the winter months. Snow falls abundantly in 
 the mountains. This last winter half of the bazaars have been 
 penetrated by the weight of the snows, and the roads rendered 
 impassable during two months. The heats of summer, on the 
 other hand, are, it is said, insupportable. Up to the present time 
 we have experienced nothing of this. Almost every evening we 
 light braziers, called in this country mangalese. 
 
 I bought another Arab stallion of a Bedouin whom I met at 
 the gate of the city. I followed this cavalier, and contrived to 
 enter upon a bargain with him in a manner at once appropriate 
 and natural. This animal, smaller in size than that 1 had pur¬ 
 chased of the Aga, is yet stronger, and of a more rare color, 
 namely, that of the peach-tree. He is of a race whose name sig- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 133 
 
 nifies king of the hoof. I got him for four thousand piastres, 
 and mounted, in order to try his paces. He is not so gentle as 
 my other Arabian steed. His disposition seems, in fact, savage 
 and intractable, but he appears indefatigable. I shall have Tad- 
 mor (which is the Arab name of Palmyra, and given by me to the 
 horse I bought of the Aga) led by one of my sais on foot • while 
 I shall mount Scham during the route. Scham is the Arabian 
 name of Damascus. 
 
 A chief of the tribe of the Bedouins of Palmyra, whom M. Bau- 
 din had summoned, is arrived here. He is charged to conduct 
 me to Palmyra, and to bring me back safe and sound, on condi¬ 
 tion, however, that I shall go alone and clad as a Bedouin of the 
 desert: he is to leave his son as a hostage at Damascus, during 
 the interval. I and my party deliberate upon this proposition. 
 1 strongly desired to see the ruins of Tadmor; nevertheless, as 
 they appear to be less surprising than those of Balbec, and will 
 take at least ten days to visit and return from, and as my wife 
 could not accompany me ; as, moreover, the time for regaining 
 the sea-shore at the point where our vessel will await us, is ar¬ 
 rived—I made up my mind to renounce, although with regret, 
 this journey in the desert, and we prepared to depart the third 
 day following, 
 
 April 6th, 1833. 
 
 We left Damascus at eight o’clock a. m., having traversed 
 the town and its bazaars, which were encumbered by the crowd. 
 Heard several injurious murmurs, and endured sundry oppro¬ 
 brious epithets, which were vented upon our party in consequence 
 of its being taken for recruits about to join Ibrahim. We issued 
 from the city by a different gate from that whereby we had 
 entered it: followed the course of numerous delicious gardens, 
 by a route which bordered a torrent, and was overshadowed by 
 superb trees: climbed up the mountain, whence we had enjoyed 
 so fine a prospect of Damascus ; halted in order to contemplate 
 it again, and bear away a perfect image of it. I understand that 
 Arabian traditions represent this city and its neighborhood to 
 form the site of the lost Paradise ; and certainly I should think 
 that no place upon earth was better calculated to answer one’s 
 idea of Eden. The vast and fruitful plain, with the seven 
 branches of the blue stream which irrigates it; the majestic 
 framework of the mountains ; the glittering lakes which reflect 
 the heaven upon the earth; its geographical situation between 
 the two seas; the perfection of the climate:—every thing indi- 
 
 VOL. II. 7 
 
134 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 cates that Damascus has at least been one of the first towns that 
 were ever built by the children of men—one of the natural halts 
 of fugitive humanity in primeval times. It is in fact one of those 
 sites pointed out by the hand of God for a city—a site predestined 
 to sustain a capital, like Constantinople. These are perhaps the 
 only two cities which could not possibly have taken their post in 
 an empire from arbitrary selection ; but which were palpably 
 indicated by the configuration of the places. So long as the 
 earth shall bear empires upon her surface, Damascus will con¬ 
 tinue to be a great city, and Stamboul the metropolis of the world. 
 On emerging from the desert, and entering on the plains of Ccelo- 
 Syria, and the valleys of Galilee, the caravans of India need 
 repose—and they find a spot of enchantment at Damascus. Com¬ 
 merce is there upheld by industry. Damascus is, like Lyons, 
 one vast manufactory. Its population, according to some, reaches 
 four hundred thousand souls; according to others, only two hun¬ 
 dred thousand. I cannot decide, and indeed it is impossible to do 
 so C one can only conjecture. In the East, there is no exact 
 census taken, and the traveler can only judge by the eye. By 
 the extent of the crowd which inundates the streets and bazaars; 
 by the number of armed men who issue from the houses on the 
 least signal of revolution or tumult ; and the extent of ground 
 which the houses cover, I should myself be inclined to believe, 
 that those who are inclosed within the city walls might number 
 between three and four hundred thousand souls. But if we do 
 not limit the town thus arbitrarily—if we include in the aggre¬ 
 gate of its population those who inhabit the immense faubourgs 
 and villages which are confounded to the eye with the houses 
 and gardens of this enormous assemblage of human beings, 1 
 should think that the territory of Damascus might nourish a mil¬ 
 lion. I cast a lingering look upon it, with internal prayers for 
 the welfare of M. Baudin, and the other excellent men who pro¬ 
 tected and enlivened our sojourn there; and then, a few paces of 
 our steeds withdrew from our sight for ever even the tips of its 
 trees, and of its minarets. 
 
 The Arab who walked beside my horse pointed out to me, on 
 the horizon, a large lake which glittered at the foot of a moun¬ 
 tain ; and he related to me a history connected therewith, of 
 which at the time I understood only a few words, but which my 
 dragoman afterwards interpreted. 
 
 There was a herdsman, whose business it was to tend camels 
 lipon the borders of this lake, which belonged to the inhabitants 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 135 
 
 of a desert district of this high mountain. One day, while en¬ 
 gaged in watering his herd, he perceived that the water of the 
 lake escaped by a subterranean channel, which he closed with a 
 huge stone, but at the same time let fall therein his shepherd’s 
 staff. Some time after, a stream dried up in one of the provinces 
 of Persia. The Sultan, seeing this part of his dominions threat¬ 
 ened with famine by want of water to irrigate the land, consulted 
 the sages of his empire, and by their advice sent emissaries into 
 all the surrounding countries to discover in what manner the 
 source of his river had been diverted or dried up. These mes¬ 
 sengers carried with them the shepherd’s staff, which the sub¬ 
 terranean channel had brought to light. The herdsman chanced 
 to be at Damascus when the emissaries arrived there ; he recol¬ 
 lected the staff which he had accidentally lost, approached, and 
 recognized it to be the same which they held in their hands. 
 “ What will the Sultan bestow upon the man who will restore to 
 him his flood ?” demanded he. 
 
 “ The Sultan,” replied the messengers, “ will bestow on him 
 the hand of his daughter, and half his dominions.” 
 
 “ Depart then,” rejoined the herdsman, “ and before you can 
 regain the Sultan’s court, the lost stream shall flow again through 
 the land of Persia, and rejoice his royal heart.” 
 
 The herdsman repaired to the mountain, rolled back the block 
 of stone, and the waters, resuming their course through the secret 
 channel, filled anew the bed of the important river. The Sultan 
 hereupon despatched fresh ambassadors, who conveyed his daugh¬ 
 ter under their escort to the fortunate herdsman, who was also 
 gifted with half the provinces of the empire. 
 
 These marvelous traditions are preserved with entire faith 
 among the credulous Arab populations ; not one individual doubts 
 them, because, in fact, the imagination doubts nothing. 
 
 April 7th. 
 
 I encamped last evening under the brow of a lofty mountain, 
 after eight hours’ march through a country hilly, naked, sterile, 
 and cold. We were overtaken by a caravan less numerous than 
 our own. It was that of the Cadi of Damascus, sent every year 
 from Constantinople, and who was on his return thither, to embark 
 at Alexandretta. His wives and family traveled in a kind of 
 double basket, poised upon the back of a mule; one woman and 
 several little children occupying each half of the receptacle, the 
 whole being covered up. This caravan passed us and proceeded 
 to encamp much farther on. 
 
136 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 A rough journey of ten hours’ march in severe cold, and 
 through valleys completely deserted. We traversed, for one 
 whole hour, the bed of a torrent, wherein large masses of stone 
 rolled down from the mountains, intercepted every instant the 
 progress of our horses. I mounted for an hour or two my fine 
 steed, Tadmor, in order to give rest to Scham. In spite of having 
 undergone two days of so fatiguing a route, this magnificent ani¬ 
 mal sprang forward like a gazelle over the rocky footing of the 
 desert. In a moment he outstripped the fleetest coursers of the 
 caravan. He is gentle and intelligent as a swan, of which he has 
 both the whiteness and the grace. I will carry him to Europe, 
 together with Scham and Saide. As soon as I alighted, he es¬ 
 caped me, and bounded on to rejoin the Arab, called Mansours, 
 who tends and leads them. He reclined his head on his shoulders 
 like a fond spaniel; there is, indeed, as perfect a fraternity be¬ 
 tween the Arab and his horse, as there is between us and the dog. 
 Mansours and Daher, my two principal Arab sais, whom I had 
 brought from the environs of Bayreut, and who had now been in 
 my service a year, are the most faithful and gentle of domestics; 
 steady, indefatigable, sagacious, attached to their masters and their 
 steeds, always ready to encounter with us an impending peril,— 
 what might not an able leader achieve with such a race of men! 
 If I had one quarter of the wealth of a banker of Paris or London, 
 I would renovate in ten years the face of Syria; all the elements 
 of regeneration are there; nothing is wanting but a hand to unite 
 and arrange them, an eye to select a foundation, and a will to 
 guide a people! 
 
 I slept in a kind of hostelry, quite isolated upon a plain : the 
 cold was extreme, but we found a little wood and lighted a fire in 
 the low chamber where we spread our carpet. Our provisions 
 brought from Damascus were exhausted ; we therefore kneaded a 
 little barley-flour which had been destined for our horses, and eat 
 the cakes, which were bitter and black. 
 
 At daybreak we departed; and having traveled for twelve 
 hours through a barren and deserted land, arrived at a small vil¬ 
 lage, where we found a shelter, some fowls, and a little rice. 
 The rain inundated us during the whole day ; we were not above 
 eight hours’ journey from the route of the valley of Beka; but 
 we mean to coast it by its eastern extremity, much lower down 
 than Balbec. 
 
 April 7. 
 
 Arrived at three o’clock in the afternoon, in sight of the desert 
 of Beka. Our caravan made a hesitating halt. The plain, from 
 
137 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 that point where we stood, even to the foot of Lebanon, which 
 uplifts itself like a wall on the other side, is one immense lake, in 
 the middle whereof several black-looking islands emerge, while, 
 in other places, the tops of trees only, rise above the surface. 
 Vast antique ruins crown a hill about three leagues from us. 
 How are we to traverse, with no other guide than chance, this 
 inundated plain ? Nevertheless, it is necessary to move forward 
 without delay. To-morrow we may not be able to cross it at all; 
 for the rain continues to descend, and the mountain-torrents, in all 
 directions, launch their streams into the hollows. We accordingly 
 marched on, for two hours, upon the most elevated plain, which 
 brought us towards that hill whereon, as I have said, stood the 
 extensive ruins of a temple. These are on our left hand : they 
 appeared to be the unknown relics of some city, now without 
 name, and which flourished contemporaneously with Balbec. 
 Shafts of gigantic columns have rolled down the sides of the hill, 
 and lie in the dirt at our feet. The day declined, the rain in¬ 
 creased, and we had not time to ascend to the temple. 
 
 This hill being passed, we could make no further progress, 
 unless in water up to our horses’ knees. At every instant, one 
 of our mules slipped and rolled with his load of baggage into the 
 deep gulfs, whence our moukres extricated them with great diffi¬ 
 culty. We made an Arab precede us at the distance of twenty 
 paces, in order to sound the ground ; but, when we had reached 
 the middle of the plain, at that point where the stream of Balbec 
 hollows its bed, the soil seemed to give way beneath us, and it 
 became actually necessary to swim over a space of thirty or 
 forty feet. My Arabs, throwing themselves into the water, and 
 holding the horses by the head, conveyed across my wife and an 
 English femme-de-chambre, who accompanied her. We all at 
 length gained the opposite shore. 
 
 Night had now almost completely set in. We hastened to 
 cross the rest of the valley, whilst there still remained a glimmer¬ 
 ing of twilight to guide us. We passed near one or two ruinous 
 huts, inhabited by a ferocious tribe of the Arabs of Balbec. Had 
 they attacked us at this juncture, we should have been at their 
 mercy ; all our arms being entirely out of order. The Arabs 
 gazed at us from their terraced roofs, but descended not into the 
 morass. At the very moment when night positively fell around 
 as, the surface of the ground began to rise, and we were, at 
 length, high and dry upon the extreme borders of the chain of 
 Lebanon. We guided ourselves towards a remote light which 
 
138 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 twinkled at a distance of three leagues, from the verge of a moun¬ 
 tain ; it was, no doubt, from the town of Zarkley. Overcome with fa¬ 
 tigue, half-frozen with cold, and wet even to our bones, we at last 
 succeeded in reaching the first heights upon which rises the town. 
 There, on calling over our muster-roll, we found that one of our 
 friends, M. de Capmas, was missing. We made a dead stop;— 
 we shouted his name ; we fired several guns ; but still, no an¬ 
 swer. We detached two horsemen to prosecute the search, and 
 entered ourselves into Zarkley. It took us an hour to coast a 
 river which runs round the town, and to find a bridge that crosses 
 it. Our jaded horses could scarce keep their footing upon the 
 slippery stones of this bridge, abrupt, and without parapet. At 
 length, the house of the Greek Bishop received us. We lighted 
 fires of brambles in the huts which surround the court. The 
 bishop lent us some mats and carpets. We were quite exhausted. 
 The two Arabs, who had been sent to seek our friend, returned 
 with him in safety. They brought him in half dead, and placed 
 him beside the hearth. He slowly revived. We found at the 
 bottom of a trunk saturated with water, a bottle of rum; the 
 bishop provided us with sugar • and we succeeded in reanimating 
 with some glasses of punch our sinking comrade. Meanwhile, 
 the Arabs prepared for us the pilau. The poor bishop had literally 
 nothing more than a shelter to offer us ; but the curiosity of the 
 women and children of Zarkley was such, that at each instant 
 they absolutely encumbered the court, and pushed open the doors 
 of our chambers to gaze on the two Frank women. I was ulti¬ 
 mately obliged to station two armed Arabs at the gate of the 
 court-yard, to interdict their entrance. 
 
 The next day, we remained at Zarkley, in order to get our 
 clothes thoroughly dry, and renew the various provisions for our 
 route, which had been destroyed by the inundation of the pre. 
 vious evening. 
 
 Zarkley is a town wholly Christian, and founded a few years 
 since in a mountain gorge upon the side of Lebanon. It owes its 
 rapid and prodigious increase to the persecuted families of Ar¬ 
 menian and Greek Christians of Damascus and Homs. It counts 
 from eight to ten thousand inhabitants, possesses a considerable 
 traffic in silk, and is augmenting itself every day. Under the 
 protection of the Emir Beschir, the Sovereign of Lebanon, it is 
 no longer disquieted by the incursions of the tribes of Balbec and 
 Anti-Lebanon. The inhabitants, industrious, active, and agricul- 
 tural^ till the heights most sedulously that descend from the 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 139 
 
 mountain into the plain, and endeavor to turn to account even 
 those parts of the desert which lie next them. 
 
 The aspect of the town is very extraordinary. It presents a 
 confused assemblage of black looking houses built of earth, with¬ 
 out either regularity or symmetry, on the steep sides of two hil¬ 
 locks separated by a stream. The ravine from whence the stream 
 descends before it flows round the city and through the plain, is a 
 large and deep indentation of perpendicular rocks which part, as 
 it were, to give passage to the torrent. It rolls from platform to 
 platform, forming three or four cascades in sheets of water, which 
 cover all the breadth of these natural platforms or successive 
 steps. The foam of the torrent wholly envelopes the rocks, and 
 the noise of the falls resounds through the streets of Zarkley 
 with a murmur heavy but continual. Several very neat houses 
 shine out from amidst the verdure of poplars and lofty vines 
 above the cascades. Among them is the house of refuge of our 
 friend M. Baudin, while another is a convent of Maronite monks. 
 
 The river, after having traversed the mansions of the town, 
 which are grouped and suspended in a manner the most grotesque 
 on its precipitous banks, almost indeed hanging over its bed, pro¬ 
 ceeds to water the narrow fields and meadows below, over which 
 its fluid has been carefully distributed by the townsmen in a thou¬ 
 sand rivulets. Curtains, as it were, of tall Persian poplars stretch 
 along its course, and direct the eye, as through a verdant avenue, 
 as far as the desert of Balbec and the snowy points of Anti-Leba¬ 
 non. Almost all the inhabitants are either Syriac or Damascene 
 Greeks. The houses resemble the miserable huts of the peasants 
 of Savoy or Brescia ; yet each one has its shop, or workshop, 
 where saddlers, armorers, and even watchmakers, pursue, though 
 with clumsy tools, their peculiar trades. 
 
 The people themselves appeared to be worthy and hospitable. 
 The sight of strangers like us, so far from frightening or amazing, 
 seemed to be agreeable to them. They offered us all the little 
 services that our situation required, and were evidently proud of 
 the degree of prosperity which their town had attained. Zarkley 
 may be considered as a kind of appendix to a great commercial 
 city, destined, even, one day to vie with Damascus, and to rival, 
 in the commercial dealings of its Christian population, those of 
 the Mahometan race of the larger repertorium. If the death of 
 the Emir Beschir should not destroy that unity of sway which 
 combines all the powers of Lebanon under one chief, Zarkley, 
 some twenty years hence, will be the first town of Syria. Other 
 
140 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 places deteriorate ; but it increases : others sleep, but it labors. 
 The Greek genius every where exhibits the principle of activity 
 which is in the very blood of that lively European race. But the 
 activity of Asiatic Greece is valuable and fruitful ; whereas that 
 of Greece of the Morea and the Isles, is only a sterile agitation. 
 The air of Asia softens the blood of the Greeks : there, they 
 always exhibit a people admirably civilized ; elsewhere, they are 
 frequently barbarians. It is the same with respect to the physi¬ 
 cal beauty of the race. The Greek women of Asia are chef- 
 d’oeuvres of creation — imagination, grace, and voluptuousness 
 sparkle in their eyes. The female Greeks of the Morea and the 
 Isles have fresh looking but hard features ; and their eyes, dark 
 and fiery, want the sweet languishing expression which bespeaks 
 mildness and sensibility. The eyes of the one race may be 
 likened to ardent coals ; those of the other, to a lambent flame 
 veiled by humid vapors. 
 
 Same date. 
 
 The poor Greek Bishop of Zarkley is descended from a family 
 of Aleppo, where he passed his early life amidst the elegance and 
 luxurious efFeminacy of that city, the Athens of Asia ; he is, how¬ 
 ever, here quite an exile, without society or mental resources. 
 His manners have preserved that dignity for which the inhabitants 
 of Aleppo are remarkable ; but in the extreme penury to which 
 he is reduced, he could offer us nothing besides the use of his 
 humble dwelling. We spoke Italian with him. I presented him, 
 at parting, with five hundred piastres for the use of the poor of 
 his district—-or of himself, for he seemed in a most wretched con¬ 
 dition. Some Arabian and Greek books lying in confusion about 
 his room, and an old trunk containing his magnificent furred cloak 
 and his episcopal robes, comprised his whole riches. 
 
 I took guides at Zarkley to enable me to pass Lebanon by an 
 unknown road, the ordinary route being blocked up by the great 
 quantity of snow that had fallen during the winter. We proceeded 
 first by gentle acclivities over hills planted with vines and mul¬ 
 berry trees. We soon, however, arrived at the region of rocks, 
 and of torrents without beds, of which, indeed, we passed about 
 thirty in less than six hours. These falls are so rapid that they 
 have not time to hollow out a course for themselves; they have 
 the appearance of a curtain of foam, gliding over the naked rock, 
 and passing with the rapidity of the wings of a bird. The sky 
 was now covered with clouds, which, although the day was but 
 little advanced, already intercepted the light; deluging us in their 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 141 
 
 vapory waves as they rolled along, and frequently concealing from 
 us the head of our caravan, thus involved in darkness. The snow 
 also began to fall in large flakes, obliterating all traces of the path, 
 which our guides sought in vain, and we had some difficulty in 
 supporting our weary horses, whose iron shoes caused them to slip 
 on the steep ledge which we were obliged to follow. The magni¬ 
 ficent prospect of the Valley of Balbec beneath us, and the sum¬ 
 mits of Anti-Lebanon, with the noble ruins of the Temples of 
 Beka, (lying in the full blaze of day,) we could only catch 
 glimpses of at short intervals, through the chinks of the dividing 
 clouds; we appeared to be sailing in the heavens, and our resting- 
 place, from which we were viewing the earth, seemed not to be¬ 
 long to it. 
 
 And now the murmuring winds, that had slept in the deep 
 and lofty defiles of the mountains, began to utter a mournful 
 sound, as from beneath the earth, like the roaring of a heavy sea 
 after a storm. The gusts passed like thunder-bolts, sometimes 
 over our heads, and sometimes in the lower regions, beneath our 
 feet, driving before them as dead leaves, masses of snow, quanti¬ 
 ties of stones, and even large pieces of rock, with the same vio¬ 
 lence wherewith they would have been thrown from the cannon’s 
 mouth. Two of our horses were struck by them, and rolled over 
 the precipice : not one of us, however, was touched. My young 
 Arabian stallions, that were being led, seemed petrified with ter¬ 
 ror ; they stopped short and raised their nostrils. They did not 
 neigh, but uttered a guttural cry similar to the rattling in a man’s 
 throat. We walked close together, both for the sake of mutual 
 protection, and that we might the more easily afford each other 
 assistance in the event of an accident. 
 
 The night grew darker and darker ; and the snow, which 
 beat in our eyes, deprived us of the little light which might still 
 have directed us. The whirlwind filled all the defile in which 
 we were with snow, which, turning rapidly round, rose in columns 
 to the sky, and fell again in immense sheets, like the foam of a 
 huge wave upon the rocks beneath. There were times when it 
 was impossible to breathe ; our guides stopped every instant; 
 hesitated, and discharged their muskets as signals to us ; but the 
 furious wind would allow nothing to be heard, and the sound of 
 our arms resembled the light crack of a whip. 
 
 In proportion, however, as we advanced farther into this lofty 
 defile of the highest regions of Lebanon, we heard, with consider¬ 
 able alarm, a deep, continued low roar, which increased from 
 
 VOL. ii. 7* 
 
142 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 time to time, and formed, as it were, the bass of this horrible con¬ 
 cert of warring elements. It seemed as if a part of the mountain 
 had fallen and was rolling down like a torrent of rocks. The 
 thick cloud, touching the very ground, hid every thing from us, 
 and we, therefore, knew not where we were ; when we saw pass 
 suddenly by us horses without riders, mules without burthens, 
 and several camels, who were flying down the snowy side of the 
 mountain. These were quickly followed by some Arabs, who, 
 calling out to us, directed us to stop, showing us at the same time, 
 with their hands, at forty or fifty paces beneath us, a ruinous 
 cottage built against a rock, which the clouds had hitherto con- 
 cealed from us. A column of smoke, and the glimmer of a fire, 
 were to be seen through the door of this cabin, the roof of which, 
 of enormous branches of cedar, had just been half carried away 
 by the hurricane, and was now hanging against the wall. This, 
 the dwelling of Murat-Bey, was the only asylum that we could 
 procure on this part of Lebanon. A poor Arab inhabits it dur¬ 
 ing the summer, to offer barley and a shelter to the caravans of 
 Damascus, which pass by this route into Syria. 
 
 We descended thither with some difficulty, by means of steps 
 cut in the rock, but'now covered a foot deep with snow. The 
 torrent, which flowed a hundred paces beneath the cottage, and 
 which we had to cross in order to ascend to the highest region of 
 the mountains, had become all at once an immense river, hurry¬ 
 ing along with it huge masses of stone, and the wrecks of the 
 tempest. Surprised on its banks by the whirlwind, and half 
 buried in snow, the Arabs whom we met had taken the burthens 
 from their camels and mules, and had left them on the spot, to 
 save themselves at the cottage of Murat. We found it, indeed, 
 filled with these men and their beasts ; no space was left either 
 for us or our horses; nevertheless, sheltered by the projection of 
 rock, which was larger than a house, we felt the wind less, and 
 the clouds of snow, hurried from the summit of Lebanon, and 
 passing over our heads in their progress to the plain, began to fall 
 less heavily, and allowed us to perceive at intervals, a small por¬ 
 tion of the sky where the stars were already glittering. The 
 wind soon after altogether fell; we dismounted and endeavored 
 to construct a shelter in which we might pass, not only the night, 
 but perhaps many days, if the torrent, which we heard without 
 seeing it, should continue to obstruct the passage. 
 
 Beneath the walls of the cabin, and under shelter of a part of 
 the branches of cedar which had formed the roof, there was a 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 143 
 
 space of ten feet square covered up with snow and mud. We 
 swept away the snow, but there still remained a foot of soft mire 
 on which we could not place our carpets ; we therefore drew from 
 the roof some branches of trees which we laid like a hurdle upon 
 the saturated ground, and which thus prevented our mats from 
 becoming soaked in the water ; our mattresses, our carpets, and 
 our cloaks formed a second flooring; we lighted a fire in one cor¬ 
 ner of our retreat, and thus we passed the long night between the 
 /th and 8th of April, 1833. From time to time the hurricane, 
 which had been hushed, again rose ; the mountain seemed about 
 to tumble to pieces: the enormous rock against which the cottage 
 had been built, trembled like the trunk of a tree shaken by a gust 
 of wind, and the torrent seemed to fill all space with its continued 
 roar. We contrived, however, to get to sleep at last, and were 
 awakened at a late hour the following day by the dazzling rays 
 of an unclouded sun upon the snow. The Arabs, our compan¬ 
 ions, had departed ; they had made the passage of the torrent in 
 safety, and we perceived them at a distance climbing the hills 
 over which we had to follow them. We now set out ourselves, 
 and walked for four hours through a lofty valley, where, as on 
 the summit of Mont Blanc, we saw nothing but the snow beneath 
 our feet, and the sky above our heads. The dazzling effect upon 
 our eyes, the dead silence, and the danger that attended each step 
 as we advanced over these deserts of newly fallen snow (where 
 not a trace of path was to be found), induced a solemn and reli¬ 
 gious train of thought, as we traversed these lofty pillars of the 
 earth, the spine as it were of a continent. We looked involunta¬ 
 rily towards each point of the horizon and of the heavens, and 
 every phenomenon of nature attracted our attention ; one, indeed, 
 presented an appearance which I had never before observed. 
 Suddenly, at the summit of Lebanon, against the side of a pro¬ 
 jection half shaded from the morning sun, I beheld a magnificent 
 rainbow, not thrown up like an airy bridge, uniting the mountain- 
 top with the heavens, but lying upon the snow in concentric cir¬ 
 cles, like a serpent of most dazzling colors ; it was like a rain- 
 bow-nest surprised on the most inaccessible ridge of Lebanon. 
 As the sun rose and fell upon the white projection, the circles of 
 the rainbow, of a thousand mingling hues, appeared to be dis¬ 
 turbed and to rise. The extremity of these luminous volutes 
 springing in effect from the earth, mounted some fathoms towards 
 heaven, as if it essayed to lance itself toward the sun, and de¬ 
 scended again in light-colored vapor and liquid pearls, which fell 
 
144 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND* 
 
 thick around us. We seated ourselves there, in this region of 
 snow, in order to dry before the sun our miry shoes. We had 
 begun to perceive the deep and black valleys of the Maronites y 
 and in two hours descended to the village of Hamana, situated at 
 the head of the magnificent valley of that name, and where we 
 had already reposed ourselves on our way to Damascus. The 
 Scheik appropriated to our use three houses of the village. The 
 evening sun gilded the broad leaves of the fig and mulberry trees ; 
 husbandmen trailed along their ploughs; women and children 
 were promenading in the different roads between the houses, and 
 saluted us with a smile of hospitality. Animals paced over the 
 fields; pigeons and fowls covered the terrace roofs; and the 
 clocks of two Maronite churches jingled heavily through the tops 
 of the cypresses, ringing in order to announce the pious ceremo¬ 
 nies of the morrow, which was Sunday. All pictured, in a word, 
 the aspect, the sounds, and the tranquillity of a little quiet village 
 in France or Italy and the effect was strange, recognizing the 
 resemblance immediately on issuing from the precipices of Le¬ 
 banon, the deserts of Balbec, and the inhospitable streets of 
 Damascus. Never, perhaps, was there transition so rapid, so 
 agreeable* We resolved to pass the Sunday among this inter¬ 
 esting and worthy people, and to repose during that entire day 
 after our long fatigues. 
 
 The day was accordingly passed at Hamana. The Scheik 
 partially furnished us with provisions, and some purchases at the 
 market rendered our stock abundant. The females of Hamana 
 came to visit us consecutively throughout the day. They are far 
 less handsome than the Syrians who dwell near the sea-shore* 
 They constitute a pure Maronite race—have all the appearance 
 of strength and health—but their features are too marked ; the 
 eye, likewise, somewhat hard; the complexion rather too ruddy. 
 Their costume consists of white pantaloons, or trowsers, and r 
 above these, a long robe of blue cloth, open in front, and leaving 
 the bosom bare : necklaces, formed of innumerable piastres, adorn 
 the neck, and fall over the throat, and even as low as the shoul¬ 
 ders. The married women complete this costume by a silver 
 horn, about a foot in circumference, and sometimes a foot and a. 
 half in length ; and this they fix upon their twisted hair, and it. 
 rises over the forehead a little obliquely. This horn, sculptured 
 or carved, is attached to the extremity of a muslin veil which is 
 suspended thence, and occasionally conceals the countenance. 
 They never lay aside this ornamental horn, even during sleep. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 145 
 
 This peculiar custom, however, whereof one cannot decipher the 
 exact meaning or origin-—which can be only traceable to the 
 vagaries of the human intellect—disfigures them not a little, and 
 gives a heaviness to all the movements of the head and neck. 
 
 April 9th. 
 
 We quitted Hamana at five o’clock, a. m., on a morning veiled 
 in mists, and traveled, for two hours, over the steep declivities and 
 high ridges of Lebanon, descending towards the plains of Syria. 
 The valley, which we leave on the right, hollows and enlarges 
 itself more and more under oar feet. It might be there about two 
 leagues in breadth, and one league, at least, in depth. The trans¬ 
 parent waves of morning vapor moved softly, like waves of the 
 sea, throughout the prospect, and left nothing visible above them 
 but the high points of mamelons, the heads of cypresses, and some 
 turrets of villages, or of Maronite monasteries. Soon, however, 
 the sea-breeze, which mounted insensibly with the sun, unrolled 
 gradually all these vaporous waves, turning them back in white 
 masses, to be confounded with the snowy summits upon which they 
 lie, in the form of light gray spots. 
 
 The valley is now fully disclosed. Why has not the eye a 
 language qualified to paint by a single word as it sees by a single 
 glance ? I would wish to preserve eternally in my memory the 
 incomparable scenes and impressions of the Valley of Hamana. 
 I stand above one of the thousand torrents which furrow its sides 
 with their bounding foam ; and behold through its masses of rock, 
 the hanging meadows, the cypress clumps, the groves of poplars, 
 the wild grapes, and black carobs, which run even to the depths 
 of the valley, adorning there the central stream which flows 
 through its entire length. The valley is so deep that my eye can¬ 
 not penetrate to its bottom. I only hear, at intervals, the mingled 
 roaring of its waters and leaves; the lowing of its herds ; and 
 the distant and silvery sound of its monastery bells. The morn¬ 
 ing mist is still wrinkled over the deep bed of the gorge which 
 bounds the principal torrent. Here and there, winding around 
 several high mounds, I perceived the white line of foam which it 
 traces in this dark shade. From the same side of the valley at 
 which we stand, I see arise, at about a quarter of a league dis¬ 
 tance from one another, three or four large platforms, resembling 
 natural pedestals. Their sides, very steep, are of a grayish 
 granite. These platforms, of the circumference of about half a 
 league, are entirely clothed with forests of cedar, fir, and umbrel- 
 
146 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 la-shaped pines, with large tops. One may distinguish huge 
 branches shooting from these trees, between which the morning 
 light circulates and plays. Their black and motionless leaves are 
 intersected here and there by light columns of blue smoke, rising 
 from the cabins of Maronite laborers, and by little stone ogives, 
 within which the village clocks are hung. Two large monaste¬ 
 ries, whose walls shine like copper, are built upon two platforms 
 of pines. They are not unlike fortresses of the middle ages. 
 One sees, underneath, convents, and Maronite monks, clothed in 
 their black capuchins, who labor between the stocks of vines and 
 huge chestnut trees. Two or three villages, grouped around 
 rocky mamelons, are visible still lower down, like bee-hives clus¬ 
 tered about the trunks of old trees. Beside every cottage some 
 tufts of pale verdure appear ; these are pomegranates, figs, or 
 olive trees, which begin to fructify at the depth of the valley. 
 The eye loses itself, at length, in the impenetrable shade of the 
 bottom of the gorge. If we lift our regard beyond this ravine, 
 upon the opposite side of the mountain, we perceive, in some parts, 
 perpendicular walls of rocky granite, which almost pierce the 
 clouds. Above these natural walls are patches of the most lovely 
 vegetation, high summits of firs, hanging over the chasms below, 
 immense heads of sycamores, looking like huge spots on the face 
 of heaven ; and, again, behind these pinnacles of vegetation, 
 steeples belonging to villages or monasteries, whereto one cannot 
 even imagine any access. 
 
 In other places, the granite sides of the mountains are broken 
 into wide cavities, where the sight is lost in the obscurity of for¬ 
 ests, and nothing can be distinguished save certain luminous 
 points, which are, in fact, the beds of torrents and of little lakes. 
 Elsewhere, the rocks altogether disappear : immense circular 
 bastions flank them, like eternal fortifications, and terminate at 
 their angles in towers and turrets. Elevated valleys, which the 
 eye can scarcely fathom, sink or emerge amidst ramparts of 
 snow or wood; and here descends the principal torrent of Hama- 
 na, which one sees at first rushing like a vast gutter of snow, 
 then losing itself in a huge basin, resounding with cascades, 
 where it is divided into seven or eight shining branches, after¬ 
 wards vanishing behind black masses, to re-appear in one single 
 strip of foam, which bends and unbends itself according to the 
 sinuosities of the ground, over the slow or rapid declivities of the 
 hills. It plunges, at length, into the principal valley, whereinto 
 it falls in a cascade of one hundred paces broad, and two hun- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 147 
 
 dred feet high. Its foam, which rebounds up again, and which the 
 wind blows here and there, covers with floating rainbows the 
 crests of the huge pines which border the fall. 
 
 At our left, the valley, in descending towards the sea-shore, 
 expanded itself, and exhibited to the eye the sides of its hills more 
 woody and better cultivated: its river serpentining between 
 mamelons crowned with monasteries and hamlets. Farther off, 
 the palm trees uplift themselves behind low hillocks covered with 
 olive trees, displaying their tufts of yellow green, and intersecting 
 the long line of golden sand which borders the sea. The eye is 
 at length lost in the uncertain distance—uncertain whether sea or 
 sky. 
 
 The details of this magnificent ensemble , are no less attractive 
 than the general coup d’ceil. At each winding of the rocks, at 
 each summit of the hills whither the path conducts the traveler, 
 he perceives a new prospect,—wherein waters, trees, rocks, the 
 ruins of bridges or aqueducts, snow, sea, and the fiery sand of the 
 desert, all are mingled in some unexpected manner, drawing forth 
 an exclamation of surprise and delight. I have seen Naples and 
 its islands, with the valleys of the Alps and the Apennines, in Sa¬ 
 voy or in Switzerland;—but the valley of Hamana and some 
 others scattered about Lebanon, effaced the recollection of all 
 these. The hugeness of the masses of rock ; the multiplied wa¬ 
 terfalls ; the purity and depth of the heavens; the prospect of 
 vast seas bounding the horizon in every direction ; the picturesque 
 appearance of the hamlets and convents, perched like human 
 nests upon heights whither the regard almost dreads to follow 
 them ; in a word, the sense of novelty induced by the color, some¬ 
 times dark, sometimes light, of the vegetation,—the majesty of 
 the venerable trees, many of whose trunks resemble columns of 
 granite,—all this combined, colors, as it were, and solemnizes the 
 country, and stirs the soul with emotions far more profound and 
 religious than do the Alps themselves. It may be remarked, that 
 no region can be considered perfect that does not possess a sea- 
 coast. Here the ocean, the desert, and the heavens form the 
 frame work of this sublime picture : and the ravished eye glances 
 eternally from the depth of forests, from the umbrageous banks of 
 rivulets, from the summit of aerial peaks, or from the tranquil 
 scenes of rural or cenobitical life, to the blue sea ploughed by 
 ships, to the naked height of snowy rocks, or to the yellow waves 
 of the desert, where the caravans of camels describe afar off their 
 sinuous route. Such is this incessant contrast, which gives birth 
 
148 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 to a whole host of thoughts and ideas, and solemn impressions of 
 heaps of stone, of poetry, and of severe, yet glowing beauty. 
 
 Same date. 
 
 At noon, we encamped under our tents, on the mid-heights of 
 Lebanon, to let pass the extreme heat of the day. They brought 
 me an Arab courier, who was on his way to seek me at Damas¬ 
 cus. He put into my hands a packet of letters, arrived from Eu¬ 
 rope, which announced, among other things, my nomination to 
 the Chamber of Deputies. This was a new source of annoyance 
 added to all the others. Unfortunately I had aspired to this dis¬ 
 tinction at another period, myself soliciting a mark of confidence, 
 which I could not, without ingratitude, now decline. I will ac¬ 
 cept it, and go. But oh ! how much do I now wish that this cup 
 might pass far from me. The future presents nothing to me, in¬ 
 dividually, in this drama of the social and political world, whose 
 principal scene is acted amongst the French. I have none of 
 those aspirations for glory and fortune which constitute the im¬ 
 pulsive force of public men. The only interest which I shall take 
 in their stormy deliberations will be the common interest of the 
 country and of humanity. There are indeed abstract existences 
 to men who would possess the present hour alone, and bring about 
 at any price, the aggrandizement of family, of caste, or of party. 
 How can the calm and impartial voice of philosophy be heard 
 amongst the tumult of conflicting and contradictory facts and 
 opinions 1 Who is he that can penetrate the future, and define 
 its boundaries, behind the dust raised by actual warfare ? No 
 matter: man chooses neither his own path, nor his own work. 
 God assigns him his task, according to his circumstances and his 
 convictions:—it must be accomplished. But I can foresee, for 
 myself, nothing but a moral martyrdom in the melancholy duty 
 now imposed upon me. 
 
 I was born for action. Poetry, in me, is but action modi¬ 
 fied. I have thought, and, in the absence of other power, have 
 expressed in words my ideas and sentiments. But now, activity 
 solicits me no longer. I have too deeply proved the value of 
 sublunary things not to estimate them thoroughly. I have lost too 
 many of the beings whom my active life could interest, not to be 
 deprived of all personal stimulus to exertion. A life of contem¬ 
 plation, of philosophy, of poetry, and solitude, will form the only 
 resting-place for my heart before it is finally broken. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 149 
 
 April 10th, 1833. 
 
 Return to Bnyreut, and the visit to the 
 Cedars of Solomon. 
 
 We arrived here yesterday, and I passed two hours in the 
 convent of the Franciscans, at that tomb in which all my future 
 hopes lie buried. There are no tidings of the Alceste, which is 
 to convey these precious remains to France, and I have freighted 
 another vessel for our own conveyance. We shall sail in com¬ 
 pany ; but the mother will at least be spared the pain of being in 
 the same apartment with the body of her child. We intend visit¬ 
 ing Kesrouan, Tripoli in Syria, Latakia, Antioch, and the 
 Cedars of Lebanon, which tower on the summits of the mountains 
 behind Tripoli, whilst Captain Coulonne is making the necessary 
 preparations for the reception of so numerous a party. Our many 
 friends here have visited us this morning : namely, the governor, 
 a Maronite Prince ; Habib Barbara, our country neighbor, who 
 has treated us since our arrival, and more especially since our 
 affliction, with the zeal of true friendship ; M. Borneo, the Sar¬ 
 dinian Consul, and M. Borda, a young and amiable Piedmontese, 
 brought by the caprice of fortune to the deserts of the East, (as an 
 associate in the religious mission here,) when his education, 
 character, and taste, qualify him to shine as a diplomatist in the 
 most polished courts of Europe ; M. Laurella, the Austrian con¬ 
 sul ; M. Farren, the consul-general, and M. Abbot, special consul 
 from England to Syria; a young French merchant, named 
 Humann, from whose company we have derived equal advantage 
 and pleasure during our sojourn here ; M. Caille, the French 
 traveler ; M. Jorelle, first interpreter to the consulship ;—this 
 yo.ung man, educated in France, was brought early to the East, 
 and is complete master of Turkish and Arabic—upright, active, 
 intelligent, and full of natural courtesy, to oblige another is to ob¬ 
 lige himself. Lastly, M. Guys, the French consul to Syria, a 
 worthy representative of our national honor in these countries, 
 where his character commands the respect ofthe Arabs, but who 
 has only recently come here, and with whom of course we are not 
 so well acquainted as with his colleagues. 
 
 I transcribe all these various names of individuals who have 
 loaded us with favors during a year’s residence among them, 
 that I may be ever reminded of the respective debt of gratitude I 
 owe to each. Were it not for the letter I received yesterday— 
 were it not for the recollection! of my aged father, which is ever 
 present to my mind, recalling me to France,—if I had to select a 
 
150 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 place of exile in this world wherein to end my earthly pilgrimage, 
 it is here that I would make that selection, in the bosom of soli¬ 
 tude and the beauties of nature. 
 
 April 30th, 1833. 
 
 We started this morning; at four o’clock with the same cara- 
 van I had got together at Damascus; took the sea-shore as far as 
 Cape Batroun—a route previously described—and slept at Djebail, 
 in a khan outside of the city, and which lies on a rising ground 
 overlooking the sea. All that is worthy of note in this town is a 
 mosque of Christian architecture, and which, it is probable, was 
 originally a church built by the counts of Tripoli. Djebail is 
 supposed to be the country of the ancient Gibbites, who supplied 
 King Hiram with blocks of stone for the building of the Temple 
 of Solomon. 
 
 The father of Adonis had a palace here ; and the worship of the 
 sun constituted the religion of all the neighboring country of Syria. 
 To the left of the town is a castle remarkable both for its elegance 
 and the science with which its several fortifications have been 
 planned. We went into the town to view the harbor, in which 
 floated some Arab barks. The inhabitants are almost exclusively 
 Maronites. A beautiful Arab lady, richly dressed, paid my wife 
 a visit in the caravansary, and we made her some trifling presents. 
 On the next day we continued to follow the sea-shore, which 
 formed indeed the base of the mountains of Castravan, and wo 
 slept under our tents, in a delightful situation, on the confines of 
 the territory of Tripoli. Here the road leaves the coast, and 
 taking a sudden turn to the right, plunges into a narrow valley, 
 through which runs a rivulet. About a league from the sea, the 
 valley contracts and is completely shut in by a rock, fully a 
 hundred feet high, and from five to six hundred feet in circum¬ 
 ference. This rock, whether it be natural or hewn out of the side 
 of the mountain which adjoins it, bears on its summit a Gothic 
 castle, in a state of complete preservation, but the abode of the 
 jackal and eagle; staircases, cut out of the rock itself, commu¬ 
 nicate with terraces, ranged one above another, protected by towers 
 and battlements, and terminated in a platform, whence rises up 
 the donjon-keep, pierced with loop-holes. A luxuriant vegetation 
 covers the castle, its walls, and turrets ; immense sycamores have 
 struck root in its halls, and rear their spreading heads above 
 the crumbling roof:—the ivy clinging to doors and windows ; the 
 lichens revealing here and there the colors of the stone ; and the 
 numberless parasitic plants which hang in profuse and tufted 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 151 
 
 festoons, give this fine monument of the middle ages the appear¬ 
 ance of a castle framed of moss and ivy. A beautiful spring 
 flows at the foot of the rock, shaded bv three of the finest trees that 
 can be imagined. They are a species of elm. The shadows of 
 one of them shielded our tents, our thirty horses, and the scattered 
 groups of our Arabs. 
 
 The next day w T e ascended a rising ground, on whose white 
 and slippery sides our horses could scarcely keep footing. Its 
 summit displays a boundless prospect of all the western shore of 
 Syria, as far as the Gulf of Alexandria ; of Mount Taurus, and 
 a little to the right, the Plains of Aleppo, and the Hills of Antioch, 
 with the^course of the Orontes. From this spot, three hours’ jour¬ 
 ney took us to the gates of Tripoli, where we were expected ; and 
 when about a league from the town, we were received by a party 
 of young Frank merchants, of different nations, and by some 
 officers of Ibrahim’s army, who had come to meet us. A son of 
 M. Lombart, a French merchant settled at Tripoli, requested us, 
 from his father, to make his house our home ; hut being unwilling 
 to trespass upon him, we repaired to the Franciscan convent, 
 which we found inhabited by one monk only, who gave us a 
 hearty welcome. We spent two days at Tripoli, and dined with 
 M. Lombart, in whose house we met with a family ever ready to 
 extend its hospitality to a countryman. In the evening we went 
 for an hour tokhe abode of Messrs. Katchiflisse, Greek merchants, 
 and consuls for Russia, whose family has been established in 
 Tripoli from time immemorial, and have a handsome palace 
 there. Madame Katchiflisse, and her two daughters, are cele¬ 
 brated throughout Syria for their beauty and the charm of their 
 manners, in which are exquisitely blended the Asiatic reserve, 
 the charming freedom of the Greeks, and the finished politeness 
 of the most elegant of our European females. They received us 
 in a large vaulted apartment, lighted by a cupola, and cooled by 
 a fountain of running water. They were seated on a semicircu¬ 
 lar divan, which occupied the extremity of the room, and the 
 whole was covered with rich carpets, strewed with sherbet, pipes, 
 and vases of flowers; and, clad in their Oriental costume, these 
 ladies presented, in their different styles of beauty, the completest 
 picture on which the eye of man could fall. We spent a delight¬ 
 ful evening in their company, and promised to see them again on 
 our return. 
 
 The Scheik of Eden, the last inhabited village on the summit 
 of Lebanon, was the uncle, by the mother’s side, of my inter- 
 
152 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 preter, M. Mazoyer. Hearing from his nephew of our arrival 
 at Tripoli, the venerable Scheik descended from his mountains 
 with his son, and a party of followers, to pay me a visit in the 
 Franciscan convent, and to invite me to his house at Eden. From 
 Eden to the cedars of Solomon, is only three hours’journey ; and, 
 if not hindered by the snows which still cover the mountain, we 
 should be enabled to visit those primeval trees which have shed 
 their glory over Lebanon, and are contemporary with the Great 
 King. We accepted the invitation, and the next day was fixed 
 for our departure. 
 
 We were on horseback by five in the morning. The caravan, 
 more numerous than ordinary, was headed by the Scheik, an 
 excellent old man, whose elegant manners, noble and easy 
 politeness, and magnificent costume, were far from assimilating 
 with our notions of an Arab chief. He might rather have been 
 taken for a Patriarch, marching at the head of his tribe. He rode 
 a courser of the desert, of a bright chestnut, with flowing mane, 
 worthy to have borne one of the knights of Jerusalem. His son, 
 and principal followers, curveted their magnificent stallions, some 
 paces before him: we followed, and a long file of our moukres 
 and sais brought up the rear. On leaving Tripoli, the traveler 
 follows the course of a river hemmed in by two hills ; the finest 
 trees, with groves of oranges, overshadow its banks; a public 
 kiosk, built under these trees, presents its perfumed terrace to 
 the pedestrian, and hither repairs the citizen to smoke his pipe, 
 take his coffee, and inhale the fresh breeze cooled by the stream 
 at his feet. The sea, which is about half a league from the city, 
 is seen from this spot through an opening, with the beautiful 
 square-towers erected by the Arabs on the two sides of the port, 
 and the numerous ships anchored in the road. We crossed a 
 large plain, in a state of cultivation, and planted with olive trees; 
 and on the first hill rising from the plain towards Lebanon, in the 
 midst of a forest of olive and fruit trees of every kind, we found 
 the road lined with an immense crowd of men, women, and 
 children, the inhabitants of a large village here which belongs to 
 the Scheik. Here he passes the winter months, his summer 
 residence being at Eden. These Arabs saluted their prince re¬ 
 spectfully, offered us refreshments, and a number of them 
 accompanied us in order to supply us with provisions, and assist 
 us in climbing the steep sides of the mountain. We proceeded 
 onward for four hours,—sometimes traversing deep valleys, some¬ 
 times scaling the summits of sterile heights, until we "halted at 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 153 
 
 the brink of a torrent which descends from the summits of Eden, 
 and which rolled down heaps of half-melted snow. The Scheik 
 had caused a large fire to be lighted under the shelter of a rock, 
 and we breakfasted and rested our horses here. The path then 
 became so steep, over bare rocks as slippery as polished marble, 
 that it is astonishing how the horses could climb, much more 
 descend them. Four Arabs on foot kept close to each of ours, 
 assisting them with hand and shoulder; and, although several 
 slipped down, notwithstanding their aid, no one met with any 
 serious accident. 
 
 By this horrible road, or rather perpendicular wall, we arrived, 
 after two hours’ labor, at. a rocky platform, whence we enjoyed 
 a view over a large mountain valley, and the village of Eden, 
 which is situated at its loftiest extremity in the region of snow. 
 Above Eden, there rises a pyramid of bare rock alone, the last 
 peak of Lebanon in this quarter, and a small chapel, in ruins, 
 crowns its summit. The winter winds, which war incessantly 
 with this rock, bring down from it enormous masses, which roll 
 as far as the village. The neighboring fields are covered, and 
 even the castle of the Scheik is surrounded with these vast blocks. 
 This castle is of pure Arab architecture, with loop-hole windows 
 in couples, each couple separated by elegant pilasters. The 
 terraces, which serve both as roofs and apartments, are crested 
 with pinnacles; the arched door-way has on each side a high seat 
 of hewn stone, and arabesques over even the door-posts. The 
 Scheik had arrived first, and awaited us at the head of his family. 
 His youngest son, with a silver censer in his hand, burnt incense 
 before our horses, and his brothers sprinkled both ourselves and 
 them with perfumes. We found a magnificent banquet in the 
 hall, where whole trees were burnt on the hearth. There was 
 abundance of game; and the choicest wines of Lebanon and 
 Cyprus gave zest to the repast, while our Arabs were not less 
 hospitably treated in the court below. In the evening we went 
 through the village. Part of the fields were yet covered with 
 snow, but we saw every where traces of rich cultivation ; the 
 smallest nook of mould among the rocks, presented its vine or 
 nut tree; innumerable fountains flowed at our feet; artificial 
 canals distributed their waters over the fields, and these fields 
 hung in the air, supported by terraces, framed of immense blocks 
 of stone. A monastery lay under the peak of the rock to our 
 left, and we gazed on numerous villages, scattered thickly to¬ 
 gether over the sides of the mountains. 
 
154 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Same date. 
 
 The Scheik has dispatched three Arabs on the road to the 
 Cedars to learn whether the snow will permit us to reach them. 
 
 j. 
 
 They have returned with intelligence, that the road is impracti¬ 
 cable. The snow lies to the depth of fourteen feet in a narrow 
 valley, which it would be necessary to cross. Wishing to ap¬ 
 proach as near as possible, I beg the Scheik to allow his son and 
 some horsemen to accompany me, leave my wife and the caravan 
 at Eden, mount the strongest of my horses, Scham—and start at 
 snn-rise. We journey for three hours over the summits of moun¬ 
 tains, or in fields saturated with melted snow. I arrived upon 
 the borders of the Valley of Saints, or Holy Valley, a profound 
 gorge, where- the eye plunges, from the summit of rocks, into a 
 dell more shut in, more sombre, more solemn, even than that of 
 Hamana. At the upper extremity of this valley, at the point 
 where, still ascending, it reaches the snows, is a superb sheet of 
 water, which falls from a height of one hundred feet, upon a 
 breadth of two or three hundred fathoms. The whole valley re¬ 
 sounds with the noise of this fall, and of the rebound which the 
 fluid makes. On all sides the rocks are covered with spray, 
 through which we perceive, in the depth of the valley, two large 
 villages, whose houses are scarcely distinguishable from blocks 
 of stone rounded by the torrent. The loftiest poplars and mul¬ 
 berry trees look, from hence, like tufts of rushes or herbs. 
 
 The descent hence into the village of Beschierai, is by foot¬ 
 steps cut in the rock, and so steep that one could scarce conceive 
 that men would trust them. Indeed individuals often perish here. 
 A stone launched from the point where we were, would fall plumb 
 upon the roofs of the hamlet, to us an hour’s descent. Above the 
 cascade and the snows stretch immense fields of ice, which undu¬ 
 late like vapors, and are of a mingled green and blue color. At 
 some distance on the left, in a kind of semicircular hollow formed 
 by the last curves of Lebanon, we observed a large black spot 
 upon the snow, which was the celebrated clump of cedars. They 
 crown, like a diadem, the brow of the mountain; they overlook 
 all the numberless spacious valleys that slope away beneath them ; 
 the sea and the sky blend in their horizon. 
 
 We galloped our horses across the snow, in order to make 
 the nearest approach through the forest; but when arrived at five 
 or six hundred paces from the trees, we sank almost as deep as to 
 the shoulders of our horses. We discovered that the report of 
 our Arabs was exact, and that it would be impossible to touch 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 155 
 
 these relics of ages and of nature. We therefore alighted, and 
 sat down under a rock to contemplate them. 
 
 These trees are the most renowned natural monuments in the 
 universe. Religion, poetry, and history, have all equally conse¬ 
 crated them. Holy Writ celebrates them in many places. They 
 form one of the images which the prophets loved to employ. Solo¬ 
 mon was desirous to consecrate them to the adornment of the Tem¬ 
 ple which he first erected to the One God ; doubtless, on account of 
 the renown which these prodigies of vegetation had, even at that 
 epoch, obtained for magnificence and sanctity. They must have been 
 the same : for Ezekiel speaks of the Cedars of Eden as the most 
 beautiful upon Lebanon. The Arabs of all sects entertain a tradi¬ 
 tional veneration for these trees. They attribute to them not only a 
 vegetative power which enables them to live eternally, but also 
 an intelligence which causes them to manifest signs of wisdom 
 and foresight similar to those of instinct in animals and reason in 
 men. They are said to understand the changes of season ; they 
 stir their vast branches as if they were limbs ; they spread out or 
 contract their boughs, inclining them towards heaven or towards 
 earth, according as the snow prepares to fall or to melt. They are, 
 in short, asserted to be divine beings under the form of trees. 
 They grow upon the proudest site of the groups of Lebanon, and 
 prosper above that point where all other vegetation expires. 
 
