In The Levant 24

In The Levant 24

After further parley with Demetrius and a considerable interval, we

heard a bell ring, and in a few moments the iron door opened, and we

entered, stepping our horses carefully over the stone threshold, and

showing our pass from the Jerusalem Patriarch to an attendant, and came

into a sort of stable hewn in the rock. Here we abandoned our horses,

and were taken in charge by a monk whom the bell had summoned from

below. He conducted us down several long flights of zigzag stairs in the

rock, amid hanging buildings and cells, until we came to what appears

to be a broad ledge in the precipice, and found ourselves in the central

part of this singular hive, that is, in a small court, with cells and

rocks on one side and the convent church, which overhangs the precipice,

on the other. Beside the church and also at another side of the court

are buildings in which pilgrims are lodged, and in the centre of

the court is the tomb of St. Sabas himself. Here our passports were

examined, and we were assigned a cheerful and airy room looking upon the

court and tomb.

 

One of the brothers soon brought us coffee, and the promptness of this

hospitality augured well for the remainder of our fare; relying upon the

reputation of the convent for good cheer, we had brought nothing with

us, not so much as a biscuit. Judge of our disgust, then, at hearing the

following dialogue between Demetrius and the Greek monk.

 

"What time can the gentlemen dine?"

 

"Any time they like."

 

"What have you for dinner?"

 

"Nothing."

 

"You can give us no dinner?"

 

"To be sure not. It is fast."

 

"But we have n't a morsel, we shall starve."

 

"Perhaps I can find a little bread."

 

"Nothing else?"

 

"We have very good raisins."

 

"Well," we interposed, "kill us a chicken, give us a few oysters, stewed

or broiled, we are not particular." This levity, which was born of

desperation, for the jolting ride from Jerusalem had indisposed us to

keep a fast, especially a fast established by a church the orthodoxy of

whose creed we had strong reasons to doubt, did not affect the monk. He

replied, "Chicken! it is impossible." We shrunk our requisition to eggs.

 

"If I can find an egg, I will see." And the brother departed, with

_carte blanche_ from us to squeeze his entire establishment.

 

Alas, fasting is not in Mar Saba what it is in New England, where an

appointed fast-day is hailed as an opportunity to forego lunch in order

to have an extraordinary appetite for a better dinner than usual!

 

The tomb of St. Sabas, the central worship of this hive, is a little

plastered hut in the middle of the court; the interior is decorated with

pictures in the Byzantine style, and a lamp is always burning there. As

we stood at the tomb we heard voices chanting, and, turning towards the

rock, we saw a door from which the sound came. Pushing it open, we were

admitted into a large chapel, excavated in the rock. The service of

vespers was in progress, and a band of Russian pilgrims were chanting in

rich bass voices, producing more melody than I had ever heard in a Greek

church. The excavation extends some distance into the hill; we were

shown the cells of St. John of Damascus and other hermits, and at the

end a charnel-house piled full of the bones of men. In the dim light

their skulls grinned at us in a horrid familiarity; in that ghastly

jocularity which a skull always puts on, with a kind of mocking

commentary upon the strong chant of the pilgrims, which reverberated

in all the recesses of the gloomy cave,--fresh, hearty voices, such

as these skulls have heard (if they can hear) for many centuries. The

pilgrims come, and chant, and depart, generation after generation; the

bones and skulls of the fourteen thousand martyrs in this charnel-bin

enjoy a sort of repulsive immortality. The monk, who was our guide,

appeared to care no more for the remains of the martyrs than for the

presence of the pilgrims. In visiting such storehouses one cannot but

be struck by the light familiarity with the relics and insignia of death

which the monks have acquired.

 

This St. John of Damascus, whose remains repose here, was a fiery

character in his day, and favored by a special miracle before he became

a saint. He so distinguished himself by his invectives against Leo and

Constantine and other iconoclast emperors at Constantinople who, in the

eighth century, attempted to extirpate image-worship from the Catholic

church, that he was sentenced to lose his right hand. The story is that

it was instantly restored by the Virgin Mary. It is worthy of note that

the superstitious Orient more readily gave up idolatry or image-worship

under the Moslems than under the Christians.

 

As the sun was setting we left the pilgrims chanting to the martyrs, and

hastened to explore the premises a little, before the light should fade.

We followed our guide up stairs and down stairs, sometimes cut in the

stone, sometimes wooden stairways, along hanging galleries, through

corridors hewn in the rock, amid cells and little chapels,--a most

intricate labyrinth, in which the uninitiated would soon lose his way.

Here and there we came suddenly upon a little garden spot as big as a

bed-blanket, a ledge upon which soil had been deposited. We walked also

under grape-trellises, we saw orange-trees, and the single palm-tree

that the convent boasts, said to have been planted by St. Sabas himself.