 All this strikes with astonishment the imagination of the peo¬ 
 ple of the East; and I do not know if men of science would not 
 be astonished also. Alas! notwithstanding all, Basan languishes, 
 Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon wither. These trees dimin¬ 
 ish in every succeeding age. Travelers formerly counted thirty 
 or forty : more recently, seventeen ; more recently still, only a 
 dozen. There are now but seven : these, however, from their size 
 and general appearance, may be fairly presumed t^ have existed 
 in biblical times. 
 
 Around these ancient witnesses of ages long since past, which 
 know the history of the world better than history herself; which 
 might tell us, if they could speak, so much of the creeds of hu¬ 
 man races long since vanished !—there still remains a little grove 
 of yellower cedars, appearing to me to form a group of from four 
 to five hundred trees or shrubs. 
 
 Every year, in the month of June, the inhabitants of Beschie- 
 rai, of Eden, of Kanobin, and the other neighboring valleys and 
 villages, climb up to these cedars, and celebrate mass at their feet. 
 How many prayers have there not resounded under those branches ! 
 
156 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 And what more beautiful temple can exist—what nearer to Heav¬ 
 en ? What dais can we imagine grander, more majestic, or more 
 holy, than is afforded by the topmost platform of Lebanon, on 
 which stand the trunks of these cedars surmounted by the dome 
 of their sacred boughs, which have overshadowed, and still over¬ 
 shadow, succeeding generations of men, calling on the name of 
 God differently, but all recognizing Him in his works, and ador¬ 
 ing Him in his natural manifestations. And I also uplift my 
 prayer in presence of these cedars ! The harmonious wind which 
 resounds through their sonorous branches plays amidst my hair, 
 and dries upon my eyelids tears of grief and adoration ! 
 
 Having remounted we proceeded for three hours over the plat¬ 
 forms which tower above the valleys of Kadisha, and then de¬ 
 scended to Kanobin, the most celebrated Maronite monastery of 
 all the Holy Valley. There is a fine view from the monastery of 
 Deir Serkis, at present abandoned to one or two solitaries. Burk- 
 hardt, in 1810, found here an old Tuscan hermit, who ended his 
 days in these solitudes, after having been a missionary in India, 
 in Egypt, and in Persia. 
 
 There is a view of the monastery of Kanobin from a peak 
 which juts over the valley like a promontory. I gave my horse 
 to the Arabs, and lay down in the sun on a point of rock whence 
 the eye looks at once over the hollow of the Holy Valley. The 
 river Kadisha rushes along at the foot of this rock; its bed pre¬ 
 sents one line of foam, but I was so high above it that no sound 
 reached me. Kanobin was founded, as the Maronite monks say, 
 by Theodosius the Great. The whole valley in which it is sit¬ 
 uated resembles the nave of a vast natural church, with the arch 
 of heaven for a roof, the towering sides of Lebanon for pillars, 
 and the numerous cells of hermits, hollowed out of the rock, for 
 chapels. These hermitages are placed on the brink of precipices 
 which appear wholly inaccessible, and are to be seen like swal¬ 
 lows 5 nests in every part of the wall of the valley. Some con¬ 
 sist merely of a grotto hollowed in the rock ; others of little 
 houses built between the roots of trees upon projections of the 
 mountains. 
 
 The large convent is at the lower part of the valley, on the 
 borders of the torrent. There are about forty or fifty Maronite 
 monks engaged there, some in cultivating the ground and others 
 in printing elementary books for the instruction of the people. 
 
 These excellent persons are the sons and fathers of the peo¬ 
 ple, living not by their exertions, but laboring night and day 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 157 
 
 for the advancement of their fraternity : guileless men, who look 
 for neither riches nor renown in this world. To work, to pray, to 
 live in peace ; this is the highest ambition of the Maronite monks. 
 
 Same date. 
 
 Yesterday I descended again from the summits of these Alps, 
 and became the guest of the Scheik of Eden, an Arabian Maron¬ 
 ite village suspended beneath the highest peak of these mountains, 
 on the very limits of vegetation, and only habitable during sum¬ 
 mer. The noble and venerable old man, accompanied by his son 
 and some servants, had come out to meet me as far as the neigh- 
 borhood of Syrian Tripoli, and had received me in his house at 
 Eden with a kindliness, a dignity, and an elegance of manner 
 which one would imagine to be possessed by one of the old lords 
 of the court of Louis XIY. Whole trees were burning on the 
 wide hearths: sheep, kids, and stags lay heaped up in the vast 
 halls: and the old wines of Lebanon, brought from the cellar by 
 his servants, were poured out abundantly, both for ourselves and 
 our attendants. After having spent some days in studying these 
 delightful manners, reminding one of the descriptions of Homer, 
 and as full of poetic associations as the place in which we found 
 them, the son of the Scheik, and a certain number of Arabian 
 horsemen were commissioned to conduct me to the Cedars of 
 Solomon, which yet consecrate the highest ridge of Lebanon, and 
 have been venerated for ages as the last testimony of his glory. 
 I have already described them. 
 
 On our return from this memorable journey we lost our way 
 among the windings of the rocks, and in the numerous and deep 
 valleys with which this group of Lebanon is every where divided. 
 We found ourselves all at once on the brink of an immense wall 
 of rocks, of some thousand feet depth, which surrounds the Holy 
 Valley. The sides of this rampart of granite were so perpendic¬ 
 ular that the mountain goats themselves could not find a path, 
 and our Arabs were obliged to lie on their faces, and stretch their 
 heads over the abyss, to discover the bottom of the valley. The 
 sun was setting; we had already been traveling for many hours, 
 and we had still many more to travel before we could recover our 
 lost path, and regain Eden. We dismounted and trusted our¬ 
 selves to one of our guides, who knew that, at a short distance, 
 there was a rocky ladder, formerly hewn by the Maronite monks, 
 who had from time immemorial inhabited this valley. We kept 
 along the brink of this ledge for some time, and then descended 
 
 vol. n, 8 
 
158 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 by the slippery steps to a rocky platform, which was detached, and 
 commanded a view all around. 
 
 The descent into the valley was, at first, by wide and gentle 
 slopes from the region of snow on which the cedars appeared 
 like a dark stain. It then spread itselt out covered with a moss 
 of a yellowish green, and as soft as that which grows on the lofty 
 rangeof Jura, and of the Alps; a number of small streams bub¬ 
 bled from beneath the melting snow, and having crept through 
 these turfy slopes, united in one foaming stream at the foot of the 
 first ledge of rock. There the valley sank at once four or five 
 hundred feet; and the torrent, precipitating itself to an equal 
 depth, and spreading over a wide surface, sometimes covered the 
 rock with a transparent veil, and sometimes leapt forward, detach¬ 
 ing itself from the rock in liquid arches, and falling at last on 
 immense pointed blocks of granite torn from the summit; there 
 it was shattered into a thousand floating particles with sound re¬ 
 sembling thunder. The wind of its fall reached us, hurrying 
 along, like a thin fog, the light watery vapor of a thousand colors ; 
 bearing it over the whole valley, or hanging it in dew upon the 
 branches of the shrubs, and the rough edges of the rocks. 
 
 In stretching towards the north, the Holy Valley became 
 gradually deeper and broader ; then, at about two miles distant 
 from the place where we were, two naked mountains, involved in 
 shade, arose so near to one another, as scarcely to leave an 
 opening of a few fathoms between them. Here the valley ter¬ 
 minated, with its mosses, its lofty vines, its poplars, its cypresses, 
 and its foaming torrent. 
 
 Beyond these two little mountains which thus closed it in, 
 something like a lake was to be seen of a darker blue than the 
 sky. It was a small portion of the Mediterranean ingulfed be¬ 
 tween some other mountains of this chain ; and although at 
 twenty leagues distance from us, the transparency of the air 
 enabled us to see it as plainly as if it lay at our feet. We even 
 distinguished two vessels under sail, which, suspended between 
 the blue of the heavens and that of the sea, resembled two swans 
 floating on the horizon. This spectacle occupied us so much at 
 first as to withdraw our attention from the valley itself; but as 
 soon as we had recovered from the first dazzling effect, and our 
 eyes were able to pierce through the vapors of evening, as well 
 as through those which arose from the water, a scene of another 
 nature gradually unfolded itself before us. 
 
 At each turn of the torrent, where the foam left a dry spot, 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 159 
 
 a convent of Maronite monks was to be seen, built of a reddish 
 brown stone upon the gray rock, the smoke from it rising between 
 the lofty poplars and cypresses. Around these convents were 
 little fields, won from the rock or torrent, which appeared to be 
 cultivated with as much care as the choicest gardens of our 
 country houses. Here and there were to be seen the Maronites 
 themselves, covered with their black cowls, returning from their 
 labor in the fields—some with their spades over their shoulders, 
 or driving small herds of Arabian foal; while others were hold¬ 
 ing the handle of the plough, and driving their oxen between the 
 rows of mulberry trees. Many of these dwellings of prayer and 
 labor are placed, with their oratories and hermitages, on the brink 
 of rocky eminences which project from the two immense chains 
 of mountains; some are hollowed out of the rock itself like the 
 habitations of deer. Nothing was perceived but the door, sur¬ 
 mounted by an empty ogive, in which hung the bell, and some 
 small terraces, cut out beneath the overhanging rock, or wherever 
 the foot of man could reach, as places of resort for the old and 
 infirm monks, whenever they wished to breathe the fresh air 
 or to see a little of the sun. To certain precipitous points 
 the eye could not perceive any access; yet even there was 
 placed a convent, an oratory, and a hermitage ; and the figures 
 of the anchorites themselves were seen moving about among the 
 rocks and shrubs, working, reading, or praying. One of these 
 convents was an Arabian printing office, for the instruction of the 
 Maronite people : its terraces were crowded with monks, passing 
 and repassing, and laying upon a kind of rush mats, white leaves 
 of wet paper. 
 
 Nothing but the pencil can describe the number and pic¬ 
 turesque appearance of these retreats ; the very stones appeared 
 to have produced naturally the cells which they formed ; the 
 very hermits to belong naturally to their grottoes; each stream 
 had a movement and a life of its ow^i ; each tree, its anchorite 
 beneath its shade : wherever the eye rested, the valley, the 
 mountain, the precipices seemed to become animated, so to speak, 
 beneath its gaze, and a scene of life, of prayer, and of contem¬ 
 plation to detach itself from these eternal masses, or to mingle 
 
 with them onlv to render them more sacred. But the sun soon 
 
 •/ 
 
 declined, the labors of the day ceased, and the dark figures, scat¬ 
 tered through the valley, retired to their grottoes or their monas¬ 
 teries. The bells sounded from all parts the hour of meeting for 
 the duties of the evening; some with voices strong as the winds 
 
160 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 as they rush over the sea; others with the light and silvery 
 tones of birds as they sport among the corn. All these bells re¬ 
 plied to each other from the opposite sides of the valley, and the 
 thousand echoes from the grottoes and precipices repeated them 
 in confused murmurs, mingled with the roaring of the torrent and 
 of the cedars, and the thousand falls of the streams and cascades 
 which worked their way down the two sides of the mountain. 
 
 A moment of silence ensued, and a new sound, more sweet, 
 more melancholy, and more affecting, filled the valley. It was 
 the chant of the Psalms, which, rising all at once from each 
 monastery, each church, each oratory, and each rocky cell, 
 mingled as it rose to us in one vast murmur, and resembled a 
 single melodious complaint of the whole valley, which now seemed 
 to possess but one soul, and one voice; then a cloud perfumed 
 the air that angels might have breathed: we remained mute and 
 enchanted, like those celestial spirits when, reposing themselves 
 for the first time over this globe which they believed a desert, 
 they heard rise from these same regions the first prayer of man. 
 We acknowledged that it was in the power of the human voice to 
 animate even the dust of nature, and we felt that this voice must, 
 in the last days, (all the feelings of the heart being then absorbed 
 in one,) give utterance to poetry, when poetry itself would be but 
 hymns of adoration. 
 
 April 14, 1833. 
 
 I went down to Tripoli from Syria with the Scheik and his 
 tribe. I gave to his son a piece of silk stuff to make a divan. We 
 passed a day in traversing the delicious environs of Tripoli; de¬ 
 parted for Bayreut, by the sea-shore ; and passed five days in 
 embarking our luggage on board of the brig which I had hired, 
 the Sophia ;—circumstances preparatory to a tour in Egypt. We 
 bade adieu to all our friends, both Frank and Arab. I gave them 
 some of my horses ; and sent away six of the finest of the others 
 under the care of an Arab groom, and three of my most trust¬ 
 worthy sais , instructing them to go through Syria and Caramania, 
 and await me on the 1st of July, on the borders of the Gulf of 
 Macri, over against the Isle of Rhodes, in Asia Minor. At break 
 of day, on the 15th of April, 1833, we quitted the house where 
 Julia had embraced us for the last time, and plumed her wings 
 for heaven. I kissed the floor of the chamber a thousand times, 
 and watered it with my tears : that house was to me even a sacred 
 relic : I still beheld her in every part of it, reminded by the birds, 
 the doves, her horse, her garden, and the two pretty little Syrian 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 161 
 
 girls who used to play with her, and lived on the lawn under our 
 windows. They have risen before daylight, and, clad in their 
 richest apparel, they weep ; they lift their hands towards us, and 
 tear the flowers from their hair. I gave, as a present to each, to 
 keep by way of remembrance of stranger-friends whom they will 
 never more behold except in thought, a necklace of gold, to be 
 worn on their wedding-day. One of these girls, Anastasia, is the 
 most lovely maiden I have seen in the East. 
 
 The sea shines like a mirror. The vessels laden with our 
 friends who are come to see us on board, follow us. We set sail 
 with a light east wind. 
 
 The shores of Syria, bordered with a long fringe of sand, 
 gradually disappeared together with the cedar-tops. The white 
 peaks of Lebanon, however, remained in sight a long while. We 
 doubled Cape Carmel during the night; at break of day, we had 
 got as high as St. Jean d’Acre, in front of the Gulf of Kaipha : 
 the sea is beautiful, and the waves are furrowed by a shoal of 
 dolphins who bound alongside our ships. Every thing has the 
 appearance of jubilee and joy throughout nature, and upon the 
 waters which flow round that bark which bears two hearts dead 
 to all enjoyment and all serenity. 
 
 I passed the night upon deck—in what thoughts ? My heart 
 alone can answer. We coasted the low shores of Galilee. Jaffa 
 glittered like a rock of chalk in the horizon, upon a bank of white 
 sand. We steered thitherward; we staid there several days. 
 My wife and such of my friends as had not accompanied me to 
 Jerusalem were unwilling to pass so near the Holy Sepulchre, 
 without going to carry thither some additional lamentations. In 
 the evening the wind freshened, and we cast anchor at seven 
 o’clock in the stormy roads of Jaffa. The sea was running too 
 high to admit of our lowering a boat from the stern. Next day, 
 however, we all disembarked. A caravan had been prepared by 
 the attentions of my old friends, Messrs. Damiani, agents of 
 France, at Jaffa. It started on its expedition at eleven o’clock, 
 proposing to sleep at Ramla. I alone remained meanwhile with 
 M. Damiani. 
 
 I passed five days in wandering by myself about the environs. 
 The friendly Arabs whom I had known at Jaffa during my two 
 first passages, conducted me through the gardens possessed by 
 them in the suburbs of the town : there we saw deep forests of 
 orange trees, citron, pomegranate, fig, and other trees, as large 
 as walnut trees in France. The Desert of Gaza surrounds every 
 
162 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 part of these gardens. A family of Arab peasants lived in an 
 adjoining cabin ; where is a cistern or well, together with several 
 camels, some goats and sheep, pigeons and fowls. The ground 
 was strewed with oranges and lemons which had fallen from the 
 trees. We pitched a tent on the banks of one of the canals that 
 irrigated the ground, which was sown with melons and cucumbers ; 
 carpets were spread ; the tent was left open toward the sea, in order 
 to admit the breeze which blew from ten o’clock, A. m. until even¬ 
 ing. In passing under the orange trees it stole their perfume, 
 which it wafted to us in clouds. We descried from hence the 
 summit of the minarets of Jaffa, and the vessels which pass and 
 repass between Asia Minor and Egypt. 
 
 I spent my days thus, occasionally writing some verses illus¬ 
 trative of the single thought that pressed upon my mind! I 
 should like to take up my rest here. Jaffa, isolated from the 
 whole world, on the frontier of the great desert of Egypt, whose 
 sands form white downs around these woods of oranges, in an at¬ 
 mosphere ever pure and genial,—would form a delightful place 
 of sojourn for a man weary of life, and desiring nothing more 
 than a spot shone upon by the sun. 
 
 The caravan is returned. I demand of Madame de Lamar¬ 
 tine some accounts of Bethlehem, and the surrounding places, 
 which the prevalence of the plague hindered me from visiting 
 during my first excursion. She gave me the following details, 
 which I here insert. 
 
 “ On quitting the gardens of Jaffa, we put our horses to a full 
 gallop, across a huge plain then covered with yellow and violet- 
 colored weeds. From time to time, immense herds, which an 
 Arab cavalier drove before him, armed with a long lance, as in 
 the Pontine Marshes, swept by to seek a scanty nourishment 
 amongst those herbs which the sun had not yet entirely calcined. 
 Farther on, to our right, and towards the entrance of the Desert of 
 El-Arish, several mud-heaps, sprinkled with dry herbs, rose above 
 the surface of the ground, like hay-cocks made yellow by the 
 storm before the laborers could get them in. It was a village. 
 
 “ On approaching, we saw several naked children, like Lapons, 
 issue from those little reversed cones which form their habitation. 
 Some women, with hair hanging about their shoulders, and half- 
 naked likewise, quitted the fire which they were kindling upon 
 two stones in order to prepare their repast, and ascended to the 
 top of their huts, in order to witness our march a longer time. 
 
 “ After four hours’ journey we reached Ramla, where we 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 163 
 
 were visited by the agent of the Sardinian Consulate, who very 
 kindly lent us the use of his house, as females could not be re¬ 
 ceived at the Latin convents. In the evening we visited an 
 ancient tower, an eighth of a league from the town, called the 
 Tower of the Forty Martyrs, at present occupied by dervishes. 
 It was Friday—the day of worship for their sect: we were present. 
 A score of dervishes, dressed in long robes, and with pointed caps 
 of white felt, were squatted in a circle in a space surrounded by 
 a little balustrade ; he who appeared to be the chief, displayed a 
 venerable figure with a large white beard, and was, for distinc¬ 
 tion, seated upon a cushion, from whence he presided over the 
 rest. An orchestra, composed of a nahi , or bassoon ; a shoubab #, 
 or kind of clarionet, and a sort of small double-drums, called 
 nacariate, played airs the most discordant to our European ears. 
 The dervishes rose gravely one by one, crossed before the supe¬ 
 rior, saluted him, and then began to whirl in a circle round each 
 other, their arms extended, and their eyes raised towards the sky. 
 Their movement, at first slow, was gradually quickened, until it 
 gained an extreme rapidity, and ended in something resembling a 
 whirlwind, wherein all is noise and confusion. So long as the 
 eye could follow them, their looks appeared to express great anima¬ 
 tion, but soon one could distinguish nothing. I cannot tell exactly 
 how long this strange waltz lasted, but it seemed to me an immense 
 space of time. By degrees, however, the number of waltzers 
 diminished ; overpowered with fatigue, they sank down one after 
 the other, and resumed their original attitudes. The last who 
 gave in, seemed to place great importance on keeping up the 
 game as long as possible, and I experienced a painful sensation 
 on seeing the efforts made by an old dervish, halting and tottering 
 even to the very end of this rude dance, to prevent succumbing 
 until after all the others. During this interval, our Arabs con¬ 
 versed respecting their superstitions ; they pretend that a Chris¬ 
 tian, by continually reciting his creed, would force a Mussulman 
 to revolve unceasingly, even to his death, by an irresistible impulse 
 —of which fact they aver that there are numerous examples; 
 and that once, the dervishes, having seized on one who employed 
 this kind of sorcery, had forced him to recite the creed backward, 
 and thus destroyed the charm at the very moment when the re¬ 
 volver was on the point of expiring. We made sorrowful reflec¬ 
 tions on the weakness of human reason, which gropes along in 
 its search, like the blind, its route directed towards heaven, but 
 often missing the path. These extravagancies which, in a 
 
164 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 measure, degrade the human mind, have nevertheless an object 
 worthy of respect, and originate in a noble principle. They ex¬ 
 hibit man desirous to honor God ; the imagination wishing to exalt 
 itself by physical movements, and seeking, as men intoxicate 
 themselves with opium, this divine intoxication, this complete an¬ 
 nihilation of personal feeling and identity, which leads them to 
 believe that they are absorbed in the infinite Unity, and commu¬ 
 nicate with God himself. Their rites arc perhaps a pious imita¬ 
 tion of the celestial dance of stars before the Creator; perhaps an 
 effect of that same enthusiastical and passionate inspiration which, 
 in olden times, made David dance before the sacred ark. Some 
 of us were tempted to play the part of the wife of the poet-king, 
 and to mock the performance of the dervishes, which to those in¬ 
 dividuals appeared absolute folly; thus to men ignorant of the 
 foundation of our worship, monastical observances might appear 
 ridiculous; as also, the mendicity of our monks, and the self¬ 
 maceration of certain ascetic orders. But however absurd any 
 form of religious worship may appear at first sight, the practice 
 of devotion always presents something worthy of veneration in 
 the eye of a more profound and loftier reason, to which the motive 
 is every thing. Nothing is in its nature ridiculous which touches 
 upon the idea of God. It may be sometimes fierce ; often undig¬ 
 nified, but always serious. The conscience of the dervish is at 
 rest when he has accomplished his pious waltz, and he firmly be¬ 
 lieves that his pirouettes have contributed to honor the Deity. If 
 we regard him not with ridicule, we are, however, soon tempted 
 to look on him with pity ; and I know not if we have more right 
 to do one than the other. Where should we ourselves be without 
 the light of Christianity, which comes to illumine our reason :—• 
 would it otherwise be more luminous than theirs ? History fur¬ 
 nishes an answer. It yields us one Plato for millions of idolaters. 
 
 “ On leaving the tower we entered the galleries of a ruined 
 cloister, which lead to a subterranean church, and a descent of 
 many steps brought us under an elliptical arch supported by a 
 fine colonnade. I have always been struck by an effect at once 
 imposing and affecting, in the aspect of a subterranean church. 
 The solitude and mysterious obscurity of these silent vaults re¬ 
 call the earliest periods of our worship, when the Christians 
 retired to the deepest grottoes to conceal their mysteries from pro¬ 
 fane eyes, and to escape persecution. In the East most of these 
 churches seem to have been built for the purpose of embellishing 
 these humble primitive asylums (in which the faith so long took 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 165 
 
 refuge), with all the luxury of architecture; as if to revenge, by 
 a glorious reparation, the humiliation and injuries of pagan 
 dominion ; but the times of persecution were to return for the 
 unfortunate Christians, and the name of this edifice, the Forty 
 Martyrs, indicates that it has been a retreat to the faithful, with¬ 
 out having the power to protect them ; at present all is in ruins; 
 the naves and colonnades, erected by emperors, have commanded 
 no more respect from the conquerors than the humble grottoes of 
 the first disciples of the Cross; the vaults serve for stables, and 
 the cloisters for barracks. 
 
 “ Some tombs of the times of the Crusades are still to be seen 
 here, but the darkness prevented our making a longer stay : we 
 were obliged to return to our night’s lodging, and prepare our 
 caravan for departure in the morning. 
 
 “ The Aga of Ramla gave us an escort, and commanded the 
 chief Cawass not to quit me for an instant in the defiles of the 
 mountains upon which we were about to enter, and to obey my 
 orders in all things. The respect of the Mussulmans for Euro¬ 
 pean women is singularly contrasted with the dependence in 
 which they hold their own females. In fact we had much cause 
 for satisfaction in the extreme attention and refined politeness of 
 this janissary ; constantly watching the Arab mare I rode, he 
 seemed to fear that I should be endangered by its fieetness, and 
 could not comprehend how I could maintain my equilibrium in 
 the steep paths we were climbing; he was very useful to us 
 afterwards, when we encountered in these very gorges innumera¬ 
 ble pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, who barred our passage; 
 he compelled them to yield to us the least impracticable road 
 amongst the blocks of granite and roots of shrubs which bordered 
 the ravine, and prevented our falling down the precipice ; which 
 would infallibly have happened to us, but for the weight of his 
 authority, as any attempt made by the opposite long file of pro¬ 
 cession to push our advancing column aside must have thrown us 
 over. 
 
 “ On quitting Ramla the route continues to traverse the plain 
 for two leagues; we stopped at Jacob’s well, but having no 
 pitcher to draw the water, which was very deep, we continued 
 our journey. This whole country preserves such lively traces 
 of the Bible times that we feel neither difficulty nor surprise in 
 admitting the tradition which gives the name of Jacob to a well 
 still existing; and one would expect to see the Patriarch there, 
 watering Rachel’s flocks, rather than doubt of its identity. It is 
 
 VOL. ii. 8* 
 
166 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 only through the medium of reflection that astonishment or doubt 
 finds admission into our minds, when the four thousand years 
 that have elapsed, and the divers phases that the history of man- 
 kind has since assumed, present themselves to the imagination, 
 and cause one’s faith to waver ; nevertheless, in a plain where 
 water is met with only at intervals of three or four hours, a well, 
 or a spring must have been an object of as much importance in 
 past ages "as in the present, and its name was likely to be as re¬ 
 ligiously preserved as that of the towers of David, or the cisterns 
 of Solomon. We soon entered the mountains of Judea, when 
 the road became difficult; sometimes the horses had but just 
 sufficient footing on the edge of the precipice ; sometimes the 
 masses of broken rock, lying across the path, formed a rude lad¬ 
 der, which an Arab horse alone could get over ; yet, laborious 
 as is this route, it presents no danger comparable to those which 
 obstruct the road to Hamana. 
 
 “ On reaching the summit of the first ridge, we turned for a 
 moment to enjoy a magnificent view over all the country we had 
 traversed, as far as the shore beyond Jaffa. Though all was calm 
 around us, the horizon of the sea, heavy and red, announced to 
 the experienced eye a coming tempest: already the threatening 
 waves agitated the ships in the roads; we endeavored to distin¬ 
 guish ours, and thought of those who were still on board ; my me¬ 
 lancholy presentiments were not chimerical. The next day seve¬ 
 ral vessels were cast upon this dangerous coast; and ours, after 
 driving at anchor a considerable time, broke her cable in the 
 midst of a tremendous squall. After a moment’s halt, we de¬ 
 scended the mountain to climb others, sometimes across avalanches 
 of stones which rolled under our horses’ feet, sometimes on the 
 edge of a precipitous bank. The declivities to the right and left 
 are occasionally well wooded ; the brilliant green presented by 
 the beautiful bushes of the strawberry shrub making a pleasing 
 contrast with the scanty foliage of the mastick and olive trees ; 
 water only was wanting to the beauty of these landscapes. But 
 a spectacle of a very different nature was preparing for us; an 
 innumerable procession of pilgrims of all nations coming from Je¬ 
 rusalem, defiled before us from the summit of a naked and barren 
 mountain, winding downwards to the gorge through which we 
 were passing. It is impossible to describe the picturesque effect 
 of this scene ; the diversity of colors and costumes of the various 
 pilgrims, from the rich Armenians to the poor Calogeri, and the 
 equal diversity of animals on which they were mounted, all con- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 167 
 
 tributed to embellish it. After admiring the general effect, we 
 had leisure to examine the details of this long cavalcade during 
 the two hours we were passing each other :—now we met with a 
 train not unlike the triumphal march of a papal legate of the mid¬ 
 dle ages; it was that of a Greek Patriarch in his fine costume, 
 majestically seated on a red and gold saddle, his bridle held by 
 two sais, and followed by a numerous retinue on foot:—then a 
 poor family, the father driving, with his pilgrim’s staff, a mule 
 overloaded with children ; the eldest seated on his neck, holding 
 a cord for a bridle, and a wax taper for a standard :—others, heaped 
 in the panniers by its sides, nibbled some remnants of holy bread ; 
 while the mother, pale and attenuated, followed with weary steps, 
 suckling her youngest babe as it hung from her bosom tied by a 
 large sash. Next came a long file of neophytes, singing psalms 
 in a monotonous nasal tone, and each carrying a paschal taper, 
 according to the Greek rite: farther still was a group of Jews in 
 red turbans, with long black beards, and the sinister expression of 
 whose piercing eyes seemed to curse the religion which had dis¬ 
 inherited them. Why were they here amidst this crowd of Chris¬ 
 tians ? Some had taken advantage of the opportunity offered by 
 the passage of the caravan, to visit the tomb of David or the val¬ 
 ley of the Tiberiad ; others had speculated on the profits to be 
 made by purveying food for this multitude. Here and there the 
 pedestrian crowd was interrupted by camels laden with immense 
 bales of merchandise, and accompanied by their drivers in the 
 Arab costume, the vest and large pantaloons of brown embroidered 
 with blue, and the yellow caftan on their heads. Some Armenian 
 families followed ; the women, traveling in a tactrewan —a sort of 
 cage borne by two mules—were concealed under their great white 
 veils ; the men, in long dark-colored robes, their heads covered 
 with the great square calpack worn by the inhabitants of Smyrna, 
 led by the hand their young sons, whose grave, thoughtful, calcu¬ 
 lating countenances, showed no traces of the levity of childhood : 
 there were also Greek sailors and owners of pirate vessels, who 
 were come from the ports of Asia Minor and the Archipelago 
 laden with pilgrims, (as the ships in the slave trade with African 
 negroes,) swearing in their energetic language, and hastening the 
 march to re-embark, with the least possible loss of time, their 
 human cargo. A sick child was carried on a litter, surrounded 
 by its family weeping over their expiring hopes of a sudden mira¬ 
 culous cure which they had anticipated from their pious pilgri¬ 
 mage. Alas! I also wept; I had hoped and prayed like them ; 
 
168 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 but still more unhappy than they, the extent of my calamity was 
 no longer even shrouded in uncertainty ! 
 
 “ This long procession was closed by a crowd of miserable, 
 tattered Copts, men, women and children, dragging themselves 
 along with as roach difficulty as though they were just dismissed 
 from a hospital; sunburnt, and panting with fatigue and thirst, 
 this troop marched and marched to keep pace with the caravan, 
 fearful of being left behind in the defiles of these mountains. I 
 blushed to find myself on horseback, escorted by janissaries, and 
 accompanied by devoted friends, who spared me all danger and 
 all fatigue, while so lively a faith had led thousands of individu¬ 
 als to brave hardships, maladies, and privations of every kind. 
 These, indeed, were true pilgrims. I was but a traveler. 
 
 “ This first chain of mountains is separated from the higher 
 summits overlooking Jerusalem by a pretty valley, in which the 
 village of Jeremy is situated. We had scarcely passed the an¬ 
 cient Greek Church, which, like so many others, is now used as a 
 stable, when we caught sight of about fifty Arabs, ranged in 
 form of an amphitheatre on the slope of the hill, and seated under 
 a group of fine olive trees. On a slight elevation in the middle 
 of the circle, overlooking the others, sat their chief, the famous 
 Abougosh ; his brother and son, completely armed, and holding 
 their pipes, stood one on each side ; their horses, attached to trees 
 behind them, filled up the picture. On the arrival of our cara¬ 
 van, the chief sent his son to parley with our dragoman who 
 marched at its head ; and learning that the escort was conducting 
 to Jerusalem the wife of the Frank Emir with whom he had been 
 acquainted six months’ previously, he sent a request that we 
 would alight and take coffee with him. We had more discretion 
 than to refuse, and distributing among our attendants the provi¬ 
 sions for the halt, we suffered ourselves to be conducted within a 
 short distance of the Arabs, where we stopped : our dignity re¬ 
 quiring that they should, in their turn, advance to give U s the 
 meeting. Abougosh thereupon arose, and coming forward, ac¬ 
 costed M. de Parseval. After showing us many civilities, and 
 offering us coffee, he solicited a private audience of me; when, 
 desiring my people to retire four paces, 1 learnt, through the me¬ 
 dium of my interpreter, that one of his brothers was a prisoner 
 to the Egyptians, and that believing M. de Lamartine to have 
 immense influence in the councils of Ibrahim Pacha, he entreated 
 me to solicit his intervention for the restoration of the captive to 
 liberty.”—We were certainly far from possessing the credit 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 169 
 
 which he ascribed to us, but accident afforded me the means of 
 serving him, by procuring his cause to be pleaded with the Egyp¬ 
 tian commander. 
 
 “ As we approached Jerusalem, the walls were entirely inter¬ 
 cepted by a great encampment of Ibrahim Pacha’s troops. The 
 sentinels advanced, examined us, spoke to our dragoman, and 
 opened to us a large passage through the camp, to the general’s 
 tent, before which we presently stood. The raised curtains dis¬ 
 covered him to us in person, extended upon a divan of cashmere, 
 and surrounded by his officers, some standing, others seated on Per¬ 
 sian carpets. The bright colors of their vestments, trimmed with 
 the finest furs and embroidered with gold, their shining arms, the 
 black slaves who were presenting them coffee in silver jlujeans, 
 formed altogether a scene as brilliant as to us it was novel. 
 Around the tent, sais were leading by the bridle the most beauti¬ 
 ful Arabian stallions, to dry the foam from their glossy hides; 
 while others, fastened to the spots on which they stood, were 
 neighing with impatience, pawing the ground, and casting fiery 
 glances towards a platoon of cavalry prepared for a march. The 
 Egyptian troops were composed of young conscripts, whose tight 
 and shabby red garments, of a fashion half European, half Ori¬ 
 ental, contrasted strongly with the full draperies of the Arabs ; 
 yet these Egyptians, small, ill-made, ugly, and ill-dressed as they 
 were, were marching from conquest to conquest, and made the 
 Sultan tremble at the very gates of Constantinople. 
 
 “ We entered the Holy City by the Bethlehem gate, turning 
 immediately to the left to proceed to the Latin Convent. Women 
 being denied admission, we took possession of a house usually un¬ 
 inhabited, but which serves as an asylum for strangers when the 
 convent of the Holy Land is full. Here we extended our mat- 
 resses on benches disposed for the purpose, hoping to repose from 
 the emotions of the day, and recover strength for supporting us 
 through new and yet more agitating trials. But assailed by 
 thousands of insects, muskitoes, fleas, and bugs, which had doubt¬ 
 less been long confined to short commons in those deserted cham¬ 
 bers—or, a still more alarming supposition, had been left there 
 by some of the ragged pilgrims we had just encountered, sleep 
 was impossible, and we passed the night in endeavoring to defend 
 ourselves against them by continual change of place ; one, how¬ 
 ever, of our traveling companions, in spite of our exhortations to 
 patience, resolved to seek a refuge in the convent itself. The 
 steward consequently paid us a visit, and told us that had he re« 
 
170 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 ceived notice he would have prepared a better lodging for our 
 reception, and promised an improvement in our arrangements for 
 the morrow. I made a thousand apologies, assured him we 
 wanted for nothing, and again I blushed, in the presence of so 
 humble an apostle of poverty and self-denial. 
 
 “ The steward was a Spaniard, of superior mind and much 
 information respecting persons and things; and, during our stay 
 at Jerusalem, I had opportunities particularly to appreciate his 
 extreme kindness, his merit, and the usefulness of his influence in 
 the convent of the Holy Land ; but his course of trial in this 
 world was about to be consummated by martyrdom, at scarcely 
 fifty years of age, and at the moment when he was probably flat¬ 
 tering himself with the enjoyment of a short repose in the bosom 
 of his native country. Having embarked, a short time after our 
 departure, to return to Spain, he was massacred, with fifteen other 
 monks, by some Greek sailors, at no great distance from the 
 coast of Cyprus. A Mussulman child, who alone escaped the 
 carnage, pursued and denounced the assassins, who were arrested 
 in Caramania. 
 
 “ At daybreak the next morning we commenced our visits to 
 the sacred localities. But I must here arrest my pen, and 
 restrain the secret emotions inspired by those localities, and 
 which interest myself alone ; nor need I dwell on the appearance 
 of the streets of Jerusalem, already described by my traveling 
 companions. All the impressions here produced upon my mind 
 I veiled in a close reserve; I had no occasion to commit them to 
 paper, they were too profound to be ever effaced from my remem¬ 
 brance ; if there is a spot in the world which possesses the me¬ 
 lancholy power of arousing to new energy all of sorrow and 
 affliction that lies dormant within the human breast, and of an¬ 
 swering its inward regrets by a grief which may be called ma¬ 
 terial, Jerusalem is that spot. Every step which we there take, 
 wakens an echo as of the voice of lamentation from the depth of 
 the heart; and every look falls on some monument of holy sor¬ 
 row, which absorbs our individual calamities in those ineffable 
 agonies of humanity, which were suffered, expiated, and con¬ 
 secrated here. 
 
 “We left Jerusalem at five in the morning, in order to reach 
 Bethlehem in time for the mass celebrated in the Grotto of the 
 Nativity; an old long-bearded Spanish monk rode in front, and 
 served as our guide, wrapped in a mack/ah (a Bedouin mantle), 
 of broad black and white stripes, his feet touching the ground on 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 171 
 
 each side of the small ass which he bestrode. Although the 
 month was April, a freezing wind—the subsiding gales of the 
 tempest which had raged on the Sea of Jaffa—blew with such 
 violence as to threaten me and my horse together with an over¬ 
 throw. Whirlwinds of dust blinded me : I surrendered the reins 
 of my mare to my Arab sais, folded my macklah about me, and 
 concentrated myself in those reflections to which the route we 
 were traveling, and the objects consecrated by tradition, gave 
 birth. But those objects are so well known, that I shall not stay 
 to describe them ; the prophet Elijah’s olive tree—the fountain at 
 which the star reappeared to the Magi—the site of Rama, from 
 whence proceeded the heart-rending voice to which my own 
 bosom responded—all excited sensations too deeply felt to be ex¬ 
 pressed. 
 
 “The Latin Convent of Bethlehem had been closed eleven 
 months on account of the plague; but as the disease had for some 
 time carried off no fresh victims, when we presented ourselves at 
 the small postern which serves as an entrance to the monastery, 
 it opened to receive us: stooping, one by one, to pass through the 
 low and narrow aperture, great was our surprise, on emerging, to 
 find ourselves in the interior of a majestic church : forty-eight 
 pillars, each of a single block of marble, ranged in double files on 
 either hand, formed five aisles, and were surmounted with a 
 massive architrave of carved cedar ; but the altar and the choir 
 were sought for in vain—all was broken, ruined, plundered ; and 
 a wall, rudely cemented, divided the noble edifice at the spring- • 
 ing of the transepts, screening the part reserved for religious 
 worship, the exclusive possession of which is still disputed by the 
 various Christian communions. The nave belongs to the Latins, 
 but serves only as a vestibule to the convent ; the great gate has 
 been walled up, and the low postern, by which we had penetrated, 
 substituted, for the purpose of guarding these venerated remains 
 from the hordes of Arab freebooters, who would gallop their 
 horses to the very foot of the altar, to enforce their extortions 
 upon the monks. The Father Superior received us with cor¬ 
 diality : his mild, calm, and happy countenance was as far re¬ 
 moved from the austerity of the anchorite, as from the jovial 
 levity of which the monks are accused. They questioned us 
 concerning the countries we had just passed through, and the 
 Egyptian troops encamped so near them; eleven months of se¬ 
 clusion had given them an ardent longing for news ; and our in¬ 
 telligence, that Ibrahim Pacha granted protection to all the 
 Christian inhabitants of Syria, was very encouraging to them. 
 
172 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 “ After a few moments rest we prepared to attend mass at the 
 Chapel of the Manger. Preceded by the fathers, and guided by 
 the feeble light of a lantern, we descended a flight of steps to a 
 long labyrinth of subterranean corridors, leading to the sacred 
 grotto, and peopled with tombs and memorials : here the tomb of 
 St. Jerome, there of St. Paul, St. Eustachius, the Innocents’ well; 
 but at that moment nothing had power to divert our attention. 
 The dazzling radiance of thirty or forty lamps under a low arch, 
 at the end of the passage, showed us the Altar erected on the spot 
 of the Nativity, and two steps lower on the right, that of the 
 Manger. These natural grottoes are partly overlaid with marble, 
 to defend them against the indiscreet piety of pilgrims, who de¬ 
 faced the walls in order to carry away their fragments as relics ; 
 but the naked rock may still be touched behind the slabs of mar¬ 
 ble that covered them ; and the general features of the vault have 
 preserved the irregularity of their primitive form. Ornament 
 has not here, as in some of the sacred localities, so altered the 
 face of nature as to engender doubts of her identity ; here it 
 serves only as a protection to the natural inclosure; and on ex¬ 
 amining these arches and holes in the rock, it is easy to conceive 
 them serving as stables to the numerous herds of cattle that pas¬ 
 tured in a plain still covered with verdant meadows, stretching 
 wide beneath the platform of rock crowned by the church and 
 convent as with a citadel. The exterior communication which 
 issued from the subterranean vaults upon the meadows has been 
 closed, but a few paces beyond, another cavern of the same nature 
 may be visited, the destination of which was probably similar. 
 
 “We attended the mass: my state of mind at the time unhap¬ 
 pily unfits me for expressing the feelings naturally inspired by 
 such places and such solemnities; my whole soul was absorbed 
 in a deep and agitating sense of affliction. An Arab mother, who 
 brought her new-born infant to be baptized on the Altar of the 
 Manger, increased my emotion. After mass, we returned to the 
 convent, not by the subterranean way, but by a broad and easy 
 staircase which led to the transept of the church, behind the par¬ 
 tition wall I have mentioned. These stairs were formerly the 
 common property of the two communions, Greek and Latin, but 
 now the Greeks alone enjoy it, and the fathers of Bethlehem 
 poured forth energetic complaints against this usurpation ; they 
 would willingly have charged us with the prosecution of their 
 claims in Europe, and we had much difficulty in persuading them 
 that, though we belonged to the French nation, we had no power 
 to procure them redress. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 173 
 
 “ The two lateral naves forming the cross of the ancient 
 church, now constitute separate chapels, one belonging to the 
 Armenians, the other to the Latins. In the centre is the high 
 altar, placed immediately over the grotto, and separated from the 
 choir by a grating and screen of gilded wainscot, which conceals 
 the sanctuary of the Greeks. 
 
 “ The Greek churches in the East are much richer than the 
 Roman ; humility and modesty are the prevailing characteristics 
 in the edifices of the latter; glitter and ostentation in those of 
 the former; but the rivalry which naturally results from their 
 respective positions is extremely painful to the observer, who 
 laments to find chicanery and discord in a region, the remem¬ 
 brances attached to which ought to inspire only charity and love. 
 
 “ The original construction of this church, as of the generality 
 of Christian edifices in Palestine, is attributed to St. Helena ; an 
 objection indeed has been urged, that already far advanced in 
 years when she visited Syria, it was not possible for her to have 
 superintended the execution of such numerous works; but 
 thought is independent both of time and space, and 1 conceive 
 that her creative will and pious zeal may have presided over 
 erections commenced under her orders, though completed after 
 her decease. 
 
 “ We returned to the convent, where an excellent repast was 
 prepared for us in the refectory by the good Father Superior, 
 whom we quitted with regret, to employ the few hours which re¬ 
 mained to us in visiting the neighboring objects of curiosity. 
 
 “ On some heights overlooking Bethlehem are seen the re¬ 
 mains of ancient towers, marking different positions of the crusad¬ 
 ing camps, bearing the names of their heroes. Leaving these to 
 the left, as we descended by rugged and toilsome paths towards 
 the plain, we were shown a grotto, to which tradition states the 
 Holy Virgin to have retired before her departure for Egypt. 
 
 After an hour’s march we reached the Garden of Solomon— 
 the hortus conclusus celebrated in the Song of Songs ; a small, 
 narrow valley, about half a league in length, enclosed on all sides 
 by steep rocks, and watered by a limpid rivulet. Among the 
 mountainous and rocky peaks which surround it on all sides, this 
 valley alone offers materials for tillage, and has been in all ages 
 a delightful garden, cultivated with the greatest care, and present¬ 
 ing, in its beautiful and human verdure, the most striking con¬ 
 trast with the stony barrenness of the whole vicinity. We fol¬ 
 lowed the serpentine course of the stream, winding sometimes 
 
174 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 along its grassy banks under the shade of its overhanging willows, 
 sometimes bathing our horses’ feet in its transparent waters as we 
 rode upon the polished pebbles that line its bed, and frequently 
 crossing from one side to the other over a plank of cedar; we 
 thus arrived at the foot of the rocks which form a natural barrier 
 to the further extremity of the valley. A cultivator of the soil 
 offered himself as our guide in scaling it, but on condition that 
 we should perform the journey on foot, and commit our horses 
 to the charge of his laborers, who, by a long and circuitous route, 
 should rejoin us with them at the summit. 
 
 “ We acceded to these necessary terms, and diverging to the 
 right, reached the height, after an hour’s difficult and fatiguing 
 ascent. Here our toils were rewarded by finding the finest rem¬ 
 nants of antiquity we had yet seen. Three capacious cisterns 
 excavated in the solid rock, and rising like terraces one above the 
 other on the inclined face of the mountain ; the walls as smooth 
 and the edges as perfect, as if the work had been but yesterday 
 completed. Their borders, paved like a quay, with flat stones, 
 rang under the steps of our horses. 
 
 These magnificent basins, filled with translucent water, on the 
 summit of a barren mountain, excite the highest astonishment, 
 and the mind immediately reverts with admiration to the power 
 and capacity which could conceive and execute a project of such 
 magnitude. To Solomon accordingly they are ascribed. While 
 I was engaged in contemplating, my fellow travelers measured 
 them, and found their dimensions to average four hundred feet, 
 by about a hundred and sixty-five ; the first being the longest, 
 the last the widest and at least two hundred feet in breadth at the 
 margin, for they all widen upwards. From above the most ele¬ 
 vated of these gigantic cisterns issues a slender spring, concealed 
 under some tufts of verdure—their sole supply, and the sealed 
 fountain of the Bible. From these reservoirs its waters were for¬ 
 merly conducted by aqueducts, (he scattered ruins of which were 
 frequently visible on our road to the Temple of Jerusalem. 
 
 “ At no great distance, ancient battlemented walls, probably 
 of the period of the Crusades, surround an inclosure, within which 
 tradition supposes a palace, inhabited by the wives of Solomon, to 
 have stood ; but very slight vestiges remain, and the site, covered 
 with dunghills and ordure, now serves as a nocturnal retreat both 
 to the cattle—who seek their summer pasturage on these moun¬ 
 tains, as in Switzerland they do upon the Alps—and to their shep¬ 
 herds. We returned to Jerusalem by an ancient, broad, and 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 175 
 
 
 well-paved road, called Solomon’s Way, which is much shorter 
 and more direct than that which we had followed in the morning, 
 but does not pass through Bethlehem ; and night was far ad¬ 
 vanced when we re-entered the city under the arch of the Pil¬ 
 grim’s Gate. 
 
 “ On the 25th of April, after, for the last time, visiting the 
 Holy Sepulchre, we requested the ecclesiastic who had accompa¬ 
 nied us to guide us round the exterior of the church, that we 
 might be able to comprehend those inequalities of ground, which 
 could alone explain the conjunction of the tomb and Calvary 
 within one edifice. The circuit is difficult, because the church 
 is surrounded by buildings which obstruct the communications ; 
 but, by crossing some courts, and going through a few houses, we 
 succeeded in satisfying ourselves on the points which interested 
 us. We then mounted our horses to make a tour of the city 
 walls, and visit the tombs of the kings. On the north of Jerusa¬ 
 lem, about half a league distant from the Damascus Gate, is found 
 an excavation in the rock, nearly twenty feet in depth, forming a 
 court, inclosed on three sides by walls of solid rock, ornamented 
 with sculptures graven in the stone, representing doors, pilasters, 
 and friezes, of the most delicate workmanship. Jt may be pre¬ 
 sumed that the gradual raising of the ground has filled up seve¬ 
 ral feet of the original depth of this excavation; for the opening 
 on the left, which affords ingress to the sanctuary, is so low that 
 it can be passed through only by crawling. Having, with great 
 difficulty, accomplished our entrance, we lighted our torches 
 within. Armies of bats, roused from their slumbers by our inva¬ 
 sion, immediately assailed us, as if determined to contend for the 
 undisturbed empire of their territory ; and had retreat been easy, 
 we should, I believe, have given way before them. Tranquillity, 
 was, however, gradually re-established, and we were enabled to 
 examine these sepulchral chambers, which are also excavated 
 from the solid rock ; the angles being as perfect, and the walls 
 as smooth, as if the stones had been separately polished by ma¬ 
 sons in a quarry. W r e visited five, communicating together by 
 openings, to which formerly, no doubt, some blocks of hewn stone 
 had been fitted, which were now lying about upon the ground, 
 and afforded the prasumption, that each chamber had been closed 
 and sealed when the niches, contrived in the walls for receiving 
 the sarcophagi or cinerary urns, were filled. Who were, or 
 should have been, the occupants of mansions prepared at so much 
 cost ? This is still a doubtful question ; their origin has been 
 
176 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LANU 
 
 warmly disputed. The interior, in its simple grandeur, may pre¬ 
 tend to the highest antiquity : nothing about it determines its date. 
 The exterior sculpture is of well-finished workmanship, and of a 
 taste extremely pure for the remote period of the Judean kings ; 
 but the appearance of Balbec has greatly modified my concep¬ 
 tions of the perfection to which art had attained before its known 
 epochs. 
 
 “ Continuing our ride through some fields planted with olive 
 trees, we descended into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and remounted 
 the hill at mid-day, along the walls of Sion. The vicinity of Da¬ 
 vid’s tomb, of the Csenaculum, and the Armenian church pos¬ 
 sessed of the stone which was sealed to the door of the Holy Sep¬ 
 ulchre, determined us to enter by the gate Bab-el-Daoud ; but, 
 when we would have visited the vault in which tradition places 
 the bones of the Prophet King, the Turks prevented us, telling 
 us the entrance was positively interdicted ; they imagine that im¬ 
 mense treasures have been buried in this royal cave, and that for¬ 
 eigners are in possession of the secret, and come hither for the 
 purpose of discovering and secretly purloining them. 
 
 “ The Holy Coenaculum is a large vaulted hall, supported by 
 pillars, and blackened by time; if ancientness of appearance may 
 be admitted in evidence of high antiquity, this room bears indis¬ 
 putable signs of it: situated on Mount Sion, outside the then city 
 walls, the disciples might very possibly have retired there after 
 the Resurrection, and have been assembled there on the day of 
 Pentecost, as tradition affirms. The sacking of Jerusalem under 
 Titus left scarcely any thing standing, but the towers and a por¬ 
 tion of the walls : but these sufficiently indicated the various sites, 
 and the primitive Christians would naturally attach considerable 
 importance to perpetuating their remembrance by successive 
 erections on the same spots, and frequently from the ruinous ma¬ 
 terials of preceding structures. But details concerning Jerusa¬ 
 lem would be mere repetitions; relinquishing, therefore, though 
 with regret, a subject to which my recollections perpetually re¬ 
 vert, I will say but one word, and that entirely independent of 
 religious feelings, upon the aspect of that village of tombs (Siloam), 
 which has ever since been present as a picture before my eyes. 
 Its entire Arab population, dwelling in caves and sepulchral grot¬ 
 toes, would afford a most original scene to the eye of a landscape 
 painter. Let the reader imagine in the deep Valley of Silo im, 
 caverns presenting their apertures, like the mouths of so many 
 ovens piled tier above tier upon the precipitous face of the rock, 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 177 
 
 or like the irregular sections of a divided bee-hive ; and living 
 beings, women and children, emerging from these sepulchral 
 caves, like phantoms from the mansions of the dead ; I know not 
 whether the subject has yet been treated by any artist, but it ap¬ 
 pears to me to offer to the pencil at once the strongest contrasts 
 and a perfect harmony. 
 
 “ On the 26th of April, we cast our eyes for the last time 
 upon Jerusalem, and with sorrow we returned on the road to Jaffa. 
 As we entered the Valley of Jeremy, sounds of wild music at¬ 
 tracted our attention ; and we perceived in the distance a whole 
 Arab tribe defiling over the slope of the hill. I sent the drago¬ 
 man forward, and he returned with information that the multi¬ 
 tude was assembled for the interment of a chief, and that we might 
 advance without apprehension. He afterwards related to us that the 
 chief had died suddenly the preceding day, while hunting, incon¬ 
 sequence of inhaling a poisonous plant; but the well-known 
 character of the Arabs of Naplous, whose costume the tribe dis¬ 
 played, gave us reason rather to believe that he had fallen a vic¬ 
 tim to the jealousy of some rival chief. Notwithstanding the 
 warlike habits and imposing air of these simple people, their cre¬ 
 dulity is perfectly infantine ; all marvelous narratives enchant 
 them, without exciting the smallest mistrust. One of our Arab 
 friends, a man of considerable knowledge and intelligence, assur¬ 
 ed us in a tone of perfect conviction that a Scheik of Lebanon 
 possessed the secret of the magical words used in the primitive 
 ages, for removing the gigantic blocks of Balbec, but that he was 
 too good a Christian ever to employ or divulge them. 
 
 “ We quickened our pace and soon joined the procession; in 
 the centre of which was the bier, borne on a litter, covered with 
 rich draperies, and surmounted by the turban of the Osmanlis ; 
 Arab women, naked to the waist, their long black hair flowing 
 over their shoulders, their breasts bruised, and their arms thrown 
 up into the air, preceded the corpse, shrieking, singing lugubrious 
 songs, wringing their hands, and rending their hair—while musi¬ 
 cians accompanied the voices with a continued and monotonous 
 rolling on the tanble and dahiera (a sort of great drum and tam¬ 
 bourine). At the head of the procession rode the brother of the 
 defunct; his horse, covered with a beautiful Angora skin, and 
 decorated with reins of red and gold floating loosely over its 
 head and breast, was prancing to the discordant tones of the music, 
 while the priests in full costume were waiting for the cortege be¬ 
 fore the gate of a tomb surmounted by a cupola, supported upon 
 
178 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 an open colonnade; opposite stood the ruined church, the terraced 
 roof of which was filled with women in long white veils resembling 
 the priestesses of the ancient sacrifices, or the weepers of the 
 Memphian cenotaphs. When the chief approached the tomb he 
 alighted, and threw himself into the arms of the high priest, with 
 the liveliest demonstrations of grief ; the latter exhorted him to 
 submit to the will of God, and to show himself worthy of suc¬ 
 ceeding his brother in the command of the tribe. Meanwhile the 
 procession advanced, deposited the corpse, ranged themselves 
 around the little temple, and the death songs resounded more 
 piercingly ; this doleful pantomime, this funeral pomp, these hymns 
 of despair expressed in another language, and attended with other 
 rites, seemed to be a living memorial of those lamentations with 
 which Jeremiah had filled the same valley, and which the biblical 
 world still echoes.” 
 
 DEPARTURE FROM JAFFA. 
 
 Same date. 
 
 We embarked on a full tide, whose enormous breakers were 
 dashing in hills of foam into the rocky channel. Waiting fora 
 moment behind the rocks for one wave to spend itself, a few bold 
 strokes of the oars launched us on the open sea; another and 
 another breaker succeeded, and lifted up our boat, which floated 
 like a cork over the head of each, then sank into the depth of an 
 abyss, whence neither ship nor shore was visible,—remounted, and 
 again rolled onward, enveloped in a showery veil of surf. At 
 length we reached the ship’s side; but so violent was her motion, 
 that we dared not near her, for fear of being struck by her yards 
 which were dipping in the waves; an interval of the breakers is 
 seized, a rope thrown out, the ladder is placed, and we have at¬ 
 tained the deck in safety. 
 
 The wind became contrary ; we rode on two anchors, every 
 moment in danger of shipwreck, if the furious agitation of the 
 waves should break them ; this frightful tossing caused some 
 hours of physical and moral agony to us. Towards evening, and 
 during the night, the wind whistled among the masts and cordage, 
 as if through the shrill pipes of an organ ; while the vessel bound¬ 
 ed like a ram butting against the earth with its horns ; the prow 
 plunged into the sea, and seemed ready to be swallowed up every 
 time that the beating waves heaved the poop ; cries of distress 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO TIIE HOLY LAND. 
 
 179 
 
 were heard from the Arab sailors of some other vessels, which 
 had conveyed the unfortunate Greek pilgrims from Jerusalem. 
 These small vessels, some of them containing only two or three 
 women and children, made an attempt at putting to sea for the 
 purpose of avoiding the coast—some sailed past us, the women 
 screaming and stretching out their hands to us ; but the huge 
 breakers ingulfed them, and in an instant afterwards they re-ap¬ 
 peared at a great distance ; a few of the boats succeeded in keep¬ 
 ing at a distance from the coast ; two were cast on the rocky 
 shelves of the Gaza. Our anchors at length yielded, and we 
 were being hurried towards the rocks of the interior port, when 
 the captain ordered another to be thrown out. 
 
 The wind now moderated and turned somewhat in our favor ; 
 when, making for Damietta under a gray and foggy sky, we lost 
 sight of land, and made a good day’s sail,—the sea tranquil, but 
 the captain and his mate occupied in watching the precursory 
 signs of a tempest, which exploded at nightfall. The wind fresh¬ 
 ened every hour, the waves swelling more and more till they ran 
 mountains high ; the ship creaking and straining, all her tackle 
 whistling and vibrating to the blast, like so many fibres of metal; 
 the whole a combination of shrill and plaintive sounds, resembling 
 the wailings of the Greek women at their funerals. We could 
 no longer carry any sail ; the vessel rolled from one abyss to 
 another, and at every lurch her masts trembled, and appeared to 
 be toppling into the sea like uprooted trees ; while the waves, 
 borne down under her weight, rebounded and washed the deck. 
 Every one, except myself and the crew, had descended to the 
 mid-deck ; whence the groans of the sick, and the uproar of chests 
 and furniture rolling confusedly and knocking against the sides of 
 the brig, reached our ears, whenever the bowlings of the storm 
 for a moment subsided. The brig itself, spite of its powerful 
 timbers, and the enormous thickness of its thwarting beams, 
 cracked and fretted, as if about every instant to spring a leak. 
 The strokes of the sea upon the poop reverberated momentarily 
 like the explosion of artillery. 
 
 At two o’clock in the morning the fury of the storm still in¬ 
 creased, and I lashed myself with a rope to the mainmast, that I 
 might not be washed overboard by the waves, or rolled into the 
 sea by a sudden inclining of the deck almost into the perpendicu¬ 
 lar. Wrapped in my mantle, I contemplated the sublime specta¬ 
 cle, occasionally descending to the mid-deck to calm my wife’s 
 fears, who lay in her hammock. The mate—a man who, to a 
 
180 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 front of iron for opposing clanger, united the compassionate heart 
 of a woman, never quitted the helm during this frightful tempest, 
 except to carry hastily from cabin to cabin the succor or encour¬ 
 agement of which each passenger stood in need. In this manner 
 the night wore away. Sunrise, which was distinguishable only 
 by the wan light diffusing itself over the waves, and through the 
 huddled masses of clouds, far from diminishing the violence of the 
 blast, seemed but to endue it with renewed strength. As far as 
 the eye could penetrate, we saw hills upon hills of foaming water 
 coursing each other towards us. The brig, yielding and bending 
 to each as it passed, overwhelmed by one, heaved by another, 
 driven one way by an impetuous wave, then arrested by another— 
 which forcibly impelled her in the opposite direction—pitched 
 from side to side, plunging her prow forwards with a violence that 
 threatened us with instant absorption ; while the sea running furi¬ 
 ously upon her, broke over her poop, and swept her from side to 
 side : now and then she would recover herself—the sea, amidst 
 the overpowering fury of the gale, presenting a level plain of 
 whirling foam in the bosom of those vast watery mountains, thus 
 allowing a moment’s repose to the straining masts, but presently 
 again immersing us in the region of stupendous waves, where we 
 again rolled from precipice to precipice. Between such horrible 
 alternatives the day expired. The captain consulted me : the 
 Egyptian shore is low, and a ship may be thrown upon it before 
 land is seen. The coasts of Syria are devoid both of roadstead 
 and port. It was necessary to resolve either on tacking through 
 such a sea, or keeping the direction of the wind, which was driving 
 us upon Cyprus. There a road and haven were open to us, but 
 we were more than eighty leagues distant from it. 1 advised that 
 the helm should be set for Cyprus. The wind drove us at the 
 rate of three leagues an hour, but the sea ran as high as ever. 
 My wife and fellow-travelers, who kept to their hammocks, sup¬ 
 ported their strength by a few drops of cold broth ; I myself eat 
 a few mouthfuls of biscuit, and smoked with the captain and mate, 
 retaining my position on the deck, near the binnacle, my hands 
 holding to the cordage, which supported me against the beating of 
 the sea. Night closed in with increased horrors, the clouds rested 
 heavily upon the sea, the whole horizon seemed shattered with 
 lightning—all was fire around us ; the thunder, resounding from 
 the crest of the waves, rose to meet the clouds ; three times the 
 bolt fell near us—once, at a moment when the brig was pitched 
 on her side by a colossal breaker, the yards dipped, the masts 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 181 
 
 struck the wave, and the surf, projected by the collision, resembled 
 a rent mantle of fire, the thousand fragments of which the wind 
 dispersed like serpents of flame ; the whole crew united in one 
 cry; we seemed precipitated into the crater of a volcano. The 
 effect of this moment was the most terrific and most sublime which 
 the storm produced throughout that tedious night. For nine suc¬ 
 ceeding hours the thunder enveloped us; every moment we ex¬ 
 pected to see the inflamed masts fall upon us and set fire to the 
 ship. In the morning the sky was less heavy, but the sea resembled 
 boiling lava ; the wind calming a little, and no longer sustaining 
 the ship, made her roll yet more heavily. According to the ship’s 
 reckoning, we were still thirty leagues distant from the Isle of 
 Cyprus. 
 
 At eleven o’clock we began to descry the land, and from hour 
 to hour gradually gained upon it. It was Limasol, one of the 
 ports of this island. We set all sail to put ourselves more quick¬ 
 ly under the wind ; as we approached the land the sea became 
 less violent. We coasted the distance of two leagues from the 
 shore, and made for the road of Larnaca, where we soon per¬ 
 ceived the masts of a great number of vessels, which like our¬ 
 selves, had sought refuge there. The wind again rose in fury, 
 and carried us thither in a few minutes ; the impulse of the ship 
 was so strong that we were afraid of breaking our cables in cast¬ 
 ing anchor; it was dropped at length,—bore down some fathoms, 
 and sounded the bottom. We had now gained a riding, where 
 the waves, though still boisterous, might rock us without danger. 
 I was once more in sight of the flag-staves of the European con¬ 
 sulates and of the terrace of that of France, whence our friend 
 M. Bottu made us signals of recognition. Every body remained 
 on board; my wife could not revisit, without heart-rending emo¬ 
 tions, the excellent and happy family of M. Bottu, amongst whom, 
 then happy herself, she had experienced so much hospitality dur¬ 
 ing fifteen months. 
 
 I landed with the captain, and received from Monsieur and 
 Madame Bottu, and Messieurs Perthier and Guillois, young 
 Frenchmen attached to the Consulate, those affecting marks of 
 kindness and friendship which I expected from them. I visited 
 M. Mathei, a Greek banker, to whom I had been recommended ; 
 we sent provisions of all kinds to the brig, M. Mathei adding to 
 them presents of Cyprus wine, and Syrian mutton. Whilst I was 
 taking a survey of the environs of the town with M. Bottu, the 
 tempest, which for so short a time had subsided, arose again ; we 
 
 VOL. II. 9. 
 
182 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE IIOLY LAND. 
 
 could no longer communicate with the vessels in the road; the 
 billows covered the quays and threw their foam even to the win¬ 
 dows of the houses. What a frightful evening and night I pass¬ 
 ed on the terrace, or at the window of my chamber, in the French 
 Consulate, watching the brig which contained my wife, as it roll¬ 
 ed to and fro in the road tossed by immense waves ; and trem¬ 
 bling every instant lest the cables should give way, and the vessel 
 be dashed, with all that remained to me of happiness in this world, 
 against the rocks. 
 
 At length, on the following evening, the sea calmed ; we re¬ 
 gained the brig, remained three hours in the road waiting for a 
 good wind, and were repeatedly visited by M. Mathei and M. 
 Bottu. This young and amiable consul was the one of all the 
 French agents in the East who received his countrymen with the 
 greatest cordiality, and paid the highest respect to the name of 
 France; I have twice partaken of his hospitality, and shall al¬ 
 ways remember his kindness with grateful friendship. He was a 
 happy man, surrounded by the wife of his affections, and children 
 who were the joy of his heart. I understand he died suddenly a 
 few days after our departure ; the income of his family was de¬ 
 rived solely from his appointment, and the whole of this income 
 he had dedicated to his duties as Consul. His poor wife and 
 lovely children now depend upon the compassion of the country 
 which he served, and to whose honor he dedicated all his emolu¬ 
 ments. May France, when she thinks of his merits, remember 
 his widow and orphans. 
 
 April 30,1833. 
 
 Set sail; wind variable ; three days employed in doubling 
 the western point of the Isle, keeping our course along the shore. 
 Saw Mounts Olympus, Paphos, and Amathonte; enchanting pros¬ 
 pect of the coast and mountains on this side of Cyprus. This 
 
 ' Island might become the finest colony of Asia Minor; it now 
 contains but thirty thousand souls, whereas it might support and 
 enrich millions of men. Every where capable of cultivation ; 
 every where fertile, woody, and watered ; possessing natural ship- 
 roads and ports on every side ; situated between Syria, Carama- 
 nia, the Archipelago, Egypt, and the European coasts;—it 
 might be the garden of the world. 
 
 ♦ May 3, 1833. 
 
 This morning descried the most prominent heights of Cara- 
 mania; Mount Taurus in the distance ; its ridges rugged and 
 covered with snow like the Alps seen from Lyons ; wind mild 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 183 
 
 and variable, nights splendidly starlight. During the night made 
 the Gulf of Satalia, which resembles an inland sea. the wind 
 falls ; the ship slumbers as upon a lake. The eye encounters 
 on every side the mountainous amphitheatres which coast this and 
 the neighboring bays. Ridges of mountains of all shapes and 
 heights run one behind the other, leaving sometimes, between 
 their unequal summits, high valleys through which the moonbeams 
 shed their white vapors over the mountains’ sides, and crown 
 their crests in a pale purple haze. Behind these nearer eminences 
 arise the angular and snowy smmits of Mount Taurus. Some 
 low and woody capes stretch themselves to a great distance in the 
 sea; and little islands, like vessels at anchor, are detached here 
 and there from the shore. A profound silence reigned upon the 
 sea and upon the land ; no noise was to be heard except that of 
 the dolphins springing continually out of the bosom of the flood, 
 as a kid bounds upon the greensward. The waves, edged and 
 marbled with silver and gold, seemed fluted like Ionic columns 
 recumbent upon the earth ; the brig was perfectly becalmed. At 
 midnight a land breeze arose, which carried us gently out of 
 the Gulf of Satalia, and along the Coast of Asia Minor as far as 
 Castelrozzo. We entered all the bays, and almost touched the 
 land. The ruins of this country which formed several kingdoms 
 •—Pontus, Cappadocia, and Bithynia, now desolate and solitary, 
 are stretched out upon the promontories ; the valleys and plains 
 are covered with forests; the Turcomans come here to plant 
 their tents during the winter ; in the summer all is a desert, ex¬ 
 cept a few points of the coast, as Tarsus, Satalia, Castelrozzo and 
 Marmorizza, in the Gulf of Macri. 
 
 May, 18.33. 
 
 The current which prevails along the Caramanian coast im¬ 
 pelled us towards the extremity of that country and towards the 
 entrance of the Gull'of Macri ; during the night we pursued our 
 course direct for the Island of Rhodes, but the captain fearing 
 the vicinity of the Asiatic coast, on account of the westerly wind 
 which had arisen, stood again towards the open sea, and we 
 awoke scarcely within sight of Rhodes. We lound not far from 
 us our consort brig, the Alceste ; the calm prevented our ap¬ 
 proaching her throughout the day ; in the evening a fresh wind 
 arose which brought us up the Gulf of Marmorizza; at midnight 
 the land breeze returned, and we entered the Port of Rhodes in 
 the morning. 
 
184 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 May, 1833. 
 
 We passed three days in surveying the environs of Rhodes— 
 charming prospects from the declivities of the mountain, which 
 look towards the Archipelago. After walking for two hours 
 along the strand, I turned into a valley, shaded by fine trees, and 
 watered by a small rivulet: following the banks of the stream, 
 edged by rose laurels, 1 arrived at a little platform, which forms 
 the highest point of the valley. Here stands a small house, al¬ 
 most entirely covered with the branches of fig and orange trees, 
 inhabited by a poor Greek family ; in its garden are the ruins 
 of a little temple of the Nymphs, a grotto, and some loose columns 
 and capitals, half hidden by ivy and the roots of shrubs • beyond, 
 is a grass-plot, two or three hundred paces wide, with a fountain ; 
 here grow two or three sycamores, one of which alone over¬ 
 shadows the whole of the greensward. It is the holy tree of the 
 island: the Turks respect it; and an unfortunate Greek peasant, 
 having one day cut down a branch, the Pacha of Rhodes ordered 
 him to be bastinadoed. It is not true that the Turks disregard 
 nature and the works-of Art : they leave all things as they find 
 them, and their only way of ruining every thing is by improving 
 nothing. The hills rise in peaks above the grass-plot and the 
 sycamores—crested with fir trees, and abounding in little cata¬ 
 racts—which channel their slopes with serpentine ravines. Far¬ 
 ther on the lofty mountains of the island look down upon and 
 overshadow’ these hills, the greensward, and the fountain. From 
 the brink of the fountain, where I am seated, I see through the 
 foliage of pines and sycamores, the sea of the Asiatic Archipelago, 
 resembling a lake set thick with islands, and the deep gulfs 
 which lose themselves between the high and snow-crowned moun¬ 
 tains of Maori. I hear nothing but the splashing of the fountain, 
 the murmuring of the wind amongst the leaves, the flight of the 
 bulbul, whom my presence alarms, and the plaintive song of the 
 Greek peasant woman, who rocks her infant upon the roof of her 
 cottage. How charming this place would have appeared to me 
 six months ago ! 
 
 I met, in a pathway of the high mountains of Rhodes, a Cy- 
 pnot chief, habited as a European, but bonneted according to 
 the Greek fashion, and wearing a long white beard. I recog¬ 
 nized him : he is named Theseus, is a nephew of the Patriarch 
 of Cyprus, and distinguished himself in the war of independence. 
 On his return to Cyprus, after the pacification of the Morea, his 
 name, his spirit, his activity, acquired for him the attachment of 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 185 
 
 the whole Greek population of the island. At the period of the 
 insurrection which had lately taken place, the peasants of the 
 several mountains placed themselves under his command ; he 
 used his influence to calm them ; and after having, in conjunc¬ 
 tion with M. Bottu, the French Consul, obtained redress for some 
 of their grievances, he dispersed his troop, and took refuge in the 
 Consulate from the vengeance of the Turks. A Greek vessel 
 had dropped him at Rhodes, where he was not in safety. I 
 offered him accommodation in one of my brigs, which he accept¬ 
 ed ; and I shall transport him to Constantinople, to Greece, or to 
 Europe, at his own choice. He is a man who has constantly 
 hazarded his life and fortune upon the cast of a die ; a man of 
 fiery spirit and brilliant courage ; speaking all languages, know¬ 
 ing all countries, possessing inexhaustible funds of interesting 
 conversation, as prompt in action as in thought—one of those 
 men with whom motion is nature ; and who, like birds of the 
 storm, rise with the whirlwinds of revolutions, to fall again with 
 the return of repose. Nature casts but few souls in such a 
 mould : men thus constituted are generally unfortunate—they 
 are feared and persecuted ; but they might make admirable in¬ 
 struments if one knew how to employ them with effect. I have 
 sent a bark to Marmorizza, to carry thither a young Greek, who 
 will there await my horses, and give orders to my sais to join me 
 at Constantinople. We have determined to go by sea, visiting 
 the islands of the Asiatic coast, and the shores of the Continent. 
 
 Set sail at midnight with a light wind ; doubled Cape Krio 
 on the evening of the first day ; fine and easy navigation between 
 the islands of Piscopia, Nisyra, and the enchanted island of Cos, 
 the country of Esculapius. Next to Rhodes, Cos appears to me 
 the most smiling and agreeable island of the Archipelago : charm¬ 
 ing villages, sheltered by beautiful palm trees, line its shores; 
 the town is cheerful, and elegantly built. In the evening we 
 were almost lost, with our two brigs, in the midst of a labyrinth 
 of little uninhabited islands, carpeted to the water’s edge with 
 long grass; beautiful channels flow amongst them, and almost all 
 have little creeks, in which vessels might cast anchor. What an 
 enchanting residence for those men who complain that they can¬ 
 not find room in Europe ! It has the climate and the fertility of 
 Rhodes and of Cos. At the distance of two leagues lies an im¬ 
 mense continent, between which and those islands we tacked 
 about incessantly, and saw the sun glittering upon the magnifi¬ 
 cent ruins of the Grecian and Roman cities of Asia Minor. The 
 
186 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 next morning we awoke in the Boghaz, a strait of Samos, between 
 that island and the isle of Ikaria ; the lofty mountain, which itself 
 forms almost the whole island of Samos, rose above our heads, 
 covered with rocks and forests of firs; among the rocks we 
 observed women and children ; the population of Samos, at pre¬ 
 sent in rebellion against the Turks, had sought refuge on the 
 mountain. The men were armed in the city and upon the 
 coasts. 
 
 Samos resembles a mountain of the Lake of Lucerne, illu¬ 
 mined by the sky of Asia. Its base almost joins the continent, 
 from which it is separated only by a narrow channel. A storm 
 carried us into the gulf of Scala-Nova, not far from the ruins of 
 Ephesus. In the morning we entered the channel of Scio, and 
 sought an asylum in the road of Tschesme, celebrated for the 
 destruction of the Ottoman fleet by Orloff. The delightful island 
 of Scio extends, like a green hill, on the opposite side of a large 
 river: its white houses, its towns and villages, grouped upon its 
 umbrageous slopes, glitter amongst the orange trees and vines; 
 its remains bespeak'a recent state of prosperity and a numerous 
 population. The Turkish dominion, although it had nearly re¬ 
 duced the Greek population of these beautiful islands to slavery, 
 had not been able to stifle their active, industrious, commercial 
 and agricultural energies. I know of no place in Europe which 
 has a richer appearance than Scio ; it is a garden of sixty leagues 
 in circumference. 
 
 A day’s voyage brought us to the ruins and mineral waters of 
 Tschesme. 
 
 The sea having become calm, we set sail for Smyrna; the 
 wind was variable throughout the day, and we slowly threaded 
 the coast of Scio ; the woods descend to the sea. All the towns 
 of the bays are fortified, and have their ports filled with small 
 vessels; the smallest creek has its village ; an innumerable mul¬ 
 titude of boats skirt the shores, conveying the Greeks, women and 
 girls, to their churches; on every eminence, and in all the val¬ 
 leys between the hills, may be seen a village or its white church. 
 We doubled the point of the island, and were wafted by a brisk 
 wind into the Gulf of Smyrna, enjoying till night closed in the 
 prospect of the fine forests and large villages which line its west¬ 
 ern coast. At night we were becalmed at no great distance from 
 the Isles of Bourla, and were able to distinguish the fires of the 
 French fleet, which had been at anchor there for the last six 
 months. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 187 
 
 In the morning we came within sight o*f Smyrna, embosomed 
 by cypress trees, and reclining on the descent of a considerable 
 hill at the extremity of the gulf. High embattled walls crown 
 the upper part of the town, and a finely wooded plain extends on 
 the left as far as the mountains. There flows the river Meles ! 
 In my mind the remembrance of Homer hovers over all the shore 
 of Smyrna ; my eyes seek that tree on the margin of the river, 
 then unknown, where the poor slave deposited her offspring amongst 
 the rushes; that child, whose fame should one day immortalize 
 the name of the river, the continent, and the islands. That ima¬ 
 gination which Heaven then gave to the earth, was to reflect to 
 us all antiquity, divine and human; he was abandoned at his birth 
 on the banks of a river as the Moses of Poetry; he lived blind 
 and miserable, like those Indian deities who traversed the world 
 in the attire of mendicants, and were only recognized for gods 
 after their passage. Modern erudition affects not to see a man, 
 but a type in Homer ; this is one of the hundred thousand para¬ 
 doxes with which learning attempts to combat the evidence of our 
 internal convictions ; to me Homer is a single man—a man 
 speaking throughout with one accent of voice, one form of lan¬ 
 guage, and one expression of feeling. To admit a race of Ho¬ 
 meric men, appears to be more difficult than to admit a race of 
 giants ; nature does not produce her prodigies in series ; she gave 
 us Homer, and defies after-ages to exhibit another such specimen 
 of the combination of reason, philosophy, sensibility, and genius. 
 
 I disembarked at Smyrna, to make the circuit of the town and 
 its environs in company with M. Salzani, a resident banker and 
 merchant—a gentleman as kind-hearted as he is agreeable and 
 well-informed ; during three days I took advantage of his hospi¬ 
 tality, but returned each night to sleep on board the brig. 
 Smyrna in no respect resembles an eastern town ; it is a large 
 and elegant factory, where the European consuls and merchants 
 lead the life of Paris and London. The view from the top of the 
 hill over the gulf and city is beautiful; on descending the hill, to 
 the margin of the river, which I like to believe to be the Meles, 
 we were delighted with the situation of the bridge of the caravans, 
 very near one of the gates of the town. The river is limpid, 
 slumbering under a peaceful arch of sycamores and cypresses; 
 we seated ourselves on its bank, and the Turks brought us pipes 
 and coffee. If this stream heard the first wailings of Horner, I 
 love to hear its gentle murmurings amongst the roots of the palm 
 trees; I raise its waters to my lips—I bathe my burning fore- 
 
188 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 
 head in them. Oh! might that man appear for the Western 
 world who should weave its history, its dreams, and its heaven 
 into an epic ! Such a poem is the sepulchre of times gone by, to 
 which posterity comes to venerate deceased traditions, and eter¬ 
 nalize by its worship the great actions and sublime thoughts of 
 human nature: its author engraves his name on the pedestal of 
 the statue which he erects to man, and he lives in all the ideas 
 with which he enriches the world of imagination. 
 
 This evening I was taken to visit M. Fauvel, formerly our 
 consul in Greece, who now lives alone with two Greek servants 
 in a small house on the quay of Smyrna ; the staircase, hall, and 
 apartments are full of fragments of sculpture, plans of Athens in . 
 relief, and broken blocks of marble and porphyry. Expelled 
 from Athens, his adopted country, the dust of which he had been 
 sweeping all his life to restore its treasures to the world, M. Fau¬ 
 vel now lives poor and unknown at Smyrna; thither he has 
 carried his gods, and pays them his hourly worship. M. de 
 Chateaubriand saw him in his youth, happy in the midst of the 
 splendid ruins of the Parthenon; I have seen him old and in 
 exile, wounded by the ingratitude of men, but firm and cheerful 
 in adversity, and abounding in that natural philosophy which 
 enables those whose fortune is based in the goodness of their 
 hearts to endure misfortune with patience ; I spent a delightful 
 hour in listening to the conversation of this charming old man. 
 
 I found at Smyrna a young man of talent, whom I had known 
 in Italy, M. Deschamps, editor of the Journal of Smyrna; he 
 acknowledged our former acquaintance with sensibility. The 
 storm had thrown the remains of St. Simonianism upon Smyrna 
 —reduced to the last extremities, but supporting their reverses 
 with the resignation and constancy of a firm conviction, in evi¬ 
 dence of which I received on board two remarkable letters. 
 Novel ideas must not be judged of by the disdain with which 
 they inspire their contemporaries; all great thoughts have been 
 received as strangers in the world. St. Simonianism can boast 
 of something which is true, great, and fruitful,—the application 
 of Christianity to political society, and to legislation for the human 
 fraternity. In this point of view I am a St. Simonian ; it was 
 not in ideas that this eclipsed, but not deceased sect, was wanting ; 
 neither was it deficient in disciples; that which it did want, was, 
 in my opinion, a chief, a master, a regulator. I doubt not that if 
 a man of genius and virtue, a man who with a penetrating and 
 sagacious glance, could at once take in the whole horizon, reli- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 189 
 
 gious and political, had been placed at the head of these nascent 
 opinions, he would have metamorphosed them into a powerful 
 reality. The time of the anarchy of opinions is the favorable 
 season for the germination of new and important thoughts; so¬ 
 ciety, in the eyes of a philosopher, is then in a moment of rout; 
 it has neither government, object, nor chief; it is reduced to the 
 instinct of conversion. A religious, moral, social and political 
 sect, having a standard, a rule of order, an object, a chief, a 
 spirit of intelligence, and marching compact and direct in front 
 of that society, and in the midst of its disordered ranks, would 
 inevitably command victory ; but salvation, and not ruin, should 
 be the result of its operations ; it should attack the hurtful only, 
 and not the serviceable; recall religion to reason and love, poli¬ 
 tics to the Christian fraternity, property to charity and universal 
 utility, its only title and basis ;—but a legislator was wanting to 
 these young men, ardently zealous, longing for faith, but amongst 
 whom the wildest doctrines were propagated : the organizers of 
 St. Simonianism have taken for their chief motto, “ War, without 
 quarter, between family ties, property, religion, and us,” and 
 they necessarily fell. The world is not to be conquered by the 
 force of a word : it may be moved, it may be converted, it may 
 be moulded, it may be changed ; but, inasmuch as an idea is not 
 practicable, it is not presentable to society; human nature pro¬ 
 ceeds from the known to the unknown, but not from the known 
 to the absurd. This will be resumed as an under-plot to the 
 great revolutions yet in futurity ; signs are to be seen upon the 
 earth, and in the heavens; the St. Simonians have been one of 
 these signs: they will dissolve themselves as a body, but as indi¬ 
 viduals will hereafter become the soldiers and chiefs of the new 
 army. 
 
 Sailing out of the Gulf of Smyrna with all our canvas set, 
 when we had made the height of Vourla, and were pursuing a 
 straight course at the mouth of the gulf, we grounded on a sand¬ 
 bank, through the unskillfulness of a Greek pilot. The vessel re¬ 
 ceived a shock which made her masts quiver, and remained im¬ 
 movable three leagues from land, the swelling waves breaking 
 against her sides. We all hurried upon deck ; what a moment 
 of calm yet awful anxiety was that, while so many lives awaited 
 their sentence, suspended on the uncertain success of the manoeu¬ 
 vres that were attempted. A perfect silence reigned—no sign of 
 terror w T as exhibited ; on great occasions man is great! After a 
 few minutes of powerless efforts, the wind arose to our aid and 
 
 9* 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
190 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND 
 
 
 turned us upon our keel. The brig disengaged herself and no 
 leak was perceptible. We entered on the expanse of ocean, the 
 Island of Mitylene on our right; and after a delightful day’s sail, 
 approached the channel which separates the island from the con¬ 
 tinent ; but the wind sank, the clouds gathered over the open sea, 
 and at nightfall the wind and thunder burst from them together ; 
 a furious tempest and total darkness ensued, the two brigs firing 
 signals of recognition and seeking the road of Foglieri, the an¬ 
 cient Phocea, between the rocks which form the northern point of 
 the Gulf of Smyrna. In two hours the force of the wind drove 
 us ten leagues along the coast, one clap of thunder every moment 
 succeeding another, and whizzing through the surges; while the 
 sky, the sea, and the echoing rocks of the coast were illuminated 
 by continual flashes of lightning, which supplied the place of day, 
 and from time to time afforded us glimpses of our route. The 
 two brigs almost touched, and we trembled in momentary dread 
 of a collision ; at length a manoeuvre of extreme daring in the 
 obscurity of night harbored us safely in the narrow mouth of the 
 road of Phocea; we heard the waves bellowing against the rocks 
 to the right and left-; a false stroke of the helm would have thrown 
 us a wreck upon them; we all stood mute upon the deck, waiting 
 the decision of our fate; the night was so dark that we could not 
 distinguish our own masts ; suddenly we felt the brig glide over 
 a motionless surface; a few lights shone round us upon the out¬ 
 line of the basin, which we had happily entered, and we cast 
 anchor without knowing where. The wind roared the whole night 
 against our masts and through our yards, as though it would have 
 carried them away, but the sea was motionless. 
 
 How beautiful is the basin of the ancient Phocea! Half a 
 league in circumference, it is hollowed like a circular fortress be¬ 
 tween hills, whose graceful slopes are interspersed with red-painted 
 houses, cottages shaded by olive trees, gardens, creeping vines, 
 and especially with fields of magnificent cypresses, under the 
 shade of which repose the white tombs of the Turkish cemeteries. 
 We landed to visit the ruins of that city which gave birth to Mar¬ 
 seilles ; were graciously welcomed, entertained in two Turkish 
 houses, and passed the day in their orange gardens. The third 
 day the sea calmed, and at midnight we sailed from the natural 
 haven of Phocea. 
 
 17th May, 1833. 
 
 We followed the whole day the Channel of Mitylene, where 
 Lesbos stood, a poetical memorial of the only woman of antiqui- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 191 
 
 ty whose voice had power enough to make itself heard through 
 the lapse of centuries. Only a few of Sappho’s verses have de¬ 
 scended to us, but they give evidence of a genius of the highest 
 order; as a fragment of the arm or the body from a statue by 
 Phidias reveals the perfection of the entire figure. The heart 
 from which Sappho’s stanzas flowed must have been a deep well- 
 spring of passions and of images. The Isle of Lesbos is to me 
 even more beautiful than that of Scio. Its high and verdant hills, 
 pinnacled with firs, are more lofty and more picturesquely grouped. 
 Their ridges, overhanging a broader expanse of inland sea formed 
 by its capacious bay, and so closely overlooking Asia, are more 
 solitary and more inaccessible : instead of the numerous villages 
 which overspread the gardens of Scio, here the smoke from a 
 Greek cottage curling upwards between the heads of chestnut 
 trees and cypresses, or a few shepherds on a point of a rock, 
 tending large flocks of white goats, are objects but rarely seen. 
 In the evening we doubled with a favorable wind the northern 
 extremity of Mitylene, and perceived in the horizon before us, two 
 dark spots upon the crimson vapor of the sea—Lemnos and Ten- 
 edos. 
 
 Same date. 
 
 It is midnight ; the sea smooth as a sheet of ice, the becalmed 
 brig hovering like a shadow upon its sparkling surface. Tene- 
 dos springing from its waves on our left, conceals the open sea ; 
 nearer, and to the right, extends like a dark barrier, the low and 
 indented shore of the plain of Troy. The full moon, rising over 
 the snow-capped summit of Mount Ida, diffuses a serene but un¬ 
 certain light over the mountain-tops, the hills, and the plain ; then 
 beaming upon the sea, tinges its quiet waves with her mild efful¬ 
 gence, under the very side of our vessel, converting its surface into 
 a bright area upon which no shadow may dare to glide. We dis¬ 
 tinguished the tumuli or little conical mounds which tradition as- 
 
 o 
 
 signs as the tombs of Homer and Patroclus. The broad red moon 
 glancing over the undulations of the hills, resembles the ensan- 
 
 i i c_ i 
 
 guined shield of Achilles; no light is visible on all that line of 
 coast, except a distant fire lighted by the shepherds on the ridge 
 of Ida; no sound meets our ear except the dull flapping of the 
 sail, which untouched by the lightest breeze, is occasionally beat¬ 
 en against the main-yard by the wavering of the mast; the im¬ 
 age of the death which passed over the ages of its glory, seems 
 impressed upon this still and melancholy scene. Leaning over 
 the shrouds of the vessel, that land, those mountains, those ruins, 
 
192 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 those tombs, rise before me, with their vaporous forms and unde¬ 
 cided outlines, under the sleeping and silent rays of the planet of 
 night, like the shadowy apparition of a past world evoked from 
 the bosom of the sea, and vanishing as the moon sinks behind the 
 summits of other mountains; it is an additional bright page to 
 the Homeric poem ; it is the consummation of all poems and of 
 all history ; unknown tombs, ruins without any certain names, a 
 dark and naked soil, confusedly illuminated by immortal stars; 
 and new spectators passing with indifference before those shores, 
 and repeating for the thousandth time the epitaph of all things. 
 Here lie an empire, a city, a people, heroes ! God alone is great, 
 and the thoughts which search Him out and adore Him are alone 
 
 O 
 
 imperishable ! 
 
 I feel no desire to visit nearer, and by day, the doubtful re¬ 
 mains of the ruins of Troy; I prefer this nocturnal apparition 
 which permits the fancy to re-people the desolate wastes, and is 
 lighted only by the pale lamp of the moon and by the poetry of 
 Homer. Besides, what care I for Troy, her gods, or her heroes? 
 That page of the heroic is turned for ever. * 
 
 The land breeze begins to spring up, and we take advantage of 
 it to make for the Dardanelles. Already several considerable 
 vessels are seeking like ourselves that difficult entrance near us; 
 their large gray sails, like the wings of night-birds, glide silently 
 between us and Tenedos. I descended to the mid-deck and slept. 
 
 17th May, 1833. 
 
 Waking with the day, I heard the rapid track of the vessel, 
 and the small moving waves murmuring like the songs of birds 
 about the sides of the vessel: opening the port-hole, I discovered, 
 upon a chain of low and rounded hills, the castles of the Darda¬ 
 nelles with their white walls, their towers and immense loop¬ 
 holes for cannon. The channel is in this part scarce a league 
 in breadth, winding like a beautiful and expansive river between 
 the perfectly similar coasts of Asia and Europe. The castles 
 close this sea like the two leaves of a gate ; but in the present 
 state of Turkey and of Europe, it would be easy either to force 
 the passage by sea, or to make a descent and surprise the forts 
 from behind ; the passage of the Dardanelles is impregnable only 
 when guarded by the Russians. 
 
 The rapid current bore us with the swiftness of an arrow 
 past Gallipoli and the villages bordering the channel ; we saw 
 the Isles of the Sea of Marmora frowning before us ; and followed 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 193 
 
 the European coast for two days and nights with a contrary wind 
 from the north. The next morning we saw the Isles of Princes 
 at the extremity of the sea of Marmora, in the bay of Nicee, and 
 on our left the Castle of the Seven Towers, and the aerial pinna¬ 
 cles of the innumerable minarets of Stamboul, which present them¬ 
 selves in front of the seven hills of Constantinople. Every tack 
 brought us nearer to them and discovered new ones. This first 
 view of Constantinople produced upon me a painful impression of 
 surprise and of the dissolution of a pleasing spell. “ What!” 
 said I to myself, “ are these the seas, the shores, the wondrous 
 city for which the masters of the world abandoned Rome and the 
 coast of Naples ? This the metropolis of the universe, seated upon 
 Europe and upon Asia—for which all conquering nations al¬ 
 ternately contended, as a sign of the royalty of the world ! This 
 the town which painters and poets delineate as the Queen of 
 Cities hovering over her hills and her double sea, encompassed 
 with her gulfs, her towers, her mountains, and comprehending all 
 the treasures of nature, and of Oriental luxury! Is it to this that 
 the Bay of Naples is compared, with her vast ampitheatre and 
 resplendent city ; Vesuvius at her side, his golden summit lost 
 in clouds of smoke and purple ; the forests of Castelamare dip¬ 
 ping their dark foliage in an azure sea ; and the Isles of Procida and 
 Ischia, with their volcanic peaks, and their slopes yellow with 
 vines and whitened with villas, shutting in the ample bay like gi¬ 
 gantic moles thrown out by the Deity himself at the mouth of that 
 glorious haven ! I see nothing here to vie with that scene which 
 has made an indelible impression upon my eyes and upon my mind. 
 I am sailing, indeed, upon a smooth and beautiful sea, but its 
 shores are flat, or rising in monotnoous and rounded hills ; the 
 snows of Olympus and Thrace are embraced in the horizon, but 
 forming only a white cloud in the sky, are too distant to impart sub¬ 
 limity to the landscape. The prospect at the farther end of the 
 gulf offers only similar rounded hills of the same level, without 
 rocks, ravine, or hollows ; and Constantinople, to which the pilot 
 pointed with his finger, is itself no more than a circumscribed 
 white city built on a hillock of the European coast. Was it 
 worth while to come so far in search of disappointment ? I would 
 look no longer.—Meanwhile the endless tackings of the vessel 
 brought us sensibly nearer; we skirted the Castle of the Seven 
 Towers—a prodigious mass of building in the severe and frown¬ 
 ing style of the middle ages, which flanks towards the sea the 
 angle of the Greek walls of ancient Byzantium. We anchored 
 
194 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 under the houses of Stamboul in the sea of Marmora, amidst a 
 throng of ships and boats detained like ourselves outside the port 
 by the violence of the north wind. 
 
 It was five in the afternoon ; the sky was serene, and the sun 
 bright; I began to recover from my disdain of Constantinople ; 
 the inclosing walls of this part of the city, picturesquely built 
 with the ruins of ancient walls, and surmounted with gardens, 
 kiosks, and little red-painted wooden pavilions, formed the fore¬ 
 ground of the picture : above these rose terraces of houses with¬ 
 out number, stage above stage, in pyramids of steps, intercepted 
 by the heads of orange trees, and the dark arrowy points of cy¬ 
 presses;—in the distant perspective, seven or eight magnificent 
 mosques crowned the height; and, flanked by their lightly sculp¬ 
 tured minarets and Moorish colonnades, carried to the sky their 
 gilded domes, blazing with the reflection of the sun ; the walls of 
 these mosques, painted of a soft azure, and the lead coverings of 
 their cupolas, give them the appearance and transparent varnish 
 of porcelain monuments. Beside these domes appeared the mo¬ 
 tionless and sombre heads of numerous cypresses; while the 
 houses of the town, painted in various hues, made the vast hill 
 shine with all the colors of a flower garden. No noise arose 
 from the streets; no grating of the innumerable windows was heard; 
 no movement betrayed the habitation of so great a multitude ; all 
 appeared asleep under the scorching orb of day; the gulf alone, 
 tracked on every side by sails of all forms and dimensions, gave 
 signs of life. We saw vessels, in full sail, every moment clear¬ 
 ing the Golden Horn (the opening of the Bosphorus), the true 
 harbor of Constantinople, hastening past us, and flying towards 
 the Dardanelles, but we could not perceive the entrance of the 
 Bosphorus, nor even understand its situation. We dined oil deck 
 facing this magical spectacle ; Turkish caiques came to question 
 us, and to bring us provisions; the boatmen told us the plague 
 had almost disappeared. I forwarded my letters into the city; 
 at seven o’clock, M. Turqui, the Sardinian consul-general, accom¬ 
 panied by the officers of the Legation, came to pay us a visit, 
 and offered us hospitality in his house at Pera ; there was no 
 possibility of procuring a lodging in the city, which had recently 
 been devastated by fire ; and M. Turqui’s obliging cordiality, and 
 the attraction we found in his first address, induced us to accept 
 his invitation. The contrary wind still prevailed, and the brigs 
 could not weigh anchor that evening ; we therefore slept on board. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 1S5 
 
 20th May, 1833. 
 
 At five o’clock I was standing on the deck, when the captain 
 ordered a boat to be lowered. I descended with him, and we 
 made for the mouth of the Bosphorus, coasting the walls of Con¬ 
 stantinople, which are washed by the sea. After half an hour’s 
 navigation through innumerable vessels at anchor, we touched 
 at the walls of the seraglio, which continue those of the city, and 
 form, at the extremity of the hill on which Stamboul stands, the 
 angle separating the sea of Marmora from the channel of the 
 Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, or great interior harbor of Con¬ 
 stantinople. Here it is that God and man, nature and art, have 
 placed, or created in concert, the most extraordinary landscape 
 that human eyes can contemplate upon earth. I uttered an in¬ 
 voluntary exclamation, and obliterated for ever from the tablets 
 of my mind the Bay of Naples with all its enchantments. To 
 compare any thing with such a concentration of loveliness and 
 magnificence is to wrong creation. 
 
 A few paces distant on the left frowned the walls, supporting 
 the circular terraces that bound the spacious garden of the grand 
 seraglio, separated from the sea by a narrow flagged footway, 
 continually washed by the perpetual current of the Bosphorus, in 
 little blue rippling waves, like the waters of the Rhone at Geneva. 
 The terraces, which rise in insensible slopes to the sultan’s pa¬ 
 lace, whose gilded domes are discernible through the gigantic 
 heads of palm trees and cypresses, are themselves planted with 
 similar trees, whose huge trunks tower above the walls, while 
 their branches, scorning the boundaries of the gardens, overhang 
 the sea with thick canopies of foliage, and shadow the caiques. 
 Our rowers suspended their oars occasionally under their shade. 
 Here and there these groups of trees are broken by palaces, pa¬ 
 vilions, kiosks, gilt and sculptured gates opening upon the sea ; 
 or batteries of copper and bronze cannon, of antique and uncouth 
 forms. The grated windows of these maritime palaces overlook 
 the sea, and glimpses may now and then be caught of the lustres 
 and gilt ceilings of the apartments, sparkling through the Vene¬ 
 tian blinds ; while at every step elegant Moorish fountains, spring¬ 
 ing from the seraglio walls, fall murmuring from the height of 
 the gardens into marble conches, from which the passers-by may 
 quench their thirst. A few Turkish soldiers lie stretched at their 
 ease beside these fountains, while numbers of masterless dogs are 
 wandering along the quay, and some of them sleeping in the can¬ 
 nons’ mouths, which are of enormous calibre. As the boat ad- 
 
196 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 vancecl along these walls, the prospect expanded before us ; we 
 neared the Asiatic coast, and the eye began to trace the mouth of 
 the Bosphorus between a line of sombre hills and an opposite 
 range, which appeared to be painted in all the tints of the rain¬ 
 bow. Here we again rested : the smiling coast of Asia, only 
 about a mile distant, was sketched to our right, its broad and 
 high hills standing forward in relief, crowned with black forests 
 of sharp-pointed trees ; the champaign was fringed with trees, 
 and studded with red-painted houses—the perpendicular sides of 
 the ravines, tapestried with verdant plants and sycamores, whose 
 branches dipped in the stream. Farther off, the hills were still 
 loftier, then declined in green slopes till they formed a large 
 advanced cape, bearing on its brow the considerable town of 
 Scutari, with its white barracks, resembling a royal chateau—its 
 mosques, with their glittering minarets—its quays and its creeks, 
 bordered with houses, bazaars, and caiques, under the shade of 
 trellises or of palm trees ; and, in the back-ground, its dark and 
 gloomy forest of cypress trees, through the branches of which 
 glimmered with lugubrious splendor the innumerable white 
 monuments of the Turkish cemeteries. Beyond the point of 
 Scutari, terminated by an islet, called The Maiden’s Tomb , on 
 which is a Turkish chapel, the Bosphorus, like a pent-up river, 
 seems to escape between dark and rocky mountains, of which the 
 multiform angles, projected or inflexed, the ravines and forests 
 of one coast, appear to answer those of the other ; and at the foot 
 of which is discovered, in the distant perspective, an uninterrupt¬ 
 ed chain of villages, fleets at anchor or in sail, little ports shaded 
 with trees, scattered houses and spacious palaces, with their rose- 
 gardens abutting upon the sea. 
 
 A few minutes’ rowing carried us forward to that precise 
 point of the Golden Horn from whence the eye may revel, at one 
 view, over the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora, and the entire ha¬ 
 ven, or more properly, the interior Sea of Constantinople. There 
 we forgot Marmora, the Asiatic coast, and the Bosphorus, to give 
 our undivided and admiring contemplation to the Golden Horn, 
 and the seven towns suspended on the seven hills of Constantino¬ 
 ple, all converging towards the arm of the sea, which unites the 
 whole in one unique and incomparable city; at once city, coun¬ 
 try, seaport, river-banks, gardens, woody mountains, profound 
 valleys, throngs of houses, streets and masts, tranquil lakes and 
 enchanting solitudes ; a view of which no pencil can delineate 
 more than by detached fragments, and of which, at every stroke 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 197 
 
 of the oars, the eye and the soul imbibe an entirely new aspect 
 and impression. 
 
 We made sail for the hills of Galata and Pera : the seraglio 
 retired from us, and grew larger as it retired, in proportion as 
 the eye embraced a fuller scope of the vast outlines of its walls, 
 and the multitude of its slopes, trees, kiosks, and palaces. Its 
 site alone would suffice for the seat of a large town. The port 
 advanced, and gradually became more developed, winding, like a 
 canal, between the sides of hanging mountains. It has no ap¬ 
 pearance of a port; but resembles rather that of the Thames, or 
 any large river, enclosed by two hilly banks studded with towns, 
 and both shores choked with interminable fleets at anchor in front 
 of the line of houses. We sailed through that innumerable host 
 of ships, some at anchor, others making sail for the Bosphorus, 
 ihe Sea of Marmora, or the Black Sea, comprising vessels of every 
 form, of every size, and of all flags—from the Arab bark, with its 
 projecting and elevated prow, similar to the beak of the ancient 
 galleys, to the magnificent three-decker, with its shining bronze 
 walls. Hundreds of Turkish caiques, little boats which answer 
 the purpose of carriages upon the maritime streets of this amphibi¬ 
 ous city, guided by one or two rowers in silk sleeves, were thread¬ 
 ing their way between the more massy structures, crossing each 
 other’s paths, coming in contact without being capsized, and el¬ 
 bowing each other like a crowd in the public squares; while 
 clouds of albatross, like beautiful white pigeons, rose from the sea 
 at their approach, flying to a more distant station to cradle them¬ 
 selves upon the waves. I cannot attempt to reckon the vessels, 
 the frigates, brigs, sloops, and boats, which, moving or stationary, 
 cover the waters of the port of Constantinople, from the mouth of 
 the Bosphorus, and the point of the seraglio, to the suburbs of 
 Eyoub, and the delicious valleys of the sweet waters. The 
 Thames, in London, offers nothing comparable to their number. 
 Let it suffice to say, that independently of the Turkish fleet, and 
 European men-of-war, at anchor in the middle of the channel, 
 they are ranged along both shores of the Golden Horn, two or 
 three ships in depth on each side, and in lines about a league in 
 extent. We had but a slight glimpse of those prolonged files of 
 prows, looking over the sea to ihe end of die gulf, where, by the 
 contraction of its waters, the land seems to inclose r;n actual for¬ 
 est of masts. We landed at the foot of the town of Pera, not far 
 from a superb barrack of bombardiers, the covered terraces of 
 which were piled with ordnance-carriages and cannons. A beau¬ 
 tiful Moorish fountain, constructed in the form of an Indian pago- 
 
198 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 
 da, of marble, painted in brilliant colors, and carved in relief, like 
 lace upon a basis of silk, poured its waters over a small quadran¬ 
 gle crowded with cannon-balls, articles of merchandise, norses, 
 dogs without masters, and Turks seated on the ground, smoking 
 in the shade. The rowers of the caiques were seated in great 
 numbers on the banks of the quay waiting for their masters, or 
 soliciting passengers : they are a handsome race of men, whose fine 
 figures are well set off by their becoming costume. They wear white 
 trowsers, in plaits as large as those of a petticoat, and fastened round 
 the waist by a sash of crimson silk ; a small Greek cap of red wors¬ 
 ted, finished at top by a long silk tassel, which hangs down behind the 
 head ; and a loose shirt of raw silk, with large hanging sleeves, 
 which covers their shoulders and arms, leaving the neck and 
 breast bare. Their caiques are narrow canoes, twenty or thirty 
 feet long by two or three wide, of walnut wood, polished and 
 shining as mahogony : the prow is as pointed as the head of a lance, 
 and cuts the sea like a knife. The narrow shape of these caiques 
 renders them hazardous to Franks who are unaccustomed to them ; 
 the impression of an unskillful foot easily overbalances and upsets 
 them ; to avoid which danger it is necessary to lie down in the 
 Turkish fashion at the bottom of the caiques, and to be careful 
 that the weight of the body is eqally divided between the two 
 sides of the boat. They vary in size, so as to contain from one 
 to four, or even eight passengers, but all are of the same propor¬ 
 tions. They may be counted by thousands in the ports of Con¬ 
 stantinople; and independently of those which, like hackney- 
 coaches, are at the service of the public at all hours, every in¬ 
 dividual of the city, who is in easy circumstances, keeps one for 
 his own use, the rowers of which are his domestics ; every man 
 whose business calls him to various parts of the city being obliged 
 to cross the sea several times in the course of the day. 
 
 Leaving this small square, we entered the dirty and populous 
 streets of a bazaar in Pera ; which, with the exception of cos¬ 
 tume, presents nearly the same appearance as the markets of our 
 towns; wooden stalls, displaying confectionery and viands ; bar¬ 
 bers’ shops, venders of tobacco, of vegetables, and fruit; a throng¬ 
 ing and active crowd in the streets ; all the costumes, and all the 
 tongues of the East striking the eye and the ear; and, above all, 
 the barking of the numerous dogs who fill the squares and bazaars, 
 and contend for the remnants thrown out at the gates. From 
 thence we entered a long solitary and narrow street, which rises 
 in a steep slope over the hill of Pera ; the grated windows leave 
 nothing visible of the interior of the Turkish houses, which appear 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 199 
 
 poor and deserted ; here and there the green arrowy head of cy¬ 
 press towers high in the air above an inclosure of gray walls, its 
 immovable branches in relief against a transparent sky. White 
 and blue doves are dispersed on the windows and roofs of the 
 houses, and fill the silent streets with their melancholy cooings. 
 At the head of these streets extends the boasted quarter of Pera, 
 inhabited by Europeans, and by the ambassadors and consuls : a 
 quarter in all respects similar to a poor little town of our pro¬ 
 vinces. A few noble palaces of the embassies once crowned the 
 sloping terraces of Galata : they now present only blackened pan- 
 nels of walls, columns prostrated on the earth, gardens torn up 
 and destroyed ; the flame of the conflagration has devoured every 
 thing. Pera possesses neither character, originality, nor beauty ; 
 from its streets neither the sea, nor the hills, nor the gardens of 
 Constantinople can be descried ; to enjoy the magnificent view 
 with which nature and art have conspired to endow it, we must 
 mount to the roofs of its houses. 
 
 M. Turqui received us with paternal kindness: his house is 
 capacious, elegant, and admirably situated ; he placed it entirely 
 at our disposal. The richest furniture, the most luxurious viands 
 of Europe, the most affectionate attentions of friendship, the most 
 courteous and agreeable society in his own person, and those of all 
 around him, were substituted for our entertainment for the carpet 
 or mat of the desert, the coarse fare of the Arabs, the severities 
 and hardships of a nautical life. Scarcely was I installed in his 
 house, when 1 received a letter from Admiral Roussin, the French 
 ambassador at Constantinople, kindly inviting me to be his guest 
 at Thsrapia. Such gratifying tokens of interest and courtesy, 
 received from unknown compatriots, a thousand leagues from 
 home, in isolation and misfortune, stamp their traces deeply and 
 indelibly on the memory of the traveler. 
 
 21st, 22d, and 23d May, 1833. 
 
 Unlading of the two brigs.—Repose, visits received from the 
 principal merchants of Pera.—Days passed in the delightful pri¬ 
 vacy of M. Turqui and his intimate friends.—Rides in Constanti¬ 
 nople.—General inspection of the town.—Visit to the ambassador 
 at Therapia. 
 
 23d May, 1833. 
 