The plan of this establishment gradually developed itself to us. It

differs from an ordinary convent chiefly in this,--the latter is spread

out flat on the earth, Mar Saba is set up edgewise. Put Mar Saba on a

plain, and these little garden spots and graperies would be courts and

squares amid buildings, these galleries would be bridges, these cells or

horizontal caves would be perpendicular tombs and reservoirs.

 

When we arrived, we supposed that we were almost the only guests. But

we found that the place was full of Greek and Russian pilgrims; we

encountered them on the terraces, on the flat roofs, in the caves, and

in all out-of-the-way nooks. Yet these were not the most pleasing

nor the most animated tenants of the place; wherever we went the old

rookery was made cheerful by the twittering notes of black birds with

yellow wings, a species of grakle, which the monks have domesticated,

and which breed in great numbers. Steeled as these good brothers are

against the other sex, we were glad to discover this streak of softness

in their nature. High up on the precipice there is a bell-tower attached

to a little chapel, and in it hang twenty small bells, which are rung to

call the inmates to prayer. Even at this height, and indeed wherever we

penetrated, we were followed by the monotonous chant which issued from

the charnel-house.

 

We passed by a long row of cells occupied by the monks, but were not

permitted to look into them; nor were we allowed to see the library,

which is said to be rich in illuminated manuscripts. The convent belongs

to the Greek church; its monks take the usual vows of poverty, chastity,

and obedience, and fortify themselves in their holiness by opposing

walls of adamant to all womankind. There are about fifty monks here at

present, and uncommonly fine-looking fellows,--not at all the gross and

greasy sort of monk that is sometimes met. Their outward dress is very

neat, consisting of a simple black gown and a round, high, flat-topped

black cap.

 

Our dinner, when it was brought into our apartment, answered very well

one's idea of a dessert, but it was a very good Oriental dinner. The

chief articles were a piece of hard black bread, and two boiled eggs,

cold, and probably brought by some pilgrim from Jerusalem; but besides,

there were raisins, cheese, figs, oranges, a bottle of golden wine, and

tea. The wine was worthy to be celebrated in classic verse; none so good

is, I am sure, made elsewhere in Syria; it was liquid sunshine; and as

it was manufactured by the monks, it gave us a new respect for their

fastidious taste.

 

The vaulted chamber which we occupied was furnished on three sides with

a low divan, which answered the double purpose of chairs and couch. On

one side, however, and elevated in the wall, was a long niche, exactly

like the recessed tombs in cathedrals, upon which, toes turned up,

lie the bronze or wooden figures of the occupants. This was the bed of

honor. It was furnished with a mattress and a thick counterpane having

one sheet sewed to it. With reluctance I accepted the distinction of

climbing into it, and there I slept, laid out, for all the world, like

my own effigy. From the ceiling hung a dim oil-lamp, which cast a gloom

rather than a light upon our sepulchral place of repose. Our windows

looked out towards the west, upon the court, upon the stairs, upon the

terraces, roofs, holes, caves, grottos, wooden balconies, bird-cages,

steps entering the rock and leading to cells; and, towards the south,

along the jagged precipice. The convent occupies the precipice from the

top nearly to the bottom of the ravine; the precipice opposite is nearly

perpendicular, close at hand, and permits no view in that direction.

Heaven is the only object in sight from this retreat.

 

Before the twilight fell the chanting was still going on in the cavern,

monks and pilgrims were gliding about the court, and numbers of the

latter were clustered in the vestibule of the church, in which they

were settling down to lodge for the night; and high above us I saw three

gaudily attired Bedaween, who had accompanied some travellers from the

Dead Sea, leaning over the balustrade of the stairs, and regarding the

scene with Moslem complacency. The hive settled slowly to rest.

 

But the place was by no means still at night. There was in the court an

old pilgrim who had brought a cough from the heart of Russia, who seemed

to be trying to cough himself inside out. There were other noises that

could not be explained. There was a good deal of clattering about in

wooden shoes. Every sound was multiplied and reduplicated from the

echoing rocks. The strangeness of the situation did not conduce to

sleep, not even to an effigy-like repose; but after looking from the

window upon the march of the quiet stars, after watching the new moon

disappear between the roofs, and after seeing that the door of St.

Sabas's tomb was closed, although his light was still burning, I turned

in; and after a time, during which I was conscious that not even vows of

poverty, chastity, and obedience are respected by fleas, I fell into a

light sleep.

 

From this I was aroused by a noise that seemed like the call to

judgment, by the most clamorous jangle of discordant bells,--all the

twenty were ringing at once, and each in a different key. It was not

simply a din, it was an earthquake of sound. The peals were echoed from

the opposite ledges, and reverberated among the rocks and caves and