 <&Vhen, on suddenly quitting the changeable, stormy scene of 
 the sea, the obscure and moving cabin of a brig, and wearying 
 roll of the waves, the foot feels itself firmly planted on a friendly 
 
200 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 land, and we are surrounded by men, books, and all the amenitie 
 of social life ; when we see woods stretched before us, compan 
 ions at our side, a whole terrestrial existence to be resumed afte 
 long disuse, these enjoyments fill us with an instinctive and en 
 tirely physical pleasure, of which we cannot become weary. An} 
 land, even the most savage, the most distant from our own country 
 is a recovered home. Twenty times have I experienced this, or 
 landing even for a few hours on an unknown and desert coast: a 
 rock which defends you from the wind, a shrub which affords 
 shelter from the sun or weather, a ray of the sun warming the 
 sand on which you are seated, lizards running about amongst the 
 stones, insects plying their wings around you, a startled bird 
 which approaches and then flies away with a cry of alarm ; all 
 these, trifles indifferent to the inhabitants of the earth, are a whole 
 world to the wearied navigator released from the waters.—But 
 there is the brig, swaying in the bay upon a surgy sea, and it 
 must presently be boarded again. The sailors, mounted on the 
 yards, are employed in drying or mending the rent sails; the boat 
 riding over boiling breakers, and disappearing in the ravines that 
 follow their wake, is passing and re-passing incessantly, between 
 the ship and the shore; landing provisions, or carrying out sup¬ 
 plies of fresh water to the vessel; her cabin-boys are washing 
 their shirts of painted cloth, and suspending them to dry on the 
 mastick trees, which line the shore ; the captain is studying the 
 face of the sky, and watching the wind which is on the point of 
 veering, that he may recall by the firing of a gun, the loitering 
 passengers to their life of misery, of darkness, and of motion. 
 Anxious as we may be for the end of our voyage, all offer up 
 their secret wishes that the wind may not so speedily prove favor¬ 
 able, that necessity may leave us at least another day’s enjoyment 
 of that inward luxury which attaches man to land. We contract 
 a friendship for the coast, for the little selvedge of turf or shrubs, 
 which stretches between the sea and the rocks: for the fountain 
 that steals almost unperceived from the roots of an old green oak, 
 for the lichens, and the little wild flowers, which tremble perpetu¬ 
 ally to the wind between the crevices of the rocks ; and which we 
 shall never see again. When the cannon of recall sounds from 
 the ship, when the signal flag is hoisted at her mast-head, and the 
 boat is dispatched to fetch one, we might be tempted to weep with 
 regret at leaving a nameless corner of the world, our only con¬ 
 nection with which has perhaps been, that we have reposed upon 
 it for a few hours. Often have I experienced this innate love of 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 201 
 
 nan or of shelter, on any shore, however solitary, unknown, or a 
 jlesert. 
 
 But here two contrary emotions are struggling for mastery, 
 ne sweet, the other painful. First, the pleasure I have just de¬ 
 noted, of having firm and stable footing, a bed which does not 
 ■ject one, a floor which does not continually throw one like a shut- 
 lecock from wall to wall, a free way before one’s steps, large 
 vindows open or shut at one’s pleasure, and without fear of being 
 Irowned in surf; the delight of hearing the wind play among the 
 curtains without making the house reel, and producing the deafen- 
 ng combination of sounds from the blustering sails, the quivering 
 nasts, and the heavy footsteps of the crew running to and fro 
 jpon the deck. Much more, the agreeable communications with 
 Europe, with travelers, merchants, journals, hooks, every thing 
 vhich restores man to a community of idea and of life with man ; 
 hat participation in the general progress of events and of thoughts, 
 )f which we have been so long deprived. And still above all this, 
 he cordial, attentive, delightful hospitality—I will say more—the 
 riendship of our excellent host, M. Turqui, who seems to feel as 
 ich happiness in lavishing his cares upon us, and procuring us 
 every convenience and every consolation in his power, as we de- 
 'ive from receiving them ! The memory of this excellent, this 
 rare man—for in my long life of travels, I have not met another 
 ike him—will be dear to me, as long as any remembrance of these 
 /ears of pilgrimage shall abide with me, and my thoughts will for 
 wer follow him on those coasts of Asia or of Africa, where his 
 ortune may condemn him to end his days. 
 
 Same date. 
 
 But when we have enjoyed these earliest pleasures of a return 
 o land, we are frequently tempted to regret the uncertainty and per¬ 
 petual agitations of a life on ship-board. There, at any rate, we 
 lave not leisure to reflect deeply upon our own condition, or to probe 
 he abyss of sorrow which death may have opened in our hearts ! 
 jrief may be always there, but it is constantly relieved by some 
 hought which tends to remove its oppressive weight; the noise 
 and motion by which we are surrounded ; the ever-varying aspect 
 )f the ship’s deck and of the sea ; the swelling or moderating of 
 he waves ; the change, increase, or abatement of the wind ; the 
 setting and re-setting of the sails twenty times in the day ; the 
 watching of manoeuvres to which, in heavy weather, it is neces¬ 
 sary to give assistance ; the thousand accidents of a tempestuous 
 day or night; the rustling of the agitated sails ; the rolling and 
 
202 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 breakage of the furniture in the mid-deck ; the heavy and irregu¬ 
 lar strokes of the waves against the fragile sides of the cabin in 
 which we attempt to sleep ; the quickened steps of the men on 
 watch over our heads; the plaintive cry of the poultry, drowned 
 by the spray in their cages fastened to the foot of the mast; the 
 crowing of the cocks at the first dawn of day, after a night of 
 darkness and squalls ; the whistling of the log-cord, thrown out 
 to measure the way; the strange, uncouth, savage, or pleasing 
 aspect of a coast, which was not suspected on the preceding night, 
 but which at dawn of day we find ourselves approaching ; esti¬ 
 mating the height of its mountains, as they shine like heaps of 
 snow among groups of firs:—all this is of more or less conse¬ 
 quence to the mind, relieves the heart a little, allows grief to eva¬ 
 porate, and suppresses sorrow so long as the voyage lasts; but ail 
 this affliction falls back with increased weight upon the mind, 
 when after reaching the shore, sleep in a tranquil bed has restored 
 the intensity of our feelings. The heart, no longer distracted 
 from without, has time to review its mutilated affections, its despair¬ 
 ing thoughts, its lost futurity ! We are unable to conceive how a 
 return to one’s -former life, that monotonous and empty life of 
 towns and of society, is to be endured. This is what I experience 
 to the extent of wishing for an eternal voyage with all its chances, 
 and even its most unpleasant distractions. Alas ! this is what I 
 read in the eyes of my wife, still more than in my own heart. 
 The suffering of a man is not to be compared to that of a woman 
 ■—a mother—a single thought, a single affection is life or death to 
 a woman ; life with her is a thing in possession, death is a thing 
 lost; man lives through all things, good or evil ; God does not kill 
 him with a single blow. 
 
 May 24th, 1833. 
 
 I am surrounded by journals and pamphlets, recently arrived 
 from Europe, and with which the kindness of the French and 
 Austrian ambassadors has liberally furnished me. After having 
 read all day, I am confirmed in the opinions which I brought 
 with me from Europe. I see that events march entirely accord¬ 
 ing to the political programme which historical and philosophi¬ 
 cal analogy have assigned to the course of things in this glorious 
 age. Agitated France calms herself; Europe, restless, but fear¬ 
 ful, looks on with jealousy and hatred, but dares not interfere ; 
 she feels instinctively, and this instinct is prophetic, that in the act 
 of moving she would probably lose her equilibrium. I never ima¬ 
 gined that war would result from the Revolution of July ; France 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 203 
 
 
 r 
 
 must have surrendered to insane counsels to have become the ag¬ 
 gressor; and France not aggressing, Europe could not wilfully 
 throw herself into the midst of a revolutionary furnace, in which 
 she must have been consumed in her efforts to extinguish the fire. 
 The government of July well deserves the thanks of France and 
 of Europe, for the single act of having, after the three days, re¬ 
 strained the blind and impatient ardor of the warlike spirit in 
 France. 
 
 War would have proved equally fatal to both parties. We 
 had no armies, no public spirit, for without unanimity there is 
 none. Foreign war would immediately have entailed civil war 
 in the south and west of France, persecution and spoliation 
 throughout. No government could have been maintained in 
 Paris under a revolutionary burst from the centre; whilst the 
 fragments of armies hastily raised by an unguided and unre¬ 
 strained patriotism would have been swallowed up on our eastern 
 frontiers ; the south as far as Lvons would have hoisted the white 
 flag, the west to the Loire have re-established the Yendean gue¬ 
 rillas; the manufacturing populations of Lyons, Rouen, Paris, 
 exasperated by the misery in which the cessation of labor had 
 plunged them, would have rushed to the centre, and poured in 
 undisciplined masses upon Paris and the frontier, choosing for 
 themselves inexperienced commanders, and imposing their capri¬ 
 ces upon them for plans of the campaign. Property, commerce, 
 industry and credit would all have been lost together, and it would 
 have been necessary to use violence in order to raise loans or 
 taxes. Gold concealed, and credit dead, despair would have led 
 to resistance, and resistance to plunder, murder, and popular 
 vengeance ; once involved in the path of blood, there would have 
 been no escape from it, but through anarchy, despotism, or dis¬ 
 memberment. But all this would have become still more com¬ 
 plicated from the unexpected and spontaneous rising of other parts 
 of Europe. Spain, Italy, Poland, the Banks of the Rhine, 
 Belgium, would all have taken fire together, or one after ano¬ 
 ther; the whole of Europe would have been involved in an al¬ 
 ternation of insurrections and oppressions, by which the state of 
 affairs would have been perpetually changing ; and we should 
 have entered ill-prepared upon another thirty years’ war. The 
 genius of civilization, however, would not permit it, .and all has 
 been ordered for the best. We shall not now enter the field with¬ 
 out being prepared for the combat, without knowing our strength, 
 being numbered, passed in review, and ranged in order of battle ; 
 
 
 I 
 
204 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 the struggle will be regularly conducted, and the result will be 
 evident and certain. 
 
 Events are best understood from a distance, because from 
 thence the details do not attract the eye, but the objects present 
 themselves in their most important points of view. It was for this 
 reason that the prophets and oracles of old lived in solitude and 
 abstracted from the world ; they were sages, who studied things 
 in the aggregate, and whose judgment was not disturbed by the 
 petty emotions of the passing hour. It is necessary for a politi¬ 
 cian frequently to withdraw himself from the theatre on which 
 the drama of his times is performing, if he wishes to form a cor¬ 
 rect judgment upon it, and to foresee its issue. To predict is 
 impossible, foreknowledge being the attribute of God alone ; but 
 to foresee is possible, for foresight appertains to man. 
 
 I frequently ask myself what wiil be the conclusion of this 
 great excitement in spirit and in action, which, commencing in 
 France, impels the world, and draws every thing, willingly or 
 otherwise, within its vortex. I am not one of those who see in 
 this impulsion only the impulse itself—that is to say, its tumult 
 and confusion of ideas ; who believe the moral and political 
 world to be in those final convulsions which precede death and 
 decomposition. This is evidently a double movement of decom¬ 
 position and organization, at the same time ; the spirit of renova¬ 
 tion keeps equal pace with the spirit of destruction ; one faith re¬ 
 places another ; one faith supersedes another ; wherever the past 
 succumbs, the future stands prepared to rise upon its ruins ; the 
 transition is slow and harsh, as all transitions must be, in the pro¬ 
 gress of which the passions and the interests of men come into 
 collision ; either the social classes, or the various countries, pro¬ 
 gress by unequal steps ; or some obstinately recede whilst the 
 majority advance. Confusion, mist, ruin, and obscurity prevail 
 for the moment; hut from time to time the wind disperses the 
 cloud of dust which conceals both the means and the end ; and 
 those who from an eminence can distinguish the march of events, 
 recognize the promise of futurity, and perceive the earliest dawn¬ 
 ing of a day which is to enlighten a vast horizon. I hear it in¬ 
 cessantly said, even here, that “ Men have no longer any creduli¬ 
 ty; each one surrenders himself to his individual judgment'; 
 there is no longer a common faith in any thing ; neither in religion 
 politics, nor sociality. A common faith is the secret spring of 
 nations; this spring broken all is disordered ; there is but one 
 means of saving the people,—it is to restore to them their credu- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 205 
 
 lity.” Restore their credulity? Resuscitate popular dogmas 
 which the conscience of the people has rejected ? Do over again 
 what time has undone ?—This is the language of insanity ! It 
 would be an attempt to struggle against nature and the course of 
 things, to march in direct opposition to Providence, and the acts 
 by which its steps are traced. In order to obtain any end, we 
 must proceed by the path into which God conducts events and 
 ideas ; the tide of time never rolls back; we may guide our¬ 
 selves, and rule the world upon its invincible current, but we can 
 neither arrest it, nor alter its onward course.. 
 
 But is it true that man no longer possesses either light or in¬ 
 telligence—that no common faith still exists in the popular mind 
 —that no inwardly recognized law governs the conscience of hu¬ 
 man nature ? This is an assertion which has been received with¬ 
 out being sounded, and is not founded in fact. If the world had 
 no longer either faith or opinions in common, it would not be so 
 much agitated ; of nothing, nothing comes, mens agitat molem . 
 There is, on the contrary, a strong conviction, a fanatical faith, a 
 confused and indefinite hope, an ardent love, a common but not 
 yet well-digested object, which pushes, presses, moves, attracts, 
 condenses ; which makes all the talents, all the consciences, all the 
 moral strength of this epoch gravitate towards a common centre. 
 These revolutions, these shocks, these downfalls of empire, these 
 gigantic and repeated movements of all the members of ancient 
 Europe, with their echoes in America and Asia, this unreflecting 
 and irresistible impulse, which, in despite of individual will, im¬ 
 presses so much agitation and unanimity upon the collected 
 strength of nations ; all this is not an effect without a cause ; it 
 all has an origin, profound and secret, it is true, but an origin 
 evident to the eye of philosophy. This origin is precisely what 
 you complain of having lost, what you deny to exist in the pres¬ 
 ent state of the world ; it is a common idea, a conviction, a social 
 law ; it is a truth which having involuntarily entered into all 
 minds, and having even unconsciously to itself taken possession 
 of the popular mind, labors to produce itself in action with the 
 force of a divine truth, that is to say, with invincible power. 
 Universal reason is this faith; speech is its organ; the press is 
 its apostle; it spreads itself over the world with the infallibility 
 and enthusiasm of a new religion; it wishes to remodel, after its 
 own image, religion, civilization, society, legislation ; all imper¬ 
 fect, or degenerated by the errors and ignorance of the dark 
 ages they have passed through :—-it would impose on religion, for 
 vol. ii. 10 
 
206 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 doctrine, the unity and perfection of the Godhead—for a motto, 
 perpetual morality—for worship, adoration and charity; on poli¬ 
 tics, human nature as superior to the distinctions of country ; on 
 legislation, the equality and fraternity of man; on society, a re¬ 
 ciprocal exchange of services and duties regulated and guaran¬ 
 teed by the law—Christianity legalized ! 
 
 Universal reason wills that it should be so, and it effects it. 
 Will you say then that no common faith, no common object, ac¬ 
 tuates the men of the present time ? Since the infancy of Chris¬ 
 tianity, the world has never seen the accomplishment of so great 
 a work by such feeble means. The Cross, and the Press, these 
 are the instruments of the two greatest attempts ever made to¬ 
 wards civilizing the world. 
 
 May 25th. 
 
 This evening, in a splendid moonlight spreading over the sea 
 of Marmora, and even to the violet colored lines of the snow¬ 
 capped Olympus, I seated myself alone beneath the cypresses of 
 the Death Quay. These cypresses, which shade the numberless 
 tombs of the Mussulmans and descend from the heights of Pera 
 to the sea-shore, are intersected with several paths leading from 
 the port of Constantinople to the mosque of the Dancing Dervish¬ 
 es. At that hour no one was traversing these paths, and I might 
 have imagined myself at a hundred leagues distant from any 
 great city, but that the thousand sounds of evening wafted by the 
 breeze played for a moment and were then lost among the trem¬ 
 bling branches of the cypress trees. These sounds were the 
 songs of the sailors on board the vessels, the splashing of the 
 oars of the caiques in the water, the wild music of the Bulgari¬ 
 ans, the drums in the barracks and arsenals, the voices of women 
 singing within their grated windows to lull their children to rest, 
 and the buzz of the populous streets and bazaars of Galata. 
 From time to time the cry of the muetzlins from the tops of the 
 minarets, or the evening gun fired by the fleet lying at anchor 
 at the entrance of the Bosphorus, were re-echoed by the sonorous 
 mosques and the hills, and then died away in the basin of the 
 Golden Horn, or among the peaceful willows overhanging the 
 fresh waters of Europe. All these various sounds were at in¬ 
 tervals blended together in one dead and confused hum;—an 
 harmonious music, in which human sounds, the stifled respira¬ 
 tion of a great sleeping city, were mingled with the sounds of 
 nature, the distant roar of the waves, and the murmur of the 
 breeze which bowed down the pointed tops of the cypresses. This 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 207 
 
 is one of the grandest and most powerful impressions that a po¬ 
 etic imagination can receive : it partakes of man and God, of na¬ 
 ture and society, agitation and repose. It is difficult to say 
 whether the mind most participates in the great movement of 
 animated beings whose varied feelings are expressed in the tu¬ 
 mult of upraised voices; or in the nocturnal peace of the ele¬ 
 ments, which elevates the soul above cities and empires, in the 
 sympathy of nature and God. 
 
 The Seraglio, a vast peninsula black with plantain and cy¬ 
 press trees, advanced like a cape of forests between the two seas 
 which lay beneath my eyes. The moon shed her silver light over 
 the numerous kiosks, and the old walls of the palace of Amurath 
 stood out like a rock amidst the dark green of the plantain trees. 
 I had before my eyes and in my mind the scenes in which had 
 been acted many tragic and glorious dramas of ages past. All 
 these dramas now passed in imagination before me, with their 
 actors and their traces of blood or glory. 
 
 I saw a horde issue from the Caucasus impelled by that in¬ 
 stinct of peregrination with which God has imbued conquering 
 nations, who may be compared to bees sallying from the trunk 
 of a tree to scatter forth new swarms. The tall patriarchal figure 
 of Othman, in the midst of his tents and his flocks, dispersing 
 his people through Asia Minor, successively advancing to Brussa, 
 expiring in the arms of his sons, who had become his lieuten¬ 
 ants, seemed to say to Orchan : “ I die without regret, since I 
 leave a successor such as }mu. Go and propagate the divine 
 law, the thought of God, who has come to seek us from Mecca 
 to the Caucasus. Be like that law, charitable and clement: thus 
 do princes draw down upon their subjects the benediction of 
 Heaven ! Do not leave my body in this land, which is to us 
 only as a path, but deposit my mortal remains in Constantinople, 
 in the place which I assign to myself in dying. 55 
 
 Some years later, Orchan, the son of Othman, was encamped 
 at Scutari, on those same hills which now cast their black 
 shadows on the cypress woods. The Greek Emperor Cantacu- 
 zene, impelled by necessity, gave him his beautiful daughter, 
 Theodora, to be the fifth wife of his Seraglio. Amidst the sound of 
 music, the young princess crossed that arm of the sea on which I 
 now behold Russian vessels floating; and the victim vainly 
 sacrificed herself to prolong, for a few days, the existence of the 
 empire. Soon the sons of Orchan approached the shore, with a 
 party of brave followers ; in one night they constructed three 
 
208 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 rafts supported by bladders filled with air, and favored by dark¬ 
 ness they crossed the strait. The Greek sentinels were sleeping. 
 A young peasant, going to work, at break of day, met the 
 Ottomans, showed them the entrance of a cavern leading to the 
 interior of the castle, and the Turks possessed a fortress in 
 Europe. 
 
 In the fourth reign after this, Mahomet II. thus answered the 
 Greek ambassadors:—“ I form no enterprise against you ; the 
 empire of Constantinople is bounded by its walls.”—But Constan¬ 
 tinople thus bounded prevented the sultan from sleeping. He sent 
 for his vizier and said :—“ I must have Constantinople. I cannot 
 sleep on this pillow. God is willing to give me the Romans.” 
 In his brutal impatience, he dashed with his horse into the 
 waves of the sea, and was nearly drowned. On the day of the 
 last assault, he said to his soldiers :—“ I reserve to myself only 
 the city ; the gold and the women are yours; and I give the 
 government of my largest province to him who shall first ascend 
 the ramparts.” That night both land and sea were illumined by 
 numberless fires : the morning which was to consign to the Otto¬ 
 mans their prey seemed to approach tardily. 
 
 Meanwhile, beneath the sombre cupola of St. Sophia, the 
 brave and unfortunate Constantine repaired, on the last night of 
 his life, to pray to the God of the empire. At sunrise he mounted 
 his horse, and amidst the cries and lamentations of his family, he 
 departed to die a heroic death in the breach of his capital. This 
 was on the 29th of May, 1453. 
 
 Some few hours afterwards, the doors of St. Sophia were shat¬ 
 tered by the axes of the assailants. Old men, women, young 
 girls, monks, and nuns had thronged to the sacred edifice, whose 
 porch, galleries, vaults, domes, and platforms were sufficient to 
 contain the population of the whole city. A last cry was raised 
 to heaven, like the voice of expiring Christianity. In a few 
 moments, sixty thousand old men, women, and children, without 
 distinction of rank, age, or sex, were bound two by two ; the men 
 with cords ; and the women with their veils or girdles. These 
 slaves were driven on board the vessels, carried to the Ottoman 
 camp, insulted, exchanged, and sold, like cattle. Never were 
 such lamentations heard on the two shores of Europe and Asia : 
 wives were separated for ever from their husbands, and children 
 from their parents. The Turks drove by different roads their 
 living booty from Constantinople to the interior of Asia. The city 
 was sacked for the space of eight hours, and then Mahomet II. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 209 
 
 entered by the St. Roman gate, attended by his viziers, his 
 pachas, and his guards. He alighted at the portico of St. Sophia, 
 and struck with his yatagan a soldier who was breaking the 
 altar. He desired that nothing should be destroyed. He trans¬ 
 formed the church into a mosque ; and a muetzlin mounted for 
 the first time that tower, whence I now hear him summon the 
 Mussulmans to prayer, and to glorify, under another form, the 
 same God who was worshiped there the day before. From 
 thence Mahomet II. proceeded to the palace deserted by the 
 Greek emperors, and as he entered he repeated this Persian 
 verse :— 
 
 “ The spider weaves her web in the palace of the emperors, 
 and the owl sings her night-song on the towers of Erasiab.” 
 
 That day the body of Constantine was found beneath the 
 heaps of dead. Some Janissaries had heard a Greek, magnifi¬ 
 cently attired, and struggling in the agonies of death, exclaim : 
 “ Is there no Christian who will end my life V } They severed 
 his head from his body. Two eagles embroidered in gold on his 
 boots, and the tears of a few faithful Greeks, left no doubt that 
 the unknown soldier was the brave and unfortunate Constantine. 
 His head was publicly exposed, to prevent his vanquished coun¬ 
 trymen from cherishing any doubt of his death, or any hope of 
 seeing him re-appear. He was then interred, with the honors due 
 to sovereignty, heroism, and death. 
 
 Mahomet did not abuse his victory. The religious toleration 
 of the Turks displayed itself in his first acts. He suffered the 
 Christians to retain their churches and to enjoy the freedom of 
 public worship. He maintained the Greek Patriarch in his 
 functions. Seated on his throne, he himself restored the crosier 
 and the pastoral staff to the monk Gennadius, and presented him 
 with a horse richly caparisoned. The fugitive Greeks took refuge 
 in Italy, and carried thither their taste for theological discussion, 
 philosophy, and literature. The torch which had been extin¬ 
 guished at Constantinople was rekindled in Florence and Rome. 
 During thirty years of a reign which was one uninterrupted suc¬ 
 cession of conquests, Mahomet II. added two hundred towns and 
 twelve kingdoms to the empire. Pie died in the midst of his 
 triumphs, and received the surname of Mahomet the Great. The 
 personal appearance of this prince is thus described :—the com¬ 
 plexion of a Tartar, a smooth countenance, sunken eyes, with a 
 profound and penetrating expression. He was always ready 
 to exercise all the virtues and all the crimes which policy sug¬ 
 gested. 
 
210 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Bajazet I., the Louis XI. of the Ottomans, cast his sons into 
 the sea, and he himself, driven from the throne by Selim, fled 
 with his wives and his treasures, and at length died of poison 
 prepared by one of his sons. Selim, when asked where his tents 
 were to be pitched, ordered that the vizier who asked the question 
 should be strangled. The vizier’s successor asked the same ques¬ 
 tion and experienced the same fate. A third, without making 
 any inquiry, pitched the tents towards the four cardinal points, 
 and when Selim asked where his camp was, the vizier replied : 
 “ Every where; your soldiers will follow you to whatsoever side 
 you may turn your arms.” “ Good,” said the awful Sultan; 
 “this is the way I like to be served.” Selim conquered Egypt, 
 and having mounted a magnificent throne, erected on the banks 
 of the Nile, he ordered the whole race of the oppressors of that 
 fine country to be conducted to his presence. Twenty thousand 
 Mamelukes were then massacred before his eyes, and their bodies 
 were cast into the river. This barbarity was dictated, not by 
 any cruelty of disposition, but by that idea of fatality which 
 makes a man place faith in his mission, and to fulfill the will of 
 God, of whom he thinks himself the instrument, regards the 
 world as his conquest, and mankind as dust beneath his feet. 
 That same hand, which was thus stained with the blood of so 
 many thousand men, wrote poetry full of resignation, mildness, 
 and philosophy. A piece of white marble is still preserved, on 
 which he wrote these sentences : “ Every thing comes from God. 
 What we pray for, he gives or withholds from us as he pleases. 
 If any earthly being could do any thing of himself, he would be 
 equal to God.” Lower down are these words: “Selim, the ser¬ 
 vant of the poor, composed and wrote these verses.” He con¬ 
 quered Persia, and died while directing his vizier to make pious 
 restitutions to those Persian families who had been ruined by the 
 war. His tomb stands next to that of Mahomet II. with this 
 arrogant epitaph: “On this day Sultan Selim passed to the eter¬ 
 nal kingdom, leaving the empire of the world to Soliman.” 
 
 I perceive from hence, glittering among the domes of the 
 mosques, the resplendent cupola of the mosque of Soliman, one 
 of the most magnificent in Constantinople. This mosque recalls a 
 touching testimonial of the grief of Soliman for the death of his 
 eldest son Mahomet, whose mother was the celebrated Roxelana. 
 To honor the memory of his son, the prince released a number 
 of slaves of both sexes, and thus associated their sympathy with 
 his grief. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 211 
 
 
 Soon after, the environs of this same mosque became the 
 scene of a terrible drama. Soliman, being excited by Roxelana 
 against Mustapha, one of his sons by another wife, sent for the 
 Mufti, and thus addressed him: “ What punishment does Zair 
 merit ? He is the slave of a merchant in this city, who, going 
 on a journey, confided to him the care of his wife, his children, 
 and his treasures. Zair deranged the affairs of his master, at¬ 
 tempted to seduce his wife, and laid snares for his children. What 
 punishment then does the slave Zair deserve?” “The slave 
 Zair deserves death,” wrote the Mufti. “God is greatest!” 
 
 Armed with his answer, Soliman summoned Mustapha to his 
 camp. He arrived, accompanied by Zeangir, a son of Roxelana, 
 who, however, far from sharing his mother’s hatred of Mustapha, 
 cherished the tenderest affection for his brother. On presenting 
 himself before Soliman’s tent, Mustapha was disarmed. He ad¬ 
 vanced alone within the first line, where solitude and silence pre¬ 
 vailed. Four mutes rushed upon the young prince, and endeav¬ 
 ored to strangle him. He overthrew them, and was ready to 
 escape and to call to his aid the troops, by whom he was adored, 
 when Soliman himself, who was on the watch, raised the curtain 
 of his tent and darted on the mutes a look of fury. The mutes 
 then recovered themselves, rose, and succeeded in strangling the 
 prince. His body was exposed on a carpet before the Sultan’s 
 tent. Zeangir died of despair on his brother’s body, and the 
 troops beheld with horror the implacable vengeance of a woman, 
 to whose will the unfortunate Soliman was perfectly enslaved * 
 Mustapha had a son ten years of age, and Roxelana prevailed on 
 the Sultan to grant an order for his death. A secret envoy was 
 despatched to elude the vigilance of the mother of the child. A 
 pretence was devised for conveying him to a country-house at a 
 little distance from Brussa. The young Sultan, on horseback, 
 preceded the litter of the princess his mother. The litter broke 
 down, and the prince set off to continue his journey, attended only 
 by the eunuch who was to execute the secret order for his death. 
 He had no sooner reached the house, than the eunuch stopped him 
 on the threshold of the door, and presented to him the bowstring, 
 saying: “ The Sultan commands that you shall instantly die !” 
 “ This order,” answered the boy, “ is to me as sacred as the man¬ 
 date of God,” and he presented his head to the executioner. When 
 the mother arrived, she found the palpitating body of her son ly¬ 
 ing at the threshold of the door. Soliman’s blind passion for 
 Roxelana filled the seraglio with more crimes than were ever wit¬ 
 nessed in the palace of Argos. 
 
212 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LANI>. 
 
 The Seven Towers remind me of the death of the first sultan^ 
 who was immolated by the Janissaries. Othman was allured by 
 them into the castle, and perished two days afterwards by the 
 hand of the vizier Daoud. Shortly after the vizier himself was 
 conducted to the Seven Towers. His turban was torn off his head, 
 he was made to drink at the same fountain where the unfortunate 
 Othman had slaked his thirst, and he -was strangled in the same 
 chamber in which he had strangled his master. An aga of the 
 Janissaries, one of whose men had struck Othman, was broken; 
 and until the time of the abolition of the corps, whenever an offi¬ 
 cer called the sixty-fifth aga, another officer made the following 
 answer : 
 
 “ May the voice of that aga perish !—may the voice of that aga 
 be annihilated for ever P J 
 
 The Janissaries, repenting of the murder of Othman, deposed 
 Mustapha, and bringing from the seraglio a young prince of twelve 
 years of age, they gave him the empire. Arrayed in a robe of 
 cloth of gold, with the imperial turban on his head, and seated on 
 a portable throne, the young emperor was carried on the shoulders 
 of four Janissary officers, and paraded through the city in the 
 midst of his people. This was Amurath I V., who was well wor¬ 
 thy of the throne to'which rebellion and repentance had prema¬ 
 turely raised him. 
 
 Here ended the glorious days of the Ottoman empire. The 
 law of Soliman, which ordained that the children of the sultans 
 should be kept captives in the seraglio, among the eunuchs and 
 women, enervated the blood of Othman, and left the empire a 
 prey to the intrigues of the eunuchs and the revolts of the Janis¬ 
 saries. At intervals a few bright characters have appeared; hut 
 they have been powerless, because they were early habituated to 
 check the free exercise of their wills. Whatever may be said in 
 Europe, it is certain that the empire is dead, and that even a hero 
 could only restore it to a semblance of life. 
 
 The Seraglio, abandoned by Mahmoud, is now nothing but a 
 brilliant tomb. Flow deeply interesting would its history be, if 
 the walls had tongues to tell it! 
 
 One of the most amiable characters in the mysterious drama is 
 the unfortunate Selim. He was deposed and imprisoned in the 
 seraglio, because he would not shed the blood of his nephews, and 
 he became the tutor of the present sultan, Mahmoud. Selim was 
 a philosopher and a poet. The tutor had been a sovereign, and 
 the pupil was destined to become one. One day, during the cap- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 213 
 
 tivity of the two princes, Mahmoud, irritated at the negligence of 
 a slave, smote him in the face. “ Ah, Mahmoud,” said Selim, 
 “when you shall have passed through the furnace of the world, 
 you will not lose your temper thus. When you have suffered as 
 I have, you will know how to compassionate the sufferings of 
 others—even those of a slave.” 
 
 Selim’s fate was unfortunate to the last. Mustapha Baraictar, 
 one of his faithful pachas, armed in support of his cause, arrived 
 at Constantinople, and presented himself at the Seraglio gates. 
 Sultan Mustapha was at that moment voluptuously reposing in one 
 of his kiosks, on the Bosphorus. The Bostangis defended the 
 gates : Mustapha repaired to the Seraglio, and whilst Baraictar 
 was forcing the gates with his artillery, and demanding the libe¬ 
 ration of his master Selim, the hapless prince was pierced by the 
 poniards of the Kislar-Aga and his eunuchs. Sultan Mustapha 
 ordered that his body should be thrown out to Baraictar; and the 
 latter fell prostrate on the corse of Selim, and covered it with 
 kisses and tears. A search was made for Mahmoud, who was 
 concealed in the Seraglio: it was feared that Mustapha had shed 
 in him the last drop of the blood of Othman. At length he was 
 discovered, hid in some rolls of carpet, in an obscure corner of the 
 Seraglio. He thought his pursuers intended to kill him ; but 
 they placed him on the throne, and Baraictar prostrated himself 
 before him. The partisans of Mustapha were exposed on the 
 Avails, and his women were sewed up in leathern sacks, and cast 
 into the sea. In the course of a few days Constantinople was a 
 field of battle. The Janissaries revolted against Baraictar, and 
 demanded the restoration of Mustapha, whose life Mahmoud had 
 mercifully spared. The Seraglio was besieged ; one half of 
 Stamboul was devoured by flames. The friends of Mahmoud 
 strongly urged him to sacrifice his father Mustapha. The sen¬ 
 tence of death expired on his lips; he covered his head with a 
 shawl, and threw himself on a sofa: his silence was interpreted 
 as assent, and Mustapha was strangled. Mahmoud, now the 
 last and only descendant of Othman, became an inviolable and 
 sacred being to all parties. Baraictar perished in the flames 
 whilst fighting near the Seraglio, and the reign of Mahmoud 
 commenced. 
 
 The square of the Atmeidan, which, from the point where I 
 now stand, is marked in black behind the white walls of the Se¬ 
 raglio, was the scene of a great event in the reign of Mahmoud,— 
 the extinction of the race of the Janissaries. This measure, the 
 
 VOL. II. 10* 
 
214 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 only one that could revive the empire, has nevertheless produced 
 one of the most sanguinary and horrible scenes that the an¬ 
 nals of history recalls. It is still recorded in monumental charac¬ 
 ters in the ruins of the Atmeidan, and in traces of bullets and 
 fire. Mahmoud prepared it like a skillful politician, and executed 
 it like a hero. The last revolt was brought about by a mere 
 accident. 
 
 An Egyptian officer struck a Turkish soldier: the Janissaries 
 threw down their mess-pots. The sultan was informed of this, 
 and being prepared for the worst, he had assembled round him his 
 principal counselors in one of his gardens at Beschiktaseb, on the 
 Bosphorus. He repaired to the Seraglio, took the sacred standard 
 of the Prophet, round which the Mufti and the Ulemas rallied, and 
 pronounced the abolition of the Janissaries. The regular troops 
 and faithful Mussulmans flew to arms, and assembled at the voice 
 of the sultan. He himself advanced on horseback at the head of 
 the troops of the Seraglio. The Janissaries, who were collected 
 on the Atmeidan, respected their sovereign, who several times 
 rode through the mutinous assemblage unguarded, but animated 
 by that supernatural courage which a decisive resolution inspires. 
 That day was to be the last of his life, or the first of his emanci¬ 
 pation and his power. The Janissaries, deaf to his voice, refused 
 to submit to their agas. They gathered from all points of the 
 capital, to the number of forty thousand. The faithful troops of 
 the sultan, the gunners, and the bostangis, occupied the outlets of 
 the streets adjoining the Hippodrome. 
 
 The sultan ordered the fire to commence; the gunners hesi¬ 
 tated, when a resolute officer, named Kara-Djeheunem, advanced 
 to one of the cannons, snapped his pistol into the touch-hole, and 
 the first files of the Janissaries were leveled with the dust. The 
 firing was now directed upon every part of the square. The 
 barracks were soon in flames, and thousands of persons confined 
 in that narrow space were either killed by the fire, or buried be¬ 
 neath the fragments of the fallen walls. The work of slaughter 
 commenced, and ended only with the last of the Janissaries. A 
 hundred and twenty thousand men, in the capital alone, fell a 
 prey to the fury of the people and the sultan. The waters of the 
 Bosphorus drifted their bodies into the sea of Marmora. The re¬ 
 mainder, who were banished to Asia Minor, perished on the way, 
 and the empire was delivered. The sultan, now more absolute than 
 any sovereign ever was, found himself surrounded only by willing 
 slaves. He might, at his will, have regenerated the empire ; but 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 215 
 
 it was too late. His genius was not on a level with his courage. 
 The fall of the Ottoman empire is at hand. It resembles the 
 Greek empire. Constantinople awaits new decrees of fate. I 
 discern from hence the Russian fleet, like the floating camp of 
 Mahomet II., daily pressing near and more near to the city and 
 the port; I perceive the biouvac fires of the Calmucks on the 
 hills of Asia;—the Greeks are returning under the name and in 
 the costume of the Russians ; and Providence has marked the day 
 when a last assault made by them upon the walls of Constantino¬ 
 ple will reduce that .splendid city to a mass of flames, smoke, and 
 ruins. 
 
 The finest point from which Constantinople can be viewed is 
 just above our place of abode. It is from a belvidere built by M. 
 Turqui on the terraced roof of his house. This belvidere com¬ 
 mands the entire group of the hills of Pera, Galata, and the little 
 hillocks which surround the port on the fresh-water side. It is 
 the eagle’s flight over Constantinople and the sea. Europe, Asia, 
 the entrance of the Bosphorus, and the sea of Marmora, are all 
 under the eye at once. The city lies at the feet of the spectator. 
 If we were allowed to take a glance at only one point of the earth, 
 this would be the one to choose. Whenever I ascend to the bel¬ 
 videre to enjoy this view, (and I do so several times a day, and 
 invariably every evening), I cannot conceive how, of the many 
 travelers who have visited Constantinople, so few have felt the 
 beauty which it presents to my eye and to my mind. Why has 
 no one described it ? Is it because words have neither space, 
 horizon, nor colors, and that painting is the only language of the 
 eye ? But painting itself has never portrayed all that is here. 
 The pictures I have seen are merely detached scenes, consisting 
 of dead lines and colors without life: none convey any idea 
 of the innumerable gradations of tints, varying with every change 
 of the atmosphere and every passing hour. The harmonious 
 whole, and the colossal grandeur of these lines;—the movements 
 and intertwinings of the different horizons;—the moving sails 
 scattered over the three seas;—the murmur of the busy popula¬ 
 tion on the shores;—the reports of the cannon on board the 
 vessels;—the flags waving from the mast-heads;—the floating 
 caiques;—the vaporous reflection of domes, mosques, steeples, 
 and minarets in the sea:—all this has never been described. I 
 will try it. 
 
 The hills of Galata, Pera, and some others, descending to the 
 sea, are covered with towns of various colors: some have their 
 
210 
 
 A FZLOKjMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 houses painted bright red; others black, with numerous blue 
 cupolas relieving the sombre tint. Between the cupolas are per¬ 
 ceived patches of verdure formed by the plantains, fig trees, and 
 cypresses of the little gardens adjoining each house. Between 
 the houses there are large spaces: these are cultivated fields and 
 gardens, in which may be discerned groups of Turkish women 
 covered with their black veils, and playing with their children 
 and their slaves beneath the shade of the trees. Flights of turtle¬ 
 doves and white pigeons float in the air above these gardens and 
 the roofs of the houses ; and, like light flowers blown by the breeze, 
 stand out from the background of the picture, which is the blue 
 sea. One may discern the streets, winding, as they descend to¬ 
 wards the sea, like ravines: and lower down, the bustle of the 
 bazaars, which are enveloped in a veil of light and transparent 
 smoke. These towns, or these quarters of towns, are separated 
 one from another by promontories of verdure, crowned by wooden 
 palaces and kiosks painted in every color,—or by deep valleys, 
 whence arise the heads of cypress trees, and the pointed and 
 brilliant spires of minarets. 
 
 On reaching the sea, the eye wanders over its blue surface 
 amidst a labyrinth-of vessels, some sailing and some lying at 
 anchor. The caiques look like water-birds: they float some¬ 
 times in groups and sometimes singly, and cross each other in 
 every direction, proceeding from Europe to Asia, or from Pera to 
 the Seraglio point. Some frigates at full sail issuing from the 
 Bosphorus, salute the Seraglio: the smoke rising from their two 
 sides like gray wings, envelopes them for a moment; but their 
 white sails again reappear, and they double the Grand Signor’s 
 garden, (seeming almost to touch the cypresses and plane trees,) 
 to enter the sea of Marmora. About thirty or forty frigates, form¬ 
 ing the whole fleet of the sultan, are anchored at the entrance of 
 the Bosphorus. They overshadow the water on the land side ; 
 only five or six of these ships are distinctly discernible: the hill 
 and the trees partly conceal the rest, whose masts and rigging 
 seem intertwined with the cypresses forming a circular avenue 
 extending up the Bosphorus. Here the mountains on the opposite 
 side, or on the Asiatic shore, form the background of the picture. 
 They are higher and greener than those on the European shore. 
 They are crowned by thick forests. On their acclivities are 
 gardens, kiosks, pavilions, villages, and small mosques curtained 
 round with trees. Their bays are filled with vessels lying at 
 anchor, caiques rowing to and fro, and small sailing barks. The 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND 
 
 217 
 
 large town of Scutari extends at the feet of these mountains, on a 
 broad margin shaded by their brows, and encircled by a forest of 
 black cypress trees. A string of caiques and boats, filled with 
 Asiatic soldiers, horses, or Greek cultivators bringing their vege¬ 
 tables to Constantinople, is incessantly moving between Scutari 
 and Galata; and this line is continually broken by another line 
 of large vessels debouching from the sea of Marmora. 
 
 Turning again to the European coast, but looking towards 
 the other side of the canal of the Golden Horn, the first object 
 on which the eye rests after glancing across the blue basin 
 of the canal, is the Seraglio point. This is the most majestic, 
 the most varied, the most magnificent, and the most wild pros¬ 
 pect that can be conceived. The Seraglio point advances like 
 a promontory, or a flat cape into the three seas, and fronts 
 the coast of Asia. This promontory, commencing at the gate of the 
 Seraglio, on the sea of Marmora, and ending at the grand kiosk 
 of the sultan, opposite the quay of Pera, may measure three quar¬ 
 ters of a league in circumference. It is a triangle ; its base being 
 the palace, or the Seraglio point itself, projecting into the'sea, and 
 its most extended side looking to the inner port or canal of Con¬ 
 stantinople. The spot where I now trace this description com¬ 
 mands a full view of it. It is a forest of gigantic trees, whose 
 trunks rise like columns, or like inclosing walls, and whose 
 branches overshadow the mosques, the batteries, and the vessels 
 in the sea. These woods of dark and glossy green are interspers¬ 
 ed with verdant lawns, parterres of flowers, balustrades and 
 flights of marble steps, gilt or leaden cupolas, minarets as slender 
 as the masts of a ship, large domes of palaces, and the mosques 
 and kiosks which surround those palaces. This prospect closely 
 resembles that presented by the palace of St. Cloud, when viewed 
 from the opposite banks of the Seine, or from the hills of Meudon. 
 
 But the spots which I have just described are surrounded on 
 three sides by the sea, and commanded on the fourth by the cu¬ 
 polas of the numerous mosques, and by the ocean of houses and 
 streets which form the real Constantinople, or the city of Stam- 
 boul. The mosque of St. Sophia, the St. Peter’s of the Eastern 
 Rome, raises its massive gigantic dome above and quite close to 
 the outward walls of the Seraglio. St. Sophia looks like an 
 irregularly formed hill of stones, surmounted by a dome, which 
 glitters in the sun like a sea of lead. At a little distance are the 
 more modern mosques of Achmet, Bajazet, Soliman and Sultania, 
 all of which tower to the clouds, with minarets intersected by 
 
218 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Moorish galleries. Cypresses almost as tall as the minarets are 
 intermingled with them, and their black foliage contrasts with the 
 brilliant glitters of the edifices. On the summit of the flat hill of 
 Stamboul, there are discerned among the walls of the edifices and 
 the stems of the minarets, one or two eminences blackened by fire 
 and bronzed by time. These are some remains of the ancient 
 Byzantium, standing in the square of the Hippodrome or the At- 
 meidan. There likewise may be discerned the vast lines of 
 several palaces of the sultan or his viziers. The divan, whose gate 
 has given the name of Sublime Porte to the Empire, is in this group 
 of edifices. Further up, and clearly defined on the azure back¬ 
 ground of the sky, stands a splendid mosque which crowns the 
 hill and overlooks the two seas. Its gilt cupola, lighted by the 
 sun, seems to emit rays of fire, and the transparency of its dome, 
 and its walls surmounted by aerial galleries, give it the appear¬ 
 ance of a monument made of silver or bluish-colored porcelain. 
 
 The horizon in this direction terminates, and the eye descends 
 over two other broad hills thickly covered with mosques, palaces, 
 and painted houses, until it reaches the extremity of the port, where 
 the sea diminishes insensibly in width, and disappears beneath the 
 trees in the Arcadian valley of the fresh waters of Europe. In 
 the canal arise groups of masts, belonging to the vessels moored 
 off the Death Quay in the arsenal, and under the cypress forests 
 which flank Constantinople. The tower of Galata, built by the 
 Genoese, rises like the mast of a ship from an ocean of house-tops, 
 and forms a colossal boundary between Galata and Pera. At last 
 the eye reposes on the tranquil basin of the Bosphorus, uncertain 
 whether to turn towards Europe or Asia. 
 
 Such are the prominent points of the picture; but if you add 
 to these the vast framework which encircles it and makes it stand 
 out from its back-ground of sky and sea, viz., the black lines of 
 the Asiatic mountains, the low and vapory horizons of the Gulf of 
 Nicomedia, the summits of the Olympus of Brussa, rising behind 
 the Seraglio, beyond the sea of Marmora, and which appear like 
 white clouds in the firmament:—if you add to this majestic whole, 
 the grace and coloring of the details—if you can picture in ima¬ 
 gination the varied effects produced on the sea and the city by the 
 sky, the wind, and the different hours of the day—if fleets of mer¬ 
 chant vessels, like flights of sea-birds, detaching themselves from 
 the dark groves of the Seraglio, floating in the middle of the ca¬ 
 nal, and then slowly sailing down the Bosphorus, forming ever- 
 changing groups ) if the rays of the setting sun gild the tops of 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 219 
 
 the trees and the minarets, and illumine as if with fire the red 
 walls of Scutari and Stamboul ;—if a dead calm should lull the 
 sea of Marmora to the stillness of a lake of molten lead, or if a 
 breeze should lightly ruffle the Bosphorus, seeming to spread 
 over its surface the resplendent meshes of a sea-work of silver; 
 —if the smoke of the steamboats rises and winds round the broad 
 trembling sails of the sultan’s frigates;—if the guns fired for 
 prayers on board the vessels of the fleet resound in prolonged 
 echoes to the cypresses surrounding the cemetery ;—if the vari¬ 
 ous noises from the seven cities, and the thousands of vessels, rise 
 from the shore and the sea, and are wafted by the breeze to the 
 hill whence you are looking down ;—if you consider that the sky 
 is always of a pure dark blue—that these seas and these natural 
 ports are ever tranquil and safe—that every house along these 
 shores has a creek in which a vessel may lie in all weathers un¬ 
 der the very windows—that large three-deckers are built and 
 launched beneath the plane trees on the shore ;—if you recollect 
 that you are in Constantinople, the queen of Europe and Asia, at 
 the precise point where these two quarters of the world meet, as 
 it were, either for friendly greeting, or for combat;—if night 
 should surprise you whilst contemplating this prospect, which can 
 never weary the eye : if the pharos of Galata, the Seraglio, and 
 Scutari, and the lights on the high poops of the vessels are glim¬ 
 mering ;—if the stars detach themselves one by one, or in groups, 
 from the azure firmament, and envelope the mountains of the Asi¬ 
 atic coast, the snows of Olympus, the Princes Islands in the sea 
 of Marmora, the level height of the Seraglio, the hills of Stamboul 
 and the three seas, so that the whole scene seems to float in a blue 
 net-work besprinkled with pearls;—if the rising moon suffuses 
 sufficient light to show the great masses of the picture, while it 
 obscures or softens the details ;—you have at every hour of the 
 day and night the most delicious spectacle that can charm the 
 sight. It is enchantment of the eye which communicates to the 
 mind ;—a dazzling of the sight and soul. This is the spectacle 
 which I have enjoyed every day and every night for the space of 
 a month. 
 
 The French ambassador having proposed that I should accom¬ 
 pany him in the visit which all the ambassadors on their arrival 
 are privileged to pay to St. Sophia, I arrived at eight o’clock 
 this morning at one of the gates leading to the sea, behind the 
 walls of the Seraglio. One of the principal officers of the sultan 
 met us at the landing-place and conducted us to his house, where 
 
220 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 he had ordered a collation to be prepared. The apartments were 
 numeious and elegantly decorated, but without any other furni¬ 
 ture than divans and pipes. The divans were placed against the 
 windows, which looked upon the sea of Marmora. The collation 
 was served in the European style, the viands alone being national. 
 These were numerous and choice, but they were all new to us. 
 When we had concluded our repast, the ladies were conducted to 
 visit the wives of the Turkish colonel, who were assembled for 
 that day in a lower apartment, the harem or women’s apartment 
 being that in which we had been received. We were furnished 
 with Asiatic slippers, of yellow morocco, to enter the mosque ; 
 otherwise we should have been obliged to take off our boots and 
 walk barefooted. We entered the court-yard of the mosque sur¬ 
 rounded by a number of guards, who kept back the crowd which 
 had assembled to see us. The Osmanlis looked gloomy and dis¬ 
 contented ; for the zealous Mussulmans regard the admission of 
 Christians as a profanation of their sanctuaries. As soon as we 
 entered, the gate of the mosque was closed. 
 
 St. Sophia, which was built by Constantine, is one of the 
 largest edifices ever raised for the purpose of Christian worship ; 
 but it is evident, from the barbarous style of art which pervades 
 the mass of stone, that it is the production of a vitiated and de¬ 
 clining age. It is a confused memorial of a taste which no longer 
 exists—the imperfect production of an art in its infancy. The 
 temple is encompassed by a spacious peristyle, covered and closed 
 like that of St. Peter’s at Rome. Columns of granite, of pro¬ 
 digious height, but imbedded in the wails, separate this vestibule 
 from the court in front of the porch. A large gate opens into the 
 interior. The walls of the church are decorated on each side by 
 superb columns of porphyry, Egyptian granite, and rare kinds of 
 marble. But these columns, which are of disproportionate size, 
 and of various orders, are evidently fragments taken from other 
 temples, and are placed here without regard to symmetry or taste, 
 as savages might support a rude hut with the mutilated remains 
 of a palace. Gigantic pillars, of coarse workmanship, support an 
 elevated dome like that of St. Peter’s, and the effect of which is 
 certainly not less majestic. This dome, which was anciently or¬ 
 namented with mosaic work, forming pictures on the ceiling, was 
 plastered over when Mahomet II. took possession of St. Sophia 
 and converted it into a mosque. Some portions of the plaster have 
 fallen off, and here and there allow the ancient Christian decora¬ 
 tion to re-appear. Circular galleries are carried up all around 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 221 
 
 the building, as high as the very top of the dome. Viewed from 
 the upper galleries, the aspect of the edifice is beautiful. Vast, 
 sombre, without ornament, with its broken arches and its dirty 
 columns, it resembles the interior of a colossal tomb, the reliques 
 of which have been dispersed. It inspires awe, silence, and medi¬ 
 tation on the instability of the works of man, who raises struc¬ 
 tures for principles which he conceives to be eternal, and which 
 succeeding principles demolish or appropriate. In its present 
 state, St. Sophia resembles an immense caravansary of God. Here 
 are the columns of the temple of Ephesus, and the figures of the 
 Apostles, encircled with gilded glories, looking down upon the 
 hanging lamps of the I man. 
 
 Leaving St. Sophia, we proceeded to the seven principal 
 mosques of Constantinople. We found them less spacious, but 
 far more beautiful. Mahometanism has its own peculiar art of 
 building,— an art exactly conformable to the luminous simplicity 
 of its faith. This is exemplified in the chaste, regular, and splen¬ 
 did temples, without recesses for mysteries, and without altars for 
 victims. The seven mosques are alike in grandeur and nearly 
 in color. They have _pacious courts in front, surrounded by 
 cloisters, containing the schools and the apartments of the Imans. 
 The courts are shaded by superb trees, while numerous fountains 
 diffuse their murmurs and their delicious freshness around. Mi¬ 
 narets of exquisite workmanship rise from their domes like the 
 four cardinal points at the four angles of the mosque. Small cir¬ 
 cular galleries, with curved stone parapets in elaborate open-work 
 like lace, surround at different heights the light spire of the mina¬ 
 rets. To these, at various periods of the day, the Muezlim 
 ascends to proclaim the hour, and to summon the people to, what 
 is ever in the mind of Mahometans, the contemplation of God. 
 A portico, elevated by a few steps, leads to the gate of the temple. 
 The temple is either of a round or square form, surmounted by a 
 cupola supported by elegant pillars or beautiful fluted columns. 
 A pulpit is placed against one of these pillars. The frieze is 
 composed of verses from the Koran, inscribed in ornamental char¬ 
 acters on the walls, which are painted in arabesque ornaments. 
 From pillar to pillar are fixed iron wires, from 'which are sus¬ 
 pended lamps, the eggs of ostriches, and bunches of spices, or 
 flowers ; mats of rushes or of rich cloth cover the floor. The 
 effect of the whole is simple and grand. The mosque is not a 
 temple inhabited by a deity ; it is a house of prayer and contem¬ 
 plation to which men resort to adore the one and universal God. 
 
222 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 What we call worship does not exist in the Mahometan religion. 
 Mahomet preached his faith to barbarian tribes, in the ceremonies 
 of whose worship the Deity was lost sight of. The rites of the 
 Mahometans are simple ; an annual festival, together with ablu¬ 
 tion and prayer at the five divisions of the day, are their only cer¬ 
 emonies. Their only dogma is belief in a creating and rewarding 
 God. They have banished images lest they should work upon 
 the weakness of human imagination, and convert mere me¬ 
 morials into objects of sinful idolatry. There was originally no 
 priesthood,—or, more properly speaking, every one of the faithful 
 was competent to discharge the duties of priesthood. The sacer¬ 
 dotal body was the later work of corruption. Whenever I have 
 entered the mosques, I have invariably found a few Turks pros¬ 
 trate on the carpet, and praying with all the external signs of 
 fervor and complete absorption of mind. 
 
 In the court of the mosques of Bajazet, I saw the empty tomb 
 of Constantine. It consists of a vase of porphyry of such pro¬ 
 digious size that it might have held the remains of twenty heroes. 
 This vase is evidently a production of Greek art, some relic of the 
 temple of Diana at Ephesus. Thus do different ages bequeath to 
 each other their temples as well as their tombs, but divested of 
 their contents. Where are now the bones of Constantine ? The 
 Turks have enclosed his sepulchre in a kiosk, and will not sufFer 
 it to be profaned. The tombs of the sultans and of their families 
 are in the gardens of the mosques they have built: they are under 
 marble kiosks, shaded by trees and perfumed by flowers. A va¬ 
 riety of springs murmur around these kiosks, and the Mussulmans 
 regard the memory of the dead with such reverence, that I never 
 passed by one of these tombs without observing fresh nosegays 
 placed at the door or upon the windows of the numerous monu¬ 
 ments. 
 
 I have just returned from an excursion down and up the Bos¬ 
 phorus, from Constantinople to the mouth of the Black Sea. I 
 wish to sketch for myself some of the traits of this delightful 
 scenery. I could not have believed that sky, earth, sea, and man, 
 could produce such a combination of enchanting prospects; the 
 transparent mirror of the sky or the sea can alone reflect them 
 in their whole expanse. My imagination also embraces them in 
 this extended way; but my memory cannot retain and reproduce 
 them except in little successive details. I therefore traced singly 
 every different point of view as I glided along in my caique. A 
 painter would require years to depict only one shore of the Bos- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 223 
 
 is 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 
 
 phorus. The landscape changes at every glance, and as it varies 
 presents renewed beauty. What can I say in a few words ? 
 
 The morning was clear and sunshiny, and at seven o’clock I 
 embarked in one of these long caiques which dash through the 
 waves like fish, I took with me four Arnaut rowers and an inter¬ 
 preter; the latter seated between the rowers and me, told me the 
 names of places and things. We rowed along the quays of To- 
 phana and the artillery barracks. The town of Tophana rises in 
 tiers of painted houses, like bouquets of flowers, grouped round the 
 marble mosque, and is partly lost beneath the shade of the high 
 cypresses of the cemetery of Pera. This curtain of sombre fo¬ 
 liage terminates the hills on that side. We glided on between 
 vessels lying at anchor, and innumerable caiques conveying to 
 Constantinople the officers of the Seraglio, the ministers and their 
 kiaias, and the families of the Armenian traders whom the hour 
 of labor summoned to their shops and warehouses. These Ar¬ 
 menians are a fine race of men. Their costume is dignified and 
 simple, consisting of a black turban, and a long blue robe, con¬ 
 fined round the waist by a white cashmere shawl. Their figures 
 are athletic, and their countenances intelligent but vulgar. Their 
 complexions are fresh, their eyes blue, and their beards fair. 
 They may be called the Swiss of the East. Like the Swiss of 
 Europe, they are laborious, peaceful, and regular; but, like them 
 they are calculating and avaricious. They barter their trading 
 talent for the wages of the Sultan or the Turks. There is noth¬ 
 ing heroic or warlike in their nature. Commerce is their deity ; 
 they would pursue it under any master. No other class of Chris¬ 
 tians accord so well with the Turks. They accumulate the 
 wealth which the Turks neglect, and which escapes the grasp of 
 the Greeks and the Jews. Every thing here is in their hands ; 
 they are the dragomans of all the pachas and viziers. The Ar¬ 
 menian females have pure and delicate features; their placid 
 beauty resembles that of the English women or the peasants of 
 Helvetia. The children too are very handsome. The caiques 
 which glide past us are filled with these Armenians. On the 
 prow of their boats are baskets of flowers, which they have brought 
 from their country-houses. 
 
 We now begin to turn the point of Tophana, and are getting 
 under the shadow of the large vessels belonging to the Ottoman 
 fleet, which is riding at anchor off the European coast. These 
 huge masses sleep here as calmly as on the bosom of a lake. 
 Sailors dressed like the Turkish soldiers, in red or blue, are care- 
 
224 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 lessly leaning on the shrouds, whilst others are bathing round the 
 keels. Large shallops, laden with troops, are passing to and fro 
 between the shore and the fleet; and the elegant boats of the 
 Capital! Pacha, each manned with twenty rowers, dart past us 
 like arrows. Admiral Tahir Pacha and his officers are dressed 
 in loose brown coats or pelisses, and on their heads they wear the 
 fez (a large woolen cap), which they draw down over their fore- 
 heads, as if ashamed of having abandoned the noble and graceful 
 turban. These men have an air of melancholy and resignation: 
 they are smoking their long pipes with mouthpieces of amber. 
 There are lying here about thirty fine ships of war, seemingly 
 ready to set sail ; but there are neither officers nor seamen, and 
 this magnificent fleet is merely an ornament of the Bosphorus. 
 Whilst the sultan views it from his kiosk of Beglierbeg, on the 
 opposite coast of Asia, the two or three frigates of Ibrahim Pacha 
 are in undisturbed possession of the Mediterranean, and the barks 
 of Samos command the Archipelago. At a few yards from these 
 vessels, along the shore of Europe, I pass under the windows of a 
 magnificent palace of the sultan. It looks like the abode of am- 
 phibious beings. The waves of the Bosphorus, when agitated by 
 a breeze, touch the windows, and cast their foam into the apart¬ 
 ments of the ground-floor. The flights of steps are washed with 
 the water, and through the iron-work of the gates the sea finds its 
 way into the court-yards and gardens. Here are basins for the 
 caiques, and baths for the sultanas, who may almost plunge into 
 it, screened by the curtains of their saloons. Behind these mari¬ 
 time court-yards, gardens planted with shrubs and flowers rise in 
 successive rows, ornamented with terraces and gilt kiosks. These 
 flowery parterres are lost in the thick woods of oak, laurel, and 
 plantain trees, which cover the declivities, and rise to the very 
 summit of the eminence. The sultan’s apartments are now open, 
 and I can see through the the windows the rich gold mouldings of 
 the ceilings, the crystal lustres, the divans, and the silken cur¬ 
 tains. The windows of the harem are closed by thick gratings 
 of wood elegantly carved. Having passed this palace, we arrive 
 at an uninterrupted series of palaces, houses, and gardens, be¬ 
 longing to the principal favorites, ministers, or pachas of the grand 
 signior: they all lie on the margin of the sea, as if fondly inhal¬ 
 ing its freshness. Their windows are open. Turks are reclining 
 on divans in spacious apartments resplendent with gold and silken 
 draperies : they are smoking, chatting, sipping sherbet, and look¬ 
 ing at us as we pass by. These windows open upon terraces, 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 225 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 thickly planted with vines, shrubs, and flowers. Numerous slaves, 
 richly dressed, are seated on the flight of steps leading down to 
 the sea, and caiques manned with rowers are waiting in readiness 
 to receive the masters of these lovely dwellings. In all these 
 houses the harem forms a wing, separated by gardens or court¬ 
 yards from the apartments of the men. The harem windows are 
 grated. I only see now and then the head of a pretty child 
 thrust through the openings, among the vines and creeping flow¬ 
 ers, to look at the sea, or the white arm of a woman opening or 
 closing a window-blind. These palaces and houses are all built of 
 wood, but very richly worked : they have projecting roofs, galle¬ 
 ries, and balustrades without number, and are all shaded by large 
 trees, creeping plants, and groves of jasmine and roses. All are 
 washed by the waves of the Bosphorus, and have inner courts 
 into which the sea enters, and where the caiques float. The Bos¬ 
 phorus is so deep in all its parts, that we rowed quite at the mar¬ 
 gin of the shore to inhale the balmy perfume of the flowers, and 
 to allow our rowers to enjoy the shade of the trees. Large ves¬ 
 sels passed as closely as we did, and not unfrequently the yards 
 of a brig became entangled in the branches of a tree, the trellis 
 of a vine, or even the blind of a window, carrying away a frag¬ 
 ment of the foliage or the house. These houses are separated 
 one from the other only by clumps of trees planted on some pro¬ 
 jecting piece of ground, or by angles of rock, covered with ivy 
 and moss, which descend from the hills, and extend to the length 
 of several feet in the water. Here and there a bay of greater 
 width and depth runs in between two hills which are separated 
 by the bed of a torrent or streamlet. A village then extends 
 along the smooth banks of these little gulfs, with its beautiful 
 Moorish fountains, its mosque with cupolas of gold and azure, and 
 its light minaret towering to the tops of the plantain trees. The 
 little houses rise in amphitheatres round these gulfs, with their 
 faqades and kiosks painted a thousand colors. Large villas ex¬ 
 tend along the brows of the hills, flanked by gardens and groves 
 of fir trees, which terminate the horizon. At the foot of each of 
 these villages there is a quay of granite a few feet broad. These 
 quays are planted with sycamores, vines, and jasmines, which 
 hangover into the sea, forming arbors, beneath which the caiques 
 lie for shelter. Trading vessels of every nation anchor in front 
 of the warehouses of the merchants and ship owners, and the 
 merchandise is frequently carried along a plank fixed from the 
 deck of a ship to a window. Numbers of children, and dealers 
 
226 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 
 in fruit and vegetables, are moving along the quays, which are 
 the bazaars of the villages of the Bosphorus. Sailors in the 
 dresses of all nations, and speaking all languages, are grouped 
 amongst the Osmanlis, who are squatted on their carpets near the 
 fountains, or round the trunks of the plantain trees. 
 
 None of the villages of Lucerne or Interlaken can afford any 
 idea of the exquisite grace and picturesque effect of these little 
 gulfs of the Bosphorus: I could not avoid stopping to look at 
 them. These little villages are met with every five minutes, 
 along the first half of the European coast,—that is to say, for the 
 space of two or three leagues. They afterwards become less 
 frequent, and the landscape assumes a more wild character, on 
 account of the increasing height of the hills, and the depths of the 
 forests. I here speak only of the European coast. I shall on my 
 return describe the coast of Asia, which is still more beautiful. 
 But to form a correct idea of the whole, it must be borne in mind, 
 that the shore of Asia is but a very little distance from us; that 
 we are frequently equally near both shores, where we keep the 
 middle of the current, in parts where the channel becomes narrow 
 or takes turns; so that similar scenes to those which I am now 
 describing meet'my eyes whenever I turn towards Asia. 
 
 But to return to the shore along which our caique is now 
 closely floating. After passing the last of these natural ports 
 above mentioned, there is a spot where the Bosphorus imbeds it¬ 
 self like a broad and rapid river, between two promonotories of 
 rock, which descend perpendicularly from the summit of a 
 double range of mountains. The channel takes a turn, and 
 seems there entirely to close. In proportion as we advance, how¬ 
 ever, we see it unfold, and turn behind the European cape; then 
 widening, it forms a sort of lake, on the banks of which stand 
 the two towns Therapia and Buyukdere. From top to bottom of 
 the two promonotories of rock, which are clothed with vegetation, 
 there rise some half-ruined fortifications, white cranied turrets, 
 drawbridges, and towers, built after the manner of the beautiful 
 structures of the middle ages. These are the two famous castles 
 of Europe and Asia, whence Mahomet II. so long maintained the 
 siege of Constantinople, before he succeeded in gaining possession 
 of the city. The castles rise like two white phantoms from the 
 black bosom to the pines and cypresses, and seem to close the 
 entrance to the two seas. 
 
 These towers and turrets, looking down upon the ships at full 
 sail,—the long branches of ivy hanging like warriors’ cloaks over 
 
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 $ 
 
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 11 
 
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A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 227 
 
 the half-ruined walls,—the gray rocks on which the castles stand, 
 and whose angles project from amidst the surrounding verdure,— 
 and the broad shadows which they cast on the water, altogether 
 render this one of the most characteristic points of the Bosphorus. 
 Here it loses its exclusively graceful aspect, and assumes an ap¬ 
 pearance alternately graceful and sublime. At the foot of these 
 two castles there are Turkish cemeteries, and turbans sculptured 
 in white marble are seen here and there amidst the foliage washed 
 by the waves. What a happy race are the Turks ! Their ashes 
 always repose in the spot of their predilection,—beneath the 
 shade of the tree or the shrub which they cherished in life,— 
 on the bank of the current whose murmur has delighted them,— 
 visited by the doves which their hands fed, and embalmed by the 
 perfume of the flowers which they planted. If they possessed 
 no portion of earth during life, they possess it after death : they 
 do not consign the remains of those they have loved to charnel- 
 houses, whence horror repels the worship and the piety of remem¬ 
 brance. 
 
 Beyond the castles, the Bosphorus widens, and the mountains 
 of Europe and Asia appear more barren and deserted. The sea¬ 
 shore is, however, still besprinkled here and there with little 
 white houses and rustic mosques, each of the latter being built on 
 rising ground near a fountain, and under the dome of a plantain 
 tree. The village of Therapia, where the French and English 
 ambassadors reside, is at a little distance from the margin of the 
 shore : the high forests which overhang it, throw their shadows 
 over the terraces aad lawns of the two palaces ; and some little 
 winding valleys among the rocks form the limits of the two pow¬ 
 ers. Two English and French frigates, lying at anchor before 
 each of the palaces, await the signal of the ambassadors to convey 
 to the fleets in the Mediterranean messages of war or of peace. 
 Buyukdere, a beautiful town at the extremity of the gulf formed 
 by the Bosphorus, where it turns to lose itself in the Black Sea, 
 extends like a curtain of palaces and villas along the sides of the 
 two sombre mountains. A fine quay separates the gardens and 
 the houses from the sea. The Russian fleet, consisting of five 
 ships of the line, three frigates, and two steamers, is anchored off 
 the terraces of the palace of the Russian embassy, and looks like 
 a town floating on the water. Boats transmitting orders from one 
 ship to another; various small craft conveying water from the 
 fountains, or carrying invalids ashore ; the yachts of the young 
 officers sailing past each other with speed of race horses; or the 
 
228 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 firing of guns resounding in tile deep valleys of Asia, and announ¬ 
 cing the entrance of ships from the Black Sea ; a Russian camp 
 pitched on the burning sides of the Giant’s Mountains, facing the 
 fleet; the beautiful plain of Buyukdere on the left, with its group 
 of wonderful plane trees, one of which would shade a whole regi¬ 
 ment ; the magnificent forests of the palaces of the Russian and 
 Austrian embassies, which fringe the brows of the hills; the 
 elegant balconied houses which border the quays, with festoons of 
 flowers overhanging their terraces ; Armenians, with their chil¬ 
 dren, rowing to and fro in their caiques filled with foliage and 
 flowers; the dark and narrow arm of the Bosphorus, which one 
 just gains a glimpse of, extending towards the misty horizon of 
 the Black Sea; other chains of mountains, without any trace of 
 villages or houses, towering to the clouds, with their black forests, 
 like redoubtable boundaries between the storms of the ocean of 
 tempests and the magnificent serenity of the seas of Constanti¬ 
 nople ; two fortified castles, facing one another, on each shore, 
 crowning with their batteries, their towers, and their cranies, the 
 projecting heights of two gloomy capes ; and, finally, a double 
 line of rocks, bespotted with forests, which are gradually lost in 
 the blue waters of the Black Sea :—such is Buyukdere. Add to 
 this, the perpetua-l movement of a file of vessels, coming to Con¬ 
 stantinople or leaving the canal, according as the wind blows 
 north or south. These vessels are sometimes so numerous, that 
 one day when returning home in my caique, I counted nearly two 
 hundred in less than an hour. They sail in groups, like birds 
 migrating from one climate to another. If the wind varies, they 
 tack about, standing out alternately under the houses or the trees 
 of Asia or Europe : if a breeze freshens, they anchor in one of the 
 numberless bays, or at the point of one of the little capes of the 
 Bosphorus ; and a moment after, they appear with all their sails 
 set. The scene, animated by these groups of vessels sailing or 
 lying at anchor, and by the various positions which they take 
 the shores, every moment presents a new aspect, and renders the 
 Bosphorus a wonderul kaleidoscope. 
 
 On my arrival at Buyukdere, I took possession of the charm¬ 
 ing house on the quay, which M. Turqui had so hospitably offered 
 to me. We shall pass the summer here. 
 
 Same date. 
 
 On viewing the coast of the Bosphorus which I have just de¬ 
 scribed, one might readily believe that nature has here created a 
 work which could never be surpassed; and that there cannot be 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 229 
 
 found in all the world another landscape superior to the one 
 which now enchants my sight. I have returned this evening to 
 Constantinople, after coasting along the Asiatic shore, which I 
 find a thousand times more beautiful than the European coast. 
 The shore of Asia owes nothing to man ; there nature has done all. 
 No Buyukdere, no Therapia, no ambassadors’ palaces, no towns 
 of Armenians or Franks are to be seen. The prospect consists 
 of mountains, separated by defiles ; small verdant valleys formed 
 among the foundations of the rocks, winding rivers, and torrents 
 
 ! whitening with their foam the forests which overhang the sides 
 of the rocks, penetrate into the ravines, and descend even to the 
 margins of the numerous gulfs on the coast. The whole land¬ 
 scape presents such variety in form and color, foliage and ver¬ 
 dure, as the fancy of no painter could invent. A few detached 
 houses belonging to Turkish sailors or gardeners are sprinkled 
 here and there along the shore, on the platforms of the woody 
 hill, or grouped on the points of the rocks, against which the 
 current breaks into blue waves, in color like the night-sky. 
 The white sails of a few fishing-boats in the creeks are seen 
 now and then gliding between the plantain trees. Innumerable 
 flocks of white birds perch on the margin of the meadows, and 
 eagles from the summits of the mountains hover over the sea. 
 Some of the little bays or creeks are completely closed up by 
 rocks and the trunks of huge trees, whose boughs, covered with 
 black foliage, overhang the waves, and amidst which the caiques 
 lie hid as it were in cradles. In the shade of these bays are dis¬ 
 cerned one or two villages, with gardens behind the houses on 
 verdant declivities, and with groups of trees at the foot of the 
 rocks. The villagers have their barks rocking on the waves 
 before their doors, and their dovecots are on the roofs of their 
 houses. The women and children are at the windows, while the 
 old men sit under the plantain trees at the foot ol the minaret. 
 
 The laborers are seen quitting the fields to return to their 
 caiques, or are engaged in loading their barks with green fagots 
 —with myrtle and broom still in flower, which they dry and burn 
 in the winter. This mass of floating verdure, hanging over the 
 sides of the boats even into the water, completely conceals both 
 the bark and the rower, and looks like a portion of the shore 
 loosened by the current, and boine along by the sea, with its 
 foliage still green, and with its flowers still redolent of perfume. 
 
 Such is the aspect of the Asiatic coast as far as the castle of 
 Mahomet II., which seems to close the Bosphorus, giving it the 
 
 YOL. II. 
 
 11 
 
230 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 appearance of a Swiss lake. Here the character of the coast 
 begins to change. The summits of the hills are less sharp, and 
 they descend less precipitately into the small valleys. Asiatic 
 villages, richer and more numerous, arise. The fresh streams 
 of Asia, and lovely plains shaded by trees, and studded with 
 kiosks and Moorish fountains, open to the view. Numbers of 
 Constantinople carriages, which are a sort of gilt wooden cages, 
 placed upon four wheels and drawn by a couple of oxen, are dis¬ 
 persed over the greensward. From these the veiled Turkish 
 females may be seen to alight, and seat themselves at the foot 
 of a tree, or on the ground near the water : at some distance from 
 them the men are sitting in groups, drinking coffee, or smoking 
 their pipes. The various-colored clothes of the men and the 
 children, joined to the monotonous brown tint of the women’s 
 veils, forms a most singular and beautiful mosaic scene. Oxen 
 and buffaloes graze in the meadows. Arabian horses, covered 
 with caparisons of velvet, silk, and gold, are prancing near the 
 caiques, which row in crowds to the shore, filled with Armenian 
 and Jewish women. The latter, after landing, sit down unveiled 
 on the grass by the side of some of the streams, forming a long 
 chain of women and girls in different costumes and attitudes. 
 Some of them possess the most exquisite beauty, which their 
 variety of dress serves to heighten. I have often seen here 
 many Turkish women of the harems unveiled. They are al¬ 
 most universally of small stature and pale complexion, with a 
 mournful expression in the eye, and a feeble and sickly appear¬ 
 ance. In general, the climate of Constantinople, in spite of all 
 its apparent salubrity, is unhealthy. The women, at all events, 
 are very far from deserving their reputation for beauty. The 
 Jewish and Armenian females were die only ones whom I thought 
 handsome; and yet how far were the&e inferior in beauty to the 
 Jewesses and the Armenian women of Arabia, and how little 
 they possessed of the indescribable charms which characterize 
 the Greek women of Syria and Asia Minor. 
 
 A little further on, close to the waves of the Bosphorus, rises 
 the magnificent new palace, at present inhabited by the grand 
 signior. Beglierbeg is an edifice in the Italian taste but bearing 
 the impression of Indian and Moorish recollections : it is an im¬ 
 mense building, with wings inclosing gardens. Behind are large 
 plots of ground, full of roses and watered by fountains. A nar¬ 
 row quay, formed of granite, separates the windows from the sea. 
 As I slowly passed this palace, the abode of so much misery and 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 231 
 
 terrors, I perceived the grand signior sitting on a divan in one of 
 the kiosks at the water-side. Achmet Pacha, one of his young 
 favorites, was standing near him. The sultan, attracted by the 
 appearance of our European costume, directed Achmet Pacha’s 
 attention to us with his finger, and seemed to be inquiring who 
 we were. I saluted the master of Asia after the Oriental manner, 
 and he graciously returned my salutation. All the blinds of the 
 palace were open, and the rich decorations of this magnificent 
 habitation were seen glittering within. The wing inhabited by 
 the women, or the harem, was closed. This part of the building 
 is immense, and the number of women it contains is not known. 
 Two caiques, completely covered with gilding, and furnished 
 with twenty-four rowers each, were lying afloat at the palace 
 gate. These caiques would not disgrace the most exquisite 
 European taste as to elegance of form, while, at the same time, 
 they display the utmost degree of. Eastern magnificence. The 
 prow of one of them, which projected at least twenty-five feet, 
 was surrounded by the figure of a golden swan with extended 
 wings, which seemed to bear the vessel over the waves. A silk 
 awning, drawn over golden pillars, covered the poop, and rich 
 cashmere shawls formed the sultan’s seat. The prow of the 
 other caique was a feathered arrow of gold, as if just darting 
 from its bow and flying across the sea. When out of sight of 
 the sultan, I lingered for a considerable time to admire the palace 
 and the gardens. All bear marks of the most perfect taste. I 
 know of no royal residence in Europe which presents such a 
 magnificent and fairy-like effect. The whole seems as pure and 
 resplendent as if it had just received its finishing touch from the 
 hand of the artist. The roofs of the palace are masked by gilt 
 balustrades; and the chimneys, which disfigure most of our 
 public edifices in Europe, here consisted of fluted gilt columns, 
 whose elegant capitals conferred an additional ornament on the 
 edifice. 
 
 1 admire Mahmoud, the prince who passed his boyhood in the 
 gloomy prisons of the Seraglio, with the terrors of death daily be¬ 
 fore his eyes ;—who was tutored by the wise and unfortunate 
 Selim, and raised to the throne by the death of his brother ;—who 
 silently meditated for fifteen years the emancipation of the em¬ 
 pire, the restoration of Islamism, and the destruction of the Janis¬ 
 saries. He executed this project with the heroism and calmness 
 of fatality", continually braving Ids subjects to regenerate them. 
 He has shown himself brave and dauntless in peril, and mild and 
 
232 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 merciful when he could consult the feelings of his heart. Mah¬ 
 moud has not been adequately supported by those about him ; 
 and he has wanted instruments to execute the good he contem¬ 
 plated. He has been disavowed by his people; betrayed by his 
 pachas ; ruined by his neighbors ; abandoned by fortune—with¬ 
 out whose aid man can do nothing—himself assisting in the over¬ 
 throw of his throne and his power;—and, finally, wasting in the 
 voluptuous pleasures of the Bosphorus his remnant of existence 
 and his shadow of sovereignty. The sultan is a man of good 
 and upright intention, but of insufficient genius and too feeble re¬ 
 solution. Like the last of the Greek emperors, whose place he 
 fills and whose destiny he seems to represent, he is worthy of 
 other subjects and a better age, and is capable of dying a hero. 
 History presents no event comparable to the destruction of the 
 Janissaries. I know of no other revolution so ably planned or so 
 heroically accomplished. Mahmoud will engross that page of 
 history ; but why is it the only one ? The greatest difficulty was 
 surmounted—the tyrants were overthrown, and it required only 
 resolution and perseverance to reanimate and civilize the empire. 
 Mahmoud stopped short in his task. Was it because genius is 
 more rare than heroism ? 
 
 From the palac'e of Beglierbeg, the coast of Asia again be¬ 
 comes woody and solitary, till you reach Scutari, which blooms 
 like a garden of roses, on the extremity of a cape at the entrance 
 of the sea of Marmora. Opposite appears the verdant point of the 
 Seraglio; and between the coast of Europe, crowned wdth its 
 three painted cities, and the coast of Asia, glittering with cupolas 
 and minarets, opens the vast port of Constantinople, where the 
 vessels, riding at anchor along the two shores, leave a broad ave- 
 - nue for the caiques. I now glide through this labyrinth of vessels, 
 as the Venetian gondolas float under the shadow of the palaces, 
 and I land at the Death Quay, beneath an alley of cypresses. 
 
 May 20. 
 
 This morning I was taken by a young gentleman of Constan¬ 
 tinople to the slave-market. 
 
 After traversing the long streets ofStamboul parallel with the 
 walls of the old Seraglio, and passing several splendid bazaars 
 crowded with merchants and purchasers, we ascended by a few 
 narrow streets into a dirty square, on which opened the gate of 
 another bazaar. We were indebted to the Turkish costume, in 
 which we were dressed, and to the perfection in which my guide 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 288 
 
 spoke the language, for our admittance to this market of human 
 flesh. How many ages elapsed, and how many appeals were 
 made to the reason of man, before he ceased to regard power as a 
 right, and could be convinced that slavery is a crime and a 
 blasphemy ! What an advancement of intelligence ! and how 
 much does it promise ! How many things there are which we 
 regard with indifference, but which may appear enormous crimes 
 in the eyes of our descendants ! These were the reflections 
 which occurred to my mind as we entered the bazaar, where the 
 life, the soul, the body, and the liberty of human beings is sold as 
 we sell oxen or horses, and where a man considers himself the 
 lawful possessor of what he thus purchases ! Yet there are many 
 lawful possessions of the same kind, of which we take no account! 
 And after all, they are lawful; for we must not expect of man 
 more than he knows. His convictions are his truths ; he has no 
 others. God alone possesses them, and he distributes them to us 
 in proportion to our progressive intelligence. 
 
 The slave-market is a vast uncovered court, surrounded by a 
 roofed portico or piazza. Under this portico, which on the side 
 of the court has a wall about waist-high, there are doors open¬ 
 ing into the chambers in which the merchants keep their slaves. 
 These doors are thrown open, to enable the purchasers, as they 
 walk about, to see the slaves. The men and women are kept 
 in separate chambers ; and the women are unveiled. Besides 
 the slaves in these lower chambers, a great number are grouped 
 in a gallery under the portico, and in the court itself. We com¬ 
 menced our examination. The most remarkable group consisted 
 of some Abyssinian girls, about twelve or fifteen in number. 
 They were seated close together in a circle, and their faces were 
 all turned to the spectators. Most of them were remarkably 
 beautiful. They had almond-shaped eyes, aquiline noses, thin lips, 
 a delicate oval contour of face, and long hair as dark and glossy 
 as the raven’s wing. The pensive, melancholy, and languishing 
 expression of their countenances, renders the Abyssinian females, 
 in spite of their copper-colored complexions, extremely lovely and 
 interesting. They are tall and slender as the palm trees of their 
 country, and their arms are remarkable for beauty of form and 
 grace of motion. The girls whom I saw in the slave-bazaar had 
 no clothing but a long robe of coarse yellow cloth. On their 
 ankles they wore bracelets of blue glass beads. They were 
 seated motionless, with their heads resting on the palms of their 
 hands, or on their knees. When thus gazed at, their meek and 
 
234 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 melancholy eyes were like those of the goat or the lamb whom 
 the peasants lead with strings round their necks to be sold at our 
 village fairs. Sometimes they whispered one to another and 
 smiled. One of them, who held a little child in her arms, was 
 weeping because the merchant wanted to sell it separately to a 
 dealer in children. Not far from this group, there were seven or 
 eight little negro children, from eight to ten years of age. They 
 were tolerably well dressed, and appeared very healthy. They 
 were amusing themselves at an Oriental game, which is played 
 with small pebbles, arranged in various ways in holes dug in the 
 sand. Meanwhile the merchants and buyers took first one and 
 then another by the arm, examined them narrowly from head to 
 foot, patted them, made them show their teeth, that they might 
 judge of their age and state of health : and the children, when 
 released, eagerly joined their playmates and renewed the game. 
 I next went under the covered porticoes, which were crowded with 
 slaves and purchasers. The Turks engaged in this traffic were 
 walking about among the groups superbly dressed in furred pe¬ 
 lisses and with long pipes in their hands, looking anxious and 
 preoccupied, and casting a jealous glance at every stranger who 
 peeped into the rooms in which they kept their human mer¬ 
 chandise : but as they supposed us to be Arabs or Egyptians, 
 they did not venture to refuse us admittance to any of the rooms. 
 Itinerant dealers in cakes and dried fruits were walking about 
 the gallery, selling refreshments to the slaves. I slipped a few 
 piastres into the hand of one of them, and directed him to dis¬ 
 tribute the contents of his basket amons: the nesro children, who 
 eagerly devoured them. 
 
 I remarked a poor negress, about eighteen or twenty years 
 of age, remarkably handsome, but with a sullen and melancholy 
 air. She was seated on a bench in the gallery, richly dressed 
 and with her face unveiled. Round her were about a dozen 
 other negresses, dressed in rags, and exposed for sale at very low 
 prices. The negress above mentioned held in her lap a fine lit¬ 
 tle boy of three or four years of age, magnificently dressed ; her 
 child, who was a mulatto, had a handsome and noble countenance, 
 a beautiful mouth, and the finest eyes imaginable. I played with 
 the boy, and gave him some cakes and sweetmeats, which I had 
 purchased at a neighboring shop ; but the mother snatched them 
 from his hands, and threw them on the ground, with an expres¬ 
 sion of anger and offended pride. She held down her face and 
 wept. I imagined that she was afraid of being sold separately 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 235 
 
 from her child, and I requested M. Morlach, my obliging guide, 
 to purchase her together with the child for me. I would have 
 brought up the interesting boy without separating him from his 
 mother. We addressed ourselves to a broker with whom M. 
 Morlach was acquainted. The broker spoke to the owner of the 
 slave and her child. He at first seemed inclined to accept our 
 terms. The poor woman wept bitterly, and the boy threw his 
 arms round the mother’s neck. But the bargaining was all a 
 pretence on the part of the merchant, and when we agreed to give 
 him the very exorbitant price he set upon the slaves, he took the 
 broker aside, and told him that the negress was not for sale. He 
 stated that she was the slave of a rich Turk who was the father 
 of the boy ; that she had evinced too haughty and overbearing a 
 spirit in the harem ; and that to correct and humble her, her 
 master had sent her to the bazaar, under pretence of intending to 
 get rid of her, but with secret orders that she should not be sold. 
 This mode of correction is frequently resorted to; and when a 
 Turk is out of humor with his female slaves, his usual threat is 
 that he will send them to the bazaar. We accordingly with¬ 
 drew. 
 
 We looked into a great number of rooms, each containing 
 four or five women, almost all black and ugly, but having the ap¬ 
 pearance of good health. Most of them appeared indifferent to 
 their situation, and some even solicited purchasers. They talked 
 and laughed together, and occasionally made critical remarks on 
 the men who were bargaining for them. One or two wept, and 
 concealed themselves at the further end of the chamber, and did 
 not without reluctance return to the alcove where they had been 
 seated when we looked in. Several walked away cheerfully 
 with a Turk who had purchased them, taking with them their lit¬ 
 tle bundle tied in a handkerchief, and covering their faces with 
 their white veils. We witnessed two or three acts of genuine 
 humanity, for which even Christian charity might envy the good 
 Mussulmans. Several Turks purchased some old female slaves 
 who had been sent away from the harems of their masters on ac¬ 
 count of their age and infirmities. We asked them why they 
 had purchased the poor old women. “ To please God,” replied 
 the broker: and M. Morlach assured me that several Mussulmans 
 were in the practice of sending to the markets to buy poor infirm 
 slaves of both sexes, and support them, for the sake of charity, in 
 their houses. 
 
 The last rooms we entered were half closed, and we were at 
 
236 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LANB. 
 
 first refused admittance. There was only one slave in each 
 room, under the guard of a female. These slaves were young 
 and beautiful Circassian girls, newly arrived from their country. 
 They were dressed in white, and with a remarkable degree of 
 elegance. Their fine features were expressive of neither sorrow 
 nor indignation, but disdainful indifference. The beautiful white 
 slaves of Georgia or Circassia have become extremely rare since 
 the Greek females no longer people the seraglios, and since Rus¬ 
 sia has interdicted the traffic in women. Nevertheless, many 
 Georgian families still devote their daughters to this odious traffic, 
 and cargoes of them are from time to time carried away by con¬ 
 traband dealers. The price of these beautiful creatures varies 
 from twelve to twenty thousand piastres (from three to five thou¬ 
 sand francs), whilst black slaves of ordinary beauty do not sell 
 for more than five or six hundred francs, and the most beautiful 
 at a thousand or twelve hundred. In Arabia and in Syria, fe¬ 
 male slaves may be purchased for five or six hundred piastres 
 (from a hundred and fifty to two hundred francs). One of the 
 Georgian girls whom we saw at the bazaar was of faultless beau¬ 
 ty. Her features were delicate and intelligent, her eyes soft and 
 pensive, and her skin dazzlingly white. She was sold before our 
 eyes for the harem of a young pacha of Constantinople. But the 
 females of Georgia and Circassia are in general far from possess¬ 
 ing the charms of the Arabian women,—their beauty is touched 
 by the coldness of the North. 
 
 We left the bazaar with feelings of disgust at a scene which 
 is renewed every day and every hour in the cities of the East. 
 This is the effect of unchangeable laws ! They consecrate the 
 barbarities of past ages, and confer the privilege of antiquity and 
 legitimacy on all crimes. The fanatical worshipers of the past 
 are as culpable and as dangerous as the fanatical anticipaters of 
 the future. The former sacrifice mankind to their ignorance and 
 their recollections, and the latter to their hopes and their precipi¬ 
 tation. If men were to act and think just as their ancestors have 
 acted and thought before them, human nature would be merely 
 idolatry and slavery. Reason is the sun of the human mind : it 
 is the infallible and perpetual revelation of Divine laws, as they 
 are applicable to society. We must follow it, under pain of re¬ 
 maining in misery and darkness; but we must never hurry be¬ 
 fore it, lest we should fall down precipices. To understand the 
 past without regretting it,—to tolerate the present whilst striving 
 to improve it—and to hope for the future whilst preparing for it 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 237 
 
 —these are the laws of wise men and benevolent institutions 
 The sin against the Holy Ghost is the conflict of certain men 
 against the improvement of things—the egotistical and stupid ef¬ 
 fort to draw back the moral and social world which God and Na¬ 
 ture are urging forward. Past time is the sepulchre of genera¬ 
 tions that are gone ; we should respect it, but we should not wish 
 to bury ourselves and live in it. 
 
 The great bazaars for merchandise of various kinds, and spice- 
 ries in particular, are spacious arched galleries, with footpaths on 
 each side, and shops filled with wares. These wares consist of 
 arms, saddles, and harnesses; jewelry, provisions, morocco boots 
 and shoes, Indian and Persian shawls; various European stuffs ; 
 the carpets of Damascus and Caramania ; the essences and per¬ 
 fumes of'Constantinople ; narghiles and pipes of every form and 
 every degree of splendor ; carved amber and coral, used by the 
 Orientals in smoking the toumbach ; tobacco chopped or folded like 
 quires of yellow paper ; pastry, under a variety of enticing forms ; 
 confectionery, with an endless variety of sweetmeats and preserved 
 fruits; drugs, exhaling perfumes, which pervade all the bazaars; 
 Arabian mantles woven of gold and goat-hair, and women’s veils 
 spangled with gold and silver. 
 
 The bazaars are filled by a continually renewed crowd, con¬ 
 sisting of Turks on foot with pipes in their mouths or in their 
 hands, and followed by slaves ; veiled women, accompanied by 
 negresses and beautiful children ; pachas on horseback, slowly 
 pacing amidst the silent throng; and Turkish carriages, formed 
 of gilt trellis-work, and driven at a walking pace by coachmen 
 with long white beards. These carriages are filled with women, 
 who from time to time alight to make purchases at the jewelers’ 
 shops. Some of the bazaars would be several leagues in length, 
 if they consisted of a single gallery. They are always much 
 crowded, and are the most active vehicles of contagion, for the 
 Jews expose and sell in the bazaars the clothes of persons who 
 have died of the plague. That disease has just broken out at 
 Pera, and five or six people have died of it. We therefore passed, 
 not without some apprehension, through the bazaar. The crowd 
 that thronged it to-day may be decimated to-morrow. 
 
 June 18. 
 
 We have passed several days in study and reading in our 
 solitude at Buyukdere, with the Bosphorus and the Black Sea 
 beneath our eyes. In the evenings we have had excursions in 
 VOL. ii. 11* 
 
238 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 caiques to Constantinople, to Bellegrade and its incomparable 
 forest, to the coast of Asia, to the mouth of the Euxine, and to 
 the Valley cf Roses, situated behind the mountains of Buyukdere. 
 
 I go there very often. The delicious valley is watered by a spring, 
 to which the Turks resort, to enjoy the freshness, the odor of the 
 roses, and the song of the bulbul. Five immense trees overhang 
 this fountain; and a sort of coffee-house is held under their foli¬ 
 age. Further on, the valley narrows, and leads to an acclivity 
 of the mountain where two little artificial lakes, fed by the water 
 from a spring, slumber tranquilly under the spreading tops of the 
 plantain trees. The Armenians, with their families, assemble in 
 the evenings on the margins of these lakes, and take their supper. 
 Picturesque groups are seated round the trees, and young girls 
 are dancing together : these are the tranquil and decorous pleas¬ 
 ures of the Orientals. They feel and enjoy nature better than we 
 do. Nowhere have trees and springs more sincere admirers. 
 There is a deep sympathy in their minds with the beauties of sea, 
 earth, and sky. When I return in the evenings from Constanti¬ 
 nople in my caique, rowing along the European coast on a clear 
 moonlight night, I see for the space of a league, groups of women, 
 young girls, and children, seated on the edge of the granite quay, 
 or on the parapets or the terraces of the gardens :—they pass 
 whole hours in gazing at the sea, the woods, the moon, and inhal¬ 
 ing the fresh evening breeze. The inhabitants of our regions 
 know nothing of these natural enjoyments. Their sensations are 
 blunted. They require the excitement of artificial pleasures, and 
 even vices. The few among them by whom nature is still under¬ 
 stood and adored are visionaries and poets. They hear the voice 
 of God in his works, and are satisfied with nature, and silent con¬ 
 templation. 
 
 At Buyukdere and at Therapia I have met several persons of 
 my acquaintance amongst the Russians, and the members of the 
 foreign embassies. Count Orloff, M. Boutenieff (the ambassador 
 from Russia to Constantinople, a man of superior acquirements, 
 at once a philosopher and a statesman), and Baron Sturmer, the 
 Austrian internuncio,—all show the most marked attentions. I 
 hear nothing discussed but European politics. This country is 
 now the important point. 
 
 The Russians are camped in Asia, and riding at anchor under 
 our windows. Will they retire? I do not doubt but they will. 
 We are never in a hurry to seize a prey which we know cannot 
 escape. Count Orloff read to me yesterday an admirable letter 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 239 
 
 written to him by the Emperor Nicholas. It was to the follow¬ 
 ing effect:— 
 
 “My dear Orloff,—When providence has placed a man at 
 the head of forty millions of his fellow-creatures, he is expected to 
 present to the world a bright example of honor and fidelity to his 
 word,—I am that man. I will be worthy of the mission I have 
 received from God. As soon as the difficulties are smoothed be¬ 
 tween Ibrahim and the Grand Signior, do not wait another day ; 
 bring back my fleet and my army.” 
 
 This is noble language,—a situation well understood,—digni¬ 
 fied generosity ! Constantinople will not fly away, and necessity 
 will bring back the Russians, whom political integrity now re¬ 
 moves for a time. 
 
 June 20th. 
 
 I have become acquainted here with a most agreeable and 
 clever man—one of those men who are superior to their ill for¬ 
 tune, and who contrive to swim into port by aid of the current 
 which threatens to sink them. The person I allude to is M. Ca- 
 losso, a Piedmontese officer. Like many of his countrymen, he 
 was compromised in the Piedmontese revolution of 1820 ; like 
 many others, he was proscribed ; and without a home, without 
 friends, he sought an asylum in Turkey. He presented himself 
 to the sultan, and offered to organize his cavalry : he became 
 Mahmoud’s favorite and military adviser. He has, however, had 
 the good sense to moderate the favor, which might have exposed 
 him to dangerous envy. His mode and cordiality of manner have 
 pleased the pachas of the court and the ministers of the divan. 
 He has made friends every where, and he preserves them by the 
 same merits which enabled him to gain them. The sultan has 
 raised him in rank, without requiring him to abjure his nationali¬ 
 ty or his religion. Among the Turks he is now Rustem Bey, 
 and among the Christians he is an obliging and amiable Frank. 
 He sought my acquaintance here, and offered to render me any 
 service which his familiarity at the divan and at the Seraglio 
 would enable him to procure for me. He has access every 
 where, and is on terms of intimacy with some of the principal 
 officers of the court. He offered me facilities for seeing places 
 to which no Christian traveler, not even the ambassadors, are 
 ever admitted. I am to make a visit to the Seraglio, to which no 
 Christian since Lady Mary Wortley Montague has been suffered 
 to enter. To-morrow we are to explore together that mysterious 
 
240 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 palace, to which M. Calosso is himself a stranger, though he is 
 acquainted with all the sultan’s principal officers. 
 
 We first went to pay a visit to Namuk Pacha, one of the 
 young favorites of the Grand Signior, who had invited me to 
 breakfast at his barracks at Scutari, and who had lent me his 
 horses when I visited the mountains of Asia. Namuk Pacha had, 
 however, been summoned to do duty that day at the sultan’s pa¬ 
 lace at Beglierbeg on the banks of the Bosphorus. Thither we 
 accordingly proceeded. Thanks to the rank and high favor en¬ 
 joyed by Rustem Bey, we were permitted to pass the gates, and 
 to examine the grounds surrounding the palace. The sultan was 
 going to visit the little mosque of an European village on the 
 other shore of the Bosphorus, opposite Beglierbeg. His superb 
 caiques were moored along the quay which bordered the palace, 
 and his Arabian horses were standing in the court-yard, held by 
 sais, as the sultan and his suite were to mount them to ride through 
 the gardens. We entered a wing of the palace which was de¬ 
 tached from the principal building, and in which were assembled 
 the pachas, the officers on duty, and the staff of the palace. We 
 passed through several spacious apartments, in which we saw a 
 number of officers, civil and military, and slaves All was bustle 
 and movement, like a ministerial office, or a palace in Europe on 
 a day of ceremony. The interior of this palace was not splendid¬ 
 ly furnished ; divans and carpets, walls painted in fresco, and 
 crystal lustres, were its only decorations. The Oriental costume, 
 the turban, the pelisse, the loose pantaloons, the girdle, the gold 
 caftan, which the Turks have abandoned for a miserable Euro¬ 
 pean dress, ill cut and ridiculously worn, has changed the grave 
 and solemn aspect of the people into a poor parody of the Franks. 
 The diamond star glittering on the breasts of the pachas and vi¬ 
 ziers, is the only ornament which distinguishes them, and which 
 calls to mind their former magnificence. We were conducted 
 through several crowded apartments into a little room looking to 
 one of the exterior gardens of the Grand Signior’s palace. There 
 Namuk Pacha joined us ; he sat down with us, ordered pipes and 
 sherbets to be brought in, and introduced us to several young pa¬ 
 chas, who, like himself, enjoy the sultan’s favor. Some colonels 
 of the Nisam, or regular troops of the guard, came to join us, 
 and took part in our conversation. Namuk Pacha, who had re¬ 
 cently returned from his embassy to St. Petersburg, speaks 
 French with elegance and facility. His manners, which have 
 been formed during his residence in Russia, are those of an ele- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 241 
 
 
 gant European diplomatist. He appears to me to be a shrewd 
 and intelligent young man. Kalil Pacha, then Capitan Pacha, 
 who has since married the daughter of the sultan, likewise speaks 
 French very well. Achmet Pacha is another young Osmanli 
 elegant , with all the manners of a European. There was, indeed, 
 nothing in this palace to remind one of an Asiatic court, except 
 the black slaves, the eunuchs, the grated windows of the harem, 
 the shady groves and the blue waves of the Bosphorus, on which 
 our eyes fell whenever we directed them towards the gardens. 
 We spoke with discretion, but at the same time with freedom, of 
 the negotiations b3tween Egypt, Europe, and Turkey; and the 
 progress made, and to be made, by the Turks in military tactics, 
 legislation, and the policy of the different powers of Europe. 
 Nothing in our conversation could have denoted that we were 
 discoursing with a people who are termed barbarians, about the 
 affairs of these same barbarians, and that what we said might 
 even have reached the ear of the Grand Signior, the Shadow of 
 Allah. 
 
 Our conversation could not have been more unrestrained, or 
 more elegantly kept up, in a drawing-room in London or Vienna. 
 These young men, who were eager for information and improve¬ 
 ment, spoke of their situation, and of themselves, in a tone of 
 noble and interesting modesty. The hour of prayer was approach¬ 
 ing, and we took leave of our hosts, deferring till another oppor¬ 
 tunity our request to be presented to the sultan. Namuk Pacha 
 consigned us to the guidance of a colonel of the Imperial Guards, 
 directing him to conduct us into the outer court of the mosque, 
 to which the sultan was about to proceed. 
 
 We crossed the Bosphorus, and stationed ourselves on the steps 
 leading to the gate of the little mosque. In the course of a few 
 minutes we heard the guns of the fleet and the fort, which every 
 Friday announce to the capital that the sultan is going to the 
 mosque ; and we saw the two imperial caiques leave the shore of 
 Asia, and dart across the Bosphorus like arrows. No luxury of 
 horses and carriages can equal the Oriental splendor of these 
 gilded caiques, whose prows project, like golden eagles, twenty 
 feet in advance of the body of the bark. Twenty-four rowers, 
 whose oars rose and fell simultaneously like the flapping of two 
 vast wings, raised at every stroke a veil of foam round the sides 
 of the caique ; and beneath an awning of silk, gold, and feathers, 
 the Grand Signior was seated on a throne of cashmere, with his 
 pachas and admirals at his feet. When the caique reached the 
 
242 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 shore, the sultan jumped out lightly, resting his two hands on the 
 shoulders of Achmet and Namuk Pacha. The band of his guard, 
 ranged opposite to where we stood, played a flourish, and he ad¬ 
 vanced rapidly between two lines of officers and spectators. 
 
 Sultan Mahmoud is a man of forty-five years of age, of mid¬ 
 dle height, and elegant and dignified figure. His eye is blue 
 and mild in its expression, his complexion is dark and ruddy, his 
 mouth handsome and intelligent, and his beard, which is as black 
 and glossy as jet, descends in thick clusters on his bosom. This 
 is the only remnant of the national costume which he preserves: 
 in all other respects, the hat excepted, he might be taken for a 
 European. On the present occasion he wore pantaloons and 
 boots, a brown frock-coat, with a collar ornamented with dia¬ 
 monds, and on his head a small red woolen cap, surmounted by 
 a tassel of precious stones. He walked at an unsteady pace, and 
 looked anxious and disturbed ; something appeared to have vexed 
 him. He spoke emphatically and with an air of agitation to the 
 pachas who accompanied him. When he came near us, as he 
 ascended the steps leading to the door of the mosque, he slack¬ 
 ened his pace, looked at us graciously, and slightly bowed his 
 head. He then, by a motion, directed Namuk Pacha to take a 
 petition from the -hand of a veiled Turkish female, and entered 
 the mosque. He remained in it only twenty minutes, and during 
 that interval the military band played pieces from the operas of 
 Mozart and Rossini. The sultan came from the mosque with a 
 more serene and composed air. He saluted the spectators on his 
 right and left, and having walked slowly down to the water’s 
 edge, he jumped smilingly into his boat. In the twinkling of an 
 eye we saw him land on the Asiatic shore, and enter the gardens 
 of Beglierbeg. It is impossible not to be pleased with the coun¬ 
 tenance of Mahmoud, or to avoid forming wishes for the welfare 
 of a prince whose countenance bespeaks so much manly energy 
 and profound sensibility. But, alas ! these wishes are unavailing, 
 when we think of the fate that inevitably awaits him. If he were 
 a truly great man, he would change his destiny, and overcome 
 the fatality that attends him. There is still time for this. As 
 long as a nation retains any remnant of existence, there is in the 
 religion and the nationality of its people a principle of energy 
 and resurrection, which a skillful and powerful genius may regen¬ 
 erate, and lead to a glorious transformation. But Mahmoud’s 
 greatness is confined to his courage. He would fight and die 
 intrepidly ; but the spring of his resolution relaxes when he is 
 

 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 243 
 
 required to exercise the duties of a sovereign. Whatever may¬ 
 be his fate, history will pity him and honor his memory. He has 
 attempted great things. He saw that his empire must perish, if 
 he did not reform it. He has lopped off the dead branches of the 
 tree, but he cannot infuse sap into that portion of the trunk that 
 still remains standing. Is this his fault ? I should say it is. 
 What remained to be accomplished was nothing in comparison to 
 the destruction of the Janissaries. No resistance would have been 
 offered in Turkey; and Europe would have looked on timidly 
 and inertly. A fine opportunity has been suffered to escape. 
 Years have elapsed, and the adventurous Ibrahim has converted 
 to his own advantage the unpopularity of the sultan. Russia has 
 been accepted as a protectress. This odious protection of a nat¬ 
 ural enemy against a rebellious slave has wounded the pride of 
 Islamism. Mahmoud has now scarcely any resource but his own 
 personal courage. Surrounded as he is by his courtiers and flat¬ 
 terers, an insurrection may hurl him from the throne, and plunge 
 the empire into final anarchy. Turkey depends on the life of 
 Mahmoud. The empire and the sultan will perish on one and 
 the same day ; and in the tomb of Mahmoud will be buried two 
 of the finest portions of Europe and Asia! 
 
 June the 21st, 1833. 
 
 At eleven o’clock we landed at the quay of the Old Seraglio, 
 and entered the streets by which it is surrounded. In the way I 
 visited the Divan of the Porte, a vast palace, in which the 
 grand vizier resides, and in which affairs of state are discussed. 
 There is nothing remarkable about this place, except the recol¬ 
 lection of the scenes which have passed in it: but the edifice it¬ 
 self bears no mark of the sanguinary dramas of which it has 
 been the theatre. This building is a large palace of painted 
 wood, with an external staircase, covered by a projecting roof cut 
 into festoons in the Indian or Chinese fashion. The floors of the 
 rooms are covered over with mats, but have a very naked look. 
 From this place we went down to the spot where the awful gate 
 of the Seraglio has so often opened to vomit forth the bleeding 
 heads of viziers and even of sultans. We passed this gate with¬ 
 out interruption. The public is admitted into the first court of 
 the Seraglio. This vast court, ornamented by groups of beauti¬ 
 ful trees, descends on the left towards the Mint, a magnificent 
 modern building, without the slightest Oriental character. Here 
 we were received by the Armenian directors of the Mint, who 
 
 a 
 
244 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 
 opened in our presence the caskets containing the jewels, ar¬ 
 ranged under their superintendence for the Seraglio. 
 
 One might have fancied that it had rained showers of pearls 
 and diamonds, so great was their profusion. Impoverishing riches, 
 by which an empire is ruined ! As soon as a state becomes civ¬ 
 ilized, these ideal representations of wealth are exchanged for 
 wealth of a real and productive kind,—agriculture and commerce. 
 
 I stayed here but a short time: and we next entered the last 
 court of the Seraglio, which is inaccessible to all persons but 
 those who have official employments about the palace, and to the 
 ambassadors on the occasion of their reception. It is bounded 
 by the wings of the palace, by several kiosks each separated 
 from the other, and by the apartments for the eunuchs, the guards, 
 and the slaves. The playing of several fountains renders the 
 air cool and refreshing, while shade is afforded by the spreading 
 foliage of the trees. Having reached the last gate, the soldiers 
 on guard obstinately refused to let us pass. In vain did Rustem 
 Bey make himself known to the officer on duty. In reply to his 
 applications, the latter referred to his instructions, and declared 
 that he should risk his head by allowing me to enter. We con- 
 seqently turned back ; and whilst we were retracing our steps, 
 not a little chagrined, we were accosted by the kesneclar, or grand 
 treasurer, who was returning from the Mint to the interior of the 
 Seraglio, where he has apartments. Being informed by his friend 
 Rustem Bey of the cause of our disappointment, he requested us 
 to follow him ; and without any difficulty he introduced us into 
 the court of the icoglans. 
 
 This court, which is less spacious than those we first entered, 
 is formed by several small palaces in the form of kiosks, having 
 very low roofs, projecting about seven or eight feet beyond the 
 walls, and supported by small columns or little Moorish pillars of 
 painted wood. The columns, the pillars, the walls, and the roofs, 
 are all of carved wood, and painted various colors. The courts and 
 gardens, consisting of the intervening spaces between the kiosks, 
 are of various sizes, and irregularly planted with trees of every 
 kind. Their branches spread over the buildings and completely 
 envelope the roofs and terraces. The right wing of these edifices 
 consists of kitchens. They are large buildings, with numerous 
 chimneys, and their external walls are blackened by smoke. 
 Some idea of the magnitude of these kitchens may be formed, 
 when it is known that the sultan boards all the persons attached 
 to the court and palace, and that the number of these guests 
 amounts to at least ten thousand per day. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 245 
 
 At a little distance in advance of the kitchens stands a pretty 
 little palace, surrounded by a gallery or portico, on a level with 
 the ground. This is the abode of the pages or icoglans of the 
 Seraglio: it is there that the sultan educates the sons of the offi¬ 
 cers of his court, or young slaves destined to fill situations in the 
 seraglio or in the government offices. This palace, which was 
 formerly the dwelling of the sultans themselves, is decorated both 
 externally and internally with a profusion of carving, sculpture, 
 and gilding, but is nevertheless in good taste. The ceilings are 
 as rich as those of the finest palaces of France or Italy ; and the 
 floors are formed of mosaic work. The palace contains several 
 apartments nearly of equal size. On each side of these apart¬ 
 ments, there are niches and stalls of carved wood, the workman¬ 
 ship of which is not inferior to the stalls in the choirs of our old 
 cathedrals. Each of these niches is the sleeping-place of an icog- 
 lan. At the further end of each, there is an alcove in which he 
 lays his cushions and his carpets, and where his clothes are either 
 hung up, or laid in a box of gilt wood. Above these niches, 
 there is a gallery which is ornamented and decorated, and fur¬ 
 nished with as many stalls as the lower apartments. The 
 whole is lighted by cupolas, or small windows in the roof of 
 the edifice. The young icoglans, who had been pupils of Rustem 
 Bey, received him with the most affecting demonstration of at¬ 
 tachment. The visit of a father long expected, could not have 
 been more joyfully received—the affection of these youths drew 
 tears from Rustem Bey, and I was, myself, deeply moved at the 
 spontaneous and sincere expression of their feelings. They took 
 my friend by the hand, and kissed the skirts of his coat. 
 
 “ Rustem Bey ! Rustem Bey !” they exclaimed one after the 
 other, and all hastened to meet him, breathless and flushed with 
 joy. Be could scarcely free himself from their caresses, and 
 they addressed to him the most affectionate language. “ Rustem 
 Bey,” said they to him, “ why have you been absent so long ? 
 You have been a father to us, and we have, been longing to see 
 you. We are indebted to you for all that we know. Allah and 
 the sultan have sent you to make men of us. Before, we were 
 only slaves—sons of slaves. The name of the Osmanlis was a 
 mockery in Europe: henceforth, we will defend it and honor it. 
 But, tell the sultan to send you back to us. We do not study 
 now ; we pine in dullness and weariness.” 
 
 Five or six of these youths, whose countenances were re¬ 
 markably open and intelligent, showed us over the building. 
 

 246 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 They conducted us to their saloon of recreation, It was a kiosk 
 surrounded by gurgling fountains, which fell from the walls into 
 marble basins. There were divans all round it, and a staircase, 
 concealed in the thickness of the walls, led to the offices, where 
 numerous slaves kept pipes, coffee, sherbets, water, and ice, always 
 in readiness for the icoglans. They played at all sorts of games in 
 this saloon, and several of the msat down to chess. They ordered 
 sherbets and ices to he served to us, and reclining on the divans, we 
 conversed with them for a long time respecting their studies, the 
 politics of Europe, and the destiny of the Turkish empire. They 
 shuddered with indignation at their present condition, and prayed 
 for the success of the sultan in his reforming enterprises. I nev¬ 
 er witnessed greater ardor for the regeneration of a country than 
 that which animated these young men. Young Italians, when 
 conversing on independence and the diffusion of knowledge, do 
 not evince greater enthusiasm: their countenances lighted up 
 when they spoke. The oldest of them might be about twenty or 
 twenty-two, and the youngest about twelve or thirteen. Except 
 at the naval asylum at Greenwich, l never saw finer looking lads 
 than some of these young Turks. They reluctantly suffered us to 
 depart, and they accompanied us wherever they were permitted 
 to go into the surrounding gardens, courts, and kiosks. Several 
 of them shed tears on taking leave of Rustem Bey. 
 
 Meanwhile the kesnedar had gone to order the eunuchs and 
 keepers of the gardens and palaces to admit us freely to any place 
 we might wish to enter. At the extremity of the court-yard, a 
 little beyond the palace of the icoglans, a large building inter¬ 
 cepted our view and our further advance. This is the habitation 
 of the sultans themselves. Like the kiosks and palaces we had 
 already seen, it \vas surrounded by a gallery formed of a prolon¬ 
 gation of roofs. On this gallery open the numberless doors and 
 windows of the apartments. The palace is all on the ground- 
 floor. We entered the large halls which serve as a vestibule and 
 communicate with the different apartments. This vestibule is a 
 labyrinth composed of the pillars which support the roofs and 
 ceilings, and whence branch off vast circular corridors for the 
 persons in immediate attendance on the sultan. The pillars, ceil¬ 
 ings, and walls are all of painted wood carved in Moorish orna¬ 
 ments. The doors of the imperial apartments were open, and we 
 looked into several of them. They all nearly resembled each 
 other in arrangement and decoration. The ceilings were all 
 moulded and gilt, and surmounted by cupolas of wood or marble, 
 
 
V 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND 
 
 247 
 
 carved in arabesque open work, through which was admitted a 
 soft and veiled light. Broad and low divans were ranged round 
 the walls : no other furniture, no other seats, except carpets, mats, 
 and cushions. The windows, which are about half a foot from 
 the floor, look to the courts, galleries, terraces, and gardens. On 
 the side of the palace facing that at which we entered, there was 
 a terrace or platform built of stone and paved with marble. A 
 beautiful kiosk, in which the sultan receives the foreign ambassa¬ 
 dors, is detached from the palace, and is elevated a few feet above 
 this platform. It is like a little Moorish chapel. A divan com¬ 
 pletely fills it. It is surrounded by circular windows, which com¬ 
 mand a superb view of Constantinople, the port, the sea of Mar¬ 
 mora, and the Bosphorus. Marble fountains form jets-d’eau on an 
 open gallery between the kiosk and the palace. It is a delicious 
 promenade. The shrubs and rose trees from the little gardens 
 which cover the low terraces creep up the balustrades, and dif¬ 
 fuse their balmy perfume through the kiosk. Some pictures, 
 painted on marble and wood, are hung round the walls. They 
 represent views of Mecca and Medina. I examined them atten¬ 
 tively. They are like plans, without perspective. They per¬ 
 fectly accord with what Ali Bey has related of Mecca, of the 
 Kaaba, and the arrangement of the different sacred monuments of 
 the Holy City ; and they prove that that traveler really visited the 
 places he has described. What he says of the circular gallery 
 surrounding the area of the different mosques is attested by these 
 paintings. They represent the portico, which resembles that of 
 St. Peter’s at Rome. 
 
 Having passed along the platform of the palace on the left, we 
 reached, by a narrow balcony supported by high terraces, the 
 harem, or palace of the sultanas. It was closed, and only a 
 small number of Odalisques remained in it. We did not venture 
 to approach very near to this place, which is interdicted even to 
 the eye. We saw only the grated windows and the delicious bal¬ 
 conies with their trellis-work intertwined with flowers, where the 
 women pass their time in looking at the gardens, the city, and the 
 sea. We cast our eyes over a multitude of parterres, surrounded 
 by marble walls, watered by fountains, and planted symmetrically 
 with all sorts of flowers and shrubs. These gardens, which are 
 reached by descending flights of steps, and which communicate 
 one with another, have also elegant kiosks. There the women 
 and children of the harem walk about and enjoy the charms of 
 
 nature 
 
248 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 We reached the declivity of the hill of the Seraglio, which 
 descends toward the port and the sea of Marmora. We now 
 stood on the most elevated point of this spot, which is unique in 
 the whole world, and whence the eye commands all the hills and 
 all the seas of Constantinople. We stopped a considerable time 
 to enjoy the prospect: it was the same enchantment of the sight 
 as that which 1 described from the belvidere of Pera. Whilst 
 we were standing on this terrace of the palace, the clock struck 
 the hour of repast, and a number of slaves passed us, bearing on 
 their heads large pewter dishes containing the dinners of the offi¬ 
 cers, the eunuchs, and the women of the Seraglio. We were 
 present at several of these dinners. They consisted of pilaus, 
 poultry, koubes, (little balls of rice and meat hashed together and 
 roasted in a vine leaf,) little cakes like our wafers, and vases of 
 water. Wherever the slave met his master, there he set down 
 the dinner. Sometimes it was in a corner of one of the rooms of 
 the palace ; sometimes on the terrace, under the shade of the roof; 
 sometimes in the gardens, under a tree ; and sometimes near a 
 fountain. 
 
 The kesnedar came to look for us, aiid conducted us to the 
 kiosk in which he lived, in front of the treasury of the Seraglio. 
 This treasury, which contains incalculable wealth, accumulated 
 since the creation of the empire, is a large stone building, with a 
 covered portico. The building is very little elevated above the 
 ground : the doors are low, and the apartments like cellars. Large 
 wooden coffers, painted red, are filled with gold and silver coin. 
 A certain quantity is taken every week for the service of the em¬ 
 pire. Several of these coffers were standing under the portico. 
 We did not request permission to enter the treasury, but we were 
 assured that independently of the gold and silver specie, the Kesne 
 contains vast quantities of pearls and diamonds. This is very 
 probable, since the sultans have always been accustomed to de¬ 
 posit their jewels in this treasury, and never to remove them, ex¬ 
 cept in the utmost extremities of the state. But after all, the 
 value of these precious stones is merely conventional, and if the 
 Grand Signior wished to sell them, he would diminish their price 
 by the abundance created in the market; consequently, these 
 jewels are by no means so vast a financial resource as they seem 
 to be. 
 
 The kesnedar, who was a frank, cheerful, and intelligent man, 
 conducted me to his own apartments, where I saw, for the first 
 time in Turkey, something like the elegance and convenience of 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 ‘249 
 
 
 European furniture. The divans were high, and covered with 
 silk cushions, and there were tables and shelves round the room. 
 On these shelves there were papers, books, maps, and a terrestrial 
 globe. Sweetmeats and sherbet were handed to us. We convers¬ 
 ed on the state of the arts and sciences in Europe, compared with 
 the state of human knowledge in the Ottoman empire. The kes- 
 nedar appeared to me to be as well-informed and as free from preju¬ 
 dices as any European. He earnestly prayed for the success of 
 Mahmoud in his projected reforms; but being old, and having passed 
 his life in confidential employments in the Seraglio under four sul¬ 
 tans, he seems to cherish but little hope, and is philosophically re¬ 
 signed to fate : he leads a tranquil and solitary life within the walls 
 of the forsaken Seraglio. He asked me a multitude of questions on 
 various subjects ; viz. philosophy, religion, poetry, politics, milita¬ 
 ry tactics, and different systems of government—republican and 
 monarchical. He discussed all these subjects with a degree of 
 judgment and shrewdness which convinced me that he was one of 
 the most able men in the Turkish empire. He placed his globe 
 of the earth before me, and having sent for a celestial globe, he 
 asked me to explain to him the movements of the planets, and the 
 divisions of the earth. He made notes of all I said, and appeared 
 delighted. He begged that I would stay and sup with him, and 
 pass the night at his lodgings. We found it very difficult to de¬ 
 cline his urgent invitations; and indeed I could only excuse my¬ 
 self by telling him that my wife and friends, who knew I had 
 come to the Seraglio, would be in a painful state of anxiety if I 
 did not speedily return. 
 
 “You are, indeed,” said he, “the first Frank who ever enter¬ 
 ed here, and that is a reason why you should be treated with the 
 more attention. The sultan is great, and Allah is for all!” 
 
 He escorted us as far as the inner staircase, leading from the 
 platform of the sultan’s palace into the labyrinth of the little gar¬ 
 dens of the harem, of which I have already spoken. There he 
 consigned us to the guidance of a chief of the bostangis, who led 
 us from kiosk to kiosk, from parterre to parterre, (the latter all 
 watered with delicious fountains,) till we reached a gate in a high 
 wall, which separates the interior part of the Seraglio from the 
 large surrounding lawns. There we found ourselves beneath 
 some enormous plantains, upwards of a hundred feet high, which 
 spread their branches over the walls, and shade the high balconies 
 of the harem. These trees form a forest, intersected with green 
 lawns. Further on we came to large fruit trees and kitchen gar- 
 
250 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 dens, cultivated by negro slaves, who have their huts under the 
 trees. These irregular plantations are watered by little streams. 
 
 Not far from the harem stands an old and magnificent palace 
 of Bajazet, now overgrown with ivy, and inhabited only by the 
 birds of night. It is built of stone, in a beautiful style of Arab 
 architecture. It might easily be repaired, and it would of itself 
 be worth the whole Seraglio; but tradition affirms that it is 
 haunted by evil spirits, and accordingly no Osmanli will enter it. 
 As we were now alone, I entered the subterranean arches of this 
 fine ruin: they were almost choked up with rubbish. The walls 
 and staircases which I had time to take a glimpse of, appeared to 
 be specimens of exquisite workmanship. 
 
 On again reaching one of the gates in the Seraglio walls, we 
 passed through a forest of plantains, sycamores, and cypresses, 
 the largest I ever saw, and we made the tour of the outer gardens. 
 They brought us to the bank of the sea of Marmora, where there 
 are two or three magnificent palaces inhabited by the sultans 
 during the summer season. The apartments of these palaces look 
 close upon the water, and are unceasingly freshened by the sea- 
 breezes. Further on we came to some little green hills, on which 
 were mosques, kiosks, and fountains, encircled by marble para¬ 
 pets, and shaded by large trees. Here we sat down among the 
 flowers and the fountains: behind us rose the lofty walls of the 
 Seraglio, and before us lay a sloping lawn of green turf, termi¬ 
 nating at the sea. Between the sea and ourselves rose a curtain 
 of cypress and plantains, extending along the boundary wall. 
 Through this curtain of foliage, we perceived the waves of the sea 
 of Marmora, the Prince’s islands, multitudes of vessels at full sail, 
 whose masts glided from tree to tree, and Scutari tinged with the 
 rays of the setting sun: the gilded summits of the Giant’s Moun¬ 
 tain, and the snowy tops of the mountains of Phrygia, formed the 
 framework of the enchanting picture. 
 
 Thus have I attempted to describe the interior of the Serag¬ 
 lio:—that scene of so much mystery and bloodshed, where the 
 Ottoman empire had its birth, but where it will not die ; for since 
 the massacre of the Janissaries, Sultan Mahmoud does not inhabit 
 the Seraglio. He is a man of mild disposition, and that sangui¬ 
 nary event is revolting to his feelings. Perhaps, too, he does not 
 consider himself quite safe amidst the fanatical population of Con¬ 
 stantinople, and prefers having one foot in Asia and one on board 
 his fleet, as he may have in any one of his thirty palaces on the 
 banks of the Bosphorus. The general character of the Seraglio 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 251 
 
 is neither grandeur, convenience, nor splendor; it is merely an 
 assemblage of wooden tents, gilt and ornamented with open-work. 
 It is characterized by the feeling which predominates among the 
 people, viz. the love of nature. The admiration of beautiful 
 prospects, groves, fountains, the expanse of the sea, and the hori¬ 
 zon bounded by chains of snow-capped mountains, is the ruling 
 instinct of the nation. In this may be traced the recollections of 
 a pastoral and agricultural people, who love to cherish the remem¬ 
 brance of their origin, and whose tastes are all simple and instinc¬ 
 tive. They have raised the palace of their sovereigns, the capital 
 of their imperial city, on the slope of the loveliest hill in the em¬ 
 pire, and perhaps in the whole world. The Seraglio has neither 
 the external grandeur, nor the internal luxury of a European 
 palace. Its charms consist in spacious gardens with trees inter¬ 
 twining, free and eternal as in a virgin forest, with fountains 
 murmuring and ring-doves cooing; apartments whose numerous 
 windows are ever open ; terraces overlooking the gardens and 
 sea ; and grated kiosks where the sultans, seated behind their 
 window-blinds, may at once enjoy solitude and the magic scenery 
 of the Bosphorus. It is the same throughout all Turkey. Sove¬ 
 reign and subjects, rich and poor, have but one want, one feeling, 
 in the choice and arrangement of their dwellings, viz. to charm 
 the eye with a beautiful prospect. If the situation of the house 
 and the poverty of the owner preclude this luxury, then at least 
 there are a tree, a sheep, and a dove-cot in a patch of ground 
 surrounding the hut. Thus every elevated site commanding a 
 fine prospect is occupied by a mosque, a santoon, and a Turkish 
 cabin. There is not a little hill, or a smiling gulf, along either 
 of the shores of the Bosphorus, where a pacha or a vizier has not 
 built a villa and laid out a garden. To sit beneath the shade of 
 a tree, near a refreshing fountain, with a magnificent view of the 
 country or the sea, and to spend hours and days in tranquil, vague 
 contemplation—this is the highest luxury of Mussulman life. It 
 accounts for the peculiar structure and arrangement of the Turk¬ 
 ish houses, and it also explains why the people are inactive and 
 silent, until some violent excitement rouses the energy which lies 
 dormant, but not extinct, within them. The Turks are not loqua¬ 
 cious like the Arabs. They attach little value to the gratifications 
 of vanity and society; the charms of nature are all they seek. 
 They dream, meditate, and pray. They are a nation of philoso¬ 
 phers, deducing every thing from nature, and referring every 
 thing to God. God is incessantly in their thoughts and in their 
 
252 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 mouths; and with them the Deity is not a mere vage idea, but a 
 palpable, evident, and practical reality. The virtue of the Turk 
 is perpetual adoration of the divine will ; his dogma is fatality. 
 With this faith the world may be conquered ; but it may be lost 
 with the same facility, the same indifference. 
 
 We left the Seraglio by the gate which opens to the port; 
 and I entered the beautiful kiosk on the quay where the sultan 
 sits to receive the salutations of his fleets, when they depart on 
 any expedition, or return home. 
 
 June 22. 
 
 Two of my friends have left me, to return to Europe. I am 
 now alone at Buyukdere, with my wife and M. de Capmas. 
 
 June 25. 
 
 We have spent two days at Belgrade, a village in the midst 
 of the forest of that name, four leagues from Constantinople. 
 The forest, which consists of oak trees, is of immense magnitude, 
 and covers the hills situated between the Bosphorus and the sea 
 of Marmora, at an equal distance from both, and extends without 
 interruption as far as the Balkans. This place is as wild and 
 as graceful as any of the English forests. The Greek village of 
 Belgrade is built in a large valley in the midst of the forest : it 
 is surrounded by Arcadian meadows, and a river flows beneath 
 the shade of the oak trees. Magnificent artificial basins are 
 formed in the hollows between the hills, to collect the waters and 
 supply the fountains of Constantinople. Here I partook of the 
 kind hospitality of MM. Aleon, French bankers, who have been 
 established for two or three generations at Constantinople, and 
 who have a delightful house at Buyukdere, and a hunting villa 
 at Belgrade. In this charming family I found elegance of man¬ 
 ners, elevated feeling and cultivation of mind, combined with the 
 winning grace and simplicity of the East. At Constantinople I 
 likewise met with another agreeable introduction in M. Salzani, 
 the brother of my banker at Smyrna, an amiable and intelligent 
 man, who treated us as his countrymen and friends. In general, 
 the Frank society of Constantinople, which consists of officers, of 
 the foreign ambassadors and their suites, the consuls, the families 
 of the dragomans, and the merchants of different European na¬ 
 tions, is far above its reputation. Being confined within a limited 
 space, it has the defects of the society of small towns,—a prone¬ 
 ness to gossiping and jealousy; but it is likewise distinguished 
 for probity, information, elegance, and the most cordial hospitality 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 253 
 
 to strangers. The current events of Europe are as well known 
 there as in the circles of Vienna or Paris, and the strongest in- 
 terest is felt in the political events of the West. I met with men 
 of extended information, and women distinguished for beauty and 
 accomplishments. In the saloons of Pera and Therapia, a stran¬ 
 ger might fancy himself in the most elegant drawing-rooms of 
 our great cities in Europe, if he did not cast his eyes on the 
 Bosphorus, or see the Golden Horn at the further end of the gar¬ 
 dens, sparkling amongst the shrubs and trees. 
 
 29th June, 1833. 
 
 We have had an excursion on the fresh waters of Europe. 
 At the bottom of the port of Constantinople, the hills of Evoub 
 and those of Pera and Galata approximate insensibly, and leave 
 only a narrow arm of the sea between them. On the left extends 
 the suburb of Eyoub, with its mosque, where the sultans, on 
 ascending the throne, gird themselves with the sabre of Mahomet; 
 for the coronation of blood and the consecration of force is the 
 religion of the Mussulman despotism. This pyramidal mosque 
 rises gracefully above the painted houses of the suburb, and the 
 tops of its minarets mingle in the horizon with the high ruinous 
 walls of Constantinople. On the edge of the canal stands a hand¬ 
 some palace belonging to the sultanas: the windows are level 
 with the canal ; and the large and tufted tops of the trees in the 
 gardens rise above the roof, and are reflected in the water. Be¬ 
 yond this palace, the sea dwindles into a river, flowing between 
 beautiful greenswards interspersed with slopes, gardens, and 
 woods. Here Bulgarian shepherds are seen playing on their 
 pipes, whilst, seated on the rocks, they tend their herds of goats 
 and horses. At length, the river becomes a mere brook, the 
 banks of which are touched by the oars of the canues as they 
 glide along, and the branches of superb elms stretching from side 
 to side embarass the rowers. A vast meadow, shaded by groups 
 of plantains, extends on the right, while the left bank is crowned 
 by green and wooded hills. Further on, in the direction of the 
 stream, the view is lost among irregular avenues of trees, which 
 shadow the brook, and follow all its windings. Thus terminates 
 the beautiful port of Constantinople, and thus also ends the vast 
 and tempestuous Mediterranean. You land at last in a shady 
 creek, at the bottom of a verdure-girdled gulf, on a grassy and 
 flowery bank, far removed from the noise and bustle of the sea 
 and the city. How happy would be the man who should end his 
 life in such a spot as this ! I could not wish a happier close tQ 
 VOL. ii. 12 
 
254 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 the lives of my dearest friends, who are now struggling on the 
 busy scene of the world. Here one may enjoy silence after tur¬ 
 moil, repose after agitation. It is a resting-place of shade and 
 solitude, in which to reflect on life past, and to die in peace and 
 friendship with nature and with all mankind. For myself, I have 
 no wish beyond this. 
 
 Stepping from the caique, T walked along the banks of the 
 stream until I arrived at a kiosk, which I discerned flickering 
 among the trees. Round the trunk of each tree was assembled a 
 group of Jewish, Turkish, and Armenian women, who, with their 
 beautiful children, were playing upon the grass, and enjoying 
 their repast in the shade. Saddle-horses, superbly caparisoned, 
 and arabas (the carriages used at Constantinople), were scattered 
 here and there over the meadow. In front of, and around, the 
 kiosk were a canal, and different pieces of water, on which swans 
 were swimming. The gardens were small, but indeed the whole 
 meadow may be said to be a garden. Here formerly the reigning 
 sultan used to spend the sultry season. Fie was attached to this 
 delicious retreat, because it was much liked by a favorite oda¬ 
 lisque. After the massacres of the Almeidan, love found a place 
 in the breast of Mahmoud ; but the beautiful odalisque died in his 
 retreat, and since then Mahmoud has not resided here. It is said, 
 however, that he sometimes visits the tomb of the fair odalisque, 
 which consecrates the gardens of the deserted palace. My day 
 was passed in the depths of this valley under the shade of the trees. 
 I wrote some verses to V****. 
 
 3d July. 
 
 I embarked this morning for Constantinople. I reascended 
 the Bosphorus, entered the sea of Marmora, and after rowing for 
 about two hours along the outer walls which separate Stamboul 
 from that sea, I landed at the base of the castle of the Seven Tow¬ 
 ers. We had with us neither teskere nor guide. The Turkish 
 soldiers with considerable reluctance permitted us to enter the 
 first court of the Castle of Blood, whither the dethroned sultans 
 were dragged to suffer the death doomed by the populace, who 
 were at once judges and executioners. Six or seven heads of 
 decapitated emperors have rolled along the pavement of this court, 
 while millions of meaner heads have been exposed on the battle¬ 
 ments of the tower. The warden refused to allow us to proceed 
 further. Whilst he was gone to get instructions from the com¬ 
 mandant of the castle, the door of a low vaulted room in the east¬ 
 ern tower opened. I advanced a few steps; a loud roar made 
 
 i 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE*. HOLY LAND. 
 
 255 
 
 the walls vibrate, and I found myself face to face with a magnifi¬ 
 cent lion. He was chained up, but he made a spring at a beautiful 
 greyhound which I had with me. The animal escaped, and ran 
 for protection between my legs. The lion then raised himself on 
 his hind legs, but his chain confined him to the wall. I made the 
 best of my way out, and closed the door. The warden, arriving 
 soon after, told me that it would be at the peril of his head if he 
 allowed me to proceed a step further. I retired, and left the 
 boundaries of the city by a gate in the old walls leading into the 
 open country. The walls of Constantinople commence at the 
 castle of the Seven Towers upon the sea of Marmora, and extend 
 as far as the summits of the hills which crown the suburb of 
 Eyoub, near the extremity of the port, at the fresh waters of 
 Europe : thus they inclose all the ancient city of the Greek em¬ 
 perors as well as the Stamboul of the Turkish sultans, on the only 
 side of the triangle which is not defended by the sea. On this 
 side, indeed, Constantinople is solely protected by the insensible 
 acclivity of its hills, which at length merge into a fine cultivated 
 plain. Here was raised that triple line of walls which repelled 
 so many assaults, and behind which the miserable Greek empire 
 was so long thought to be imperishable. These well-built walls 
 are still standing, and, next to the Parthenon and Balbec, are the 
 noblest existing memorials of ruined empires. This morning I 
 walked along the external side of the walls. They consist of 
 stone terraces from fifty to sixty feet in height, and occasionally 
 from fifteen to twenty feet thick, covered with freestone of a 
 grayish-white color, but sometimes of pure white, and seeming 
 fresh from the chisel of the mason. At the foot of the walls are 
 the ancient fosses, filled with rubbish and luxuriant loam, in 
 which trees and pellitories have taken root ages ago, and now 
 form an impenetrable glacis. It is in fact a green wood, thirty or 
 forty feet long, peopled by birds and reptiles. In many parts this 
 wood conceals the walls and the square towers by which it is 
 flanked, leaving nothing visible but the battlements. In other 
 parts, the wall is seen in its full height, and then it reflects the 
 rays of the sun with rich effect. It is broken into fissures of every 
 form at top ; and the vegetation taking root there, descends as in 
 the ravines of mountains, and mingles at last with the verdure in 
 the fosses. The summit of the wall is almost every where crowned 
 with vegetation, which overhangs and forms a sort of coping sur¬ 
 mounted by capitals and volutes of climbing plants and ivy. 
 Here and there may be seen a plantain or a cypress springing 
 
256 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 from amid the towers covered by dust, and interlacing their roots 
 among the clefts of the wall. The weight of their foliage and 
 branches, and the strong breezes to which these aerial trees are 
 incessantly exposed, make them incline to the south, and they 
 hang as if uprooted, their immense branches being laden with 
 nests and myriads of birds. 
 
 At intervals of every three or four hundred paces appears 
 one of the double towers, of magnificent construction, with the 
 enormous arches of a gate or antique porch between the two por¬ 
 tions of the building. The greater part of these porches are now 
 mured up ; and the vegetation which has taken root every where, 
 on the walls, the gates, the battlements, and the turrets, forms it¬ 
 self into the most grotesque figures, in combination with the ruins. 
 The ivy hangs from the summits of the tower like the folds of 
 immense mantles; other creeping or climbing plants form, from 
 one cranny to the other, bridges of foliage, fifty feet in length ; 
 and beds of gilliflowers springing from the perpendicular walls 
 wave with every breeze like an ocean of flowers, while the shrubs 
 form themselves into jagged battlements of a thousand different 
 hues. If a stone be thrown against these verdure-clad walls, or 
 into the abyss of shrubs at their feet, swarms of birds immediate¬ 
 ly issue forth. We perceived also a number of eagles, which in¬ 
 habit the towers, and hover all day in the sun, above the eyries 
 where they feed their young. 
 
 July. 
 
 We continue to lead the same solitary life at Buyukdere. We 
 spend our evenings on the water or in the Valley of Roses, and 
 receive weekly visits from M. Turqui. Good hearts alone possess 
 the virtue of consolation. God has furnished them with the only 
 dittany for the incurable wounds of the heart,—sympathy. 
 
 Yesterday Count Orloff, the commander of the Russian fleet 
 and army, and ambassador extraordinary from the Emperor of 
 Russia to the Porte, celebrated the success of his mission, as well 
 as his departure, by a military fete, given to the sultan, on the 
 Bosphorus. The gardens of the palace of the Russian Embassy 
 at Buyukdere skirt the sides of a woody mountain, which 
 closes the bay, and whose base is washed by the sea. The ter¬ 
 races of the palace command a view of the Bosphorus in its 
 double course towards Constantinople and the Black Sea. The 
 Russian fleet, which lay at anchor off the gardens in front of our 
 windows, fired minute guns during the whole day, and the flags 
 flying from the masts of the vessels appeared to mingle with the 
 foliage of the immense trees on the two shores. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO TI1E HOLY LAND. 
 
 257 
 
 In the morning the sea was covered with small vessels and 
 caiques, conveying from Constantinople fifteen or twenty thousand 
 spectators, who dispersed themselves in the kiosks, in the mead¬ 
 ows, and on the neighboring rocks. Many remained in the 
 caiques, where the Jewish, Turkish, and Armenian women, with 
 their gay-colored dresses, seemed like bouquets of flowers scat¬ 
 tered over the surface of the water. The Russian camp, which 
 covered the sides of the Giant’s Mountain, half a league from the 
 fleet, presented with its white and blue tents a striking contrast 
 to the sombre foliage and parched declivities of the hill. In the 
 evening, the Russian ambassador’s gardens were illuminated by 
 thousands of lamps suspended from the branches of the trees. 
 The vessels too, being illuminated on their masts, their rigging, 
 and cordage, looked, like fireships. Their broadsides vomited 
 volumes of flame; while the tents of the troops about to embark, 
 lighted by the immense fires on the tops of the mountains of Asia, 
 were reflected in luminous masses in the sea, and spread the lurid 
 glare of a conflagration over the expansive bosom of the Bospho¬ 
 rus. The grand signior arrived in the middle of these brilliant 
 rejoicings on board a steamboat, which anchored under the ter¬ 
 races of the Russian ambassador’s palace. The sultan appeared 
 on deck attended by his vizier and his favorite pachas. He did 
 not go ashore, but sent the grand vizier to represent him at the 
 supper given by Count OrlofF. Spacious tables laid out under 
 long avenues of plantain trees, and others buried in the numerous 
 groves of the garden, were loaded with gold and silver dishes, 
 which reflected the brilliancy of the illuminated trees. At the 
 darkest hour of the night, that is, a little before the rising of the 
 moon, some fireworks which had been conveyed on rafts into the 
 middle of the Bosphorus, at an equal distance from the three 
 shores, were let off, and shed a vermilion light over the moun¬ 
 tains, the fleet, and the innumerable crowd of spectators, whose 
 caiques covered the sea. Never did the eye of man behold a 
 finer sight! One might have fancied that the canopy of heaven 
 had opened, and afforded a glimpse of an enchanted world, with 
 its elements, its mountains, its seas, and its skies of unknown 
 forms and colors; while thousands of vapory shadows flitted 
 over waves of light and fire. Presently all was again plunged 
 in silence and darkness. The lamps on the yards, and at the 
 port-holes of the vessels, were extinguished all at once, as if by 
 a gust of wind. The moon rising between the brows of two high 
 mountains, shed her soft radiance over the sea, giving a pearly 
 
258 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 back-ground to the enormous black masses of rock, as well as the 
 spectral forms of masts, shrouds, and rigging. The sultan took 
 his departure in his light steamboat, which spread its smoky 
 column far across the waves, and vanished in silence, like some 
 spirit who had come to witness the downfall of an empire. 
 
 Unlike Sardanapalus feeding the flame of his own funereal 
 pile with the fiagments of his fallen throne, Mahmoud gave the 
 death-blow to a tottering empire, sought from its enemies succor 
 and protection against a revolted slave, and witnessed the cele¬ 
 bration of their triumph and his own disgrace. What must the 
 old Osmanlis have thought when they beheld the fires in the 
 camp of the Christian barbarians, and their rockets bursting over 
 the sacred mountains of Asia, falling on the domes of their 
 mosques, and resounding even against the walls of the ancient 
 seraglio? What must have been Mahmoud’s feelings under the 
 forced smile that played upon his lips ? A serpent must have 
 preyed upon his heart. There was something profoundly piti¬ 
 able in his situation, and what he must have suffered might well 
 have sufficed to create heroism out of remorse. The spectacle 
 could not but give rise to consolatory reflections in the mind of 
 the philosopher, who sees the hand of Providence in all things. 
 
 The march of time and events was trampling into dust an 
 immense empire, the obstacle to the civilization of the East, and 
 gradually gathering to those beautiful regions races of men more 
 vigorous, governments more humane, and religions more enlight¬ 
 ened. 
 
 July. 
 
 I dined to-day at Baron Sturmer’s with the Prince Royal of 
 Bavaria, who has stopped some days at Constantinople, on his re¬ 
 turn from Greece. This young prince, with an earnest desire 
 for information, and with the good sense to appear forgetful of 
 the throne which awaits him, seeks the conversation of men who 
 have no motives for flattering him, and makes their remarks the 
 of his conduct. His own conversation is exceedingly agree- 
 
 “The king, my brother,” said he to me, “ is still hesitating 
 upon the choice of his capital. I should like to have your opin¬ 
 ion on the subject.”—“The capital of Greece,” replied I, “ is 
 marked out by the very nature of the event which has re-estab¬ 
 lished Greece. Greece is a resurrection ;—and where a thing 
 is revived, it should be restored in form as well as in name ; in 
 short, as far as possible in its complete individuality. Athens, 
 
 guide 
 
 able. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 259 
 
 with its ruins and recollections, is the emblem of the existence of 
 Greece. That city then must be the point of her regeneration, 
 or the Greeks will never be any thing but what they are: a 
 wretched population, spread over the rocks and the islands of the 
 Peloponnesus.” 
 
 July. 
 
 The Russian fleet and army have departed. They have 
 learned their way hither, and have accustomed the eyes of the 
 Turks to their presence. The Bosphorus is now inanimate and 
 deserted. 
 
 My Arabian horses have arrived : they have come by the way 
 of Asia Minor. Tadmor, the handsomest and most spirited of 
 the whole, died at Magnesia, almost at the end of the journey. 
 
 S The sais wept for his loss, and renewed their tears on recounting 
 it to me. He was the admiration of all the towns of the Cara- 
 mania through which he passed. The rest are so weak and 
 exhausted that they will require a month’s repose to fit them for 
 the journey through European Turkey and Germany. I have 
 sold the two handsomest to M. de Bontenief for the Emperor of 
 Russia’s stud. The other three I have disposed of to different 
 persons in Constantinople. I shall never cease to regret Tadmor 
 and Saide. 
 
 I have just concluded a bargain with some Turks of Stamboul, 
 and of the village of Eyoub, who own those carriages in which 
 the women ride about the streets of Constantinople. They have 
 agreed to let me have five arabas, each harnessed with four horses, 
 to convey in twenty-five days to Belgrade, myself, my wife, M. 
 de Capmas, my servants, and our baggage. I have hired two 
 Tartars to conduct the caravan, several moukres and mule- 
 drivers for conveying our bedding, provisions, books, &c., and 
 lastly six saddle horses, in case the roads do not permit us to use 
 the arabas. The price I am to pay for all these horses and car¬ 
 riages is about four thousand francs. An excellent interpreter 
 accompanies us on horseback. Our departure is fixed for the 23d 
 
 Ju,y - 
 
 July. 
 
 We left Constantinople at two o’clock this morning. The 
 horses and carriages were waiting for us in the village of Eyoub, 
 in a small square not far from a fountain shaded by plantains. 
 There was a Turkish coffee-house hard by. A crowd assembled 
 to see us depart, but we suffered neither insult nor robbery. 
 Honesty is here the virtue of the common people; it is less 
 
260 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 frequently met with in palaces. The Turks, who were sitting 
 under the trees before the coffee-houses, and the people who passed 
 by, helped to load our arabas and our horses, and gathered 
 together and brought to us any little articles which we had 
 dropped. 
 
 We began our journey at sunrise. We were all on horse¬ 
 back, and we toiled up the long, solitary, and hilly streets of 
 Eyoub, as far as the Greek walls of Stamboul. On leaving those 
 walls, we crossed a barren hill, on which were some superb bar¬ 
 racks. In front of these barracks, two battalions of the Nysam 
 D’jedid, or regular troops, were exercising. M. Turqui and the 
 young Greeks attached to his consulate had insisted on accom¬ 
 panying us. We parted here. We embraced this excellent 
 man, who had been a providence to us in our solitude. When we 
 are in despair, a friendship of two month’s duration is like a friend¬ 
 ship of many years. May Heaven soothe and reward the declin¬ 
 ing years of my kind-hearted friend ! Who knows whether we 
 may ever meet again in this world ? We are setting out on a 
 long and perilous peregrination. He is separated from his wife 
 and his country. He endeavored to conceal his tears, and ours 
 moistened his trembling hands. 
 
 We halted at three leagues from Constantinople, to wait till 
 the heat of the day should be past. We had crossed a tract of 
 country full of undulating hills, overlooking the sea of Marmora. 
 There were a few houses scattered about the fields, but no villages. 
 At four o’clock we again resumed our journey, and after passing 
 over some low and barren hills, we arrived at a little town, where 
 our Tartars, who had gone on before us, had got a house ready 
 for our reception. This house belonged to an amiable Greek 
 family, who had three charming daughters and some younger 
 children of admirable beauty. They spread carpets and cushions 
 on the floor, where we were to repose for the night. My. cook 
 contrived to procure some rice, chickens, and abundance of vege¬ 
 tables. At three o’clock next morning, our caravan was ready 
 to move. One of my Tartars proceeded a considerable way in 
 advance of the troop. After our mid-day repast, which we took 
 at the brink of a fountain, or in some caravansary hut, he took my 
 orders, and galloped off to the town or village at which we were 
 to sleep. He presented my letters from the grand vizier or pacha 
 to the aga, the ayam or lord of the village. The latter selected 
 the best Greek, Armenian, or Jewish hou e in the neighborhood, 
 and gave the proprietor notice to prepare it for strangers. For- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 261 
 
 age was then provided for thirty-two horses, which we had with 
 us, and often a supper for ourselves. The ayain, accompanied 
 by the principal inhabitants and some cavalry troops, when there 
 happened to be military in the town, came to meet us on the road, 
 and accompanied us to our quarters. They alighted from their 
 horses, conducted us into the house, ordered pipes and coffee to be 
 served to us, and then retired to their homes, where, after a short 
 time, I returned their visit. 
 
 From Constantinople to Adrianople we saw nothing remark¬ 
 able, nothing picturesque, except an immense extent of plains 
 without habitations or trees, intersected by a river half dried up, 
 flowing under the arches of a ruined bridge. In the evening, we 
 sometimes arrived at a wretched village, lying in the depth of a 
 valley, and surrounded by fruit trees. The "inhabitants of these 
 villages were all Greeks, Armenians, or Bulgarians. The khans 
 are huts almost without roofs, in which men and horses are lodged 
 together. Our road continued thus for several days. We met 
 no one; it resembled the desert of Syria. Once only we fell in 
 with a party of thirty or forty Bulgarian peasants, dressed like 
 Europeans, and wearing on their heads black sheepskin caps. 
 They were proceeding to Constantinople, and were marching to 
 the music of two instruments like bagpipes. On perceiving us, 
 they shouted loudly, and ran towards us, begging for a few pias¬ 
 tres. These are the Savoyards of European Turkey. They 
 guard the horses of the grand signior and the pachas, in the 
 meadows of the sweet waters of Asia and Buyukdere. They are 
 likewise the gardeners of Stamboul. 
 
 On the morning of the sixth day, we perceived Adrianople, 
 at the extremity of these plains, in a hollow surrounded by moun¬ 
 tains. The city appears immense, and is commanded by its 
 beautiful mosque. This mosque is the finest religious monument 
 in Turkey, next to St. Sophia :—it was built by Bajazet at the 
 time when Adrianople was the capital of the empire. Corn, vines, 
 and fruit trees of every kind were growing in the fields, to the 
 distance of two leagues round the city. The aspect of the country 
 reminded me of Dijon or Lyons. Numerous streamlets wind 
 through the fields. We first entered a long suburb, and we 
 passed through the city amidst a crowd of Turks, women and 
 children, who thronged round us, but who, far from annoying us, 
 treated us with every mark of respect. The persons who ad¬ 
 vanced to meet us, conducted us to the door of a very fine house 
 belonging to M. Veruazza, the Sardinian cousul at Adrianople. 
 
 12 * 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
262 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Here we passed two days. The family of the consul were at 
 a house some leagues distant, on the banks of the river Maritza 
 (the ancient Hebrus). In the evenings, we enjoyed a charming 
 view of Adrianople from M. Veruazza’s terrace. The city is 
 about as large as Lyons, and is watered by three rivers,—the 
 Hebrus, the Arda, and the Tundicha. It is completely surrounded 
 by wood and water; and the fertile valley in which it lies is 
 encircled by fine chains of mountains. We visited the mosque, 
 which is like all other mosques, only more lofty and spacious. 
 Our European architecture has produced nothing more bold, 
 more original, or more effective, than this monument and its 
 minaret. It is a column pierced with open-work, on a stem more 
 than a hundred feet high. 
 
 We left Adrianople for Philippopoli. The road was crossed 
 by defiles and valleys, covered with trees, and smiling, though 
 deserted between the high mountains of Rhodophus and the He- 
 mus. We journeyed for three days, now and then passing 
 beautiful villages. When we were within three leagues of 
 Philippopoli, I perceived a party of Turkish, Armenian, and Greek 
 horsemen advancing to us at full gallop. A handsome young 
 man, mounted on a - superb horse, came up to us before the rest, 
 and touched my clothes with his finger. He then turned his 
 horse, and rode beside me. He spoke Italian, and explained to 
 me that having been the first to touch me, I must accept his house, 
 however urgent the others of his party might be to conduct me 
 elsewhere. The kiaia of the governor of Philippopoli next joined 
 us. Pie complimented me in the name of the governor, who, he 
 said, had prepared a large and commodious house for my recep¬ 
 tion, and that supper was ready:—he at the same time expressed 
 a hope that I would remain some days in the city. I however 
 determined to accept the hospitality of the young Greek, M. 
 Maurides. 
 
 When we entered Philippopoli our party consisted of sixty 
 or eighty horsemen. The people had assembled in the streets 
 and at their windows to see us pass. We were received by the 
 sister and the aunts of M. Maurides. The house was spacious 
 and elegant, containing a fine divan, with four-and-twenty win¬ 
 dows, and furnished in the European style. The governor and 
 the chiefs of the people of different nations residing in Philip¬ 
 popoli came to pay their compliments to us, and took coffee with 
 us. We passed three days at Philippopoli, enjoying the liberal 
 hospitality of M. Maurides, making excursions in the environs of 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 263 
 
 the town, and receiving and returning the visits of the Turks, 
 Greeks, and Armenians. 
 
 Philippopoli contains a population of thirty thousand souls. 
 It is four days’ journey from Adrianople, and eight from Sophia. 
 It is situated on the edge of a river, on a little rocky eminence in 
 the bosom of a broad and fertile valley. It is one of the finest 
 natural situations for a city that can possibly be conceived. The 
 hollow in which the city is built is in the form of a crescent, the 
 two points of which are likewise crowned with houses and gar¬ 
 dens. The streets descend in a winding direction, in order to di¬ 
 minish their slope to the river, which flows at the bottom of the 
 valley. The view of the bridges, gardens, houses, and large trees, 
 rising from the banks of the river ; the wooded plain which sepa¬ 
 rates the river from the mountains of Macedonia ; these mountains 
 whose flanks are intersected by foaming torrents, and studded 
 with villages and Greek monasteries—-all render the garden of 
 M. Maurides one of the most delightful spots in the world. Phi¬ 
 lippopoli is inhabited by about equal numbers of Greeks, Arme¬ 
 nians, and Turks. The Greeks are in general well informed 
 people, and are actively engaged in trade. The principal fami¬ 
 lies send their children to be educated in Hungary : but this edu¬ 
 cation only renders them the more sensitive to the oppression of 
 the Turks. They sigh for the independence enjoyed by their 
 brethren of the Morea. At Philippopoli I became acquainted with 
 three young Greeks, whose sentiments and energy of mind ren¬ 
 dered them worthy of another fate and another country. 
 
 In two days after our departure from Philippopoli, we reached a 
 little town in a cultivated plain called Tatar Bazargik. It belonged, 
 together with the surrounding province, to one of those great 
 feudal Turkish families, five or six of whom have been respected 
 by the sultans, and still exist in Asia and Europe. The young 
 prince who possesses and governs Tatar Bazargik is the son of 
 the old Vizier, Husseim Pacha. He received us with chivalrous 
 hospitality, lodging us in a newly built and elegant house situated 
 on the bank of a river which flows round the town. This house 
 belonged to a wealthy Armenian. No sooner were we installed 
 in it than fifteen or twenty slaves arrived, each bearing a pewter 
 dish on his head. These dishes, which they laid on the ground 
 at our feet, contained rice, cakes, game, and sweetmeats of all 
 kinds, from the kitchens of the prince : two fine horses were like¬ 
 wise sent to me as a present, which, however 1 declined, and se¬ 
 veral calves and sheep as food for my suite. 
 
264 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Next day we began to discern the Balkans before us those 
 fine wooded mountains, which are interspersed with large villages 
 and richly cultivated land, are inhabited by Bulgarians. We 
 traveled all day along the edge of a torrent which forms marshes 
 in the plain. On reaching the foot of the Balkans, we found all the 
 principal inhabitants of the Bulgarian village of Yenekeni waiting 
 for us. They took the reins of our horses, ranged themselves on 
 each side of our carriages, supported them on their shoulders, 
 and occasionally lifted them up to prevent the wheels from slip- 
 ping over the precipices ; and in this manner we were escorted to 
 the miserable village, where my Tartars had arrived before us. 
 The houses, which are dispersed over the sides of two hills, sepa¬ 
 rated by a profound ravine, are surrounded by fine orchards and 
 meadows. All the mountains are cultivated at their base, and 
 covered with fine forests on their flanks: their summits are of 
 rock. The little Bulgarian houses, or rather huts, are built of 
 clay and roofed with branches of trees with their foliage. We 
 occupied seven or eight of them, and our moukres, Tartars, and 
 horsemen, bivouacked in the orchards. Each house has but one 
 room, with no other flooring than the bare earth. I was seized 
 with an inflammatory fever, brought on by fatigue and anxiety. I 
 lay for twenty days between life and death, stretched on a mat, 
 in one of these miserable hovels without a window. My wife, who 
 attended on me with unwearied devotedness, never closed her 
 eyes for fifteen or twenty days. She sent to the marshes of the 
 plain to procure leeches, and the Bulgarians at length found some. 
 Sixty were applied to my chest and my temples, which greatly 
 relieved me. I was conscious of my danger, and I was agonized 
 by the thought of the desolate condition in which my wife would 
 be placed if I should die amidst the mountains of Macedonia, four 
 hundred leagues from my friends. I requested M. Capmas to 
 come to me, and I communicated to him my last wishes in the 
 event of my death. J desired that I might be buried under a tree 
 which I had observed on the road-side as we were coming to the 
 village, and that a single word should be inscribed on the stone 
 over my grave : this word was—God. 
 
 On the sixth day of the fever, when the danger was already 
 over, we heard the sound of horses’ feet entering the court before 
 our house. Several horsemen alighted ; the foremost was my 
 kind Greek friend from Philippopoli, M. Maurides, accompanied 
 by a young Macedonian physician, several servants, and horses 
 laden with provisions, medicines, and furniture. A Tartar, who 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 265 
 
 had crossed the Balkans on his way to Adrianople, had halted at 
 Philippopoli, where he related that a Frank traveler had been 
 taken ill, and was dying at Yenekeni. This story reached the 
 ears of M. Maurides at ten o’clock one evening.' Immediately 
 concluding that the Frank was the same who had recently been 
 his guest, he sent for his friend the physician, assembled his ser¬ 
 vants, and loaded his horses with every thing which his charitable 
 foresight suggested would be useful to me. He left his home in 
 the middle of the night, traveled without resting, and after a jour¬ 
 ney of two days, arrived at Yenekeni, bringing succor and conso¬ 
 lation to a stranger whom he will never see again. Such traits 
 as this cheer the heart, and show that the generous nature of man 
 is alike in all places and in all climates. M. Maurides found me 
 almost convalescent. Business called him back to Philippopoli, 
 and he set off again the same day, leaving the Macedonian doctor 
 in attendance on me. Pie was a young man of talent and infor¬ 
 mation. He had pursued his medical studies at. Semlin in Plun- 
 gary, and he spoke Latin. I however did not require his profes¬ 
 sional aid : the affection, the presence of mind, and the energetic 
 resolution of my wife had enabled her to render me all the assist¬ 
 ance which my case required. But we found the young doctor’s 
 society very agreeable, during the twenty days we remained at 
 Yenekeni, before I recovered sufficient strength to mount my 
 horse. 
 
 The Prince of Tatar Bazargik, on being informed of my ill¬ 
 ness, showed me no less kindness and hospitality. Pie every day 
 sent sheep and calves as provisions for my suite ; and during the 
 whole time of my stay at Yenekeni, five or six horsemen of his 
 suite were constantly in my court-yard, with their horses saddled, 
 and ready to execute my most trivial commands. On the few 
 last days of my convalescence, they attended me in my rides 
 through the magnificent valley, and over the mountains in the 
 environs of Yenekeni. The Prince even offered me his slaves, 
 and on my departure a detachment of his horsemen accompanied 
 me as far as the boundaries of his government. At Yenekeni I 
 had an opportunity of observing the domestic manners of the Bul¬ 
 garians, which closely resemble those of our Swiss or Savoyard 
 peasantry. They are a simple, mild, and laborious people, full 
 of respect for their priests and zeal for their religion, which is that 
 of the Greek Church. Their priests, are like themselves, simple 
 peasants. The Bulgarians are an increasing population, now 
 amounting to several millions. They live in large villages and 
 
‘266 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 small towns, separated from the Turks. One or two Turks, del¬ 
 egated by the Pacha or the ayam, annually visit the Bulgarian 
 villages to collect the imposts in money. Excepting these, and 
 some taxes in labor and in kind, they live unmolested in the ob¬ 
 servance of their primitive customs. Their costume resembles 
 that of the peasants of Germany, and the women and children 
 dress much like the mountaineers of Switzerland. The women 
 are pretty, lively and graceful ; and their manners are pure, 
 though they have laid aside the veil of the Turkish females, and 
 freely associate with the men. I saw some of the rustic dances 
 of the Bulgarians, which are similar to those of our French vil¬ 
 lagers. These people despise and hate the Turks, and are com¬ 
 pletely ripe for independence. They form, with their neighbors 
 the Servians, the basis of the future states of European Turkey. 
 The countries which they inhabit might soon become richly cul¬ 
 tivated, if the blind and stupid oppression, not of the Turkish 
 government, but its delegates, would allow the people to prose¬ 
 cute their taste for agriculture with a greater degree of security. 
 
 I left Yenekeni and its amiable inhabitants with regret: it is 
 a delicious summer residence. All the people of the village ac¬ 
 companied us to the distance of a league oil the Balkans, and 
 loaded us with kind wishes and benedictions. We crossed the 
 first Balkan in a day. These mountains are nearly similar to 
 those of Auvergne, being in almost every part accessible and ca¬ 
 pable of cultivation. Five hundred workmen might make a fine 
 carriage-road over them in the space of a year. In three days 
 we reached Sophia, a large city in an interior plain watered by 
 a river. A Turkish pacha resides in it. He sent his kiaia to 
 meet us, and assigned to my use the house of a Greek merchant. 
 
 I spent one day in this town : the pacha sent me calves and 
 sheep, and would not accept any present in return. The town of 
 Sophia presents nothing remarkable. 
 
 After four short journeys, sometimes across mountains of easy 
 access, and sometimes through valleys and fertile though uninhabit¬ 
 ed plains, we arrived at Nissa, the last Turkish town, almost on 
 the frontier of Servia. I proceeded on horseback a little distance 
 in advance of the caravan : the sun was scorching. When I was 
 about a league from the town, I saw a large tower rising in the 
 midst of the plain, as white as Parian marble. I took the path which 
 led to it, and having approached it, I desired a Turkish lad, who 
 accompanied me, to hold my horse; and I sat down unler the 
 shade of the tower to enjoy a few moments repose. No sooner 
 

 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 267 
 
 was I seated than, raising my eyes to the monument, I discovered 
 that the walls, which I supposed to be built of marble or white 
 stone, were composed of regular rows of human skulls: these 
 skulls, bleached by the rain and the sun, and cemented by a little 
 sand and lime, formed entirely the triumphal arch which now 
 sheltered me from the heat of the sun: there might be from 
 fifteen to twenty thousand. In some places portions of hair were 
 still hanging; and waved, like lichen or moss, with every breath 
 of wind. The mountain breeze, which was then blowing fresh, 
 penetrated the innumerable cavities of the skulls, and sounded 
 like mournful and plaintive sighs. 
 
 There was no one near who could give me any account of 
 this horrible monument. The boy, who was holding the two 
 horses by the bridles, was playing with little fragments of the 
 skulls, which had crumbled off and lay at the foot of the tower. 
 
 I was so overcome by fatigue and heat that I fell asleep, resting 
 my head against these walls of decapitated heads. On awaken¬ 
 ing, I found myself surrounded by the caravan, and a number of 
 Turkish horsemen, who had come from Nissa to escort us into 
 the town. They informed me that the skulls were those of fifteen 
 thousand Servians, who had been put to death by the pacha in 
 the last insurrection of Servia. This plain was the death-bed of 
 these brave insurgents, and this monument was their sepulchre. 
 
 I paid my tribute of respect to the memory of these heroic men, 
 whose decapitated heads are the boundary of the independence 
 of their country. 
 
 Servia, which we were about to enter, is now free; and it is 
 the song of liberty and glory which is resounded by the moun¬ 
 tain breeze playing among the bones of the Servians who perished 
 for their country ! They will soon possess Nissa. Let them re¬ 
 spect this sacred monument; it will teach their children the 
 value of independence, by showing them the price at which their 
 forefathers purchased it. 
 
 Nissa is like Sophia—it has nothing characteristic. We pass¬ 
 ed one day there. On leaving Nissa, we entered the beautiful 
 mountains and forests of Servia. These virgin forests extend in 
 every direction as far as the horizon, being intersected only by 
 a wide road, recently made by Prince Milosch, the independent 
 chief of Servia. For six days we were buried beneath these 
 magnificent and uninterrupted shades, seeing nothing but endless 
 colonnades formed by the trunks of enormous beech-trees, waves 
 of foliage agitated by the winds, and hills and mountains uniform¬ 
 ly clothed with centenary oaks. 
 
 
268 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 At intervals of about every five or six leagues, on descending 
 into a valley, we saw villages containing newly-built wooden 
 houses just emerged from the forests, a little church, and the 
 dwelling of a priest, standing on the margin of a river, or among 
 meadows and fields of melons. The inhabitants, seated on wooden 
 divans in front of their shops, were pursuing their different occu¬ 
 pations. Their countenances, though mild and amiable, have a 
 dash of northern energy and pride, which denotes a people already 
 free and worthy to continue so. We were every where re¬ 
 ceived with hospitality and respect, always having the best house 
 in the village assigned to us. The clergyman came and con¬ 
 versed with us. The houses now began to show some traces of 
 European furniture. The women were no longer veiled; and 
 we met in the meadows and the woods parties of young men and 
 girls going to labor together in the fields, and singing airs simi¬ 
 lar to the Ranz des Vaches. These girls were dressed in a 
 bodice gathered in numerous plaits round their shoulders and 
 bosoms, and a short petticoat of brown or red woollen stuff. 
 Their freshness, their gayety, and the clearness of their eyes, re¬ 
 minded us of the beautiful females of Berne, or the mountains of 
 Lucerne. 
 
 Here our faithful companions of all the konaks of Turkey 
 forsook us. We no longer saw the storks, whose large nests, like 
 cradles of reeds, crowned the tops of all the mosque domes in 
 European Turkey, and formed a roof-work to the ruined minarets. 
 Every evening, on arriving in the villages or the desert khans, 
 we saw these birds, two by two, hovering over our tents or our 
 huts, the young ones stretching their long necks out of the nest 
 like serpents, and holding their beaks to the mother bird, who, 
 half-suspended on her broad wings, shared with them the food 
 she had brought from the neighboring marshes ; the male bird, 
 hovering at a considerable height above the nest, looked down 
 apparently gratified by the interesting sight. These beautiful 
 birds are by no means wild : they are the guardians of the roof, 
 as the dogs are the guardians of the door. They live in harmony 
 with the clouds of white turtle-doves which cover the domes of 
 all the khans and mosques, and they do not even scare the swal¬ 
 lows. The Turks themselves live in peace with all the animate 
 and inanimate creation—trees, birds, or dogs ; they respect every 
 thing that God has made. They extend their humanity to those 
 inferior animals which are neglected or persecuted among us. 
 In all the streets there are, at certain distances, vessels filled with 
 
A. PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 269 
 
 
 water for the dogs, and sometimes on their death-beds the Mussul¬ 
 mans leave legacies fcr feeding the doves which they have tended 
 during life. 
 
 September 2, 1833. 
 
 This morning we issued from the eternal forests of Servia, 
 which extend as far as the banks of the Danube. The point 
 where that king of rivers becomes first discernible, is a hill cov¬ 
 ered with superb oaks. Having crossed it, we beheld at our feet 
 what seemed like a vast lake of blue and limpid water, surround¬ 
 ed by trees and rushes, and besprinkled with verdant islands. 
 As we advaneed, we saw the river extend on the right and left, 
 flowing close to the wooded hills on the boundary of Servia, and 
 then losing itself on the right in the plains of Hungary. The 
 last slopes of the forest descending to the river, present the most 
 magnificent point of view in the whole world. We slept in a 
 little Servian village on the banks of the Danube. 
 
 Next day we again lost sight of the river for about four hours. 
 The country, like all frontier places, is uncultivated and deserted. 
 Towards noon we ascended some barren hills, whence we at 
 length discovered Belgrade lying at our feet. This city, which 
 has sustained so many sieges, is situated on an elevated bank of 
 the Danube. The roofs of its mosques are pierced by bomb¬ 
 shells, its walls are shattered, and its desolate suburbs are be¬ 
 sprinkled with huts and heaps of ruins. The streets, like those 
 of all Turkish towns, descend in narrow windings to the river. 
 Semlin, the first Hungarian town, glitters on the opposite side of 
 the Danube, in all the glory of a European city. Its church 
 steeples rise in the very face of the minarets. 
 
 On our arrival in Belgrade, whilst we were reposing in a 
 little inn, the first place of the kind 1 had met with in Turkey, 
 Prince Milosch sent several of his principal officers to invite me 
 to spend a few days in the fortress in which he resides, at a few 
 leagues from Belgrade. I however declined the invitation, and 
 ordered boats for crossing the Danube. At four o’clock, just as 
 we were about to embark, we saw a group of horsemen, dressed 
 very much in the European style, hurrying to the water side. 
 This was the brother of Prince Milosch, the chief of the Servi¬ 
 ans, who had come on the part of the prince to renew the invita¬ 
 tion to pass a few days with him. i very much regretted that 
 I was unable to accept hospitality so kindly offered ; but my 
 traveling companion, M. de Capmas, had been for several days 
 seriously ill ; and it was important that he should enjoy the rest 
 
270 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 and the resources afforded by a European city, and the aid of the 
 physicians of a lazaretto. I conversed for about an hour with 
 the Servian chief, who appeared to be an amiable and well- 
 informed man. I greeted him as the pledge of the future civili¬ 
 zation and independence of his noble nation, and at length I 
 stepped into the boat which was to convey me to Semlin. 
 
 We were about an hour in crossing the Danube, which is 
 very broad and deep, and its waves are as rough as those of the 
 sea. At length we reached the meadows and orchards which sur¬ 
 round Semlin. At three in the afternoon we entered the lazaret¬ 
 to, where we were to remain ten days. To each of us were as¬ 
 signed an apartment, and a little yard planted with trees. I dis¬ 
 missed my Tartars, my moukres, and my dragomans, who set off 
 on their return to Constantinople. They all sorrowfully kissed 
 our hands; and I could not without deep emotion and gratitude 
 part from these faithful and generous attendants, who had guided, 
 served, and guarded us with the affection of brothers, and who du¬ 
 ring the innumerable vicissitudes of an eighteen months’ journey 
 through foreign lands, proved to me that all religions have their 
 divine moral, and civilizations their virtue, and all men the senti¬ 
 ment of the just, the good, and the beautiful, engraven in various 
 characters in their hearts by the hand of God. 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 271 
 
 NOTES ON SERYIA. 
 
 Semlin, 12th September, Lazaretto. 
 
 No sooner had I quitted those forests in which a new and free 
 people are taking root, than I felt regret at not knowing them 
 more thoroughly. I could have desired to have lived and fought 
 with them for their dawning independence; to have searched out 
 their origin, and the destiny which Providence is preparing for 
 their virtues. I have before me the scene of Tagodina:—We 
 were admiring in a Servian cottage a young mother who was 
 nursing her twins, while her third child at her feet was playing 
 with theyatagan of his father. The papa of the village and some 
 of the principal inhabitants were in a circle around us, detailing 
 with simplicity and enthusiasm the growing happiness of the na¬ 
 tion under this government of liberty—forests becoming cleared, 
 wooden houses multiplying in the valleys, numerous schools filled 
 with children, opening in all the villages. Every one of these 
 men, raising his head over the shoulders of those that were before 
 him, presented an aspect proud and gratified at the admiration we 
 expressed ; their eye was animated, and their countenance glow¬ 
 ed with emotion for their country, as if the general glory and lib¬ 
 erty had been the proud act of each individual. At this instant 
 the husband of the fair Servian with whom we were lodged, re¬ 
 turned from the fields, and approaching, saluted us with that re¬ 
 spect, and at the same time dignity of manner, natural to a wild 
 people ; he then mixed among the villagers, and listened lijve the 
 rest to the recital the papa was giving us of their battles for inde¬ 
 pendence. When the papa was come to the battle of Nissa, and 
 the thirty pairs of colors taken from forty thousand Turks by three 
 thousand Mountaineers, the father springing from the midst of the 
 circle, took from the arms of his wife his two beauteous infants, 
 and lifting them up, exclaimed, “Behold the soldiers of Milosch ! 
 So long as our women are prolific, will there be free Servians in 
 the forests of Schumadia.” 
 
272 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 The history of this people exists only in popular verses, like 
 all the primitive histories of heroic tribes. These songs of a na¬ 
 tional enthusiasm, the promptings of the field of battle, repeated 
 from rank to rank by the soldiers, and reaching the villages at 
 the end of the campaign, are there preserved by tradition. The 
 curate or the schoolmaster commits them to writing ; simple airs, 
 but animated like the hearts of the combatants, or like the voice 
 of the father saluting; from afar the smoke from the roof of his 
 
 <T> 
 
 children, accompany them ; they become the popular history of 
 the nation. Prince Milosch has had two collections of them print¬ 
 ed, that were scattered throughout the country. The infant 
 Sclavonian learns to lisp in these touching recitals the exploits of 
 his fathers, and the name of the deliverer of Servia is stamped in 
 his earliest recollections. A people imbibing such aliment can 
 never again be enslaved. I have often met in the midst of these 
 virgin forests, and in the deepest gorges, where no other inhabit¬ 
 ants than the wild beasts could be suspected to dwell, groups of 
 boys and girls walking and singing together these national airs, of 
 which our interpreters gave us occasional translations. They 
 would for a moment suspend their singing to salute us and see us 
 pass ; and when we were out of sight, renew their walk and their 
 airs, while the gloomy canopy of aged oaks and the rocks border¬ 
 ing the torrent long re-echoed the chants, with their sustained 
 notes and monotonous burdens, which augur a lasting happiness 
 to the land. “What are they saying?” cried I one day to our 
 dragoman, who understood their language. “ Hospodar,” replied 
 he, “ they are saying such silly things that it is hardly worth 
 while to repeat them to Franks.” “But let us hear; translate 
 what they are singing at this moment.” “ Well then, they are 
 saying, £ May God bless the waters of the Morawa, for they have 
 drowned the enemies of the Servians ! May God multiply the acorn 
 on the oaks of Schumadia, for each of these trees is a Servian !’ ” 
 “ And what do they mean by that ?” “ Hospodar, they mean that 
 
 during the war the Servians found a rampart behind the trunk of 
 their oaks ; their forests were and still are their fortresses ; every 
 one of these trees is as a comrade in fight; they love them like 
 brothers ; so, when Prince Milosch, their present governor, order¬ 
 ed so many trees to be cut down through the forests, to mark out 
 the long road we are tracking, the old Servians often gave him a 
 curse. ‘ Cut down the oaks?’ said thev, ‘ it is murder against 
 men. In Servia, man and the oak are friends.” 
 
 In traversing these magnificent solitudes, where through many 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 273 
 
 a day’s journey the eye, withersoever it glances, perceives only a 
 uniform and sombre undulation of leaves of the oaks, which cover 
 mountain and valley, a very ocean of foliage, unpenetrated even 
 by the sharp point of minaret or steeple, descending from time to 
 time into deep ravines, in which roared the torrent; and where 
 the forest gave place to a few well-cultivated fields, to some pretty 
 wooden houses newly built, saw-pits, and mills erected at the 
 water’s edge ; seeing immense flocks conducted by young and 
 handsome damsels elegantly attired, emerging from colonnades of 
 lofty trees, and returning at night to their dwellings—children 
 leaving school—the papa seated on his wooden bench by the door 
 of his pretty house, and old men entering the common house, or 
 the church, to deliberate together—I fancied myself in the midst 
 of the North American forests, at the instant of the birth of a 
 nation or the settlement of a new colony. The appearance of 
 the men gave evidence of gentleness of manners—of the polish of 
 an early civilization—of healthiness and competence ; liberty is 
 written in the expression of their countenances. The Bulgarian 
 is good and simple ; but, though on the point of becoming free, the 
 marks of his yoke are still apparent; there is in the movement 
 of his head, in the accent of his tongue, and in the humble re¬ 
 signation of his look, a discernible recollection and apprehension 
 of the Turk ; he reminds one of the Savoyard, that good inhabit¬ 
 ant of the Alps, who fails in nothing but the dignity of physiog¬ 
 nomy and speech, which ennoble every other virtue. The Servian, 
 on the contrary, calls to one’s mind the Swiss of the little Cantons, 
 where pure and patriarchal manners characterize the bearing of 
 the shepherd, harmonizing with the liberty which makes the man, 
 and the cool courage which marks the hero. The girls resemble 
 the beautiful women of the Cantons of Lucerne and Berne; their 
 costume is very similar; short petticoats of a bright color, and 
 hair formed into long plaits, reaching almost to their heels. Their 
 manners are pure, like those of all religious pastoral tribes. Their 
 language, like all those derived from the Sclavonic, possesses har¬ 
 mony and a musical cadence; there exists little inequality of for¬ 
 tune among them, but a general competence ; their only luxury 
 is in their arms; their present government is a sort of represen¬ 
 tative dictatorship. Prince Milosch, the liberator of Servia, has 
 preserved the discretionary power which was vested in him dur¬ 
 ing the war. Proclaimed Prince of the Servians (1829), the 
 people have sworn fealty to him and his successors. The Turks, 
 who still participate in the administration, and in the garrison of 
 
274 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 the fortresses, have also acknowledged him, and treat with him 
 directly; he has established a senate and deliberative district as¬ 
 semblies, which concur in the discussion and decision of public 
 affairs ; the senate is convoked annually ; the village deputies 
 are assembled near the residence of the prince, and their meetings 
 are held, as in the heroic ages, under lofty trees. The prince 
 comes down from his seat, advances towards each of the deputies, 
 interrogates him, listens to his answers, takes note of his complaints 
 or his advice, speaks to him of affairs, explains with kindness his 
 policy, justifies the measures which may have appeared severe or 
 unjust; every thing is conducted with the generous and grave fa¬ 
 miliarity of countrymen conversing with their lords. They are 
 indeed armed patriarchal husbandmen. The thought of God at¬ 
 tends their councils as it does their battles ; they fight, they govern, 
 for their altars, as for their forests. But their priests exercise 
 their influence only in matters of religion. The principal influ¬ 
 ence is held by the military chiefs, a hereditary nobility, whom 
 they style vaivods. Sacerdotal domination commences only when 
 war has ceased, and when the possession of a country is securely 
 vested in its population. Till that time arrives, the country yields 
 the highest honors to its defenders, and afterwards honors its civ¬ 
 ilizers. 
 
 The Servian population at present amounts to about a million 
 of men, and is rapidly increasing. The mildness of the climate, 
 like that of France, between Lyons and Avignon ; the fertility of 
 the deep and virgin soil, covered with a vegetation like that of the 
 meadows of Switzerland ; the numerous rivers and rivulets which 
 fall from the mountains, flow through the valleys, and form here 
 and there lakes in the midst of the woods ; the clearing of the 
 woods, which, as in America, will give space for the plough, and 
 furnish inexhaustible materials for building ; the pure and gentle 
 manners of the people ; wise laws, catching a strong reflection 
 from the best European legislation; the rights of the citizens, se¬ 
 cured by local representation, and deliberative assemblies ; and, 
 finally, the supreme power lodged, in adequate proportion, in the 
 hands of a man worthy of his high mission, Prince Milosch, who 
 is to transmit it to his descendants ;—all these elements of peace, 
 prosperity, and civilization, promise to augment the Servian popu¬ 
 lation by many millions before the lapse of another half century. 
 If this people, as he desires and hopes, should become the nucleus 
 of a new empire, by its union with Bosina, part of Bulgaria, and 
 the warlike hordes of the Montenegrins, Europe will see a new 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO T11E HOLY LAM). 
 
 275 
 
 empire arise on the ruins of Turkey, occupying those vast and 
 noble regions extending between the Adriatic and the lofty ridge 
 of the Balkan. If diversity of manners and nationality should too 
 far oppose such a fusion, we see in Servia at least one of the ele¬ 
 ments of that confederacy of European states, or protectorates, 
 destined to fill the void which the disappearance of the Ottoman 
 empire is about to leave in Europe as well as in Asia. Euro¬ 
 pean interests require no other alternative. 
 
 September 25, 1833. 
 
 The history of this people should be sung, not written. It 
 forms an epic poem not yet complete. I have collected the prin¬ 
 cipal materials on the spot, from the mouth of our friends, who 
 come to visit us at the gate of the Lazaretto. Seated beneath a 
 linden tree on the grass, on which beams the clear and mild sun 
 of the country, by the murmuring of the rapid stream of the Dan¬ 
 ube, in sight of its noble banks, and of the green forests which 
 form the ramparts of Servia on this side of Hungary, these men 
 in their half-oriental costume, with the masculine yet gentle coun¬ 
 tenances of a martial race, are recounting to, me, with simple 
 truth, the feats in which they have so largely shared.* Although 
 still young, and covered with wounds, they seem to have entirely 
 forgotten war ; and to be thinking only of public education, of 
 schools for the people, of improvements in the rural and adminis¬ 
 trative departments, of advancement in the science of legislation : 
 equally modest and zealous, they avail themselves of every op¬ 
 portunity to perfect their dawning institutions ; they interrogate 
 travelers, and detain them as long as possible amongst them, to 
 obtain all the information thus providentially sent them from afar. 
 
 The following are the facts, I learned, that had occurred du¬ 
 ring these latter years. It was about the year 1304, after a se¬ 
 ries of commotions stirred up by Paswanoglou, Pacha of Widin, 
 and which had ended in the supremacy of the Janissaries, that 
 the Servians rose up against their tyrants : three chiefs combined 
 together in the central part of Servia, called Schumadia, an im¬ 
 mense region covered with impenetrable forests. The first of 
 
 * I have since received more circumstantial and authentic details on the 
 history of modern Servia ; and I owe to the kindness of a traveler who preceded 
 me, and whom I met at Jaffa, M. Adolphus de Caraman, the communication 
 of his note on Servia, which he had made during his residence with Prince 
 Milosch. These notes, more worthy than mine, from the talent and accuracy 
 with which they are taken, were accompanied by a translation of the History 
 of the Servians, by a Servian. 
 
276 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 these chieftains was Kara-George; the two others, Tanko-Ka- 
 lisch, and Wasso-Tcharapitsch. Kara-George had been a hey- 
 duke. The heydukes were in Servia, what the klephts were in 
 Greece, a race of independent adventurers living in inaccessible 
 mountains, and descending at the least signal of war to take part 
 in the struggles of faction, and keep up their habits of bloodshed 
 and plunder. All the country arose following the example of 
 Schumadia ; every canton chose for its leader the bravest and 
 most distinguished of its vaivods, and these in a council of war 
 conferred the title of generalissimo on Kara-George. This title 
 gave but little power; but in times of danger, genius quickly 
 assigns to the resolute man a real sovereignty. Danger never 
 bargains with courage : obedience is felt as a natural instinct 
 towards decision and talent. 
 
 George Petrovvistsch, surnamed Kara or Zrin, that is to say 
 George the Black, was born in 1765 in a village of the district 
 of Kraguzewatz. His father was a simple peasant and shep¬ 
 herd, named Petroni. . Another tradition states that Kara-George 
 was born in France, but this is by no means probable. Petroni 
 carried his son, while yet a child, to the mountains of Topoli. 
 The insurrection of 1787, which was to have been aided by Aus¬ 
 tria, having ended unfavorably, the insurgents, pursued by the 
 Turks and the Bosniacs, were obliged to take to flight. Petroni 
 and George his son, who had already fought bravely, collected 
 their flocks, their only riches, and proceeded towards the Save ; 
 they were already close to the river, and were on the point of 
 finding safety on the Austrian territory, when the father of Kara- 
 George, an old man borne down by years, and more devoted than 
 his son to the soil of his country, turned back, looked upon the 
 mountains where he had left all the recollections of his life, felt 
 his heart torn at the idea of quitting them for ever to live amongst 
 an unknown people, and, sitting on the ground, conjured his son 
 to submit rather than go forward into Germany. I regret my 
 inability to relate from memory the touching and animated sup¬ 
 plications of the old man as they are sung in the popular stan¬ 
 zas of Servia. It is one of those scenes in which the sentiments 
 of nature, so strongly felt, and so simply expressed by the genius 
 of a rising people, surpass all that the invention of enlightened 
 nations can borrow from art. The Bible and Homer alone pos¬ 
 sess such passages. 
 
 Kara-George, however, affected at first by the regrets and 
 entreaties of his father, had ordered his servants with the flocks 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 277 
 
 to return. Devoted to the rigorous duty of filial obedience—a 
 point of religion among the Eastern nations—he hung down his 
 head at the voice of his father, and was about sorrowfully to re¬ 
 turn on the road of slavery, that the bones of Petroni might not 
 be deprived of a Servian grave, when the shouts and the shots of 
 the Bosniacs announced the approach of their enemies and the 
 inevitable punishment about to glut their vengeance. “Father,” 
 said he, “decide; we have but a moment; rise, throw yourself 
 into the river ; my arm shall support you, my body shall cover 
 you from the balls of the Osmanlis; you will live, you will 
 await happier days in the land of a friendly people.” But the 
 inflexible old man, whom his sons vainly endeavored to raise, 
 resisted his efforts, and resolved to die on the soil of his country. 
 Kara-George, in despair, and unwilling that the body of his father 
 should fall into the hands of the Turks, fell on his knees, begged 
 the old man’s blessing, killed him with a pistol shot, threw him 
 into the Save, and himself swam over into the Austrian terri¬ 
 tory. 
 
 A short time after, he returned to Servia as serjeant-major of 
 a free corps. Dissatisfied at not having been included in a distri¬ 
 bution of honorary medals, he quitted the corps, and retired as a 
 heyduke into the mountains : becoming reconciled with his chief, 
 he accompanied him into Austria when peace was concluded, and 
 obtained a place as forest-guard in the monastery of Krushedal. 
 Soon wearied with this sort of life, he returned to Servia, under 
 the government of Hadji-Mustafa. He again became a shepherd, 
 but he took up arms whenever a new tumult disturbed any part 
 of the country. 
 
 Kara-George was of a lofty stature, a robust constitution, and 
 a noble and open countenance. Silent and thoughtful when he 
 was neither elevated by wine, nor the report of firing, nor the con¬ 
 tradictions of councils, he would remain a whole day long without 
 uttering a word. 
 
 Almost all men who either have achieved or are destined to 
 achieve great acts, are sparing of their words. Their discourse 
 is within themselves, they dwell in their own thoughts, and from 
 these inward musings they draw forth that energy of intelligence 
 and action which constitutes the great man. Napoleon became a 
 boaster when his destiny was fulfilled and his fortune on its de¬ 
 cline._Kara-George, the rigid defender of justice and order, had 
 
 his own brother hanged for having attempted the honor of a young 
 
 girK 
 
 YOL. II. 
 
278 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 It was in January of 1806, that several armies penetrated at 
 the same time into Servia. Bekir, the pacha of Bosnia, and Ibra¬ 
 him, pacha of Scutari, received orders from the Porte to direct 
 thither all their forces; Bekir sent forward two corps of about 
 forty thousand men, Ibrahim advanced from Nissa at the head of 
 a formidable army. Kara-George, with forces numerically very 
 inferior, but animated by an invincible patriotism, full of confi¬ 
 dence in their chiefs, and protected by forests which covered their 
 movements, repulsed all the partial attacks of Bekir and Ibrahim. 
 After having, near Petska, cut to pieces Hadji Bey, he marched 
 against the principal army, which was retiring upon Schabaz, 
 overtook it and completetely routed it at Schabaz, the 8th of Au¬ 
 gust, 1806. Kulmi and the old Mehemet were killed. The 
 wreck of the army retreated to Schabaz. The Bosniacs, who en¬ 
 deavored to repass the Drina, were taken prisoners. Kara-George, 
 who had with him but seven thousand infantry and two thousand 
 cavalry, marched rapidly against Ibrahim Pacha ; who was besieg¬ 
 ing Daligrad, a Servian city, defended by another chief, named 
 Peter Dobrinyas. On his approach, Ibrahim demanded a parley. 
 Conferences were held at Smaraderewo. A short pacification for 
 Servia ensued, on terms favorable to the country. It was only 
 one of those intervals which allow insurrection to take breath, and 
 insensibly accustom nations to that semi-independence which soon 
 changes into an impatience for liberty. A short time afterwards, 
 Kara-George, who had not dismissed his troops, because the deci¬ 
 sion of the Mufti had not ratified the treaty of Smaraderewo, 
 marched upon Belgrade, the capital of Servia, a strong city on 
 the Danube with a citadel and a Turkish garrison, and got posses¬ 
 sion of it. Guseharez Ali, who commanded the city, obtained 
 permission from Kara-George to retire to Widin, descending the 
 Danube. Soliman Pacha remained in the citadel; but at the 
 commencement of 1807, having begun his march with his re¬ 
 maining two hundred Janissaries, to rejoin the Turks, he was mas¬ 
 sacred with them by the very escort that Kara-George had given 
 him to protect his retreat. Kara-George was not accused of this 
 barbarity; it was the effect of the vengeance of the Servians 
 against the race of the Janissaries, whose domineering ferocity 
 had accustomed them to similar executions. 
 
 The success of this war of independence secured to Servia its 
 municipal constitution. The military chieftains, named vaivods, 
 were every where substituted for the civil powers. These vaivods 
 were supported by a cavalry formed of young men of the most 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 279 
 
 wealthy families, who received no pay, but lived at the cost of the 
 vaivods, and divided the spoil with them. Some of the vaivods 
 had with them as many as fifty of these young men. The most 
 notable of these chieftains at that time were Jacob Nenadowistsch, 
 Milenko, Dobrinyas, Ressava, and above all, Kara-George. 
 
 A senate, composed of twelve members, elected by each of the 
 twelve districts, was to preside over the interests of this species of 
 armed confederacy, and serve as a counterpoise to these usurped 
 powers. The senate showed itself worthy of its functions. It 
 regulated the finances, determined the taxes, devoted the tithe to 
 the pay of the troops, and employed itself on the instruction of 
 the people, with a zeal and an understanding which even then 
 evinced a deep instinct of civilization. They substituted for the 
 routine teaching of the cloisters and the convents, popular schools 
 in each city or chief place of the districts. Unfortunately, the 
 senators, instead of having the entire control of the country, re¬ 
 presented only the vaivods, and were therefore subject to their im¬ 
 mediate influence. 
 
 Another deliberative political body, composed of vaivods and 
 the hospodars themselves, held the direction of the most important 
 affairs, and the disputed sovereignty was shared between this body 
 and Kara-George. The vaivods who composed it met every year 
 about Christmas at Belgrade ; it deliberated under the inspection 
 of the chief, and in the midst of surrounding intrigues, upon war 
 and peace, upon the form of government, and the amount of taxa¬ 
 tion. The accounts were delivered here, and regulations were 
 made for the administration of justice. The existence and the 
 claims of this aristocratical body were an obstacle to the complete 
 enfranchisement and the rapid development of the destinies of 
 Servia. Unity is a vital condition to an armed people in presence 
 of their enemies : their independence requires a despot to secure 
 it; civil liberty requires deliberative bodies. Had the Servians 
 been better inspired, they would have raised Kara-George above 
 his rivals, and have concentrated the power in one single hand. 
 The hospodars did feel that a single chief was requisite ; but 
 every one wished that he might be feeble, from the hope of direct¬ 
 ing him. The choice of the senators proved the influence of this 
 secret wish. They hoped that this body might serve them against 
 Kara-George—George hoped they might serve him against the 
 hospodars. Concealed feelings of hostility arose among the de¬ 
 liverers of Servia. 
 
 The most eloquent of the senators, Mladen Milowanowitsch, 
 
280 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 had, through the power of his oratory, gained the lead in the dis¬ 
 cussion of affairs in the senate. Enriched by the spoil of Belgrade, 
 and master of the foreign trade by having framed the customs of 
 the Danube, he had given umbrage to Kara-George and his parti¬ 
 sans. The senate, through their influence, rose against Milowa- 
 nowitsch, who retired to Doligrad, filled with thoughts of vengeance. 
 He secretly announced to George the intrigues of Russia and the 
 Greeks against him. Kara-George believed him, recalled him to 
 Belgrade, resolved upon war against the Bosniacs, and began the 
 campaign of 1809 by entering Bosnia. 
 
 The same national Sclavonic air which celebrates the com¬ 
 mencement of the insurrection, predicts misfortunes for the day 
 when it should be attempted to pass the Drina and invade Bosnia. 
 The prediction of the poet was an oracle of Providence. The 
 campaign was a series of mistakes, disasters, and ruin. Kara- 
 George, supported by a Russian corps, fought with his wonted 
 heroism, but in vain. His soldiers, discouraged, grew weak. 
 Having been worsted by the Turks at Komenitza, he flew to pro¬ 
 tect Tragodina and the left bank of the Morawa, and was even 
 indebted to an important diversion of the Russians for the preser¬ 
 vation of this part of his territory. 
 
 These reverses increased the jealous enmity of the vaivods 
 against him. Jacob Nenadowitsch was the first who shook his 
 fortune. He appeared in the senate, the 1st January 1810, at the 
 head of six hundred horsemen, and was appointed president of the 
 senate. The influence of Russia alone upheld for some time the 
 falling power of Kara-George. He advanced against Churchid 
 Pacha of Nissa, who commanded thirty thousand men. The plain 
 of Warwarin was the scene of a sanguinary conflict, in which 
 three thousand Servians, animated by the voice and the example 
 of their general, drove back this mass of Turks, compelled them 
 to intrench themselves and soon after to re-enter Nissa. Kara- 
 George immediately advanced towards Lonitza, which was be¬ 
 sieged by forty thousand Turks. The town, which had resisted 
 a formidable artillery for twelve days, was on the point of falling 
 into the power of the besiegers, when the appearance of Kara- 
 George and the valor of his Servians, forced the Turkish army to 
 repass the Drina. This was the apogee of the glory of Kara- 
 George. Thanks to his energy, Servia being entirely delivered, 
 extended her frontier from the isle of Poretsch on the Danube, to 
 the confluence of that river with the Timok. But peace, always 
 more fatal to the deliverers of their country than war, set in fer- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 281 
 
 mentation new intrigues and dissensions amongst the chiefs, whom 
 a sense of common danger had united. The hospodars wished to 
 diminish the authority of Kara-George, in order at last to dispos¬ 
 sess him entirely. This plot was discovered in time to avert it. 
 He availed himself of the attempt, which was energetically re¬ 
 pressed, to bring about in his own favor a definite reaction in the 
 Diet of 1811. He gave a mortal blow to the influence of the 
 hospodars and the vaivods, by subdividing the district, and increas¬ 
 ing the chiefs, who, too weak to act singly, became thenceforward 
 easy instruments to manage ; and who, moreover, jealous of the 
 ancient superiority of the vaivods, maintained themselves against 
 them by the superiority of the supreme chief, and united their 
 fortune with his. The powers of the senate were changed. This 
 body, instead of concentrating the whole authority in itself, was 
 divided into two assemblies ; one, composed of the least influential 
 members, formed a species of judicial magistracy, and the other 
 held the administrative functions, and became a sort of ministry to 
 Kara-George. It is impossible not to admire the political instinct 
 of this great man, which is as profound as his military eye is sure 
 and comprehensive. By calling around him, and retaining, by 
 lucrative and honorable posts, his friends, and even his enemies, 
 he separated them from a people too much accustomed to obey 
 them, and thus ruined their seditious oligarchy. A law of ban¬ 
 ishment was passed against every Servian who should resist this 
 constitution of the powers of the state. Dobrinyas and Milenko 
 made the attempt, and took refuge in Russia. Nenadowitsch 
 joined the party of George, through the marriage of his daughter 
 with Mladen, one of the most powerful partisans of the dictator. 
 
 The Sultan proposed to acknowledge Kara-George as hospodar 
 of Servia, under the guarantee of Russia. The Turks were to 
 retain the fortresses and the arms. Complicated negotiations were 
 continued without any effect till 1813, when Kara-George, unable 
 to come to an agreement with the Porte, called his countrymen to 
 arms. “You have, 55 said he, “conquered your enemies with me 
 during nine years; you have fought without arms and without 
 magazines; you now have cities, ramparts, rivers, between you 
 and the Turks ; a hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, seven for¬ 
 tresses, forty fortified posts, and your forests, the impregnable asy¬ 
 lum of your liberties : the Russians will march to your aid :—can 
 you hesitate ? 55 
 
 The Turks, however, commanded by the capitan pacha of 
 Widin, put themselves in motion. The grand vizier, profiting by 
 
282 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 the victory of the French at Lutzen, pressed the pachas to termi¬ 
 nate at a blow this long struggle so humiliating for the Porte. 
 Eighteen thousand Turks advanced against Weliko, whom they 
 besieged in Negotin. Weliko was killed by a cannon-ball. His 
 army, broken up, fled to the marshes as far as the isle of Poretsch. 
 In the south, Churchid Pacha, at the head of a numerous army, 
 drove before him Mladen and Sima, the two Servian generals, and 
 encamped under the very walls of Schabatz. Never had Servia 
 been reduced to such extremities. The enthusiasm of indepen¬ 
 dence appeared stifled under such reverses, as well, perhaps, as 
 by three years of peace and intestine dissensions. Her nationality 
 and her glory were eclipsed at the same time; and Kara-George 
 himself, abandoning both his fortune and his country, either be¬ 
 cause he foresaw the catastrophe to be inevitable, or because he 
 wished to reserve himself for better days, or had exhausted his 
 heroism, and was anxious to save his life and his treasures, passed 
 over to the Austrian territory with his secretary Jainka, and three 
 of his confidants. Thus was eclipsed for ever the hero of Servia, 
 by going to die in an Austrian citadel, instead of seeking amongst 
 his comrades, and on the soil of the country whose energy he had 
 first aroused, a death which would have immortalized him! On 
 learning his flight, the army disbanded itself; and Smederewos 
 and Belgrade again fell under the power of the Turks. Servia 
 became a pachalik; and Solyman, her conqueror, became her 
 master and pacha. 
 
 The senators had fled: one single individual, the vaivod Mi- 
 losch Obrenowitsch, remained faithful to the now desperate cause 
 of independence. He raised the southern provinces, and wished 
 to occupy Osehiza; but, being abandoned by his troops, he was 
 obliged to accept the proposals of the Turks. Solyman, to whom 
 he was presented, received him with distinction. The disarmed 
 Servians were employed to erect with their own hands the fortifi¬ 
 cations which were to keep the country in check. The tyranny 
 of the dispossessed spahis was avenged by a most insolent oppres¬ 
 sion for the nine years of exile to which the bravery of the Servi¬ 
 ans had driven them. However, the national character regained 
 its tone under this severe and degrading slavery. The ashes of 
 the insurrection were still smouldering. Milosch, who was atten¬ 
 tively watching the favorable moment, and which he thought not 
 yet arrived, energetically repressed the premature attempts of his 
 friends. The barbarous treachery of the kiaia of Solyman Pacha, 
 was more powerful over him than the counsels of prudence. Mi- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 283 
 
 losch had obtained an amnesty for the insurgents of Tagodina : 
 instead of keeping their promise, the Turks assembled the chiefs 
 of the insurrection at Belgrade, shot a hundred and fifty of them, 
 and impaled thirty-six. Milosch, who was himself at Belgrade, 
 had the grief to witness the wretched fate of his countrymen. 
 Their blood rose up against him and cried aloud in his heart. 
 The Turks perceived his rage; they feared his vengeance, and 
 made him prisoner; but he soon escaped, cleared the ramparts, 
 and took refuge in the mountains of Ruduik: where he rallied 
 his partisans, and the insurrection spread like wildfire throughout 
 all the forests of Servia. 
 
 Milosch was born in 1780; his mother, Wischnia, was twice 
 married. Her first husband’s name was Obren ; by him she had 
 one son, named Milan. The name of her second husband was 
 Tescho; by him she had several children ; Milosch was one of 
 these. His parents being without fortune, he was obliged to drive 
 the cattle that the rich merchants of the country were sending to 
 the Dalmatian markets. He next entered the service of Milan, 
 his uterine brother, who dealt in cattle. The two brothers loved 
 each other so affectionately, that Milosch took the name of Obren- 
 owitsch, which was that of Milan’s father. The business of the 
 brothers flourished. Rich and influential at the period of the first 
 insurrection, they took a part in it, each according to the nature 
 of his character: Milan, peaceful and gentle, remained at home, 
 to provide for the concerns of the district; Milosch, active and 
 intrepid, fought under Kara-George. 
 
 When Kara-George changed the constitution of the country, 
 Milan took part against him, and was shot by his orders. Milosch 
 owed his fortune and his subsequent glory to the death of his 
 brother. The desire of vengeance threw him into the ranks of 
 the malcontents. He did not retire with the chiefs who fled in 
 1813; all eyes were therefore naturally fixed upon him, who 
 alone remained in the country. 
 
 Milosch, on Palm Sunday, 1815, having fled from Belgrade, 
 entered the church of Takowo, where a large congregation had 
 assembled. Pie harangued the people with all the eloquence so 
 natural to the Sclavonian, and with the irresistible force of stern 
 resolution which already animated his listeners. Hostilities be¬ 
 gan : Milosch, at the head of a few young horsemen of his district 
 and a thousand mountaineers, seized one of the gates from the 
 spahis, and captured two pieces of cannon. At the news of this 
 success, the emigrants returned, the fugitives quitted the forests, 
 
284 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LANH. 
 
 the heydukes descended from the mountains, and attacked the 
 pacha’s kiaia, who, at the head of ten thousand men, had impru¬ 
 dently encamped in the plains of the Morawa. The kiaia was 
 slain in the battle ; his death spread terror in the camp, and the 
 Turks fled to Sienitza. At this place another battle was fought; 
 Milosch gained the victory : the spoil, the women, the artillery of 
 the kiaia, fell into the hands of the Servians. Ali Pacha quitted 
 Belgrade with all his remaining troops, and marched against Mi¬ 
 losch. He was defeated, and retired to Kiupra with an escort 
 given him by the conqueror. Adem Pacha made a disgraceful 
 capitulation, shut himself in Novibazar, and accepted the presents 
 of Milosch. The pacha of Bosnia descended from his mountains 
 with a fresh and numerous army, sending forward Ali Pacha, one 
 of his lieutenants, to attack Milosch in Matschwai: Ali Pacha 
 was taken prisoner, and sent back loaded with presents to the 
 grand vizier. The Servians already showed themselves worthy, 
 by their generosity, of that civilization in the name of which they 
 were conquering ; and Milosch treated with his enemies as with 
 future friends. He felt that complete independence of his country 
 was not yet established, and he observed treaties instead of dis¬ 
 honoring them by massacres. On the frontier of the Morawa, 
 Maraschli Ali Pacha was now advancing in his turn. Luckily, 
 disunion prevailed between this general and Churchid Pacha, the 
 former grand vizier and pacha of Bosnia. They did not combine 
 their plans; and each in secret wished the defeat of the other, to 
 obtain for himself alone the honor of the victory : each desired to 
 negotiate and secure the honor of having finished the war. Mi¬ 
 losch was aware of these intrigues, and took advantage of them ; 
 he ventured to present himself in person before the grand vizier, 
 in the midst of the Turkish camp: he obtained an interview with 
 Churchid, but came to no understanding. Milosch insisted that 
 Servia should remain armed ; the pacha agreed to all the other 
 terms but this, which indeed rendered them useless. Milosch, 
 being irritated, arose to mount his horse; Churchid ordered his 
 detention : the Janissaries threw themselves before him, but Ali 
 Pacha, the lieutenant of Churchid, whom Milosch had conquered, 
 and sent with presents to the grand vizier, courageously interpos¬ 
 ed between the Janissaries and Milosch ; represented to Churchid 
 that Milosch was come to the camp under pledge of his word, 
 which was enforced by oath, that he should be dismissed in safe¬ 
 ty ; and that he himself would sooner die than allow any attempt 
 upon the liberty of the man to whom he owed his life. The firm- 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 285 
 
 ness of Ali Pacha imposed on the vizier and his soldiers ; he led 
 him from the camp. Milosch said to him on departing, “ Hence¬ 
 forth trust to no one, not even to yourself. We have been friends ; 
 we now part, and forever.” Milosch retired ; negotiations open¬ 
 ed with Maraschli Ali Pacha were more successful; the arms 
 were allowed ; Servian deputies were despatched to Constantino¬ 
 ple, and returned at the end of a month, bearing a firman of peace, 
 conceived in these words: “ As God has confided his subjects to 
 the Sultan, so does the Sultan confide them to his pacha.” The 
 pacha re-entered Belgrade, and the Servian chiefs made him their 
 submission in the person of Milosch; the fortresses remained in 
 the hands of the Turks; the administration was shared between 
 the two parties; a national senate met at Belgrade under the 
 pacha. Ali, liked by the Servians, replaced their enemy Soly- 
 man Pacha at Belgrade, who was recalled by the grand signior. 
 Such a state of things could not last long ; collisions were inev¬ 
 itable. Milosch, always the leader of his nation, remained at 
 Belgrade with Ali Pacha, like a watchful sentinel, always ready 
 to give the people the signal for resistance or attack. 
 
 Ali endeavored to obtain by address the disarmament which 
 he could not procure by force. He addressed himself to Milosch, 
 conjuring him to obtain the arms of the people. Milosch replied 
 that he and his friends were ready to lay down their arms, but 
 that it was not possible to take them from the peasantry. The 
 pacha, being indignant, stirred up against the Servian chancellor, 
 Moler, and the metropolitan Nikschwitz : but Milosch’s guards 
 seized the two conspirators in full council, and obliged the pacha 
 himself, in virtue of his executive power, to put them to death. 
 The boldness of the Servians increased at this weakness of the 
 pacha : Milosch quitted Belgrade, and, to escape the snares of all 
 kinds with which the Turks and his rivals amongst the Servians 
 surrounded him, shut himself up in the fortified village of Tops- 
 chidor, half a league from Belgrade.—In 1821 a new attempt 
 was again made against the life and power of Milosch. The two 
 vaivods who had planned it were executed. The pacha was sus¬ 
 pected of having been the instigator; and the animosity between 
 the two nations grew stronger. However, the insurrections in 
 Albania, and the war of independence in Greece, occupied and 
 weakened the Turks. Circumstances were favorable for the 
 concentration of the national power in Servia. Nations never 
 conquer their liberty but by identifying themselves with a mili¬ 
 tary chief: interest and gratitude naturally induce them to con- 
 
 VOL. ii. 13 * 
 
286 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 sign the hereditary power to him who was enabled to create and 
 defend it. Monarchy is an instinct with rising nations : it is a 
 defence they throw around their still assailed independence. This 
 instinct was the stronger in Servia, where republican forms were 
 unknown. Milosch felt it, and turned it to account. He extend¬ 
 ed his authority, and re-established very nearly the constitution 
 of Kara-George. He interposed, between himself and the people, 
 the aristocracy of the knevens, who were charged with the ad¬ 
 ministration of the country. Every kneven has his knev, or pro¬ 
 vince ; and most of the districts have their obar-kneven. Milosch 
 appoints them—assigns their territory and their salary. To avoid 
 every pretence for exaction, the knevens receive their pay from 
 the public treasury. Subordinate courts are established in the 
 towns and villages. A superior court is held at Kraguzewatz. 
 Milosch appoints them. Custom supplies the place of law, until 
 the formation of a code which is in preparation. The right of 
 pronouncing the penalty of death is reserved for the supreme 
 head of the government. The small subsidy paid by Servia to 
 the Porte, the remains of a ransom, which is but a reminiscence 
 of their former dependence, passes through the hands of the su¬ 
 preme chief, who delivers it to the pacha. The pacha, a vain 
 shadow of authority no longer existing, is but a sentinel of the 
 Porte, who watches the Danube, and conveys orders to the Turks 
 who occupy the fortresses. In the event of a war with Austria, 
 the Servians are to furnish a contingent of forty thousand men. 
 The clergy, whose influence might have counterbalanced that of 
 Milosch, have lost their preponderance by losing the administra¬ 
 tion of justice, now assigned to the civil courts. The papas and 
 the monks, like the rest of the community, are subject to corporal 
 penalties, and pay the common taxes. The revenues of the bi¬ 
 shops are replaced by a fixed salary from the state : hence all 
 the power is concentrated in the hands of the supreme chief. 
 The civilization of Servia resembles the regular discipline of a 
 vast camp, in which a single will is the moving power of a mul¬ 
 titude of men, whatsoever may be their functions or their rank. 
 In the presence of the Turks this position is necessary. The 
 people are on the alert and armed ; the chief is an absolute sol¬ 
 dier. This state of semi-independence is still contested by the 
 Turks. The treaty of Akerman in 1827 decided nothing. A 
 Diet was held at Kraguzewatz, in which it became necessary to 
 take cognizance of the treaty of Akerman. Milosch rose and 
 said— 
 

 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 287 
 
 “ I know that there are some who are dissatisfied with the 
 penalties inflicted by my orders on some disturbers. I have been 
 accused of being too severe, and too desirous of power, whilst I 
 have no other object than the maintenance of peace and obedience, 
 which above all things are required by the two imperial courts. 
 The taxes paid by the people are imputed to me as a crime, 
 without reflecting how costly is the liberty which we have con¬ 
 quered, and how much more costly is slavery ! A weaker man 
 would yield to the difficulties of my situation. It is only by arm¬ 
 ing myself with rigid justice that I can fulfill the duties I have 
 contracted towards the people, the emperors, my own conscience, 
 and towards God himself.” 
 
 After this speech, the Diet passed an act, which was present¬ 
 ed to Milosch, and sent to the Porte ; an act by which, through 
 the organ of their chiefs, they swore eternal obedience to his high¬ 
 ness, Prince Milosch Obrenowitsch and his descendants. Servia 
 paid its debt to Milosch : he is now paying his to Servia. He is 
 giving to his country laws simple as its morals, but qualified by 
 European knowledge. Like the ancient legislators of new peo¬ 
 ple, he is sending young Servians to travel to the large capitals 
 of Europe, to obtain information on the subjects of legislation and 
 administration, in order to apply it to his country. A few fo¬ 
 reigners form a part of his court, and serve as informants upon 
 the languages and the arts of the neighboring nations. The 
 population, at peace, and devoted to the occupations of agriculture 
 and commerce, comprehend the value of the liberty they have 
 conquered, and are increasing in number, energy, and public 
 virtue. Religion, the sole civilizer of nations which have it not 
 in their laws, has lost its abuses, without losing any of its happy 
 influences: public education is a principal object of the govern¬ 
 ment’s care. The people lend themselves, with an instinct almost 
 fanatical, to the efforts of Milosch to render them worthy of a more 
 improved form of government. It seems as though he perceived 
 that enlightened nations only are capable of becoming free na¬ 
 tions, and that he was hastening to this end. The municipal 
 powers, thrown into the districts as the germs of liberty, are pre¬ 
 paring to bud forth. Some exiles, banished by the Turks after 
 the flight of Kara-George, and by Milosch for having conspired 
 with the Turks against him, are still deprived of their country ; 
 but every day, by consolidating order and fusing opinions into a 
 unanimous patriotism, is advancing the period when they may 
 return, and recognize the happy influence of the hero whom they 
 had fought against. 
 
288 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Ten thousand Turks still occupy the fortresses. The prince 
 could easily expel them ; all the country would rise at his voice. 
 But the presence of the Turks in these fortresses, and their nom¬ 
 inal co-sovereignty, having no injurious effects upon Servia, but 
 on the contrary, preventing internal agitation, and foreign in¬ 
 trigues, which would infallibly arise if she were completely de¬ 
 tached from the Ottoman empire, the prince, with skillful policy, 
 prefers this state of things to a new and premature war. The 
 people are grateful to him for this peace, which gives time for 
 the unfolding of internal civilization. They are in no apprehen¬ 
 sion for their real independence ; all the inhabitants are armed, 
 and occupy the interior, the towns, and the villages. The pacha 
 resides at Belgrade : Milosch, sometimes at Belgrade, somtimes at 
 his chateau within a mile of the city, oftener at Kraguzewatz. 
 He is there more insulated from the Turks, and occupies the 
 most central spot in Servia. The nature of the country, and his 
 warlike attitude, prevent the possibility of a surprise. Prince 
 Milosch is forty-nine years of age. He has two sons, the eldest 
 twelve years old. 
 
 The approaching destinies of the Ottoman empire will decide 
 the fate of his family and people ; but it appears as if nature 
 called it to a powerful participation in the great events which are 
 preparing in European as well as Asiatic Turkey. The popular 
 songs, which the prince takes care to disperse amongst the peo¬ 
 ple, will lead them to anticipate, in the coming events, the glory 
 and power of Servia, like that under their ancient heroic king, 
 Stephen Duschan. The adventerous exploits of their heydukes 
 pass from mouth to mouth, and cause the Servians to meditate on 
 the resurrection of a Sclavonic nation, whose germ, language, man¬ 
 ners, and primitive virtues, they have preserved in the forests of 
 Schumadia. 
 
 The traveler like myself cannot help hailing these anticipa¬ 
 tions with wishes and hopes: he cannot quit without regret and 
 without benedictions these immense virgin forests, these moun¬ 
 tains, these plains, these rivers, which seem springing from the 
 hands of the Creator, and mingling the luxuriant youth of the 
 land with that of the people, when he sees the new houses of the 
 Servians peeping from the woods, rising at the edge of the tor¬ 
 rents, extending in long yellow lines at the bottom of the valleys ; 
 when he hears from afar the noise of the saws and the mills, the 
 sound of the bells just baptized with the blood of the defenders of 
 the country, and the peaceful or the martial chant of the young 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 289 
 
 men and maidens returning home from the labors of the field ; 
 when he sees the long strings of children coming out of their schools 
 or their wooden churches, whose roofs are hardly finished, with the 
 accents of liberty, joy, and hope in every mouth, youth and sport¬ 
 iveness on every countenance: when he reflects on the immense 
 physical advantages the land assures to its inhabitants; on the 
 temperate sun that warms it: on the mountains which shade and 
 protect it like natural fortresses ; on the magnificent Danube, 
 which winds to enfold it, and bears its produce to the north and 
 the east; in short, on the Adriatic, which would soon furnish it 
 with ports and a marine, and connect it with Italy : moreover, 
 when the traveler recollects that, in crossing the country, he has 
 received only marks of kindness and greetings of friendship ; that 
 not a cottage has required the price of its hospitality; that he has 
 been welcomed every where alike, consulted as a sage, question¬ 
 ed as an oracle, and that his words, caught with eager curiosity 
 by papas or knevers, will remain a germ of civilization in the 
 villages through which he has passed,—he cannot help looking 
 for the last time with affection upon the rough and wooded bank 
 with its ruined mosques and broken domes, from which the wide 
 Danube separates him, and exclaiming to himself as they disappear, 
 “ Would that I might combat with this people for their dawning 
 liberty !” and repeating the strophes of one of their popular songs, 
 which his dragoman had translated,— 
 
 “ When the sun of Servia gleams on the waters of the Dan¬ 
 ube, the river seems in movement with the blades of yagatans, 
 and the glittering muskets of the Montenegrins : it is a river of 
 steel that defends Servia. How pleasant to be seated on the 
 banks, and to see the broken arms of our enemies pass by !” 
 
 “ When the wind of Albania descends from the mountains and 
 plunges beneath the forests of Schumadia, cries come forth, as 
 from the army of Turks in the battle of the Morawa : sweet is 
 the sound to the ears of the freed Servians! Dead or alive, it is 
 sweet after the battle to lie at the foot of this oak, which, like our¬ 
 selves, chants its liberty .” 
 
 END OF THE NOTES ON SERVIA. 
 
290 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLST LAND. 
 
 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 During eighteen months of traveling, vicissitude, and leisure, 
 a man reflects, even involuntarily. The innumerable facts which 
 pass under his eye enlighten him even unconsciously to himself. 
 The different aspects under which human circumstances present 
 themselves before him give them a new association and illustra¬ 
 tion. In history, in philosophy, in religion, he reasons upon what 
 he has seen and heard,—instinctive truths form in his mind,— 
 and upon examination he finds himself in many respects a new 
 man. The world has spoken to him, and he has understood it: 
 and if it were otherwise, what advantage would the traveler de¬ 
 rive from the difficulties, the perils, the wearying separations he 
 encounters,—his long absence from his friends and his country ? 
 Travels would be but a brilliant deception. But they are in fact 
 the education of the mind by nature and men. A man, however, 
 does not part from himself in his travels ; the thoughts which 
 employed his age and his country when he quitted the paternal 
 roof follow and occupy him on his route. Politics having been 
 the business of the day in Europe and in France when I took my 
 departure, my thoughts have been much turned to politics in the 
 East. In political order, as well as in history, philosophy, and 
 religion, ideas more true, more expansive, and more accurate, 
 have resulted from my examination of facts and places. My 
 mind has made some decisive inferences, and here they are. It 
 is the only page of those notes of a traveler which I am inclined 
 to offer to Europe, and I do so because it contains a truth useful 
 at the passing hour,—a truth which must be seized while it is 
 ripe and manifest, and which may be made fruitful hereafter. 
 If it is understood and acted upon, it will save Europe and Asia, 
 —it will multiply and ameliorate the human race, and produce 
 an epoch in its laborious and progressive existence. If it is mis¬ 
 understood and neglected as an impracticable dream on account 
 of some slight difficulties in its execution, the good and evil 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 291 
 
 passions of Europe will explode on herself, and Asia will remain, 
 what she now is, a dead and sterile branch of humanity. In two 
 words, then: 
 
 Human ideas have brought Europe to one of those great 
 organical crises, but very few of which are preserved in the 
 archives of history; epochs where a worn-out civilization yields 
 to another—where the past no longer maintains its hold upon us, 
 and where the future presents itself in masses, shrouded in all 
 the uncertainties, all the obscurity, which attend unknown effects ; 
 epochs terrible when they are not fruitful—climacteric maladies 
 of the human mind, which benumb it for centuries, or vivify it 
 for a new and long existence. The French Revolution has been 
 the tocsin of the world. Many of its phases are accomplished ; 
 but it is not yet ended,—nothing ends in the slow, intestine, eter¬ 
 nal movements of the moral life of mankind. There is a halting¬ 
 time ; but during those very halts the thoughts ripen, and the 
 strength grows which is to be the foundation of future action. 
 In the inarch of societies, the change of object is but a new 
 starting-point. The French Revolution, which will in time be 
 called the European Revolution, because ideas find their level 
 like water, is not only a political revolution, a transfer of power, 
 one dynasty set in the place of another, or a republic in that of a 
 monarchy: all that is only an accident, symptom, instrument, 
 medium. The work is so much the more serious and important, 
 as it may be accomplished under all the forms of political power; 
 and one may be a royalist or a republican, attached to one dy¬ 
 nasty or another, a partisan of this or that constitutional combi¬ 
 nation, without being less sincerely or less effectually a revo¬ 
 lutionist. One may prefer one instrument to another for removing 
 the world and changing its place ; and that is all the difference. 
 But the idea of revolution—that is to say, of change and amelio¬ 
 ration—does not the less enlighten the mind and warm the heart. 
 Where amongst us is the man of thought, of heart and reason, of 
 religion and hope, who, laying his hand upon his heart, and 
 examining it before God and in presence of society, dropping to 
 pieces in consequence of the anomalous and antiquated nature of 
 the materials that compose it, does not answer to himself, I am a 
 revolutionist? The time draws into its wake, as well those who 
 resist it, as those who give it their good wishes and take the lead 
 in its march. So rapid and invincible is the current, that those 
 who row the most vigorously, and think to turn the tide or neu- 
 tralize the descent of the stream, find themselves insensibly 
 
292 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 carried far beyond the horizon on which they had fixed their eyes 
 and their hearts, and in an hour of reflection measure with aston¬ 
 ishment the length of way they have passed. It is now nearly 
 half a century since this revolution, already ripe in ideas, broke 
 out into action. At first it was only a battle, then a ruin; the 
 dust of this struggle and this ruin obscured every thing for a 
 long time—no one knew for what, on what ground, or under what 
 banner he was fighting. Each drew, as in the night, upon his 
 friends or his brothers; reaction followed upon action; excesses 
 stained every banner; one withdrew in horror from a cause 
 which crime pretended to serve, but which it destroyed, as it does 
 all things : the mind passed from one excess to another, and could 
 understand nothing of the tumultuous movements, the vicissitudes 
 of the battle; for it was a battle,—that is to say, confusion and 
 disorder, triumph and rout, enthusiasm and discouragement. At 
 length we begin to comprehend the providential plan of this great 
 action between ideas and men. The dust is laid, and the horizon 
 is cleared up. We see the positions which have been carried 
 and lost,—the opinions which have fallen in the battle, those 
 which have been mortally wounded, those which survive, and 
 those which triumph or are to triumph: we understand the past, 
 —we understand the age,—we catch a glimpse of the future. 
 This is a grand and rare moment for the human mind. It is 
 conscious of its own powers, and of the great work it is perform¬ 
 ing; it has almost acquired an insight into futurity*. When a 
 revolution is fully understood, it is achieved : its success may be 
 slow, but can be no longer doubtful. The new opinion, if it has 
 not yet conquered its ground, has at least gained an arena for its 
 infallible arm. That arm is the press,—the daily and universal 
 revelation which surrounds us on all sides, and is to the spirit of 
 innovation and amelioration what powder and cannon were to the 
 first employers of them—victory assured in a powerful faculty. 
 Political philosophers then are no longer obliged to fight, but to 
 moderate and direct this invincible arm of the new civilization. 
 
 The past has rolled away, the arena is free, the space is va¬ 
 cant : equality of rights is an admitted principle ; liberty of dis¬ 
 cussion is consecrated in the forms of government, power has re¬ 
 mounted to its source ; the interest and reason of all are collected 
 in institutions which have more to fear from weakness than from 
 tyranny ; words spoken or written have a right to make their ap¬ 
 peal always, and in all places, to the understanding of all. This 
 grand tribunal of reason governs, and will govern more and more, 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 293 
 
 all the other powers emanating from it: it agitates, and will con¬ 
 tinue to agitate, all questions, social, religious, political, or na¬ 
 tional, with the force which opinion lends it, and in proportion to 
 the growth of conviction, until human reason, enlightened by the 
 ray it has pleased God to send it, shall have resumed the posses¬ 
 sion of the entire moral world, and, satisfied with its logical la¬ 
 bors, shall say, with the Creator, “ What I have made is good 
 then shall rest for a while, if there be rest in heaven or in earth. 
 
 But the social system is complicated. The solution of domestic 
 difficulties necessarily imposes a similar solution of questions of 
 foreign policy. A chain of connection pervades the world, and one 
 fact invariably reacts upon another: let us consider then what 
 ought logically to be the plan and action of European politics, as re¬ 
 gards the East. I say, European; for although in outward forms 
 the constitutional, or, to speak more properly, the rational system at 
 present prevails only in France, England, Spain, and Portugal, yet 
 it every where prevails in opinion : reflecting men are all on its 
 side, the people of all countries actuated by its spirit; the moral 
 revolution once accomplished, or even commenced, that of forms 
 soon follows ; the opportunity only is wanting, and it becomes 
 merely a question of time. Europe upholds a variety of forms, 
 but already acknowledges but one spirit—the spirit of renovation, 
 and of the government of men by the law of reason. France and 
 England are the two countries charged in these latter days to pro¬ 
 mulgate, and by their own experience to justify, opinions. Glo¬ 
 rious and fatal mission ! France, the most adventurous, has taken 
 the lead, and is at this moment far in advance ; let her then be 
 the first subject of our meditations. 
 
 Glorious but perilous is the career opened to France ; she is 
 the guide of nations, but is herself a stranger to the path, and, 
 while feeling a way for the social community, may be herself in¬ 
 gulfed in an unseen abyss: all the hostility to experience which 
 still resists innovation throughout Europe, is set in motion against 
 her. In religion, in philosophy, in politics, all who are averse to 
 reason, abhor France ; all the secret aspirations of men whose 
 minds are retrograde and immovably linked to the past, are for 
 her ruin ; she is to them the symbol of their decline, the living 
 evidence of their impotency, and of the falsehood oi their prophe¬ 
 cies ; her prosperity disproves their doctrines, which her over¬ 
 throw would verify ; all attempts for the amelioration of human 
 institutions would fall with her; but vehement acclamations 
 would be heard ; the world would remain in subjection to tyr- 
 
294 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 anny and prejudice. The supporters of prejudice and tyranny 
 therefore, passionately clamor for her subversion. They an¬ 
 nounce it as the sequel of her every movement; they hope it on 
 every occasion : but France is strong, stronger by far in the liv¬ 
 ing spirit which animates her, than in the number of her soldiers. 
 She alone has faith in, and a clear and generous perception of the 
 great universal cause for which she contends; military machines 
 are opposed to her, she brings martyrs to the arena. Conviction 
 is more powerful than an army; France, ruined in her finances, 
 rent by divisions, oppressed by tyranny, ensanguined by execu¬ 
 tioners within—attacked from without by her own children leagued 
 in arms with united Europe, has shown the world that she can¬ 
 not perish by external dangers. Those from within are more se¬ 
 rious ; they result from her new situation: a transition is al¬ 
 ways a crisis; and the consequences, foreseen or unforeseen, of 
 a new organic principle, inevitably produce unexpected phe¬ 
 nomena in the social state of a great people. The immediate con¬ 
 sequences of the Revolution in France, and the accidental results 
 of the crisis she has just passed through, are numerous: I shall 
 consider only the principal. 
 
 Equality of right produced equality of pretension and ambi¬ 
 tion among all classes ; universal aspirings after power, unlimited 
 competition for all offices, the obstruction of all professions ; rival¬ 
 ry, jealousy, envy between so many candidates pressing at the 
 same time towards the same goal; a perpetual elbowing of tal¬ 
 ents, cupidity, and self-love, at the gate of all departments of the 
 public service ; a consequent instability in all public functions, and 
 a throng of repulsed and envenomed forces flowing back upon so¬ 
 ciety, and always ready to revenge themselves upon her. 
 
 The liberty of discussion and inquiry secured to the enfran¬ 
 chised press, has engendered a spirit of dispute and controversy 
 without candor, a professional and systematic opposition ; a cyni¬ 
 cal character, which by dint of wordy logic scares away truth 
 and moderation ; misleads and excites ignorance; is ever ready 
 to underrate the chief requisite of nations—power, in whatever 
 hands ; terrifies honest but timid men, and puts arms in the hands 
 of all the evil passions of the time and the country. 
 
 The general diffusion of instruction—that first necessity of the 
 people, from whom it has been so long withheld—produces upon 
 them as its immediate result a bewilderment of ideas not yet fully 
 understood, a sort of vertigo of the mind too suddenly enlightened : 
 they are like men who, after long languishing in total darkness, 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 295 
 
 are at once incautiously exposed to the full flood of day, or too 
 plentifully supplied with food when nearly perishing with hun¬ 
 ger ; the one is dazzled, and for the time at least blinded ; the oth¬ 
 er is in danger of losing his life from an excess of the aliment 
 which should have restored it; but it does not follow that the 
 bread or the light is fatal—the transition alone is injurious. So 
 it is with general instruction : its first effect is to generate a su¬ 
 perabundance of capacities demanding employment in society; 
 a want of equilibrium between faculties and occupations, which 
 may and must elicit for a time serious dissonances in the political 
 harmony, till the balance shall be re-adjusted by these multiplied 
 capacities creating each for itself a proper mode of action. 
 
 Again, the manufacturing stimulus withdraws the population 
 from domestic feelings, and from the peaceful labors of agricul¬ 
 ture, so conducive to moral habits; it over-excites labor by the 
 sudden rise of profits, which as suddenly and irregularly fall back ; 
 it accustoms to the luxury and vices of cities, men who can never 
 afterwards return to the simplicity and mediocrity of rural life; 
 and thus accumulates those masses of population to-day insuffi¬ 
 cient for the demand, to-morrow deprived of employment, and by 
 their destitution a prey to sedition and disorder. 
 
 The populace, a numerous class, imperceptible in theoretical, 
 despotic, and aristocratical governments, where it is overshadowed 
 indeed by the possessors of the soil, but finds protection under 
 their shade, and a guarantee at least of existence in their pa¬ 
 tronage,—now, thrown on its own resources by the suppression 
 of its patrons, and by the system of individuality, is in a worse 
 condition than ever,—has achieved barren rights without the 
 means of subsistence, and will shake the foundations of society 
 till sociality shall have succeeded to individuality. 
 
 The condition of this populace has given rise to the question 
 of property which is now every where mooted ; a question which 
 would be resolved by the law of the strongest, were it not easily 
 resolved by reason, policy, and social charity. Charity is sociali¬ 
 ty ;—selfishness is individuality. Charity, as well as policy, 
 commands man not to abandon his fellow-creatures to themselves, 
 but to come to their aid—to form a sort of mutual security on 
 equitable conditions between society in possession and society not 
 in possession. She says to the proprietor, “ Thou shalt preserve 
 thy property ;” for, despite the alluring dream of a community of 
 wealth, tried in vain by Christianity and by philanthropy, proper¬ 
 ty appears to have been at all periods, from the earliest to the 
 
296 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 present, the sine qua non of all society : without it there is neither 
 domestication, labor, nor civilization. But she adds, “ Thou 
 wilt remember that the right of property was not instituted for thee 
 alone, but for mankind at large ; thou enjoyest it only on the con¬ 
 ditions of justice, utility, distribution to all : thou wilt therefore 
 supply thy brother, from the superfluity of thy possessions, with 
 the means and elements of labor necessary to his acquiring pos¬ 
 sessions in his turn ; thou wilt recognize a right superior to the 
 right of property—the right of humanity l” This is justice, and 
 this is policy ; for they are one and the same thing. 
 
 From all the facts arising out of the new order of things, one 
 incontestable requisite results for France and for Europe—ex¬ 
 pansion : it is of imperative necessity that expansion without 
 should bear some proportion to the immense expansion within 
 produced by the revolution which all things are undergoing. 
 Without that outward expansion, how shall we obviate the perils 
 I have just pointed out ? How prescribe equality in rights and 
 deny it in facts? How admit inquiry, yet resist reason and its 
 organ the press ? How diffuse information, and drive back upon 
 themselves the capacities which it multiplies ? How give activity 
 to manufactures, and provide at the same time against the accu¬ 
 mulations of population, and those sudden cessations of labor and 
 salary which they bring in their train ? How, in short, restrain 
 those perpetually increasing masses of the populace, armed, un¬ 
 disciplined, and struggling between poverty on the one hand and 
 pillage on the other ? How save property from the doctrinal and 
 actual aggressions to which it will be more and more exposed ? 
 And should that corner-stone of all society be laid prostrate, how 
 enable society itself to hold together ? Where then would be the 
 refuge against a second barbarism ? So imminent are these 
 dangers, that unless the anticipative wisdom of the European 
 governments devise a preservative against them, the ruin of the 
 known social world is inevitable within a given time. 
 
 Now, by a wonderful provision of Providence, who never cre¬ 
 ates wants without at the same time creating the means of satis¬ 
 fying them, it happens, that at the moment when the great crisis 
 of civilization takes place in Europe, and when the new necessi¬ 
 ties resulting from it are revealing themselves both to govern¬ 
 ments and people, a great crisis of an inverse order takes place in 
 the East, and a vast void is there offered for the redundancy of 
 European population and faculties. The excess of life which is 
 overflowing here may and must find an outlet in that part of the 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 297 
 
 world ; the excess of force which overstrains us may and must 
 find employment in those countries, where the human powers are 
 in a state of exhaustion and torpidity, where the stream of popula¬ 
 tion is stagnant or drying up, where the vitality of the human 
 race is expiring. 
 
 The Turkish empire is crumbling to pieces, and threatens 
 from day to day to leave to anarchy and disorganized barbarism, 
 territories devoid of inhabitants, and a people destitute of rulers. 
 This impending ruin of the Ottoman empire requires not hasten¬ 
 ing even by a touch of the finger against the tottering Colossus ; 
 it is accomplishing itself providentially by its own action, and by 
 a fatality inherent in its nature, of which no one can be arraigned 
 as the author, and which it is not in the power of the Turks or of 
 Europe to retard. The sinking population expires from the ces¬ 
 sation of its own vitality ; or rather, it is already extinct. The 
 Mussulman race is reduced to nothing in the sixty thousand 
 square leagues of which its immense and fertile domain is com¬ 
 posed. Except in one or two capitals, there are no Turks. Let 
 us cast our eye over those rich and beautiful regions, and seek 
 the Ottoman empire ; and we shall find it nowhere : the stupid, 
 or rather the inert and murderous administration of the conquer¬ 
 ing race of Osman, has every where created a desert, or has per¬ 
 mitted the conquered people to aggrandize, and multiply, while 
 it was itself daily diminishing and expiring. 
 
 The coast of Africa no longer remembers the origin of its 
 institutions and the domination of the Turks. The Barbary re¬ 
 gencies are independent in fact; and have no longer that frater¬ 
 nity of customs, and that sympathy of religion with the Turks, 
 which constitute a shadow of nationality. The blow struck at 
 Navarino was not heard at Tunis ; the fall of Algiers was not felt 
 at Constantinople: the branch is separated from the trunk. The 
 coast of Africa is not inhabited by Turks or Arabs, but by colonies 
 of freebooters, superfluous to the soil, and which take no root in it; 
 which have neither right, nor title, nor family among the nations; 
 it which, like a vessel without a flag, are the legitimate prey of the 
 cannon ; upon which whoever will may fire. Turkey is not there. 
 
 Egypt, peopled by Arabs, and alternately submitting to all the 
 masters of Syria, has now actually detached itself from the em¬ 
 pire. Mehemet Ali attempts the resuscitation of the empire of the 
 Caliphs ; but the fanaticism of a new doctrine, which sharpened 
 their sabre, no longer glitters round his. Arabia, divided into 
 tribes, without cohesion, without uniformity of customs or laws, 
 
298 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 accustomed for centuries to the yoke of all the pachas, is far from 
 seeing a deliverer in Mehemet Ali; she does not even regard him 
 as a civilizer, restoring her from barbarism and impotence to tac¬ 
 tics and independence; she sees in him only a rebellious and for¬ 
 tunate slave, desirous of aggrandizing the lot which fortune has 
 bestowed upon him—of enriching himself alone by the productions 
 of Egypt and Syria, and of dying without a master. After him, 
 she knows she must fall under some yoke, and cares not of whom. 
 
 The walls of Bagdad, on the confines of the desert of Syria, 
 enclose only a mixed population of Jews, Christians, Persians, 
 and Arabs : a garrison of a few thousand Turks, commanded by 
 a pacha, who revolts or is expelled every two or three years, is 
 insufficient to uphold the Turkish nationality among a population 
 of two hundred thousand souls. Bagdad is in its nature a free 
 city—a caravansary belonging to all Asia, as a depot for its inter¬ 
 nal commerce—a Palmyra in the desert. Between Bagdad and 
 Damascus extend the vast deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia, 
 through which runs the Euphrates : neither kingdoms, nor domin¬ 
 ions, nor cities are here; here are only the ambulatory tents of 
 unknown and independent tribes, who have no nationality but their 
 caprices, who acknowledge no country and no master,—children 
 of the desert, who hold as enemies whoever attempt to reduce 
 them to subjection—yesterday the Turks, to-day the Egyptians. 
 Turkey is not here. 
 
 Damascus, a great and magnificent town—a holy city, where 
 the Mussulman fanaticism still exists, has a population of from a 
 hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand souls : of these, thirty 
 thousand are Christians, seven or eight thousand are Jews, and 
 above a hundred thousand Arabs. A handful of Turks still reign 
 over the country by the spirit of conquest and of co-religion ; but 
 Damascus, a city of storms and independence, is perpetually re¬ 
 volting, massacres its pacha, and expels the Turks. Aleppo, a 
 city of infinitely less importance, is in the same case; but its 
 commerce is declining and itself expiring in the ruins of its fre¬ 
 quent earthquakes, The towns of Syria Proper, from Gaza to 
 Alexandretta, including the two cities of Homs and Hama, are 
 also peopled by Arabs, Syrian Greeks, Armenians, and Jews : the 
 total number of Turks in this beautiful and extensive territory 
 does not exceed thirty or forty thousand at most, The Maronites, ' 
 a sound, vigorous, intellectual, warlike, and commercial nation, 
 occupy Lebanon, and disdain or defy the Turks. The indepen¬ 
 dent and courageous tribes of the Druses and Metoualis form, with 
 
299 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 --- 
 
 ? the Maronites, under the federal government of the Emir Beschir, 
 the predominant population of Syria and even Damascus, ready 
 to become the sovereign power in these countries, the moment the 
 dismemberment of the empire shall abandon them to their natural 
 resources. Here is the germ of a great people, new and capable 
 of civilization : Europe has but to afford it encouragement, and 
 to say, Arise! 
 
 We come next to Mount Taurus, and the wide extent of Car- 
 amania, or Asia Minor, the provinces of which once formed seven 
 kingdoms, while its shores were thickly studded with independent 
 towns or flourishing colonies of Greeks and Romans. I have 
 traversed all these shores, I have inspected all their gulfs from 
 Tarsus to Tchesme, and I have seen nothing but fertile solitudes, 
 or miserable hamlets inhabited by Greeks: the interior affords 
 pasturage to the cattle of the indomitable tribe of Turcomans, who 
 wander among the mountains in the summer, and encamp in the 
 plains for the winter. Adana, Konia, Kutaya, and Angora, its 
 principal towns, are each peopled by some thousand Turks: 
 Smyrna alone is the great centre of its population ; it contains 
 about a hundred thousand souls, more than half of whom are 
 Christians, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews. Coasting the shores 
 of Asia Minor, we come to the beautiful Greek islands of Scio, 
 Rhodes, and Cyprus. The latter is itself a kingdom; it mea¬ 
 sures eighty leagues in length, by twenty in breadth : has con¬ 
 tained and is capable of supporting a population of several mil¬ 
 lions ; it possesses the sky of Asia with the soil of the tropics : its 
 present inhabitants are about thirty thousand Greeks ; and sixty 
 Turks, enclosed in a ruined fortress here, represent the Ottoman 
 power. The same may be said of Rhodes, Stanchio, Samos, 
 Scio, and Mytilene. Hitherto, where are the Turks? This is, 
 however, the finest portion of their empire. 
 
 The coasts of the sea of Marmora and of the channel of the 
 Dardanelles present likewise some small towns, dispersed at con¬ 
 siderable distances, and thinly inhabited by a poor population 
 half Turkish and half Greek. The Turks in these countries, in¬ 
 cluding those of Broussa, can scarcely be reckoned at more than 
 a hundred thousand souls. 
 
 Constantinople, like all the capitals of a decaying people, 
 alone presents an appearance of population and life : in propor¬ 
 tion as the vitality of empires recedes from the extremities, it 
 concentrates itself in the heart. There was also a time when the 
 entire Greek empire existed in Constantinople ; the city was taken, 
 
300 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 and the empire was no more. Authors are not agreed respecting 
 the population of Constantinople, which is differently stated from 
 three hundred thousand to a million souls: the census is wanting, 
 every one therefore judges from private data. Mine is founded 
 only on a glance cast upon the great developement of the city, 
 including Scutari, upon the shores of the Golden Horn, the sea of 
 Marmora, and the coasts of Asia and Europe. I include all this 
 under the name of Constantinople, for there is no interruption of 
 houses. The denominations of quarters, of towns and villages, 
 are arbitrary ; it is but a single city, a single centre of popula¬ 
 tion, sending out its lines of houses, kiosks, palaces, or villages, 
 over an extent of fourteen French leagues in length, sometimes of 
 a considerable depth, sometimes of one or two houses only. I 
 believe that the aggregate of this population may amount to from 
 six to seven hundred thousand souls : not more than one-third of 
 these are Turks ; the remainder are Armenians, Jews, Christians, 
 Franks, Greeks, and Bulgarians. The Turkish population of 
 Constantinople may be taken, then, according to my estimate, at 
 from two to three hundred thousand souls. I did not visit the 
 shores of the Black Sea; but according to the excellent and con¬ 
 scientious narrative of M. Fontanier’s travels, published in 1834, 
 the indigenous population predominates in those districts, and the 
 Turks diminish in number there, as well as in the provinces of the 
 empire which I have traversed. 
 
 After the capital, the only great town of European Turkey is 
 Adrianople, which may reckon from thirty to forty thousand 
 Turks: Philippopoli, Sophia, Nissa, Belgrade, and the little inter¬ 
 mediate towns, an equal number. I apprehend the number of 
 Turks in those portions of the empire which I have not visiled, 
 will amount on the whole to about three hundred thousand. Servia 
 
 S' 
 
 and Bulgaria will scarcely produce a Turk to a village; and I 
 suppose the case may be the same in the other provinces of Tur¬ 
 key in Europe. Allowing, then, for the errors which I may have 
 committed, and attributing to the interior of Asia Minor a much 
 larger population than appears to the eye, or than the relations of 
 travelers warrant, I do not think that the total existing Turkish 
 population can be estimated at more than two or three millions of 
 souls ; I am indeed far from believing that it should be stated so 
 high. Here then is the conquering race, reared on the borders 
 of the Caspain Sea, melting away under the sun of the Mediter¬ 
 ranean ; here then is Turkey possessed, or rather already lost, 
 by this small number of men : for while the doctrine of fatalism, 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 301 
 
 the inertness which is consequent upon it, the immutability of 
 institutions, and the barbarism of the administration, reduce almost 
 to nothing the conquerors and masters of Asia, their slaves, the 
 Christian races of the empire, the Armenians, Greeks, and Ma- 
 ronites, and the race of conquered Arabs, increase and multiply 
 through the natural effect of their customs, their religion, and 
 their activity. The number of slaves immensely surpases the 
 number of oppressors; the Greeks of the Morea, a feeble and 
 miserable population, have, single-handed, in a moment of energy, 
 cleared the Peloponnesus of Turks; Moldavia and Wallachia 
 have thrown off the yoke ; the islands would be all freed but for 
 the European treaty which guarantees them to the Sultan; the 
 whole of Arabia is dissected amongst tribes unknown to each 
 other, molested alternately by the Turks and by the Egyptians, 
 and dominated in her most energetic portions by the great schism 
 of the Wahabees; two-thirds of the Armenians are snatched from 
 the Turkish power by the Russians and Persians ; the Georgians 
 are Russians; the Maronites and the Druses will be masters of 
 Syria and Damascus, as soon as it is seriously their will to be so: 
 the Bulgarians are a numerous and healthy population, still tri¬ 
 butary, but themselves more numerous and better organized than 
 the Turks, capable of casting off their subjection with a word. 
 This word the Servians have pronounced, and their magnificent, 
 forests already begin to be opened by roads, towns, and villages ; 
 Prince Milosch, their chief, admits Turks at Belgrade only as 
 allies, no longer as masters. The spirit of conquest, the soul of 
 the Osmanlis, is extinct ; the spirit of armed proselytism has long 
 since vanished from among them : their force of impulsion is 
 gone ; their force of conservation, which should reside in an uni¬ 
 form, enlightened, and progressive administration, exists only in 
 the head of Mahmoud : popular fanaticism is dead with the janis¬ 
 saries, and if the janissaries could revive, barbarism would revive 
 with them : a miracle of genius would be necessary to resuscitate 
 the empire ; Mahmoud has heart, but not genius: he assists in 
 producing his own ruin, and encounters only obstacles where a 
 stronger and more expansive mind would find instruments; he is 
 reduced to depending for support upon the Russians, his natural 
 and immediate enemies. This policy of weakness and despair 
 ruins him in the opinions of his people ; he is become the shadow 
 only of a Sultan assisting in the dismemberment of his empire; 
 pressed between Europe, which protects him, and Mehemet Ali, 
 who threatens him if he declines the humiliating assistance of the 
 VOL. II. 14 
 
302 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Russians, Ibrahim arrives and overthrows him by his presence : 
 if he combats Ibrahim, France and England confiscate his fleets, 
 and encamp on the shores of the Dardanelles ; if he enters into 
 alliance with Ibrahim, he becomes the slave of his slave, and 
 finds a prison or death in his own seraglio. The energy of 
 heroism and an effort of sublime despair alone could save him, 
 and restore for a while the Ottoman glory. To close on either 
 side the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, to make an appeal to 
 southern Europe, and to all that remains of Islamism, and to 
 march himself against Ibrahim and the Russians,—these are the 
 only means of recovery yet open to him: but suppose them 
 adopted and successful, the empire, glorious for a moment, would 
 not the less decompose itself immediately afterwards , the only 
 permanent result would be, that its fall would be enlightened with 
 a halo of heroism, and that the race of Othman would set as it 
 rose, in a triumph. 
 
 Now that we have seen the state of Europe, and that of the 
 Ottoman empire, what line of conduct should political fore¬ 
 sight adopt ? How should Europe act, consistently with the 
 policy of humanity, not of a blind and stupid selfishness ? The 
 routine of diplomacy, which repeats its axioms, when once re¬ 
 ceived, long after they have ceased to have a rational meaning, 
 and which trembles to have a real and serious question to discuss, 
 because it has neither intellect nor energy to resolve it, has de¬ 
 clared that the Ottoman empire must be supported on all sides, as 
 a neccessary counterpoise to Russian power in the East. 
 
 If an Ottoman empire really existed—if there were still Turks 
 capable of creating and organizing, not an army only, but a gov¬ 
 ernment, which might observe the rear of the Russian empire, 
 and give her serious disquiet, while southern Europe engaged 
 her in front,—then perhaps, this might be conservative policy. 
 It would be hardihood or madness to say to Europe, Efface from 
 the map an existing empire, full of life ; lift an immense weight 
 from the ill adjusted equilibrium of the body politic ; the world 
 will not perceive the change. But the Ottoman empire no long¬ 
 er exists except in name ; its life is extinct—its weight no longer 
 sways the balance; it is nothing but a vast void, which your 
 anti-human policy wishes to leave vacant, instead of filling it 
 with a healthy and living population, which nature has already 
 planted there, and which you might replenish and propagate 
 yourselves. Do not precipitate the fall of the Ottoman empire— 
 do not usurp the office of fate—do not assume the responsibility 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 303 
 
 of Providence; but do not sustain by an illusory and culpable 
 policy that phantom to which you can at best give only an ap¬ 
 pearance and attitude of life,—for it is dead. Do not become 
 the allies of barbarism and Islamism, against the more advanced 
 stages of civilization, reason, and religion, which they oppress ; 
 nor the accomplices of the slavery and depopulation of the finest 
 parts of the world. Let destiny accomplish its purposes—ob¬ 
 serve, wait and be ready. 
 
 When at length the empire shall sink of itself, and, under¬ 
 mined by Ibrahim, or some other pacha, shall be dismembered 
 alike in its northern and southern provinces, you will have 
 a simple question to decide. Will you make war upon Russia, 
 to prevent her inheriting Constantinople and the coasts of the 
 Black Sea? Will you make war upon Austria, to prevent 
 her inheriting one half of Turkey in Europe ? Will you make 
 war upon England, to prevent her inheriting Egypt and the 
 route to India by the Red Sea?—upon France, to prevent her 
 colonizing Syria and the Island of Cyprus ?—upon Greece, to 
 prevent her completing her territories by the addition of the 
 coasts of the Mediterranean, and the beautiful isles which bear 
 her name, and are inhabited by her own people ?—on all the world, 
 in short, lest any one should profit by these magnificent ruins ? 
 Or must we come to a mutual understanding, and divide them 
 amongst the human race, under the patronage of Europe, that 
 the human race may multiply and flourish in this beautiful cli¬ 
 mate, and that civilization may resume its station there ? These 
 are the two questions which a congress of the powers of Eu¬ 
 rope will have to decide. Truly, the answer is not doubtful. 
 
 If you resolve on war, you will have war, with all the evils 
 —all the ruin that attend it: you will injure Europe, and Asia, 
 and yourselves ; and the war having ended from utter weariness, 
 nothing which you intended to prevent will be prevented. The 
 force of circumstances—the irresistible march of events—the in¬ 
 fluence of national sympathies and religion—the power of terri¬ 
 torial positions, will have their inevitable effect: Russia will oc¬ 
 cupy the coasts of the Black Sea and Constantinople—the Black 
 Sea is a Russian lake, of which Const ntinople is the key ; Aus¬ 
 tria will spread herself over Servia, Bulgaria and Macedonia, to 
 keep pace with Russia; France, England and Greece, after 
 disputing the road for some time, will respectively take possession 
 of Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, and the Islands. The effect will be 
 the same; but, meanwhile torrents of blood will have flowed, by 
 
304 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 sea and land; the chances of battle will have substituted forced 
 and arbitrary, for natural and rational division of territory ; years 
 of useful colonization will have been lost; and during these per¬ 
 haps lengthened years, Turkey in Europe and Asia will have 
 been the prey of anarchy and incalculable calamities. You will 
 find more extensive deserts than even the Turks had left. Eu¬ 
 rope will have receded instead of following her accelerated 
 movement of civilization and prosperity, and Asia will have rested 
 still longer in her bed of death. If reason presides over the des¬ 
 tinies of Europe, can she hesitate ? and if she hesitates, what 
 will history say of her governments and rulers ? It will attest 
 that the political world has been directed in the nineteenth cen¬ 
 tury by suicidal selfishness and folly ; and that its cabinets and 
 subjects have rejected the most magnificent present which Prov¬ 
 idence has ever offered to the necessities of an epoch, and to the 
 progress of mankind. 
 
 Let us now see what ought to be done. Let a congress 
 be assembled of the principal powers bordering on the Ottoman 
 empire, or having important interests in the Mediterranean, to 
 establish the principle that Europe withdraws from all action 
 or direct influence upon the internal affairs of Turkey, and 
 abandons it to its own vitality and the chances of its destiny ; 
 and to agree beforehand, that in case of the fall of this empire, 
 whether by a revolution at Constantinople, or by successive dis¬ 
 memberments, the European powers shall take, under the title 
 of protectorates, such portions of its dominions as shall have been 
 assigned to each by the stipulations of the congress ; that these 
 protectorates, the territories of which shall be defined and limited 
 according to contiguity of situation—security of frontier—analogy 
 of religion, customs, and interests, shall maintain only the para¬ 
 mount authority of the respective powers, without interfering with 
 the local sovereignties pre-existing in the protected provinces. 
 This suzerctinele , or paramount protectorship, thus recognized as a 
 European institution, should be defined to consist principally in 
 the right of occupying certain portions of the territory and coasts 
 —of founding there free cities, European colonies, or trading 
 ports. The several nationalities—the classifications of tribes— 
 the pre-existing rights of every kind, should be recognized and 
 supported by the protecting power, which should exercise over its 
 ' assigned territory only an armed and civilizing guardianship 
 guaranteeing its existence apd the elements of its nationality, 
 upder the banners of a stropger nationality,—preservipg it from 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 305 
 
 invasion, dismemberment and anarchy, and furnishing it with the 
 means of pacifically developing its commercial and industrial 
 resources. 
 
 These points established, the mode of action and influence of 
 the protectorates over the portions of the East which should de¬ 
 volve upon them would vary according to their respective locali¬ 
 ties and customs, and would flow from peculiar circumstances : 
 matters would naturally take the following course :— 
 
 In the first instance, one or several European free towns 
 would be founded upon such parts of the coast or territory as from 
 nature and circumstances should appear the most eligible. These 
 towns, open, as well as the whole territory, to all the protected 
 population, would be governed by the laws of the mother country, 
 or by an especial colonial legislation : on settling in them, the 
 protected people should obtain the rights of citizenship, and soon 
 after all those enjoyed by the native subjects of the protecting 
 power; they should cease to be subject to the oppressive and 
 barbarous legislations of their tribe or their prince; they should 
 be fully invested with the right of property and its transmission, 
 which is almost every where wanting in these lands, and which is 
 the first, and chief lever of its civilization ; they should enjoy such 
 immunities of commerce, industry, and arms, as the policy of the 
 protectorate should confer upon them. The commercial relations 
 between these principal centres of liberty, property, and civiliza¬ 
 tion, would inevitably be drawn closer and closer; the towns, 
 villages, and tribes would soon demand in mass to be admitted to 
 the benefits of compatriotism, and of the social rights which would 
 result from it; and the protected country would pass altogether in 
 a few years within the pale of the protecting power. A uni¬ 
 formity of laws, and of political and social institutions, would be 
 promptly and liberally established ; all these advantages are al¬ 
 ready warmly appreciated among the people to whom they would 
 thus be extended. Weary of the tyranny and the barbarous ad¬ 
 ministration by which they are decimated—hungering especially 
 for the rights of property, commerce, and individual liberty, 
 there can be no doubt but they would immediately fill to an over¬ 
 flow the first open towns. The contagion of example, and the 
 prosperous security enjoyed by these towns and their territories, 
 would seduce the entire population of still extending circles. 
 But two articles would require to be respected and protected— 
 their customs and religion. This is easy, because toleration is 
 the law of Europe and good sense, and the inveterate habit of the 
 
306 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 East. All sorts of worship must be equally protected, in perfect 
 freedom and mutual independence. Some purely civil conditions 
 must be gradually imposed on those who establish themselves 
 in European towns, modifying their customs with respect to 
 legislation, without interfering with their faith. The municipal 
 and protecting law must know nothing of a plurality of wives 
 or of slavery, but it must interdict nothing which belongs merely 
 to the province of domestic government or of conscience. 
 
 Each protectorate must possess two sorts of legislation ; the 
 one general, and in some measure feudal, which will regulate the 
 general connection of the protected people and tribes amongst 
 each other and with the protecting nation, as the imposition of 
 taxes and the militia of the colony, and the boundaries of the ter¬ 
 ritories of the respective dependent tribes ; the other, a European 
 legislation for the European free towns analogous to that of the 
 protecting nation—a legislative model incessantly offered to the 
 emulation of the native powers. The common pact, over the due 
 execution of which the protectorate would watch, must only ob. 
 lige these various races of men who inhabit the East, differing 
 from each other in tribes, in religion, and in customs, to live 
 together in peace ; it would habituate them to a community of in¬ 
 terests ; would teach them, for certain objects, to convene delibe¬ 
 rative assemblies of their respective nations and tribes ; and then 
 to choose the most enlightened among themselves as deputies, to 
 deliberate in their turn with the deputies of other nations and tribes 
 on interests common to the whole protectorate; in order to ac 
 custom them by degrees to a beneficial connection, and to blend 
 them insensibly rather by the force of manners than of laws. The 
 East is so well prepared by its municipal habits, and by the great 
 diversity of its races, for such a state of things, that the protect¬ 
 ing nation would experience no difficulty, except in a few great 
 capitals, as Damascus, Bagdad, Cairo, and Constantinople. 
 These difficulties must not be overcome by force, but simply by 
 a temporary interdiction of intercourse with the rest of the pro¬ 
 tected territories. The cessation of commerce is, in the East, a 
 suspension of life. Their repentance would soon purchase recon¬ 
 ciliation. 
 
 The possibility, I will even say the extreme facility of such 
 an organization, is manifest to all who have traveled in these 
 countries. Galling subjection, ruin, depopulation, absence of the 
 right of property and legal transmission—the arbitrary will of a 
 pacha, weighing like an incubus upon fortune, and upon life itself, 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 307 
 
 have so denationalized those beautiful regions, that any standard 
 planted there on the above conditions would quickly rally the ma¬ 
 jority of the inhabitants under its shadow. They are for the 
 most part ripe for the change: all the population of Turkey in 
 Europe, and all the Greeks, Armenians, Maronites, and Jews, are 
 industrious, agricultural, and commercial; give them only pro¬ 
 tection of property, personal security, and liberty, and they will 
 speedily multiply, and cover the isles and the two continents. In 
 twenty years, the measures which I propose will have created 
 prosperous nations, and we shall see millions of men advancing 
 under the segis of Europe to a new civilization. 
 
 But, I may be asked, how will you dispose of the Turks ?— 
 The empire once fallen, divided, and dismembered,—the Turks, 
 shaken off by all the insurgent populations, will either become 
 blended with them, or flee to Constantinople and some few parts 
 •of Asia Minor, where they may still muster a majority. They 
 are too insignificant in numbers, too much closed in by implaca¬ 
 ble enemies, too visibly struck by the fatality which constitutes a 
 material portion of their creed, to re-conquer their wide spreading 
 domination when once lost. They will form one among the many 
 nations guaranteed and protected by the European power which 
 shall accept the sovereignty of the Bosphorus of Constantinople, 
 or of Asia Minor, and will be but too happy in the defence of that 
 shield against the vindictive aggressions of the people who have 
 endured their yoke. They will retain their laws, their habits, their 
 creed, till habitual contact with a more advanced civilization 
 shall insensibly lead them to property, industry, commerce, and 
 all the social benefits which flow from these. Their territory, 
 their relative independence, and their nationality, will remain 
 under the guardianship of Europe, till their complete fusion with 
 the other free nations of Asia. Bid the plan which I have con¬ 
 ceived and propose depend for its execution on violence, on the 
 expatriation and forcible dispossession of this wreck of a great and 
 generous nation, I should regard it as a crime. The Turks, by 
 ■the inherent and irreclaimable viciousness of their administration 
 and of their habits, are incapable of governing their present ter¬ 
 ritories in Europe and Asia, or in either of them. They have de¬ 
 populated the countries which owned their sway, and have des¬ 
 troyed themselves by the slow suicide of their government: but as 
 a race of men, they are still, in my estimation, the first and most 
 worthy amongst the numerous races that people their vast empire ; 
 .their character is the noblest and most dignified, their courage is 
 
308 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 unimpeachable, and their virtues, religious, civil, and domestic, 
 are calculated to inspire every impartial mind with esteem and ad¬ 
 miration. Magnanimity is inscribed on their foreheads and dis¬ 
 played in their actions : if they had better laws and a more en¬ 
 lightened government, they would be one of the greatest people 
 the world has seen. All their instincts are generous. They are 
 a people of patriarchs, of contemplatists, of adorers, of philoso¬ 
 phers,—and when their cause is that of religion, they are a peo¬ 
 ple of heroes and martyrs. God forbid that I should instigate the 
 extermination of such a race, whom I believe to confer an honor 
 on humanity ! But as a nation, they are, or soon will be, no more. 
 As a race of men, they must be saved, with those whom they op¬ 
 press and whose propagation they impede, by the direction of their 
 destiny and that of Asia being at a decisive moment assumed by 
 more competent hands. By what right ? it may be asked. By 
 the right of humanity and civilization. It is not the right of power 
 which I invoke : power confers no right, but it confers a capabi¬ 
 lity. Europe combined in one aim—the preservation and civiliza¬ 
 tion of the human race, has indisputably the capability of deciding 
 the fate of Asia. It is'for her to examine herself, and to ask her¬ 
 self whether that capability does not constitute a right, whether it 
 does not impose a duty. For my part, I hold the affirmative. 
 No cannon need be fired ; no violence, no confiscation, no pro¬ 
 scription, no violation of religion or morals, authorized. A reso¬ 
 lution only is to be taken, a protection promulgated, a standard 
 unfurled ; and if this is not done, twenty years of unprofitable war¬ 
 fare is reserved for Europe for Asia, anarchy, ruin, stagnation, 
 depopulation to the end of time! Has God bestowed upon man 
 so magnificent a domain, in the finest portion of the globe, that it 
 may be left sterile, uncultivated, or ravaged by eternal barba¬ 
 rism ? 
 
 As for Europe herself, her convulsed and revolutionary state 
 —the exuberance of her unemployed population, industry, and 
 intellectual forces, ought to lead her to bless that Providence which 
 so opportunely opens to her so boundless a career of thought, activity, 
 noble ambition, civilizing proselytism, manufacturing and agricul¬ 
 tural industry ; offices and emoluments in every shape ; fleets and 
 armies to direct; ports to construct; cities to erect; colonies to 
 found ; fertile solitudes to cultivate ; new 7 manufactures to 
 establish ; new discoveries to turn to account; new regions to 
 explore; alliances to attempt; young and sound populations to 
 
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 809 
 
 educate ; systems of legislation to study and to prove ; religions 
 to investigate and rationalize ; fusions of people and of customs 
 to consummate ; Europe, Asia, and Africa to draw nearer to each 
 other, and to unite by new communications, which shall leave but 
 the interval of a month between India and Marseilles, and place 
 Cairo in connection with Calcutta. 
 
 The finest climates of the world; the rivers and plains of 
 Mesopotamia offering their currents and their roads as channels 
 for the infinitely multiplied activity of universal commerce ; the 
 mountains of Syria furnishing an inexhaustible depot of fuel to 
 innumerable steam-vessels ; the Mediterranean, become the lake 
 of southern Europe, as the Euxine already is of Russia, and as 
 the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf are of England; nations, now 
 destitute of territory, country, rights, laws or security, dividing 
 amongst them, under the shelter of European legislation, those 
 districts in which they now encamp, and overspreading Asia 
 Minor, Africa, Egypt, Arabia, Turkey in Europe, and the Islands, 
 with an industrious population, thirsting after the knowledge and 
 the productions of Europe. What a picture is here ! What a 
 prospect for the three continents! What a limitless sphere of 
 new activity for the faculties and the wants which consume us ! 
 What elements of pacification, of domestic order, and of steady 
 progression, for our tempestuous times!—And this picture is a 
 simple truth ; a truth infallible, easy, certain. Europe wants 
 only just opinions and generous sentiments to realize it: a word 
 will suffice her to save herself while preparing a glorious futurity 
 for mankind. 
 
 I shall not here discuss the limits of the European and Asiatic 
 protectorates, and the compensations to which those limits might 
 lead in Europe itself: the task belongs exclusively to the agents 
 of the principal powers assembled in a secret congress. Estab¬ 
 lished nationalities represent in some degree the individual 
 identity of the people. They should be touched as little as pos¬ 
 sible in negotiation ; war alone affects them. Such compensa¬ 
 tions therefore would be easily granted, and need not produce the 
 interminable discussion and perpetual squabbles which are always 
 objected against them. As I have just observed, in certain cases 
 capability is right. The lesser powers ought not to embarrass 
 the greater, in whom actually resides the preponderating voice, 
 from which there is no appeal, in the great European council. 
 When Russia, Austria, England, and France understand each 
 
310 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TO THE IIOLY LAND. 
 
 other, and have promulgated a firm and unanimous decision, who 
 can prevent their executing whatever their dignity, their interests, 
 and the welfare of the world shall dictate to them ?—Certainly no 
 one. The inferior diplomacies may murmur, may intrigue, may 
 write; but the work will be accomplished, and the vigor of Eu¬ 
 rope renewed. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 LETTER FROM THE VISCOUNT DE MARCELLUS TO MONSIEUR DE 
 
 LAMARTINE. 
 
 Of your travels in the East, my dear Lamartine, I have as yet read only 
 the extracts inserted in the various journals; yet I cannot resist my desire 
 to tell you how much I am indebted to you for a renewal of bygone 
 enjoyments. You have given new life to my receding impressions; 
 I have been restored by you, if there be not too much pride in the 
 idea, to those grand and powerful emotions which agitated me twelve 
 years ago on viewing the same scenes. At that time I devoted -myself 
 entirely to the contemplation of their majestic beauties; the Desert, 
 Lebanon, appeared to me under that sublime coloring which your pencil 
 has revived : I have seen the same ruins; I have climbed the same moun¬ 
 tains ; the same dust has cleaved to the sandals of my pilgrimage, and I 
 cannot be mistaken in believing that this fraternity of travels and of reflec¬ 
 tions must add a new bond to our friendship. 
 
 You have mentioned Lady Hester Stanhope, and since I first met with 
 it, I have repeatedly read and re-read your affecting episode: I have medi¬ 
 tated upon it, as upon a page of my own recollections, imprinted in char¬ 
 acters of fire ; you have transported me once again to the feet of that lady, 
 whose portrait I have not dared to delineate, and upon whom you have 
 yourself hesitated to pass judgment. My impressions at that time, I ac¬ 
 knowledge, were almost all in her favor; whether because in my youth I 
 felt a more lively sympathy in this mode of life, differing so entirely from 
 all others, or because I could see nothing in the desert that was not grand 
 and novel. I also embodied these impressions in a faithful narrative; but 
 this simple and unvarnished recital withered as a leaf before the wind, and 
 perished in that gulf of records which has swallowed up so many of the 
 political sketches that you and I have attempted. 
 
 When Louis the Eighteenth was informed of my visit to Lady Hester, 
 he wished to be made acquainted with the particulars of it, and desired to 
 converse with me upon the subject. It is to Lady Stanhope that I am in¬ 
 debted for the interest with which some of my adventures in the East were 
 received and made known in the world :—thus, the relation of my prom¬ 
 enades to Homer’s School with the young daughters of Scio in the latter 
 days of their life and of their liberty; the details of the discovery, the ac- 
 
312 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 quisition, and the carrying away of the Venus of Milo , that chef cVoeuvre of 
 ancient sculpture, for which my country, with some pride I say it, is in¬ 
 debted to my cares,—and some other episodes upon my travels,—obtained 
 a share of public favor at the time, under the shelter of the name of mine 
 hostess of Lebanon ; and if I did not attempt to make the public participa¬ 
 tors in my admiration of her, it was because my travels were connected 
 with a political mission. You, I am sure, will commend me, if faithful to 
 the duties of our common calling, I considered that it imposed upon me a 
 rigorous silence. Detached since that time from this calling, the study of 
 my life, by commotions which have destroyed so many and important in¬ 
 terests, I have still thought myself bound by its laws even when I did not 
 hesitate to retire from it, and nay silence has accordingly survived my 
 functions 1 . 
 
 Relating more ably than myself all that apart from politics I could have 
 said, you have at the present moment awakened my recollections : and you 
 alone shall judge whether some traits which I have preserved are worthy 
 of being added to your glowing pictures. 
 
 Lady Hester Stanhope, then more connected with Europe and its po¬ 
 litical existence, had not, at the time I had the honor of seeing her, forgot¬ 
 ten the world—but she certainly despised it. She had not yet learned of 
 the Syrian philosophers the art of attributing the destinies of our hemi¬ 
 sphere to the influence of the stars and of the heavens ; she still referred 
 them to a higher source. Disgusted with the religions of Europe, although 
 but imperfectly acquainted with them,—rejecting the numerous sects of 
 the desert, whose mysteries she had solved, she had created a Deism of her 
 own, and preserved nothing of the Christian religion but the practice of 
 benevolence and the doctrine of charity. 
 
 The niece of Pitt had, from her youth, deeply interested herself in the 
 discussions of the British Parliament. Subsequently, during her travels, 
 she had studied and elucidated the views of the European cabinets : whence 
 arose the severity with which, in our conversation, she passed judgment 
 upon the men who for the last thirty years had ruled the world. Of these 
 men, many have fallen from their high estate : some still reign ; but the 
 greater number have yielded to time. Lady Stanhope’s decisions stamped 
 them all alike, stigmatized all with one epithet: and almost all have verified 
 her startling predictions. The coloring of her portraits, her disclosures, 
 her antipathies—inherited, she says, from her uncle—I should not be jus¬ 
 tified in revealing; but of her distaste for Europe I may be allowed to 
 speak. 
 
 “ Shall you ever revisit England again ?” I asked her.—“ No, never,” 
 she energetically replied. “Your Europe! It is so insipid. Leave me 
 my desert. What should I return to Europe for ? To behold nations 
 worthy of their fetters, and monarchs unworthy of their thrones ? Very 
 shortly your worn-out continent will be shaken to its base. You have 
 seen Athens; you are going to see Tyre. Mark the remains of these 
 noble republics, protectresses of the arts; of these monarchies, queens of 
 commerce and the ocean ! So will it be with Europe. She is going 
 rapidly to decay. Her kings are no longer worthy of their descent: 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 313 
 
 they fall, either by death or by means of their misrule, and degenerate 
 in their successors. Her aristocracy, nearly exterminated, is super¬ 
 seded by a pitiful and ephemeral commonalty, without life or vigor. 
 The people, and those of the laboring class, alone, still preserve a character 
 and some virtue. You may tremble should they ever learn their strength. 
 No ; your Europe sickens me ! I turn a deaf ear to all the reports which 
 reach me from thence, and which quickly die away in this isolated region. 
 Let us talk no more of Europe—I have done with her.” 
 
 And then, in lengthened narrations, Lady Stanhope would unfold the 
 wonders of the desert. She related to me the history of her wanderings 
 and her sovereignty; the assistance and protection she had promised 
 to all travelers, and especially to the French, from regard to the memory 
 of Napoleon; the death of Colonel Boutin, whose throat was cut by the 
 Ansarians, in the lowest chain of Lebanon ; the signal vengeance which 
 she exacted for that death; the poison offered under a tent in the plain of 
 Messirib to another more celebrated traveler, who concealed himself in the 
 East under the Mussulman name of Ali Bey, and in Europe under the 
 Spanish one of Batidia. She told me of her visits to the prophets of the 
 mountain, and her journeys to Palmyra. 
 
 “ I one day left Damascus,” said she, “ to revisit Balbec and its ruins. 
 My friend the Pacha had placed me under the escort of Scheik Nasel, the 
 chief of fifty Arabs. My suite followed at the distance of a day’s journey. 
 We traveled sometimes by night, sometimes by day. At the third sunrise 
 after my departure, a messenger, mounted on a dromedary, hastened 
 towards our caravan. He spoke to Scheik Nasel a few words which dis¬ 
 turbed him and caused him to turn pale. ‘ What is the matter ?’ said I 
 to him. ‘ Nothing,’ he replied,—and we continued our route. Very 
 shortly a second dromedary approached, and the pensiveness of Nasel 
 increased. I insisted upon knowing the cause: ‘Well, Cid—my Lady, 
 since I must tell you, my father, one of whose women I have carried off, 
 is in pursuit of me with a troop three times as numerous as mine, and is 
 on the point of overtaking us. I know he seeks my life, for such offences 
 demand the revenge of blood. But you have been confided to my care, 
 and I will perish rather than abandon you.’—‘ Depart, fly,’ I exclaimed ; 
 ‘ I had much rather remain alone in the desert than see you murdered by 
 your father. I will wait for him, and would willingly attempt your recon¬ 
 ciliation. At any rate, Balbec cannot be far off, and the sun will be my 
 guide.’ I dismissed him with these words ; and he shot off, and presently 
 disappeared with his fifty Arabs. I had been alone about an hour, with 
 no other society than my mare, no other guard than my poniard, when a 
 cloud of dust arose on the horizon. The horsemen approached at full 
 gallop, and in a few minutes Nasel was by my side. ‘ Honor to you, Cid— 
 my Lady!’ he exclaimed ; ‘it is a warrior’s heart you carry; all that I 
 have said to you was hut to prove your courage. Come, my father waits 
 for you.’—I followed him. I was received under his tent with all the 
 pomp of the desert. Gazelles and young camels furnished our entertain¬ 
 ment ; and their poets celebrate 1 the exploits of past times. 1 made an 
 alliance with this tribe, which from that day loves and inspects me.” 
 
314 
 
 APPENDIX,. 
 
 Thanks, my dear Lamartine, thanks for these recollections of my 
 former travels. I give myself np to the charm I find in them, and I no 
 more know how to cease speaking of them than the story-tellers of the 
 Khans of Ptolemais, when reciting the great deeds of Antar. 
 
 I am thinking, as I write, of that sun which disappeared behind the 
 mountains of Cyprus, and cast its last tints on the peaks of Anti-Lebanon; 
 I am thinking of that deep blue sea, the waves of which, expiring without 
 foam, scarcely touched the beach of Sidon. You, better than any one, 
 can understand how strongly the imagination and the memory are arrested, 
 how forcibly the heart beats, when in such an amphitheatre, an English¬ 
 woman, whom the Arabs, forgetting her sex, have named Lord , veiled 
 under the costume of a Bedouin, lets fall such words amidst the silence 
 of the desert. 
 
 Adieu! I quit you to read your interesting pages again, and again to 
 renew my remembrances. If ever you send your work to Lady Stanhope, 
 pronounce to her once more the name of a man who cherishes her mem¬ 
 ory, and is proud of being at once one of those few travelers who have 
 sought her on the mountains of her adoption, and one of those numerous 
 friends who have admired you in your native valley, so contiguous to my 
 retreat. 
 
 Le Vicomte de Marcellus. 
 
 April 12, 1835. 
 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 MARTIN LUTHER, 
 
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 er*o to his childhood, and which Luther himself has left undescribed, the translator 
 has rarely found occasion to make his own appearance on the scene. * * * * * 
 
 It is almost invariably Luther himself who speaks, almost invariably Luther related 
 by Luther.— Extract from M. Michelet’s Preface. 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY G. H. SMITH, F. G. S. 
 
 One neat volume, 12mo. Cloth 62 cts., Paper cover 38 cts. 
 
 “ This book is more than a book ; it is myself, therefore it belongs to you. * * 
 
 Receive thou this book of “ The People,” because it is you—because it is I. * * 
 I have made this book out of myself, out of my life, and out of my heart. I have 
 derived it from my observation, from my relations of friendship and of neighborhood; 
 have picked it up upon the roads. Chance loves to favor thoso who follow out one 
 contiruous idea. Above all, I have found it in the recollections of my youth. To 
 kaow the life of the people, their labor and their sufferings, I had but to intorrogate 
 my memory .—Extract from Author’s Preface. 
 
CELEBRATED ITALIAN ROMANCE 
 
 D. Appleton 8p Co. publish 
 
 I PROMESSI SPOSI, 
 
 OH 
 
 THE BETROTHED LOVERS. 
 
 BY 
 
 ALESSANDRO MANZONI. 
 
 Two neat Volumes, 12mo. Paper cover, $1. Cloth, $1 50 
 
 " This is a work of absorbing interest, with regard to the varied incidents which mark 
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 ligious, and political, at that time. It is an admirable adjunct to history, furnishing a 
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